Greg had refused to send backup with us, but when Toula appeared in his office and demanded medics, he had been willing to play Red Cross. Five minutes after I carried Meggy into Mother’s palatial suite and located a suitable bed, Toula was back with a pair of wide-eyed wizards, and I let them take over. The realm protested, but I pushed the little voice to the back of my head; apparently, the realm wasn’t a fan at all of new encounters, and I didn’t have time to try to reason with it.
As it turned out, the short answer to the question of how one reasons with the soul of Faerie itself is that one doesn’t. The realm broke everything into black and white, acceptable and unacceptable. I tried logic—the wizards were my guests, I insisted, and the realm seemed to like me well enough—but my reasoning fell on deaf ears. Faerie wasn’t going to be happy until they were gone, and I would simply have to deal with its periodic nagging in the interim.
It also didn’t like the thought of my leaving, but there was no way around that. Hoping that I hadn’t just inherited a homicidally clingy incorporeal entity, I half dragged Joey through a gate into Paul’s rectory and caught the old priest in his study, still in his threadbare red bathrobe. “Well, now,” he said, pushing back from his desk, “nice of you to call before stopping by . . .” He paused, giving us a closer inspection, then pushed his glasses down his nose and frowned. “Okay, someone want to tell me what on God’s green earth is going on?”
“Can’t talk,” I said as Joey sank onto the study’s well-worn couch, weapons and all. “Meggy’s hurt, I’ve got to make sure the wizards aren’t killing her, I think my daughter’s still unconscious—”
Paul’s brow furrowed. “You have a daughter?”
“Technically. And Joey probably needs a sedative.”
He turned to his seminarian, who was staring at the wall. “What happened?”
“Shot some faeries,” Joey muttered. “I’m okay.”
Paul looked back at me, scowling. “All right, Colin, what did you do to him? And why are you glowing?”
I pulled off one glove, inspected my hand, and consciously tamped down the power. “Sorry, tell you later. Kid’s bike is in my garage, I’ll have the Arcanum send his bag along—”
“Colin.”
“I’ve really got to go,” I apologized. “Get Galahad a Valium or something.”
Before he could protest, I slipped back through the gate and shut it behind me, but found Meggy’s sickroom changed from Mother’s brocaded opulence to white walls and a well-cushioned, if institutional, bed. “I thought it would be easier on her when she wakes,” Toula said, intercepting me before I could question the wizards waving their sticks at Meggy’s side. “Everyone knows what a hospital looks like, right? Maybe she won’t freak out if she realizes she’s safe.”
I glanced at the IV stand behind her bed. “What—”
“Just a saline drip,” Toula soothed, pulling me toward the door. “And they even worked up some non-steel needles. She’s in good hands. They said casting had never been this easy,” she added, smirking as she closed the door behind us.
I stared at the ornately carved wood, so different from the featureless gray plastic on the other side. “How is she?”
“Severely dehydrated,” Toula murmured, steering me down the hall. “No obvious bruising or breaks, so I don’t think she was beaten or anything. The medics are trying to keep her electrolytes regulated and her heart steady, and they keep muttering about kidney issues, but they seem upbeat, all things considered.”
I clenched my fists. “And Olive?”
“I took the liberty of keeping her unconscious. Figured you’d want to put out one fire at a time.” She knocked on a door as we passed and added, “I placed her in here for safekeeping. Lets me keep an eye on both of them.”
“You were comfortable sedating her?”
“Eh, the blow knocked her out. I’ve got a rudimentary sleep spell going in there . . .” She saw my expression and shrugged. “Go with what you know, right? I could probably have done something a little flashier, but the spell does the trick.” Toula paused at the end of the hall and cocked her head back toward Meggy’s room. “Look, unless we’ve got explosions, I’m going to stay here and supervise. I don’t want anyone stumbling down here by mistake and attacking the medics, you know?”
“Best not to provoke the Arcanum,” I agreed. “You’ll call me as soon as she wakes?”
“Sure, uh . . .” She folded her arms. “How do I find you, exactly?”
“Here,” I said, and produced a pair of phones in my hand. “Just call me.”
She took one and rolled her eyes. “Flip phones? This is the best you can do?”
“Deal with it,” I muttered, and headed back to the throne room.
I never wanted to be a king. Hell, I’d never really contemplated the notion of my mother’s death beyond an academic exercise. Yes, technically, I’d been her heir, but it wasn’t as if anything would ever happen to one of the Three.
