Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
He chittered, the sound giving goosebumps to my goosebumps, and pointed with a long, bony finger. In the distance, lights danced, and voices rose and fell. I began wading through the grass. Thistle, the show off, glided through it smoothly, while I was wishing I had a lawnmower or a sharp machete.
Halfway to the fete, someone came up beside me.
“Parker,” he breathed, his voice a brook tumbling over rocks. He looked like he was ten, an impish nose rounding out a child’s face. Blue patterns had been painted on his bronze skin and he wore golden rings in his pointed ears. “Parker, you’re back.”
“Hey, kid. You grew up.”
“Only a little bit.” Larch wrinkled his nose. “Not as much as you. You got old.”
“I’m not that old,” I said. “You’d think I was a hundred.”
“Are you?” He danced up on his tiptoes, and poked my nose.
“Get out of here.” I paused in my slog through the grass to swat at his finger. “Go bug someone else.”
“I’m fighting a buck,” he said. I watched as he leapt up, the bottoms of his bare feet brushing the top of the grass. The kid walked on the stalks as though he was flying, and I forced my way through.
“You aren’t.” I made a face. “Why?”
“Why do we do anything?” His eyes flashed white, matching the heavy moon. He looked to Thistle and then lowered his voice to a whisper. “To curry favor with her.”
Exhaling, I said, “Well, good luck.”
“You, too.” He leapt up and danced across the grass back towards the lights. Everywhere his feet landed, colors exploded, a rainbow of light left in his wake. I wasn’t even sure how he was doing it. What was he manipulating? The light? The air?
Shaking off the questions, I focused on my own feet, following Thistle.
By the time I made it to the fete, my shirt was clinging to my back and I’d been swatting away some very persistent bugs.
I knew I must have looked like a crazy person, sweating and flailing my arms. The smirk Thistle was wearing made me think that must be the point.
I jerked my chin at him where he was waiting for me and was rewarded with a slight flinch.
Then he narrowed his eyes and chittered again.
Ignoring the sound, I looked around. It was more beautiful than I remembered. Globes of light were suspended mid-air, and a thousand dancing fireflies flittered about.
The air was thick with the scent of ripe peaches and nectarines, a perfume blanketing the gathering.
They had planted long poles in the ground, and morning glory vines crawled up them and then across wires or magic to build a living canopy with glowing flowers.
The tables were laden with food, an entire summer’s harvest on display.
A quartet sat in a corner of the clearing playing music, and there was a group of fae dancing together, a complicated pattern of switching partners and clasping hands and spinning. The music paused before the next song, and I saw her.
The fae here matched the beauty of their surroundings. Golden skin kissed with luminescent accents, hair in every shade of the rainbow, eyes dark and light. For all the features marking them as different—the teeth, the uncanny movements—they were still beautiful by any standards.
No one more so than the Summer Queen. She had a narrow nose, high cheekbones, and cupid’s bow lips so perfect they would bring even the god of desire himself to his knees.
Her hair glinted like the gilded page of an illuminated manuscript and had been braided around the heavy crown on her head.
Shards of gemstones and gold were set together, and it glinted in the firefly-light, drawing the eye.
Her neck seemed to grow longer as it bore the weight.
The Summer Queen’s eyes were the color of a perfect summer’s sky, pure blue, and when they cut to mine, all I could feel was fury. I shoved down the emotion, unwilling to give her any sign of what she drew out in me.
She smiled, and the expression turned every head at the fete.
“Parker of No Court.” Her voice was airy and filled with power. “Welcome.”
“I accept your welcome.” I paced closer.
“You do not address me as ‘Your Majesty’?” She raised one perfect eyebrow, and her smile grew broader, as though she knew how much even being here was torture.
“Should I?” I snapped. “After all, I knew you before you wore that crown.”
She made a soft humming sound. “As do many who address me by my title.”
I could see where this was going to go. I would continue to refuse her and she would use the debt to force me.
Showing my teeth, I looked her straight in the eye. “Your Majesty.”
With a slow nod, she acknowledged the greeting.
