Queen of the Fae: Book Two in the Fae Unbound Series (Fae Unbound Teen Young Adult Fantasy Series) (3 page)

"I accept your troth. We'll leave before the new moon. Is that acceptable to you?"

"It is," the elder said, then folded his arms and nodded his head to indicate the meeting was over. The other elves directed the same greeting toward James and followed single file behind their council leader as he left the flat.

The last elf in line spat on the floor as he passed Thomas and mouthed, "Abomination." 

James silently closed the door behind him as the elf moved into the hallway, then sucked in a deep gulp of air, and let it out sharply. "Wow...that was intense."

"You should have let me talk."

"No. Not a good idea. How can you not get that the only reason those guys haven’t killed you is because they feel they owe a debt to Lizbet and me?" James felt his neck reddening as he let himself feel the anger he’d had to rein in tightly while he faced the elders.

"I could've eased their fears. I'm
for
the fae, I'm not Faolan. I'd defend them with my life...you know that. I want to live among them and learn from them."

James walked into the kitchen and plugged the kettle in for tea, needing movement to keep his anger from growing, "Look, Tom...it's not going to happen. They're never going to forget Faolan and forgive you, no matter how much you want it."

Thomas's eyes narrowed slightly before he responded, "And by the way, empty-headed?"

"You know what I meant," said James, "I defended you in a way the elves would accept. It seemed like a reasonable way of saying it at the time. I didn’t do it to start a fight."

Thomas sat down at the small table in the corner of their shared kitchen. James set a cup in front of him, the tag of a tea bag trailing over the rim. 

James said, "At least there's no more decision to make about going home. It's definitely time for us to get packing. We've got exactly seven days." 

Eamon stood silently on the crest of a small, green, Ohio hill, watching the grazing cows below. Although he was as at peace here as any gruagach could possibly be, a part of him was always alert, keeping his eyes and ears open for threats to the herd. He heard the lassie moving through the grass long before she got to him, and he knew her by her distinctive scent that was both human and elf.

Without turning around, he spoke quietly in his thick Scottish accent as she grew close, "So, Tanji, what brings you here on such a glorious day? Were you of a mind to spend some peaceful time with my little herd? Or...don't tell me...my mistress has changed her mind about my retirement and sent you to fetch me?"

"No, little dude, your mistress is still pretending she isn't hanging around. But anyone who knows Lizbet can tell there's something going on. She flipped out yesterday and looked like she was going to bash some gnome brains out while Bobby watched. That is not my Lizzie. That is also not the human Morgan or any of Lizbet's other ladies. That was the fae Morgan. I know it. And Langoureth knows it," Tanji said, as she sat down on a large rock near where Eamon stood. Sitting down put her only slightly above eye level with the standing gruagach.

"Agreed. I'd say the fae in her is growing restless. I didn't think she'd give up gracefully in the same way that Langoureth did for you. My mistress wouldn’t have counted on the human personalities being the dominant ones after the remerge. She'll fight that to the bitter end. She would never content herself to be a set of memories and influences instead of being fully in charge."

"You know that, and I know that, but Lizbet is just like...in denial. I don't know how else to put it. I don’t feel good about going behind her back, but you told me to let you know if it was looking fishy, and dude…it’s become an all-fishies-into-the-pool situation."

"Lassie, don't put it all on the girl. She's being influenced by a powerful fae. Does she still have the wings?"

"Big, boss, beautiful wings, even though she doesn't want them."

"Right, see…fae don't have wings, except for the pixies and dragons who are just magical creatures. And they actually do need them for their flyin'. Among other fae, only Morgan has wings. An affectation-like that she adopted during Queen Victoria's time. She enjoyed her spyin' on the humans from the other realm and liked their twee pictorials of the fairy folk. Her wings are ornamental. Following the fashion, I suppose. She created and sustains them by a conscious act of magic. That means that she still has hold of the magic and is probably using every bit of it she can to influence and control Lizbet's thoughts."

"Lizzie still has super-mondo headaches. You think that's what's causing them?"

"Aye, probably. She's got a magically encapsulated fae in her brain. That has to hurt. The only ending I can see is that it'll eventually drive Lizbet mad, and my mistress will win dominance, or she'll just wear out and, again, my mistress will win dominance."

"I was kind of hoping for something better than a 'lose lose' proposition, Mr. Grim-To-The-Core. There has to be something we can do..."

"If I try to intervene, I fear what my mistress might do to the lass. I know she's in there listening all the time, even if it's not always obvious. Perhaps there's something you can do from that book I had sent from the old world? How much of it have you read?"

"A hundred or so pages. I keep getting distracted by spells I want to try. Plus, it's slow going. It takes a while with Langoureth's memories having to play translator for me."

"Are you pickin' up on the sorcery, then?"

Tanji waved her hand over a patch of wildflowers with buds that were yet to bloom and spoke a few quiet words. As she did, the flowers sprung to full bloom instantly. Tanji smiled and nodded. "I've got a good start. I seem to have a talent for making things grow."

"Good. You may need some magic before this is through. Although I recommend you focus on spells for healing and protection. I can’t really see a few bloomin’ flowers setting Morgan to shakin’ in her boots."

"Yeah, well…I'd rather just help Lizbet before she gets taken over and not have to prepare for a war."

"I don't know how to help her, lass. It's Lizbet's battle now. We might be able to influence and scheme, but in the end, Lizbet will have to beat the queen with her own strength. I know her, and I believe she can win, but Morgan is a strong force. How else could a nymph become queen? Nymphs, even those whose magic gives them the power of the aether, are not generally considered by the fae when choosing their leaders. Morgan has been a notable exception."

