All's Fair (Fair Folk Chronicles Book 4) (16 page)

Chapter 31: The Secret Chord

They stepped out of the circle into the crisp, biting air. The frost crunched under their feet. The sentries acknowledged them and reported no sign nearby of the Fomoire. Seven was back into full riding size, but Megan stayed on her feet. They climbed the nearest hillside, and Justin built a fire.

While he was working at it, slowed by his injured arm, Megan consulted with Ashling. "All right, so we go to sleep, and you can help me find the right doorway? I'm trying to remember: horn, ivory... but not junior high gates, right?"

Ashling shook her head. "You're on your own this time."

"But why? You guided me before, with Mab and all that. I could really use some help not getting lost."

"Trust me, I'd like to. I'm going to try to keep an eye on you and everything. Mortals can do some things we can't, and shouldn't. Otherwise, that boundary might have been more seriously crossed by now."

Megan nodded. "Thanks, Ashling," she said, before looking back to Justin and the slowly building fire. She reached over to scratch Seven between the ears, before calling to her boyfriend. “So, Justin, I trust I can volunteer you as back-up advice on dog issues?”

“Wolf issues are a little different, and he's got his own pack, but obviously, you can always volunteer me.”

“Oh good. Meanwhile...you passed the GED this spring. So...when... this is all over, are you going to try to get a job as soon as possible?”

He smiled. “Yes. I think I will. Something with flexible hours, so I can spend some time with my girlfriend.”

Megan smiled back. “'Good.”

“And you?”

“I...well, maybe queens should do the full university thing. But I always said, even before all this, that I could become a qualified graphic designer without.”

“And then you'd have … clients, right? Like your mother? Arrange them art like she arranges musical events for hers?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, plenty of time to think about that later. After you've pulled all this off.”

“Thanks.” Then she took a deep breath, set out a bottle of milk, and poured the alcohol into the shot glass. She took one sip, ascertaining that she did not like rum, but feeling she'd been polite, and left the rest of the glass by the fire. Then she threw the makeshift amulet, with its drops of blood, onto the fire.

She frowned. “I should be sure.” She got out the dagger.

"The blood amulet isn't enough?" Justin asked. "I'd say you've injured yourself enough."

"I appreciate it, but it will just be a few drops. I can handle a little more. Anyway, blood's been a big deal since the start of all this, and I don't have a lot of shots to get this right." She held her pricked finger over the flames until a few more drops fell in.

Justin kissed her. "I'll stand sentry for as long as it takes."

"I love you too," Megan said with a smile. Earplugs of varying sizes were passed around, while Megan got out the mp3 player, put in her own headphones, and, under Ashling's supervision, sang herself to sleep.

Megan sat in her room in An Teach Deiridh, watching the butterflies and leaves swirl around in her painting. Every so often, they'd settle, when there was just the barest of breezes rustling the leaves still in the trees, and here and there, a leaf would fall gently. Then a sudden gust would rise, and it was a new explosion of reds, oranges, yellows, and gold. The leaves drifted, danced, and fell to earth again, but the butterflies danced, sometimes with the wind as partner, sometimes with each other, swirling and moving in small, graceful troupes.

They'd always been a part of her art, for as long as she could remember, especially in the margins of her homework, and throughout her textbooks, helping her labor on a little longer through it, so long as that bit of freedom was on the page with everything else.

Despite the surroundings of her room in Faerie, she was dressed in her old clothes. Jeans, a t-shirt, beaten up old tennis shoes, and even the baseball cap she'd given to Justin as a sign of her favor. The same outfit, she recalled, she'd been wearing back when she first learned a butterfly wasn't always a butterfly.

She looked at her hand. More notable than the pricked finger was the scratch she'd gotten on the tree with Mab in the spring, visible once more.

She rose.

As soon as she stood, she was no longer in her room. She was in her father's room, still in its usual state of chaotic wonder, with artifacts from thousands of years strewn across the floor, while the bookshelves were kept neat—and filled with remembrances of different tragedies. A light scraping noise as she moved her foot got her to glance down, realizing that she was in the full thorn armor.

She stood at the foot of her father's bed, looking at the great painting that, despite being motionless, had always somehow been even more alive than her moving leaves and butterflies.

There, with the snake winding over one hand and the other petting the calf, was the figure who'd haunted her father's diary, his 'Type,' and his eyes whenever he spoke of her, who’d been too overwhelming to approach, even when she'd been in the same world. She'd been the last one out, singing through her tears. She knew about boundaries.

