Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
Davien follows behind Hol and Felda but pauses when he notices that I’m not moving. “Are you coming?”
I fold my arms and walk up to him. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t speak for me.”
“Would you have refused?”
“I don’t know.” These fae have done very little to endear themselves to me. I’m not sure if I want to be sitting at their table and breaking bread with them.
He chuckles and shakes his head. Under his breath he says, “You really are human.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” We start walking.
“If you declined, you would not only lose an opportunity to make Hol and Felda allies by sitting at their table but also offend them as they tried to make amends.” Davien laughs.
“You don’t understand anything about how words can be twisted and used against you.
Or about deals, rituals, and the laws of hospitality. ”
“Don’t mock me.” I glare up at him. Yet, as if he’s in a competition with himself to see how much he can frustrate me, he smirks. His green eyes sparkle in the sunlight.
“I’m not mocking you; I think it’s charming that you’ve lived such a simple life.”
“I wouldn’t say my life was ‘simple.’ But even if you’re right, simple doesn’t mean good.” I pull my eyes away from him and instead stare at the joining on a roof.
“How did you know that song?” he asks, seemingly out of nowhere. I wonder if he can tell I’m uncomfortable and so is trying to move on to something more harmless.
I glance back up at him. Can he tell I’m uncomfortable?
“Wait, don’t tell me—it’s yet another one of the old songs you’ve heard around town?”
“Yes,” I lie, and swallow to try to remove the taste of metal from my mouth.
It seems like the more I lie around him, the harder lying becomes and the longer that metallic taste lingers at the back of my throat.
Almost all the songs I know are from my mother and the music she left behind with her lyre.
“It really is incredible how much of the fae is left in that world…” He trails off, eyes filled with longing as he stares ahead.
Davien is a good head taller than most people, so he can see down the entire street without issue.
But I don’t think he’s looking at anything in particular.
I wonder what he’s trying to see, what place… or time.
“It really used to all be one world?” I look around.
“Shaye told me the history of Midscape and the Natural World and I guess I have to believe it’s true, seeing this place, seeing you.
” My gaze snags on intricate leaded-glass window that adorns the second floor of a building we pass.
“Glass art—did it come from the fae as well?”
“It did.” Davien smiles. “The fae are an offshoot of the dryads. They were the old sentinels of the forest, there long before the magic wars were even a whisper on people’s lips.
Unlike the fae—who were a natural evolution of time and magic—the dryads made the humans with their own hands.
Initially, the fae looked after the early humans, teaching them how to use their magic to work with nature. ”
“Humans had magic?” I try to imagine such a world and fail.
“Long ago, before the Fade. Perhaps that’s why you are able to be a vessel for the ancient kings’ magic.”
I curl up and relax my fingers trying to see if I can feel the magic that even Vena said she could sense in me. But I feel absolutely nothing. I know the magic is real, I’ve seen it. It poured from me in the woods that night. Yet I can’t summon it even if I try.
We arrive at a stone house with a clay roof.
Hol and Felda lead us inside, down the hall, and to a kitchen that takes up the back half of the house.
Davien and I are seated at a table as Felda and Hol bustle about their kitchen.
I notice pegs by the back door; a messenger bag very similar to Raph’s hangs on one.
“Please don’t punish him.” The soft words slip from my lips unintended as Felda sets down a board with a rustic sourdough loaf and knife.
“What?” She blinks and tilts her head at me.
“Raph. Please don’t punish him when he returns home. I wouldn’t want him to be hurt because of me.”
“Hurt?” She shakes her head and seems aghast at what I am suggesting. Her brows furrow slightly, as though my concern has offended her. “We would never hurt our son.”
“But in the tavern…you seemed so upset.”
“I was upset.” Felda puts her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know how I managed to have the most precocious child in all of Dreamsong, but I guess that is my honor and burden to bear.
” She grins as though some part of her really does think it is an honor to be associated with Raph’s antics.
“But he’s been appropriately reprimanded.
