Red oaks don’t shed their leaves in the fall, and this particular tree held onto its hand-sized leaves in abundance. Each one had curled and dried to a warm, leather-like bronze that rustled in the winter wind. Those leaves sheltered many a small critter.
The oak towered over the path as one of the brilliantly grand guardians surrounding my home and lake.
The two fae standing on either side of its trunk carried the same sturdy, tall strength. Their armor shimmered with the white of the snow and the gray-blue of the sky even as it carried the roughness of the tree’s bark. The rough surface coiled down the plating over their thighs, onto the worked leather of their boots, and into the snowpack as if the fae were as rooted to the ground as the oak.
Their helmets shadowed blue-rimmed eyes and carried magnificent racks of antlers textured more like the leather-ish winter oak leaves than anything produced by a stag. Their magic danced close to their bodies like snow blowing in the wind. It hid their true heights and gave me the sense that the two bodies in front of us might well have been optical illusions created to trick our senses.
The fae were objects at a distance reflected oddly in reality’s mirror.
These were not simple dryads. Nymphs were female but these two melded the duality of male and female into a steadfast singularity. They also carried the magic of an oak’s animals—the deer, the jay around their eyes, the squirrel in the softness of tunics under their armor—which regular dryads did not.
“Can they see us?” I asked. Ellie’s concealments hid her from magicals but I had no idea if they worked on other fae.
She backed toward me. “My concealments work on other fae. I think it’s to keep my stepfather or his minions from finding me.” She spoke in a way that made me think she wasn’t so sure of her answer.
The dryads’ armor radiated in service of the high-born but not which high-born King or Queen. Not that I had enough experience—any experience, honestly—with fae to be able to read anything beyond the presence of their magic. The only fae other than Ellie I’d ever been near was the one disturbed by the Civil War. He’d been a fae of the valley, probably a type of Green Man, and not in service of royalty.
Samhain chaos drew them to this land. They’d come to learn from the trees.
I blinked. How…
I knew they were here to question the forest in much the same way I knew what Sal wanted me to know, but this seemed more like a broadcast than a statement.
Ellie gripped my hand and looked up at my face. “Did you hear that? They’re here to speak to the trees?”
“Sal talks to me the same way.” I nodded toward the forest. Which made some sense, since I was pretty sure they were some type of warrior dryad. “They’re here for this place, not us.”
I hoped. Me breaking Ellie’s enchantments was very much a part of last night’s magical blizzard.
Ah, Ellie mouthed, and nodded twice. She twisted in such a way to keep her backpack next to my side and out of the possible line of fire.
I’d seen mentions of lieutenants who managed a royal’s mundane interactions, and of how one should never underestimate the mercurial nature of the fae. But never dryad warriors who came to speak to the trees.
The two fae held perfectly still like two statues built from winter itself.
And I knew more: Veils were pierced under the Samhain moon. Mingling occurred. The wind shrieked and lightning illuminated what hid in shadows. They’d come to gather acorns of truth.
I understood under language, in memory-thoughts, as if the two dryads were giving the world information and not me.
“What does that mean?” Ellie asked.
The two fae spread their arms and… the world flowed toward them as if reality itself was whispering secrets to its closest confidants.
Secrets about the slime left by St. Martin’s footsteps through these woods. Tales of magicals as they traveled between the winds of the blizzard. Recountings of magicks worked. Of the determination and anger of elves and the bright, quick wolfness of Axlam and the Pack.
Of the steadfast one who had found his way to this land.
Me, I thought.
“The land is telling them about last night.” The memory-thoughts were clearly linked to the web of magic set up by the elves, and followed a stream flowing from the past into the present.
The two fae abruptly pulled in their hands. Power shifted, or more precisely, sifted.
“They’re looking for something,” I said. Or someone.
Ellie curled her arm around my waist.
I instinctively pulled her close even though I hadn’t gotten a sense that the two armored-up dryads were looking for her.
But that undercurrent had returned. The fae river of below-language knowledge. And deep inside, I knew all non-fae information they gathered was just that—information.
