The only sounds in Don and Marty’s train car were the muffled rumble of wheels and a mechanical hum just soft enough to hear. With the doors locked, and their belongings spilling across the otherwise empty sections of their seats, they sat across from each other.

Marty held her book open on her lap -- a kidnapping mystery starring a snarky detective -- while Don poured crisps and Skittles into the same Ziploc bag. Reading, she ignored both him and the sea blurring by as it melded with the dour shade of the clouds. She’d have to make the novel last, and as such, took in each page at a wandering pace; in her peripheral vision, she caught a streak of red as something was flicked through the air.

Marty smacked her book shut. Don was busy tossing candies from hand to hand, occasionally dropping them. The offending cherry Skittle had come to rest beside her foot.

“Don.”

He tossed another, unaware.

“Don! For God’s sake!”

“What?”

“Stop it. You’re getting on my nerves.”

Don heaved a sigh, peering into his bag of snacks. “I’m... you know.”

“I don’t know.” Marty set her book aside, atop her backpack. “Enlighten me.”

“I’m not really sure.”

It was Marty’s turn to sigh, and she twisted sideways, arm resting across the top of her seat as she watched the endless expanse of the ocean. It swirled, and crashed, and churned.

“You need to talk, or you’ll spend the whole ride sulking. I hate it when you sulk.”

“You hate it when I do anything,” he said.

“Oh, hell.”

“And you’re not denying it!”

“Yes, I am!” She froze, stole a glance through the glass door of their car, and looked back to Don when the other passengers remained oblivious. “I am. You’re convinced that I don’t want you here.”

“And what if I wasn’t here?”

She said nothing, letting her temper sink down to manageable range.

“If you weren’t, then I would not have a partner. You’re the transfer -- if something happened to you, including you bailing, it would be my fault. I’d be off the force.”

“So, you’re keeping me around for your career and that’s it.”

“What else would it be?” Her retort came out half-hissed, half-spoken.

“Maybe I want to be -- Nah. Never mind it, alright?”

“Gladly.”

Marty reopened her book, and minutes morphed to hours, and she relaxed into comfortable certainty that they would reach Ballycastle without another argument.

“Hey, Marty?”

“Jesus. What now?”

“You given any more thought to the Avery thing?”

She willed herself not to tell him off, slowly shaking her head.

Don said, “I have. In all my time being here, he’s never taken our targets in and questioned them.”

“So? You’ve only been in Scotland for a year and a half.”

“And how many targets have we got together?”

“Twenty-three.” Marty raised a brow, confused curiosity reigning over anger. “Why?”

“Yeah, minus the Manchester case. That’s real weird, isn’t it? Only one spared out of all the rest we’ve killed. And on Avery’s orders.”

“So...?”

“You reckon it gave him actual information?”

“Stop being stupid.” Her memories flashed to Avery in the conference room: that long look. That hesitation.

“Marty, why are we going all the way to another island to kill some brownies? Can’t the Ulster guys deal with this themselves?”

“You heard him. They’re overworked.”

“But these are brownies! Not redcaps, not kelpies, not a damn banshee. Couple of brand-new trainees could knock this job out in a day or two.”

She stared hard at Don as if trying to wrench an explanation from him by sight alone.

“Don, what the hell are you saying?”

“What if he wants us out of the way?”

The world stopped. Their train kept rolling, of course, but every scrap of her energy and attention was fixed on her partner.

“Why would he want that?”

“I don’t know! It’s just not right!”

“What’s not right is you picking apart everything that our superior says. Antics like this are probably what got you pulled from the American branch.”

Their conversation broke. Don kicked his feet up to rest on his own backpack, which he’d left on the floor. He acted as though Marty wasn’t even present, stone-cold silent.

Marty, though she might have appeared guilty had he looked at her, was caught in a maelstrom of suspicions and possibilities and frustrations.

Bigger problems in England.

Sparing a target with no explanation.

A mission to Ballycastle for a minor type of fae.

Don wasn’t mistaken. Avery’s behavior had been so subtly different that she hadn’t perceived it as odd at the time. It was official: something was very wrong.

❦❦❦

While autumn gripped the British Isles in hues of russet and grey, here spring reigned. It flourished across the land, where the hills swept high into mountains and the mountains swooped deep into valleys; forests pooled in their rocky creases like liquid, the tallest trees extending far above the rest and fanning leaves into a bluebell sky. Toward the west, woods thinned to brush, which in turn lessened further and further until the ground dropped, giving way to cliffs that speared the frothing sea. The water glittered cerulean, and that was what, to the naked eye, would mark this place as something else, something beyond. It was too bright to lack innate enchantment, brighter than the famed Caribbean or the lagoons of Iceland or the mineral-tinted ponds that dotted the fields of Yellowstone.

To those who belonged here, magic made itself known. Flowers burst up after footfalls, animal or otherwise. Creatures whose fur was streaked with shimmering lines gazed down from branches. Bushes overflowed with fruits, and if one was picked, two more would sprout.

This was not, however, an untouched wilderness. Glass planes winked through the trees. Lights on strings arced this way and that, illuminating boardwalks covered in moss above the surface of a fen. The paths lead like roads toward vast clusters of structures -- glass intertwined with wood, as though they’d been built into the forest, instead of the forest being cleared to admit them. They had porches and decks, windows and doors, vines cascading down their walls in waterfalls of life. There were houses and storefronts, benches and fountains. Carts full of crates. Boxes of produce. Triskeles and knotlike inscriptions absolutely everywhere.

