3
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With the fire-alarm still blaring overhead, Rory took a step towards the reception desk.
I poked at the air with my scalpel again. “Come any closer Rory and I will stab you. It might not hurt, but I know where your heart is and I’m pretty sure there’s a healthy amount of iron in this blade.”
For extra theatrics, I stabbed at the air a few more times.
“Someone has learned how to use her fangs,” Rory grinned, flashing his own two elongated canines at me. He was just as he had always been, charming and simply happy.
“Yeah, well,” I stuttered, my eyes whipping around the room to locate any better weapon. “I had to learn how to, didn’t I?”
There was a flash of hurt in his eyes as his brows pressed against one another.
“You killed one of my friends–”
“I didn’t mean to,” he cried out. I knew I could be naive, but seeing the sudden accumulation of moisture in Rory’s eyes made my arm waver ever so slightly. “I have never wished for harm to come to any pixie. You must believe me.”
I snorted. “I could be convinced that Niamh’s death was an accident. But the King of Choilltean? Go on, I wish to hear your excuse for that.”
Rory’s face tightened as he pulled his hands tight to his sides, his eyes diverting from mine.
“I never wished harm on anyone. But when it came down to one evil or the next, I picked the lesser.” Then – which made things worse as he looked more cowardly than ever – he said, “Besides, it wasn’t like I killed him. ”
Cackling like a witch, I shook my head. “Tell me, how was killing King Ronan the lesser evil? The last I heard, you tempted an all-out war across Saoghal. For someone who claims they do not want to see harm to their kind, you sure found a way to be in the center of it all.”
There was that wince again, his purple eyes hooded as he blinked a few times. “That’s why I’m here.”
That wavering arm of mine finally gave in, my emotions taking the steering wheel and letting the scalpel fall from my hand. “What’s happened?”
Rory let out a decade-old-sigh and moved towards one of the overly-stained seats in the waiting area. I waited, my eyes pinched tight, as he slumped down into the curve of it and released yet another pained groan.
“Every kingdom is turning on one another.”
I tutted. “So nothing has changed.”
“Lots has changed,” his eyes wouldn’t meet mine, instead he kept them placed on a fleck of dirt a few inches away from his shoes.
“Choilltean and Cluaineach – yeah, that was a mess. Raegan handled it poorly. No one thought he would do what he did. Yet the aftermath… He didn’t take care to tread carefully, Olivia. ”
That sounded like Raegan.
Hearing Rory talk of Saoghal, of Choilltean and Cluaineach, of Raegan… It warmed my chest. Lately, the whole experience had felt far too similar to a dream. But his words, although plagued with concern and a dash of panic, they breathed life back into that little world.
“Those of us who managed to escape before Raegan rounded us up… We’ve been hiding here, amongst the humans.”
Cocking my head to the side, I stepped around the reception desk and leant my waist against the counter. “Surely you can’t hold this form for very long.”
It was spoken as a statement, but in all reality it was a question. A demanded question, actually, because not being able to remain their size was the whole reason I was torn from Saoghal.
“Pixies can stay in this form for as long as we want,” he mumbled as he reached up and adjusted the tie around his ponytail. “And it’s a good thing, too. Raegan would have slaughtered us. There wouldn’t be anyone left.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I rolled my eyes. “Am I supposed to feel pity for you, Rory? For the Rachainn? Because I don’t. You all brought this upon yourselves. And the last I heard, Raegan didn’t kill those that he gathered.”
Rory had an apology between his brows as he finally looked up. “For a while, yes. He exiled some, kept some as prisoners. He freed a few, too. Ones that took oaths and bound themselves by the word of the gods. But then… Like I said, Olivia… A lot has changed.”
My heart skipped a beat as I fought the desire to gasp. “He… He killed them?”
Rory didn’t need to respond. It was written all over his face.
I shook my head several times. “Regardless, Rory—why are you telling me this? You and your… group… you wreaked havoc on Saoghal and now you wish for me to feel, what? Pity for you? Sorrow for the world you are destroying? You cannot dig a grave and ask another to lie in it.”
I wished I hadn’t dropped that scalpel.
“I need to speak with you. I need to speak with you freely, without concern of hidden ears and manipulated winds.” As he talked, his eyes scanned the room for those very things.
Another scoff fell from my mouth as I folded my arms over my chest. “You are surely dreaming if you believe I would, for a minute, entertain–”
“For Raegan, you would.”
I swallowed my words as I pulled my ears back, because Rory was right.
For Raegan, I would.
~
After assuring Rory for the tenth time that Urram would not notice my absence for at least a few more hours, we slipped our way out of the vet clinic and hustled down the cold, frigid streets of Penzance.
Very little light illuminated our path, the clouds so stark and grey above that they blocked any potential for sunlight.
Instead, I relied on the back of Rory’s head and the hope that he knew where he was leading me.
We jogged down walkways, tucked ourselves between buildings, and ducked and dove from alley to alley.
All the while, the weather couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to rain or snow, so it settled on a heavy sleet that made me regret not grabbing my coat before we left.
Thoroughly drenched and shaking like it was my first time standing upright, Rory finally let me stop moving as he came to a stop outside a run-down pub.
It looked like the type of place where one had to cover their head and face with a cloak in order to enter – ominous, musky lighting, low ceilings that flared up a part of me that might have had claustrophobia, and the people…
I refused to lift my eyes to a single one of them as we stepped into that space.