Except… There should not be fae magic here. Not where it could be subsumed by elves, or wolves, or the thin vampire residue remaining around Alfheim.
This knowledge caused surprise and wrath combined.
Ellie inhaled as if she swallowed a gasp. “They shouldn’t sense the concealments.”
We had fae bloodhounds sniffing around—bloodhounds who came here specifically because the land rang out with fae magic. Bloodhounds who could very well be from Oberon’s Court.
“It might not be you.” How could it not be Ellie?
It could be me.
I broke through the concealments. I caused Ellie’s cottage to reconfigure—profoundly, too, and in a way it never had before. I was at the center of last night’s magical St. Martin-generated whirlwinds and I interacted with that strange, black-eyed elf who I barely remembered, as if my brain couldn’t be bothered to see him as worth recognizing.
“I’m going to step away from you,” I said.
“Oh no you are not, Frank Victorsson.” Ellie pointed at the two dryads as if she’d read my mind as easily as she understood the intent of the dryads. “I’m not losing you to two Cernunnos wannabes.”
I’d spent one night in her cottage. One. And here we were with karmic fae coming to make me pay for the bliss of the morning.
“Frank.”
I looked down at Ellie. She hitched up the strap of her backpack. Her lips wiggled and bunched and I swear she sniffed because she had tears for the same reason I had cosmic-level doubts: No matter how we fight, or live, or work at building something worthwhile, we were two people who the war dogs always find.
Trials and tests. Clashes and concealments. She and I would always have a fight on our hands.
I twisted my head, listening to the background hum of the two dryads. “I’m going to ask questions.” I needed to know why they were surprised and wrathful.
She frowned. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m not losing you to two Cernunnos wannabees.” Not after what we went through to find each other. Not after her touching my cold body and asking me if I hurt. Not after a full morning of the most intimate and perfect lovemaking of my two hundred years. I’d throw punches at the King of the Fae himself if I needed to.
Her lips rounded and she blinked. “Okay.” She inhaled. “Okay.” She shook her arms like she was warming up for a fight. “Be careful.”
I squeezed her hand, then took two big steps away toward the dryads.
The closer I got, the taller they grew—and the more androgynous. They cocked their heads in mirror image to one another and a memory-thought of me manifesting filled the small clearing—and the knowledge that I was not a creature that should be able to manifest.
“My name is Frank Victorsson,” I said. Maybe if I ignored me appearing out of thin air, Ellie’s concealments would force the strangeness of it to pass. “This is my lake.” I pointed toward my cabin.
Yes. They read me from the land. I was not a creature who manifested.
So much for using Ellie’s concealments to my advantage.
Behind me, Ellie removed her pack and unzipped the main pocket.
The air around the fae swirled with ice and took on the clarity of Arctic cold. Neither moved but the balance of friend and foe shifted into threatening.
They sensed seer magic.
Ellie lifted her hand off the pack.
I raised my hands. “Sorry!” I said. “I see magic and sometimes magicals sense it as seer magic!” I lied. Anything to keep them off Ellie’s scent. Maybe the misdirection would stop the questions about manifesting.
“Do they believe you?” Ellie asked.
“I don’t know,” I paused, then continued for the two fae, “who you are.” Other than the sense of threat receding, I picked up no other information.
Ellie zipped the bag and shouldered it again.
I slowly pointed to the elven tattoos around my ear. “This is elf territory. The elves here would not allow calamity to befall the land.” Annoyance, yes. But harm? No. “Do you wish to speak to our King and Queen?”
A new wave of knowledge rolled from the dryads: Salt was poured and the truth dusted. There was fae magic here. I was to tell them all I knew.
I rubbed at the top of my head. “We had a wolf problem, but the elves dealt with it last night,” I said.
A wave of seeking rolled from them. The elves have offended.
This wasn’t about my interactions with Ellie’s concealments. “How?” I asked. “Why are you here?” I asked.
