| SORCEROUS SIGNALS |
| Written by Lindsey Duncan / Artwork by Marge Simon |
| The Changeling Letter |
My dear niece,
At this point in our correspondence, I feel I should tell you the truth about certain events that were
pivotal to your mother’s history and my own. Your parents have told you what they think you ought to
know, but you are too wise for such secrets.
It began seventeen years ago almost to the day—then as now, I pursued the art of alchemy. I was
dedicated, meticulous and unimaginative. Immortality seemed a dream without consequence. I would
master the arts and shed my physical body for an astral one, and so escape the sufferance of my
brother-in-law.
I made him nervous, and so he let me keep the lab within my abandoned family home in Laienval. Not
enough money to maintain or repair it; unthinkable to part with the grounds that had belonged to my
sister’s father and his before him. That day I waited vigil over my latest project, dead matter undergoing
albedo—rebirth. Frantic pounding on the door interrupted my thoughts.
“Avelie!” cried the voice of my sister—your mother. “Avelie, please…”
I threaded past apparatus and piled tomes to the door. “Mai?” I asked as I opened it.
“Oh, Avelie…” Maitena fell into my arms, a whirlwind of disheveled crepe and silk. Blotched eyes came to
mine. “I need a poultice.”
I put my hands on her arms to steady her. Titian curls half-covered one of the bruises on her neck, while
dark fabric on pale skin made her look fairy-led, lost and wild. I had grown used to seeing her in black:
two months before either of us could slight our mourning garb, only one since we had been permitted to
wear jewelry. She had even married in grey, a monochrome waif handed from her father’s graveside to
Garmond Birne’s bed.
“What happened?”
Rose lips found themselves a timorous smile. “Would you believe me if I said it was an accident?”
Gently, I pushed her collar back on one side. “An accident with fingers.” I turned away. “I understand,
Mai. Sit down and I’ll make up the poultice.” I moved through the labyrinth of the room to the herb-racks
by the window. Luminous undercurrents moved through the shadows in the garden, tendrils of motion.
If I strained, I might see a tiny form, but even I dared not risk the retribution of being caught by the
fairies. I closed the shutters and reached for the mortar and pestle.
Maitena perched on the couch as delicately as if a stray breath could break something. “Are you any
closer?”
I recognized the wistfulness in her voice and tried not to look at her. That was before I cut my hair, and
the only difference between us was my eye-color. It was too much like looking into a mirror. “I don’t
think so,” I said.
“It smells worse?” she offered.
“It’s not supposed to.” I came to her side with wraps for the herbs. “Mai?”
“I want to get away. I thought if you could make up a batch of gold…” She smiled nervously.
“If I had figured that out, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now,” I said. “We would be gone on
the winds.” I glanced towards my speaking deck. I had thought about enchanting Garmond, to soften
him with Temperance or torment him with the Tower, but he knew too many incantors, some of them in
the Chambers of Governance. If they found out a woman infringed on their territory, I would not be
saving anyone for long.
She started crying, weeping less for any reason than because she couldn’t stop. I soothed her—
ineffectual, hurting silently—and made her eat something for hysteria: ground caraway seeds, ginger,
salt and butter on bread. She needed more than herbs, but that was all I had.
As I watched her, picking the crust off the bread as she always did, an idea started in my mind. I had to
speak before it became the butterfly that escaped. “I can get you away.”
Maitena swallowed the bread with a hiccough. “How?”
“Fairy food,” I said rapidly. “If you eat a piece of it, they will take you away to dwell in their realm. You’ll
be safe there…”
“I’ve tried to find them before,” she said, “but they don’t want to be found. I know when you are alone…”
She hesitated, looking at me out of the corner of one jade-green eye.
I bowed my head. I was the expert, though I never felt it. My mother was a good woman and true, but
when the Hidden Ones slip in by dreams, sometimes things happen. My sister and I were born two
breaths apart, one human, one…almost.
“I can pass through the mists,” I said, “but you don’t need to. Better they come for you rather than the
other way around—and I can do it,” I hastened on. “If you were to taste a delicacy from their stores,
perhaps drink their shadow wine, then they couldn’t fail to come for you.”
“What is it like, Avelie?”
I was not about to admit I had never gone deeper than a whisper and a step, that I had only seen the
wondrous sights from afar. Moon-dripped crystal palaces, forests of molten gold—it seemed hard to
believe I could be related to that.
“It’s beautiful,” I said simply. “A monument to everything nature has ever created. I…they prize humans
there, at least those they choose to take.”
