Weald Fae 02 - The Changeling Read online

  “They are going to stay in Sara’s old cottage across the cove.”

  It occurred to me that the Fae would probably love Grandma—she played acoustic guitar and sang. Her voice reminded me of a folk-version of Karen Carpenter, one of my mom’s favorites.

  “Is she bringing her guitar?”

  Mom laughed. “Have you ever known her to go anywhere without it?”

  After they left for the hospital, I decided the time was right to pay Cassandra a visit. I needed to know how much time she spent at the cottage so I could plan how to get inside. I wanted to feel her out. In my gut, I knew it was her on the island, regardless of what Ozara and the others said. Still, if she happened not to be there, I’d just let myself in. Inside the cupboard where we kept the keys was a set marked “Caretaker.”

  The air was cool as I set out but not cold. Nonetheless, my teeth chattered like it was freezing—my nerves were getting the best of me. With a few deep breaths, I calmed myself and set out toward the Seoladán with Justice trotting along next to me. I welcomed his company.

  There were a few traces of last week’s snow still lingering in shaded places, but despite the slightly warmer weather we were still a few weeks away from spring’s arrival. Although Mitch dominated my thoughts, I was looking forward to the season change. Spring made me think of Gavin and the promise he wouldn’t be able to keep this year, but I wasn’t sad. Somewhere he’s bringing spring early.

  Near the turnoff for the Seoladán, I paused and took a deep breath. The boulders were gone and the road was clear of weeds. Justice nuzzled my hand and looked up the hill as I stood there. I sensed her, too.

  The greenhouse caught my attention first. It was perfect and even more elegant than I imagined it could be. It stood proud at the edge of the garden, all the glass pristine and glistening in the morning sun. When I cleared the corner, I froze. In fact, the sight of it all disoriented me. The cottage had been restored, not a piece of trim, roof tile, or stone out of place, the gardens were clear of weeds, and the elaborate stone walls had been repaired. Neat pebble paths led from the garden gate across freshened beds to the fountain, now gleaming white marble. I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like in a month when everything would begin to bloom.

  Cassandra was in her natural form and just across the fountain. Justice followed me to the wall, but not past it. He stared in her direction and I wondered whether he could actually sense her presence. When she took physical form, in a beautiful flowing gown that was entirely out of place, Justice sat and continued to stare at her. He didn’t growl like he always had at Chalen, but he was intently focused on her and only moved his head to follow her as she slowly glided around the fountain to me.

  Her dark hair was loose today, and flowed down to the middle of her back. The pale skin on her heart-shaped face was the perfect canvas for her full lips, long dark eyelashes and large brown eyes. If I didn’t know she was a monster underneath, I would have admired her beauty.

  “Maggie, what a pleasant surprise.”

  “I thought I’d stop by and see you, like you suggested—you’ve done an amazing job cleaning the Seoladán up. It’s beautiful.”

  “I’m delighted you did, though I’m a little perplexed. I didn’t think you’d visit…alone.” She flashed an alarming smile and continued to close the distance.

  She was definitely Unseelie. The last bit was intended to unnerve me, but after facing Chalen it had little effect.

  “I wanted to apologize to you, Cassandra.”

  Using the technique that Billy taught me, I manufactured a sense of calm and sincerity, but with a hint of trepidation to sell it.

  “An apology? How utterly charming and human of you.” She continued to walk toward me, not making a sound as she glided ever closer. Her movement made me nervous. Breathe, Maggie.

  “Yes, I don’t think I was fair to you—when we met, I mean.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Ms. O’Shea?” She kept moving, slowly, with a determined and sinister expression.

  “I jumped to a few conclusions…” my words came faster, slightly more high pitched. “I was upset by what happened to Mitch, wanted to blame you for that, and misidentified you.” The quick inhale caught in my throat as she smiled, her sharp, white teeth fully exposed. She continued to move toward me.

