4. A Plan
I t would be two days yet before Aisling felt ready to leave the safety of her apartment. She slept, she cleaned, she cooked. She stepped outside only a handful of times to let Briar out, but she had otherwise hidden herself away. It wasn’t as though her apartment would have afforded her any degree of safety should anything come looking for her. But it was small, and there was a lock on the door, and she knew exactly how many steps it would take to reach the block of knives in the kitchen from any given room.
Amidst all the confusion and time spent parsing through the words of the prophecy, Aisling hadn’t realized at first just how afraid she felt. It didn’t matter what the celestial light was, or which court was spring and which was winter. What mattered was that there were beings out there who believed her to be the Red Woman. Although to some, she’d be heralded as the last hope for their dying world, to others—likely many others—she’d be cast as the enemy. Without having done anything at all, there was a whole host of Fae that would see her dead before she could claim her fate. And that was a reality Aisling wasn’t ready to confront.
So being that it was the Fae who put her in this headspace, it only stood to reason that it would take one to pull her back out of it.
Rodney turned up at Aisling’s door on his way back from his early morning shift at the dock, demanding a walk and refusing to take no for an answer. The temperature had dropped significantly over those two days. Aisling tightened the thick woolen scarf around her neck and pushed her gloved hands deeper into her pockets. They’d gotten their last camping trip of the season in right under the wire.
The sky was overcast, filled with heavy, rain-laden clouds. The island wore the same somber cloak of gray that it always donned around this time of year and wouldn’t shed until very late spring. At least the sun—that sickening red reminder of Aisling’s alleged destiny—was hidden beneath the clouds’ feathered layers.
Brook Isle was among the smallest settled islands in San Juan County; a community only 297 strong. With its limited amenities and slightly worn-down charm, it possessed a quiet sort of beauty that was kept carefully sheltered from the rest of the world. The place was almost stuck in time. For most of its residents, that was what tethered them to the island. Natives rarely left; outsiders rarely stayed.
The pair walked along the narrow street that cut through the heart of town heading south, in the direction of the harbor. The street-side dogwood trees that had been filled with white blooms all summer long were now shades of yellow and orange, bare in patches, and the damp leaves that had already fallen clung to the bottoms of their shoes.
Rodney directed Aisling toward the bakery, shoulders shrugged against the marine fog rolling off the Salish Sea that hadn’t yet cleared for the day. It was early still; most of the stores wouldn’t open for another hour or so. Their shiplap exteriors in nautical shades of reds and blues were faded and aged by years of salt air. While some would think them tired, Aisling was comforted by their familiarity. These buildings had been well-loved, and at this point she might even be disappointed if they were ever repainted.
As they continued their brisk walk, the sound of seagulls calling out overhead mingled with the distant crashing of waves against the island’s rocky shores. The echoes of the sea breathed a calming rhythm and for the first time in days, Aisling felt better.
The bakery was already crowded with ferry commuters who would be heading out on the next boat toward Orcas Island, or San Juan Island, or even as far as Anacortes on the mainland. Rodney and Aisling wove their way up to the counter and he ordered them each a hot tea to go. Once she had the warm cup clasped between her hands, it felt almost pleasant outside.
“Was that real cash?” she asked when they were back out on the street.
Rodney smirked. “And if it wasn’t?” He laughed when Aisling elbowed him in the ribs, then said, “It was, it was. I swear. ”
Aisling and Rodney had met close to eleven years prior, when she’d come home for the summer after her junior year of college to sulk because she hadn’t landed the internship she’d applied for. Her father had sent her down to the gas station for a pack of cigarettes, and he was ahead of her in line buying two liters of bright green soda. She’d recognized him vaguely as the odd boy who’d been a couple years below her in school who only ever kept to himself. His hair had been jet black then.
His sleight of hand trick was small and had gone unnoticed by everyone but Aisling. Even then, after so many years of disbelief, she recognized Fae magic when she saw it. The cash he paid with had a certain glimmer to it, and the air a certain smell. Afterward, she cornered him outside in the parking lot before he could slip away.
