EIGHTEEN
FAELAN
Bending space is never as simple as walking from one location to another. It wreaks havoc on a cellular level for a human, and Aelia’s blood is more human than Other. While I manage to land on my feet as the passageway releases me, Sage still in my arms, Aelia collapses on the mossy ground in front of me with a whoosh of breath, gasping and gagging. Then she crawls into a cluster of high ferns and begins to vomit.
I only have to crouch for a moment, holding Sage tight to my chest to keep from dropping her. I breathe through the flip of my gut, the buzzing in my muscles, the fading crackle in my ears, used to the odd sensations after hundreds of years of traveling through passageways.
Aelia, however, continues to throw up.
I steady myself and look around. We’re in a small thicket. There won’t be any humans this deep in the forest, only animals and the occasional wysp—a small creature made of water that lives in the river just north of here and sometimes hides in the fog.
I try to be patient as Aelia whimpers and releases the contents of her stomach for several minutes, but after a while it becomes a little melodramatic, with her mostly just pressing her head into the moss and complaining to herself.
Eventually, I tell her I’ll leave her there alone and move on to my destination if she doesn’t suck it up.
“I hate you right now,” she mutters. She wipes her mouth and shivers, swallowing, but she stands and follows me through the tree line into the deeper wood.
The energy of the trees wraps around me, the rich life soaking through my skin, settling my nerves better than any drug. The white birch and ash creak; robins and siskins titter in the branches above. I spot a merlin eyeing us from a Scots pine, and a red deer pauses in her feeding, turning her head to watch us pass.
The early-morning air is misty on my skin, smelling of moss and approaching rain clouds. I try to focus on the beauty around me. That way maybe I won’t notice the chill of Sage’s forehead against my neck. I won’t think about how fast she’s grown cold. Her death will be final very soon—I can only pray it hasn’t happened already.
I have to stop a couple of times to confirm the scent of my path, making sure I’m still heading the right way. The man I’m seeking isn’t one who likes to be found. I’ve met him only once before, in a time I like to forget, but it’s been a while, and much of the forest has changed since then. The farther in we go, the more I see how aggressively it’s been cut back. I have to wonder if the man’s even still here.
He has to be. I need him to be.
We finally find the clearing blanketed in yellow and purple flowers, with the familiar giant of a juniper tree on its far side. I hesitate, not sure I’m seeing right. It’s exactly the same as I remember from seven centuries ago, when I was a boy who brought a secret message from Queen Lily into these trees. The juniper is a massive, twisted malformation, the taffy-like trunk and branches tipped with green, reaching several dozen feet into the air. It almost looks like a tormented beast as it grows with its arms stretching and curling around several nearby aspen and birch, like they’re huddled together in solidarity.
Something moves out from the line of trees on our right, a figure stumbling along in the underbrush, holding a twisted rowan staff. He too looks exactly the same as he did all those centuries ago—though perhaps a bit more disheveled, if that’s possible. He’s still wrinkled, with ratty silver hair. He’s wearing a hat that looks like a bird’s nest and patchwork cloaks of green-and-brown wool, woven together with vines and feathers and bones. The ferns behind him shudder like something low to the ground is following him. His scolding filters over the clearing. “No, no, Atticus, stop teasing Fauna. She’s having a tumbly-bumbly time. And we need nuts! Yes, yes. Dinner doesn’t sing itself.”
I can’t see who or what he’s talking to. And I need to be careful. The man has quite the reputation for turning intruders into trees if he doesn’t like them. Trouble is, I don’t have a lot of time to endear myself to him.
Aelia stumbles out of the ferns behind me and whines, “Nature sucks. How much farther?”
“We’re here,” I say, nodding at the clearing.
Her gaze travels over the expanse of yellow and purple and pauses on the hunched wise man. Her eyes widen. “Him? He’s the help? But . . .” She squints. “Who is that?”
