Chapter Eleven

 

 

As she sat under the tree, with the noon sun beating down through the leaves, if anyone had asked Alvey if she was having a good day, she would have replied firmly in the negative.

First she was woken up at dawn, the time of morning that a common laboring faery would arise. Second, the tea had been bitter; humans obviously didn’t understand anything about brewing tea properly. Third, she had been scolded for no good reason both by Deirdre and then by the Phouka.

Fourth… well, she supposed the conversation with the human boy—Jay, right?—wasn’t entirely bad. But it definitely was not a comfortable one.

And now Jay had just finished offering her “food” that smelled so foul she briefly wondered if he was trying to poison and kill her as revenge for her witty sallies at his expense that morning.

Methinks traveling with them is a mistake. She wheeled a bit away from the tree as the boy and Deirdre chatted. The only reason I really wanted them to follow me was because I was concerned that something more malicious than a Phouka was about. But now that I know the truth, perhaps it is not worth it…

The sound of Iain’s voice came to her from the distance, along with the early-autumn scents of the nearby woods. He must have wandered off into the trees.

For some reason Alvey couldn’t quite pin down, it was remarkably easy to remember his name and identify his voice. And scent.

There was also a faint buzzing noise, unlike anything she had ever heard.

She began to roll over in his direction, sensing the magic of the stones and plants and trees in the way, wheeling around them smoothly and with little sound.

She could smell, hear, and also sense his presence, making a sort of negative space in the nature magic in the small grove ahead. Sensing that several trees and bushes separated them, shielding her from view, she stopped to listen.

The unfamiliar sound came again, along with a strange voice, disembodied. She smelled no one else there, but there was something metallic, something human-made in Iain’s hand. Thinking of what little she knew of human technology, she supposed that thing was some kind of radio.

The voice was also buzzy, but as it spoke again, it was obviously a man’s and sounded somewhat similar to Iain’s in the way that family members’ voices always sounded alike.

“What is your answer?” the voice asked. “I trust you’ve given some thought to what I’ve said.”

There was silence. Alvey sniffed the air, detecting that Iain’s scent was like the scent of something being hunted. He was nervous or worried.

“Iain, consider what I’m offering,” the voice said firmly. “All you need to do is do the right thing and hand that dangerous faery in. What is your decision? Will you do what is best for James?”

Alvey didn’t hear Iain’s answer because as she leaned forward, her chair wheels responded to her interest and accelerated over a twig, snapping it loudly.

Immediately she grabbed the wheels and headed straight back to the others, giddy at the prospect of something interesting happening at last.

As she rolled back to the boy and Deirdre, she immediately said, “I heard Iain talking with a male relative on the radio.”

Silence again. Alvey pursed her lips; she had been expecting an immediate reaction.

“You mean… his dad? On his little military radio?” Deirdre asked, her tone pitched high.

“I assume. They were speaking of handing some dangerous faery over and things like that.” Alvey could not help but grin in amusement when Deirdre gasped and the human boy, from the sound of it, either tripped or stepped back a few paces.

“That’s— I-I’m sure you didn’t hear everything,” the boy protested. “I mean, he wouldn’t talk on the radio with you sitting right there.”

“I can hear perfectly well, and I was far enough away that he knew not that I was present!” Alvey snapped, balling her fists. “I heard you and your brother earlier, talking about not going to the caves… or going to see the military either! Ha! Methinks he reversed his decision on that account!”

“He has been talking to Dad, yes, but—”

Deirdre groaned; it was muffled, so she was probably covering her face with her hands. “I thought something like this might happen. I just didn’t want to— I thought that maybe it’d be okay…”

“Deirdre,” the boy said firmly. “Iain won’t turn you in. He thinks you’re innocent!”

“But he thinks I’m dangerous!” she shot back. “So what difference does it make? I-I think my magic is dangerous too—and how can you even know, how can you be certain he won’t turn me in to your father?”

The boy was quiet for a long moment before replying, “Iain told me just today that we couldn’t let Dad take you, okay? He told me that, and… he’s got to be telling the truth.”

“How can you know that?” Deirdre asked pointedly. “Weren’t you just saying that he was probably using that faery fruit? How can we trust anything he says?”

“He… he wasn’t.” The boy gulped. “I was wrong about that.”

“But he’s done it before. Hasn’t he?”

“Well, yes—”

“And did he lie about it back then?”

The boy did not answer.

Deirdre didn’t rub her point in, but she let out a racking sigh; it sounded like she slunk to the ground.

Alvey folded her arms, feeling like she was missing something. What did “faery fruit” refer to?

Are they talking about Pan? Impossible. Seelie faeries are forbidden by the Court to give Pan to humans! She bit her lip. Is it possible… humans stole it? Or perhaps they found Unseelie Pan?

She heard Iain before he reached them, saying something about cooking lunch. The other two were sullenly quiet, not offering to help or answering Iain’s questions about what they would like to eat.

“James, get the fire going, will you?” Iain pulled out spices and a steel pot from his pack. Then he added, employing sarcasm, “I guess it’ll be lentils then, if you won’t tell me what you want. Your favorite, James, delicious, healthy lentils…”

The boy grumbled but complied, starting the fire. Alvey could sense Deirdre next to the tree, tense, not moving.

As Iain began to cook, the spices growing warm in the hot oil and letting off all kinds of strange and pleasant scents, Alvey wheeled forward, asking, “Pray tell, shall we go to the caves after this?”

Iain shook his head. “Sorry, but it’s too dangerous for all of us.”

“I only have need of one or two things from there.”

“You’ll have to get them somewhere else.”

Her face burning, Alvey turned away away, heading around the tree and wheeling straight down the hill behind it and into the groves beyond. The others didn’t even notice her leaving, which she had intended.

I need to get those relics from the cave, and no one is going to stop me or tell me not to.

She continued for several minutes in a huff of righteous indignation, going deeper and deeper into the woods, focusing on where the Earth and Darkness Magic was the strongest, signifying the presence of a cave. Only once did she stop, when faced with an area of thick undergrowth.

“Some magic would clear the path.” She reached down for her bag of crystals and then cursed loudly. They were gone.

“Ugh!” She banged her fists hard on her chair’s armrests. “Fie, fie! I left that bag back with those fools! Curses!”

“Who goes there?”

She shot up straight in her chair, hearing one or two people approaching, and sniffed the air. She smelled iron, metals, and human males. There was also the slight but definite scent of gunpowder.

Soldiers? I cannot believe this! This is all Iain’s fault! This is all their faults! This would not have happened if I had not been so provoked at them and forgot my crystals!

The soldiers were standing in front of her; if she hadn’t been so angry, she would have known through their scents that they were hesitant, a bit unsure about what to do with a blind and legless girl in a wheelchair in the middle of the woods.

But she didn’t sense anything, so when they asked her who she was, she snapped, “I just want to get to those blasted caves! Shall you make that an issue too? What is it that makes humans think they can go about, telling a poor girl what to do every moment of the day?”

“You…” They raised their metal sticks—guns, Alvey assumed. “Hands up, faery! You can’t fool us with that disguise!”

“Hands up? Pray, why would I lift up my hands? That wouldn’t stop me from using magic! Are you a simpleton?”

And yet Alvey was still surprised when, just seconds later, she was clad in iron handcuffs and taken straight to the military encampment. Taken prisoner.