P. Wilson - Imperative

He sat down and laid his bodkin spear across his lap. “Ah, you kids, you don’t know anything about history. Well it was Fionuir’s mother who got it into her head that there had been an insult. In revenge she burned half the forest. Father Bear got a singed paw.” Olan gave another laugh. “Ah, well, it wasn’t that bad; no one got killed and the forest did need to be refreshed.”

“Okay, we all know the Sidhe don’t have a lot of perspective when they’re mad.” I remember a few stories myself. “That’s why I’m going to do this alone.”

“Alone is not good,” Olan said. “Better to have many talents together. When you spread the work, you make it harder for your enemy to break you.”

Great, wisdom from a pixie. “I don’t want anyone hurt.”

Olan walked back and forth. “Nor me, but doing it alone won’t stop the hurting. What happens to one of us hurts others. And, no matter how prettily you ask, Fionuir is not going to just change her plans to make you happy.”

He was right. I thought about how Cate would feel if I got killed. I know how I would feel if I got her killed. Crap, thinking about this wasn’t going to get the problem solved. “I know; that’s not what I was planning. I’m hoping I can get something to hold over her head. Or, if she’s done something, find a way to reverse it.”

“You need help.” Olan seemed to be stuck on one path. It was like arguing with a two-year-old. Time to try a different tactic.

“Okay, I need help. I need information. When I have that, I’m working on my own.”

“I might be able to find you any information.”

“I was thinking of someone more reliable, Olan. I can’t be second guessing every step of the way. If you pull a trick, the whole plan could be screwed. It’s too important for that. You know the humans will kill us wholesale rather than look at us.”

“I swear I’ll not trick you.” He stifled a smile. “I am required to keep the humans safe. The only way I see clear to do that is to stop the Sidhe taking contracts out on them. I’m a bit too small to do that on my own.”

One thing still bothered me. “Why is The Morrigan angry with you?”

Olan jumped down from the table and started to walk away. “It’s nothing to do with this.”

“See, you won’t give me important information and you want me to trust you.”

He turned to face me and I saw a green blush under his skin. “It is embarrassing and it’s not important. What is important is information about the Sidhe, or about the fairies.”

Nice try. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. “The Morrigan is part of the same world as the Sidhe. If she is angry she’ll get in the way just to spite you.” I wondered why Olan was being so dense.

“I may have given insult to her. She may have misunderstood something.”

“Olan, just spit it out. I won’t agree to us working together unless you come clean.” I was getting really tired of this. It just proves my point, working alone is best.

“Okay. I was talking to Brother Eagle about the general advantage of being a bird. It was a great conversation.” He smiled up at me. “But, The Crow was listening and I might have made some comment, not being mean mind you, about how some black birds were bossy. Now Brother Eagle just laughed, but he has a sense of humor.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do you think you can avoid making it worse?”

He leaned against his bobbin and stared at me, and then he sighed. “I promise to try.”

“All I can ask.” I resigned myself to having a partner. It would be better to have Olan officially on my side, rather than have him ‘helping’ unofficially.

While Olan went snooping for more information, I was going to try to figure out why it had to be poison. Why not just a convenient accident, or a suicide? Poison seemed to be too obvious for Real Folk; too likely to bring attention. The Sidhe wouldn’t want that any more than I did.

I didn’t feel like sitting in the basement, and I didn’t need to work magic to do this research. I had a regular book on poisons, one I could read in public. So, I took it with me to the park, and enjoyed a bit of sunshine while I read about the effects of various plants on humans. Fairies would use plants. I remembered the way the woman convulsed that night. And started with Belladonna then looked at various mushrooms and flowers. They all gave pain and hallucinations and killed fast; most of them worked by ingestion. It would be difficult to keep some of them fresh enough to be guaranteed fatal. I figured two options, Belladonna and Lily of the Valley. So great, now I had information but no idea what to do with it.

“Hello, Quinn.” Olan’s voice in my ear startled me. He was standing on the back of the bench, staying in a shadow. I looked around, but there were no humans near enough to notice him.

“Did you find something out?” I felt the tickle of an idea still in my mind.

“I did.”

“Okay wait a minute. I need to work out this idea in my mind before you tell me anything that will distract me.”

Olan sat on the back of the bench and started to braid some red threads into a rope. “Can I help?”

“I figure the fairies are using Belladonna or Lily of the Valley. The key seems to be more pain, more fear, and more power.” This was Olan’s opportunity to show how much better it was to be working together instead of alone.

“That sounds about right. No one gets energy from a peaceful death. Fionuir probably knew that since she was a tiny thing. Have you never noticed that the Sidhe can be found around violence?”

“No, I don’t tend to hang around violence myself. So, something tells me there’s more to this than just increased power.”

“Nothing I can think of just now.” Olan stuffed the rope into his pocket.

He wasn’t helping. The itch in my brain didn’t go away nor did an answer come.

Olan rubbed his chin and frowned. “The fairy you saw at the murder, were they from the Belladonna or Lily family?”

“Yes. But it’s not just those clans affected. Bob didn’t say it’s just two clans, he said fairies.”

“What was in that book about Belladonna?”

I shrugged. “It grows here and it is fairly easy to get.”

“Lily of the Valley, is that the same?”

“Almost every garden on my street has some.” The tickle of an idea started to increase. “I think we’re getting warm.”

“Well, is there a place where the fairies might harvest the plants?”

“There’s a patch of both down at the other end of the path. But I think it’s a red herring. If we stake out that patch, we could be wasting our time. Like I said, both grow everywhere.”

“You don’t need much to turn the flower into poison in either case.” Olan looked up at the sky. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” I wasn’t really listening; his interruption chased the idea away before I could grasp it.

“Nothing there. It must be my imagination.” Olan turned back to me. “Are you ready to hear my news?”

“Sure, go ahead.” I hoped it was worth more than what I’d come up with.

“I have a friend who supplies the Sidhe court with jewels. She tells me that the women of the courts are competing for position. There is a lot of backstabbing going on and Fionuir may lose her control of the court.”

“Who is your friend?” His information was important but didn’t get us anywhere.

“A brownie, she likes to find shiny things. The Sidhe take half her supply and pay with food and protection for her family.”

“Is this information reliable?”

“As far as I know.” Olan sidestepped closer. “Are you willing to work together?”

“It’s not like we’ve made a lot of progress, but we haven’t screwed anything up yet either. What could go wrong?”