1-4 E

I read the same things over and over and over, written by hundreds of different hands. Warnings on not dealing with the Fae. Cautionary stories about what happened to unwary people in the Roads. Anecdotes about curses and theories about Faerie magic. Nothing specific about what they valued. Nothing about buying someone back. Nothing concrete on Faerie things like the fucking jewelry that wouldn’t stop popping up on me whenever I forgot about it.

Not a single useful book out of more than three dozen. I’d ended up passing out on one after hours of research. Scully apparently moved the book but didn’t think me drooling on the table and giving myself a terrible crick in the neck was worth any more effort. I was soaked in sweat from another nightmare about running through a burned down forest, but at least I didn’t have to piss this time. Not drinking water for twelve hours kind of did that.

Getting the taste of sleep out of my mouth was my first priority. Then a shower. New clothes. See if I could figure out what the deal with the bird was. Maybe if I was lucky it would be more helpful. Then back to trying to learn more about the Fae and magic. I had months, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

“Uh, Scully, how do I leave?”

“I can translocate you anywhere within your active possessions at will, Lady Blackleaf. The entryway is only functional for individuals who entered from quaternary access, for whom it functions as a return to their point of ingress.” She popped up in the mirror, her face as expressionless as it was last night. At least she wasn’t glitching out right now.

“Okay. My bedroom, then?”

I was expecting the way reality disjointed this time. When everything solidified, though, I wasn’t in my bedroom. I was in Grandad’s, which we hadn’t cleaned before finding out about magic. When we had, cleaning had just been left half-finished. It…it hurt to look around here. Maybe there was something useful there, but I couldn’t deal with it now. Too many memories. Too many distractions from the throbbing in my hand and from getting Teresa back.

Weirdly, my hand started to hurt less when I was planning how to save her.

Water was first on my list now. Getting the taste of sleep out meant a lot of it and maybe some actual food. That meant the kitchen before anything else. Then a shower and getting out of the sweat-soaked clothes. Maybe deal with the bird first, if I ran into it. Maybe it was some kind of familiar that could actually talk to me and help.

Who was I kidding? I wasn’t going to be that lucky. If it could do something and actually cared, it would have said something instead of just fucking around with the tablet. Which, as I finally got downstairs to the kitchen, it was still doing. It had dragged in a pillow to prop up the tablet and was just sitting next to the outlet tapping away with the stylus. Might as well deal with it now.

“What’s your deal, anyway? Some kind of pet? Familiar? Murdered rival bound into a bird skeleton? Can you talk like Scully?” If something without eyes could glare, the skeleton was doing it now. “What, these are honest questions. Not like Grandad ever actually taught us anything.”

Two cups of water and some dry cereal later I took a peek at the tablet’s screen. Underneath all the chips and scratches, the damn bird was playing a game. “Wait, is that Fruit Ninja? They still have that?”

The stylus twitched and hit a bomb. The bird glared again and hopped over to obscure the tablet with its bones. It didn’t quite work; I could see it close the app and then start typing into something. “Oh, you can’t talk can you? Going to text to tell me who you are?”

The floor creaked as its feet tried to dig into the floor.

“Minni, einirinn hluturinn í þessu húsinum sem deyja ei .” The voice was that grating, synthesized kind that came from Google Translate.

“…what?”

It gave me that condescending glare and then started typing again. This time the robotic voice was English.

“The only thing in this house that does not die.” A pause. “I will not speak to one who ignores her own heritage.”

Well, he’d be no help. “Mini. Got it. See if I help you next time you break that thing, asshole.”

I left the little fucker there as I moved onto the next thing on my list: the shower. Or at least, that was the plan until I saw words glowing through the front window. The stuff on the porch had completely slipped my mind.

They were set up to be read from the front door, one in precise blue lines like a typeset font while the other shone purple and was scrawled in a drunken man’s version of cursive.

“To Grandmagus Aufrey’s Heir(s),

Council meetings are the third Saturday of each month. Attendance is voluntary, but firmly suggested if you intend to participate in any form of overt magical activities within the local area. If following your sire’s path, attendance is firmly suggested; an Inquisition would inconvenience the entire community even further than the loss of the Grandmagus has.

Unless otherwise updated, the location is the Belmont Estate, at 11 pm. Sharp.

Sincerely,

Alistair Belmont.”

Reading the second one left me smelling wine.

“Scratch the snooty talk, girls. July and August’s meetings are in the basement of Mordo’s. Tell the bouncer you’re there for the Mouse House’s Magical Hour. You’ll be on the list.

Pizza and drinks are free if you manage to offend the Belmonts.

Enjoy that sweet inheritance,

Mordo.”

Today was the third Saturday of July. Fuck.

~-~-~-~

“Scully, can you tell me anything about the Council meetings?” I tried to ignore the burning in my hand as I turned the statue of Teresa around and went back to brushing out the knots in my hair. Apparently it didn’t think trying to look presentable was a good use of my time.

“There are several dozen groups within a hundred miles that could apply to, with several hundred independent events and recorded volumes.”

“The ones that Grandad went to, here in town? Third Saturday of every month?”