The calf spoke. Right there, from the painting that normally never moved.

“You've been very fortunate.”

“I...um... yeah, I guess so.”

“You have killed things you cannot understand.”

“I... yeah. Had to. Sorry.”

The calf shook its head. “Not an accusation. But you know that, even with weapons beyond you, you cannot kill them all. So you ask now.”

“Yes. I ask. Just please don't tell me we belong dead.”

“You'll find no martyrs here,” said the calf. “You have enough with the Son of Light and his not-quite-six-hundred.”

“The Fishing Trippers? Yeah. I want to save the worlds we've got.”

A pause, and the snake spoke instead. “And if an answer lies in a song?”

“Then I hope I can hear it,” Megan said. “And I hope it doesn't have an F#.”

“You regret?” the snake asked.

“Not exactly. She's got her life back. Sort of.”

“Family is the bottom line,” the snake said.

"Blood calls to blood?" Megan asked.

"Just so," the calf said.

"So, I'm here. Or partway here. I'm not sure how all of this is supposed to work."

“Supposed to work?” the snake echoed. “Your efforts for the Bright Lady's notice have been canny and valiant. But there is no 'quantity of x minus h squared' for you to fail. Your mind will carry the unfathomable...or it will not. The risk is not a rejection based on protocol. It is whether what is in you is enough for what you will take on.”

“I know this isn't an even chance,” Megan said, trying not to let herself be distracted by the fact that divine avatars were in her head enough to know the algebra problem that had haunted her overmedicated daymares. “I need all the unfathomable I can get. This is bigger than me. And I know so many factors come into play. She's really more of a Spring person, isn't she? I should have done this so much sooner. It's—”

“You cannot plan backwards,” said the calf. “And it is no matter. These are not sidhe arts. Her works are Her works, even with three feet of snow on the ground.”

Megan nodded, but her thoughts still raced. “Even if we take out the last leader, even if we send them running...I'd have to recreate a spell I have no thorough records for—that used
massive
power—and have barely anyone to coordinate with.”

“Barely anyone?”

“I mean out there, on the field, in the middle of everything.”

“Very true. So much work, and so much needed. The gathering of the Treasures. The favor of the realm.”

“Wait, what do I need that for?”

“To hold together."

“...Okay. So this'll be a chance? This'll help us stand up to them? And then, since we can't kill them all, put them away again?”

“There are few guarantees.”

“Like I said, this is bigger than me.”

“Indeed.”

The dream was silent for a moment.

Finally, Brigid's painted mouth opened, and as Megan listened, the Goddess sang.

No sublime fear was enough. No visceral joy was enough. Dying of a broken heart would never be enough, so the heart didn't try to.

When Megan woke, she was shaking. Justin's arms were soon around her, the fire was stoked, and still the shivering would not stop.

And on a level just out of reach for now, just out of reach until the moment came, pulsing and pounding, she had a song in her head.

Chapter 32: The Menehune Way

The last time Megan had seen An Teach Deiridh, the Fomoire had gathered and were in the process of surrounding the castle. There had been some testing of the defenses, but mostly, they'd been preparing for the siege. Now, the defenses that the fae had spent months building and reinforcing were under full assault.

Magical fire, counterspells, and other magical assaults battered against the wards, with some of the most potent even leaving burns and scars on the stone now. Giants lobbed stones and trees at the walls, and heavy siege weapons launched their own missiles, battering the physical defenses and thick stone of An Teach Deiridh just as much. Megan took the damage the castle walls were starting to show as a very bad sign.

"So, how exactly do we get in?" Lani asked. "That's a whole lot of Fomoire between us and the castle."

"I'm not sure," Megan said. "I know a new song now that I think is going to help, but I need to get in, get the stone and cauldron near each other, and find out how many friends we still have on the inside first. I'll come up with something."

"What about the path the Gray Lady got you in through?" Justin asked.

Megan shook her head. "I can't do the fog thing she did, and even if I could, that was just three of us. We have way too many people, and last thing I want to do is clue the Fomoire into a way in. They look close enough to breaching the walls as is."

"All the more reason we need to get in there quick," Cassia said, still heavily bandaged and struggling, but she'd refused to be left behind.

"Maybe we can cause a big enough distraction, and Ashling can find..." Megan paused, looking at the pixie, sitting atop Seven's head, looking confused and paying the conversation no attention. "Ashling, everything all right?"

