Chapter Two

 

 

“Once upon a time, there was an ordinary soldier, a clever boy, and a strange faery girl traveling through the English countryside…”

It seemed like a tale to Iain—both unreal and vivid. What had transpired over the past few days almost sounded like the kind of story Mum would’ve told them at bedtime on certain nights when work had not worn her down. Her eyes were always alight with a spark of creativity. As a child, Iain had listened to stories of monsters and faeries and of the resourceful, brave Roms who outsmarted or defeated them every time. He’d craved tales of triumph, tales of heroics. But tales of magic and what magic could do had unnerved him. Magic was not something he could predict or understand.

Iain could almost hear his mother’s theatrical voice intone: “The girl possessed the most powerful magic the soldier had ever seen, and he could not be certain whether she was Seelie or Unseelie or if she was on humanity’s side. She was innocent of the crimes she was accused of, but that did not mean she was not dangerous.”

In his few short months as an Iron Warden in training, and in his entire life of living in Neo-London, Iain had seen plenty of magic. He had witnessed street performers twist and control water, making it dance like a feather in the wind. He had even heard faeries gnarling with mangy city animals in the dark alleys of Ferrier’s Town like they were discussing something of great importance. A few disgruntled faeries had threatened to strike him blind or deaf just for walking by. What he had witnessed Deirdre do, however, was something else entirely.

What she had done was the stuff of legends.

“The sky grew dark, and in moments, the monstrous creature fell slain before the soldier’s eyes, the body already decomposing before it hit the ground with a thundering thud that shook the earth. Although the girl had saved them, a faery and a soldier could never trust each other. Could they?”

But it wasn’t a theatrical tale, and he was not a child anymore who could ignore stories of magic he did not like. It was real. It was powerful magic, and it was curled away, out of sight, in a startlingly human-looking girl.

Deirdre walked along ahead of him in the forest they were traveling through, her vibrant hair whipping around as she turned to soak in the scenery in every direction. Though her pace was not very brisk, James still trailed behind her, holding a map so close to his face that it nearly touched his nose, impeding his steps.

As Iain walked behind the others, he kept a vigilant eye out for anything that suggested faery activity. The woods were quiet and peaceful, hardly anything stirring besides the occasional squirrel leaping past or bird flitting by. But as he shifted his gaze to his little brother, Iain could not shake the feeling of dread as he thought of what else his mother might say when telling their story.

There was another part of the tale besides the faery girl with the powerful magic. There was more to the boy’s tale beyond his cleverness, beyond his connection to the faery girl: “The boy was marked by dark magic, claimed by a creature. Dark magic was impure. None of them knew what that meant yet, but they knew he would not be safe until whatever evil creature held him was defeated.”

Iain suppressed a shudder, deciding to focus on anything else—on taking one step at a time along the path before him.

They had been traveling for a day since their brush with the Fachan in old London, leaving the bus they’d slept overnight in and following a path James had marked on his map to the closest remaining village. Most of the towns near old London had long since been abandoned, left for the natural and unnatural to retake after Unseelie faeries and radiation claimed them.

Deirdre occasionally let out a laugh or a whoop of excitement as she pointed out to James birds she found pretty or any interesting plants she discovered. There was nothing about her that overtly suggested that she was a faery instead of a rather quirky teenaged girl. And as she and James chatted throughout their journey, Iain could almost imagine a scenario where Deirdre was not a faery wrongly accused of treason, where she and James were allowed to be regular schoolmates and good friends. It was a nice thought, but a pointless one.

Here’s what you know for certain: She’s a faery. Faeries generally don’t care for humans as a rule. She could be aligned with the Unseelies. She has enough power to bring down a monster like that Fachan in seconds.

But still…

She saved our lives. She bravely risked her life fighting that monster. An Unseelie faery wouldn’t have bothered… There are some humans who wouldn’t have even bothered either. She must be good. She’s got to be.

