Chapter Eight

 

 

The shopkeeper was watching them. That was the first thing Iain noticed when he and James walked in the small culinary and spice shop that was located on a stretch of stores on the main cobbled street road—a nice place for tourists. But Iain was not about to let one suspicious look bother him today, and he forgot about it almost instantly when he strode through the shop and took a whiff of the air that smelled amazingly of cinnamon.

He lost track of James instantly, seeing only the yellow flash of his scarf as he ducked around a display. It was difficult keeping an eye on James while he was trying to shop, but he had learned the hard way to always keep him in his sight because he had a tendency to pick up everything, even fragile items. It didn’t seem to matter how many times Iain, or Mum when James was little, told him not to do it.

The shopkeeper cleared his throat, eyeing them over the counter, and asked, “Just breezing through, are you?” It was an innocuous enough question, but the tone rubbed Iain the wrong way. He decided he was being paranoid and ignored it, going on with his browsing.

“We’re traveling!” James replied enthusiastically, poking his head out from somewhere completely different from where Iain last saw him.

Can he teleport? Iain wondered wryly. That would explain so much…

The shopkeeper’s frown deepened further somehow. “Traveling’s fine, as long as you’re not with those Wayfaring Festival weirdos. They come through here lookin’ for items for their rituals or costumes.” He scoffed.

“No, we’re not,” Iain said quickly. “We’re just passing through.”

“I know what that is!” James piped up. “I’ve read about it—it’s like a festival with contests and live music and cultural events and faery cultists—”

“It’s a bunch of weirdos and nutters.” The shopkeeper interrupted him sharply and with a tone that suggested his opinion was the only one allowed.

Iain wanted to end this conversation as quickly as possible, hoping to avoid any conflict. “Say,” he asked the shopkeeper brightly, “have you got a nice steel pot that’d be good for stewing?”

The shopkeeper merely pointed to the wall where a few pots were hanging from hooks.

The second thing Iain noticed when entering the establishment was the vast array of dried herbs that lined the walls and were waiting in containers, both ground and whole. The scents were overpowering in the best way, and Iain had to restrain himself from sticking his face in the containers.

As he began filling the little plastic bags provided with paprika, cayenne pepper, dried mushrooms, garlic, curry spices, and dried hot chilies, he wondered what kind of cuisine the girls were used to. Did faeries like spicy foods? What had they served at the orphanage? He only knew of one type of food that faeries ate, and he was not about to go looking for that. He doubted a nice town like this would even sell it.

Well, I know Deirdre likes mushrooms and fish for certain… and she’s not afraid of haggis, and that is made with warming spices like nutmeg. So… warming spices are fine. I should get thyme for mushrooms and lemon pepper for fish? Maybe we can snare a rabbit…

As he grabbed some milder spices, just in case, he heard an odd rattling sound above him but saw nothing when he looked upward. He hoped the shop wasn’t infested with mice, lest the product be tainted.

When Iain was debating over which size of iron skillet to purchase, he balked suddenly, a thought occurring to him. “James?” he called.

“Huh?”

Iain nearly jumped out of his skin as James spoke up from directly behind him. He turned to his brother, who was holding a glass mortar and pestle, and gingerly pried it out of his hands and set it down on a shelf. “I told you not to pick stuff up like that.”

James rolled his eyes. “I was being careful.”

“James,” Iain said seriously, lowering his voice so they would not be overheard, “can faeries eat food cooked in an iron skillet? It won’t hurt them or anything, will it?”

To his surprise, James just laughed. “Not unless they eat the skillet or get cut with it or something.”

“Great!” Iain was practically giddy, thinking of all the dishes he could make.

James just stared at him, frowning, probably thinking he was much too excited about purchasing cookware. And he would be right.

Iain grabbed a skillet off the wall and tested the weight of it in his hand. It was sturdy and well made—and it was marked down as well. Then he brought his purchases to the register, wanting to get traveling as quickly as possible.

He was handing the iron skillet to the shopkeeper for him to scan when he heard it—glass shattering.

The shopkeeper let out an impressive stream of expletives in true British fashion that made even Iain blush.

Ah, damn. Don’t be expensive… don’t be expensive…

Iain slowly turned around, gritting his teeth, only to see a confused-looking James with his hands held up. “It wasn’t me,” he claimed. “It must be a choxano or something!”