“That would be new.” Maitena looked up at me, shy, uncertain. “If I disappeared, would you…”
“I will be fine.” The only way I could think about this was if I pretended it had already happened. “Maybe I’
m not that far from astral, after all.”
~ * ~
Maitena stayed most of the afternoon to give Garmond a chance to walk off his anger; I wished him bad
footing. When I thought she was calmer, I went out, traveling cloak bundled about me. I sought the help
I would need to steal from the fairies, abandoning places familiar and heading deep into the city.
The first neighborhood I traveled through was not very different, though the houses were smaller and
the windows dark. Servants bustled industriously about their business; well-dressed dandies in lavender
gloves headed to their parties even when the next one could bankrupt them.
As I came closer to the river, the caretakers thinned to conspicuous step-girls, there to convince the
neighbors that the house rated servants, and then to no one. Houses shriveled, paint cracked; awnings
and cobblestone streets fought the press of time and disrepair. Clothes were the slowest to change as
people surrendered their last illusions for tattered ennui.
My speaking deck thumped into my thigh; I pinned it with one hand, as much to deter thieves as to still
the motion. The buildings and people existed in twilight, boards and bones wearied, windows and eyes
too filmy to see through.
The man I sought lived between—on the border of this chill and the Sludge, the part of Laienval most
said was thrown up by the river. He lived in the remnant of an old watchtower. Large chunks of its
bounding wall were missing, pirated for dwellings down the street or tombstones.
I lifted my hand to rap on the door. It opened before I could, and until my eyes adjusted to the dim
interior, I thought a living shadow had been responsible. Not quite—his skin was milky cocoa, inheritance
from a foreign grandfather and too long in the shallows of the Sludge, but his eyes were ice-floe, striated
with clouding.
“Good eve, mistress Chelwyn,” he said. “It isn’t safe to stand out here.” He spun into the semi-dark of
the chamber, lighting bear-fat candles with a flick of the match.
I was not surprised he knew me: Perlander Shaw still came to the Lady Sanctum on the north side of
town, though he hid in the back. I didn’t know the story for sure, something about an escape from
debtor’s prison, but he was a fixture as immutable as the sanctum altar.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” I said, “but I wanted to discuss…”
He cut me off. “You want me to acquire something for you.” Irony found its way to his lips. “Am I right?
Sit.” He nodded to the room’s only couch, salvaged from some fine estate. A frayed tapestry on the wall,
a dining table with ivy filigree. If you squinted, it was almost a blooded abode, there in the shattered
tower.
I seated myself, painfully straight and trying not to show emotion. I was afraid I would look frightened or
pitying. “Yes. This means a lot to me…”
“Never tell someone how important something is before they name a price—unless you have some kind
of personal hold over them.” The smile darted, implied, impish.
I wanted to blush; to control my expression, I studied him. A certain elongation to his chin and eyes
made his face miserly and gaunt, but he would have looked striking rather than skeletal if alabaster hair
were not cut nearly to the bone.
“You know my means are small, but I can pay you,” I said. “I can pay you in enchantment, if I must.”
“This is for your sister.” Perlander frowned, an expression that did his face no favors. “I would do it for
free if I could, but you understand I have to sustain myself. What is it you’re seeking?”
“I need you to steal deviled dawnquail eggs and shadow wine.”
I had hoped to downplay what I was asking by the casual words—no luck. “Fairy food?” he asked, then a
bark of laughter. “I need to work on reading people. I didn’t see that one coming. It seems to me you’d
know more about how to do that than I would—don’t even try to protest. I’m no fool.”
“It can be done,” I said. “If you cross the mists of your own power, you diminish to their size, and I can
offer you further disguise. It would be a matter of stealth and locks, and I know you can handle that.”
“Do you. I suppose that’s my reputation.” He studied his hands. “I won’t go, not alone.” I started to
protest; he continued without waiting for me. “Entering the mists, very well, but I know I can’t come
back on my own; and I won’t leave my escape route to your mercies. You come with me, Mistress
Chelwyn, or we don’t go at all.”
“I’d only hold you back,” I said, throat tight.
Perlander laughed again, another lightning-flash of mirth. “Is that a promise?” He shook his head. “After
self-examination and doubt comes the rise to unity.”
He quoted alchemical theory at me with eerie ease. I was silent, and he chuckled. “But the choice is
yours.”
~ * ~
I had not wanted to take him to the estate, but he needed fairy ointment to ground him. My intention of
making sure the illusion bespelled into the Moon card was correct turned into a laborious process—I
couldn’t feel comfortable until I had checked it five times over.