And then it had—to two of them in one day.
There was nothing I could do about Mab’s court—I assumed they were somewhere in the Gray Lands, but I had nothing solid. In any case, they would never have accepted me as their leader, just as Oberon’s people would never follow me. I was an outsider to their courts, Titania’s blood—and, lest it be forgotten, the notorious Ironhand. Given my history, I wasn’t even sure that Mother’s court would accept me.
I suggested to the realm that it might be wiser to choose someone else. I had half siblings in Faerie, and surely one of them would have been more palatable. I could go on my way, I told the little voice, go back to my bookstore in Rigby, do what I’d been doing to keep the more troublesome of my kind in line. Go back to my life.
But the realm was firm. Titania was dead, so I was king, whether I liked it or not. This was my circus, these were my monkeys, and it was up to me to deal with them now. Besides, thought the voice, do you honestly believe that any of your siblings would allow you to continue to harass Oberon’s people? Titania found you entertaining. Her children have no such reason to permit you to act as you have.
It had a point. As king, I could order my court to remain in Faerie, thus cutting down on at least a few of the problems back in the mortal realm. And nothing was stopping me from slipping back across to help Paul on occasion, right? If Oberon had a problem with it . . . well, we knew where to find each other. In any case, it was comforting to finally know that my mother wasn’t going to come after me in my sleep—and even if the court didn’t like me, how many of them would be willing to take me on now?
Still, seeing my unplanned new career as asylum warden stretch out before me, I asked if there was some way that I might abdicate. The realm gave me only one out: Olive would inherit the court on my death. But since I had no desire to pursue suicide, I took a deep breath, made myself presentable, and returned to the throne room to see just what sort of mess I’d gotten myself into.
Word spread quickly, though I wasn’t sure how. By dawn, the throne room was packed to the walls with guards, Mother’s lackeys, and assorted hangers-on. I spotted a few of my siblings from the dais but waited until the distant doors finally slammed to take Mother’s vacated seat. “So,” I began, cringing inwardly as my voice echoed around the unnaturally quiet room, “I suppose you’ve heard the news.”
The room erupted in waves of silent nodding, and I waited for the court to still. “Yes. Well. To those of you who don’t know of me, I’m Coileán. To those who do . . . you may be able to guess why I’m sitting here.”
“What did you do to the queen?” a female voice called out, and I spotted one of Mother’s intimates in the middle of the press.
“Defended myself,” I replied, trying to keep calm. “She killed my brother unprovoked. She would have killed me. My associates dispatched her before she had the chance.” I pointed to a clump of guards standing in the crowd to my right. “If you want to know what happened to Robin, that black smudge on the floor might give you some idea.”
The guards spread apart, bumping each other and their neighbors in their haste to get off of the stain.
I looked around the room—the crystal walls, the extravagant pillars, the cloud-scraping ceiling—and grimaced. In an instant, the walls changed to stone, pierced by jewel-toned glass windows, the pillars took on bulk and twisted into carvings of vines and branches, and the entire room widened by a third, giving the assembled room to breathe. “Anyone want a chair?” I asked. “Be my guest.”
A few seats of various sizes popped into existence around the modified throne room, and I waited until the crowd shifted and spread. “Right, then,” I continued, glancing at the nearest worried faces, “here’s how this is going to work. You don’t have to like me, but you’re not going to touch me or mine. I’ll take suggestions, but I don’t want a lot of back talk. Bend the knee, and you can stay. Refuse, and you can see if Oberon will take you. I don’t know who’s running Mab’s court at the moment, but I don’t think you’ll like that option any better.” I sat back against the throne—my throne now, an intricately carved wooden chair—and waited.
Guards, lackeys, lords and ladies—all knelt in a cacophony of rustling fabric and creaking furniture.
They didn’t like me, I knew in my gut, but they didn’t have to. The one thing a faerie fears above all else is a stronger opponent, and I had just undone Titania’s creation around them.
I didn’t know if I would keep the pseudo-Gothic architecture, I mused as the throng went to its knees. But for the moment, it did the trick.
Magic. You’ve got to love it when it works.
I spent the next two days seeing various would-be dignitaries in my office—I had modified Mother’s into a rough copy of Greg’s for the sake of convenience—and sneaked away between every few visitors to check on Meggy. Toula’s report was always the same, however, and she suggested that I catch some sleep. Instead, I did shots by myself to steady my worn nerves and fought the urge to scare off the unending line of visitors with lightning bolts.