“The wizard of the wood, Lailoken.”
“Wait.” She turns to me. “Do you mean that human from the old stories? I learned about him in my training; he was supposed to be completely nuts. He turned a whole village into toads because they didn’t laugh at his joke.”
“Don’t believe everything the older druids tell you. That never really happened,” I say. “Well, not exactly. He’s merely eccentric.” But she’s right. He’s known to be completely bonkers. “He’s really old, so it comes off as . . .” I search for the right word.
“Batshit crazy?”
“Just follow my lead,” I say, “and keep your mouth shut.” I shift Sage in my arms, tightening my hold on her, then I step out of the rim of trees and shout a warning. “Oy! Hello there!”
The wise man stops and turns, back straightening. “Who goes? What’s the man with the flower in his hands?”
“It’s only me, sir. Faelan Ua Cleirigh, House of Brighid. Do you remember me? I’ve come for your help—”
“Houses and hovels and Otherborn troubles.” He begins to walk toward us through the field, shooing with his hand. “Fay, fay! What you bring here isn’t wanted. Enough mess has come from god blood.” A herd of small animals appear in the brush, following along, hopping around his feet. Rabbits. A puffy-tailed squirrel scuttles up his leg to his shoulder, perching there with a loud chirp.
“No, I don’t bring trouble,” I say, even though that may not be true. “If I could just petition you for—”
“Bah!” he croaks. “I see what you have. I see her, that fire thing, get it out of my wood. Out, I tell you!”
“Wow,” Aelia mumbles behind me. “This is already going so well.”
I dare to step closer to the wise man, trying not to let my urgency show. “She’s very important,” I say.
“No, no, toes and bones, no!” He shakes his staff and turns to walk away. “Shoo to you and your flames.”
The foggy air begins to mist, dampening my clothes, settling on Sage’s cheek and her dulled red hair. She’s slipping away too fast, the chill of her becoming even more striking against my body. Urgency fills me in a rush, and I take a few steps closer to him.
“Don’t turn us away,” I say, my voice faltering. “We have nowhere else to go. Please, Lailoken.”
He pauses at the sound of his name. His head pulls back a little, and he turns to us again, his wrinkled features scrunched in confusion. Pain filters from his shoulders in thin gray threads. The squirrel on his arm scrambles to hide in his armpit. The rabbits at his feet put their paws on his legs, like they’re trying to be sure he’s all right.
I step toward him again, and he still doesn’t move. “Sir?”
“Perfect,” Aelia says. “You broke him.”
I move even closer, getting a few feet away before I bow my head and whisper, “Sir Lailoken, I’ve come for your help. Please. Hear my petition.”
“Pishposh!” he barks suddenly, making me jump. “I am that man, you say?”
I nod, not sure exactly why he’d ask who he was. “You are Lailoken, the wise man in the wood.”
His furrowed features open, a grin brightening his eyes. “Well, well, I am a man most clever, am I not?”
“Yes, sir.”
He laughs. “Let’s have this task done, then. The night wanes to day quickly. We all know what that means!” He turns and walks away, toward the large juniper tree on the other side of the clearing.
I don’t think we do all know what that means, but I follow him anyway, trying to keep up. For an ancient man, he’s nearly as speedy as the rabbits trailing behind him. Aelia grumbles, sporadically complaining about sticks poking her feet.
The hovel the wise man calls home is a perfect shelter that nature carved from the guts of the gigantic juniper. The roots, larger than a man, coil from the earth, forming sturdy pillars that make up the walls, along with river stones and moss-coated earth. The oval door is carved with runes and protections. A small window is carved out too, but a bird’s nest is packed into the opening.
He waves his staff at the door, and it creaks open on its own before he slips inside. Aelia and I follow. As I enter the small living space, my chest heats, the intense energy inside the ancient tree beginning to circle my hungry skin. Green grows all over, across every surface—clover, moss, mushroom, thyme, and mint, creating a patchwork quilt of life. It’s perfection, the dream home of every child of Cernunnos, like the alfar once slept in before the forests began to disappear. I wonder if this is one of their old homes. If it is, it looks like the human has made a few additions.