Iain ran his hand over his face as if he could push away his thoughts by doing so. How many times had he gone back and forth about her in his head, juggling between what he thought he knew and what he felt was true? It was unproductive and exhausting to try to think clearly while running on empty. So he pushed his thoughts away for the moment, deciding to focus solely on their current journey.

At any rate, he couldn’t afford not to be cautious after the stories he’d heard—true experiences from Dad during his early days as an infantryman, history from school lessons—that told him he could not trust what he did not understand, no matter how much he wanted to believe her.

Deirdre kicked up some dead leaves on the ground, smiling as they floated back down, and then glanced around at the small clearing a few feet ahead of them. “This looks like a good place to stop for the evening.” She turned to James. “Isn’t that what you were saying, James, that we ought to have a rest?”

Although Iain was just as exhausted as James was, he could not resist teasing his brother. It was just too easy sometimes. “Ah,” he said with a shake of his head, “so that’s what you were whining about earlier.”

James gaped at him, clearly offended. “I haven’t been whining.”

“My mistake. Must’ve been a wounded dog somewhere in the forest. Or several dogs all whining at once.”

James sighed noisily, proving Iain’s point. “It’s getting close to dusk. And anyway, judging from the path I’ve marked, we’ll reach a little village just outside Buckingham by tomorrow evening without overexerting ourselves.”

After checking out the clearing and deeming it a safe place to stay, the group began to set up camp. Each of them focused on a separate task, working against the darkening sky. James volunteered Deirdre to prepare their bedding, claiming she was quite good at it. Iain set up an electric lantern and sorted through their remaining food; it would not be a very filling or healthy meal, thanks to James only thinking to bring snacks, but it would get them through the night.

James trudged back into camp, dragging his feet, and then plopped down on the towel he’d placed on the ground by his pack. “I found water a little ways off,” he said, “but it was standing and probably contaminated. That might indicate there are Unseelies around—but I haven’t read of many reports in this area.”

“Water can become contaminated for a lot of reasons,” Iain assured. He would have to be extra cautious and alert in case James’s reasoning was correct, but there was no point in making everyone anxious.

“I guess.” James shrugged.

“We’ll just have to conserve what water we have left until we reach town tomorrow. Then we can restock.”

A quarter of his water from when he’d grabbed a container at the faery’s cottage two days ago remained. He hadn’t thought to ask for more food or water or if they had an extra container he might use…

He hadn’t been thinking of anything but the faery fruit at that point.

Deirdre came back from the surrounding woods with an armful of kindling. She dropped the sticks in a pile in the middle of camp, squinting at James. “You haven’t started setting up the fire yet,” she pointed out. “Did you forget how?”

“No fire, just to be safe,” Iain said. “I know it’s a little cold at night, but fire attracts faeries. If any Unseelies are around, a fire would be a dead giveaway we’re human.”

Deirdre blinked.

Was that… offensive? Iain wondered wildly. He’d never conversed with faeries before outside of work, and even then, any conversations he’d had were mostly one-sided or cryptic on the faery’s end. He’d certainly never encountered a faery that acted so human. Despite what he knew, she did seem like a normal girl to him at times.

But she just shrugged. “All right. I guess that makes sense.”

They divided up the food (if one could call packaged, factory-made, processed rubbish “food”) and ate quietly. James looked smug as Iain wolfed down a crumbly biscuit, probably waiting for his chance to get him back for snubbing prepackaged food all these years. It was still rubbish, but it did help to ease his hunger somewhat.

As they finished up their meal, James began to rummage through his pack and laid out his notebook, a map of the UK that was marked all over, and a few books. Finally James produced Mum’s letters, stacking them on the ground beside the map. Iain stared at them, wishing James would put them back for now.

“So,” James began, breathless, leaning forward over his papers and looking between Iain and Deirdre. “I’ve marked a path that will get us to where we’re going as quickly as possible while sticking to rural areas.”

