Chapter 2: Coltsfoot
before you came what was your name? did you look like me? no one’s from here no one, my dear not even the trees
“Roman, wait.” Logan also stood, grabbing his arm.
“You heard Tourmaline. Wren and Wrassey are in there,” Roman pulled away and gestured at the ring. “We have to find them and figure out what this rogue Court Fae is up to.”
He half-hid his sword behind his back and started a casual saunter toward the mushroom ring. Several muttered Faery swear words later, Logan’s near-silent footfalls followed him.
“Look, Virgil would never forgive me if I let something happen to his little pixie friends,” Roman pointed out. “So don’t try to stop me.”
I need this hunt, he added silently. Please don’t interfere like you always fucking do.
“Virgil will never forgive either of us if your rashness gets you killed,” Logan shot back.
“Well, neither would Patton, if you died.” Roman shot Logan a side-eye. “Where is your fiancé, by the way? Normally you two are joined at the hip.”
If Roman hadn’t been looking for it, he might have missed the tightening of Logan’s mouth. He definitely noticed the way Logan ignored the question by pushing in front and stepping across the mushroom ring, entering the pocket of liminal space between Earth and the Hedge. Roman pulled up short.
The familiar trees seemed thicker and wilder from inside, crowding the sidewalks, completely hiding the road from view. The mushroom circle was wider on this side, taking up an entire patch of overgrown park, where the ground had been torn up in a dozen places. A wooden wagon with tall, slatted sides, like the kind a child might play with, sat in the exact center of the ring.
They ducked behind a fat trunk.
“Why the holes?” Logan murmured.
“Nicotine addicted squirrels? The Court Fae brought a dog? I dunno,” Roman muttered back. “Where’s our friendly neighborhood mushroom farmer, I wonder?”
“My clan!” Tourmaline wailed in her tiny voice, shooting off Logan’s shoulder and pointing at the wagon. Her red hair and drooping wings glimmered. “My sisters!”
Roman looked again and his heart dropped. Tiny black cages filled the wagon bed, and now he saw that each one held a pixie. Some fluttered madly to keep from touching the metal; others crouched in obvious pain.
“Iron cages,” Logan practically growled. “That is unspeakably cruel.”
“I think I see Wren and Wrassey,” Roman said, feeling sick. He’d spotted a pair of green skinned, black-haired pixies who’d been shoved in a cage together.
They edged closer. Everything in Roman screamed at him to grab that wagon and get those poor pixies as far away from this park as possible, but his Smile instincts held him back. Any Court faery who’d subject pixies to naked iron would likely do worse to intruders.
Logan gestured grimly at the grass, which sparkled. “Pixie blood is over ninety percent water.” His voice was icy. “Unlike ours, it is almost clear in color.”
Roman inhaled. “‘Death in the water.’” He spotted a few tiny bodies lying in the grass around the wagon; clearly, some of Tourmaline’s clan had put up a fight. “We gotta get the survivors out of those cages.”
He adjusted his sword, luck dragging across his senses—a curtain of hot beads—as he grasped for a new outcome. Everyone escapes, nobody else dies. Logan showing up had distracted him; now he leaned, hard, but careful not to break through the metaphorical curtain. Doing that always turned his luck dangerously sour.
“Agreed.” Logan laid a hand on Roman’s arm. “But as you asked before, where is the perpetrator of this cruelty? It seems unlikely that they have conveniently stepped out.” He narrowed his gray eyes at Roman. “Unless that is exactly what they have done.”
“My whole thing is taking advantage of conveniences, Specs.” Roman stood up. “I got this.”
“I will keep watch,” Logan said.
The trapped pixies shouted and pointed as Roman knelt beside the wagon, his senses on high alert. Some seemed relatively unharmed, still having energy to glow; these kept talking in such frantic Faery that Roman couldn’t begin to understand. Most, however, bore signs of…well, Roman couldn’t think of a word besides torture. Bent wings, broken limbs, burns and bruises. Many couldn’t fly and were forced to stand or huddle, whimpering, against the cages, despite how it burned their skin. Tourmaline fluttered among them, clasping tiny hands through the bars, murmuring encouragement in soft Faery.
Who the hell would do this to solitaries? Fury rose in Roman’s chest. Solitary Fae could be mercurial, primative, and dangerous, but there was a reason Smile hunted primarily Court bastards. Those could rise to unspeakable levels of depraved.
