[Is this a negative to positive arc, or the reverse?]
"What should I call you, if I may?" Theo asked diffidently as he followed her out of the trees.
Keava looked back at him and was hit by another wave of worries. They were coming out into the open now — could he pass unnoticed as she could? And did she dare tell him her name? She knew the power of True Names. Lorna had made sure of that. Keava wasn't sure what her True Name was — was it the name under which she'd been raised, or had her birth parents given her one she didn't remember? And did the anglicisation 'Keava MacSween' even count, or was it only the proper Gaelic 'Caoimhe NicSuain' that mattered?
Lorna had told her that her Name was her Name. Which hadn't clarified much of anything. But she had given Keava a nickname to fall back on, to hide behind just in case. And if ever a situation called for it… "You may call me Taashel." It was from the Gaelic tàiseal, and meant 'ghost.' Lorna had chosen it after seeing how Keava could drift about as silent as a cloud, unnoticed by all except those endowed with the Two Sights.
"Taashel," Theo murmured. He wrapped his arms around his damaged middle and stumbled over a root. His face was tight with pain.
Keava found the sight of all the welts and dried blood hard to look at. And if someone else saw them… She winced and muttered, "Ugh." Could she…? He was shorter than she was and didn't look any wider in the shoulder. She began to shrug off her jacket. It was dark green and not overtly feminine; it wouldn't look odd on him. "Here. Put this on. I don't think you're still bleeding, but if you are, we can clean it."
He received the coat with some astonishment. "Th—thank you." He raised an arm to put it through the sleeve, then stopped, hissing in pain.
Keava sighed. "Let me help." She took the coat and helped him into it, getting as she did a much closer look at the abused skin on his shoulders and back. A sick feeling rose in her throat. Some of the marks definitely looked like the stripes of a whip … and judging by the crusts of dried blood, a whip with something metal at the tip. Other marks were clearly burns. And around his thin wrists were the marks left by restraints.
This close to him, Keava began to feel his aura sparking against her skin like static electricity. But it was weak. She had expected something … more. Lorna had said Keava's aura was like a thundercloud, full of lightning just waiting to fall. …Perhaps all Theo's lightning was spent.
"Thank you," he whispered again, and Keava remembered something else Lorna had said: among the sìthichean, thanks were tantamount to an admission of owing a debt.
They'd made a deal. Keava wondered how much she could get out of his end of it.
"Are you able to pass through the sight of mortals unnoticed?" she asked.
"I should be," he mumbled, fumbling with the zip like one unused to them. He managed it, though.
"Good. Follow me closely."
She led him back through the [formal gardens], her head on a continuous swivel. The sun was down now and the light was dimming, but the castle was never empty. Keava pretended hard that she wasn't there, no more than a harmless passing breeze. Then, realising she'd never seen this from the outside, she looked at Theo.
As her eyes moved towards him, she felt something try to divert them away, like the flow of a river moving around a rock. But knowing what it was, and being what she was, Keava pushed straight through it.
…Suddenly she understood with sharp clarity why Lorna had given her the name Taashel. The sight was eerie. Theo's body seemed somehow insubstantial, not quite there, and he moved almost more as if drifting than walking. He seemed to proceed too fast for how his legs moved — siubhal-sìthe that was called in Gaelic.
…Was this why mortals described sìthichean as spirits? Keava had always felt too solid and alive to be a spirit. But Lorna had said a sìthiche's form was made of different stuff than a mortal's. Inherently fluid, malleable, able to change shape and consistency … to be solid or not. Human or animal or even tree, stone, water, wind…
The chill breeze seeped through Keava's knit jumper, but that wasn't why she shivered. Locked in her mortal disguise, the potential fluidity of her true form had always been … scary.
But with her hiding trick … had she perhaps been using it all along?
They came out of the [formal gardens] without seeing a soul. Then through the band of trees and bushes, into the car lot, and—
Keava stopped. Theo nearly ran into her back. One of the cleaning staff was coming down the road from the castle, which ran right beside the band of trees. Keava stood stock still and shrouded herself as much as she could. Theo tucked himself in close to her shoulder and watched.
The woman trotted past them, jingling her keys and checking her mobile. She was no more than fifteen feet away, but when she glanced back at the castle, her eyes slid right over them without seeing them. Keava let out a breath. Not one with the Sight.
"Where are we going?" Theo whispered as the woman vanished around the end of the hedge that bordered the other side of the road, separating it from the car park.
"This way," said Keava.
Skirting the car park and especially the leaving car, she led him to where her bicycle was hidden and pulled it and the trailer out of the bushes.
"You'll have to ride in the trailer, I'm afraid. Not very comfortable, but it isn't too far…" Especially if she sped them along with a little following wind.
