All's Fair (Fair Folk Chronicles Book 4) (6 page)

Chapter 11: The Gray Lady

"Are you sure this is the right way?" Megan asked Ashling, as the pixie led the three of them deeper into the cavern network under the volcano.

"I'm sure it's the safest way," the pixie responded, glowing faintly to illuminate their path, trying to keep the light as minimal as possible to avoid attention, even though they were early into the journey, and technically still in Iceland.

"That doesn't sound promising," Lani said.

"Where we're going, I doubt much will," Justin said, walking with his hand on the hilt of the Sword of Light, keeping it sheathed to avoid the extra light, but prepared even so.

"Shh," Megan whispered, pointing ahead of them. "Something up there." Ashling and the Count circled back, landing on Megan's shoulder.

A faint light flickered around a passage. Despite the group going quiet, Megan couldn't hear anything from where the light emanated.

"Is there a way around it?" Lani whispered.

"Not that I can see, without a lot more light," Megan said.

"There can't be many, or there'd be more noise," Justin said.

"And you're sure that this is the safe way?" Megan asked Ashling.

"Safest. Not safe."

"Then we'll need to get through there somehow," Justin said.

The group advanced, with Justin taking the lead, and Ashling and the Count remaining on Megan's shoulder. Megan followed right behind him, with Lani taking up the rear.

Justin rounded the corner, drawing the sword as he went. Megan followed close behind, ready with a song that went silent on her lips. Even so, she remained on guard, eyeing the Gray Lady and her will o' wisp suspiciously.

"Not who you expected?" The hushed, female voice, as always, came from the wisp, the bane sidhe remaining entirely silent.

"We didn't expect anyone. That was part of the point of traveling this way," Megan said, quickly regretting her choice of words.

"This is, indeed, a strange path back into Faerie. Where are you going?"

"None of your business,” Ashling said.

"Perhaps," answered the wisp. "The question remains."

Megan glanced back at Lani, then moved back in front of Justin, gesturing for him to lower the sword. Obviously, no one was comfortable with the Gray Lady, but whatever uncertainties about what she had once done, Megan had to admit to herself that the woman been some help in the past.

“You are the last person I want hearing about where we're going,” Ashling said.

“Caw.”

“Okay, granted, not counting the Fomoire, or any of Inwar's Fishing Trippers.”

The blank face turned to the pixie. Even in the minuscule traces of light, the mother-of-pearl streaks shone more. Somehow, she looked sadder.

“We have lost him, Ashling,” the whispers half-echoed. “What, now, are our old squabbles about what was best for him?”

“Hey,” Megan spoke up. This was not a good topic to let Ashling tackle alone. “You've got to admit, it's understandable.”
Why is it understandable again?
She wondered to herself. “Orlaith's whole Endless Seelie Summer plan could have been a disaster.”
Why were we sure she helped Orlaith arrange that ambush?
Most of the reasons seemed to fall away as she thought about them again in hindsight, with a better knowledge of the court than the confused new kid she'd been.

“It could have been a precursor, even, to the stuff Inwar eventually pulled,” Lani said thoughtfully. “Unbalance the seasons a different way, to see if it would be a controlled demolition of the ice at the Fishing Hole.”

The Gray Lady tilted her head, giving Megan a curious look with her mirrored eyes. "So Inwar has indeed done this?" came the voice from the wisp.

“We can't be sure,” Megan said.

“Still the third-to-last person we need to be talking to,” Ashling insisted, her arms crossed. “She's kooky. And mysterious and spooky, just for good measure. Could have been in on this whole secret sabotage thing, too. Finally check the melted ice for her kid. Everyone knows she's obsessed.”

The figure of pearl and mirrors and tarnished silver did not move. “I would never betray my Sorcha by aiding her attackers, by letting them strike again, even if that offered news of her.”

“No,” Megan said. “Dad always said you wouldn't. All right, let's be direct. Did you have anything to do with the
old
plan? Imprisoning my dad?” Because Megan had to admit it: she'd never asked.

The tarnished-silver head shook, and the pixie fumed.

“Yeah, and I'm Marie of Romania,” Ashling said. “I saw wisps when the ambush happened. That's kind of your thing.”

“I am sure you saw a spot of light. The ljosalfar are, literally, a people of the Light,” the wisp answered.

Megan bit her lip. That made sense. “You sure tried to keep us from rescuing him." It was the only point that still held up.

The Gray Lady looked directly at Megan as the wisp answered. "Because it's what he truly wanted."

"He wanted to be imprisoned? Really?"