Perlander waited in the hall. He acknowledged me with a quick nod when I stepped out to join him. He
applied the ointment with two flicks of one finger. He never asked me if I was sure of my work, and I
could not bring up my doubts for fear of increasing his fee.
We entered the garden in silence. I closed my eyes, feeling for the confluence of other senses—the
invisible lines that marked fairy paths through the mists. I followed them for a few steps until I sensed I
was on the threshold, then reached out a hand. “I…”
He took it without waiting for my apology, cool fingers sliding along mine with a shock of sensation. Ice
to the touch—even to the skin, he was withdrawn save for a trickle of tension. A twitch as strange hands
tried to get used to each other.
I stumbled as the paths swam before me. “Must be reacting to your presence,” I said.
“I’m sure.” His tone was droll.
I shot him an uncertain look, but then the mists rose in lovers’ caress. The Chelwyn estate vanished
behind us. For a few more steps, we were lost in the grey, and I felt the subtle trickle of change as we
diminished in size. Then the lights, oblique spars of amber and rose, seeped through the mists and
shimmered before us. Sometimes they coalesced into tiny, dancing orbs—literally dancing, spirits who
had no bodies spinning about.
The intangible line of force became a path of silver moss underneath my feet, sparkling under the airy
luminescence. The mists fell away into a backdrop of smoke and revealed the fairy demesne beyond.
Trees grew into the shapes of houses and pavilions, shops and towers with iridescent roofs. I did not
doubt the tales that artisan fairies pursued rainbows to their end and broke off shards to decorate their
homes: I saw it.
Perlander inhaled sharply at my side. “Nothing should be this beautiful.”
I palmed the Moon card off the top of my speaking deck. “How can anything be too beautiful?” I realized I
still had his hand, that it had grown warm, and dropped it with a jerk. He looked at me sidelong, an
inscrutable twitch of lips, but said nothing.
It took me a second to calm enough to invoke. “As with one, so the other…”
Perlander looked peculiar indeed with wings and courtly attire, flower petals for a cloak and grass-silk
woven into a jacket, but I had been right: full hair suited him, made him look less ghoulish and…well, I
decided it was only the illusion.
He hesitated. “You look lovely.”
I was not sure whether to be stung or puzzled by the pause. With no time to think about it, I half-
nodded and started for the wrought crystal gates. They loomed above us, lined with dark orbs that
caught the light and seemed to quiver with their own animation.
“I don’t recognize that material,” Perlander said.
“Might be unique to the fairies.” I found myself whispering as we passed under the arch.
The fairies—oh, the fairies! Elegant in dew-spun finery and perfect as dolls, they promenaded and
scampered here and there, no thought given to the lowly ground as they flirted with the upper branches.
Their skin and hair were shaded as to blend into mundane surroundings: floral yellow, grassy umber, the
flat slate of city streets.
They did not seem to see through my illusions, calling to us merrily. Their voices! Music woven, perfectly
pitched, eloquent even without words. I stayed close to Perlander, wishing I didn’t feel so much like a
confused debutante in the escort of a relative.
Wishing he looked more like a relative, somehow.
We approached an open thoroughfare, a half dozen moss paths wandering off at oblique angles—being
fairies, they had to avoid the confluence of crossroads. A banshee howl ripped through the city, and I
stumbled back. Before I could blink, Perlander caught me about the waist and swept us into the space
between cut-diamond homes.
That hand brushed my lips in warning. “Easy.”
Easy indeed! The close dark that surrounded me felt claustrophobic, tight and laden. I felt him tense—a
tension in anyone else I might have taken for uncertainty. When he spoke again, I swore I almost shed
my skin and went astral.
“Will you look at that.” The motion of the words vibrated against my back.
He meant the fairies, of course. Cackling, laughing, a group of six hunters wrenched a bloodied, hobbled
fawn into the thoroughfare. When it balked in terror, they shoved spikes under its hooves.
“What are they doing?” I tried not to move.
What they were doing was bashing it over the head with chunks of stone until, dazed, it stopped
moving. One of the fairies got too close to kicking hooves and was stamped aside, to the harmonic
delight of his neighbors. They hummed to make an orchestra weep as they roped the creature down.
Perlander muttered oaths into my hair.
A matronly pixie with a buttercup hat picked up her daughter for a better view. “See, dear? More than
enough for us.”
“They’re going to eat it?” Perlander murmured.
“We have to capture the energy,” the fairy continued to her child, “so the watch-orbs on the gate remain
alert. Don’t worry, dear, it won’t feel for long.”