  “I see. And now you’re here to make amends as it were?”

  “Yes, and to tell you what a beautiful job I think you’ve done to the Seoladán. Think of it as a gesture of friendship—after all, we’ll be working together for a long time to come.” Focusing on my calming technique, I managed to slow my breathing, and it helped, but my breath was still too rapid. She keyed in on it.

  Another few feet and I began to feel a touch of panic. Justice growled, unsettling me. He knew I was in trouble, too.

  “I appreciate the compliment. Chalen, poor creature, did let this place go to seed. Utterly uninhabitable. But tell me the truth, Steward of the Weald, why are you really here?”

  Justice growled continuously, but I stood my ground. I allowed a little fear to seep through—she’d be expecting it.

  “You’re good at that,” she cooed as she closed to within twenty feet of me.

  “At what?”

  Her laugh caused me to wince. “At feeding me false emotions and images. Now, before I snap that mongrel’s back, or yours, tell me why you’re really here.” Her face turned cruel, twisted.

  “I told you, I’m just here to apologize. I’ll leave if you want.”

  She shook her head and I felt her whip out toward Justice. I blocked her attack before it reached him and he snarled and stood up on all fours, baring his teeth at the invisible intrusion.

  “Just I suspected, I didn’t even see you try to deflect. You’re so beautiful, pretty enough to be Fae, and talented. You impress me, and that isn’t easy for a human to do.”

  She reached out to attack Justice again as I began to back up. It took more effort but I blocked her again. She was testing to see how powerful I was, just toying with me.

  Her smile never faltered as she drew closer. I began to walk back toward Justice, my mind searching for the next volley. You’re an idiot for coming here, my mind screamed at me. From behind him, her attack came at blazing speed. I threw my hand in the air and stopped it just short of him, but she continued to press. Justice stopped growling and bolted to my side, standing between us where he began growling again, his attention focused on her.

  Cassandra was amused. She looked toward the rock wall where Justice had just been and raised her index finger. As she lowered it, the stone cut cleanly in half. I couldn’t block that, and both of us knew it.

  “Tell me again, Steward, why are you here?” she demanded with the same seething tone I’d heard her use on the island.

  Hidden from her view, my mind raced trying to think of something to say or do. My heart beat wildly in my chest, and Justice’s growls only made it more difficult to think.

  “Justice, stop!”

  He stopped growling, but he continued to bare his teeth.

  “I’m running out of patience,” she said, as she began walking faster. I threw my shield up in front of her, as powerful as I could make it, but she stepped though it like wet tissue paper.

  Panic set in, and I thought about setting her on fire, though I’m sure if I tried, I’d be the one getting burned. I grabbed Justice by the nape of the neck as he started to lunge.

  She stopped within arm’s reach. “I’m waiting for your answer,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Ozara forbid you to harm me or Justice. This is neutral ground, right?”

  She reached up and caressed my face with the back of her icy hand, sending a chill down my spine. “You’re really quite beautiful, Maggie, definitely Fae-like, and you certainly have courage, but surely you have realized that Ozara is not here.” Her voice was sweet and condescending, almost sanguine.

  “No, she is not, but I am.” Sara said from somewhere behind me. Cassand
ra pulled back her hand and smiled, twisting fluidly in a quarter-turn. “Maggie, behind me, now.”

  “But Sara, darling, what if I don’t want them to leave?”

  “Cassandra, my pet, what you want really doesn’t concern me.” Sara laughed playfully.

  Cassandra’s face grew tense and it frightened me, but I wasted no time, dragging Justice with me until Sara stood between us. Sara took a step forward, and Cassandra scooted backwards a few inches, her legs stiff and her feet pushing two grooves through the gravel. Sara took another step forward and again Cassandra was pushed backwards the same distance. The only sound I could hear was the gravel under her feet crunching as it was pushed to the side.

  “You see, what you want doesn’t matter. Don’t forget that,” Sara said.