As long as he doesn’t step out of line again today—which is a challenge sometimes for that boy—there will be no more words on the incident when he gets home. ”
“Oh, good.” I stare at the bread that Felda begins to cut.
Is it really that simple? I’ve never seen a child so easily forgiven when he erred.
Helen and Laura never made a mistake, and whenever I did, I suffered the repercussions for days.
When I sense the weight of another pair of eyes on me, my gaze is drawn across the table to Davien.
He watches me with a slightly narrowed eyes, as if he’s inspecting or studying me.
“Please help yourself to our bread and wine,” Hol says ceremoniously as he pours mead into each of our cups.
I welcome the excuse to look away from Davien. His stare is just too probing. I worry about what he would see if I met his eyes for too long. I never expected to miss the blindfold, but at the moment, I do.
“How are you finding Dreamsong?” Felda asks.
I welcome the change in topic with a smile. “It’s a truly magnificent place. The fae are some of the best craftspeople I’ve ever seen.”
“We have a good many who possess old rituals on tradesmanship, long passed down in their families and courts.”
“When you say rituals, is it the same as what I saw in the woods that night?” I look at Davien.
“That was a ritual, yes, but so was what Giles did when we made camp in the Bleeding Woods,” he says.
I take a bite out of a hunk of bread and consider everything I’ve learned about fae and their magic. The bread is tangy and has the right amount of chewiness to complement the crisp crust. “So a ritual can be anything? And it can accomplish anything?”
“There are some limitations,” Hol says. “For example, we can’t bring back the dead or change someone’s heart.”
“So as you can see, not many limitations.” Davien smirks.
“How is a ritual made?” I think of what Vena said about finding a way to get the magic from me. Is she going to make a ritual herself?
“There are a few who are in tune enough with their magic and the inherent laws of our world to invent new rituals. But most rituals are passed down orally or in written tomes kept within families and courts,” Hol explains.
“It’s why the nearly complete eradication of the Aviness family crippled the fae and has made us weak for centuries.
The glass crown had a ritual performed on it long ago that still stands and demands loyalty from all fae, but it can be worn only by the true heir of Aviness.
As long as an Aviness heir is alive, it will heed no other master.
And it requires the power of the lost kings to achieve its full potential.
” Davien glares out a window, casting his anger toward someone or something far beyond the table.
“So fae can’t perform magic with their thoughts?” I think about my actions in the woods, how the magic came to me unbidden, heeding only my subconscious need to survive.
“There are some exceptions, like summoning wings or claws,” Hol says. “Or our glamour.”
“But otherwise, no,” Felda adds. “However, there are some rituals that give us varying control over power for a certain length of time—like what’s on the glass crown. What we can do during that time and how long it lasts all depends on the ritual.”
“You saw one such example in the woods.” Davien brings his attention back to the table and rests his eyes on me.
“The way that Butcher moved is achieved through a closely guarded ritual, passed down in their ranks; they cast it on the capes they wear. I’ve heard it called shadow-stepping, the way they move from darkness to darkness.
It makes them particularly deadly at night.
But the magic of the ritual expires quickly.
They have only so much movement they can perform in that manner before the charged magic is exhausted. ”
I’m beginning to frame fae magic in terms I can understand, that I’m familiar with.
I think of when I repaired the plaster on the walls of our manor.
The “ritual” part would be the act of combining the ingredients and mixing them in a bucket.
I suppose the bucket—the vessel for the magic—is the fae performing the ritual, though it sounds like the vessel can also be a thing, like the glass crown or the Butchers’ capes.
Then the fae use the magic—the plaster—until it runs out or becomes useless. Essentially, until the plaster dries.
With this framework in mind, I say with mild confidence, “I think I understand.”
“Really?” Davien arches his eyebrows; he seems impressed. I give him a sly smile.
“I think so. Here, let me see if I have it right…” I explain my analogy to them. “That’s about it?”
Hol leans back in his chair and chuckles. “No wonder we could teach ancient humans. For a people who were never known for their magic, there’re definitely traces of understanding there.”