They were going to eat it alive, and this ritual produced those dark orbs along the gate. They were eyes,
the eyes of deer consumed this way. My entire body heaved with my stomach.
“Have to get out of here,” I managed.
His arms pulled me back firmly. “Move as I move,” he said, and neither of us had time to feel awkward,
“Nice and slow…”
He had an expert way of slanting himself, of laying his footsteps and guiding mine. I squinted my eyes
tight, but the squelching, tearing sounds filled in the holes. We might have been fine, passing by the
scene unnoticed, but my feet tripped me up, and I had to look.
The cry escaped me, thin and horrified.
Perlander released me, melting into the jostle of fairy forms, but I was not so lucky. One of the hunters
clapped me on the shoulder, pulling me forward. “Beauty, isn’t she?” he chirped. “You’ll be wanting a
fragment of flesh—here!”
Bad enough I had to see the blood run, the tiny spasms of a fawn blissfully unconscious, but now I was
on top of the stench and the carnage. Somehow, it remained pretty: the stains brilliant crimson,
attractively splashed along sleeves, a feast tableau drawn with smiles and table manners. One fairy went
about with a clamshell of water and small towels.
“Thank you,” I stammered, numb. If I didn’t play along, someone would look closer and see through the
illusion. It wouldn’t be so bad…
The hunter handed me a knife, and my vision blurred. I couldn’t do this, not for my life, not for my
sister, not for the dangers of being caught…
“My lady.” Perlander appeared at my side, moving to take the knife. “Allow me.” He gave the hunter a
knowing smile and put his cheek near mine. “Think of multiplication.”
The alchemical concept, he meant, thank you! “Why are you here?” I whispered. “You’ll have to eat
some.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” He stepped around me, all largesse and posturing, and even stared
down one of the fairies to get in for his cut at the poor mutilated creature. He did not hesitate, his hand
with a knife as deft as his acting, and I felt a jerk of revulsion.
He made a show of offering it to me, bent his head close. “Don’t swallow. Just chew and look natural.”
Look natural, with the rubbery, too hot, metallic-rusty remains of a still-living fawn in my mouth. Little
bits of my humanity seemed to shrivel up with it.
The hunter beamed at us expectantly. Perlander simpered and looked happy enough for both of us
without ever swallowing. We pushed through the crowds away from the gory sight, around the corner…
And I lost, I swear, everything I had eaten since the year began.
“I think I’m glad the Sludge doesn’t take more pointers from the fairies,” he said.
His voice brought me back. I scrubbed at my mouth. “Thank you for saving me.”
“Had to. You’re my way out.” A pause, a dry chuckle. “And my renumeration. Come on.” Giving me no
more time to linger, he took my hand and pulled me on.
~ * ~
Nothing of the fairy city had changed, but I saw it through an ugly pallor. Even the sight of that silver-
bedecked palace up close, elixir of moonlight running pale and perpetual down the walls, could not keep
me from looking over my shoulder.
The courtyard cobblestones were made of pearls, a glittering sea of white interrupted by the occasional
dash of blue and black. I headed around towards the back and what would, if the analogy to the
mundane world held true, be the servants’ entrances. I wondered why I was still doing this, but put
doubts out of my mind. The fawn’s death was only an isolated incident. This was still a place of wonder.
It took me a few moments to realize I had lost Perlander. I turned to find him staring, his eyes on the
bricks. “So familiar,” he said.
Ginger, I laid a hand on his shoulder. “Have you been here before?”
He barked laughter, short, hard, and spun away into the shadows of the bounding wall. I had to run to
catch up to him.
“Have you ever seen the Queen’s Court in Falstimare?” The question was thrust like a weapon. “They
whitewash the stones every night to be sure they glisten in the morning. So many bleeding fingers and
so many aching backs for something…not unlike that.”
“My family was too poor for Falstimare,” I said softly, “and too unfashionable to be presented.”
“Since your mother—yes.” We could speak in shorthand on this. “Mine wasn’t, at one time. My sister fell
in love with a duke during the summer season.”
The lower walls dripped with moisture, dewing over us as we passed. “What happened?”
“I strained my resources to their limit to provide the luxuries she needed: the coaches, the countless ball
dresses, the extra servants for show…” Perlander shot me a wry look. “I would have been fine—I have a
good head for numbers—but her paramour had this business investment, shipping, that he swore would
pay off, and of course to show my solidarity, I had to dip into funds I didn’t have.”
The muffled sounds of fairy pots and pans, wood rather than metal, told us we were near our
destination. “And the ships? They…”
“Foundered. Lost the cargo. The duke, financially scored, went for better-lined pockets over a better-
lined soul.” Perlander chuckled low in his throat. “So much for social climbing.”