“Specific information on these events is sealed by several oaths related to my position as Archivist, Lady Blackleaf. Attendance records are available for those hosted within the Archive. Select minutes and reports have also been rendered public by majority decision. Subject matter focuses on the governance of the magical community, restrictions on allowable magics, ordnances and taxes for upkeep of public projects, and formal communications with regards to Silencings.”

That…was partially helpful? It sounded formal, at least. Though the Silencing bit sounded kind of sketchy. Either way, if there were decisions made on how things were run, then someone there should be able to help. Even though it was their fault we hadn’t been taught…

Go to the meeting. Get help. Save Teresa. Getting mad at people I hadn’t even met wasn’t a helpful part of the plan. It was Grandad’s fault more than anyone and there was no point screaming at the dead. Well, probably.

I started to dig around for a nice pair of flats while I thought. Some slacks and a blazer would probably be fine for a first impression. Shorts and sandals would be a bad idea. “Can you tell me anything about the people that will be there?”

“Attendance lists remain on record. Personal notes remain within your study, Lady Blackleaf. These are unarchived and specifically requested to remain so. As such, no, I cannot tell you more unless you desire the publication histories of House Belmont and Matriarch Alara.” We’d fully cleaned out the study by this point, so finding the notes would take a lot longer than I had.

“What subjects have they published?”

“House Belmont has four centuries of collected works on enchanting and several volumes from individual family members related to summoning. Their works are rarely requested from Initiative sites. Matriarch Alara has six centuries of work relating to history and philosophy, three published treatises on the ethics of magic, and one autobiography detailing the decision to relocate her pride from Anatolia.”

Ok, that was useful. This Alara would be a good one to ask for help. Hopefully someone that was apparently immortal, since that obviously made as much sense as the rest of this, would be able to help me actually learn how to use my magic and to bargain with the Fae.

~-~-~-~

It was a fucking nightclub. The Council meeting was in the basement of a nightclub that had buff college guys in far-too-tight white shirts as bouncers. Even with weeks left before the start of classes it was packed, with about two dozen people waiting in the line outside. I didn’t want to push my luck with people and muscle up to the front, so I just got in place and waited. I got a lot of looks, dressed like I was. I just couldn’t win; business casual at a nightclub was just as out of place as a rainbow dress at a boarding school.

The Fae ‘quasi-curse’, as Scully had put it, was a bracelet this time. Twisted wood set with dark jewels, it probably drew a few looks of its own. It felt like it was metal that had been sitting in the ashes of a fire that went out hours ago. I didn’t want to ignore it, since when I did it tended to just randomly swap forms. Same when I tried to get rid of it. The only common theme was that it always had a moth as a centerpiece.

Fiddling with it was a good way to pass the time in line. Hot, but not burning, and it never seemed to cool down. Like it didn’t want to be forgotten, even if I tried. It was a good distraction from how I was wildly overdressed because I hadn’t bothered to google the actual place until I needed to be driving.

“ID?”

I was at the front before I realized it, and the question surprised me enough that I jerked my hand away from the bracelet. How had the message gone again…

“I’m here to see Mordo.”

“Mmhmm, sure you are. They’re not doing a show tonight, and if they were I’d still need your ID. We’re a bar: nobody under 21.”

Damn it. “Look, I was asked to come here for a meeting. I’m Tamara Aufrey, check your list or whatever.”

He made a big show of patting down his skintight jeans and turning his head, but his eyes never left mine. “I don’t see a clipboard, I don’t see a list, and I don’t see an ID. I do see you holding up the line, so either get lost or follow the rules, ma’am. If you were invited, the boss would’ve told you what to say.”

He stood there tapping his foot. His eyelids didn’t move, but a spark of faint light flashed across one eye in some arcane mimicry of a wink. Of course he was a mage, and of course he was treating this like a joke. With that smug fucking smile.

“I came her for the meeting despite all of the fucking shit that’s happened in the last week. If you’re going to make me say some ridiculous password just to get in, screw every last one of you.” My wrist burned, something boiling hot crawling from it and further up my arm. The guy’s smile dropped as his face paled. He even took half a step back, for some reason. “Now, you’ll either take me to the Council, or I’m leaving and not coming back.”

The heat receded as he started nodding. “Right, right, Miss Aufrey. Sorry, I’d forgotten. Will your sister be joining us? There were supposed to be two of you.”

My palm was wet as I held it against my leg. Digging nails in that hard was a bad habit. “Just me. Get on with it, please.”

He waved over another equally hunky bouncer then gestured for me to follow. From a couple of steps behind him I could see his fingers trace out a pattern on his pants. The fabric did that velvet thing where rubbing it one way made it all shiny. The figure he marked out was difficult to focus on, like when we’d tried to find the actual portal to the Roads. It seemed to affect everyone else a lot more, though, judging by how a gap in the dance floor seemed to just naturally open around us as we crossed it. A second symbol joined the first, the throbbing beat of the music dying into a low buzz as it finished. The shouted conversations between dancers only filtered through as low whispers.

