6. Nocturne, Part II The Revelry
T he Fae were real: this was a fact that Aisling had been varying degrees of sure of at different times in her life. When she was young, she believed her mother’s descriptions of her visits to the Wild with all the blind na?veté of a child. Every word that crossed the woman’s lips was gospel, and she wove such fantastic tales—who was Aisling to deny them? Her mother had introduced her to the forest, led her by the hand all the way to the borderlands and drew a line in the dirt there with her finger that Aisling should never, ever cross. In the very deepest reaches of her memory, Aisling was almost positive that her mother had pointed out, only once or twice, some manner of faerie on Brook Isle. A sprite maybe, like the one she’d rescued, or something else similarly small and curious enough to let them approach .
But Aisling grew older, and her confidence faded. She became conscious of the whispers about her mother that often echoed through town, especially during those times when she’d go away, supposedly through a Thin Place. They’d wane while she was gone, for a day or sometimes two, then would pick up again when she came back. The whispers grew into a dull roar when she pulled Aisling out of the island’s tiny school to teach her at home from the time she was seven until her tenth birthday, when Aisling threw such a fit that her father finally put his foot down and allowed her to go back. The Fae didn’t exist for Aisling anymore then, and the stories her mother told were just that: stories. Aisling squashed that belief down so hard and so deep that she convinced herself that she’d lost it. But even unacknowledged, it remained inside her, the smallest burning ember.
Then her mother was gone. Her stories and sketches were gone. The magic that she brought to the island, and to Aisling’s life, was gone. The ember was doused.
And Aisling didn’t believe in magic again until, by absolute coincidence, she ran into Rodney at the gas station that night a decade ago. But then, her disbelief was replaced with a cold, cruel, and heavy guilt. Guilt, and regret. It consumed her for years.
Now, she waited for her closest friend to change her into one of the creatures from her mother’s accounts and take her to the place she’d demanded Aisling never visit. She’d be the one calling Aisling crazy for this.
“We should go inside. It’s going to rain soon.” Aisling didn’t so much as glance toward the late evening sky, but Rodney peered upward to examine it from where he sat beside her on the steps of his mobile home. It was hazy, but cloudless.
Not ten minutes later, dark clouds had blown in and the first drops of rain began to pelt the roof.
He watched it coming down through the window as Aisling settled on the couch. “I don’t know how you always do that.”
“In the city I never could. I can’t tell you how many times I got caught out without an umbrella. I can always smell it here, though.” She shrugged, dropping one hand to scratch Briar’s head where he lay on the ground beside her. “Something in the soil maybe, or in the trees.”
“Either way, it’s impressive.” He let the cheap plastic shade fall closed and moved to stand in front of the couch. “We need to get ready.”
“It’s too early,” Aisling complained. She was stalling, and they both knew it.
“It’ll take a bit for us to get out there, and I need time to make sure I have the glamour right,” Rodney argued.
Aisling sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. “I can’t look like me.”
“I know.”
“ Anything like me, Rodney,” she insisted. There shouldn’t be a single trace of her left when he was done—not hair or skin or eye color, build or bone structure.
“ I know , Ash.” He was getting annoyed. He pulled a magazine out of a half-empty moving box on the floor and tossed it at her. It was two years old; she wasn’t quite sure why he still had it. “Pick someone. I need a reference.”
She flipped through the pages and pointed at random to a model in a perfume ad insert that had long since lost its scent. “Here, use her.”
He tore the page out and studied it for a moment before he folded it into a tiny square to tuck in his pocket. Rodney was already dressed for the occasion in a slim-fitting satin suit, a deep shade of maroon with black lapels. It clashed just enough with his orange hair that the whole look almost seemed to work. He’d seen it in a magazine, too, along with the shiny patent loafers that would more than likely give him blisters by the end of the night.
Rodney returned to the kitchen to attend to the whistling kettle on the stove. Aisling could smell the brew from the couch and wrinkled her nose in disgust. The acrid scent burned her nostrils. Briar, too, huffed in annoyance.
“Christ, that smells,” she choked out.
“It’ll taste even worse,” Rodney promised grimly. He handed Aisling a chipped mug he’d pocketed from a diner on the mainland and she swirled the liquid in it. It was a pale pink, only a few shades darker than completely clear. It looked weaker than it smelled.
“What is it?”
“Quicken tea. Brewed from dried rowan berries.” Rodney had pulled the perfume ad back out of his pocket and was examining it closely, memorizing the planes and angles of the model’s face. “Drink it all. ”
With it tipped toward her face, the rising steam made Aisling’s eyes water. She screwed them shut tightly and drank the too-hot tea down in three big sips. She had to purse her lips together to keep from gagging. “Why did I drink that?” she rasped once she could speak again.