“I thought you’d have more emissaries, given the season.
” The fae in attendance looked to all be Summer Court, their allegiance shown by the golds and blues they wore rather than any physical difference.
When appearance could be changed with a glamour, making sure you were flying the colors was key to showing loyalty.
“The other Courts will join us tomorrow. Even the Windrose will grace us this year,” she said, an amused twist on her lips. “It is not yet the solstice, Parker.”
“So you have one more day until you have to worry about a knife in the back.” I wondered what it meant that the Windrose, the neutral arbiter of justice between the courts, was attending this year.
The curl of her lip dropped, and she narrowed her eyes. Looking to the lady-in-waiting standing beside her, she said, “How kind. Parker still worries for me.”
She turned those blue eyes back to me. “I had thought your affection grown sour. I am glad you proved me wrong. Have faith I will win any challenges to my throne.”
I nodded and dug fingernails into my palm to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Thistle said you wanted to see me.”
“I require you to find someone.” She lifted her hand and projected the image of a young woman above it by magic.
Her skin was a dark, sandy brown, and her narrow braids were pulled into a complicated twist hanging over her shoulder.
I felt a heaviness form in my stomach. The kid looked like exactly the sort who would entice the Summer Queen.
I was about to see a kid taken the way I was seven years ago.
“She lives in the human world.” The Summer Queen’s eyes never left the girl. “I will have you deliver her before the summer solstice.”
“I’m not bringing you your next victim,” I said, shaking my head.
The Queen leaned forward, her crown reflecting the light back and forth in the gemstones until it looked like flames. Her eyes crinkled in the corners as she hissed, “Do not presume my intentions.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I wouldn’t do it, but a pain in my chest stopped me from speaking. My knees trembled, and I kept my feet only by tensing every muscle.
“You will find the girl and you will deliver her to me.” The Queen gestured to me. Two fae, larger than the others and dressed in plain blue tunics, came up from behind me, their hands grabbing my elbows and shoulders. It only took slight pressure from them to get me to my knees.
My chest felt as though the Queen had reached in and wrapped her fist around my heart, ripping it out through my rib cage. I could feel the stutter in my heartbeat, and my breath came short.
“The debt you owe me is not as fickle as you are,” the Queen said. “Yield.”
I was going to die because she was going to kill me. And I’d given her the power to do so.
She had saved my life and freed me from the Far Realm with her coup against the old Queen. For that, there was an obligation.
A fae might talk the trees into bending to the ground, or a sunset into washing the sky with more colors, but the only way a fae could cast on humans or other fae was through obligation.
In fairy tales, the gifts the fae brought were always tainted.
Rumpelstiltskin wanted a child for his gift.
The wicked fairy’s naming gift was death for Sleeping Beauty.
The Summer Queen had gifted me my life, and until I had repaid that debt, I owed her. She was calling me on it, and reminding me until we were square, she could just as easily take my life back.
I gasped out the words she wanted to hear. “I’ll find her.”
Immediately the pressure eased. I collapsed to my hands, panting, and hated her with every fiber of my being.
“Good.” The Queen gestured, and the same fae that had forced me to my knees now helped me to my feet.
I stumbled, but stayed upright when they released me. The music seemed suddenly loud; the party had continued while the Queen had shown me how easy I would be to murder.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Acacia.” The Queen raised her chin and regarded the moon. “You have until the solstice to find her.”
A week. “That’s not a lot of time. If she’s managing to hide from you, then I’ll have to work to get her.”
“I want her by the solstice.” The Queen lifted an eyebrow, and she didn’t even need to twist my insides to remind me again. She knew she had me beat.
“I accept your commission.” The words were broken glass in my throat. I would swallow them down and they would slice my insides to shreds.
“We thank you for your service,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay and enjoy the fete.”
Shaking my head, I jerked my thumb in the direction of the door Thistle had opened to bring me here. “I’ll get to work on the job.”
“Stay,” she ordered. “We have entertainment.”
