Soul

Grim looked around nervously. “Hush, Realtín.”

  ***

  Later in my shift, Zoe, Fiona, and Erika came to visit me under pretence of shopping. Fiona and Erica argued over the benefits of Greek yoghurt, giving Zoe an opportunity to pull me aside.

  “Well?” she asked.

  Grim stared up at her, and Realtín flew around her head, but she saw neither of them. But she screwed up her nose when Realtín got too close.

  I returned to the shelf I had been stacking. “Well, what?”

  Zoe made a face. “Well, Drake. That’s what! I thought you said he was only around for a night.”

  The fae both perked up at the mention of Drake.

  I cleared my throat. “That’s what I thought. Turns out he’s around for longer than we expected.”

  “And he came to see you again?”

  “Nope,” I said, slamming a box onto a shelf. “We bumped into each other randomly.”

  “This place isn’t that small. I hope he’s not a stalker.”

  “I don’t know him that well, Zoe. We’ve talked, like, twice. I probably won’t see him again.”

  “He’s plenty hot, though. You should bring him out this weekend.”

  Realtín snorted and threw a raisin at Zoe. Zoe glared at Fiona and Erika.

  “No money to go out this weekend,” I said loudly to draw her attention.

  “I’ll pay for you. Come out with us. Please? And put your fun hat on. I’m in the mood for some random.”

  I glanced at Grim, who shook his head. “I’ll think about it. But I have to study, and I don’t get paid enough to waste it all on clothes and clubs, you know.”

  “Don’t be dry.”

  Realtín tugged on Zoe’s hair. She whirled around. “Did you just pull my hair? What are you, five?”

  Fiona frowned. “What are you on about?”

  “You just pulled my hair.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Zoe made a show of looking up and down the aisle. “Well, I don’t see anyone else around, Fiona.”

  “I have to get back to work,” I said. “Talk to you three later.”

  I left and went into the bathroom. “Right, that’s it,” I hissed. “Go away, both of you. You can’t just do what you want, Realtín. Just because she can’t see you doesn’t mean you can pick on her. And stop opening shit! I’m the one who has to clean up the mess, remember?”

  “But the king said—” Grim began.

  “I don’t give a crap about your stupid king. Tell him I said to back off. I don’t need babysitters, and I definitely don’t need fae at my work.” I pointed at the door. “Go!”

  Grim made Realtín leave. I felt better, but I still couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the fae.

  When I got home after work, Grim and Realtín were sitting on my bedroom floor, looking chastened.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “King Brendan sent us back,” Grim said. “We are to remember who owns us and to obey his bidding, not yours. We are no longer permitted to converse with you.”

  Realtín put her hands on her hips and shot into the air, but Grim shook his head. She flew over to the faery ornaments, kicked one, and settled back beside Grim.

  “Just because you can’t talk to me doesn’t mean I can’t talk to you,” I said. “Next time you speak to your stupid-arse king, let him know I refuse to believe he’s wonderful in any way when it’s obvious he’s just an arrogant prick with way too much time on his hands.”

  Realtín sniggered until a nudge from Grim silenced her.

  “Well, whatever,” I said.

  I made a few more attempts to speak to them that evening, but they only stared back, making me feel uncomfortable. “Just cloak yourselves or something,” I said at last. I was sick of trying to study with silent faeries in the room. I looked, but they were gone.

  It didn’t help.

  Chapter Eight

  I was six years old, and I had been locked in my room since dinner time, when Dad had come home from work and given my punishment. I still didn’t understand what I had done wrong. I was the one who had been knocked to the ground. I had only stared at the boy in school, but his screams had gotten me into trouble.

  I lay in my bed, listening to my parents arguing downstairs. Their voices filtered upward, full of anger and bitterness. Dad kept saying even children could see the evil in my eyes. He hated my eyes, hated when I looked at him.

  But that wasn’t the bit that made my fingers tremble as I gripped my stuffed rabbit. The worst part was the thing in the wardrobe and the one under the bed. They had been drawing closer all winter.

