Chapter Two
When Shea returned from her tournament a few days later, she found downtown Wayfolk transformed.
Black-and-white checkered flags hung from the streetlamps.
The lone bar in town had put up flyers for tournament viewing parties and chess-themed cocktail specials.
Ads with chess slogans leered out at her from the shop windows.
(The most ominous and inexplicable of them—a poster of a man flashing a luxury watch at the camera—read simply YOUR MOVE.) Then, of course, there was the enormous banner with her unsmiling face on it, stretched across the main street.
WELCOME TO WAYFOLK, it proclaimed. HOME OF THE AMERICAN CHALLENGER, SHEA FURY.
She stood frowning up at it, only half conscious of the rain pelting her. She didn’t have an umbrella or a car, and she hadn’t checked the weather forecast before leaving the house. She’d been too busy reviewing a sharp, offbeat line of the Ruy López.
“Excuse me. Are you Shea Fury?”
Shea startled. A girl no older than twelve had sidled up to her. “Yeah?”
Her face lit up. “I thought so! Will you sign…” She paused to open her bag and rummage through it. Eventually, she produced a ballpoint pen and a crumpled receipt. “… this?”
Bewildered, Shea agreed. The ink smeared as she finished her signature.
From the corner of her eye, she could see a few curious heads turning in their direction.
For years, she’d existed unbothered in this nowhere town.
The average person couldn’t name a single chess grandmaster, which was how Shea preferred it.
Clearly, the news of Midir’s tournament had broken.
“Good luck in the tournament!” The girl beamed at her. “We’re all rooting for you. It’ll be sweet when you beat them at their own game.”
“Thanks.”
Shea watched the girl scurry back to her parents with a strange sense of unreality settling over her. No one had cared about her chess career before. To see their enthusiasm now … It made her feel almost nauseated.
Beat them at their own game.
Shea wasn’t the only one in Wayfolk who wanted revenge against the fae.
When Aideen was born, everyone in town had immediately known her for what she was.
With each passing year, they all waited with bated breath to see what sort of monster she’d become.
They got their answer soon enough, when she turned thirteen and a boy had quite literally wasted away from unrequited love.
Most of them believed Aideen had enchanted him on purpose.
Shea had a feeling the town’s support would wane if they knew what she intended to do now.
Shea hurried to her destination: Maud’s Diner, where her mother had invited her to brunch.
She kept her head down as she slid into her usual spot in the corner booth.
One of the waiters dropped off a cup of coffee for her.
Then, a second, as the minutes crawled by.
Somehow, Shea had forgotten that in her mother’s language, “I’m parking” translated to “I just left my house.”
Maud’s, at least, was a charming enough place to kill time.
It was an old-school Wayfolk establishment: laminated menus, vinyl seats, family photos cluttered on the wall, the same people filling the same tables every week.
The word “mascarpone” in the description of their French toast had been misspelled for as long as she’d been alive.
Someone turned up the volume on the television mounted above the bar, until the news drowned out the dull roar of chatter. Shea couldn’t make out what the newscasters were saying, but it didn’t take a brilliant mind to piece it together. A headline scrolled along the bottom of the screen.
THE IRON VEIL LIFTS AGAIN
Sometime in the last few decades, the media had begun calling the intangible barrier between the mortal and faerie realms the Iron Veil, a riff on the Cold War–era metaphor.
It suited their isolationist faerie neighbors well enough.
Once, the mortal and faerie worlds had coexisted, but the evils of modernity had driven the fae away.
As far as Shea was concerned, their departure was no great loss.
The screen shifted from the exuberant hosts to a grid of the competitors’ headshots.
She’d already seen the list of invitees.
Chess social media had been abuzz with the news over the past few days, and her coach had already begun compiling dossiers on Shea’s biggest threats.
She just hadn’t expected the craze to bleed past the borders of the chess community and into the mainstream.
The last time there had been national media coverage of chess was the World Championship in 1972, when the American challenger, Bobby Fischer, played against the Soviet champion, Boris Spassky.
As it had been then, the excitement was less about chess and more about what it represented.
A tournament like this was a stage on which each realm could flex its intellectual and cultural superiority.