He stabbed his sword into the grass and grabbed Wren and Wrassey’s cage, wincing at the burn. They huddled together on the tails of their dresses, shaking, but Wrassey lifted her head at his voice.
“Roman?” She stumbled and yelped as her bare skin touched the metal.
“No, don’t try to move. I’m gonna get you out.” Roman studied their cage, heart sinking when he spotted a keyhole. Faery magic won’t stick to iron, so of course it’s a manual lock. But…
“These bars are thin and sloppily welded,” he murmured to the pixies, who stared at him with wide eyes. “I may be able to rip the tops off.”
“Please,” Wren murmured.
“Before he comes back,” Wrassey added.
“Brace yourselves.” Roman fought the stinging burn to get a good grip on the top and bottom. He pulled, and the top tore free. The sisters zoomed out; Wren planting grateful kisses on Roman’s cheek and hugging Tourmaline, while Wrassey flew high, scanning the park.
“Can you break past the mushroom ring from the inside?” Roman asked.
“Yes,” Tourmaline answered, her wings buzzing. “I will oversee our escape if you free the others.” She touched his arm. “We will not forget your aid, Roman Princey.”
“It is still hidden,” Wrassey announced, dropping back down. “He has not discovered it.”
A collective sigh of relief whispered among the trapped pixies.
“What’s still hidden?” Roman picked up another cage and ripped it apart, freeing its occupant. “Who did this to you?”
He tore open more cages as Wrassey alighted on his shoulder, talking so fast he had to concentrate to understand her.
“We of Painter Clan are custodians of an artifact, gifted to us long ago by an Earthside Court. A Sidhe claiming to be the rightful owner came onto our lands three nights ago, demanding it. Some of us resisted, but…” Her tiny voice trailed off. Wren swooped close and kissed her cheek before continuing to help Tourmaline carry the newly freed pixies to safety beyond the mushroom circle.
“The terms were clear. It was never to be given back, no matter who asked,” Wrassey went on. Her small face crunched into a glower. “We have been giving him false places to look.”
“The holes,” Roman commented.
“Mmm. He grows impatient. He knows we deceive him.”
“So, he captures a bunch of you to torture, hoping one of you would break.” The revelation that a Sidhe did this made Roman nervous. Sidhe were among the highest order of Court Fae; beautiful, strong, skilled at warfare, and deadly.
He worked faster, hands burning with iron scorch. Half of the pixies freed. The unnatural silence of the park grated on his ears.
Three-quarters.
With luck—he exhaled carefully, letting the glass bead sensation pass without parting—he could save Tourmaline’s entire clan before the mysterious Sidhe returned.
“Painter Clan is strong. We do not break,” Wrassey snapped, but her wings drooped. “The Sidhe who did this carries greed behind his eyes. I do not think he meant to free us once he had what he wanted. Another reason he must not possess the artifact.”
Roman was just breaking the last cage, surrendering its inhabitant into Tourmaline’s capable hands, when a voice thundered across the park.
“You have misled me for the last time, vermin!”
Roman dropped the cage pieces and ducked behind the wagon, which only barely hid him, as a figure burst from a nearby clump of bushes.
The Sidhe stood willow tall and willow thin, his lily-white skin practically glowing against the dark trees. Narrow pointed ears swept back from his head, drawing the eye to a crown of red hibiscus nestled in his long, fiery orange hair. Orange also framed his night-black eyes; Roman couldn’t tell if it was makeup or his own natural coloring. He wore blood red leggings, black boots, a woven tunic of clashing oranges, and a matching cravat, creating a look that landed, in Roman’s opinion, somewhere between “colorblind Renn Faire enthusiast” and “gay hairdresser on Halloween”.
“I will have the mirror’s location,” the Sidhe bellowed, marching toward the wagon with that eerie gliding grace only Fae possessed. “Or I will begin slaughtering you one by one…what is this?”
He stopped, staring at the pile of broken, empty cages and—Roman could have kicked himself—Roman’s red-hilted katana, still stuck in the ground exactly where he’d planted it. The faery’s orange-rimmed eyes went wide with fury.
“I could ask the same thing,” another voice called from the tree line, making the Sidhe whirl. Logan stepped out, arms folded behind his back.
“Who are you, Summerling, and what are you doing in my park?” Logan asked in crisp Faery, puffing out his chest.
