Chapter XV
The next day is an interesting one. Mariam spends a good bit of the morning on the phone with Leandra, inviting her to come over to meet Sable and let Mariam catch her up on the past weeks’ events.
Leandra is busy, but Mariam manages to talk her into it.
The winning strategy turns out to be the promise of snacks for her.
While they wait, Mariam prepares a small charcuterie board for the three of them to snack on with groceries she had delivered the previous night.
Various cheeses, fancy butter crackers, a couple deli meats, pickles, olives, baby carrots and celery sticks with a ranch dip, and some fruit.
She sets the tray on the coffee table, then grabs some cans of diet soda and flavored sparkling water to chill in the freezer for a few minutes.
She finds Sable pacing up and down the hallway, looking as nervous as a mouse in a cat tree. Mariam bites her lip and leans her hip against the wall. “Hey, my love. How are you holding up?”
“Ah, I’m scared as shit, Mariam.” Sable pauses in front of her, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your friend.”
“Aw, baby, you won’t.” Mariam closes the distance between them and stands on her tiptoes to kiss her cheek. “Just be yourself. That’s all I want. And Lea will take to you.”
“I hope so. She’s one of your closest friends, from what I gather.” Sable groans. “I just wish she wasn’t afraid of me.”
Mariam wishes she hadn’t even mentioned that bit to Sable.
Leandra doesn’t seem afraid of Sable, not really, but she did warn Mariam that Faerals were dangerous back when Sable was just an unknown unconscious woman to her, which seems to have led Sable to the conclusion that Leandra will hate her.
“I know, my sweetheart. But I promise you, that’s not really how she feels.
And once the two of you meet, I think you’ll both like each other a lot.
” Mariam smiles and brushes some of Sable’s hair away from her cheek.
“Just relax and take a deep breath, okay? We got through Caedren; we’ll get through this. ”
Sable lets out a deep breath through her mouth.
“Yeah. Yeah, we will.” She moves to sit on the plush chair by the coffee table.
Mariam has observed that it’s become her favorite seat in the house, so earlier this morning she moved it over by the couch so they could sit close to each other.
Sable notices the spread of food and looks over it curiously, but does not touch it. “What’s this?”
“It’s called a charcuterie board. Just kind of a mix of a bunch of tasty foods that you can eat with your hands and that don’t take much prep. It’s been very popular recently. You’re welcome to start eating; Lea should be here in, like, five minutes.”
Sable looks like she’s considering it. “I’ll… wait.”
“Suit yourself.” Mariam helps herself to a slice of Swiss and a cracker, and just as she is finishing it, she hears a knock on the door. “Okay, faster than I thought.”
She answers the door and there’s Leandra on her doorstep, dressed in a black sweatshirt and ripped jeans. Leandra hugs her tight, so tight that Mariam groans a little, but she returns it the best she can. “Oh, sugar, it is so good to see you! I was worried sick!”
“I’m sorry, Lea, I wanted to keep in touch, but we weren’t supposed to contact anyone from the safehouses.” Finally, Leandra lets her go and Mariam steps back to wave her inside. “C’mon in.”
“Safehouses? Plural?” Leandra struts inside, then pauses as she spots Sable in the chair, who rises immediately, looking like she’s not sure what to do with herself. “And you must be Sable. Am I right?”
“That’s me.” Sable slowly comes forward, offering her hand. Leandra hesitates a moment, but then, to Mariam’s surprise, pulls her in for a hug. Sable looks even more surprised herself, if not confused, and it takes her a second to return the hug.
“Thank you for keeping my Mari here safe.” Leandra releases Sable, who still looks perplexed but nods and retakes her place in the chair.
Mariam grabs drinks from the freezer, though they aren’t as cold as she’d have liked.
Leandra pointedly takes a seat on the far end of the couch, giving Mariam the seat next to Sable.
“So, sugars, tell me all of what went on. I heard a bit through the grapevine already, ‘cause I got mighty concerned when I made a house call a couple a’ weeks ago and the place was surrounded by Reapers, but they didn’t give me any straight answers other than tellin’ me y’all were safe. ”
“Well,” Mariam begins as she takes her seat, “you remember when I came to you to ask for help treating Sable’s wounds, right?”
“Of course,” she replies, chewing on a stick of pickle. She looks over to Sable apologetically. “I guess the advice I gave you at the time turned out to be pretty shit, huh.”
Sable shakes her head. “No, you were right not to trust me before you knew me. I was an unknown, which is naturally scary for anyone.”