At her words, the lights lowered and everyone applauded, a delicate sound that grew when Larch pranced into the circle the dancers had cleared.
His feet still left rainbows in their wake.
The paint on his body was glowing. He’d taken off his shirt, but left on his pants.
In the darkness, the design revealed itself like a tiger’s stripes.
Despite his slender, pre-pubescent body, he looked ready to hunt.
A scream sounded, and it was so inhuman, so confused, it sent a shiver up my spine. The pounding of hooves grew louder, and a buck galloped into the circle. It pulled up short, a fluorescent snake twisting in front of it.
The buck was a creature made of nightmares.
It stood easily eight feet tall. Heavy antlers curved upwards, ending in sharp points, stained brown from blood.
Its eyes glowed red, and then a second pair blinked open on the front of its face, creating a disconcerting image that sat wrong in my stomach.
Sharp fangs were on display as it reared, screaming again, ready to stamp the snake to death with its heavy hooves. This animal could kill someone.
In the presence of the buck, Larch looked even smaller, a child playing with something beyond his ken.
As the buck pounded its hooves down on the snake, the serpent disappeared, a glamour leaving the animal retreating a few steps.
With a soft hushing noise, Larch waved his hand and a faint green line colored the outside of the circle.
Pulling out a flute, Larch began to play, dancing around the buck.
Confused, the animal stilled, its muscles trembling. After a moment, it swayed, its front legs bending as though it was bowing to the Summer Queen. A round of applause rippled through the crowd again, and the Queen smiled, her eyes as sharp as knives.
Larch played a complicated tune, a snake charmer in the darkness. He cast shadows, small glamours appearing just long enough to send the buck panicking and leaping across the circle. It was beautiful and horrible at the same time, like so much of what the fae could do.
None of Larch’s glamours could be considered a rough draft. Not a single one would be broken by a drunk coming home with more hair of the dog. Larch was doing what I could do if I took the time to practice any of the things I’d learned at the hands of the fae.
Finally, after the buck was panting and exhausted, boxed in by nightmares Larch painted in time to his music, Larch drew out a long, high note.
He used the vibration like a blade, and it sliced cleanly through the buck’s neck.
The animal collapsed forward, its heavy antlers digging into the soft soil.
It had never even come close to crossing the pale green boundary Larch had painted.
As the lights came back up, the crowd turned to observe the Summer Queen, silent as they waited to see her verdict. As the pause turned from moments to seconds, to almost a minute, Larch’s expression grew tense, his smile more teeth than joy.
The Queen nodded. “Very good, Larch. You’re a credit to your teachers.”
The applause was thunderous, a wave Larch rode as the music started up again and two of the Queen’s guards dragged away the cooling corpse.
I watched it go and realized, grotesquely, I was like the buck.
Trapped by the fae, forced to do what they wanted until I got killed for her entertainment.
My only chance was to survive long enough that we were even.
When I’d paid my debt, she was going to find out it wasn’t just the other courts she needed to watch out for, because I was going to come for her.
Jerking my thumb back towards the field, I said, “I need a ride. Is Thistle taking me back, or should I call an Uber?”
From his place next to the throne, Thistle hissed, his face narrowing even more. He looked more like a snake than a man, but at a chilly glance from the Queen, he settled back down with a clenched jaw.
Stalking towards me, he stood beside me.
“Work quickly, Parker of No Court,” he murmured. “Or you will find the anger of our Queen is no laughing matter.”
Using two fingers, he drew a door, the invisible lines glowing like sunlight, making the fae around us wince at the sudden brightness. With a flourish, he threw open the portal and bowed me through it.
I stepped through, the target on my back more pronounced than ever. Find the girl. Easy, right? When were things ever easy?
The door closed behind me, and I was so blinded by the light it took me a moment to realize I wasn’t back at the park.
I wasn’t even on the same street. Thistle had dropped me on the opposite side of San Amaro, practically on the edge of town.
Hills covered in dry grass were on one side, an industrial park on the other, and overhead screamed the 101.
No bus stop and my phone was dead from the Far Realm. I started walking.