Iain squinted at the lines James had drawn on the map. He’d scribbled notes along the path with information about the areas and reports of faery sightings. Some of the writing even overlapped, as if jotted down with haste or in the dark.

As James yammered on, gesticulating wildly with his hands, Iain listened but was preoccupied with his own observations. The notes were impressive and thorough—clearly James had put a lot of time and effort into his research. Iain had always hoped he could put those skills to good use someday, but he’d imagined that day much farther in the future at a university of some renown.

“The place we’re going is near the Peak District. Most of Mum’s vitsa, her extended family, moved from Neo-London to near where Sheffield used to be and settled their community there—that’s pretty close to the Peak District.”

“But how will you find them once we’re there?” Deirdre asked.

“Well,” James said, “everyone in the Roma community there should know of her. We’ll just ask for the Demeter family.”

Iain’s stomach did an anxious flip at the thought of meeting his relatives. He’d heard stories about them as a child—Mum’s hilarious stories of all the trouble she and her big sister, Delphina, got into—but he knew even then that they wanted nothing to do with him or his brother. Mum’s parents had made her choose between staying in Neo-London with Dad and him and being ostracized from their community or leaving with them and forgetting her life there.

But Delphina might help us even if the rest of Mum’s family won’t. She’s Mum’s big sister, after all. And they were really close. She’d probably do anything for Mum, to protect her…

Before Iain could phrase his concerns, Deirdre cut in.

“Wow, James. You really have planned everything! I can’t believe you researched all this.” She beamed at him.

James crossed his arms and puffed out his chest a bit. “Well,” he said, having the upbringing to at least sound demure, “I just had a lot of time on my hands—being basically shut in or by myself all the time.”

Iain balked but kept his bafflement to himself. Is that what his brother thought, that he’d been left alone and confined? Had he been planning to run away by himself for so long?

Iain remembered when he and James used to plan together how they would find Mum. But just as he had learned to let go of a young boy’s wish of being a knight and a young man’s ambition of being in the Iron Infantry, any real thoughts of finding his mum had been shelved with other unrealistic dreams.

Evidently James had never given up. He hadn’t questioned Marko’s intentions or the letters or doubted Mum’s motives for leaving. Iain was brimming with pride for his brother even if James had hidden all this from him and ran away. He had probably thought Iain wouldn’t have listened—to his credit, he would have been right.

But he was listening now.

As James began folding his map back up, Iain clapped him hard on the back, grinning. “Nice detective work, egghead,” he said. “Next time you have a genius breakthrough, involve me in it like old times, yeah? I want back in.”

James grinned back at him unabashedly. “Yeah. Count on it.” Then he perked up further, grabbing the stack of letters. “Speaking of genius breakthroughs, we should read the rest of these. Maybe Mum’s left us some clues that Marko didn’t find.”

Iain reached out and placed his hand on James’s arm, gently lowering it. When James shot him a confused look, he pleaded in a hushed tone, “Maybe we ought to read those later, yeah? When we’re alone.”

“Why?” James asked, not bothering to whisper.

“It’s personal, yeah? It should be kept between us—between family.”

He hoped James would understand. The letters contained private conversations only meant for Marko to hear. It was mortifying enough to be reading it themselves, and he did not fancy the idea of anyone else hearing any personal anecdotes that might be in the other letters.

“What? That’s dumb!” James scoffed. “Since I’m the one who took these, I think I should be in charge of who reads them. It’s only fair. And Deirdre wants to help, so she’ll need to know what we know.”

Deirdre looked between them, having apparently heard everything. She frowned but said, “If you think it could help, I’d be happy to read them.”

Iain hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings, but he clearly had. He didn’t know many faeries to be sensitive. But she did not have any reason to know the details of their family life. Even if she was nice to James, he had only known her a few days, after all.

James reluctantly stowed the letters away, saying they would look over them once they were in town. Iain was grateful that he’d decided not to make a scene over it.

