“It was amazing. A portal and assault-snake in one creature. I had no idea how . . . awesome and . . . elegant magic could be. Of course, Amad is a complete psychopath. We have to stop him. And we only have two days. I’m just praying it’s two days in this realm. Time goes slower here.”
Erin was at my house and I was describing what had happened. It was almost midnight. I’d spent most of the evening brooding. I’d had a few drinks, and then I’d sat at the piano and played some Bartok and then Mahler’s “Piano Quartet in A Minor,” which was incomplete without the string parts, but that was okay because I felt incomplete myself. Then I’d had more to drink and then I’d called Erin.
She’d come over and we watched the late night news. There was a story about the fire and the reporter noted that the roof had collapsed in an “Act of God” and the rain had doused the fire, which had saved the building from total destruction. The building was evacuated briefly but the fire marshal had let everyone back inside after an hour. The reporter mentioned a single fatality but the identity of the victim was not released pending notification of the family.
After that, Erin listened to me. And listened some more.
“I called from a pay phone about the fire,” I said. “The building could have been unsafe.”
Erin replied, “You did the right thing.”
“I don’t know what they’ll make of what they find. I guarantee they’ve never seen a crime scene like that before.”
“A few centuries of contact between Eternals and mortals has taught us how adaptable human beings can be. They’re very good at finding a rational explanation for almost anything. And if they find something they can’t explain, they ignore it.”
I laughed and the sound was bitter to my ears. “You’re probably right.”
Erin caught the emotion behind the words and put a hand on my shoulder. “You couldn’t have saved him. If you had done anything else, you would have died too. I’d have been devastated.”
“You would?”
Maybe she hadn’t intended on revealing so much or maybe she just wanted to give me a hard time. “Of course. And Chief Cuevas would have been crying his eyes out.”
Snort.
I laid the piece of silver on the table. “This is from Amad’s cane. Part of the silver snake. I melted it. Foom. Call 9-1-1.”
Erin looked at it like she expected it to bite her. There was a tightness around her eyes. “Is it possible to find out where Amad plans to construct the Jeweled Gate?” I asked. “Can you use this to find him?”
Erin took a dozen heartbeats to answer. “Maybe,” she said. “Getting a reading from a common object is easy. Getting a reading from a magical object is more complicated . . .”
She trailed off and I filled in the blank. “And dangerous?”
Erin nodded. “It’s like a bottle of liquid with a cork in it. It looks like water. But it could be vodka. It could be poison. Could be flammable. To find out, you pull the cork. You still may not know what it is, so you drink it. Once you drink it, you’ll find out what it is all right, but if it’s lethal, it’s too late. Common objects are water for sure. Not harmful. Magical objects, on the other hand, could have all kinds of hidden properties.”
I looked at my reflection in the metal and then I put the silver piece back in my pocket. “Not worth the risk then. We’ll find out what we need to know some other way.”
“We don’t have much time. Keeper might be able to tell us more,” Erin offered.
“That’s all right. We’ll think about it tomorrow. If Amad meant two days in the Eternal realm, it would be over already.” I looked at the tightness around Erin’s eyes and realized it was fatigue. “You’re dead on your feet. You got up too early, and I kept you too late.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said. She yawned.
Sandretta stood in the hallway. She already knew what I had in mind.
“You’re staying here tonight.” I said it with as much finality in it as I could manage.
“No, I’m . . .”
“Too tired to drive. You had some wine. The guest bedroom is in its own part of the house. You’ll have the whole place to yourself.”
“I can’t . . .”
“You can’t say no. Sandretta’s ready to show you to your room.”
Erin looked at Sandretta who raised a hand in gentle invitation.
Just then, Max appeared at the entry on the other side of the room. “Mr. Luck, there’s someone outside asking for you.”
“Outside?”
“At the end of the drive. I tried to coax him inside, but he won’t come any closer. He has a letter. Addressed to the both of you.”
Curious. “Who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
I had to wonder if it was Amad or MacPherson. Or an attorney. Or a cop.