  I heard their whispers every night, no matter how hard I pressed my hands against my ears. They were coming for me. I just knew. The one under the bed liked to eat little girls. It had told me so… in its own way.

  The whispers were almost as bad as the fingernails scratching the wooden floor. The fingernails were almost as bad as the door that opened all by itself in the dark. The door opening was almost as bad as the red glowing eyes hiding in the wardrobe, faint at first, but growing deeper and darker every night, waiting for the right time. Those eyes were going to take me into the darkness, and nobody could stop them.

  Nobody believed me. Nobody saw the eyes. Nobody heard the whispers. Only me.

  And it was time. They were ready. The shortest day of the year, my teacher had said. That meant the longest night. The darkest night. That gave them time and power.

  The scratches came, louder than ever. The whispers turned into terrible laughter. I heard something shuffle in the dark. I imagined the wardrobe swinging open, and those red eyes growing larger by the second. Coming closer, coming for me.

  But the monster under the bed came first.

  I couldn’t see it in the dark, but the thing was noisy. It crawled across the floor, as I huddled against the headboard. Something pulled the covers off the mattress, dragging them onto the floor. A hand with grotesque, clawed fingers reached up from the end of the bed.

  I couldn’t scream. Only whimpers made their way out of my mouth. The sheet beneath me was yanked, and I was pulled along with it. With a yelp, I scrambled back to the head of the bed.

  The monster jumped onto the bed, and I choked on my mother’s name. The thing was worse than I imagined—cracked face full of pus and boils, fangs and claws and the stench of rotting death. It smiled, the cracks seeping. It crawled up the bed, dragging misshapen legs behind it, licking its lips the entire time.

  No, no, no, no, no.

  It reached for me, and I was frozen with fear.

  The red eyes came into view over its shoulder. Bony hands pulled the monster back by the ankles, and the creature’s screams drowned out my own when I finally found my voice.

  The red-eyed monster munched and crunched on bones, and the under-the-bed-monster’s whimpers faded away. Unable to look away, I couldn’t stop screaming.

  The door flew open, and my mother ran to me. But the light from the hallway didn’t reach the bed. We still weren’t safe. We were in too many shadows.

  I scrambled into my mother’s arms. Her back was to Red Eyes, but I faced the thing, looking over her shoulder.

  “Run,” I whispered. “Please run before it gets us.”

  “Nobody’s there,” Mam said. “There’s nothing scary in this room, okay?”

  I pointed at the monster. My mother’s back straightened as if she sensed something coming toward us.

  “Nothing there,” she said under her breath. “Nothing at all.”

  It kept coming, ready to take us away, to suck the marrow out of our bones as it had the monster under the bed. Clouds passed in front of the moon, and the room darkened, but those eyes remained. The moon cleared, and Red Eyes reached for us. Mam held me tighter, her whispers as urgent as a prayer.

  A bang on the window made me flinch, but Mam didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t react to the hissing or the black cat’s claws scratching at the glass. The cat’s fur smoo
thed, and the animal looked directly at me. Its tail was straight up as it jumped from the ledge, and when I looked back at my bed, Red Eyes was gone.

  “Nothing can hurt you,” Mam said.

  “I know,” I said calmly. “Kitty sent it away.”

  She kissed my forehead and laid me down on the pillow. She covered me with the blanket. “Black cats are lucky.”

  She hummed by my side until I dozed off. I fell asleep wondering how she knew the cat was black.

  I awoke with a start, my heart racing. I hadn’t had that particular dream in a long time. I lay there, staring at my wardrobe. Had any of my fears been real? Had I been haunted by actual faeries rather than my own vivid imagination as a child?

  “Grim?” I asked in a quiet voice. “Do faeries ever hide under a child’s bed? Or… or in their wardrobe? Do they ever eat each other?”

  Silence.

  As I stared, I realised I was waiting for the door to open of its own accord. I rolled over and faced the wall, but I didn’t sleep much after that.

