Small Favours: beyond the pale
The shop is nothing special. A small sign outside, a couple in the windows telling people what they might find within. The interior is neat and tidy, with curious and general used items for sale. It feels nice, and the person behind the counter smiles, offers a greeting and barely pauses when I ask to speak with Minou.
“I am afraid I have no idea who you’re talking about; my name is Cam, and I run this shop.”
“My name is Kris. He knows me. Please?”
Cam lets out a breath. “Go outside, around back. The door to the back room is open.” Nothing else. Not how I know the fae, not who I am, not asking why I am here.
I head out and around the building, finding the open door easily. The back room is clean as well. Tables for testing items, tables of priced items, garbage and recyclable. Minou is putting a toaster together, gloves on his hands, and blinks once when I enter.
“Kris.” His voice is even. His shadow is not, writhing behind him like a living thing.
“Minou. I won’t tell you who Gabe and I found for allies, or where we are in the fight against our family. You did more than we could have asked. You did – far more than I thought of asking.”
The fae nods, his expression unreadable.
“I’ve seen a little of what you really look like. You showed more to my family. The Underwoods are –.” I shake my head. “Even with a few who were not there and can heal minds, the terror you invoked. You broke over two hundred magicians. Even the other fae never really saw you, did they?”
“No. Athel knows me of old. Almost no one else knows – what else I can look like.”
I move closer. The fae doesn’t move. “You do that, and then you just... return to working in a shop? Let yourself loose and then rein it in?”
“And that’s why you’re back here and not dealing with customers?”
Minou doesn’t move. He sets a screwdriver down slowly, looking almost surprised he’s bent it in half. “You are not helping.”
I take a deep breath, hold out my right hand. “This is for you.”
Minou walks over, picks up the small piece of red rock, fingers it slowly. “A piece of rock.”
“A piece of the hate the Qis had for you, and for what your kind did. It isn’t much, in terms of healing. But we’re trying.”
Minou doesn’t drop it. He’s too old to lose control of himself. He pockets the piece of stone slowly, his dark eyes bright with stars behind them. “Thank you.”
“It is – not much, but all Gabe and I have managed so far. I doubt we’ll manage more, not in a lifetime. Gabe will live longer than I will, tied to the Qis, but none of us know how long. And you never need to thank me. Not after everything we’ve been through.”
“Does your brother need you?” Minou asks quietly as I reach the door.
“The family you are aiding to damage your own, your brother: do they need your power?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because there is a new Court in the twilight lands that could, perhaps, be an ally for your new family as well. And you a bridge between them.”
“I can open up a door there when you need it. You wouldn’t be able to come back to earth, and move beyond the pale to survive there. I can give yo glamour enough for that, but your life would still be a human life, measured in human years.”
“The other Courts would hate that.”
I thank him, get back into the waiting car outside and return home.
Fighting a magical war takes magic. Weeks. A month, two and I’ve used up every bit of magic within me. Everything I’d never used, a lifetime of energy spent trying to destroy the Underwoods. We’ll win, the family Gabe and I have joined, but it’s going to take time to break an empire. Time and alliances. I am dropped off two blocks away from the shop, and walk. It is almost not a surprise to find Minou walk up beside me and hand me a coffee.
“You have two people who were following you. The shop has been staked out since your last visit,” the fae says softly. “Cam doesn’t know. I’ve been dealing with them, and waiting.”
“Thank you.”
He smiles. His shadow looks like just a shadow again, the smile slow and sad. “You won’t be able to return to earth, with this glamour on you.”
“I figured as much. This isn’t a talent you have.”
“Not at all. But I’ve had over a month to make sure it will work. What do you wish to look like, as a fae?”
“Me.” And I show him how I see myself inside my head, with the last of the magic I can call forth.
There is no judgement. Not from Minou. Just a nod. He finishes his coffee as we walk, waits until I finish mine, and holds out a hand. “Unless you wish to wait, Kris?”
“No.” I’m scared to wait. So much of me wants to stay, but I can do more, from the twilight lands. I can help the fae, I can help humanity.
“You can be yourself,” Minou whispers, as gently as his nature allows.
“Thank you,” I get out again, and I hug him. The fae actually stops dead at that, and waits until I am done, and pushes me lightly.
One step. A second. There is a flash of pale light, and then the sky is nothing but twilight. I can hear the river they made the far Court at, and look down at my body. The same colouring as the last glamour Minou made for me. No eyes that see for miles, no, but I have four arms because who wouldn’t want those, and I walk easily toward the Court. I’m just outside it, feel the energy of it as I enter.
I walk for almost a minute before wind blows about me that wasn’t there a moment ago.
The wind ruffles my hair, and then the rest of my body in a moment. “Kris? You sound like Kris?”
“It’s – me. A better me. I try and explain, but Bus is gone between moments, the fae off to tell the others. They haven’t changed, of course. Fae don’t change, not as humans change. Trul pokes my tail lightly, asking why I wanted it.
I shrug, “I didn’t see many fae with tails. I wanted to stand out a little still.” That wins a soft laugh in reply.
The others say hello, slightly wary. I explain why I am here, and to what end. Druul winces at what the other Courts will think, but Fury is definitely amused and Bus giggles softly about us.
“You’ve lost your family,” Fury says later, after food hasd been had and a place found for me to sleep.
“I’ve gained friends. I consider it a good trade.”
The fae studies me, fire dancing lightly in his eyes. “Even losing your brother?”
“He’s – something other than human now, and can embrace that. We talked. We don’t like it, but – we have to atone for what our family did, to fight them any way we can. This is the best move I can make now, and when they learn about it, it’s going terrify them.”
And Fury asks nothing else, and pushes nothing else. Fae live a long time, and questions can wait for a longer time to them.
Minou returns, sometimes. He passes information from the the other Courts, and from earth to us and back. Time does not pass in the twilight kingdoms as it does in the human world. There are no seasons as such. Just twilight sky, sometimes rain. Snow so rarely it is celebration.
It is only when Minou makes a comment about Starbucks on one visit that I begin to understand.
“When did Starbucks go out of business?” I ask before he returns back to earth.
The fae turns and looks back at me. “Some years ago,” he says warily.
“How long will this glamour – you said I would only have a human lifespan.”
“I know. It seemed a lie you needed to hear.”
“As long as your friends, I think,” he says. “I can promise that much.”
“Minou.” I wonder what it is costing him to do this. But I know he’ll never tell me.
“Some costs are always worth it, Kris. You left Gabe to help human relations with the fae, and have done so. And terrified the Underwood’s so much they are in hiding, and your name is a tale they tell to frighten children, even more than mine.”
I don’t ask if Gabe is still alive. I’m not sure I could bear that. I watch him leave, and wonder if he knows that I could him among my friends as well.