And there were people.

Some hurried to and fro with their arms full of items; some wandered, peeking into shops or leaning on fences or holding the hands of chattering children. Their skin was milk-pale; every once in a while, one would appear with an olive tan, standing out in the crowds. Their hair fell in waves, sprung about in bouncing ringlets, was wound in braids; it came in emerald and clover and pine, coal and midnight and raven. Like normal people, their body types ranged -- some soft and curved, others muscled, still others thin as waifs.

No matter how each one looked, they all shared a single trait: ears tapered to points.

In the largest city, they all took care to not approach a row of their own kind, stationed before a path that spiraled up into the canopy. Far overhead, more glass glinted, and though the citizens were forbidden to enter, what lay above the treetops was immense.

It was, unmistakably, a palace.

And in this palace, where every entrance was protected -- including the branches straight beneath -- order was king. Rather than the draping cloth and hardened leather that those below wore, servants, officials, and guards clad themselves in uniform. A rich rowan painted their suede, their boots leather as well and a deeper hunter’s green. Blades hung in sheathes at the guards’ hips, some only daggers, some reaching to their knees; if too long to be held at the hip, their weapons were tucked against their backs.

Everyone inside, from humble maid to exalted politician, bore the same insignia upon their chest: three ravens, talons clasped, spinning in the pattern of a tri-pointed swirl. Where their claws were locked, there sat a vertical line, from the left side of which extended four more lines, shorter and horizontal.

On the very highest level of the palace, in an ivy-cloaked dome that overlooked his land from valley to sea, stood their ruler.

He was pale as his people, and his hair -- lightest, warmest sage -- might be mistaken for blonde. It swished down to his waist, no braids, no adornments. He kept it well out of crystal-bright eyes, which gleamed even when he paced beneath spots of ivy thicker than the rest. They were like a cat’s, and he moved like one, too, carefully. Gracefully. His movements matched his face: delicate brows and a delicate nose, high cheekbones, which constellations of freckles crossed. A bare chin, at the middle ground between pointed and round, completed features that he wore as though made for him: young but wise. Androgynous but effortless. And, most of all, so fair that his word was law.

Even so, he smiled, at ease.

It certainly gave his assistant some peace of mind. She stayed standing, as he had not yet settled at the meeting table -- a slab of a once-great tree, sanded and lacquered so dappled parts of it shone in the sunlight.

She rose to the height of his chest. If her expression was not so severe, and her uniform not so tailored, she could pass for an adolescent; curls of fern green flounced when she clutched to her chest a clipboard strained with documents. Her gaze flitted from him to the papers she held, and though she didn’t once tap her foot or fidget, her impatience was clear in the way she watched him.

At last, he took his seat, and gingerly, she removed the documents from her clipboard. It took her a moment, but she gathered them into one neat stack, which she placed before her leader as she joined him at the table.

She was greeted with a theatrical sigh.

“Really, Fedelmid?” he asked, making a sweeping gesture to the mountain she’d brought him to sign. His voice was a rhythm, his question a song, crafted from dulcet tones and self-assured ease.

Fedelmid, seeming used to such greetings, only nodded.

“It’s been thirty years and already you’re working me to the bone.”

She nodded again, having nothing to say.

“Ah, well.” He slid a feather pen from nowhere, and proceeded to sign the heap of documents, its plume dancing as he wrote.

All the while, he graced her presence with his commentary.

“Are they mad? I’m not lowering the taxes on dwarven ale.”

And, “If Alfheim wants a trade deal, they’ll have to ask nicely.”

Then, “There will be no such law. Free travel to Earth... insanity.”

“Sir?”

He heard Fedelmid, but did not look up.

She cleared her throat. “Supreme Minister, sir.”

He focused on her with his trademark smile; it faded when she didn’t smile in return.

“There is this, too,” she said, withdrawing a folded paper from her lapel pocket and handing it forward.

The Minister took it, leaned back in his chair, and began to read. In the absence of witty remarks or even displeased ones, a hush sank into the room.

“Well,” he murmured. “They still haven’t let that go.”

“Have you, sir?”

“Never.”

“What shall we do about it?”

His reply was a jagged one, lacking any pretense of politeness. “The number of years since it happened -- that number is powerful. We’ll keep hunting the bastard who did it.”

“How? The culprit has avoided us for --”

“I know. Perhaps our old friend Johnathan will have some ideas.”

Fedelmid wrinkled her nose. “But, sir, he has avoided the Fae for over two centuries.”

“I don’t care. Find him and that idiot Tárlach. Meanwhile...”

“Yes?”

“Meanwhile, I will try something, too. I’m going to contact some other friends of mine. They have been wrapped up in a conflict on Earth, but maybe it has been long enough. Maybe now, they will have the time.”

“You don’t mean...?” Fedelmid’s question trailed off and lingered unspoken.

“Yes. I do. Fedelmid, send for a courier. We need help from the Coalition Of Unorthodox Research Teams.”

She bowed low, and off she rushed, deep into the palace to track down the Minister’s most trusted couriers. When she found one hunched over his desk, not a single word passed between them, but a glance. He knew, and he penned a letter, and he stamped the sealed envelope with Urgent, then Classified.

Thus, it began: a plea for aid from the only people who could bring justice swiftly enough. But for eight hundred years, they had shifted from ally to enemy to back again, and where in the cycle they sat now was as deep a secret as could be.