“I’m sorry…”
He picked up his pace and was out of sight around the bend. I was forced to hurry after. The kitchen
swarmed with servile fairies. Mice turned the roasting spit; a firefly provided illumination for key tasks.
Now and again, one of the fairies vanished into the pantries.
Perlander’s head swiveled towards a portly steward with thorn-keys on a dandelion ring. “Want to bet
me the delicacies are locked up?” he asked, but before I could answer, he darted into the kitchen and
assumed a shuffling, hustling gait that blended him into the routine. I lost track of him until he slipped
down the corridor.
I could identify most of the foods they were preparing, the carrots as long as their arms, potatoes rolled
like barrels of beer. It made me smile, the whimsy of it—for a moment, the scene outside was forgotten.
It was a testament to how deft Perlander was that I didn’t see him until he was in my shadow. The
instant I did, however, I noticed the fairy following him.
“Mister Shaw,” I whispered urgently, “we…”
“Darling!” He was in character in a heartbeat, sweeping me into his arms and outside. To put a cap on it,
he kissed me.
I was warm, then uncomfortably hot. It was only more than an act for a split second, but in that second
I was lost.
It was Perlander who broke off, looking at me hard as he adjusted the satchel at his side. Something
clinked—I hoped it was the shadow wine. He cupped my shoulder in his hand and pulled me along. “We
had…”
“Wait!”
It was the fairy who had been following him. I froze, but Perlander never hesitated. He turned, his body
blocking mine in a way I realized was protective. “Merry met!” he called out. “Can I do something for you?”
The fairy was a thin, pale creature with azure wings and a doughy face. I thought I might have liked him,
if he had been smiling and we weren’t in the heart of the mists. He came closer before he spoke. “You’re
not fairy,” he said, then flicked a glance from one to the other. “Or at least, you aren’t, sir.”
Perlander tensed, but I could feel him preparing a story. “You see…”
“No use,” I said. “He can see us.” To fight or to flee? My hand fell on the Speaking deck, but all the spells
I had so carefully prepared over the months before were not meant for fairies. “Sir,” I said, “please
consider…”
“I want to come with you,” the fairy said in a rush.
We both blinked. “What?” I asked.
“You are humans. Are you going home?” He smiled then, and I had been right; it was a wistful
expression, one that might have been found on the charming shepherd statuettes that were in vogue
back home.
“Supposing we aren’t,” Perlander said, his tone wary. “What of it?”
“You won’t be happy here.” His tone was furtive, a frightened flick of liquid blue eyes over his shoulder.
“Too pristine, too lovely.”
“And how…”
I interrupted Perlander with a gentle hand. “Why do you say that?”
“I am a fairy with an injury.” Somewhere between ashamed and proud, he looked up at us. “I have a
soul, or had one, and for a little while longer…I can still feel it.”
“Wait,” I said, “someone stole your soul?”
“And I thought I was a talented thief.” I ignored Perlander’s mutter.
“Not stole so much as claimed. It is the right of the fairy court to remove the soul of any individual so
unfortunate as to have been born with one.” He looked down. “But if I can escape and look into
daylight…”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” Perlander said briskly. “Mistress Chelwyn?”
I owed the creature nothing, and it was the easiest way to get out of here, even if I now had only the
faintest hope that anything would come of my mission. Later, I found out fairy souls allowed them to see
into our world just as the ointment I prepared had allowed Perlander to see into theirs. Right then, I was
desperate to escape before my weak illusion was penetrated again.
But he looked so helpless, as lost in this sea as I, and I had to tell him the rest. “Not so simple,” I said.
“If we don’t rescue his soul, he will wither.”
The fairy’s look was resolved. “Will you help me, mistress?”
“Cursed by alchemy,” Perlander murmured, but he offered no resistance.
“Do you have a name?” I asked our new companion.
“Hariane,” he said—well, of course you recognize the name. Keep reading.
~ * ~
The souls of fairies collected over the centuries were on display in a drafty hall, alcoves encased in
crystal. They were labeled for the edification of any fairy who might choose to visit, but Perlander, with
Hariane’s consultation, got us in past closing time. We stared up at the massive expanse; I was none
too encouraged when Hariane indicated his alcove, somewhere in the highest edifices.
With Hariane shadowing him, Perlander climbed up as if it were a tree, moving lightly from crevice to
crevice. I winced at the sound of my own breath, knowing there was a guard in the next chamber. He
stopped…and frowned. I couldn’t see what was bothering him—and then he caused me to age a few
decades as he pushed off the side of the tower, dropped, and landed with an almost soundless snick.