Beyond that, it presented a novelty. The last time mortals had been admitted to the Otherworld was for a ballet performance two years ago.
One of the dancers never came back. By choice or by force, no one knew. Tensions had run high ever since.
“Shea. Hi.”
She startled at the sound of her mother’s voice.
Kara dropped into the seat across from her, glamorous and frazzled in a khaki green raincoat.
In the booth beside her, she placed an umbrella; on the table, a paper coffee cup with a marigold taped to the side.
Well, that explained the lateness. She’d gone to another coffee shop first. It took some effort, but Shea refrained from comment. She only said, “Hey.”
“Have you been here long?”
Shea glanced at her phone. “Like thirty minutes.”
“No trouble getting here?”
“Nope.”
“Well, lucky you.” Kara shrugged off her coat, then peered into the rain-streaked window to fuss with her hair.
Beyond her reflection, Wayfolk was a watercolor smear of gray and orange: the dull glow of the streetlamp and headlights bleeding into the fog, the autumn-bright leaves dashed against wet concrete.
“I would’ve been on time—you know how much I hate being late—but you wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve had. ”
“Did something happen?”
This, clearly, was the question Kara had been waiting for. She smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “The press seems to be under the impression that you still live at my house.”
Shea frowned. “Oh.”
“Yes. Oh,” Kara replied, her irritation evident now. “I had to beat them back as I walked out the door. They all wanted to speak to Wayfolk’s chess whiz. I told them to fuck off. The nerve of them, really. It’s an invasion of privacy. Hasn’t our family given them enough already?”
Before Shea was born, her mother was something of a local celebrity.
The reporters liked to cast her as either a joke or a cautionary tale, depending on their mood.
Kara had been the darling of Wayfolk: a Catholic schoolgirl with an impressive résumé and college dreams. Then, she’d gotten pregnant at sixteen.
Only, she insisted that she was a virgin.
Shea had found some of the interviews online.
Her mother spoke with the air of a saint, all dignified suffering and quiet conviction.
She wore modest blue dresses and pearls.
She chose every word carefully. But Shea could see the overwhelm and terror behind the poised facade.
Kara had been kicked off the varsity lacrosse team.
Her friends pulled away. Her perfect grades plummeted.
Despite her best efforts, Wayfolk turned against her.
The press had complicated things, sure. But as far as Shea was concerned, Kara’s anger was misplaced. It was the fae who had changed the course of Kara’s life—and no one would ever know why or how.
“Sorry,” Shea said. She did mean it. “There’s a big tournament coming up. I didn’t realize people would care so much.”
“Maybe it’s for the best they missed you.” Kara eyed her. “You look exhausted. And you’re soaked.”
“Thanks,” Shea said dryly. “I don’t have an umbrella. And I was up late studying.”
“You’re in school again?”
“No. I was looking at the Rossolimo line of the Sicilian.”
“Oh. You meant chess.” Kara had packed an astonishing amount of condescension into only three words. Fortunately, the waiter chose the exact right moment to appear beside their table.
“Well,” he said, “if it isn’t my favorite sisters.”
He winked, and Kara smiled beatifically.
Shea did her best not to roll her eyes. The joke got a little old after the thousandth time—not just from him, but from everyone.
Her mother was forty, but she hardly looked it.
Everything about her—from the cut of her jeans to the style of her makeup to the way she parted her hair—was tailored to a young fashion influencer’s exacting specifications.
To be fair, the two of them looked more like sisters than Shea and Aideen ever had.
Looking at her mother was like staring into a funhouse mirror, one that presented her an image of her older, more feminine self.
They had the same green eyes, the same aquiline nose, the same dirty-blond hair.
Once they put in their order, Kara said, “So. What’s new?”
The question made dread rise up within her.
Since Shea moved out last year, things had improved between them.
Still, Shea couldn’t let down her guard.
It could be genuine interest, or it could be the beginning of one of Kara’s games.
Shea had gotten quite good at them over the years.
The rules were simple. Kara would try to find something to hurt you, and you had to hide it from her.
Anything could and would be used against you: hopes, dreams, an insecurity, an achievement, something you said—or didn’t …