“How did you do that?” she had demanded. He’d given her a stupid, goofy grin and swore he didn’t know what she was talking about.
“I’m not sure just what you think you saw.”
“You had playing cards in your hand. They were bills when you passed them to the cashier,” Aisling accused. “You glamoured them.”
No matter how much time had passed, she still wouldn’t let him live it down. That was the night they became best friends. It was also the night Aisling understood, for the first time since she was young, that her mother had been telling the truth about the Fae on the island all along.
“I’ve been thinking,” Rodney started as they sat together on a wooden bench adjacent to the docks .
“That’s never a good sign.”
“Funny.” He rolled his eyes but was unfazed by her interruption, and started again: “I’ve been thinking, the only way you’re going to get to the bottom of all of this is by going straight to the heart of it.”
Aisling turned on the bench to face him, curling one knee to her chest so she could rest the half-empty cup on top of it. “What do you mean?”
“Well, given that it’s a fairly obvious threat against the Unseelie Court’s sovereignty, it stands to reason that they would have scholars or seers of some sort that would have studied the text of the prophecy. They’d probably know more about it than anyone. Better the enemy you know, and all that.” His assumption made sense, but it was far from helpful.
“So, what, I’m supposed to stop by and ask them how to destroy their kingdom? Great idea, Rodney. Thanks.”
“Not quite,” he said, having missed the sarcasm in her voice altogether. “But if we could somehow get you into their good graces, you could at least do a little digging yourself.”
“And how do you propose I do that?” Aisling asked.
He grimaced. “I’m still working on that part.”
Aisling finished her tea and played with the lid of the cup, stuck inside her own mind. The two sat for a few moments in silence before she spoke again: “Maybe I should just go home.”
“You are home.”
“Back to the mainland, I mean. Away from all this.” She gestured with her cup at the island behind them. From somewhere obscured by the mist, the sound of the ferry’s foghorn reverberated around them. Its minor tone always sounded forlorn to her.
“To do what?” He was annoyed, but he wouldn’t show it. Nor would he yet say out loud what they both knew: it wouldn’t make a difference. He’d let her try feebly to convince herself otherwise first.
“I still have a life there. They’re not going to hold my job forever,” Aisling said.
He shrugged. “So quit.”
“And work here at the library for the rest of my life?”
“You’re happier here,” he pointed out.
Aisling countered: “I’m in danger here.”
“You’d be in more danger if you ran away, of that much I’m sure. And so would I; so would all your friends. So would Brook Isle.” Rodney took her empty cup and stacked it inside his own, then tossed them toward the trash can a few feet away. A perfect shot. “These things have a way of getting what they want.”
His words raised goosebumps down the backs of Aisling’s arms. “By these things, you mean the Fae?”
“I mean fate. Prophecies. Whatever you want to call it. The Red Woman is the Red Woman, regardless of where she lives. The city won’t protect you, and your distance won’t protect us.”
As the small boat drifted slowly into view, Rodney stood up off the bench and pulled Aisling to her feet. They’d sat in the damp air for long enough, and both of them thought better when they were in motion. Slowly, they made their way back in the direction of her apartment .
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to try to get to the Seelie Court?” Aisling asked as they walked. “I’d imagine they’d be a bit more welcoming, given that I’m supposed to be on their side.”
“Yeah, I thought about that.”
“But?” she prompted.
Rodney scratched the back of his neck, self-conscious. “Well, I’m not exactly sure how to get there.”
“What? You’ve not been?” She was surprised; she had assumed Rodney would have more answers than he seemed to. He was her only direct line to that world and he was somehow proving to be nearly less helpful than the Shadowwood Mother had been.
He reached up to swat at a leaf overhead, showering them both with tiny droplets of dew. “From their side, sure. Not through their Thin Place. I don’t know where it is.”
“But you’ve visited the Unseelie Court?” Apprehension coiled in her stomach. The more they discussed this, the more real it became. The less she’d be able to convince herself it was a bad dream. The less likely she’d be to leave Brook Isle.
