A Spell for Luck and Light
Sometimes we turn our magic to blessings for others, those we hold most dear.
There will likely come a time when you wish to shield someone and keep them safe.
To attract all manner of bright and beautiful things.
In truth, I cast this spell for Rain and Fen when their daughter was born.
Soon after, they discovered your true nature, and then you came to me, precious gem.
Goodness cast in a wide net comes back to us sevenfold, you see.
I’ll write out the working I use to send fortune and fair winds to those I adore. Strongest cast at the height of light.
You’ll need:
A piece of sharp green jade
One white beeswax candle
A large bay leaf
A golden censer
Take up the jade like a pen, the leaf like paper, and etch your wish for protection or luck or blessings, whatever wonderful boon you wish to bestow on your loved one.
Craft it carefully and be specific. Leave no room for misunderstandings.
Once I wrote that someone I cared for should never stop laughing.
You can imagine how that was twisted, most unpleasant indeed.
Even with the best of intentions, there will always be a spark of mischief in our magic, a yearning toward trickster trades and leading folks astray.
Once the message is complete and incorruptible, light the candle with the magic spark I mentioned.
Burn the bay leaf in the censer while visualizing the joyous outcome of your spell.
Mind, the more distracted you are, the more this can go wrong, so don’t risk this working when your mind’s restless.
Blessings will keep, but curses run you ragged trying to catch them.
Finally, lift the censer and gift the wishes to the wind to unleash the full effect.
If the result is good, you’ll hear a sound like tinkling bells, and if something’s gone wrong, a discordant tone along with a deepening chill.
Courtiers have made you feel unwelcome, as if you cause trouble by being different.
I wish I knew more about your heritage, but whatever people say, you’re no demon out there devouring souls.
Things go wrong for me all the time. Don’t blame yourself if you don’t master a spell on the first try. Your best is good enough.
Thea
I have no words.
In my time on the fringes of the Winter Court, I have been passed over, punished, penalized, and pushed around, but I’ve never been disregarded to this extent. I struggle to get the question out. “Does Da know?”
“He’s currently locked in a cell. His cursing was memorable to say the least. He’s lucky Lord Liskaal didn’t take his head.”
The initial burst of warmth freezes into a kernel of fear, and it burns in my heart with winter frost. Erdene doesn’t need to tell me that my dad will remain a hostage until I comply; I’ve dwelled at the edge of the ice for the entire span of my existence.
Slowly, I get to my feet, regarding the brownie with a faint feeling of betrayal, although she couldn’t have stopped this.
She could have warned me.
But she wore a mask of kindness instead, lulled me, who’s never known a mother’s softness or care, and made me waste precious time.
Though I don’t know the hour, I collect that I won’t be allowed to try to free Da.
The person Erdene spoke to earlier is most likely a guard, if Lord Liskaal operates true to type.
There is probably more than one posted outside the bath. I’m not known for my obedience.
“I see,” I say softly. “If you expect me to be meek, even for a moment, I must be allowed to confirm that he’s unharmed. In person.”
I expect Erdene to push back, but two sharp raps sound on the door, and she turns from me to answer it. The gown binds me, and my hair feels like an unbearable weight, exacerbated by the flounces and furbelows in my updo.
She speaks with them briefly, and a moment later, Erdene beckons. “They’re ready for you in the great hall, but you’ll take a detour on the way, my chick. Try not to fret. Things will work out as they’re meant to.” As the guards encircle me, she winks.
Does that mean—do the lesser fae have a plan?
Generally, I’m not the sort to wait around for a rescue, as proven by my pooka-liberation mission earlier.
But I don’t know what I can achieve when six armed fae march me with great determination toward my supposed wedding night.
Based on what Lady Valnevi said, I’m being used as a peace offering, though as always with the high fae, it can be a double-edged blade.
The Winter Court provides fresh blood to Summer while removing a thorn from their own side.
If I had a choice, I’d rather go to the Autumn Court, where they don’t seem to care about such machinations at all.
That said, Lady Mirralee holds her cards close to her chest, so perhaps she has an agenda she doesn’t reveal to outsiders.
Lord Sorren of House Summer loathes Lord Liskaal and would be delighted to gnaw at Winter’s borders, though he’s a tad too indolent to declare outright war without great provocation.