Reality flickered around the two fae. They were there, then not, then back again but different. They’d flipped how they were presented—not just exchanging positions, but flipping what had been on their left to their right as if we were no longer looking at the two fae, but a mirror image.
I’d never seen a magical do anything even remotely similar to the illusions cast by the two fae. Magic was of the world, of the ground under our feet and of the bodies of the creatures working the spells. It was, in essence, more real than the mundane reality around it, and always felt as such. But this, with the mirroring, and the in-the-head echoing, was otherworldly in ways that made every hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
“The elves never do anything that weird,” I said.
Ellie’s nervous chuckle came out as a high-pitched sneeze. “The fae are nothing if not theatrical.”
Theatrics had a purpose: Slight-of-hand saved magical energy. It acted as another layer of camouflage against the mundane world. It twisted and it gave cover.
It wasn’t a method the elves used. Norse practicality dictated a sincerity to the elves’ lives that made trickery and theatrics distasteful.
The magic swirling around my big red oak obscured and obfuscated. It put on airs and it puffed up.
Like a trickster.
The thought hit me in the same way that I knew what they wanted me to know. It hit like Sal. It smacked me upside the head as if the universe wanted me to pay attention. Trickster broadsided me like a truck and I wanted to yank Ellie against my chest as if to protect her from an incoming hit.
She was too far away. “What do you know?” I yelled at the two dryads as if threatening two fae would be enough to stop whatever was coming for us.
They looked to the side, as if someone or something in the trees had caught their attention. Then they looked at each other.
Reality blinked. They vanished.
Ellie exhaled as if she’d been holding her breath. “What happened?”
“Tricksters,” I muttered. I immediately returned to her side. “They tossed out trickster the same way they tossed out all their poetry.”
I scanned the trees looking for any telltale signs of abnormal magic. Nothing. No fae. No elves or wolves or tricksters. Only that word nagging at the inside of my skull.
I’d had my fill of lies and illusions. Of threats. Of powers dark and light deciding I was nothing more than a toy in their grand playpen. Of parents, All- or Royal or hubris-laden, so bound by their own fears that they paid no heed to the reality they manufactured. “Leave Ellie alone,” I rumbled. Leave me alone.
Let us live.
“Frank…” Ellie rubbed my hand. “You’re clenching your fists.”
“What?” I looked down at my hand just as I became aware of how deeply into my palm I was digging my fingers.
Not again, I thought. It was an amorphous not again, a blob of response formed from the many layers of gummy regrets left behind by so much of my life. Some of those layers had been caused by low-demons. Some by witchly interference. But not all of them.
“Hey hey hey…” Ellie cupped my cheeks. “You haven’t dealt with fae before? Other than me?”
Only the aftermath of a fae angry about the World Scars caused by the Civil War.
I shook my head.
“Okay.” She quickly kissed my lips. “Okay.” She pulled her backpack around again. “Those well-versed in fae spellwork leave a wake that can… stir a soul… when they return to their home realms.” She squeezed my hand. “They must have been well-versed.”
I nodded.
She set her bag on the tops of her feet. “We need to figure out who sent them.”
I nodded again.
“Hey.” She put her hand on the side of my neck. “Your heart is racing.”
It was. I inhaled deeply as I attempted to calm myself.
“No fae showed up when Chihiro got through my concealments.”
This still might be my interactions with her cottage. We didn’t know. Whatever it was about, it definitely affected me.
Ellie stopped digging in her bag long enough to give me a quick hug. She didn’t say anything else, but she watched me closely as if trying to figure out if I was okay. “Do you still feel strange? Is it coming from any particular direction?” She pulled out her camera and held it up as if to ask what she should photograph first.
No admonishments for my moment of overreacting. No shrinking away in fear. She trusted me to get through this.
I love this woman, I thought, as if I hadn’t fully accepted the possibility until now.
“Now that they’re gone, I’m taking pictures,” she said.
The fae better not mess up the best thing that ever happened to me. I nodded again, whipped out my phone, and dialed the one elf who might have answers.