There was a glass vial on the floor at James’s feet, but there were no vials on the shelves beside him. The only vials in the shop were held behind the counter. Iain doubted it was choxano, a vengeful or unrested spirit, that had tossed the vial, but he could not exactly dispute it when he could not see it.

“Now just what kind of scam are you running—?” the shopkeeper, red in the face, began to bellow but was interrupted by a clear yet incredibly high-pitched voice that seemed to be everywhere in the shop at once.

“Damned, cursed, marked! The boy is marked! May he flee from the premises at once! By my hat, get the cursed boy out of my shop!” the voice cried. “No servant of the Unseelies shall set foot in here, by my hat!”

“What’s going on?” Iain asked, glancing around as he heard more scurrying above him.

Marked? It’s talking about James.

Iain felt like he’d been doused with icy water, and all he could do was stand there.

“Ow!” Another vial flew from the shelf, seemingly on its own, and hit James in the shin but didn’t shatter. It made an awful hollow sound as it struck him, and James’s face contorted in pain.

Then, to Iain’s confusion, James’s face split into a huge grin. “It’s a real Brownie!”

A brownie? Why is he so excited about that? Wait…

It took Iain a painfully long amount of time to realize that James was not talking about a dessert but a house faery. For a moment all he could imagine was a chocolaty treat throwing things, and he decided in that moment that he had never felt like more of an idiot.

Just then a little figure appeared on the shelf behind the shopkeeper. Iain could only gape stupidly at the creature, which took the form of a tiny, almost goblin-looking man with a little hat on its head.

“I forsake this shop!” the Brownie cried. “I bid you farewell! This Brownie shall not appear again in any shop that serves a boy marked with dark magic!” Just as suddenly as the Brownie had appeared, it vanished.

An awkward silence followed.

Iain began to pull the correct amount of currency from his wallet and place it on the counter. “I think we’ll be heading out now—”

The shopkeeper turned to him, purple with rage. “I don’t want your money! I have the right to refuse service, and I’ll not take any money from you vagabonds who deal in dark magic! Get out! You’re not welcome here or anywhere else!”

Iain set his jaw. “We just want to pay and leave.”

The shopkeeper gaped at him. “You deaf? I’ll call the Iron Wardens on you if you don’t leave my shop right now. You’ve just cost me my house faery.”

Iain felt his pulse quicken. He clenched his fists at his sides. “I—” He stopped himself before he protested, remembering that he wasn’t an Iron Warden any longer. “We just want what we came for, and then we’ll be gone. Our money is still good.”

“Yeah!” James chimed in. “You can’t treat people like this!”

“I told you to get out of my bleedin’ shop! Or do I have to defend myself from being robbed?”

That snapped Iain out of it. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. He grabbed his money from the counter, leaving the goods behind. “Let’s go, James.”

But James didn’t budge just yet. Instead, he leaned in and pointed to one of the filled vials behind the counter “Is that Hawthorn bark?”

“What if it is?” the man asked nastily. “I ain’t selling it to you.”

“I’m just curious because it’s a rare find,” James said calmly, a small smile forming. “You see, it’s illegal to sell it, so you probably wouldn’t call anyone from the Iron Guard here.”

The shopkeeper stared James down, but James remained unflinching. Finally the man pushed the items toward the boys and told them to get the hell out of his shop.

Iain placed his money on the counter, grabbed the items, and made his way to the door, pulling James along with him. Before they were out the door, James called back over his shoulder, “I’ve read that if you leave out a bowl of porridge with some butter, the Brownie might come back. You could try it—or you know, you could just pick up a broom and clean the shop yourself—”

“Leave!”

“All right.”

 

James let out a whoop of laughter once they were walking again and on their way to find the girls, amazed that he had gotten them out of that situation. Additionally, he had done something that Iain couldn’t have done—hadn’t even thought of. And he’d gotten back at that impolite shopkeeper in the process.

“I can’t believe that worked!” James said, grinning. “Did you see the look on his face?”

But Iain didn’t look at all pleased. In fact, he looked stern. James deflated, wondering what his brother could possibly think he’d done wrong in that situation. He could never seem to do anything right.

“You shouldn’t have done that, James.”

“Why not?” James asked defensively. “He was a git. And you’ve got your precious spices now, so there’s no use complaining.”

James continued, smiling faintly, his excitement not completely put out. “We didn’t force him to do anything, and he’s the one who threatened us with the Iron Wardens. We just called his bluff, is all.”