There’s a small cluster of yellow crystals in the far corner, their pulsing glow heating the space instead of a fire. A large internal root with a flattened surface seems to be used as a table. Several glass bottles are clustered on it next to three skulls: bird, cat, and canine. A bowl is at the center, steam emerging from the contents, a flat crystal cross section glowing underneath it.
Lailoken hobbles over to the bowl and picks it up. He shoves it at Aelia. “You look hungry, druid girl. Perhaps this will cure you.”
Aelia cringes away. “Ugh, no way. It smells like moldy cheese.”
I shoot her a glare, but Lailoken just chuckles and tosses the steaming bowl back onto the table. The contents splash over the rim, a goopy brown. “It was poisoned, anyway. Don’t need a dead druid cluttering my stoop.” He laughs again like he’s enjoying Aelia’s annoyance. Then he waves me forward. “Bring the fire thing here. Settle her on the clover.” He motions to the spot where I should lay Sage.
I kneel in the clover and rest her on the cushion of green. When I let go, my arms ache with the lack of her.
Her head is tipped to the side. My gut clenches again at the sight of her sliced neck, the blood now sticky, nearly dried, smeared all down her chest, her shoulder, her dress soaked through and heavy with it. I’ve seen a lot of death in my time, watched countless horrors done, but I’ve rarely felt confused by it. Only once, when I found my mother that dark morning, so long ago, floating like a forgotten toy in the river. I was young, and until that moment death had been a stranger to me.
Now, seeing this broken waif in front of me . . . it’s like I’m ten years old all over again.
“There it is,” says the wise man. He leans his staff against the wall before he kneels across from me, on the other side of Sage. “This is most definitely flowers growing in winter, do you not think?” He shakes his head, musing at his lunatic words.
“Can you fix her?” I ask, deciding to ignore his crazy. When I met him as a boy, he was the most powerful human I’d ever seen, able to do far more than even the most talented demi. But then, humans have a lot in them that they never tap into, especially in the modern age. I can only hope he still has enough wit to understand what’s going on with Sage. After so many years hiding in the wood, he seems much more off. He’s kept himself alive, though. Somehow.
Lailoken rubs his palms together, studying Sage. “This flame is still burning, I believe.” He touches her hair, then glances at me. “Caution is warranted, though. There’s much to swallow us. Much to kill. The blood here is not so common.” He clucks his tongue like he’s tsking a naughty child. “You see what I mean, I’m sure, Mr. Winter.”
I decide not to correct him or ask him why he’s calling me Mr. Winter. I don’t want to make this moment any more confusing than it already is. “Yes,” I say, trying to be agreeable instead. “I know she’s dangerous.” Even though I’m not sure how dangerous. Not yet.
“Truly,” he says, “is this a lily growing before us? She is fire and shadow. I’ve seen her burn before.” His tone has shifted a bit, amazement filling his words. “It is a true miracle. She’s come back to us.”
Aelia settles beside me and leans close, whispering, “Did he just call her Lily? Could he think she’s the other daughter? The first one?”
I don’t know how to answer, so I just watch the old man place his palm over Sage’s forehead as he begins muttering a pattern of words in ancient Gaelic. Could he really think she’s the first daughter, Lily? Maybe I was foolish to bring her here.
After everything that happened to the Otherborn because of the first daughter, any similarities between the outcast queen and our new demi wouldn’t be seen as a good thing.
I met Queen Lily when I was a child. She was a woman of light and beauty then, in her prime, bound to the Morrígan’s son, the King of Ravens. They’d ruled together for several centuries over our kind. My only interaction with her was at a feast of Samhain just after the king was killed. She had such a quiet sorrow about her when she called me up to her throne and told me she’d pay me a silver coin for a lock of my hair and two extra if I took a message to the wizard in the wood, Lailoken. I still remember her golden eyes as she looked down on me, the weight of grief around her.
