Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Being the bridge to all the fae realms came in handy, though I still carried the seed Mom had given me for ease of traveling directly to her. We arrived by seven, and Mom was already outside waiting for us. She carried a small travel bag and was dressed more casually than I’d ever seen.
“Jeans?” I gaped at her.
“Wow,” Moira said. “Who knew you had all that junk in your trunk?”
“Moira!” I hissed.
Mom gave Moira a dark look. “You brought your pet vampire, I see.”
Moira’s grin was a touch too toothy. “She sure did. I made sure to sharpen my canines, too. Just in case I got hungry.”
The evening air was cool and humid. Tiny fae flitted around, their skin giving off a soft bioluminescent glow, reminding me of fireflies.
They brushed through Mom’s hair, several braiding strands of her hair.
Sometimes I forgot my mother was a goddess who claimed her own realm, and that she was beloved by her people.
I tilted my head up and gasped at the wide canopy of glimmering stars above our head.
Mom was right. They were different here.
Gloriously so. Mom’s land had no real light pollution.
Her home was lit by magic, soft, warm lighting throughout.
On the outside of the mounds, there were small candle flames, lighting the paths enough to see by.
Back home, I could see the stars well if I ventured far enough into my land, but even with my acreage, there were still too many towns around. I’d have to venture fifty or so miles away before I could even dream of catching a view like this one.
Moira reached out and grabbed my hand. Her lips were parted as she tilted her head and caught what I was looking at. “Wow,” she breathed.
Mom’s smile was indulgent. “I believe you might be the first vampire who’s witnessed our skies. Stay close to Evie. She is the bridge and you will be safe with her.” Mom sniffed, her eyes widening slightly. “You have fae blood,” she said softly. “How have I never caught that before?”
Moira’s cheeks colored. “A distant ancestor, I believe. You’ve only seen me at the shop and Evie’s home. Her home always carries a heavy scent of flowers. Perhaps that’s why.”
But Mom’s eyes lingered on Moira for longer than was comfortable before she gave a short nod. “Well. I’m sure that’s it.” She ran her gaze down both our bodies and back up. “You’re dressed well for travel. Comfortable shoes, I hope?”
Moira and I nodded.
“Good.” Mom pulled a map out from her bag and handed it over. The map wasn’t anything spectacular and consisted of a small, ink drawn tree, showing the different realms and their levels. “Tir Tairngire,” she said, “is the second level. All you have to do is take our hands and focus on the place.”
I frowned down at the map. “How can I focus on a place I’ve never seen?”
Mom took my hand. “Close your eyes.”
Her cool fingers slid through mine. Soft magic, reminding me a little of Tess’s knocked at my mind.
I opened a tiny crack of my mind and a picture pushed in of a place that had green rolling hills and azure, blue seas.
Birds with wildly colored wings swept through the air and trilled their songs.
The air had a sweet, fresh tang to it, and I inhaled, even though I knew it was an illusion.
When I opened my eyes, the image faded away.
“Ready?” Mom asked.
I blinked away the tears in my eyes, surprised by my reaction. The fae lands held no real appeal to me, or they hadn’t until recently, but the place we were about to go to was something right out of a storybook.
I reached for Moira’s hand. “Yes,”
A tingle of magic rolled over my skin as I recalled the place in my mind’s eye.
We landed in a field of silky grass. Strangely, it was daylight. I blinked in surprise and let go of Mom and Moira.
“Time is different here,” Mom observed. “Such is common between the realms.”
“How much time will have passed when we return home?”
Mom shook her head. “There’s no way to tell. I hope you’ve made arrangements for your business.”
“Ash knows if he doesn’t hear from us by midnight to open the store the next morning.” I’d need to give them all a bonus soon because they’d been picking up an extraordinary amount of slack lately.
“Good.” Mom pointed toward the west. “Your banshee resides over there.”
And with that, we were off.
Thalia’s words kept playing on repeat through my brain.
Beware the promised lands. Tir Tairngire literally meant Land of Promise.
I knew as well as anyone that looks could be deceiving, but this place seemed like paradise.
The temperature was comfortable, borderline cool.
No bugs bit or pinched. There were no thorns on any of the plants or flowers growing wild in the grass.
No poisonous air. No birds swooped down to attack us from the crystal blue skies.
Nothing zoomed out from the woods to harm us.
I could walk through this place for the rest of my life and be content.
Usually when I felt like this, something or someone would crawl out from the woodwork and screw it up for me. But the wind stayed gentle, and the sway of grass against our calves made my shoulders drop, the stress over the last few weeks fading away.
I took my first deep inhale that I could remember and slowly released my breath.
Mom glanced over her shoulder. “Better?”
“This place feels like I smoked the best weed known to man,” Moira mused.
Mom’s lips twitched. “You found weed that worked with your metabolism?”
“I grew it,” Moira said absentmindedly.
“You grew super weed?” I asked, my eyes wide as I watched her.
Moira grinned. “You aren’t the only good gardener out there, you know.”
“I’m a Floromancer, and I never even thought about growing weed like that.” To be fair, I never thought about growing weed at all. “Have you sold any?”
“Weed is still illegal in most states.” Her prim tone made me roll my eyes.
“Like you give a damn about that.”
Mom’s eyes bounced back and forth between us. “Would you consider selling some to your best friend’s mother?”
Moira and I stopped walking.