“It wasn’t right,” Iain insisted. “And he could have called soldiers here, and they could have found Deirdre.”

James scoffed. “I had a plan, and it worked perfectly. That’s what you’re sore about.”

Iain just raised an eyebrow at him but left it at that.

They finally reached the area of town where they’d last seen the girls and began to walk around and search for them.

James produced a book from his backpack. “Something that Brownie said”—he pointed to the title, showing Iain—“about a servant to the Unseelies. This book is called Servants of the Winter Court. Maybe something in here will give us some answers.”

“What’s it say about moorland creatures?” Iain asked.

James flipped through. His eyes widened. “That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?”

“They are divided into sections, from forests to populated areas to the moorlands, but there’s some pages missing from the moorland section.” James felt himself pale, blood draining from his face. “I knew there were pages missing, but I hadn’t noticed which section they were from—”

“Missing, how?”

“Dad ripped the pages out. He found the book in my room, and he ripped these pages out. Only these pages.”

They looked at each other.

“You know what this means, right?” James still held the book on Unseelie creatures in his hand. He gripped the spine so tightly his knuckles went white. His mouth was terribly dry all of a sudden.

“We don’t know anything for certain. Let’s not jump to conclusions, yeah?” Iain suggested. “Let’s just talk ourselves through it.”

“Fine,” James muttered. “But I think there’s only one conclusion: Dad’s a liar and he’s always known about why Mum left.”

Iain rubbed his forehead, squinting, his brain clearly struggling to come up with some excuse that would exonerate their father. “If he knew and didn’t tell us, then it was to protect us.”

Or maybe he knew and he didn’t care. That seems more likely.

Not bothering to hide his disbelief, James scoffed. “Why are you still defending him?”

“I’m not,” Iain protested. “I just think it’s more complicated than you’re making it out to be. Dad’s always been unrelenting when it comes to following rules in the city, and many of those rules were put in place to protect us.”

“Like what?” All James could think of was the ban on faery books.

“Take curfew, for example. He always told me he didn’t want you walking home or exploring the city alone because he knew how dangerous the city could be.”

“You said he was involved in the death of the king…,” James mentioned, confused. “Doesn’t sound like he would care much about protecting us if he was willing to do that.”

“Plenty of criminals have families or loved ones. You can still do despicable things and be an awful person while caring about certain people,” Iain explained. “This has got nothing to do with the king or the country.”

Over the years, James had constructed a very rigid and unchanging view of his father. His father was stern and cold, and the only thing he truly cared about was his work. Nearly every interaction had solidified this perception of him. James could think of many harsh remarks and decisions made that were not in his best interest at all. He’d even brought people like Boyd and Philip into their lives, people who had hurt them, people who had ill will toward them. To James, it didn’t seem like their father had any thought of protecting them.

But he hadn’t known that Dad had told Iain to walk him home to keep him safe. Maybe there was more he didn’t know that would finally help him to understand his father.

Maybe Iain’s right… James assured himself. Iain’s good at understanding people. But he found that the idea only angered him. If their father was hiding this from them, lying to them, then Mum’s leaving and being gone this long was his fault. It was all Dad’s fault.

They spotted the girls in the distance, Deirdre’s red hair acting as a beacon. They were waiting by the wide road that led to the countryside and the beautiful hills beyond them. James picked up his pace, eager to share with the girls what had happened in the shop, when Iain halted him.

“Listen, James,” Iain said, grabbing his shoulder. “Dad contacted me the other night through the radio. We talked a little, and I think he’s still looking out for us… in his own way.”

James’s mouth fell open. “What do you mean?”

“He asked about you, and he said he couldn’t turn me in.” Iain carded his hand through his hair swiftly, letting out a breath. “I know it’s complicated, but… we can at least hold on to that.”

James nodded uncertainly, thinking that he understood. Even if they knew their father was capable of doing terrible things to their king and country, even if he was cold and impossible for James to understand, he could still know that he had at least cared about them. That was all they had left to cling to of their old life.

“But none of that changes what happened.” Iain’s dark eyes were suddenly sharp, something like anger or determination just simmering under the surface. “I know he had something to do with the king’s death. He still wants Deirdre, and he’s still intent on framing her. That can’t happen.”

“Right,” James agreed, just as seriously as his brother.

After everything, that seemed to finally be something the brothers could agree on.