Wanting to change the subject, a thought occurred to Iain, and he asked Deirdre, “What about you? Do you, uh, have plans for how you’re going to find the Summer Court?”

“Hmm. The banshee told me I needed to find the Summer Prince and that he would get me in the Summer Court.” Deirdre shrugged, sucking in her lip. “So I guess I’ll just have to do that.”

“How do you plan on finding the Summer Prince?” Iain asked, leaning forward to meet her eyes. “I meant it when I said no one’s seen him for ages. He must have made himself scarce for a reason.”

After considering for a moment, she said, “You know, I’m not really sure.”

He couldn’t help but think it was a little naïve of her to just wander toward the Summer Court with no solid intention, off the word of a banshee. But the banshee fortune-teller, he realized, must have been telling the truth—about Deirdre and about Iain when he had gone to the same banshee years ago and she had told him he would see his mother again.

And Deirdre was a faery after all, so it shouldn’t have been odd for her to follow the advice of one. She probably knew more about magic than he ever would; maybe there was something he didn’t know about how faery intuition worked.

Or maybe she just doesn’t care that much about finding the Summer Court… If not, then what does she care about? Why is she here?

That was something that still baffled him—not why she was traveling but why she was traveling with them. He supposed she had no one else to go with, being new to the city and with no known family. She had claimed to be leaving with James with the intention of keeping him safe, which he appreciated but didn’t quite understand.

There was a lot going on that he did not understand—with Deirdre, with James, with the state of Neo-London, and his father. His first instinct was to ignore it—to push everything away and let it roll off him like rain—but he didn’t know if he could do that anymore. He didn’t know if the wool could be placed back over his eyes now.

James butted in, saying, “I bet we can find someone to ask once we’re close to the Summer Court. I reckon the locals must know all about the Summer Prince.”

“That isn’t much of a solid plan,” Iain pointed out.

“Well what do you suggest then?” James asked though his tone suggested he didn’t want to hear what Iain had to say in the slightest.

“Deirdre might consider finding a guide, someone who knows the area and where the barrier starts,” Iain said. “We might even find a decent faery to take us. We could look somewhere along the way.”

“I didn’t think faeries lived in human towns,” Deirdre said. “I mean, Neo-London is one thing, but there weren’t any in the town near the orphanage.”

Iain shrugged. “They probably wouldn’t live in one, but sometimes they like to pass through little towns that are close to the countryside.”

He thought of the faery and the human in the cottage who had helped him when he’d asked. He thought of the little sleeping babe in the father’s arms, how the sight had oddly warmed his heart, despite all the fear that had crowded his mind that day after the first Fachan attack. Maybe he did not know as much about faeries as he thought he did if a human and a faery could live and thrive and parent together.

“I heard that back before the bombing,” Iain continued, “some faeries used to charge humans a hefty fee to guide them near the Court just for a glimpse of the Seelie Queen.”

“Did they ever see her?” Deirdre asked.

“Sometimes.”

James cackled. “I remember Dad telling us about that! He said one time a foreign leader paid for such a tour and claimed he got a kiss from the Faery Queen herself!”

“It was really just an actor in an atrocious costume—a famous comedian, mind you. It was news for months. Even the faeries thought it was a laugh, apparently. The poor blighter.”

Deirdre leaned in with interest, her hands folded in her lap and her legs crossed. She looked like a child engaged in an interesting picture book. “Was the Summer Court really that accessible back then?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve even read much about what it was like before the bombing.”

James’s expression was grim. “They don’t tell you much about faery and human relations before the Cataclysm at school or in textbooks. Everything they do tell you is complete propaganda.”

Iain somehow managed not to roll his eyes, thinking that he was about to hear a conspiracy.

Tilting her head, Deirdre asked, “Like what?”

