Brightly (Flicker #2) (3 page)

“Sit down,” Nasser said, pulling out a chair in the kitchen for Filo. “I’ll be right back.”

He trotted into the bathroom and returned a minute later with a first-aid kit and a fistful of washcloths. He set them on the kitchen table, then went to the sink and squirted antibacterial soap on his hands.

Without being asked, Lee opened the kit and removed supplies while Nasser scrubbed his hands. She knew what he’d need. When not studying magic at Flicker or working in the field with Filo, Lee spent much of her time in this apartment, learning how to treat wounds and brew healing potions. She liked acquiring these practical skills—and besides, it was a good excuse to spend time with Nasser.

Toweling his hands dry, Nasser returned to the table and sat in a chair beside Filo. Somewhat reluctantly, Filo lowered the washcloth and winced as the other boy inspected the deep gash. Lee handed supplies to Nasser as he requested them, watching as he cleaned the blood off Filo’s forehead, then disinfected and numbed the area.

“Close your eyes,” Nasser instructed, as he threaded the needle with thin black thread. “And don’t squirm.”

Filo hesitated, eyeing the needle, then obliged. Though he was numbed to the pain, he sat with his fists clenched against his legs and his mouth set in a thin line.

“Lee, you want to tell me what happened?” Nasser asked, as he began sewing the gash shut, slowly and methodically. As she explained how Filo had been injured, Lee watched him work, fascinated: the bright focus of his gray eyes, the steadiness of his hands.

At last, Nasser finished the final stitch and tied off the end of the thread. “Done,” he announced, and Filo instantly slumped down in his chair. “Now let me see your arm.”

While Nasser examined the bite marks and started a good-natured lecture about taking more care in the field, Lee excused herself.

In the bathroom, Lee inspected her reflection, squinting at the faint pink that still stained her cheeks, though she’d wiped her face off as best she could before getting on the bus. She’d missed a few flecks of blood, now dried on her forehead and throat. Sticky globs of blood were matted in her hair where the Bloody-Bones had grabbed her.

After she’d cleaned up, she felt a little better. When she returned to the kitchen, Filo and Nasser were still sitting at the table. Jason was pawing through the fridge.

“Your first Bloody-Bones, huh?” Jason asked, without looking up.

“Yeah,” she said, pulling up a chair. “When did you get here?”

“Just got in.” Jason removed a carton of milk from the fridge, but as he raised it to his mouth, Nasser shot him a warning look. Jason grabbed a cup and poured the milk into it. “Filo says you did all right.”

“I
said
she was a little slow,” Filo grumbled. “That Bloody-Bones almost ate my face before she did anything.”

“Speaking of,” Lee started, wrinkling her nose, “did you absolutely
have
to kill it?”

“Do we have to talk about this now?” he asked.

“It just bothers me,” Lee said, a bit quieter. “The poor thing looked so sad, right before you…” She grimaced. “Before you did it.”

Filo exhaled sharply through his nose. “Lee, do you know
anything
about Bloody-Bones? They’re carnivorous, for one thing. They usually start with small animals. Raccoons, cats, dogs—stuff like that. What they don’t eat, they absorb into their bodies.”

“Is that why it looked like that? All… misshapen?”

He nodded. “As they get bigger, they start killing bigger animals—deer, cattle, horses. But if they can’t find big animals, and they get hungry enough, they start hunting humans.”

Unbidden, an image entered Lee’s mind: a Bloody-Bones like the one they’d seen, except with weirdly human proportions. Long, clawed fingers. Humanlike eyes. With a shiver, she forced the thought back.

“Bloody-Bones can’t live in populated areas,” Filo continued. “Not without eventually killing humans. Sometimes you can relocate them. But that one was too big, and it was too used to prowling the suburbs. If it had gotten out, it could’ve started in on humans any day. On
kids.
Understand?”