Theo took a little persuading, but once assured that the trailer was entirely aluminium, and that the gardening tools he'd have to share it with were either aluminium or bronze — that in fact the only piece of steel on the whole machine was the bicycle chain — he climbed in. The trailer was deep enough to not be terrifying to ride in, and fortunately Keava hadn't brought many tools today. He only had to bundle a few trowels, a kneepad, a small shovel, and Keava's specially made bronze secateurs.
It wasn't actually the first time Keava had put a person in her trailer. Her father had insisted on a thorough testing before he would approve the trailer for her use — which apparently must include his daughter towing him up and down a deserted road while he giggled like a schoolboy. And then of course Ishabel had wanted a go. Which was how Keava had learnt exactly how fast one could safely take corners with a twelve-year-old in one's bike trailer.
She had quickly patched Ishabel up and sworn a pact with her to never tell Ros. Who, as she herself kept telling them, didn't need any extra reasons to drink wine.
So, Keava knew exactly how much care to take to get Theo safely back to her cottage. And as she did so, she tried not to think about how what she was doing would be yet another very large reason for Ros to drink wine.
[Is the arc negative to positive or the reverse?]
"Come sit down," Keava told Theo, directing him to a kitchen chair. He did as directed, shoulders hunched and arms crossed protectively around his middle. At Keava's urging, he gingerly removed her coat and let her see the damage.
She debated a moment whether to ask — she didn't want to admit ignorance and reveal a weakness to this stranger. But … she needed to know. "Why aren't you healing?"
He didn't seem to think the question odd. "Because I've already done all I am able. I am … drained." He looked it, wan and exhausted.
The implications made Keava's stomach a little queasy. "You mean it was worse than this."
"Not … worse so much as… He just kept … giving me marks until I … couldn't make them go away again." He started to shrug and then stopped himself, wincing.
The queasiness intensified. "That's called torture."
Theo ducked his face away. "…S'pose it is."
Keava admitted to herself that she had no idea what she was doing. Even with a mortal, she'd be lost. How the hell did you treat a torture victim? What had she fallen into? What had she let into her home?
But she'd done it now, so she had to deal with it. And a good first step had to be treating the injuries. That she knew.
"Well, I'm not drained. Are you … all right if I heal you?"
He darted a nervous look at her. "That … um. Very well." But he tensed. Which, considering how recently he'd been tied up and tormented ... well.
Keava wished she were better at being a reassuring presence. She could manage it with Ros and Ishabel, with friends, but strangers often found her a bit … much. Keava blamed the fierce slant of her eyebrows. Ros blamed a lot more than that.
("It would help if you didn't stare."
"I don't stare."
"You do. Like a cat who hasn't decided whether it's going to purr or bite."
"…People like cats."
"But only fools trust them, which is my point.")
"I'll be careful," she told Theo, trying not to look like a bitey cat. She laid the tips of her fingers on his shoulder. He twitched under them and screwed his eyes shut, breathing faster. "I won't hurt you," she said, reaching for a gentle tone. She shut her eyes and poked a tendril of her awareness into his body.
Oh. Oh, this was interesting. It … looked like a human body, but it felt different. It reacted to her like it recognised her — something brushed her and nearly spooked her into withdrawing before she realised it was Theo's own awareness, shying around her. Some instinct told Keava that it was weak and small compared to her, that Theo's supernatural immune system was compromised and she could easily crush it. The thought made her shudder.
She found the injury nearest her fingers — a welt from a whip, several layers of skin broken and damaged, further bruising beneath that. Lots of little nerves screaming in pain. She began what she would do for a mortal: stimulating the cells to speed their natural healing process, to regenerate and replicate. To her surprise, Theo's cells leapt to answer her call and dance to her tune. A mortal's body took some persuading, but Theo's knew how to do this. It only needed the fuel.
Keava opened her eyes to watch the welt heal. It was like a time lapse, like months passing in seconds, until all that was left was a line of pink, new skin. It always thrilled her, to be able to heal like this, to wipe away injuries in moments. The nerves beneath were still grumbling — nerves were always the hardest to convince that all was well and they could relax — but they would settle before long.
Theo let out a breath, and some of the tension left his shoulders. He was starting to trust her.
"So," she said, moving on to a burn and starting to regenerate several layers of skin, "care to explain exactly how you came into this situation?"
His hands clenched. He swallowed. But they'd made a deal, and he had to uphold it. "…I offended a queen."
Keava froze. That sounded dangerous. "…Queen of what?"
Theo massaged his forehead. "It's … an area roughly equivalent to Argyllshire. Though she has been expanding it."
…Keava, as a rule, disliked acquisitive autocrats. She began to form a prejudice.