I delivered the message, and on my way home, I stopped in the market and bought oatcakes and sweet meats with the silver. Three days later, the queen met her final punishment—she was taken prisoner by the Cast and tossed into the Pit, where she remains to this day.
She was charged with killing her Bonded, the king. They claimed that, in her madness, she had unleashed a scourge called the Black Death, and that in the end tens of millions of humans would die because of her. Her folly opened up the doorway for the Church to start its deadliest blood hunt of Otherborn and caused many centuries of bloodshed on both sides, human and Otherborn. It was a time marked by horror. But I’ve never been able to see her as the monster the Cast made her out to be. I’ll always see her as the sad beauty I once admired.
I still remember her delicate fingers taking my dirty hand in hers. I can still close my eyes and feel her energy. It was so distinct. So colorful. It smelled like rain and sunlight and sweet greens. She was so beautiful, so magical.
This demi in front of us right now—Sage—bears no resemblance, in power or in form or in any way, really, to her older sister, Lily.
“He’s not all there,” I remind Aelia. “At least he’s got the right bloodline. It would be worse if he was calling for a water spirit or something.”
“But that’s nuts,” she hisses. “We don’t want him to bring the wrong thing back, do we?”
Lailoken stops muttering under his breath and barks, “Secrets and whispers! No, no, no.”
“We’re worried you’ve got it wrong, sir,” I explain. “She’s not the first daughter, she’s the second. Her name is Sage.”
The frown scrunching his face deepens. “What, what? Not Lilybird, you say?” He looks down at Sage. Then he brushes his dirt-stained fingertips against her hair.
“No,” Aelia says. “Not Lily.”
Lailoken sniffs. “I’m not deaf, you know.” He places his palm over Sage’s eyes and closes his own before he goes back to his mutters like we never interrupted him. I can only hope his spell is correct. I can’t understand everything he’s saying because he’s talking too fast, his words too jumbled.
Aelia rolls her eyes. “Great plan, Faelan. Take her to the wacky man in the woods.” She leans back on her elbows, apparently done caring.
After another several minutes of Aelia and me sitting in silence with Lailoken’s voice humming in the background, the wise man finally pauses and sighs heavily. “Well, well, the spirit lingers. But she must be fed. Now or never, whatever the weather.”
Aelia groans in annoyance. “What in the name of Danu is he talking about now?”
I ignore her and ask the wise man, “Sage’s spirit is anchored again? How can you be sure?” She’s not moving, not even breathing. Her wound is still gaping.
“Oh, she was never gone and done with, not this one,” he says. “Can’t you smell her warmth and roses in the flames? All those breads and hopes are still deep in her gut—I think you got lost coming here. She was fine as rain and sunshine.”
Aelia sits up straight. “What?”
“No,” I say, panic swirling in my chest again. “She’s still dead. Her spirit . . .” I can’t smell her spark at all. And I can’t take her back like this. I can’t leave her broken and lost. Not this girl.
The wise man shakes his head, his odd bird’s nest hat flopping to the side. “She’s all tucked tight in there, safe and sound. The child she is, it’s lovely to have found her at last.”
I stare at Sage’s cold body. What am I missing? Even in hibernation, a fire elemental carries a sense of life, though it’s weak. Heat in the body, color in the skin, a fluttering energy left behind, like dying embers. But Sage is a corpse, her skin now tinged in violet, dark circles rimming her eyes.
“Which one?” Lailoken asks, bringing my attention back to him.
Aelia frowns. “Which what, weirdo?”
I consider warning her away from insulting the powerful man but decide it’s useless. I’m getting annoyed in a grand way myself.
“Which one”—the wise man’s brow goes up—“will feed the princess?”