  ***

  I hadn’t seen Grim or Realtín in days. I wasn’t sure if that made me happy or sad. I’d been having nightmares every night, and my faery ornaments were knocked over every day, but I didn’t hear or see any other trace of fae in my home.

  Except for my mother’s skin. The shimmers had faded, but I would never forget them. I just wasn’t sure what they meant.

  “I’m going to work now,” I said aloud so that if the faeries were in the room, they would know my plans. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to make it easier for them. “And college starts back on Monday. Just… just so you know.”

  When I left my room, I bumped into my father in the hallway. He looked at me as if I were a raving lunatic on the street. I ignored him, said goodbye to my mother, and left the house.

  The dream had reminded me that she wasn’t the way I remembered her from my childhood, no longer as loving or affectionate. I wondered why that had changed over the years. Once, she had protected me. Maybe I didn’t need to be protected… except by tiny fae, apparently.

  I was early, so I walked, but I regretted my decision when the frigid wind began battering me. Yet the treetops barely moved, despite my hair whipping across my face.

  I stopped. Something was very wrong. Passersby walked right past without so much as glancing in my direction. The hairs on my arm stood at attention. The faery magic whirling around me didn’t feel benign.

  I barely flinched when the warrior unveiled himself in front of me. I’d had bigger surprises recently. His hair was a shock of red, his wings crimson and white. His skin was milky white with traces of glimmering red where his ember veins peeked through. He was as tall as the smiling dark faery, though not as broad.

  He raised a dagger in the air, the blade shining ruby red in the sunlight. My hair was yanked from behind, and someone pulled me backward as a small blur jumped at the hand holding the weapon. Grim and Realtín had saved my life by an inch because, despite all of the self-defence classes my mother had forced me to take, I hadn’t even had the presence of mind to run from a crazy fae assassin.

  The faery looked surprised, but he brushed Grim aside and stalked me, never seeing the silver-haired faery behind him. I stepped back slowly, keeping my eyes on the red and white faery, refusing to glance at Fake Drake.

  Realtín touched my fingertips, and I ducked as the warrior swung at me. I looked up in time to see Brendan simultaneously stand on the warrior’s calf, yank his hair, and reach around to slit his throat.

  Blood spurted everywhere, but mostly over me. I gazed at my clothes in horrified silence. I was drenched in the warrior’s blood.

  Brendan and Grim inspected the warrior’s body, while Realtín nudged me in concern. I sat on the ground, too busy falling to pieces to give a damn about anything else.

  I shook uncontrollably, unable to take my eyes away from the thick, vibrant blood. It was too much. Everything was too much.

  Brendan knelt next to me, but I couldn’t look at green eyes when I wanted violet. He tipped my chin, but my eyes were drawn to the body.

  “Did you know him?” Brendan asked Grim.

  Grim nodded. “He was one of the Seelie queen’s old servants. He didn’t attend the festival because he was out of favour.”

  “So unlikely to take revenge?”

  Grim squeezed my shoulder. “I didn’t say that. That’s MacDearg. Kin to Sadler. This wasn’t about vengeance for the Seelie queen’s death.”

  “Why is Sadler still alive?”

  “He was wise enough to stay away,” Grim said.

  Brendan sighed wearily. “Find Sorcha and warn her. I’ll take Cara home.”

  I wasn’t aware that we weren’t walking to my home until we passed through a gate and my skin began to tingle again. Fae magic, all around us. Getting a grip on reality was hard when there was no reality.

  There was a large house, but the gardens drew my attention. Thorny bushes were filled with tiny watchful eyes and roses… so many roses of every colour. Some stables stood in the distance. Pigs wandered freely, and I sensed figures hiding amongst the trees. Drake’s words came to mind when I felt in awe of how picturesque it all seemed: glamours and illusions.

  “Is this your house?” I asked Fake Drake.

  “Not exactly. A follower offered his home as a base while I gather strength. When this is over, I’ll likely live in my own realm once again.”

  “But there’s magic here, right?”