After a moment, the pixie looked back to Megan. "Okay, there's a way in. We'll be cutting it close, though, so everyone needs to follow my instructions and move fast."

"And you're just noticing this now?" Megan asked.

"I'm pretty sure having it hidden from all sorts of people was part of the point. I'm going to have to time the opening magic perfectly, or we'll ride right into the back of the Fomoire lines. So, you know, ride fast, but keep the wolf steady, because I don't think we want that. You'll also have to trust me that it's there."

Megan was still getting the hang of riding at all, but she nodded. "I trust you," she said, before passing the word back through her rag-tag band of those still able to travel and fight.

Cassia, meanwhile, probably wouldn't have qualified for either of those, but she'd been very insistent that she was coming along, no matter what. Mack had taken to fixing her chariot, and at suggestions from Lani, had improved the shock absorption. Megan hadn't realized he'd even know basic chariot repair at his age, and was even more impressed when none of the construction involved LEGOs. Of course, when she'd pointed that out, Mack had pointed insistently to the tiny Cassia-and-Cats custom LEGO figure he'd attached as a hood ornament of sorts.

There was room enough in the chariot for Lani and Kerr to ride. Lani, by now, was used to it, while Kerr looked significantly more wide-eyed and unused to travel by leopard-drawn chariot, holding on with a white-knuckled grip.

As word got back, one of the wolf-riders moved up to Megan and her companions. "I'm not sure I've heard right. There seems a good deal riding on what one pixie says in the heat of a moment—granted, a more reliable pixie than most, Riocard's guide, but not immune to ambushes even then, and—”

“And we, in any case, are riding on the Queen's word,” Justin said. “But stay behind if you wish."

Megan smiled, and looked back to Ashling. "I think the word's gotten back to everyone. Which way?"

Ashling guided them at a full run, pointing and shouting out directions as they raced at the Fomoire lines. Doing her best balancing act, with the wind and Seven's movements constantly threatening to pitch her backwards onto Megan's lap, Ashling stood, performing a turning, twisting dance.

Megan almost failed to register the downward sloping tunnel opening in front of her, all too near the Fomoire lines. She turned Seven slightly and raced into the tunnel. Justin followed, then Cassia, and then the rest of the ranks, one by one, disappearing under the ground.

The tunnel was a rough job, barely shored up. All through their chaotic run, Megan feared it would collapse on them. She would have sworn she could even hear the Fomoire moving on the ground above them, and her imagination tried to fill in details of shouts behind them, as if their passage had been found out.

When the last of the band had entered the tunnel, they were plunged into darkness as it closed up behind them. Ashling lit herself up, continuing to provide guidance, and Justin drew the sword, offering more illumination. The pixie made frantic gestures as she moved, trying to urge Megan to hurry as if the danger wasn't yet past, all while continuing her complex magical dance.

Eventually, the light caught a wall ahead of them, by which time, there was no chance to stop. Especially with the full force racing along behind her. "Ashling?" Megan said.

The pixie gyrated and hummed, trying at the same time to point forward insistently.

"Ashling?!" Megan repeated, with the solid wall looming.

She closed her eyes tight as Seven was about to collide, only to feel the wolf ascending up a slope instead. Opening her eyes, she saw a pale light ahead. A glance back told her the wall had slid open, and more of her forces were pouring through it.

She eventually recognized the room they were filling as one of the basements of An Teach Deiridh. There a few people already in there, amidst the dust and old barrels. Finally, everyone was in the room, and Han Kahale gestured to his work crew. "Close it up, and collapse the tunnel."

“How...how did you know?” Megan asked as they did so. She was still panting from the momentary panic—panic to which Seven was obviously immune as he simply settled into a corner.

In response to Megan's question, the kahuna gestured to the opposite corner, where two mother-of-pearl-streaked faces, one also raked in black lines, rose from behind a barrel.

“Okay,” said Megan. “Makes sense she'd have been informative about a lot of stuff.” She addressed the Gray Lady, who was curtsying as Sorcha clutched at her doll. “But what were the odds that we'd go in there?”

“Once the sudden influx of frightened Fomoire brutes indicated Bres had been defeated and you
would
be coming back,” the wisp whispered, “And seeing no reason Ashling would have left your company, the chance that she would ascertain a way provided to her was nearly certain.”

“...Thanks,” Ashling muttered. The Count made a motion with his recovering wing.

Megan looked at the engineer. "You built that tunnel to get us in?"

"In one night," Mr. Kahale said, smiling. He then looked rather intently at his daughter.