"Of course not. But to keep you safe.”

“Well, I ended up safe enough to outlive him.”

“Better than the reverse. Any parent will tell you. He hadn't forgotten about you for fourteen years, no matter how flighty he was about it. And when all I could feel was the hint of death coming to my oldest friend's family...”

“So then afterward, why didn't you just stay and argue with me? Explain that Orlaith wouldn't have needed an Unseelie collaborator when she had Inwar's cross-court forces? Do the whole grown-up-straightens-out-the-stupid-kid thing?”

“And have a sidhe monarch's heir at odds with his adviser? You have met Tiernan. I could not take that chance. I could not risk being the cause of Riocard's losing his daughter.”

Megan was silent for a moment, looking at a thousand-year-old professional political operative, literally inhuman, who'd drop it all at the very concept of lost children. She wondered just how many emotion-hungry wisps the bane sidhe was sustaining through the centuries on sheer grief.

“Meg—Majesty,” Justin finally said, softly. “The Fomoire are on the march.”

“Indeed,” the wisp said.

“...And even though you weren't in on it,” Megan realized, staring at those mirrored eyes. “Now that the ice
is
available, you want in on it.”

“I cannot approach Gorias. Peadar the Redcap did not invent the knack for tracking those he'd wounded in battle, and I fought at Mag Tuired. But if you see my Sorcha...”

“I can't make any promises.”

"I was going to say that I have something for her." The Gray Lady reached under her outer cloak, fishing out a small doll. Megan remembered seeing it back at the Lady's house.

Megan reached out for it. "We'll do what we can, but..."

"She yet lives. I would know if it were otherwise," the wisp said as the Lady stared.

Megan remembered her words about sensing death coming for her family. "We'll try."

“I ask only that you look. Regardless, I will wait in the tunnel-paths between Gorias and the way to An Teach Deiridh. Perhaps I can help you get away when your work is done.”

Megan nodded, suddenly hit with an urge to ask a lot more questions about her father, while trying to tell herself that she'd have plenty of time later. "Thank you," she finally managed, starting down the halls.

Hearing a rustling as they rounded a corner, she paused, peeking back around the corner while Justin and Lani continued on, following Ashling's light. There, amidst the pale light of the will o' wisp, the Gray Lady knelt to rest. There were, perhaps, a few words Megan missed hearing in the wisp's airy voice, but as Justin's footsteps and Ashling's hushed warnings continued to move up the passage, she caught a small part of what the Gray Lady was saying to the darkness in the caves.

"I am sorry, old friend. I cannot protect her any longer."

Megan bit her lip, feeling the weight and grief behind the words, then turned, focusing on Ashling's light up ahead of her, moving as quickly as she dared to catch up.

Chapter 12: From Gray into the Black

Step and echo. Step and echo.
There's no way to be any quieter. If there's something—or somethings—hiding in the dark, they'll know we're coming before we know we're not alone.

And then there was a scream in the distance.

Megan jumped for the tenth time. "It's just a bat," Lani whispered from behind her, again. Megan wasn't sure precisely how confident Lani sounded in the comment, but tried to believe it. Echoing calls from elsewhere in the caves in the same pitch somewhat helped reassure her.

“They're more afraid of us than anything,” Lani said.

“Fairly civil and polite bats, too. Mostly harmless. Mostly. I mean, except when they get into people's hair. Or panic and bite them.”

“Not helping, Ashling,” Lani said.

“Could be worse,” the pixie said. “Could be owls.”

“Hush.”

They had left the Gray Lady behind and delved into the silent twists and turns of the caverns. Even if the bane sidhe had just been walking the underground shortcuts, as near to Gorias as she could go, it was hard for Megan to even feel secure in all their preparation and protections after they'd been found.

She thought of encountering Peadar and his snaggle-toothed grin, wanting to escort them back to An Teach Deiridh. She thought of the Fomoire's twisted hunting beasts waiting in ambush around the next bend. Both thoughts were discomfiting. She found herself trying to count steps and echoes to make sure there were only three sets of feet.

"All right, this looks like about as safe a spot as we're going to find," Justin finally said, moving into small cavern to one side. "We should rest. We can set watches."

Megan's first thought was to insist they keep going, trying to hurry before something did find the caves. The second had far more to do with sore feet and general exhaustion, so she didn't argue, moving to find a spot to set her pack down. Justin, of course, volunteered for the first watch while the others settled in.

Despite her exhaustion, and having gotten used to camping out of necessity, Megan couldn't get to sleep. Between jumping at every noise, and a variety of worries, she just tossed and turned, until she finally decided to try to confront at least one of them.

