Chapter Three
Robin
Robin seriously needed to get out and about in Faerie more.
He wouldn’t. But he should.
Robin was expecting more fae like Everil. Pretty, with scales and claws and weird eyes that glowed like the moon on snow. Maybe bone wings and pointed teeth, like Declan, or glittering blue skin like Florian.
It turned out, he seriously needed to get out around in Faerie more.
The first arrivals included Metara, a tall, striking woman in slacks and a crisp white shirt with feathered black hair.
Then he looked again. Her eyes, the shape of her face, how she blinked and smiled, it made him think of hawks. Not just sharp featured, but predator, and her hair was literally made of feathers. Her voice carried an otherworldly lull that hammered it home.
And, yeah, it turned out Robin’s uncanny valley trigger wasn’t only for movies and AI art.
Which was a shitty way to think, like humanity was the correct template to base every person’s look on. So, fuck. Robin took stock of his reactions and readjusted his expectations, because he wouldn’t be party to that crap, even if in his own head.
Thank fuck for therapy.
Behind her was Judah, a slight, very obviously fae man with gold-dusted onyx skin and an outfit that looked both leafy and kind of storybook-y. He clung to Metara like a lifeline, worried golden eyes darting around the room.
Aultyr had canines, the shadow of a prowling hound, pitch black eyes, and warm brown skin that looked oddly textured.
Like Metara, there was a way that his features sat, just off enough to have Robin looking twice.
The cu-sith—Harke—bore a long lion’s tail, a short green mohawk, and flashes of olive green in his skin when he moved.
The pair headed straight toward Judah, with Aultyr leading the way.
“Brother,” Aultyr said. He took the seat next to Judah, Harke following suit. “Decided to adopt the dog.”
Judah said something that Robin couldn’t quite catch, but he smiled for the first time since walking in.
“Daisy,” Aultyr replied.
Meanwhile, Spider, the actual spider, walked in and cozied up to Declan like they were old friends. The guy wore a corset of bone and had extra spider limbs all webbed up to look like wings. Still, what caught Robin was his smile, that practiced, detached amusement.
Dinam, the cat-sith, looked like he’d just strolled off Broadway, familiar and strange enough to not throw Robin for a loop, and the only thing inhuman about the yuki-onna on sight were the ice particles that decorated her skin like freckles.
Robin let them all socialize, watching from his far corner seat, back closer to the wall than the table. No one paid him any mind as he checked off each new arrival, the act of ticking off his list more comfort than requirement.
“Having fun with your notes?” Bo asked from a few chairs down. “I can point people out to you if you’re not sure who the fuck’s who.”
“Nah. I like a good guessing game.”
Robin glanced around, frowning slightly as the vibe in the room shifted. It felt like when Everil did magic, or Florian walked him through the veil. Except more.
This was… storms. A hurricane incoming and a house on the beach.
The kind of night where you had to be a Floridian to stand on the shoreline, a bottle in hand with your shutters drawn tight, wondering if it’d just be the outskirts of the storm, or if the mass in the distance was shielding the eye, and coming straight for you.
Robin’s eyes went to the door an instant before it swung open, Aisling’s familiar voice filling the air as she entered, all deathly beauty and smiles. Another face he knew in a sea of ones he didn’t.
The banshee beamed at Robin from across the room, half turning to wave someone in. Robin gave her a slight nod in return, only to find his focus locking on to the man who followed her.
He wasn’t her husband. Malin was a sluagh and, though this new guy was white, Malin would’ve been, like, Declan white. Death white. Not just Caucasian white. This guy had to be the dragon. Zyr, with a ‘y,’ the nerd dragon who talked to Bo and Everil about their ritual fuck parties.
Zyr looked like a fae from the get go, with royal blue metallic scales over the sides of his neck and silver horns that swept back from his forehead. And a tail. A snake-like tail, with a barb at the end, in addition to legs. Handsome. Blond. Maybe a couple inches taller than Robin and built.
What was it with unseelie and being built like strongmen or stick figures?
Zyr said something to Aisling, his voice low. Robin might’ve kept up the staring if Antonio hadn’t snagged the chair beside him.
“Fucking fae?” Robin asked, and met Antonio’s grin with a sharp smile of his own.
“Fucking fae.”
Robin checked Antonio’s name off the list, right next to the little skull and crossbones doodle. Antonio’s snicker was lost to a dull, heavy sound from the other end of the room, then another.