“Mom's okay. Mack's okay. I'm okay,” Lani promised as they hugged. “And Kerr...” She looked at the brownie, who was still breathing heavily after the high-speed chase.

“I'm okay,” Kerr managed.

Megan, still having trouble processing, looked back and forth from Lani to her father. "Okay, I know how it works. Anything in one night. But everyone else that might observe needs to be asleep. And you had to have had a lot of other work. How did you manage to arrange the uninterrupted time? And under General Inwar's nose? This is a guy who runs random security checks of empty rooms if a secret passage is used ahead of schedule."

"King's orders," the Kahuna responded. “While the knocker side of the engineering corps worked with the domovoi and dwarves on the evacuation tunnels the General wanted, Tiernan coordinated duty shifts and guard rotations so that an all-menehune crew could get one night-time rest shift down here, not associated with any secured passage. Xenophobic conspiracy theorist or not, he has a flair for organizing secret underground civic endeavors.”

"It's all the time playing those City Simulators," Ashling said. "Loves 'em almost as much as he likes cheap Japanese manga dating simulators."

That got a sigh. “Anyway, it was really hard to pull off, and we then had to keep an eye out, but we all had faith in you. Needed it, with everything we were finally hearing.”

"Does that 'all' having faith in me include Tiernan?" Megan asked, raising a brow.

Mr. Kahale looked to a couple of the members of his crew, then back to Megan. "How did he put it, guys? 'I've had about enough of betting against the Queen—'”

“—because I strongly dislike being wrong,” Tiernan finished. “Kahuna. Majesty.”

“Majesty.” Megan hadn't even noticed his opening the basement door and coming down the stairs. Many things were particularly easy to overlook with something waiting in her mind.

The half-bleached sidhe set his dark eyes on Ashling. “Also, I did not know what most of those words were, but you will be happy to know I am offended anyway.”

Behind him was the Dullahan, his head tucked under his arm, though he raised it a little as if to nod to the Gray Lady, one death-omen Unseelie administrator to another. The horseman's fancy 18th-Century gear was filthy, and Tiernan meanwhile seemed almost as out of breath as some of those who'd been running, on the verge of exhaustion.

“Pretty rough up there?” Megan asked.

“Somewhat. Being under siege can be difficult work, even if one is not the man 'in charge.' And especially if one then has to aid in both a construction side-project and a reinforcement of the castle's magical shielding behind that man's back—we've held well on that score, but it's weakening, by the way.”

Megan was still having a little trouble. “But... you're the Seelie King. You literally can't lie.”

“Only in a real civilized way, right to his face, without saying anything technically inaccurate,” Tiernan smiled. “Does Your Majesty still hate that?”

Megan smiled back, but it quickly faded as she remembered something about Tiernan's aforementioned conspiracy theories. “I should probably warn you. Your 'double agents’...”

The dark eyes looked pained. “...Yes. The Lady's information, since, of course they should have told me, was enough of an indication...” He looked back to the former seneschal. “We should have just properly compared notes a long time ago.”

“You know we would not have,” came the whisper.

“We’ve managed it now,” the Seelie King said, gesturing.

“You regained your aunt, only to lose her and most of your village. I lost my King for good, then got my Sorcha back.” The closed lips smiled thinly. “And now, it is the end of all things—and you still do not have
all
of my notes.”

“...Noted,” Tiernan said, still looking exhausted.

“Catch, Majesty.” Mr. Kahale threw Tiernan a canteen.

Tiernan drank deeply, then looked at him. “You're a better man than I,” he said, a new smile crossing the sickly-pale face.

The tiny figure of Han Kahale threw back his head and laughed. Lani and many of the other engineers joined in.

Megan raised an eyebrow, looking at Justin.

“Kipling joke,” Justin said.

“You know Kipling?”

“I do after two years in that house.”

“All right, yes, but Tiernan makes Kipling jokes now?”

“We are apparently being hit with a great deal of his better qualities at once.”

Megan wasn't entirely sure of the look in Justin's eye, so she pulled him aside a little, somewhat closer to Sorcha's barrel. “I didn't mean any of those questions in any kind of interest way or anything,” she said quietly. “This isn't some weird mindgame to make you insecure.”

“Insecure?” Justin asked. “About our relationship? Regarding a centuries-old sidhe with noted personal problems whom you traditionally cannot touch and whom I have personally beaten in a duel? Of all the mindgames I am afraid of in this realm, my lady fair, that was not one.”