“In case you were wondering how I got out of debtor’s prison,” he said in a voice smoky with
amusement. “A demonstration.” The humor vanished. “I can’t do anything. There isn’t a lock.”
Hariane joined us. “Is that bad?”
If only I had changed the enchantment on my Tower card! The scene above was so congruent, so
perfect, that I need only…
What had I to lose?
“Space,” I said, crossing the floor as I palmed my deck and thumbed through. “I need space.”
The fairy looked puzzled. “Ah, what is…”
“Just a word of advice,” Perlander interrupted him. “Mistress Chelwyn has spent the past several years
thinking twice. I don’t imagine you want to be in the way of all that pent-up momentum when she keeps
going.”
I might have objected, had I not been so nervous about the figure on the card. I released the energies
slowly, carefully—seeping off the magic so it did not come in sudden, telltale bursts. Then the new
pattern—a simple one where function and necessity were so close to form…but I had never done this
without the security of ritual, the alignment of stars.
All I could measure, all I could fix in my mind, was the position of my heart and body. It came to me in an
agonizing flash: I had never listened to myself. But there was no time better to start.
When you hear your own heartbeat, but it skips; when you come to recognize the variance in the rhythm
as a rhythm itself; then you tap into the inner pathways that find their expression in the pattern of the
Speaking deck. I etched the spell with no reserve—any moment, we might be interrupted. I heard the
snowfall breaths of the men around me, and tapped into the despair and entropy that had plagued my
life since my father fell ill.
My stand-in father. The man who had raised me.
It was done, the card shimmering blue in the darkness and then still. I rose, straightening my skirts and
shivering.
“I need to get up there,” I said.
They helped me, Perlander climbing ahead and Hariane hovering. It was terrifying, and all the confidence I
had in my casting drained out of me as we moved. Only the anxious face close to mine kept me from
calling the entire thing off. The spell must be gone by now, I had not tied it correctly…
How to explain what the gentle touch of one hand does, particularly when that hand belongs to a
stranger? Perlander kept me steady as we reached the right crystal, and I stared at an oblique splash of
angle and color. Souls—fairy souls—look very much like children’s paintings, soft and warm and
meaningless. I wonder if ours are anything like it.
“This is not going to work,” I whispered.
His hand tightened on mine. “Make it work.”
He believed, this man who knew so much without ever having met me, who flicked between criminal and
courtier. I took a deep breath, folded my fingers, and placed the card to the crystal.
It shattered, it melted like a false dream, and that flow of color struck Hariane in the chest. He flew
backwards, wings snapping out to support himself. From his expression, it stung like fire, but he fought
so much as a whimper with remarkable composure.
It was restraint that turned out to be unnecessary as alarms wailed, sounding like a storm over the sea.
“Hold onto me!” Perlander snapped, divesting me of my cloak.
Startled, I dropped back, slipping the card into the deck with the others, and buried my fingers into his
shoulder. “What…”
He pushed backwards before I had a chance to protest, using the garment to catch the sudden updraft
caused in our descent. Maybe the air was lighter here, maybe there was a touch of supernatural luck in
Perlander’s actions—whatever the case, though we hit the ground hard, we rolled away without harm.
Hariane plucked at my shoulder. “Hurry, hurry! There is a keeper’s corridor around the back…”
We bolted out ahead of the guards and found ourselves in a city transformed. Fairy warriors menaced
fireflies into searching the darkness—the only saving grace was they were looking up for winged forms,
not down for foolish groundwalkers. Hariane guided us with quick gestures and soft words; Perlander
took point, swift and silent.
We reached the gates. I broke into a run, and they pelted after me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw
those eerie orbs orient unfailing on our passage. Blinding light blazed out, and I cried out as I stumbled.
I sought the edge of the mists with all my strength.
Like a swarm of bees disrupted from an angry hive, the fairies descended around us. Now there were
faces I had not seen before, carved of dark ebon, clad in cast-off teeth and scraps of bone. Thorns and
wasp-stingers pointed towards us.
The chief guard stepped forward, an imperious figure with mint and silver hair. He stared at us, and I felt
my illusion scattered like so many table-scraps.
“You will never leave here, halfblood.”
Those words made my heart shudder, but I was beginning to realize how things worked here. I, quite
foreign to my own experience, had a plan.
“You would not do that,” I said.
They twittered at me, weapons shaking in mirth. The chief guard raised an eyebrow. “And why not?”