“Yes,” Lee admitted, because it did make logical sense, even if the whole thing made her feel queasy. “But—”

“But nothing.” His voice was sharp. “That’s the way it has to be sometimes. Don’t try to make me feel guilty. I didn’t
want
to kill it. I
had
to. That’s the difference.”

“Well, that was appetizing,” Jason drawled. He leaned back against the counter. “Are you still going to the Market tonight?”

Filo snorted. “Of course. It’s not like I lost an arm.”

“What is this thing, again?” Lee asked. “Just a big market?”

“Well, it
is
a market,” Nasser said. “But it’s more like a festival. There’s food, music—”

“Drinking,” Jason said with a smirk. “Fistfights—”

“Contests of skill,” Nasser went on, undeterred. “Storytelling. It’s the biggest festival that comes around here in the summer. You’ll probably want to wear something nice—but go with shoes you’ve already broken in, okay?”

“Nice?” Lee echoed. “Why?”

He smiled. “You’ll see. Oh, and before I forget, some mail came for you today.”

Grinning, Lee stood and picked up the envelope lying on the end of the nearest table. She didn’t have to look at the return address; she knew who it was from.

Since Lee made contact with her again last winter, she and Kendall had been meeting in person every few weeks, having lunch in Bridgestone or spending the afternoon at Kendall’s rented duplex back in Bluewood.

The gulf that Lee’s seven lost years had created between them wasn’t impossible to bridge, but it wasn’t easy. Their first few meetings had been awkward, especially the first time Kendall turned up unexpectedly at Flicker, on a drizzling day at the beginning of March. They’d sat downstairs in the shop for hours, while Lee floundered through explanations of faeries and revels and magic, and Kendall had stared silently at her, pale and dazed. Looking back, Lee realized they each had probably felt like they were chatting with a person who couldn’t possibly be real.

Despite everything, that quality that first drew them together as children, that indescribable glue that sealed them as friends, still existed. They still fit together. In the midst of their talk and laughter, as they caught each other up on their vastly different lives, they could
almost
pretend that nothing was wrong.

Because Flicker had no phone, and arranging meetings could be tricky, what with Kendall’s job at a record store and Lee’s as a Seer-in-training, they exchanged letters. Nasser acted as their liaison, since mail wasn’t delivered to Flicker—not the regular mail, anyway. Kendall would send letters to Nasser’s address, and he would pass them along to Lee.

“When is she moving, again?” Nasser asked.

“Beginning of next month,” Lee sighed.

Kendall’s brother, Kerry, was starting a new band in Los Angeles, and he wanted Kendall to be in it. She’d been hesitant to accept the offer, because, Lee realized eventually, she didn’t want to disconnect with Lee again so soon after finding her.

But it was what Kendall had always wanted, and Lee hated the idea of Kendall wasting her nights off playing in half-empty coffee shops where people paid more attention to their lattes than the music. She refused to be the reason Kendall let that opportunity go.

It had taken some doing, but she finally talked Kendall into accepting. Besides, she’d argued, if seven years and considerable magic hadn’t been enough to split them up for good, a few states wouldn’t be able to. And they had their letters.

“She’s mostly packed,” Lee said. “I’ll go see her one more time before she leaves—next week, maybe. And it’s not like she won’t be visiting. Her parents still live in Bluewood, so she has to come back every now and then.”

Nasser smiled gently and touched her arm, and she smiled thinly, too, grateful that he wasn’t saying what she knew they were both thinking. Kendall’s parents still lived in Bluewood, but Lee’s own mother had moved away years ago, while Lee was still trapped in the revel—and nobody could discern where she’d gone. Not even Kendall’s parents knew.

“We should get going, Lee,” Filo said, checking his watch. “We’ve got some potions to finish at home.”

As they gathered up their things and headed out, Nasser called, “Go easy on that arm!”