“Well, um, things were a lot less regulated back then, but other than a few disputes over land—faeries stealing livestock from farms or humans building on sacred sites—they mostly coexisted in peace. The prime minister of the day even encouraged faeries and humans to live in the same spaces, claiming they could benefit each other.”

“Where did you hear that?” Iain asked after a pause, intrigued. He’d never heard anything like this before.

“In a book—an autobiography of one of the politicians of the time.” James’s grin was sly. “It was banned, of course, because it shows faeries in a decent light, but I managed to find a really old copy in a shop once. It was all blackened, like someone had tried to burn it.”

“Wow.” Deirdre’s eyes lit up. “That sounds really nice. About humans and faeries living together, I mean. Do you think faeries and humans could get along like that again?”

“It would be cool to be around all that magic and stuff!” James’s expression scrunched up, and he added, “It probably was nice until the prime minister was cursed anyway. He was cursed to push the button—you know, the nuclear button.”

“By the Winter Court?”

James nodded. “Most likely. It also might have been a rogue faery. They never caught the one responsible though. Dad says it could have been a Seelie faery just as easily, but no one else believes that. From what I’ve read, that wouldn’t have been the case at all.”

As Deirdre stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, and as Iain held a sympathy yawn back with difficulty, he stood up and suggested that Deirdre and James try to get some sleep. James had no objections, instantly lying back on his makeshift bed and twisting around to get comfortable.

Deirdre stood up, wiping her skirt off. “I’ll keep watch. After all, you and James had to stay up all last night while I slept for hours…”

Iain shouldered his pack, glancing around to find the optimal place to sit. He wanted to find somewhere where he could see anything coming from a distance. “You were passed out,” he pointed out. “You needed to sleep it off. Not your fault.”

“But aren’t you tired?” she asked, her brow pinched. “I mean, you look tired. Like, really, really tired. It’s not healthy to stay awake for so long.”

Iain was dumbfounded for a moment on realizing that she was concerned for him. He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing for a full minute.

He wanted to tell her that even if he did try to sleep, he probably wouldn’t be able to. He wanted to tell her that he was the eldest among them, the only one with any kind of formal training, and the only one with a firearm. Most importantly, he considered the two of them his responsibility, with James being his little brother and Deirdre being an innocent civilian even if she did possess an awesome power. If she had to use her magic again, she might drain herself even further.

Instead, what came out of his mouth was a stumbling, mumbling, “It’s fine. If we encounter any kind of faery monster, I’d rather it be me to deal with it than you—you know, because of your magic…”

He wondered what he’d said to make her look so defensive all of a sudden. She stopped rocking on her heels, clasped her hands together against her chest, and narrowed her eyes.

When she spoke, her voice was trembling, and the sound made his throat constrict. “I know my magic is… weird and creepy, and I know you think I’m like other faeries, but I’m not like them. I know I’m not human, but I don’t even know what’s going on, or why this is happening. I’m… I’m just a person, like you and James. I’m a person!”

“I know that,” Iain said instantly. It felt right and true to say it. Then he just stood there, stunned, his body going cold. “That wasn’t what I meant when I mentioned your magic…,” he said, his voice soft.

James was either already sleeping like a log, or he was faking so he could eavesdrop. Iain guessed it was probably the latter, but either way, this was a conversation between him and Deirdre only.

“I know this is all crazy, but I’m not a bomb that’s about to go off!” Deirdre insisted, her cheeks coloring. She plopped back to the ground and folded her arms. “How would you like it if someone looked at you and talked about you like you had no feelings?”

He knew exactly what that felt like.

He couldn’t even imagine inflicting the same wounding feeling on someone else—it was unthinkable. But that was what he’d been doing since he told her he couldn’t trust she wouldn’t hurt them by accident or otherwise. He was sickened with guilt that he’d said it even if it might be true.

But he didn’t say that. He didn’t say anything—couldn’t even seem to form words, which was unusual for him. Why that was the case, he could not even guess.