“I am of your blood. I have fairy beauty in my veins.” I had to believe that now, even knowing the beauty
was a lie. “Should I not bring it to an ugly world? Hariane can only help me.”
“She is right.” Hariane supported me in a quiet voice. “The world of humans needs the occasional helping
hand, or it will become a place we can no longer bear.”
The fairies quieted, musing among themselves. The chief guard narrowed his eyes under the seashell
helmet. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “We have no other use for a fairy so stubbornly attached to his soul.” The
look he shot Hariane was murderous—but the small cook did not give ground. “But this one…this
human…pallid, ridiculous, worthless…”
“He is not!” I snapped.
I could almost feel the rush of displaced air as every head swiveled to watch me. Tears stung my eyes,
but I held onto my composure. I could not hesitate. “He is a talented, brave, acute man. Worth ten
courtiers.” I moved to lay a hand on his shoulder, and was relieved to see he had somehow had the time
to hide the satchel with the stolen items.
Perlander straightened, flashing me a startled look. “Well, I…”
The fairy captain yawned. “Oh, enough of this,” he said. “To walk down the street and look at that
face…no. We will dispose of him.”
“I will not go down without a fight.” Perlander bristled, but one look around him brought him to a
standstill.
My mind rushed in search of an answer. At the time, I don’t think I clearly understood why I was trying
to save him, but I knew I had to.
Then I came up against a wall. I knew the way, but an oath to the fairies could not be lightly made.
Perlander caught my eye and shook his head. I saw resignation in his face, not even sorrow. If it was
over, he had accepted it…and I could not abide that.
“I need him,” I said. “I cannot get by without him.”
The guard captain paused with one leaf-vein hand lifted. Ponderously, he looked over at me. “I think I
doubt that.”
Perlander’s hand clasped the one on his shoulder. “Be careful,” he advised me in a soft tone.
It was, in a way, the maxim of my life’s work. I looked at him hard before I replied. “No.” I turned to the
captain. “I will prove it, sir, however you ask me to.”
The fairy captain guffawed. “No need—no need!” he said. “Only this, mistress, if you find him so
palatable. We will have our proof by watching you. Should you ever be separated…” The rattling of
thorns in Perlander’s direction finished his sentence, and then at a gesture, they rose, a wild ululation
from voices and massed wings. “You’ll get tired of him soon, daughter.”
With that, they soared into airy nothing.
“They will watch you.” Hariane’s voice barely penetrated the sudden stillness. “The moment you forget…”
Perlander and I looked at each other. In his eyes, I could see the realization that his life was as long as
my charity; at the same time, I realized I could not push him away. If I had not hired him, this would
never have come to pass. I owed him…and it was not the burden I had expected.
He chuckled low in his throat. “I suppose I should ask for the liberty of your name. Mistress Chelwyn
could become quite tiresome over the years.”
“Avelie,” I said, unwinding my hand from his and starting down the path. “It’s Avelie. Shall we?”
The three of us wound up the silvery moss. I closed my eyes and found the confluence easily; deep
mists rose and passed again in a chill evening breeze.
Evening?
It seemed the time we had spent there did not match the time that had passed in human realms. I
hastened towards the manor to check the clock, but Perlander arrested me with a quick hand. “Things
may not be as they seem,” he said. “See the moon?”
I did—it was full, when it had passed the peak days ago. I frowned in consternation, but my attention
was diverted by Hariane’s startled exclamations.
“Will you look at that!” he enthused. “It’s…is this a ruin? It’s so…” He rushed up to the crumbling walls.
“Amazing.”
I had to smile. “Not really,” I said. “Do you want a tour of the garden?” At his affirmative, I led him
towards the paths as Perlander slid into the night in search of answers.
~ * ~
“Decay. Mildew.” Hariane bent down to peer under one of the benches. “You have a fascinating home,
mistress.” On this side of the mists, his wings were invisible save by the chance light of the moon. Only
fairy ointment would properly illuminate them.
“We’re going to have to hide out,” Perlander reported as he returned. “I found us a newspaper. We came
back—four days before we left.”
I lifted a hand to my lips, but it was better than four months or four years later. “I suppose that gives us
time to get used to our situation.”
“And find him a home.” Perlander jerked his head at Hariane, who smiled obscurely and did not take
offense. “Goddess, Avelie! All this for nothing. We have the fairy’s food, but…for what?”
“For a world of beauty without consequence. I can’t send my sister into that.” I closed my eyes. “I’m
sorry, Perlander.”