“To protect you from enchantments.” He noticed her alarmed look and tried to placate her: “It’s only a precaution. These celebrations sometimes get out of hand. You should be fine, just don’t eat or drink anything that I don’t give you.”
Rodney’s glamour felt at first like a heavy down quilt being draped over Aisling’s head: both comforting and stifling, a cocoon that prickled over her bare skin. It took several minutes to settle against her form. Once the magic had pressed itself into every dip and curve of her body, the feeling dissipated. Then, at most, it felt like a thin film. The smell of it lingered faintly—the same indescribable scent she’d caught the night he’d turned playing cards to cash.
Aisling’s honey-brown hair had darkened to the deepest shade of chestnut, very nearly black, which matched her wide, upturned eyes. The freckles that peppered across her nose and under her eyes had disappeared. Her face was now heart-shaped and angular, with high, sharp cheekbones and rosebud lips. Aisling wasn’t large to begin with, but her athletic build had diminished to a much more petite size. Her waist was tiny, and she’d lost about a foot of height. She smiled, satisfied with her newly-elongated digits and viridescent skin that seemed to glow in the moonlight.
“You take entirely too much pleasure in this,” Rodney pointed out sardonically.
“Of course I do, look at me.” When she twirled, the small wings on her back fluttered in place. “I wish I looked like this all the time.”
He scowled. “I like you better as you.”
Aisling rolled her eyes. They felt too big for her sockets. “This was your idea.” She smoothed her hands over her dress, green as grass and embellished with shining gold stitching that made it look like a patchwork of leaves. It was short, much shorter than anything Aisling owned, but she hadn’t been glamoured this way for fun. She needed to look the part that she’d be playing.
Rodney had cast his magic not far from the Thin Place, and the pair made their way there in silence. Aisling was buzzing with nervous energy. She’d turned down Rodney’s offer to take a shot or two beforehand, and she was regretting that decision now as they wound through the dark woods.
He’d been overly secretive in the weeks leading up to this night about the location of the Unseelie Thin Place, but now that they were close, Aisling knew exactly where it was. Of course she did—she chided herself for never having guessed. It was perhaps the most obvious place on the island for it to be hidden.
The old lead mine had closed in the 80’s, well before Aisling was born, and Brook Isle had never recovered. Though it was never featured in her mother’s stories, its black, gaping maw had long given her an uneasy feeling. She’d always chalked it up to the safety presentations the island’s fire and rescue squad put on for the school at the beginning of every year: don’t get caught out on the mud flats at low tide. Don’t throw things off the docks. And never, ever go into the mine. They warned of cave-ins. Toxic fumes. Open chasms one might fall into in the dark that could swallow a grown man whole. All enough to terrify children, sure, but she never outgrew the feeling. When Aisling visited its entrance years ago, on a dare, it wasn’t fumes or unstable rock that made her blood run cold. It was the feeling of being watched.
“Shall we?” Rodney was holding his arm out to Aisling. She linked hers through it and rested her hand in the crook of his elbow. She felt steadier with him by her side, but she wished that she had Briar flanking her other hip as well.
As the two entered the mine, Aisling felt compelled to hold her breath, like some sort of dated superstition. They treaded carefully over the rubble, weaving to avoid the stagnant puddles that collected below rivulets of water dripping from the ceiling. To Aisling’s great relief, the Thin Place wasn’t very deep inside at all. It appeared outwardly as a caved-in tunnel, the stacked boulders blending seamlessly into the rest of the mine. She’d have passed right by if Rodney hadn’t stopped and turned her to face it. His mischievous grin was obvious even in the dark as he pulled her forward.
The Veil dragged across Aisling’s skin like a sticky cobweb as she passed through, invisible yet palpable enough for her to rub her hands across her face and down her arms as though to wipe it off. She was so preoccupied by the sensation that it took her a few seconds to register that they were standing in a forest of ancient, twisted pines. When she looked back, there was nothing but darkness. Two small creatures darted out of the tree line nearby, and Rodney urged her to follow them up the stone path ahead.
“Keep your eyes forward,” he said in her ear. “You need to look like you’ve been here before.”
She nodded, but it was difficult. She longed to stop and take everything in: the smell of the clean air, the woods, the mountains that she could just barely make out in the distance.
The path led to a structure that was even blacker than the night sky. The moon reflected off its shining surface, and as they entered, Aisling reached out and ran a hand across the wall. It was smooth and cool to the touch. The structure was built from slabs of obsidian, she realized. But inside, the space was small and empty save for a plain throne at the far end.
“Is this it?” she whispered. Rodney nodded towards the faeries, who’d disappeared into a hole in the ground from which a faint warm glow emanated. It was a spiral staircase, wide and worn and lit all the way down by flickering candles. Aisling understood then that the Undercastle was carved into the earth itself, at once both a structure of stone and a labyrinthine cave system. It was disorienting to imagine. The air grew heavier as they descended, laden with the scent of damp stone and soil. Rodney led confidently, but Aisling was quietly glad to have the tinkling laughter of the faeries ahead of them as their guide.