  Cassandra tried to take a step forward, her foot uplifted, but Sara moved, again forcing her backwards.

  “We’ll be on our way, Cassandra. Good day.” Anger flared across Cassandra’s face, but she didn’t challenge Sara again. When Sara turned toward me, she had a smug look, but when our eyes met I could tell she was angry with me. She had every right to be. I’d been stupid and careless.

  “What were you thinking?” The words boiled out of her mouth as soon as the cottage door closed behind me.

  I couldn’t tell Sara the real reason with Ozara reading her thoughts, so I went with my cover story. “She’s the caretaker, so I thought I would apologize for being so rude to her the night we met. I didn’t realize that might happen—I don’t have a death wish, trust me.”

  “Nice gesture,” she said, not questioning my excuse. “But don’t do it again. To the Unseelie, an apology is a sign of weakness.”

  “Well, you might have told me that before now.”

  Sara laughed. “I’ll make a note of that for the next Steward.”

  “Thank you, Sara. You saved my life.”

  “No, I didn’t. She was just testing you. Had she really wanted to hurt you, you’d be hurt.”

  That was a relief of sorts, and I knew Sara was right. Cassandra was much more powerful than any of the Fae I’d dealt with before.

  “She’s cruel, worse than Chalen.”

  “Yes, the older the Unseelie get, the worse they become.”

  “She didn’t believe me when I said I wanted to apologize—she assumed I was hiding my true intentions from her.”

  “They become more cynical with age as well. May I suggest you avoid contact with her for the time being.”

  “Uh, don’t worry about that,” I said, with a nervous laugh.

  “Nonetheless, we really must work on strengthening your shield—you won’t be able to avoid her forever. She’s powerful, but I think you can learn to block her.” Sara’s black eyes were twinkling.

  “You’re more powerful than her, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, indeed I am.” The look of satisfaction spread across her face. “She didn’t reveal much about her abilities, but I know what I need to know—so does she.”

  ***

  On Sunday morning, Billy came back—he’d avoided the Weald after being accosted by Ozara. Once again, Mom and Dad were in Fayetteville, so the both of us set out with Sara for a hilltop a mile from the cottage. As we had already learned, leaving the Weald together would draw too much attention, so Sara picked a part of the property far enough from the guards in the garden to provide a little privacy.

  A cloudless sky and a temperature of nearly sixty degrees helped make our trek across the Weald a pleasant one, enhanced all the more when we realized we were not being followed. Billy and Sara chatted casually with me along the way, like one might expect from human companions. I enjoyed the hike, weaving along narrow paths, up hills, and around bluffs. All the pockets of snow had melted.

  Billy and Sara took turns shifting back and forth between Naeshura and physical form, trying to teach me to recognize what was unique about each of them. Using my Fire inclination, it took only a few minutes before I noticed their individuality. Just like my experience during the Earth trial a year earlier, I could see the difference. A Fae in Naeshura was incapable of changing its composition—like fingerprints, each was distinctive. In the cave at the Earth trial, through Sara and Devan’s projections, I saw the difference in colors. But as Sara and Billy trained me, I noticed subtler variations that I didn’t have the words to decribe adequately.

  Billy and Sara did not visually appear as different colors, even though I could see their shimmer, but I felt the dissimilarities between them. I recognized each in my mind—they both impacted my heightened senses differently, emotionally even.

  With Sara, I sensed sanguine calmness and whimsy attached somehow to fierce strength, though there were a dozen other attributes complexly woven together. Billy gave me the impression of independence and thoughtful practicality, but I picked up on an inexorable somberness as if he bore some invisible scar. His essense was not as bright as hers, although I would not have called him dark, exactly. Instead, it was almost as if he were trapped in the penumbra of a shadow.

  They both asked me whether I could identify them, causing my internal debate to rage. If I told them, it would only be a matter of time before Ozara knew, and depending on whether she felt it important to keep to herself, it might mean that all of them would find out. The thought of lying to either of them made me feel sick to my stomach and isolated, but I wanted all the advantages I could get.