“Are you okay?” Justin asked as she approached.

“Well, turns out I accidentally railroaded one of my dad's best friends so that they weren't there for each other in the last years of his life. That's a new layer of guilt sprinkles on my fear sundae, like there wasn't enough.”

“The fear is everyone's. What were you already feeling guilty about?”

“So much. But okay, there's something I've needed to ask you for a while."

"Is this a 'Yes, my lady, continue' question, or a 'Megan, I love you. You can ask me anything' question?"

She skipped answering and just forged straight ahead, reassured he'd be okay with her asking either type of question, while not being entirely sure which this was. “Am I too fascinating?”

There was a slight shift in Justin's breathing, and she had a few theories, in the dark, as to how puzzled his expression was. “There are so many ways this conversation can go horribly, tragically wrong,” Justin said.

"What I mean is, well, you heard all about my mother, you know, before. My father did that to her. The fae... well, some of them have good intentions, some of them have bad intentions, and the effects, either way, can be disaster. But they don't exactly, you know, tread lightly. I might be part sidhe, but I don't want to be that kind. I don't want to hurt you. And it's been a couple years, and you're around me a lot."

He shook his head. "I don't think I'm that kind of exhausted. You're wonderful, Megan, and enchanting, and inspiring... but I sleep fine."

She hesitated a few seconds before snuggling into his chest while she continued talking. "You've just been so distracted, and tired, and not yourself lately."

"It has been a while since anything, as you like to put it, needed to be sworded to death. I've felt almost like a man without a function at times, but unable to search for a new one, since the old one was so imminent."

"You're saying you can see why the General'd want to get it over with?"

"...Not really. More explaining that it's part of why I've been restless and brushing unicorns."

“Well, I guess I can't blame you for wanting to hang around unicorns. I mean, I was six once, too. The death-steed for headless horsemanship was a little weirder.”

“They're all in the An Teach Deiridh stables,” Justin said. “That's how it works.”

“Yeah. It is. That's kind of how so many things work. All these amazing things: unicorns, castles, the best berries I've ever had, and brownie cooking and so much music... and then the unicorns will still stab someone in the back, you know?"

"Are you wondering whether the General is right?”

Megan's first instinct was to insist otherwise, but that felt more like self-defense than genuine truth. "I didn't want to. But what if, you know, he's right? I mean, if it really did renew the world? If it really did make things better? I don't think it's right. I want to fix the world we have. But keep kind of going, you know, what if?"

The arm Justin put around her when she snuggled in squeezed her a little tighter. "I think that's a sign you're going to make an amazing Queen," he said.

"But you don't agree?"

"I can't agree. I'm from the Fourteenth Century. I remember being charged with finding the sword as a last effort to inspire people to resist a horrible royal cousin who was going to ruin everything. And he won. He was king. People suffered. A lot of people. His paranoid, merciless policies took hold even as the plague still threatened and the crops still didn't grow. Had I been able to stay, I'd possibly have been jailed for treason, or killed in a war I didn't believe in. I'd have been pretty sure things were as bad as they were going to get, and maybe the world needed some cleansing and starting over."

"Okay, so you can kind of relate to some of the things going on now? I mean, that's mortal stuff. Then you add in the faerie courts, and..."

"And now what history remembers best of that particular Henry comes from plays. The crowds are entertained, the literature classes groan, and then they go back to the here and now. The world didn't end. Some things were worse, some things got better, but the world moved on."

"So you don't believe in the whole Ragnarok, golden age, and starting over thing?"

"I don't disbelieve it. I'm just not ready to give up hope yet. Which, I think, dovetails nicely with disproving the thing you were originally worried about when you came over here."

"The whole burning out thing has something to do with the whole end-and-restart button on the world thing?"

"It does when the person who is worried about whether her presence in my life is burning me out is the one who inspires me the most of all."

Megan smiled, but felt the need to add a little more. "Okay, but not to write songs all night?”

“I have never, to my knowledge, written a song.”

“And promise you'll tell me if, you know, you start feeling... I don't know... burned out or anything, all right?"

"I can promise you, the kind of tired I'm feeling has everything to do with walking miles through volcanic caves. I'll feel much better with some sleep and a bit of time to refocus on the task ahead. It's... kind of nice to have a quest and a goal again, I admit."

"All right. I believe you. Thank you, Justin. I love you."

There was one more gentle squeeze. "I love you too, Megan. Get some sleep, and when it's Ashling's watch, so will I. Tomorrow is going to be a long day."