“I think he is afraid of the wards,” Max concluded.
Max didn’t seem too concerned. Erin and I walked out to the driveway together.
It wasn’t an attorney. Unless you can get a law degree by the age of ten.
It was my little friend in the Renaissance shirt.
I knelt in front of him. “Hello. What is your name?”
The boy held out an envelope almost the size of a pizza box. In a sickeningly ornate script, the envelope said:
Their Highnesses
Prince Goethe Luck
And
Princess Fáidh Bean O’Connell Luck
Whoever sent it was guilty of using royal titles without a license.
“Thank you,” Erin said. She held out her hand and let the boy place the envelope across her palm. She put her other hand on top of the envelope so it wouldn’t fall on the ground. The boy took a step back.
“Can you speak?” I asked.
The boy didn’t say anything. He saluted. I’m pretty sure he was issuing a salute to sarcasm, not me. Then he disappeared. Blink. Gone.
Erin looked at me. “That’s the boy you told me about? At your office and then at the apartment building today?”
I nodded. “Same kid. Keeps disappearing like that. You haven’t seen him before, have you? In the Behindbeyond?”
Erin was examining the envelope but she heard me. “No. I haven’t seen him anywhere.”
We went back in the house and looked at the envelope some more. “Anybody think it’s dangerous?”
“Don’t think so,” Erin said.
“No,” Max said.
Sandretta shrugged.
I opened it. Inside was an invitation.
Dearest Goethe and Fáidh,
You are cordially invited to a dinner in your honor.
At Ail Bán Dearg upon the rise of the new moon.
Burn at the hearth to accept.
Love,
Béil
“Well, I will just have to check my social calendar,” I said. “Oh shoot, I’m busy that night. What night is it again?”
Erin sighed. “It’s tomorrow night. We have to go.”
“We do?”
“Yes. It’s the Fae equivalent of a wedding reception.”
The surprises kept on coming. “Really?”
“Yes. New marriages are celebrated at the new moon in the Behindbeyond. It’s traditional for the couples’ closest family member or friend to have a dinner for them. People bring gifts. Leave their good wishes. Lots of blessings for, um, fertility.”
“I’m good with all that except Béil being our closest friend.”
“She’s taken it upon herself. It’s a chance for her to claim some honor. It’s politics. It will make her look good.” Erin touched my shoulder and led me back to the house. “I need to do a better job of keeping you informed. There’s a lot to know, and I forget this is all new to you. You’ve had to adapt so quickly.”
“You’re doing fine,” I said. “Do you know where this is?”
She read the invitation again. “Ail Bán Dearg.” It sounded pretty when she said it out loud. “That will be where Béil lives.”
“Not lives. Roosts.” That made Erin laugh. “Have you been there?”
“Why would I go there?”
“Good point. Betcha my raven can find it for us.”
Back in the house, Max had a modest fire going in the fireplace.
We decided to drop the invitation in the fire together. We knelt on the floor. We each held a side and we counted to three and let go. The paper fell into the flames and was consumed instantly. Curlicues of flame and smoke rearranged themselves in the air above the fire and created a vaporous face. Béil. The face smiled and winked, then the fire flared out while the smoke rose up the flue and disappeared.
“Guess we’re committed,” I said. “Or should be.”
Erin’s wan smile let me know she was really exhausted now.
“C’mon, let Sandretta take you to your room.”
Erin got up from the floor. She put one arm across her stomach and one hand on her hip. And she started chewing her lower lip, which was something I hadn’t seen her do before. Not that I could remember.
“You okay?” I asked.
She glanced up at the ceiling for a moment. “I need to tell you something,” she replied.
I stood up and reached out to her. “I’m sure it can wait,” I said.
“No. I want to tell you now.” She seemed ready to change her mind but at the same time didn’t want to.
“Okay.”
She retrieved her purse and leaned back on the table as she looked through its compartments. She produced a piece of paper, folded in thirds. She held it for a few seconds and stared at it. Then she extended the paper to me.