As she let out a huge, shuddering sigh and threw herself down on her makeshift bed, seemingly forgetting it was made out of hard ground and not mattress, he just let her be, convincing himself he should just leave her alone to avoid making things worse.

“Night,” Iain said.

All Deirdre did was let out a muffled groan, her face pressed against her mossy bed.

Then he pushed down his regret. He let all of it go, focusing instead on how he could help ensure their security for the night. Even if he had made Deirdre feel unwelcome, he could at least make certain she and James were kept safe.

 

Iain hadn’t climbed a tree since he was a child. The last time he’d done it, he’d fallen out of it backward and nearly broken his neck. It was all done in the name of a quest appointed to him by James, who had been pretending to be the great wizard Merlin. After the grand ceremony in which Mum had knighted him with a broom handle as he knelt on the kitchen floor, he and James had raced to the park across the street to play. The quest had involved a great many feats, including jumping from park bench to park bench, retrieving a holy item from a deadly beast (a prized tennis ball previously stolen by their neighbor’s vicious dog), and finally climbing to the top of the tallest tree to grab the last leaf of autumn.

He’d fallen but not before he’d snatched the leaf first, which was all that had mattered to him. The leaf remained clenched in his fist proudly, even as he’d hobbled home in stoic silence and as James sniffled and cried, and even as his mother shouted at them after James confessed what happened. It had been a well-known fact in their home that Iain never refused a dare; James had often got in trouble for daring him to do dangerous and ridiculous things.

Now as the sky darkened, Iain climbed a tree to get a good vantage point of the campsite. He was just high enough to see the area but low enough so he could jump down at a moment’s notice. The tree was nearly bare, which meant there were no leaves to get in the way of his line of sight. Seeing James and Deirdre sleeping soundly below, he settled into the crook of the tree branch, and it almost felt cozy.

He had his firearm in one hand and his radio in the other. His headlamp was at the ready, but he decided to leave it shut off until he heard anything. If he heard anything…

They’d heard the Fachan’s steps, heard the whistling chain, but they hadn’t heard him sneak up on them—not until it was too late. The Fachan was dead, but there were many other monsters out there, ones that were sneakier and soundless.

Despite the cool evening breeze, Iain felt sweat bloom on his skin.

His ears strained in the quiet, and his eyes strained in the darkness. He tensed, his heart starting to race, thinking for one fleeting, jolting moment that he’d heard that whistling again—

But of course he hadn’t. Even thinking he had, he realized, sounded crazy. All he’d heard was the occasional rustling of the trees and grasses in the wind and the rushing of blood in his ears.

“You’re just tired,” he told himself under his breath. “Don’t start losing it now. Just keep it together.”

He turned the radio over in his hand. It was a long shot, but maybe he could tune in to a local frequency to hear if there were any faery sightings in the area. It would at least make him feel like he was doing more than just sitting there.

There was only white noise for a moment as he flipped through the stations. Then a voice, laced with static—

“Your tracking shows you’re in old London. Is the air still choked with ash?”

Dad…

He must have been waiting for him to turn his radio on, that Iain would have to turn it on eventually. And he’d have known nightfall would be the time to do it.

Iain’s finger hovered over the Talk button, but he didn’t answer yet. He knew his father wasn’t finished.

“It’s a sore sight, isn’t it? I imagine the photographs of the wreckage do not do the damage justice. It is something you have to see for yourself to understand.” Alan continued, each word deliberate and slow. “That is all faeries know how to do—destroy. That’s all their magic is capable of.”

Silence. The static faded out.

Iain pressed the Talk button. “I’m not in old London anymore. It wasn’t safe,” he said. “I threw the tracker away.”

There was a long pause as Iain released the button. He felt oddly composed as he waited for a response.

“It isn’t safe anywhere now,” Dad said. “It’s not safe for James to be out of the city. You should come home, Iain.”