Finally, they grew close enough to hear the sounds of the revelry drifting towards them from a chamber at the end of the hall. Aisling gripped Rodney’s elbow a bit tighter; this dreamlike world she’d found herself in was becoming more real by the second and she was unsure of whether she was entirely prepared for the night to come.
The throne room that opened up before them was decorated with boughs of silver pine and great swaths of shimmering black fabric. This time, Aisling couldn’t stop herself from gazing around in awe. The cavern was so vast she couldn’t even see the ceiling, the sounds of the celebration all echoing up into blackness. Twisted veins of quartz streaked the walls and glittered like stars.
“Welcome to the Unseelie Court, Ash,” Rodney said with a wide grin.
The spectacle left her breathless. The revelers, all adorned in strange and opulent attire, moved with an enchanting grace that seemed to defy the laws of nature. Their faces were an array of unearthly beauty, sharp cheekbones and glimmering eyes not dissimilar from those Aisling wore now. Their skin, ranging in shades from alabaster to amethyst to deep midnight blue, shone in the warm candlelight. The air was thick with a heady blend of fragrances—smoky incense, the earthy scent of damp moss, and the sweetness of forbidden fruits. Thin strains of a haunting tune woven by a trio of winged musicians swirled through the cavern, coaxing even the most reserved of guests to join in the dance. Fae of every size and race twirled and spun around each other in giddy circles.
Rodney led her through the crush, aiming for the far side where smaller groups clustered around a banquet table laden with a whole garden’s worth of plump, shining fruits. Aisling was keenly aware of the intensity in Rodney’s eyes. Even he, the ever-confident Veilwalker, knew to tread lightly here.
“Be careful where you step and to whom you speak,” Rodney instructed, his voice barely audible over the clamor of the festivities. “Do not agree to anything and do not ask for names.”
He filled them each a heavy goblet with an amber liquid and swept Aisling out of the way of a large being that more closely resembled the trunk of a tree than a living creature. Before she could ask, he passed her the goblet and said, “A spriggan.”
“This is safe to drink?” She peered into the goblet. The liquid inside shimmered slightly, a thick, molten gold.
He nodded and took a sip of his own. “Honey wine. You’ll like it.”
Aisling touched it to her lips, barely. It was sweet, cloyingly so, but by the time she’d licked the taste of it off of her lips she was already craving more. When Rodney’s elbow dug into her ribs, she looked towards where he was gesturing subtly with his chalice.
At the head of the cavern on a rough, rocky dais, she could just see the ornate crest of the Unseelie King’s throne, carved from black obsidian similar to the structure they’d entered above. The musicians’ lilting song was drawing to an end, and the revelers slowed their steps. Despite how hard they’d been dancing, not a single one was out of breath. The male who had been seated on the throne stood and moved to the front of the dais.
The Unseelie King cut an imposing figure, standing tall and broad-shouldered with chiseled features and piercing eyes that swept over the room. Silence rippled outward from the path of his gaze. His silver-white hair fell well past his shoulders and framed a sharp, angular face and heavy brows. His skin, though not colorful like some, was pale, almost translucent. Even from a distance, it seemed to Aisling to radiate a cold aura.
“Tonight, as the dark embrace of winter looms, we gather this Nocturne in the name of the Low One. We stand united before Him as denizens of the night, and we find our strength in its depths. I come to you not as your king, but as His vessel and loyal servant of the shadows.” The king’s voice, deep and velvet-smooth, rang out clearly as he delivered his speech to a rapt audience. “But tonight, let us pay homage to the power of the shadows that resides within each one of us, a force both violent and beautiful. Let this revelry be a celebration of our resilience, for we have weathered the trials and tribulations of the past.
“The battles ahead loom large and fraught with peril. The Seelie Court seeks to encroach upon our dominions, their insipid light a threat to the delicate balance of our existence. But fear not, for we are the children of darkness, and the shadows are our sanctuary.” He paused to let his words sink in. Aisling, too, was gripped by his address. She couldn’t tear her eyes from his brooding stare, the cool countenance with which he held himself.
“This winter comes as a harbinger of change—a time to hone our prowess, to sharpen our blades, and to nurture the seeds of cunning and strategy within us all. Our actions will echo through the ages, and our legacy will endure. Let His reign be eternal.”
“Let His reign be eternal,” echoed the revelers solemnly.
Then the music began again, and the crowd resumed their dance. The Unseelie King sank back into his throne, out of view.
“Bit dramatic, isn’t he?” Rodney was looking sideways at Aisling with a smirk that reminded her why they were there in the first place.
She scoffed into her goblet. “You think?”
She had her plan, and she’d seen her target. All she needed to do now was execute.