“I’ve been to a handful of events there,” he said.
She’d had just about enough of Fae talk—she was sick of trying to decipher their cryptic words and veiled subtext. “What events?”
Rodney shrugged. “A party or two. A few observances.” He steered them around a family to walk in the street and lowered his voice slightly. “Religious rites.”
“I didn’t know you were religious.” In fact, she didn’t know the Fae were religious at all .
“I’m not particularly, but I identify with some of their ideas. Either way, the ceremonies are always a good show.” He smirked a bit. Aisling wasn’t sure whether she liked the dark look that glinted in his eyes when he thought about what he’d witnessed there.
“Do you know where to find the Unseelie Thin Place?” she asked as directly as she could this time.
“Sure do,” he chirped.
She slapped his shoulder. “You’ve known where it was this whole time and you never told me?”
He rubbed it and looked at her sheepishly. “You never asked.”
“Of course I’ve asked, at least a hundred times.”
“Not—” he started, and Aisling finished the sentence with him: “specifically enough.”
When Rodney dropped her back off at her apartment, they both agreed to think about how best to approach the problem. But Rodney was cunning and tricky, whereas Aisling was not. Though his years in the human realm had degraded much of his knowledge, he still knew far more about the workings of the Wild than she did—and probably more than he was letting on.
The Brook Isle Public Library was a brick building, one of the island’s oldest. It had been a hospital once, then a school, but when both of those outgrew the space, it became a library. Pony walls had been installed to separate it into sections: fiction on the left, non-fiction on the right, and children’s books in the back. Two of the island’s three computers were set up on a table off to the side.
From the check-out desk in the center, Aisling could see all four corners of the room if she spun around in her chair. It smelled of bookbinder’s glue and old, yellowed pages. The tall, narrow windows that ran all the way up to the high ceiling let slants of light filter in that caught eddies of dust swirling lazily through the air.
It wasn’t a demanding job, nor was it terribly mentally stimulating, but she loved it all the same. It gave her time to read. To think. Sometimes, to sit still and quiet and do absolutely nothing at all. Briar loved it, too. He lay under the desk at her feet for most of the day and would occasionally walk a lap or two through the shelves to stretch his legs before returning to his post. He was a favorite fixture for the kids who visited during story time when she had a weekend shift.
Today, the library was quiet. An older couple browsed the mystery section and a young boy sat at one of the computers, but she hadn’t seen anyone else for several hours. When Rodney came in, he brought a blast of cool air with him. The front doors were large and unwieldy, and it took him a moment to wrestle one closed against the brisk autumn breeze. His eyes were shining with excitement as he approached.
“I have a plan,” he announced loudly. Aisling shushed him harshly and eyed the other patrons, but none of them had glanced over. “I have a plan,” he repeated in a whisper once he’d reached the desk.
Aisling stood and nodded for him to follow. She led him to the far corner of the non-fiction section. Briar ambled behind them. “What is it?”
“Nocturne.” Rodney was smug, obviously pleased with himself.
“Keep your voice down,” Aisling hissed. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Our talk about ceremonies and parties got me thinking about it. It’s a sort of holiday in the Unseelie Court, a big one. They host a celebration every year, open to all of their dominions. Usually it’s big enough that they don’t mind a well-meaning Solitary or two slipping in.”
“Solitary?” Her head was reeling. She’d heard the word before, from her mother, but couldn’t recall its meaning.
“Like me. Fae who aren’t aligned or ruled by one court or another. The Shadowwood Mother is a Solitary Fae as well. But that’s not the point.” He was speaking quickly. “The point is: the Nocturne celebration is our way in.”
“That’s your way in. They might not care about the Solitary, but I’m sure they won’t welcome a human.” They were using more Fae terms than Aisling was comfortable with throwing around in public. She poked her head around the side of the bookshelf they were positioned behind. The couple had left, and the boy was still distracted by the computer.
“I’ll glamour you. You’ll be one of us. A pixie, I was thinking.”