Summerling. Roman inhaled. “Summer in the air. Death in the water. Watch your words.” He’s a Summer Court Fae.
“Your park, Winter? Yours?” the Sidhe echoed, disdain dripping from each syllable.
Ice gathered and broke at Logan’s feet in nervous waves. His glasses caught the ambient light, obscuring his eyes, and for a moment, Roman’s brain flashed back to Sir’s multi-lens glasses, which he always parked on his face just before bringing out the scalpels—
He drew a sharp breath. Arcadian gods, he could not afford to have a flashback right now.
“What is he doing?” Roman grumbled to himself as he watched the half-faery, still keeping low, but the answer was obvious. Logan was distracting the Sidhe so that Roman could get away. But how did Logan plan on extracting himself?
Dammit, it’s not like Sherlock to blunder blindly into danger.
“Roman.” Wrassey tugged hard on Roman’s earlobe, making him wince. “You must take the mirror away from Painter’s Pond.”
“Shh!” He hissed back, eying the nearest tree trunk. “We have to go and somehow get L—er, Bear out of here.”
The Sidhe glided a few steps toward Logan, who stood his ground.
“You must take it! Even without our cooperation, it is only a matter of time before he finds it.” Wrassey yanked on his ear again. “Please.”
Roman ground his teeth. This could be their only opportunity to escape unseen…but saving the clan’s artifact was clearly important to Wrassey, and dammit, she was Virgil’s favorite.
“Where is it?” he asked softly.
The Sidhe had his back to the wagon now; maybe they had a chance.
“In the wall.” Wrassey pushed his face to the right and pointed. “Behind the stone carved with a pixie.”
Right in the Sidhe’s line of sight, because of course it was, but maybe the wall would hide him if he stayed low enough. Logan argued with the stranger now, moving his hands like Patton did when he got excited, keeping the faery’s attention on himself.
Roman crept around the wagon, extracting his sword as he went. For half a second, he considered rushing the Sidhe and running him through. The only safe Sidhe was a dead one, or so went the Smile saying, and this one had already tortured and killed innocents. But Roman remembered his ill-fated bout on the Athens lawn with Deceit, who had not been a Sidhe, and who’d almost killed Roman anyway.
I will not be as rash as everyone thinks I am, he thought, sheathing the blade and creeping toward the wall.
Logan’s eyes widened as he caught sight of Roman, and without even breaking his flow of words, he began circling the Sidhe, forcing him to turn away from the wall. The Sidhe crossed his arms and seemed, for the moment, content to let Logan ramble.
He’s probably reciting the entire history of DeLand, Roman mused, ducking behind the wall and looking for Wrassey’s stone. She buzzed her wings, giving light to see, and he finally spotted a crude drawing of a winged figure scratched onto one of the lower stones.
“It is hollow behind,” Wrassey said. “The facade should come away easily.”
“You are no lord,” the Sidhe said scathingly as Roman dug his nails into the edges, tugging. Moveable or not, age had wedged the facade in hard, and he had no tools. He didn’t dare look up to see how Logan was doing.
“You’re not even a full-blooded Fae, are you?” The Sidhe laughed, his voice like fire snapping over dry logs. “A talkative half breed claiming territory. I have now seen it all.”
The faery’s shift from Faery to near-perfect English sent a chill down Roman’s spine. In desperation, he stuck his sword blade into the wall and used it as a lever. But the angle was all wrong, the blade too long to be effective. He paused, panting.
“You must break the facade,” Wrassey whispered.
“He’ll hear me!” Roman hissed back.
“It is the only way.”
“I will have you know—” Logan said after a shocked moment.
“Oh, stop. The game is up. Where did you hear about the mirror, hmm? The Wild Hunt? Some pathetic solitary network?” The Sidhe paused.
“Mirror?” Logan echoed.
“Did you really think you’d find it before I did? Did you honestly believe—”
Roman aimed a kick at the stone, which cracked but didn’t crumble. He cringed when the faery cut off mid rant, but he didn’t dare stop now. Three kicks later, the facade collapsed. He dug out the pieces, plunged a hand into the dark hole, and closed fingers around a flat, circular object. Wrassey alighted next to the hole, wings fluttering eagerly.
“That’s it,” she chimed. “Quickly, now—”
She shouted in surprise as a slim, hot hand clamped onto Roman’s shoulder.
Coltsfoot: justice shall be done