I had shooed the last of my staff off shortly after midnight when my phone began to ring. Pushing the bottle aside, I pulled the phone from my pocket and flipped it open. “And?”
“She’s awake,” said Toula. “Scared out of her mind, but awake.”
I didn’t bother with the walk, but instead opened a short gate between our rooms and stepped through to Meggy’s bedside, still clutching my phone. “Meggy,” I whispered, and almost laughed with relief to see her eyes open. “Welcome back . . .” I reached for her hand, but she pulled away, wide-eyed and trembling, and I paused. “It’s me. It’s just me,” I soothed, backing up a few paces until she relaxed. “Everything’s going to be fine. She can’t hurt you again.”
“Hey, Megs,” said Toula, coming around the other side of the bed, “it’s okay. No one’s going to hurt you, babe.”
Meggy stared down at the IV taped in her arm.
“The Arcanum sent some folks to help you,” Toula continued, interpreting her gaze. “See? Over by the wall?” The two wizards waved, their sticks safely tucked out of sight, but Meggy continued to cower in silence. “I know you’ve been through hell,” Toula pressed on, “but it’s all over. Titania’s dead. She can’t hurt you, and Olive—”
Meggy’s eyes shot up at the name. “Where is she?”
“Next door, sleeping. She’s safe, too.”
She relaxed fractionally, but then she turned back to me, and I saw anger and terror competing in her eyes. “What did you do to me?” she demanded.
I held up my hands—ungloved for once, as there was no need for precautions in a land singularly devoid of offensive metals—and shook my head. “Nothing, Meggy. What are you—”
She yanked a handheld mirror off the bedside table and held it in front of her face. “To me! What did you do to me?”
The age shift, I realized, and deduced that she must have just become aware of her face’s missing decade. I met Toula’s eyes across the bed, and Meggy watched us silently weigh our options.
“Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on?” she snapped.
Toula touched the side of her nose and stepped back from the bed, and I sighed. “Meggy,” I said quietly, waiting until her eyes flipped back to mine, “I don’t really know how to tell you this, but, uh . . . we found your father. Your actual father, not Charlie.”
She crossed her arms with care, avoiding the IV line, and waited.
“He’s, uh . . . Oberon. You’re half fae.”
“Welcome to the club,” Toula muttered. “I think we need T-shirts. Or therapy. No, and therapy . . .”
Meggy stared up at me in confusion, and I hurriedly explained, “He bound you before you were even born. Like . . . you know, what we were talking about. For Olive.” Toula grunted her disapproval, but I carried on. “You’ve got the talent, just like I do—”
“More or less,” Toula added.
I glared at her in exasperation, and she held up her hands, surrendering. “You obviously don’t know how to use it right now,” I said to Meggy, “but I could teach you, it’d be easy. And you could stay here,” I continued, letting the words spill out. “I don’t think I can go back to Rigby, not on a full-time basis, but you and Olive could stay here, be safe . . . anything you want, just name it.” Before she could pull away again, I took her hand in mine and smiled. “Don’t you see, Meggy? We can be a family—you, me, and Olive. We can be together—”
“I want to go home,” she whispered.
My grip tightened as the first tendrils of desperation crept into my mind. “Anything you want, anything at all,” I tried again, “just name it, Meggy, and it’s yours. Anything.”
She blinked slowly, but those pale blue eyes I loved showed only fear as she murmured, “I want my life back. I don’t want this . . . I don’t . . . don’t want . . .”
When she broke down in hysterical sobs, I finally released her and let Toula push me into the hallway. “I’ll talk to her,” she promised, but the door closed in my face, and I listened to Meggy weep as I stood there, more alone than I had ever been.
True to her word, Toula tried, but Meggy would have none of it. Once the Arcanum medics cleared her and departed, she moved next door into Olive’s room and took up a vigil by the sleeping girl’s bed. She would speak to Toula, but no one else.
“Meg’s just scared,” Toula insisted in private, “and traumatized, and everything at once . . .” She leaned against the high back of one of the leather couches I’d copied and closed her eyes. “She’ll get over it. Just give her time, a little space, room to come to terms with . . . this.”
But I only lasted two days before I again ventured into that wing of the palace.
Meggy, who was holding Olive’s hand as she slept, watched warily as I latched the door. “Hi,” I mumbled.