Filo nodded vaguely. “Fine,” he allowed. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Chapter Two:

As the sun was setting, Lee and Filo caught a bus that took them beyond the outskirts of Bridgestone City. Even with evening gathering outside, it was still uncomfortably hot, making the backs of her legs stick to the plastic bus seats. Filo had warned her months ago that the seasons would be intense for a few years, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

Last fall, the Summer Court of Faerie had crowned a new king, Umbriel. Its rival, the Winter Court, felt compelled to demonstrate its might to the new Summer King, resulting in the coldest, snowiest winter Lee had ever experienced.

When the snows melted, the Summer Court rallied. Spring flew by in a blur of green leaves and flower blossoms, and was soon chased away by summer, which exhaled like a dragon, demonstrating the power of the new Summer King.

Lee and Filo disembarked the bus alone at the last stop, one marked only by a lonely-looking sign post. Behind them, the edge of the suburbs was visible in the distance. Ahead of them lay an expanse of undeveloped countryside, split by a long ribbon of highway that disappeared into the distance. The sky was turning purple.

Filo adjusted the strap of his messenger bag and started walking along the side of the highway. Lee trotted after him, her footfalls crackling in the parched grass.

“It’s just over that hill,” he said, pointing to a rise up ahead of them.

“Seems a little close to the city,” Lee mused. Behind them, the suburbs were dotted with lights; farther back, the city glowed in the dusk.

He shrugged. “They mask it with massive amounts of glamour. Nobody driving past on the highway will notice a thing. But you’ve got your necklace, so you’ll See everything just fine. Consider us lucky. A lot of people come a lot farther to visit the Goblin Market.”

At his words, Lee reached up and touched her enchanted heart-shaped locket. It gave her the ability to See through glamour and resist enchantment, as well as better-than-perfect vision. Through Lee’s artificially-Sighted eyes, each blade of grass and wisp of cloud stood before her with striking clarity. Every color was vibrant and multilayered. Even after months of wearing the locket for hours nearly every day, the Sight could still take her breath away.

Lee heard the Market before she ever saw it. The bright, otherworldly music of pipes, flutes and strings came floating toward her through the thick summer air. Already she could make out the rumble of voices amid the music. A cool wind carried the scent of smoke and roasting meats.

As they climbed the steep slope of the hill, the glow of will-o’-the-wisps rose before them. Lee’s pulse kicked up, but Filo was unfazed.

Then they reached the top of the hill, and Lee froze, staring.

The Goblin Market sprawled beneath them. Dozens of tents and booths were set up on the grass, choked with crowds. Beyond the merchants, a massive bonfire blazed, the fire cycling through colors: orange, red, purple, blue, green. A seven-piece band played on a raised platform near the bonfire, surrounded by dancers that whooped and shrieked as they whirled over the grass. Many of the musicians had horns, antlers or wings.

“Impressed?” Filo said with a laugh, starting down the hill. She hurried after him, eyes wide, as they joined the crowds thronging the Goblin Market.

Faeries called out to her from all directions, inviting her to sample their wares, more faeries than she had seen in one place since she found herself in Umbriel’s coronation revel last year. Fey jostled her as she passed: a brief brush of scales or feathers or bark against the exposed skin of her arms and shoulders.

“Read your cards!” cried a beaked woman, beckoning to Lee with a clawed hand. “Tell your future!”

Lee was so distracted that she almost lost track of Filo; he had shouldered his way to a booth manned by an old woman with pale green skin and masses of silvery hair that rayed out around her weathered face. She wore a simple, dark green dress and a stained apron. Some of the stains looked suspiciously like old blood.

When she spotted him, the old woman’s face stretched into a sharp, toothy grin—not exactly friendly, but not threatening, either. “Filo!”

“Madge,” Filo greeted her, bending slightly at the waist—respectful, but not submissive. His next words were in Old Faerie, practically his first language:
“What do you have for me?”

“
See for yourself!”
answered the faery woman, spreading her hands. Skulls were lined up along the counter of her booth, along with an assortment of bottled potions and jars of powder. Above her, bundles of plants dangled on twine. Filo bent to inspect the wares.