“Mom!” I said with a gasp.
Moira blinked in surprise and started laughing.
“Being a goddess is stressful,” Mom said. “And as you both know, they don’t make substances for people like us.” She moved her hand back and forth. “And if they do, they’re extremely addictive and dangerous. I assume your new pot strain is not?”
Moira fished around in her purse and pulled out a perfectly rolled joint.
“I am in an alternate universe,” I muttered.
“May I?” Mom asked.
“You can have this one. I have another in my purse.”
“Moira! What the hell?”
“It helps me not summon interdimensional beings,” she said with a shrug. “I started experimenting some time back, and it’s not perfect, but in my defense, I had never pulled a god out of thin air until I took a weed break.”
“I’m going to need weed if you two don’t knock it off.”
Mom lifted the joint and sniffed it, the thing hovering under her noise like a white mustache.
“Don’t you dare light that thing up,” I snapped.
Mom’s grin held a wicked edge. I’d never seen her smile like that, and the blooming smile I returned might have been the first real one I’d ever given her.
I waved both of them off. “Be careful with that stuff, and do not show it to Thalia!”
My sister looked like she’d smoke all the weed in the world if she could.
“You’ve seen Thalia?” Mom asked as she tucked the joint into an inner pocket of her bag.
I told Mom about her warning. Mom frowned. “This place is one of the least dangerous realms, but we should heed her words all the same. I do not know what the other means, though I think it might refer to your other Lord.”
“He’s not my Lord,” I grumbled.
“Perception is everything. Even if you do not consider him yours, it’s worth paying close attention, looking for any danger coming his way and, perhaps, sending him a warning if you haven’t already.”
I hadn’t. Finding Tess had taken up all the space in my overworked brain.
We fell silent as we continued walking across the field, and it wasn’t long until we came upon a stone path. Mom stepped off the grass and waited for us. When we were on the road, Mom adjusted her bag but didn’t move.
“Mom?”
“Wait a moment,” she said quietly.
The ground rumbled underneath our feet. “The curious things started watching us halfway through. I’m glad you brought me.”
“Things?” A ripple in the grass caught my eye. Moira stilled next to me as she caught the same.
A few seconds later, a chitinous body rose above the swaying grass. It had no eyes, only a perfectly round mouth edged with serrated teeth.
“What the fuck?” I whispered.
Moira’s hand reached out and gripped my arm. “And here I was worried about ticks.” She shuddered.
The thing resembled a caterpillar, if said caterpillar was three feet wide, wore armor, and had teeth straight out of a slasher movie.
“What is that thing?” I asked.
Mom shook her head. “I’ve never seen its like, but you visit enough, you’ll find many unexplainable things in the fae lands.”
“Gods, I hope not,” Moira muttered.
“We are not walking through grass like that again.” I rubbed my hands over my arms.
Mom shot me an amused look. “Next time, when you look at the map, try to pick a road or town as a landing spot.”
I stared for a long moment before a low curse tore from my throat. Hadn’t even thought about that!
She patted me on the shoulder. “I was with you. Few things will mess with one of their old gods, no matter what realm they’re from.”
“What about the old gods’ kids?”
Mom’s lips twitched. “Only if their mettle has been tested.”
My eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“You are new to our lands. There is much to learn if you wish to accept your place as Cernunnos’ heir.”
She started off down the road. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “If I did, could I start my reign off by killing all of those things?”
Moira snorted.
“Hardly,” Mom said. “As the humans say, all of God’s creatures, blah, blah, blah.”
“Yeah, well, I’d kill all the mosquitoes too if I could.”
Mom slid a glance my way. “You could, you know.”
“Really? I could take all of them out like a giant bug zapper?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Sure. If you want to wipe out the food supply while you’re at it.”
Moira’s brow furrowed. “That’s the bees, right?”
It took a moment for my brain to click into on mode. “Mosquitoes are pollinators.”
“Those little fuckers,” Moira mused. “They know we want to murder them all, so they made sure they served a purpose.”
“Mosquitos are critical for pollinating cacao. Can you imagine a world without chocolate?”
Moira’s gasp made Mom laugh. “Orchids, too,” she added. “Even ticks serve a larger purpose in the world.”
“I changed my mind. I vote to destroy ticks and live with the consequences,” Moira announced.
We walked for quite a while debating which species was worse and almost didn’t notice when the road began to curve to the left. As we went around the bend, small stone houses appeared. “Tess is somewhere in this village,” Mom murmured. “Be on your guard.”
I’d brought no weapons and didn’t look like much of a threat. None of us did. Mom pulsed with power, but many fae did that. Maybe when you lived here, you didn’t notice stuff like someone else being at the power level of the freaking sun anymore.
“How’s my hair?” Moira whispered.
I wheezed a laugh. Mom gave us a pointed look. “Remember, you are not in the human lands. There is a decorum that must be followed.”
Moira nodded solemnly and put her hand over her heart. “I hope it’s second breakfast.”
I elbowed her. “Just don’t say anything, okay?”
“But how will everyone know about my dating life?”
Mom flicked her fingers over her shoulder. A zap of white light hit Moira in the shoulder. The vampire hissed. “Shit! What was that?”
“There’s more where that came from if you don’t get it together,” Mom murmured.
Moira sighed and mimed a zipping motion over her lips.
A few minutes later, we stepped foot into the fae village.