Zyr had put his feet on the table, hands behind his head, leaning back like it was some kind of high school movie. As if he was two seconds from going out to smoke behind the gym with the cool kids.
Another pair walked in but Robin kept his attention where it was, pointing his pen at the unseelie with his feet on the dining room table.
“Beithir,” Robin said in the same tone he used with idiots at work and, admittedly, in more personal areas of his life. “Feet on the floor. That means all four of the chair’s and both of yours.”
Zyr’s attention snapped to Robin, his gaze intense. Fun.
Robin always enjoyed a good stare down. The storm of magic howled, though no one else seemed to notice it. Didn’t they taste chocolate? Hear the sound of pages rustling in the wind?
Finally, Zyr took his feet off the table, the little shit letting them hit the floor loudly along with the two taps of the chair.
Stared at Robin the entire time, all challenge.
No one seemed keen to interrupt, which was all the better.
It meant Robin could hold the beithir’s stare with an unimpressed look of his own, silence meeting silence.
“Anything else?” Zyr rumbled. “Is there a Protocol regarding my tail?”
A funny dragon. The arid, sharp humor Robin liked.
(Often when there were knees on the floor, not shoes. And he needed to stop thinking about what else could happen with knees on the floor, this was supposed to be a work event.)
Robin took the time to push his glasses up his nose, his pause as loud and pointed as the beithir’s feet had been.
“Get me a Protocol guidebook and I’ll circle back to you. But don’t put your tail on the table, either.”
“If anyone would have such information,” someone said. Spider, the tsuchigumo, his voice velvet and amused.
“I have several. But most of them are pre-convergence texts.” Zyr draped his tail over the back of his chair, it’s barbed tip hanging by his shoulder. “The placement of one’s tail is of less concern then when, and how, it is appropriate to eat people.”
“Always good to have a reference guide when it comes to eating someone.” No. Bad Robin. No oral jokes when mid-stare down.
“Given the company you’ve decided to keep, such guidelines might come in handy.”
And Zyr smiled. All teeth, the kind a dragon ought to have. Conical and too large for his face, for all they fit just fine. Like Declan. Made for tearing and brute force.
Robin smiled that way sometimes. Not now, though. It’d ruin the game.
“Unseelie eat humans? I’m shocked,” Robin said flatly. “I sure hope someone told the others here that.”
“There were plenty among the unseelie who didn’t limit themselves to humans. But it’s immaterial.” His tail flicked, insolently. “As we are all now so very well behaved. No feet on the table. No unwilling dinner guests.”
“Obviously, not everyone is willing at this—”
“Do you have many pre-convergence documents?” Dinam, the cat-sith, interrupted, his pointed little ears perking up. “Outside of the rulebooks.”
Robin shot him a sharp look, frowning. The beithir looked pissed too, his tail no longer twitching and eyes gone hard.
“Were we talking to you?” Robin snapped, at the same time Zyr, thunder in his voice, said, “Yes.”
“You are sitting with fourteen other people.” Dinam didn’t quite hiss, the coward, and laid his ears back. “Speaking over the length of the table.”
“The question was rhetorical.” Robin was going to sketch a dick next to Dinam’s name after this. “I brought a dictionary if you need it defined.”
“Don’t be impudent, human,” Dinam scolded. Like Robin was a child.
“Robin,” Everil said, his quiet voice somehow filling the room, “is blood of this House. I would remind everyone here to treat him with the respect he’s due as such.”
The “or else” remained unvoiced, but it was there, a cold snap in the warm room, cutting through the sea spray Robin kept imagining. The kelpie might be a wilting, wistful fae most of the time, but goddamn did he know how to put his foot down.
Of course, Bo had to ruin the badass effect with a quick kiss against Everil’s shoulder, but that was par the course. Only an actual idiot would think that Everil was less prepared to murder just because Bo was there.
Zyr nodded to Bo and Everil. Then, weirdly, to Robin. Or maybe not so weirdly. Unexpectedly? More that.
“Dinam only meant that the beithir might have information,” the yuki-onna, Taibe, said. “The sort that could be useful in dealing with the Monarchs.”
"Useful how?” Metara asked. “We don’t need to know how to write a stern letter following pre-convergence Protocol. Let’s not place the cart before the horse.”
“That depends on the letter,” Spider mused, leaning forward. “So to speak. Insight into how a person views propriety is an underrated tool.”