It was an altogether uncomfortable trip. He didn’t say a word, and every time I tried to catch up to walk beside him he’d edge away and pick up his pace. The small hallways, lined with what looked like private rooms and storage, were even more awkward as he led me through them. Eventually, he stopped outside a door marked with a Mickey Mouse cap in gold.

“It’s just down the stairs, Miss.”

He was fast-walking away before he’d even finished speaking. Kind of weird, honestly. Almost like he was afraid. Not the usual response I got from guys like him, but not worth dwelling on. After all, I had to deal with this. With these fucking people who hadn’t thought to actually talk to us before we got in over our heads. What did it matter if Scully had the house itself on lockdown, when they could have just knocked or sent us an actual fucking letter? It’s not like we didn’t check the mailbox.

There were paintings on the wall of the stairway but I didn’t really care enough to look at them. The blacklights from the underside of the handrail lit it up well enough to get down, even without any overhead lighting. The back hallways had to be soundproofed since I hadn’t heard the music even after him and his silencing spell were gone. But in here, there was a faint hum of something more instrumental than the electronic music up top. A few dozen steps down took me further than most basements went before the stairs ended at a black door. A crystal knob sparkled on it with iridescent light

I had to stop and take a breath before I went in. Composure. Even if the bastards on the other side deserved it, blowing up at them wouldn’t help anything. The bird was a smartass and not really interested in helping and Scully was too broken and disjointed to act like a real person. Trying to learn enough magic to buy a soul back from the Fae just from books in less than a year was absolutely pointless; I needed someone with experience to help me. At the very least I needed someone to guide me and point out which of the dozens of recommendations that Scully turned up for even the most specific question were actually relevant, modern, and useful. I couldn’t afford to alienate the only people that could help. Not all of them, anyway. Either someone new, or this Matriarch Alara that had so much in the Archive.

The door opened inwards the moment I touched the knob, letting a literal wall of smoke pour out. It smelled like a mix of something sweet and cloying, grapes, tobacco, and pot. Vague lights darted around inside of it, covering up fuzzy shapes that were probably either people or furniture. The lungful I’d sucked in burned enough that it sent me into a coughing fit.

I managed to get a few expletives and a question out in between coughs, completely forgetting about keeping up decorum as that weird heat flowed through my arm again. “How much fucking pot are you smoking in here? Isn’t this supposed to be…” I choked for a second and had to stop to catch my breath. Even as I did the smoke started to clear up, though a few machines in the corners were visibly pumping it out into a curtain draped across the ground. “…to be a serious meeting. How is a grape-scented fog machine supposed to fit into that?”

“First off, the ones I host are never serious. That’s Alara and the Beatrice here’s job. Yours too, I guess, if you get back into the rotation.” The person speaking was still just a vague shape behind what might’ve been a bar. “Second, about as much as can fit into this vaporizer. Three pounds maybe? Third, religious reasons. Those also apply to the pot, but you didn’t ask.”

The smell faded enough that I could stop gagging. The doorframe was cold enough to help me focus. Plus it felt good with the heat still pouring into my wrist. I needed to at least plan where I was going to walk before I went in.

It was a really big room. A depression in the center stayed fog-shrouded, with a bunch of benches and less recognizable furniture sticking out of it, all coated in leather. Two walls were lined with x-shaped crosses and more familiar furniture, though not the sort you’d see in anyone’s house unless you were rather…intimate. St. Andrew’s Crosses, I think, were the most dominant bit. Another wall was lined with doors and curtains, while the one farthest from me was one giant bar. It was where all the people were. There were less than a dozen, from what I could tell. One behind the bar, three sitting clustered at one table, and the rest sitting alone or in pairs.

Now that the air was clearing up, I could see that the bar itself was completely clean. Smoke rolled up to the edge and vanished as it touched a row of glowing glyphs. Without the fog, the weird half-lion, half-woman statue with wings stood out even more, since it was sitting on top of a table.

Then it moved.

Fuck. It wasn’t a statue. I guess Grandpa wasn’t the only person with weird things here in town. She, and it was definitely a she, had a loose set of purple fabric strips draped over her chest and back, contrasting with dove-grey wings and fur so pale gold that it might as well have been white.

The cluster of three were the only ones dressed in anything more than casual clothes, wearing actual suits. Well, the woman that seemed to be in charge of them had a dress, but it was still something formal. The other humans were in either everyday clothes or stuff that would fit in with the people clubbing above us. The one behind the bar had an outrageous cap on and a band shirt on, both in an absolutely awful neon purple.

“Well, are you going to come in? We don’t bite, unless you ask.” The one in charge, apparently the bartender, glanced at the only inhuman person here. “Well, except for Alara. If you annoy her enough she might. Just don’t go trying to stump her with stupid riddles.”

I tried. My wrist stopped before it could pass the frame, though. The bracelet started to burn even worse.

Then there was a boom like thunder. Everything went purple, the scent of wine and rotting grapes overpowering everything else.

Next thing I knew I was on my back staring up at the ceiling and a bunch of faces that ranged from worried to intrigued.

“Congratulations, you’ve now officially survived being bitch-slapped by a god. Care to tell us why the fuck that happened?”