The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) (4 page)

Merlin stopped when we came to a concrete path that led into the heart of the center. “This may be close enough to Queen Anne to be considered the base of the hill,” Merlin said.

I nodded as he took out a cigarette case from his breast pocket. He opened it to show one long and slim cigarette within.

I raised an eyebrow.

“I think you’ll like this spell.” He took out a silver lighter and lit the cigarette. He inhaled and then let out a plume of white smoke, and then passed it to me.

I inhaled the smoke laced with a locational magic that filled my lungs and quickly spread through my body at the rate that air moved through my bloodstream. I exhaled and handed the cigarette back to Merlin.

We passed it back and forth until it was smoked down to the filter. Both of us buzzed with the spell’s magic. On the grassy field we stood in, colored lines of footsteps appeared, all in different hues. Aura-colored, I saw, as a man walked by, leaving aqua-blue footsteps in his wake. The well-traveled concrete path we stepped onto was even more colorful.

“Interesting,” I said, looking upward and tracking a seagull that left a white path behind it. “And how does this help us find the faerie entrance? It’s a bit confused.”

“One imagines the faeries do not like people coming to their door. We look for the place with few footsteps.”

“And dark purple footsteps, leading outward,” I added. The man who had entered my store this morning and started this day’s diversion had an aura that was a rare enough color that it should stand out. I did like the spell, and how it would take some time for us to find the faerie door. I was having a good time with Merlin.

We watched the ground and walked around the old armory. The wide path was full of musicians and the odd performer, as well as food trucks and the aroma of coffee. We passed whining children arguing with their tired parents, and kept our gaze ever downward on the colored lines and footsteps leading in every direction.

I glanced behind us and saw we left our own trail as well. Merlin’s was an emerald green: a solid and satisfying color. Mine was a fire-colored red.

On the far side of the sat the strange edifice of the Experience Music Project, a vanity museum made by one of the city’s newly anointed billionaires. The outside of the museum was made of a dozen different and strange materials, some of them iridescent, others in bright and shiny hues. It had always struck me as garish. I looked away from it.

I stepped away as well, and Merlin did the same.

I almost didn’t notice what was going on. I stopped and tugged Merlin to a halt. I pointed.

“Oh,” Merlin said. “Clever. Not so much a dread spell, but a move-away and dislike spell. Subtle.”

“Indeed. It knows not to draw attention to itself,” I agreed.

We both studied the spot near the museum that had no footsteps around it. The empty spot was centered around a set of stairs that led to a round door at the bottom. The door was painted a startlingly bright pink. The only footsteps upon the spot were dark purple ones, heading out from it.

Merlin squeezed my hand. “I was rather hoping it would take longer than that.”

We walked down the stairs, passing through a bevy of repellent spells. They were easy enough to endure since we were aware of their purpose. The bright pink door was covered in locks. We knocked five times, and then five times again.

No one answered.

I pulled a bundle of shriveled tea roses from my cloak. I held it to the wooden door. “
Agored,”
I whispered.

The dried flower caught flame and burned bright.

Before they had turned to ash, the Faerie door swung inward.

“Once again, we stand on the edge of the unknown,” Merlin said with a hint of mischief threaded through his voice. “I've needed an adventure. With you.”

“Aye,” I said, for I felt lifted by the day’s events as well. Nice not to dwell on that which I could not change. Nice to worry about someone else’s problems. “Faeries, come take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind,” I said, quoting Yeats.

“Run on the top of the disheveled tide, and dance upon the mountains like a flame,” Merlin added, finishing the quote.

We smiled, held hands, and stepped through.

Chapter 4

Seren

It is a strange thing to step inside from a sun-filled day and emerge into a room brighter and sunnier still. But that is often the way of a faerie place, at least among the Seelie. And surely by the neon pink hibiscus blossoms that flowered everywhere and the thick scent of cotton candy, this was a realm of the Seelie. We stood in a bright-lit garden full of fruiting trees and trellised vines. Wrapped around every tree trunk were bright streamers, and strung between the trees were dozens of lines of flashing Christmas lights. Glow sticks sat pushed into the ground next to circles of dandelions. It had the look of a celebration gone on too long and lasting into the pitiless brightness of day. All faerie hills had different influences, and this one seemed enamored of glowing tchotchkes from the dollar store.