After a man in the back of the room, concealed by shadows, let out a high whistle and some derogatory slur in my direction, Rory let loose a low growl and grabbed my hand in his.
Yanking me along, I ducked my head and allowed myself the brief security of Rory, my pixie-friend who was sized to a human for the time being.
In the back of the pub, far enough in that I already reeked of ale, Rory pushed open a door that led down into a cellar.
I finally screeched to a stop. “I’m not going down there.”
Rory rocked his weight onto one hip and flicked a brow up at me. “You really think I would bring you all this way just to kill you?” He chuckled, as if the next sentence was a joke and not a threat. “I would have been more than capable of killing you in that clinic if I wished.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
He let one of his loose grins spread over his face. “That’s up to you.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I was content to hold fast and refuse to descend those stairs. That was until I heard a familiar jig – a melodic rhythm that I had only ever heard in one place. Choilltean.
There were pixies in that cellar.
Either Rory was going to kill me in front of an audience, or the likeness of me being slaughtered were diminishing by the second. I chose to believe it was the latter.
I started to descend the stairs, until I paused and flipped my hair over my shoulder to glare back at Rory, who was stepping behind me.
“Kill me, and I can guarantee you that Urram will make your death agonizing.”
Rory released another joyful laugh. “I don’t doubt it.”
By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, ignoring the fact that I could see another hallucination of Raegan a few feet in front of me, I waited for Rory to push the next wooden door open.
When he did, I was both surprised and unsurprised to still hear a tremendous amount of music, laughter, and overall cheer – yet I couldn’t see a single person. Which made me step carefully, because I soon realized there were pixies in this room, but they had taken to their small sizes.
“Rory?” a man drawled, his voice a whole new form of deep that made me shudder. “You have brought a stranger?”
“No, Brian,” Rory stepped around me, placing himself ever-so-slightly in front of my body. “This is the one I was telling you about. You can come out, she won’t bite.” Rory winked at me.
Sliding my hand into the pocket of my scrubs, feeling the cold texture of the scalpel I had slipped in there, I rolled my eyes at Rory. Even though he was as he always was – joyful and quick to warm to – I wasn’t ready to forgive him.
Prepared to show him as much with the glare I had ready for him, all of it simply ceased to matter when a third person suddenly appeared in front of us. In reality, he had been there the whole time. But now he took to a size like us – like humans.
“Brian, meet Olivia,” Rory smiled at the both of us. “Olivia, meet Brian.”
Brian was… Brian was from Uisge. That much was obvious almost immediately, due to the fact he looked like a duck out of water.
Like he could survive away from the water, but it was wilting him day-in and day-out.
Everything about him looked far too dry, which was absurd – especially in this country.
On top of that, the signature blue-green-purple hue to his cracked skin, the long length of seaweed-green, straw-like hair, and unblinking, sky-blue eyes were enough to give away his kingdom of birth.
I must have been staring, because Brian cracked a small smile and dipped his chin at me before adding, “It is not easy for me to be away from the sea.”
A frown took over my brows before I could stop it.
“Just like I imagine it’s not easy for you to be away from Saoghal.”
“I’m not a pixie,” I spat out far too quickly. The truth about how I felt about that was there, right in my tone and my quick-defence. “So I have no right to miss Saoghal.”
Brian bobbed his head side-to-side, that overly-dry hair crinkling with each movement. “Perhaps.”
There was a knowing look upon his face as he bore his gaze into me once more, just as I saw a quick flash of Raegan’s eyes behind my own eyelids.
“It doesn’t come down to having the right or not having the right, does it?
” Brian began to circle me, each of his movements slow and precise.
I tried my best to stay still, focusing instead on the distorted reflection of Raegan in a grime-covered mirror in the corner of the room.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to what lives deep in here.”
I swung my head over my shoulder to see Brian pointing at his heart.
“Don’t you agree?”
My tongue felt like lead in my mouth. I knew where this conversation was going and the hairs on the back of my neck simply kept rising.
“Maybe. But I gave my word — at what point does what is in my heart get to override the clear rules that were set before me? At what point do I throw my loyalty and my honour to the wind?”
Brian let out a menacing chuckle as he finished the first circular prowl, pausing in front of me. “You truly wish to stay right in the middle, don’t you?”
“You are asking for my opinion on something I do not know enough about. My thoughts on the divide of your people should not matter.”
Brian went to say something, but I coughed out more words, finally finding a rhythm at which to spew them.
“I will give you my opinion on one thing, though. The slaughter of your kin, of your flesh and blood – it makes it far too easy for me to look at you with nothing but disgust.” In an attempt to further my point, I let my eyes slide to those shaved ears of his.
“Ah,” Brian began his prowling again. “You would judge us all on the actions of a handful of radicals?”
“A handful?” I scoffed. “I was there – I saw who marched against the kingdoms of Saoghal. I saw your Rachainn in full force.”
Brian stopped, the absence of his shoes against the concrete beneath me somehow worse than when he was moving. “That was not the Rachainn in full force.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rory sigh and slide himself into an old, near-crumbling bar stool.
“What you saw, Olivia, were the Rachainn amongst us who believed the spilling of blood was the answer to our problems. They did not represent all of our views, and they certainly were not the full extent of our numbers.” Brian let out a far-too-eager laugh at that, making me pinch my eyes.
There was a shudder that took my whole body hostage as I continued to feel like prey.
I did not come to feel like prey.
“Why am I here?” I finally blurted.
All humour slipped off of Brian's face. “We have been left with no choice but to remove King Raegan from his thrones.”