Instead, he pecks at Winter, keeping tensions at a simmer.
In fact, even the Springtide Court would be preferable, and allegedly, it’s governed by an eccentric, ancient fae who acts endlessly amused by everything.
According to widespread gossip, Pelleril declines the use of a title and tells everyone to call them Pell.
For a moment, I contemplate tearing off this dress and sneaking away from this mess.
But considering Da, locked up to keep me in line, love surges through me, deep and powerful and nigh overwhelming.
He’s always been there for me. I don’t have to think much; it’s not even a sacrifice, as long as he’s safe.
For Da, I’ll marry a boggart or a Dullahan or even a fachan, no questions asked.
If I had the focus and the supplies, I’d cast a luck spell for him here and now, but I have to trust that he’s unharmed.
I haven’t been paying attention, but we’re approaching the administrative side of the palace complex.
The serving quarters are behind, even farther from the center, and past there, the door to the antechamber leading to the prison.
Inside the holding area, a bored boggart picks his teeth with a stone knife.
His gray skin is marbled with darker veins, and his eyes are small and red.
He has large fur-tufted ears, a scaly, hairless tail, and a round, comfortable belly.
“I wasn’t told to expect visitors!” He frowns at the lot of us.
A guard replies, “She’ll speak with Mudge, so bring him out. We’re not sending her into the cells in such a pretty dress.”
I smile a bit. That’s an entirely fae response, a certain reverence for beauty that I appreciate, although I don’t always agree on the definitions.
The boggart grumbles as he passes into the deep with the control stone, and when he returns, Da follows behind him, whistling a song that I could identify in my sleep.
The mournful melody speaks to me, as it always does.
Da says “Tha Mi Sgìth” is about a fairy who fell for a mortal girl at first sight, but he never says more, just gets a soft and sorrowing look, faraway for a moment.
I scan him from head to toe. Olive-brown skin, hazel, if you will, though I seldom encounter that word applied to anything but nuts and eyes, a tousled mop of silver hair, sharp canines that protrude a bit, and a full underjaw.
He has pert ears and a weathered face, and he’s not quite as tall as I am now, shorter by a hand or so.
Da has the gentlest eyes of anyone I’ve ever known, sweet and calm like a forest pond, and twice as green.
“You came, my jewel?” He’s always called me that. I think Erdene’s changeable endearments started with him. “There was no need. I’m well enough as you can see.”
Indeed, he doesn’t appear to be injured, just a bit rumpled. “I had to be sure.”
“They’ve promised to let me go. After. But I’ll stay here if you need time to…fix matters. In your own way.” Though his words are vague, he’s giving me permission to run.
Leave him to Lord Liskaal’s uncertain mercies.
Ah, no. I could never.
Before the guards stop me, I take two steps and hug him fiercely, my true dad.
He smells of lichens—woody, and sharp, and slightly sweet—cedar, and a bit of brackish water, but not in a bad way.
“No. It’s all good. Wish you could be there, though.
Maybe for my next wedding?” I manage a lopsided grin as he laughs quietly.
“How many are you planning, then?”
I shrug and step back. “Who knows? I live by my gut most days.”
“Your gut’s golden. It’ll never steer you wrong.”
I angle my hands, shielding them from the guards, and check to see if the boggart is paying attention.
He’s slouched in his chair, perusing an illustrated book.
He might understand what I’m saying, if he looked over, as the wild fae have learned to speak silently when we’re blocked from mind singing.
But the jailor’s loyalties likely lie with the high fae, so I’d rather he didn’t catch us.
This entire area is shielded, so I can’t touch Mudge’s mind with mine.
Swiftly, I sign, I love you. Be careful.
Because his hands are bound and the guards are watching, Mudge only nods, his thickly lashed eyes watchful.
I turn to the guards. “Our deal has been honored. We can go.”
My attendants pick up the pace, making up for lost time, and we jog to the great hall, so I’m breathless when we reach the massive doors.
They bang open with a grandiose clack, and like everything else in the Winter Palace, they are white etched with silver, and rivers of light glance off the glaring skull-white of the floors and walls, making it difficult to focus.