  “Enough,” he replied.

  If I stayed too long, I might never want to leave. “I should go home.”

  “You can’t go home covered in blood.” He pointed at my shirt. “Look at you.”

  I swallowed hard. “I’m aware of how I look right now.”

  He glared at me. “I just saved your life. Don’t make me do it again. You’re safe with me until I can figure out the threat.”

  “You could have sent him just to scare me into agreeing to help you.”

  He looked around. “That’s true, little human. Very true. And once, I might have. Clean yourself up, and you can leave. But you’ll have more bodyguards this time. I choose to take this attack personally.”

  He led me into the house, which was guarded by warriors. They towered over Brendan and barely looked at me. I couldn’t tell the difference between them and the queens’ bodyguards. They were all terrifying.

  Inside, everything was luxurious without being over the top, but I didn’t care while I was covered in blood. Brendan showed me to a bedroom decorated in lavender and silver. The window showed a view of gardens that seemed to stretch on forever.

  The black-haired woman who had come to my house strode into the room. Scowling, she shoved a fluffy towel and some clothing into my hands before huffing her way back out of the room.

  “The bathroom is there.” Brendan pointed at a closed door. “Have a shower, and then we can talk. Don’t worry. You’ll be safe while you’re under this roof.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t have the energy to protest. I couldn’t go home covered in faery blood. I couldn’t go to work and act normal after witnessing a murder. I couldn’t sleep in my own bed, knowing I could be attacked at any time.

  I showered for ages, long after the last of the blood had disappeared. In the mirror, I looked pale and drained of life. I was exhausted, and my pupils had dilated until they were almost as strange as those of the fae. The body of the faery who had attacked me flashed before my eyes, and I barely made it to the toilet before I threw up. I had another shower just to get some warmth back into my body.

  That hadn’t been the first murder I’d witnessed, but it was the first time I wasn’t cocooned in a haze of calm driven by fae magic. Everything felt too real, too close, too dangerous. I could taste death, feel its hands on my shoulders.

  I dressed in the expensive clothes the woman had given me. I was just grateful they weren’t bloodstained. When I left the bathroom, Realtín flew at me, making funny little coo
ing sounds as she checked my face.

  I waved her away. “I’m fine. I take it you’re allowed to talk to me again?” I picked up a comb and attacked the tangles in my hair.

  “I thought you were going to die. Imagine how angry the king would have been!”

  “And here I was thinking you were concerned for my health,” I said drily.

  “That, too!” She flew onto the bed and picked up a sock. “They’re so big.” She measured it against herself.

  Sighing, I pulled the sock out of her hands. “What now? Can I go home?”

  “You want to go home?” Her expression turned worried. “What if they come for you? You were lucky today. Grim spotted the watcher and sent word to Brendan. We were waiting for ages. We didn’t think he’d make it in time.”

  “You both saved my life. You and Grim. Thanks, Realtín.”

  Her cheeks darkened. “We’re supposed to go downstairs to speak to the king. Sorcha and Grim are with him.”

  “So is Sorcha the one with the black hair and grumpy face?”

  The sprite giggled. “Don’t you recognise her?”

  I screwed up my face. “Should I?”

  “She’s the banshee. The one who led you there, who hid you away.”

  “Nah. That one was old and gross.” I shuddered, but Realtín raised a brow. My eyes grew wide. “No way!”

  “That’s her. When the king was banished, the banshees lost their main source of power, so they all lost their youth and beauty. They became hags.” She spat on the floor. “Served them right. But now the king is back, and so is everything they lost. Well, almost. Once he becomes king for real, everything will go back to normal for them.”

  “So he’s not actually a king?”

  She opened her mouth to reply when a soft knock at the door interrupted her.

  Grim let himself in. “The king wants you to come down now.” He bowed his head and held open the door.

  “Grim, you don’t have to bow to me.”

  His lower lip quivered.

  Seeing his discomfort, I let it go. “Come on then, you two. Lead me into more trouble.”