She almost laughed out loud before she shook her head. “That’s too risky, Rodney. For both of us. ”
“It isn’t,” he insisted. “I’m good; my glamours are stronger than most. And it’s a few weeks away, so I’ll have time to practice.
“ Weeks? That’s too long.” Though she would have balked if he’d said he’d take her tomorrow, the thought of sitting with this anxiety that had sunken into her gut like a stone in a river was almost just as bad.
He huffed a short breath through his nose. “That prophecy has been around for at least a century, Aisling. I think a few more weeks will be fine.”
“Say you’ve managed to weave me a flawless glamour and we’ve made it through the Thin Place. We’re at the celebration—now what?”
He cringed. “That’s the part you’re not going to like.”
“Rodney,” she said, her tone one of warning.
“We’ll need to get you in front of the king.” The pair jumped when the electronic shriek of the computer’s dial-up internet connecting pierced the quiet library. The boy in front of the screen ducked his head, embarrassed by his sudden disruption. Aisling rolled her eyes and the two settled back down between the shelves.
“And?” There was more to his plan; she could tell by the way he seemed to be preparing himself to deliver the rest.
“And bedding him will be the easiest way to work yourself into the Court.”
This time she did laugh. But he’d meant it, his delivery sharp and pragmatic. Clinical, even. Her face fell when he didn’t so much as crack a smile. “You can’ t be serious.”
“Think about it Ash: no one just walks into the Unseelie Court, human or pixie or otherwise. The celebration will get you in the door, but from there you have to capture his attention. This will be the quickest way to do that.” His thin fingers picked absentmindedly at the frayed edges of a hole in his jeans as he spoke.
“Jesus, Rodney, do you hear what you’re saying?” she hissed, cheeks burning with a deep red blush. “I’m not going to fuck the Fae king!”
“I’ve seen him at these parties. At almost every single one, he gets drunk and leaves with one of the females there. This time, we make sure it’s you.”
Aisling’s blood boiled with rage and shame. In the span of just several days, she’d lost all control over her future. And now, her best friend was telling her to sleep her way into a Fae court. If they hadn’t been in the library, she’d be on her feet yelling at him. The best she could do here was to take a few deep breaths before speaking again in the same harsh whisper. “I won’t do it.”
Rodney was silent for a moment, thinking. Weighing his words before he spoke, then delivering each clearly and cautiously after a quick glance around to make sure the two were well and truly alone in their corner. “The king is a monster, Aisling. He’s a cruel and wicked thing; he revels in suffering and takes pleasure in others’ pain. And his appetite for power…” He shook his head, almost shuddering. “It’s insatiable. You need to use him before he can use you. If you can manage to hold his attention, then you’ll have a measure of control over him. ”
“Control?” She spat the word, still incensed, getting closer by the minute to reaching over her shoulder for a heavy book to throw at Rodney’s head. “How am I meant to control a creature like that?”
“His desires are predictable. He’s indulgent; he resists very few temptations. If you can be that temptation, if you can play into his weakness, then we can influence him.” He raised a hand to stop Aisling from interrupting him and added, “At least for long enough to find the information we need.”
Though hearing him include himself so naturally in the plan—referring to them as a collective rather than putting it on Aisling alone—eased her anger slightly, she still wasn’t convinced. “And while I’m sleeping with the enemy, what will you be doing?”
“Working my connections,” he said confidently. “I’m trying to hunt down an old acquaintance there that might be able to help. Lyre. He knows a lot—a lot of things, a lot of other Fae. And he owes me a favor.”
A family spilled loudly into the library then, and Briar went to greet them. Aisling pulled herself to her feet with the shelf and Rodney did the same. She tried her best to plaster a grin on her face as she made her way back to the desk and reminded them to check the community board for upcoming reading events. When they’d disappeared back into the children’s section, she turned again to Rodney.
“I’m still not agreeing to this,” she warned.
He grinned, well aware that he had very nearly won her over. “Well, you have a few weeks to come up with a better plan.”