Finally, my gaze settles on the crowd arranged in a semicircle before the thrones currently occupied by Lord Liskaal and Lady Valnevi.
It’s a little unnerving how much they resemble each other, but that’s by choice since the high fae can shift forms as I might change clothing.
I can only surmise that their ideas of beauty are thin, as narrow as what fits through the eye of a needle.
The oversize chairs should diminish them, but somehow they don’t; they appear to be carved out of actual ice, though I don’t think that’s the case, and within the semitranslucent crystal, there are flickers of faces with screaming mouths.
So. Unsettling.
Gradually, the whispers quiet, and there is no music to soften the tension.
On happier occasions, where the wedding isn’t so much of a criminal sentence, there would be musicians and acrobats and scintillating displays of fae magic, like birds shaped from pure light and wintry crystalline flowers that bloom from smooth stone columns.
“We are gathered here today to put aside old wounds and grudges and usher in a new era of peace,” Lord Liskaal intones.
The guards step to the side, and I proceed with measured steps toward the center of the hall. My would-be spouse should be arriving soon.
I search the crowd for any familiar faces, and I recognize Lady Almira.
She is dressed in a gown that resembles the one I refused, all diaphanous layers so fine, they could’ve been woven with spider silk.
When she moves, her skin shimmers, hints of ocean pearl mirrored in the tiny shells she wears instead of gems, a nod to her family’s undine connections.
I don’t recognize the lord beside her, but he is cloaked in white feathers, his suit a misty gray, the shoulders bedecked with crystalline thorns.
Shadows shift across their faces, and in the ebb and flow, their features are first austerely beautiful and then monstrously terrible with hints at feral natures covered by a deep, impermeable glamour.
It’s impossible to know a high fae’s true appearance unless you’ve grown intimate with them.
And I have no such relationships among the nobility.
Not even with those who have been recorded as my parents.
I’m not surprised Rain and Fen aren’t here. From what I know, they’ve been visiting their daughter in the mortal realm, bringing gifts and showering love. She’s their real child. I’m the changeling.
And while there are ways my birth family could contact me, so far they haven’t.
I don’t know if I want them to. They didn’t even notice that I had been taken.
Maybe I shouldn’t blame them, as the fae glamour the infant left behind to resemble the one taken, and as the magic fades, any lack of resemblance is attributed to a child’s natural changes.
Which leaves me in a strange state of in-between, belonging nowhere and sought only by the wild fae.
“Where is the delegation from the Summer Court?” Lady Valnevi asks.
A courier rushes into the room and flies like an arrow directly to her side, whispering with no small amount of agitation.
When you don’t fit in, you acquire the ability to read the room and determine the prudent course.
I don’t always act on that information, but I always possess it.
Based on body language, there’s been a complication.
That could be good for me, but not if it harms Da in any fashion.
Lady Valnevi clenches her jaw and speaks through her teeth. “Then find them. Who allowed them to wander our halls unescorted?”
“Yes, my lady. At once.”
“There will be a short delay,” Lord Liskaal says smoothly.
This may be what Erdene mentioned before, and I’ll pay tithe and tribute to the palace staff for the rest of my life if this is a distraction and they’re freeing Da. That’s the best I can hope for in this silly dress.
“In the meantime”—Lady Valnevi rises as she speaks, prowling toward me like a white serpent—“I would have you seal the marital agreement.”
“Seal?” I ask.
In answer, she produces a blade of pure ice—out of nowhere, or her body—and slices the tip of my finger.
Before I can agree or protest, my bloody fingerprint joins another on an ornate vellum scroll that I haven’t been allowed to read.
I lean closer, trying to skim some words, but Lady Valnevi draws back, as if she might be contaminated by my proximity.
“It is done,” she says.
Then the hall quakes with a subterranean shiver, and all the lights go out.
Beneath my feet, I feel the continued vibrations, as though an immense beast lumbers in our direction.
The palace brownies hastily kindle illumination, but foxfire?
It’s whimsical and unreliable, ghosting around the hall.
Something is making the lights very nervous.
I get only the barest glimpse before I’m hit from behind, not so much blackjacked as trampled.
I pitch forward, and a court lady kicks my temple with her dainty, sparkly shoes, and that’s the last thing I see for a while.