  “I’m sorry, I guess it wasn’t meant to be—I’ll keep trying though.”

  Billy frowned, disappointed that I had not learned another skill, and Sara merely nodded. Once again I thought she probably knew better, but let my charade go unchallenged given the situation.

  “Well, we have more important things to focus on,” he said.

  We stood in a clearing at the base of a tall bluff and next to a dry stream bed filled with boulders. Similar stream beds crisscrossed the Weald. During a heavy rain they became beautiful waterfalls and babbling creeks, and in warmer weather, thick green moss grew in the shadows on the stones just outside the stream paths.

  Billy effortlessly sprang and landed atop the bluff. “Just getting out of the line of fire.” He winked.

  Sara walked forty feet in front of me and in a lithe movement, stood facing me.

  “Powerful Air aligned Fae can slice through solid stone with finesse.”

  She glanced over at a large boulder the size of a car and etched a spiral a foot deep and three feet across as though the stone were no harder than modeling clay.

  “Air inclined Fae can use the power of the air, directed forcefully, to reduce solid stone to dust.”

  Without moving her eyes, the boulder quickly disintegrated into sand in front of me, no particle bigger than the head of a stick pin. The particles began swirling around a central point until they formed a vortex, a dirt devil, so dense it blocked my view.

  “We can force air into the body of any living creature, into its blood stream, and expand it until the veins and arteries explode. We can create bubbles to induce cardiac failure, and we can pull the air out of a creature’s lungs and suffocate it in moments. The Air aligned Fae who slung rocks and twigs at you were not powerful.”

  “Those were logs.” I protested.

  “They were nothing. You’ll see. Block me.”

  Adrenalin released into my body, and I threw my shield up. I felt her press in on me, but before I could do anything, I began exhaling. She was expanding the air in my lungs just fast enough that it bellowed out of my nose and open mouth, but not fast enough to hurt me.

  “Hhhhaaaaaaaaa” was the only noise I made as the air came out. It was unnerving. I tried to block her, and even felt how she did it, but I could not prevent it. I just stood there, exhaling, with my chest puffed out. After a couple seconds, she stopped. I exhaled completely and drew in a breath under my own power.

  “Okay, please don’t ever do that again.”

  She smiled. “Your Air gift is powerful, but you are focused on disrupting me, tryi
ng to cut me off. You need to control the air in your lungs, instead. If you control the air, you can stop it. Again.”

  She repeated the process, but regardless of how hard I tried, I just stood there sounding like a balloon deflating. I could sense what she was doing, but I could not seem to focus on the air in my lungs. She stopped again, allowing me to relax and slow my breathing. After eight more tries, and several pointers along the way, she finally relented.

  “Maggie, without me doing anything, can you concentrate on the air in your lungs?”

  I tried. “No, I can’t. I can sense it in front of me, and I can sense it as I inhale, but not when it gets to my lungs.”

  She nodded. “Frustrating. Perhaps we should try something else. Billy, your thoughts?”

  Almost indifferent, he muttered, “Maggie is inclined to all four elements, but she’s only using one of them.”

  “That’s true, of course, and I’m ashamed I didn’t recognize it,” Sara said. “Billy, it’s a genius idea—if it works.”

  Billy laughed from his perch above us and glanced at Sara with a trenchant expression. I knew he was silently telling her, “Of course it will work, it’s my idea.” He shifted his steely gaze back to me. “Maggie, you are every bit as connected to Fire and Water as you are to Air—I think you’re using Air as a default, as your sole weapon, because your connection to it was awakened first.”

  “Are you sure you want me to use a wall of fire?”

  He belly laughed. “No, no, that would be calamitous for yourself and the forest. We call it the Fire element, but it is also…”

  “Light, heat, electricty,” I said.