“Are we late for the sylvan rave?” Merlin whispered.

“Not late. Not allowed here,” a voice hissed somewhere above our heads.

Something small and bright moved as quickly as a falling star across the ceiling.

Somewhere, perhaps under this very hill or nearby, would be the opposite sort of place where the Unseelie dwelled. Faeries were a twinned species of light and dark, and only existed near their counterpart. Some made the mistake of thinking Seelie and Unseelie meant good and bad, when in fact it had more to do with impenetrable and ancient political schisms and aesthetics. But though a Seelie hill was a lovely place, make no mistake: a tiny slip of a flower nymph could drag you under and enslave you to her every whim as well as a warty bogle.

“Get away while you can,” a deep voice said to our left.

We searched the land, but whatever spoke remained hidden, likely behind a fallen tree covered in bright strands of lichen and glitter.

Merlin and I walked forward into the faerie glen, and within a dozen strides faeries appeared on all sides of us. None stood taller than our knees. Dozens of fae with glassine and pastel butterfly wings flew around us in wide circles. They wore jauntily placed johnny-jump-ups on their heads and had spindly fingers that ended in needle-sharp nails. A handful of brownies buzzed around with them, making clicking noises with their strong jaws. There were faeries that resembled sentient bunnies and squirrels, with strange eyes and miniature weapons that they raised toward us.

I tensed, thrust my hands into my pockets, and glanced at Merlin to make sure he was ready for whatever came next.

He… smiled at them? As though he found them cute? And they were cute, of course, but that was one of their deadliest diversions. I had a sudden ill-feeling as I watched my wizard that he had never had a run-in with faeries in Wales. I searched my memories of every story he’d ever told me, and could think of no faerie tales. Damn the Queen and England. I should have asked him. I had assumed—

“Greetings, gentle creatures,” Merlin said and his smile broadened.

I held back a groan. “Wild and brave Seelie fae,” I said, and gave them my deepest scowl. “We ask permission to grace your presence and parley.”

“We are here because we have heard you need our help,” Merlin added.

As one, the faeries that surrounded us hissed and raised their tiny weapons higher. More gathered every second we stood there. Some of them clapped their hands together, igniting faerie magic in their palms. Others opened up bags of faerie dust.

“Dust them,” hissed a fae with purple hair and a sugarspun dress. “Dust them and keep them, why not? Do it.”

“We are here to help,” Merlin said. “We were asked here by your trusted friend, to help with the creature.”

“The slave ran,” said a fae with lop ears and clawed hands.

“The slave lied,” added a nymph with silver wings and black teeth.

“We will hunt him. We will eat him from brain to bone and back again,” another, one of so many, stated.

All the faeries giggled.

“Dear creatures,” Merlin blundered. “Perhaps there’s been some mistake. I—”

“Quiet and say nothing,” I whispered to him and turned in a slow circle, letting myself see and be seen. I do not want this to end in battle, I thought. There was no need, and no easy outcome for either side.

Besides, despite their terrible cruelties, I'd always had a fondness for fairies.

In my youth, my mother and sisters had always told me faerie tales. So when I was twelve and newly come to Camelot and miserable, I had gone looking for one.

The King’s River flowed high and wild in early spring, with water full of chunky mountain ice. I stood on the cold bank for a long moment, and then strode in. The water bit into my ankles with a coldness that seeped up my legs.

A girl seeking faeries should look to the flower gardens for daphnaie and dryads. Or she should search in forest glens for the shy will-o’-the-wisps, blushing and fleet. A girl should not stand on the waters and call out again and again, “Come great Kelpie. Come.”

But I was young and full of foolishness.