“Hi.”
“Just, uh . . .” I rubbed the back of my neck, wishing there were softness in her stare. “Just checking in. Do you need anything?”
She stood and stroked Olive’s limp hair. “When is she going to wake up?”
“When Toula lifts the spell on her. She’ll be fine.”
“And then we can go?”
I racked my brain for an answer unlikely to upset Meggy, but none came to mind. “I’m sorry,” I said slowly, “but I can’t let you take her.”
Her eyes flashed, and her voice, already cold, turned to ice. “My child is coming home with me.”
“She’s dangerous.”
“She’s sixteen!”
“That doesn’t matter! Meggy . . .” I took a deep breath, fighting my temper before it could flare. “The last thing she saw before Toula knocked her out was Titania die. She’d asked for my head a few minutes before that. When she wakes, the kid’s going to have scores to settle.”
“Not with me.”
“With all of us. You’re guilty by association, at the very least.” I sighed and searched her face, but there was no chink in Meggy’s armor. “If I sent her back with you now, you’d probably be dead in a day or two.”
“Toula says I have talent—”
“Which you have no idea how to use. Sure, you’ll intuit some of it as you go,” I allowed, “but you need training before you snap and accidentally burn your house down. It’s happened,” I added as she began to protest. “Olive’s had that training already. Meggy, you can’t defend yourself against her. Not yet.”
Risking a punch in the face, I crossed the room and took her hands. “Look,” I murmured, “if nothing else, you’ll have to learn how to use a glamour before you go back, unless you want to tell your friends and family that you’ve had a revolutionary face-lift. Stay here for now, learn what you need to get by, and let me deal with Olive.”
Meggy’s eyes bored into mine. “Deal with her? How? Lock her up?”
“Probably,” I replied, speeding up before she could interject, “but just for a time, until she comes around—”
“No.” She pulled free of my grip and folded her arms. “Absolutely not. If you lock my baby away, it’ll be over my dead body.”
“Meggy—”
“No.”
I didn’t have to bargain with her, as the realm hastened to remind me. Meggy didn’t have a prayer of besting me, and as Olive had encouraged Mother to kill me, I could by right do whatever I chose with the girl. Still, I heard myself ask Meggy, “What would you have me do?”
“Well,” she shrugged, “for starters, you could bind her.”
“Bind—how can you say that?” I sputtered. “Look at Toula, look in the mirror—”
“I think I’ve done all right,” she stiffly replied.
“It would have killed you if it hadn’t been broken,” I retorted. “You want to put Olive through that?”
“You don’t have to copy the one that was on me. Just keep her from using her power for now. How is that any worse than locking her away?” I didn’t have a ready answer, and Meggy seized the opportunity. “Toula told me it’s possible to make false memories. Bind Olive, take all traces of this place away, and let me give her a chance at the life she should have had with a mother who loves her.” Her eyes began to well, and she swiped at her tears before they could fall. “You’re the reason I lost her to begin with, Colin. If you love me, then give me back my little girl.”
I tried one last time, knowing even as I did that I’d lost. “Stay for a while. Let me show you what you can do.”
“You’ve shown me quite enough,” she replied as her face shifted to match her age. “Toula showed me how to do that with a spell, and we figured out the other way together. She said that she’ll give me pointers when I go home.”
The realm wasn’t keen on the plan, but I pushed the odd voice to the back of my mind and conceded the victory. “All right,” I murmured. “If that’s what you want. But you’ll have to start fresh,” I cautioned. “False memories aren’t perfect, and if your neighbors start asking questions about where Olive came from, her real memories might break through. I could put you in my place in Rigby. There’s a decent apartment above my bookstore, and you could have my car . . .”
She considered the offer. “And what will Olive think?”
“As far as she’ll know, you two will have never been apart.”
“Good.” She paused, then stuck out her hand. “Thank you.”
Our handshake was awkward, but under the circumstances, it was the best I could hope for. “I’ll send you back tonight, then. Let me make the preparations.”
I had lost track of the days, and so when I stepped through to Rigby, it was quarter of eleven that night. My apartment was dark, but when I flipped on the switches, I found the place spotless and smelling of lemon Pledge, and I suspected that Mrs. Cooper was to thank. The décor simply wouldn’t do, however, and so I set about changing the furniture to something more befitting Meggy and Olive, trying to replicate Meggy’s house on a smaller scale. My personal books and papers I sent back to my office in Faerie, but I set up a modest office nook for Meggy where my desk had been, reupholstered the couch and chairs, replaced the blinds, and converted my catch-all storage room into a proper bedroom for Olive, heavy on the pink.