“I can think of one exception to that ‘anyone,’” Leandra points out with a chuckle, gently pushing Mariam’s leg.
“What can I say? I was willing to take that risk to help someone in need.” Mariam smiles softly at Sable. “And am I ever glad I did.”
“Okay, lovebird. What happened next?”
“After we last spoke, I came home to Sable awake,” Mariam says. “We spent a few days with no common language, but then one night… The Champion appeared on my doorstep to fix that problem.” Mariam clears her throat. “She said to say ‘hello,’ by the way.”
Leandra snorts. “I bet she did. She has a habit of darkening doorsteps when shit is on the fan an’ you don’t even know it. But what was the proverbial shit in this case?”
Mariam raises an eyebrow at how casually Leandra takes the news of the leader of the Reapers getting involved in this situation, but she continues her story.
“There was a Fae named Caedren who hunts other Fae. He was after Sable the moment she crossed over, and he wanted me dead too for helping her.” Mariam drums her hands on her legs.
“I remember Will, a Reaper who died helping us, mentioned he was a banished High Lord, and I guess he had some kind of vendetta against his own kind because of that. But I never learned any other details.”
Sable lets out a low whistle. “Spirits be damned. I never heard that part. You’re sure he said Caedren was a banished High Lord?”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t forget, because it was pretty much the last thing he said before he got his head chopped off,” Mariam replies with a shudder. Leandra’s eyebrows go up at that. “Why? Does that mean something to you?”
“High Lords don’t get banished, hardly ever,” says Sable, looking distant.
“It’s never happened in my lifetime, and I’m only aware of one time it’s happened even in my father’s lifetime.
The last High Lord who got banished was an advocate for Faerals.
Most High Fae see us as dangerous animals, but he saw us as people.
He wanted us to be part of Fae society again.
He made sure my father and other Faerals of his generation got an education, which is the only reason I know how to read.
But that made him some enemies. One night he was hosting a dinner for the upper crust of the Courts, and a pack of jackal Faerals raided the place and killed a ton of people, mostly women.
The peace he was trying to broker completely fell apart and he was banished for it even though it later came out that it was Summer Court bastards who actually funded the attack.
Because of course it was. They call that night the Massacre of the High Ladies. ”
“Hoof, hun, that’s a fucked up story,” Leandra says. “And you’re saying that High Lord was this Caedren guy?”
“In the Fae realm, it’s taboo to speak the name of someone who’s been banished,” Sable replies, looking sick to her stomach, “so I never knew his name, but yes, it must have been Caedren. My father spoke so highly of that man, and to think I killed him…”
“Don’t you start feeling bad about what you done, Sable,” Leandra cautions. “By the time you killed him, he obviously wasn’t that same man no mo’.”
Sable frowns and falls silent, sinking into her chair.
“Well, anyway, sounds like we know what made him go crazy enough to start hunting his own kind,” Leandra says with a sigh as she opens a diet cola. “If I was that dude, I’d have been a mite bit pissed.”
Mariam shakes her head in a mix of disbelief and disgust. “Everything I hear about the Fae realm just makes me so glad you’re not living there anymore, Sable.”
“Amen, sister,” says Leandra.
“Amen,” Sable says too, looking like she doesn’t really know what the word means but wants to be included.
From there, Mariam runs through the rest of the story: their time at the first safehouse, Caedren’s first attack, Will’s death, her splintering, the second safehouse, and the way it ended.
Leandra keeps cool and responds with her typical sass through most of the story, but she gets quiet and seems genuinely unsettled when she hears about Caedren mind controlling a Reaper, and only looks like herself again when Mariam finishes narrating how Sable killed him.
“Lord above, hun. Y’all have had a rough road.” Leandra takes another sip of her cola. “What’s the plan now?”
“I don’t know!” says Mariam cheerfully, letting the whole morbid story roll off her shoulders with a shrug. “Other than be happy together. Mom’s gonna wanna meet her soon, I guess, and so is my sis.”
Sable makes a choked sound. “You want me to meet your family?”
Leandra gives a sudden, loud bark of a laugh. “Oh, Sable, don’t worry. I bite more’n her momma and sister. They’re real sweethearts. They are gonna love you.”
Sable runs a hand through her hair. “I hope so.”
“Don’t sweat it.” A sparkle comes to Leandra’s eye as she pats Mariam’s leg. “Well, you two have quite a tale between you. But do I ever have some tales for you…”