Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
It took me a moment to realize we were alone. None of the other fae or humans had traveled with us, and for a moment, I felt a desperate clench in my heart. I forced myself to stay calm. I’d found them once, I could find them again. A more important question was what was coming next.
“What's the Windrose?” I asked.
“Who,” Rowan corrected.
“Who is the Windrose?” I asked.
“He is a judge that the fae monarchs rely on to keep the peace between the four realms,” Rowan said. He was pale, his fingers opening and closing.
“He's frightening?” I asked, as though it weren't obvious.
Rowan jerked his head, then nodded. “He is the only person the monarchs cleave to.”
“That could be good, right?” I asked. “Maybe he'll be reasonable.”
“He is mercurial and rules according to his own strictures rather than those agreed upon in the treaties.” Rowan turned his eyes toward one of the stained glass windows that depicted an autumn day, the trees swaying in the breeze, leaves drifting down.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
“I am still a member of the Autumn Court,” Rowan said. “To live in San Amaro as I am violates the treaty between the four courts. No member of another court may stay in the human realm after the court’s ascendancy. But I could not remain at King Hawthorn’s side.”
I understood that feeling, looking at someone you used to love, used to find attractive, and knowing that you couldn't stay there another minute and still be yourself. My heart hurt for him.
“Could you join another court?” I asked. The only things I knew about the fae were from TV shows that were probably wildly inaccurate. I had thought there was only one fae king, but based on the conversation earlier, there were at least two, and now Rowan referred to the four courts.
“I could, but I would still not be free.” He looked down.
“That was why that guy was looking for you earlier today. The one dressed in ice.” I looked at the other windows, wondering what it was like to be so powerful and still feel trapped.
“I had thought to escape the notice of the Winter Court by remaining alone, by not making connections, not forming obligations. I was foolish.” His lips peeled back from his teeth into nearly a snarl.
“Obligations?” I asked, even though I was making quick connections. Hawthorne had used the same word, claiming that the gifts he had given my students had formed obligations. “Do gifts create obligations?”
“It is what binds humans to our will. An obligation is powerful magic.” Rowan looked at me, and there was something like appreciation in his eyes. “Not that you needed an obligation to bind me to your will.”
Then I understood. The cookies. My name. Rowan had called them gifts. But that was why he hadn't wanted to accept either. It would have been too close to an obligation, too close to the ties he had been trying to avoid.
“How long do you think we’re going to have to wait?” I asked.
Rowan shook his head, reaching forward as though he were touching something I couldn't see. “The Windrose keeps us separate. I can sense that we are out of sync with the mortal realm. I imagine he wants our untarnished story.”
“Should I be scared?” I asked. I felt like I'd run out of all my fear; it had drained from me like sand from a broken hourglass.
“I've not met him myself, but he casts a long shadow across the four courts. Longer than his predecessor.” Rowan turned to face me, and I wanted to look away from the intensity of his gaze, but I couldn't, unable to resist the draw of his eyes.
“He grew the World Tree from a single seed. He killed the last of the old gods. He is the only one able to tame the four monarchs of the Far Realm.”
I tried to breathe but barely could. Here I was, unable to decide if I was going to stay in San Amaro long enough to need a loyalty card at the bagel place, about to face the man who’d grown the World Tree.
“Why did you leave King Hawthorne?” I asked, even though that wasn't really what I wanted to know. I wanted to know why he'd come with me. Why Rowan had risked his freedom for me and my students, when he clearly thought it was a fool’s errand.
“We fae are very long-lived. I had been at Hawthorne's side for many years. I had been there while he took other lovers. While he spread his children and halflings in other courts and in the human realm. I had watched him with admiration and a fair bit of jealousy.” It was Rowan's turn to look away, and I immediately wanted his eyes back on me.
“Yet, with him, I always knew that he and I were in a complicated game of politics. Our love for each other was always tempered with the knowledge that I could betray him or he could betray me. One day, I realized that, in my position at his side, I had not a single other at mine. There was no one in the entire Autumn Court who saw me as my own person, but merely as a way to access or hurt King Hawthorne.” Rowan managed a smile, and it looked terrible and vulnerable.
