Patricia Briggs - Silver Borne

Jesse blushed and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Give me your hand,” said the fae woman.

Jesse reached out and Ariana held it—and smiled like a wolf scenting her prey. “Oh yes, you are a lodestone.” She turned to look at Zee. “With her I can find him. He is that way.” She pointed toward the back of the garage.

WE LOADED INTO ADAM’S TRUCK BECAUSE ZEE’S TRUCK wouldn’t hold us all—and Zee drove. Ariana sat in the front and Samuel sat behind Zee, as far as he could get from her in the big truck.

The sound of the big engine brought a smile to Zee’s face; he appreciates modern technology more than I do.

“Adam has good taste,” was all he said.

Looking for Gabriel was frustrating because it took us a while to figure out that we had to cross the river, and the roads didn’t always lead where she was pointing. Adam had a map in his jockey box, and Samuel used it to figure out how to work our way around to the most likely destinations.

We ended up in an empty, flat meadow up a winding dirt road (not marked on Adam’s map) that might have been an hour’s drive from the Tri-Cities if we’d known where we were going in the first place. There was a fence around the field we’d all had to climb over. Maybe ten years ago it might have held in livestock, but the barbwire drooped and T posts were tipped over. Near where we’d parked the car were the remnants of someone’s old cabin.

Ariana, looking out of place in her cardigan and stretch-knit pants, stopped in the middle of the field between a thatch of bunchgrass and a couple of sagebrush.

“Here,” she said, sounding worried.

“Here?” Jesse said incredulously.

I took advantage of our halt to start picking cheatgrass out of my socks. If I’d realized we’d be running around out there, I’d have worn boots—and a thicker jacket.

“The fairy queen has set up her Elphame,” Zee observed soberly.

“That’s bad?” I asked.

“Very bad,” he said. “It means she is stronger than I thought—and probably she has more fae at her command than we suspected if she still has the ability to build a home.”

“How could she have done that here?” asked Ariana. “She must be able to tap into Underhill to create her own land. The gates to the Secret Place have been lost to us for centuries—and Underhill never was in this land.”

I looked at Zee. I couldn’t help it because I’d been to Underhill—and then sworn to silence.

“Underhill was wherever it chose to be,” Zee said. “The reservation is no more than ten miles away as the crow flies. Most of the fae who live there aren’t the powerful among the fae—but there are a lot of us, more than appear on the government’s rolls. There is power in that kind of concentration.” He was careful not to say that the reservation had reopened a path or two to Underhill.

Ariana held her hand out, palm down, and closed her eyes briefly. “You’re right, Zee. There is power here that tastes of the Old Place. I had wondered why she bothered to keep Phin alive when killing him would have been the most logical path for her to take. She outsmarted herself when she took him to Elphame.”

“Fairy queens follow rules,” agreed Zee. “Mortals who are taken to the Elphame cannot be killed or permanently harmed—it’s part of the magic of building a place apart.”

Ariana gave him a little smile. “My Phin must be too human for her to kill. I wonder if she knew that when she took him to her lair? If he is human, she cannot, of her own volition, release him for a year and a day.”

“Does that mean she can’t kill Gabriel?” Jesse rubbed her arms to keep warm. “And that we can’t get him for a year and a day either?”

“She can’t kill Gabriel either.” It was Samuel who answered. “That doesn’t mean she won’t hurt or enthrall them. Fairy prisoners can be rescued by stealth, by battle, or by bargaining.”

“Bargaining? Like in the song ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ but with a fairy?” I asked. It seemed to me that I’d heard a similar tale with fairies in it.

“Right,” Samuel agreed. “It can be a contest—usually musical, because fairy queens tend to be musically talented. But there are stories of footraces or swimming contests. My father has a wonderful old song about a young man who challenged a fairy to an eating contest and won.”

“How do we get in?” asked Jesse.

“The only way I know of getting into Elphame is by following the queen in,” Ariana said.

“I might be able to open a way,” said Zee. “I think I can manage to keep her from knowing what I’ve done. But I’ll have to stay here and hold the door open—and I won’t be able to keep it open forever. An hour at most and you have to be out. If the door closes . . . As it does in Underhill, time passes differently in Elphame. If the door closes, even if you manage to escape, there is no telling how much time will have passed when you get out.”

“Okay,” said Jesse.

“Oh, no,” I said. “Not you, Jess. No.”

“I’ll be the safest person there,” she told me. “I’m strictly a mortal human—they can’t kill me.”

“They can make you want to be dead,” said Samuel.

“You need me to find Gabriel.” Jesse set her chin. “I’m coming.”

I looked at Ariana, who nodded. “The Elphame is entirely under the control of its maker. If we want to find your young man quickly and get him out, we’ll need her to do it.”

“Then let me call Adam and get the wolves.” I should have stopped at Sylvia’s to pick up something that Ariana could have found Gabriel with that wasn’t living. I didn’t want to cause Adam’s pack any more trouble than I already had—but I wanted even more to get Gabriel and Phin out of the fairy’s hold and still keep Jesse safe.

Ariana sucked in a quick breath. “I am sorry,” she said. “Samuel is . . . I could not do it with strange werewolves. If it were just fear, I would do it. But the panic attacks can be dangerous to anyone around me.” She looked at Zee. “Could they find them without me, do you think?”

“No,” said Zee. “If I have to stay out here, then they will need you to keep them from being lost. Moreover, I think that the wolves might be a mistake. Samuel is old enough and powerful in his own right—I think he could resist the will of one such as a fairy queen. But all of the wolves . . . The chances are too great that she would turn our own against us. If she turns you or Jesse, Ariana and Sam can still get you out. If you go in with the pack, even one wolf who turns would mean death.”

“It’s all right, Mercy,” said Jesse. “I’m not helpless, and I . . . Would you be able to wait out here if it were Dad in there?”

“No.”

“Are you ready?” asked Zee.

“All right,” I said, painfully aware that Adam would not be happy with me, but Jesse was right. She was probably the safest among us. “Let’s get them out of here.”

“Good,” said Zee—and he dropped his glamour without fanfare or drama.

One moment he was the tallish skinny old man with a little rounded belly and age spots on his neck and hands, and the next he was a tall, sleek warrior with skin dark as wet bark. Sunlight tinted his hair gold. It hung in a thick braid that flowed over one shoulder and hung lower than his belt. The last time I’d seen him, his pointed ears had been pierced many times, and he had worn bone earrings in the piercings. There were no decorations at all.

His was a body that didn’t belong in the jeans and plaid flannel shirt he still wore. The clothing fit him as well in his current shape as they had in the one I was used to. I supposed that made sense because it was the Zee I knew who was the illusion and this man, and his clothes, that were real.