“Whatever this is,” I said, taking the paper. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
I opened the paper and gave it a cursory review.
“Petition for presumption of death?”
Erin took a deep breath and let it out gradually. “I was married,” she said. Simple. Direct.
“I’m guessing you haven’t seen him for a while.”
“Five and a half years now.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. The state police found his car down in the Everglades. He didn’t tell anyone he was going there. Including me. No signs of foul play. The car was just sitting there. Keys in the ignition. There wasn’t a note of any kind. There was an empty bottle of cranberry juice and a half-eaten sandwich sitting on the passenger seat. Nothing else. No wallet. No clothes. No body.”
“I’m sorry.” I hope she could tell I meant it.
“I was worried an alligator got him. Then I was mad and I hoped an alligator got him. For the last couple of years, I’ve tried to be . . . indifferent. But he’s in my thoughts every day.”
“Of course he is. You loved him. You’ll always love him.”
Erin looked the floor and nodded a few times.
“What was his name?”
“Blake.”
“Did he have magic?”
Erin was still looking at the floor.
“None. He didn’t have any idea about magic. He was just a sweet guy I met at a hotel while I was at medical conference. We went out for a year. Had the big church wedding. He traveled a lot. Commercial pilot. When he was gone, I spent time in the Behindbeyond, and when he was home it was just blissfully, boringly mortal.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was.” She looked up at me with her eyes all shot with green and dew.
“You want me to find him?” I asked. “I’m very good at that.”
She laughed but it was more of a bitter-sounding burst. “See?” she said. “You’re too sweet. And just plain dumb.” She looked at the tips of her fingers, which were twining themselves together. “I don’t want you to find him. It’s time to move on.”
She stepped in close and put her arms around me. I put my arms around her.
“I wanted to tell you before you found out from someone else. My marriage to Blake wouldn’t mean anything to the Alder King. A mortal marriage is not recognized in the other realm. The Alder King only cares about the Behindbeyond. But my marriage meant something to me. Before I can even consider a serious relationship, I need to close that chapter of my life. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“There will be a hearing. Ten days from now. I want you to come with me.”
“Okay.”
I could hear Erin’s breathing. It was quicker than it should have been. The pulse in her neck was almost audible. Her heart was pounding so hard I could feel it. My heart was pounding too.
“Why are we so old-fashioned?” she asked.
I thought about it for a second. “Because we’re fashioned old?”
Her giggle was soft. “I like that. I remember Queen Victoria ruling England. I was eleven when she died.”
“Ah, the formative years,” I said. “Lucky for you, I remember the Puritans.” I felt Erin’s fingers in my hair.
“No you don’t,” she said. Then, “I should go to bed,” she said.
“I should let you,” I said.
“Thanks for letting me stay.”
“Yeah. Anytime.”
We stood like that for maybe a minute. Our bodies calling to each other. I swallowed thickly. More pounding heartbeats. More breathing. Then she said, “I almost didn’t come back.”
I heard what she said but I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Didn’t come back? When?”
“In the forest. On your ten-thousandth dawn.”
“Oh.”
“When you were supposed to be picking a helpmeet. I almost didn’t come back.”
I didn’t interrupt. I liked to hear her talk. She’d tell me what she wanted to tell me if I just let her.
“I almost didn’t come back because I was afraid you wouldn’t pick me. I was afraid you’d pick one of the other girls. I didn’t have any right to expect you would want me. But it would have made me sad if you’d picked somebody else, and I wanted a chance.”
“I did pick you.”
“Yeah.”
We were kind of swaying together. Like kids at a sixth-grade dance. She laughed, that bitter burst again. “If you’d picked one of the other girls, you’d be sleeping with her by now.”
“Uh-huh.”
With that, she backed up. She patted me on the chest but she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. “Ten days. Then maybe I can think again.” She turned and didn’t say anything else as she let Sandretta take her off to the guest room to sleep.