“I thought I would prefer to be alone forever than to be alone at his side.”
“As someone who is alone, I understand the feeling,” I said. I thought of all the friends I had. Would any of them notice if I disappeared? My job would only notice because they would need to find a substitute for my classes. But I had no pack, no family.
“Perhaps, if we survive this, I could repay the gifts you have given me with friendship.” Rowan looked down, then back up. His eyes fixed on my lips, and I felt something flush in my body.
“Just friends?” I asked, knowing I was pushing it, but I was trapped in a half realm, a sliver of reality pulled apart from my real life. I was about to face the man who had killed gods.
“Or perhaps we might discover some… companionship in each other,” Rowan said.
I grinned, half in relief that I wasn't misreading the situation, half out of anticipation. I opened my mouth to reply when suddenly, the world around us shifted for a half second, and then we were surrounded by people.
In front of each of the stained glass windows, enormous thrones sat: one for Spring, one for Summer, one for Autumn, and the last for Winter. In front of them, at the center of the semicircle, a tree grew out of the ground, forming a throne.
I couldn't look away from the four monarchs, each of them strange and beautiful. King Hawthorne lounged in his chair, glaring daggers at the king sitting on the Winter throne. Beside the Winter throne stood the enormous warrior who had challenged Hawthorne in the Autumn lands.
Hawthorne's eyes flicked to Rowan, then me, then back at the man sitting in the throne made from an oak tree.
I forced myself to look at him and found that he was wearing jeans. He was barefoot and wore a stained T-shirt that had faded lettering from the county fair a decade ago.
He had blond hair and sky-blue eyes. There was nothing about him that looked fae. In fact, if I had seen him on the street, I would have pegged him as just another gorgeous Southern Californian actor, with a home in San Amaro instead of Malibu.
“I demand recompense,” the Winter King boomed.
“You have no proof that me or mine were in the human realm,” King Hawthorne said.
“Enough,” the man on the oak throne said. His voice was firm, and it vibrated through the room even though he wasn't shouting.
Both monarchs quieted. So the guy who wouldn't get service at a no shirt, no shoes, no service restaurant was the Windrose.
“Rowan of the Autumn Court and…” He looked at me, then winced and scratched at some stubble along his jaw. “Sorry, no one seemed to know your name. They just kept calling you 'the dog', which seems kind of problematic. Racist, maybe? Definitely speciesist, so do you mind giving me a name?”
I blinked. He was definitely from Southern California, the lilt in his vowels tilting up.
“I’m August Bright, uh, Your Honor?” As much as he wasn't what I expected, I’d still heard the fear in Rowan's voice, the tremble at the knowledge that we were about to face the only person any of these powerful fae would listen to.
“August, great. Rowan of the Autumn Court and August Bright of the human realm, you have been called here and named by Javor of the Winter Court as witnesses of King Hawthorne breaking the treaty.” He waited, looking around the room before returning his gaze to me. “Can you explain what you saw?”
I looked at Rowan, but his lips were pale white where he was squeezing them together, and he trembled.
I swallowed. “I teach high school English. Some of my students were acting out of character, falling asleep, and failing tests. The cops asked me if I knew anything, and after they left, one of my students told me that the others have been going into the hills.” I glanced at Rowan, but he didn't seem to want to add anything, so I finished.
“We followed them, and they led us into the… Autumn Court?”
“You see, even in his own telling, none of mine stepped foot in San Amaro beyond our ascendancy. It is no crime for a human to find their way into one of our kingdoms, especially when they already belong to us, as all of these children did.” King Hawthorne smirked, the expression crinkling the corners of his eyes like carved wood.
“And what would you call the one who calls himself Rowan? He was living in the human realm during the rule of the Winter Court.” Javor briefly glanced at Rowan before turning his gaze to King Hawthorne.
Hawthorne ground his teeth together. “He made no attempt to create obligations, nor to make deals with humans. Surely one fae mistaking the time of year is not worth declaring war over.”
Silence stretched in the room, and I tried to glance between all of the interested parties but found my gaze fixed on Rowan. He was pale, his skin seeming to lose its bronze color before my eyes. No matter how this ended, he wasn't going to be allowed to stay in the human realm.