“Don’t be. I needed a change.” He chuckled darkly. “And the reprobate gets away with it.”
Something chewed at the back of my mind, but I could not pin it down. “Yes…I suppose so.”
“Who and what?” Hariane inquired.
His eyes were so guileless that I almost had no heart to tell him, but the story deserved an ending. “So
you see,” I concluded, “this world isn’t much gentler than the one you left behind.”
He went on point like an enthusiastic hound. “But it is a world with solutions,” he said rapidly. “Why
not…why not feed the husband instead of the wife?”
I gasped, but Perlander burst out laughing. “Perfect, perfect,” he said. “Garmond Birne has no other
relations—a widow’s pension would keep her handsomely. And for you, Avelie…”
He did not have to finish the sentence. The estate would be mine again. “But how to deliver it?” I
wondered.
“Hariane,” there was something unsettling about Perlander’s smile, “do you think you’d like to take a job
as a footman?”
~ * ~
Perlander handed me down to a rooftop perch across from the Birne residence and dropped after. The
slant of the roof made it natural for me to slide against him, but after a heart-stopped second when he
did nothing more than steady me, I remained in that comfortable and sudden warmth. Not such a flow of
ice, Perlander Shaw, when one learned to look.
I watched the household settle down to tea, the servants bustling. I could not make out Hariane in the
fray, crane my neck though I might.
“I suppose if our life is to consist of ventures like this, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he said. “I fancy taking a
turn as a spy, don’t you?”
I smiled wryly, and ventured humor in return. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you, Perlander.”
“Never—ah, there’s our friend now.”
That the word was buried in the sudden shift in attention made it no less emotional. I caught my breath,
and held it even after Hariane slid in and poured Garmond wine, even after the man knocked it back with
a jerk of his wrist. He’d be well and truly soused tonight.
Maitena lifted her voice to ask for one of the platters. Hariane hastened around to deliver it, and at a
chance brush of hands, they both looked up.
My sister smiled, timid. I saw her mouth a thank you.
Hariane stopped and stared at her, eyes widening. Just as quickly, his eyes dropped down and away, and
he disappeared with the rest of the servants.
Perlander grinned at me. “I think that looks promising.”
“It was just a look!” I protested. That he was right and I was wrong was…well, it was a long journey for
all four of us.
I leaned back to watch, two cards on the top of my Speaking deck poised in case of need. I had scribed
them only that morning and felt something free in the weight of a spell not checked and rechecked under
every constellation. I felt Perlander’s eyes on me, percussively curious, but I was no longer afraid of his
regard.
The servants filed out. Perlander hopped up and offered me a hand. He used the light grasp to pull me
upright and kiss me, quick, casual—for once, the uncertain one.
I held on then, and I kept holding on. “We should go rescue him,” I said.
“We.” The grin was sudden, fierce. “I think it may take me some time to get used to that.”
~ * ~
The rest you know: how Garmond Birne disappeared in the night, fairy-stolen, naught but a puddle of
blood to mark his passing. How the incantors confirmed he was beyond the touch of man, and so your
mother inherited his estate and I regained mine. How Hariane became her constant companion, and
Perlander and I went south to find ourselves. I never figured out how to make gold, nor when pretending
to be husband and wife to allay the rumor-mill turned into the real thing.
Beauty without consequence, my dear niece: remember those words. They apply as much to high society
in Falstimare as they do to the fairy mists. If not for one fairy with a soul, things would have been very
different.
Some would say that, in offering the fairies my beauty, I sold away the daughter I have sought for the
past two years—for she is the most beautiful thing I have ever created. I refuse to believe that, and I
refuse to let them succeed. I have followed the confluences and tracked the patterns of the stars, and
some day I will find her. I promise you that someday, Perlander and I will return to introduce you to your
cousin.
Never falter, my dear. Never doubt.
Avelie Shaw
LINDSEY DUNCAN is a life-long writer and professional Celtic
harp performer, with short fiction and poetry in numerous
speculative fiction publications. Her contemporary fantasy novel,
Flow, is forthcoming from Double Dragon Publishing. She feels
that music and language are inextricably linked. She lives,
performs and teaches harp in Cincinnati, Ohio.
She can be found on the web at
http://www.LindseyDuncan.com/writing.htm
harp performer, with short fiction and poetry in numerous
speculative fiction publications. Her contemporary fantasy novel,
Flow, is forthcoming from Double Dragon Publishing. She feels
that music and language are inextricably linked. She lives,
performs and teaches harp in Cincinnati, Ohio.
She can be found on the web at
http://www.LindseyDuncan.com/writing.htm