The kelpie arrived on the crest of a frothy wave that crashed down on me and pulled my little girl legs into the water. Legs that I had felt so sure were strong enough to face anything. In truth they were made of string bean muscles and wish bones. The kelpie clamped onto my ankle with her sharp teeth and made a whirlpool around us with her thick body, spinning us in circles. I was dragged through the water, gasping and trying to keep from inhaling liquid into my lungs. I flailed and tried not to scream. I tried not to cry out for my mother like a child.

The kelpie let go of my ankle and flung me into the middle of the magic-fueled whirlpool. It kept spinning, wilder and higher as we sat in the still middle of it. The great fae water horse stared at me with solemn yellow eyes.

“You called. I am here. You are young to seek the watery death.”

Up close, her huge face was all I could see. Her mouth was full of ragged and bleeding teeth. Her skin was flecked with foam and drops of water. She was a faerie and a horse, and I'd always loved horses. I reached out a hand, trembling and cold, to touch her cheek. My shaking hand dropped before I dared touch her. “I w-w-wanted to meet a faerie,” I said.

“Who is the child who cries out for the kelpie and not the pookah nor the brownie?”

“I-I-I'm Morgan le Fay.”

The great horse faerie laughed. Her spittle hit my face. “Le Fay, you say. Where did you get that name, child?”

“From my mother. And my m-m-mother's mother,” I stuttered. “On Avalon.”

The great beast slowly blinked her burning yellow eyes once, twice, and again. “You are far from the isle of apples, child of man.”

I nodded.

“I have a sister there, that lives
…
”

“In the river Melys. My mother spoke of her. She always said on my twelfth birthday she would introduce me to her and today is my birthday
…
” I wanted to be strong. I started to cry, gulping in air and water, spluttering. I had wanted to prove that I was my mother’s daughter. Someone magical, fierce, and able to ride a kelpie. But here I was crying and soon to be eaten.

“Enough of that, child. You make it difficult for me to kill you,” the great fae said with a sibilant voice.

I stared at her long eyelashes clumped together with water. “I am strong,” I whispered. “Let the waters take me where they will.”

Time, this short and last moment, stretched on and on as we watched each other. My heart raced. My skin froze. I longed to scream. To beg for my life. To promise this faerie things I could give her. Things I could do for her, for already I could make simple spells, and, and, and…. The water rushed all around us.

The creature kept watching me.

“A child. Brave, perhaps.”

I stared at her. Water froze on my face. I was not brave. I was a vole. A chicken. A small thing for prey to prey upon. Nothing more.

“A worthy child, perhaps.”

And the water roared all around us. I found myself desperate and hungry for life. I wanted to grow, and live, and find someone, anyone, in Camelot who loved me. But this was a cold place. The coldest place. Camelot and the King’s River.

And still the kelpie watched me. Then she moved, sleek and beautiful in her ferocity. Her mouth opened. My eyes squeezed shut.

But those razor teeth did not clamp down upon me and slice through my slender middle. Instead, I felt motion between my legs. Wet fur that covered sleek muscles brushed against my bare calves. I reached down and grabbed a hold of the faerie.

The kelpie pulled me forward as she kicked her back legs and flew up and out of the whirlpool. I held on, with my fingernails digging in and my thighs clenching. A scream and a prayer sang within me, knowing that if I didn't hold on I would fall back and drown. This creature would not turn back for me. I held on with all of my will and all of my being. I felt her slipping beneath me. I flung myself forward. My face hit her wet fur. My arms hugged her swift and bucking body.

We arced through the air and then dove down. Down and down into the seething river waters as she toyed with me, seeing if I would let go.

If I did? She would eat me. She would surely eat me and she stayed down long, too long. My breath burst from me in a stream of bubbles that flew up my face. I held on as she turned and swam upward. She arced through the air again, and I was breathing and laughing as we flew. The kelpie made a strangled sound, and it was only on the third leap through the air that I realized she was laughing, too. And by the fifth leap I knew that I was going to live, and this day was going to be glorious and not terrible. I knew that I was the brave and wild girl of Avalon that I longed to be. I started crying again.