As I considered window treatments, I happened to glance across the street and spotted lights on in Mrs. Cooper’s apartment. Even with the hour, her silhouette moved behind the sheers—she was nothing if not vigilant—and so I slipped out and up her cluttered fire escape.
My neighbor beamed at me when the kitchen door opened. “Hello, dear, welcome back! How are you? Is everything okay now?”
“Just fine, Mrs. Cooper, thank you,” I lied, and followed her to the living-room sofa. “But I can’t stay long.”
Her brows knit. “Oh?”
“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to get out of the book business. I, uh . . . I’m needed elsewhere.”
“Oh, dear,” she murmured, patting my gloves. She gave me a critical look, then added, “You haven’t been sleeping, have you?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “And I need to ask a favor of you.”
“What sort of favor?”
“Long story short, I’m moving my daughter and her mother into my building. Meggy’s going to take over the bookstore.”
Her wrinkled face brightened. “Splendid! Let me know when, and I’ll bring over tea and some sandwiches—”
“But,” I interrupted before she could start planning a menu, “there’s a catch. My daughter isn’t going to remember me. Nothing about me. It’s for a good reason,” I explained, seeing her eyes cloud, then muttered, “And I’m fairly certain that Meggy isn’t going to want to think about me ever again. Could you . . . you know, look after them? They’re going to be new to the neighborhood, and—”
“Of course, dear,” she replied, giving my hands a squeeze. “I won’t say a word. And . . . about the bookstore, uh . . .”
“Gift from an eccentric distant cousin,” I supplied, wishing Joey were there to come up with something better. “If anyone asks, I’ve gone to Europe for a while.”
Mrs. Cooper smiled tightly. “I’m going to miss you, Mr. Leffee. Good neighbors are hard to come by these days.”
I grinned and stood. “Then let’s hope you finally get some—oh, almost forgot.” A blue ceramic teakettle appeared on top of her coffee table’s stack of magazines. “Haven’t been out to Target, but will that do?”
“That’s lovely, dear.”
“Different color?”
Mrs. Cooper stroked her chin in contemplation. “Well, I don’t want to put you to any trouble . . .”
I saw her idea at the top of her thoughts, and the kettle morphed from blue to a tiny floral chintz. “Oh, that’s perfect!” she exclaimed. “But you didn’t have to—”
“Anytime,” I said, and took my leave.
That night, I put Olive in a deep trance and wove into her memory the best life I could give her.
Olive’s father—her mother’s childhood sweetheart—had died of a heart attack just after her third birthday. Her only memories of him were fuzzy but full of love. She and her mother, who had been both orphaned and widowed young, had traveled together around the country, hopping between rare book events and estate sales in a lucrative scouting and reselling business. Now, thanks to a cousin with a wild hair who had abandoned his bookstore to go backpacking in Europe, Olive’s mother had a storefront of her own and a place to raise her. She had been homeschooling the girl, but with the stability of the store, perhaps she might consider sending Olive out among her peers. Mother and daughter doted on each other—they were all the family they had left—but even still, both knew that it would be good for Olive to make friends her own age.
I bound her to the best of my inexperienced ability, trying to hide the faintest traces of magic, and crafted the enchantment to age her appropriately when the time came. After all, there was no telling how long the bind would need to remain in place—or, I reminded myself, how Olive would react once it was broken. The best I could hope was that after spending a few years with her real mother, Olive would see the truth of what Titania had done and embrace Meggy without magical prodding.
With that accomplished, I delivered them to my renovated apartment and watched from the doorway as Meggy tucked our daughter into her new bed. “She’ll wake in the morning, right?” she whispered.
I nodded and stepped aside so that Meggy could close the door to Olive’s room. “Toula said it would come off around seven. She won’t remember a thing.” I headed for the den and the gate I’d left open, but turned back to hand Meggy another small telephone. “If anything happens, if this doesn’t work out, if you think the bind’s weakening—”
“We’ll be fine,” she said, putting the phone on an end table.
The message was clear. Satisfied that the building was secure, I nodded and gave her a tight smile. “Good-bye, Meggy,” I murmured, and closed the gate without looking back.