Home…

The word filled him with warmth and longing and sensory memories. Iain felt the truth of his father’s statement in his bones. It served to validate his fear that he was leading James away from safety for one moment, but he pushed back against it. He brushed his fear aside.

Neo-London wouldn’t be the same anymore. The city was overtaken by martial law—there would be stricter curfews, and there was a possibility of arrests and sentencing without a trial. He recalled what the city streets were like as he’d left it last—empty with a frightful silence. Humans and faeries alike were afraid.

Home wouldn’t be the same. Nothing would be how it was after what Philip had told him, after what Mum’s letters said, after Deirdre was made a scapegoat.

“I can’t do that,” Iain said.

A pause.

“This is desertion, Iain.” The phrase struck him like a fist, winding him. Shame burned him like a brand—a child’s shame. “The soldier I know would never even consider disobeying orders. I thought you wanted to help this country.”

“I do.” He hissed. “I still do.”

“What is this really about?” His father’s voice was curious now, less biting. “You can’t be loyal to Philip Prance. Whatever he told you is a lie forged to break trust between us.”

Iain knew that was not true. He regained clarity as a spark of hot anger flared in his chest at the mention of Philip, at the false insinuation. He regained his resolve. “Philip wasn’t a liar.”

His father scoffed. “Philip must have known how to manipulate you. But he was not your blood, and he was not your family.”

Iain said nothing.

“Why did your brother leave?” Dad asked, making him sit up straighter in surprise.

“He wanted to travel. To find Mum.”

Now Dad was surprised. As Iain released the Talk button, first there was a deep silence. Then he heard only static at first as his father pushed to speak—the faint sound of his breathing for a long moment, the clink of something that must have been a glass or a tea mug set down.

“Well… then you’ve heard from her?”

“Not directly, but we have a lead.”

“I see.” The distance between them that had been a mere illusion just minutes before was now apparent. His father sounded far from him, his voice faint and flat. “If you want to take leave from the Iron Wardens, if you want to travel with your brother, I could allow it. I could… pardon you. You’ll notice that I have not reported your insubordination. I do not think I could report you even if I had to.”

Iain stared at the radio. He wanted to believe that was true so badly…

“All you have to do is follow your orders like the Iron Warden I know you can be, Iain. All you have to do is bring that faery traitor to me.”

And there’s the catch…

His knuckles blanched as he gripped the radio. “As an Iron Warden,” he ground out, “isn’t it my job to protect the civilians of Neo-London? That’s what I’m doing. Deirdre is an innocent.”

“Once again, it seems your lack of decent judgment will be your downfall. Perhaps Boyd was correct…”

Iain went blank; as far as he was concerned, his father was speaking about someone else instead of him.

“She’s a faery, Iain. They are all heartless and inhuman. Seelie, Unseelie—none of those petty, tedious details mean anything beyond strategy in war. She will behave herself until she’s done toying with you and your brother—until she gets bored.”

He refused to believe that.

“Even if she was not part of the attack,” General Callaghan continued, “and by some happenstance was wrongly placed at the scene by a dozen witnesses, she is still most likely to be Unseelie and loyal to the Winter Court.”

Hearing his father voice all his concerns might have validated his paranoia in the past, but now it served the opposite function, which was clearly not his father’s intention.

For the first time, Iain considered the possibility that everything his father had taught him about faeries might have been a lie or just a bias. He reminded himself to ask James more about what he’d learned from those banned books sometime.

“I only ask that you think about this thoroughly, Iain. If you cannot do what is best for your country, then at least think about what is best for your brother.”

With that, his father’s voice cut out, and he shut off their connection.

There was no sleeping for Iain after that conversation even if he hadn’t intended to take the full night watch already. So he set down his radio after flipping through more frequencies and finding no reports or sightings near their area and tried to make himself comfortable. He spent the rest of the night staring into the dark, remembering days spent at the park playing and thinking fondly of tales his mother had told him.