"Yeah, that's another thing. The gnomes kept yelling, 'the queen, the queen', so I think they can tell that Morgan took over Lizbet, too."

"Aye, she never liked gnomes. They all fear her. You do need to understand...Morgan, for hundreds of years, was a good queen. She united the fae after Faolan sent them to the shadow realm. Without her, the stresses of living that way might well have overwhelmed them. She has great power over the fae, particularly now that she's freed them as she promised she would do. But I’d rather Lizbet wield that power than see it continue to rest in the hands of the bitter, angry creature my Morgan has become."

"I don't think Lizbet would want that kind of responsibility. She just wants things to be like they were before she went to Scotland. She doesn't like being 'the girl with wings' who everybody wants a piece of."

"Believe me, there's no one who understands wantin’ to be released from duties more than I do, but there's a lack of leadership among the fae now and old rivalries are heating up. They’re all breakin' into factions, and with the fae, that always ends in war. Not much different from humans, I suppose. They need their queen to keep things stabilized, and like it or no, that queen is either Morgan or Lizbet. I know you think it doesn’t concern you, but any war coming among the fae can’t help but threaten humans."

Sheila Moore dried the dishes she’d already washed and stacked in the draining rack. Lizbet had a headache again, and Sheila didn't have the heart to keep her daughter on her chore routine when she was so clearly in pain. She'd had Lizbet to doctors several times, but they had found nothing wrong with her despite all the tests. Sheila worried for her daughter. Ever since she'd returned from Scotland she was not only physically different, with chronic headaches and well...wings, but the joy had gone out of her. Lizbet had always been such an upbeat, happy, active girl.

As Sheila worked through the small stack of dishes, her gaze drifted out the back window and into the garden, where a small group of gnomes hoisted one of the ceramic garden gnome statues up above their heads and began to carry it across the garden. They dropped it several times, raising their voices and throwing punches at each other each time they did. 

Sheila left the dishes to dry themselves and moved to the sliding glass door that opened on to the back patio to get a better look. She'd tried to remove the ceramic gnomes several times, but she couldn't budge them. She also couldn't figure out how they were held down; there were no obvious stakes or cement that could hold them fixed in place. 

She was surprised when the gnomes finally made it to the back of the garage where they managed to knock the lid off one of the garbage cans and, with the only well-coordinated effort of their task, toss the gnome statue up and into the can. Afterward, they ran quickly back to the garden and started all over again with the next one. They didn’t stop until they had removed all seven of them. It took nearly an hour.

When the job was complete, they ran onto the patio and looked up at her, each of them saying one of two words. 

She understood the first. It was "Bobby."

She didn't understand the second, gnomish word.

Sheila turned and called for her son, "Bobby, you have guests..."

Bobby was immersed in a video game when his mother called for him. "I'm busy, mom."

"Well, you're going to have to tell your little gnome friends that. They're all standing around on the patio asking for you, and I don't think they have any plans to go away."

"Alright..." Bobby saved his game and headed toward the back door. When the gnomes saw him, they cheered.

As he exited the house, two of the gnomes climbed up his body and perched themselves on his shoulders as the others led him back to the burrow.

This was something new. While he often went out to see what the gnomes were doing, they had never come for him.

When they got him into the garden, Gurrdenn called up to him, "Sit, Bobby, sit."

Bobby sat. The gnomes formed into a circle around him, serious expressions on their dirt-smeared faces. Each one of them wore a hat made from the face of a small bird or animal. Even though Bobby had told them not to use it for fur, the neighbor’s former cat was represented in the circle.

Gurrdenn made a speech in gnomish that Bobby didn't understand and then handed him a wreath of twigs, miming for Bobby to place it on his head. After Bobby set the wreath on top of his red curls, the gnomes began to dance around him, eventually laughing, farting, and whirling with their usual glee. Whatever serious moment had just happened was now over. Bobby got up, touched Gurrdenn on the arm, saying "Tag, you're it!", and the games began.

The fae Morgan opened her eyes into the darkness of Lizbet's room. The girl had gone to bed early again with one of her headaches. Good. More time for Morgan.

She stood the girl up, enjoying the feel of her young, athletic body, so different from the elderly body she had been burdened with when the realms were separated. Morgan was glad to have remerged with a human half that was so young. She hadn't counted on the girl being such a fighter, but she had managed to preserve her separateness when the remerge occurred through the skillful application of magic and sheer will. Lizbet experienced her as a painful buzzing in her naïve, young brain. 

Morgan walked to the closet and exchanged the girl's pajamas for a long, velveteen dress. She moved to the full-length mirror on the wall and smiled. Myrrdin, when he saw her again, would be hard pressed to resist her. She'd be with him soon enough; she knew it, as surely as she knew that the strength of the girl was failing more and more each day. She didn't actively wish the girl harm, but now that she could be with Myrrdin again after all this time, she had no choice but to remove her as a competitor.

Morgan opened the window, smelled deeply of the clean night air, then slowly faded into the aether. Moments later she arrived in London, coalescing again to float lightly outside the window of James's bedroom. It was dark, but not so dark that she couldn't make out his figure tangled in the bedclothes. She stayed to watch him sleep until his alarm rang and he rolled over, opened his eyes, and sleepily reached out to turn it off. She had missed him so terribly for so long, and to have Myrddin again so close…

As she faded back into the aether to take the girl's body home, she thought he might have caught a glimpse of her. But never mind, he would only think her a dream he pulled into reality from his sleep. Soon, though, she would be able to be with him in more than his dreams.