Theo went on, "She's yet a new queen, and … she seemed a just leader at first, fair and agreeable. She made her court a beautiful place and gathered people of skill. I … I received an invitation to become her court tailor, a more prestigious position than I had even thought to try for. So … I agreed." His voice wavered, and he fell silent, staring at the tabletop.
Keava formed a suspicion that this was a decision that he had come to question and curse. "What happened then?"
Theo rubbed a hand across his brow, jaw tight. "All seemed well at first. I made beautiful clothes for elegant people. And then … the queen's lust for power started to show. She began to move against rivals, chased them into exile or … worse. Her court … it became a dangerous place to be. Or perhaps it always was, and we were too complacent to see."
Keava had now healed three welts and two burns, working her way from his shoulders to his back. "How did you come to be on her bad side?" she asked.
He covered his eyes with his hand and swallowed hard. "She … she had an enemy … an Ancient, wise and respected. He had opposed her becoming queen from the start, must, I assume, have suspected her for what she was. But she tried to reconcile with him, to win him over … or so it appeared. Until she came to me and commanded me make him a fine and beautiful set of robes as a gift … and into them to lace the deadliest curse and poison known to our kind."
Keava sucked in a sharp breath. "…She wanted you to commit murder."
He nodded, face still hidden. "I—I'm not a brave man, nor one of strong principles. I've led a … perhaps frivolous life, centred too much around the pursuit of beauty. I was never one to take a stand or risk my own safety, but…"
He took a shuddering breath. "The murder of an Ancient, bearer of so much knowledge and wisdom … it is a terrible thing. They who have lasted for millennia, who know the great cycles of the worlds and how to protect the people from their dangers … it would be more than the loss of one life, to kill such a one. And I … I could not be the instrument used to do it." His body shivered under Keava's hands.
"…So you told her no." He nodded. "I can't imagine she liked that."
He made a hysterical noise. "Not only that, I knew about her plot of murder. She … she needed me out of the way. So … she found the most vicious of her servants, and she sent him. And I suppose I must be grateful that he takes too much amusement from the suffering of others to follow orders without enjoying himself first." His voice faded to a hoarse whisper, and he shivered again, more violently.
Keava felt more than a bit chilled herself. This was bigger than she'd suspected. Not only was there really a faerie queen — in fact possibly several just in Scotland, if the kingdoms were so small — but Keava was now harbouring a man that queen wanted dead. Which would be a dangerous enough thing to do with a mortal tyrant.
In a low, controlled voice, she asked, "How difficult is it to come here to the Mortal World?"
Hand still over his face, Theo darted a look at her out of the corner of his eye. "…It's not easy. The ways through have been disappearing for centuries. So few remain now, and they are prone to open and close and move. I know them well, for I was born on this side and so my father made sure to teach me. No one knows them better than he. Few would stand a chance of tracking me here."
This fit with Lorna's account of the situation. She had warned of the difficulty of not only finding one's way to the Otherworld, but then also find one's way back. A door might close or move at any time. But… "A queen might have reason to employ a person who is expert in such things, though, mightn't she?"
Theo's shoulders hunched. "…She might. But … why bother to hunt me down? I'm gone from her court and her [kingdom], gone from anyone I might tell. I'm no threat here."
"Unless you come back," Keava said. "Or send messages warning people."
Theo went back to rubbing his forehead. "Such would be difficult to achieve from here. It is…" He trailed off, shivered. "…I suppose she might try, if she guesses where I have gone. But … it would be much less trouble to simply let me leave. She has allowed others to flee into exile, and chasing them would have been less trouble."
Theo groaned into his hands. "I wasn't meant for court intrigue and power struggles; I'm a tailor. All I want is to go home." His voice wobbled, and Keava's heartstrings were at last fully and properly tugged.
Gently, she asked, "Where is home, to you?"
He tried to hide a sniff. "With my mother, [near Carlisle]. On this side. My father is a wanderer, but he stays there now and then."
Keava debated the logistics of getting Theo to Carlisle. Surely it must be more than a full day by bicycle — it must be at least a hundred and fifty miles. She could borrow Ros's car, but could Theo bear to travel in a machine of so much iron? It left Keava feeling headachy and ill if she were in it more than about an hour, and she wasn't injured and battered and probably already feeling pretty dreadful.
"I could perhaps get you to Carlisle," she said. "Though … would you be safe there?"
"I don't know," he groaned, running a hand through his shoulder-length hair. It needed a wash, Keava noted, for sweat and dirt and … probably blood. Ick. "My mother is formidable, but if she were enough outnumbered…" He shook his head. "But surely the queen wouldn't send more than one or two, if she even bothered…"
Unable to venture an opinion whether this statement were sound or the product of wishful thinking, Keava said nothing. She thought of Lorna. Surely she would know what to do, or at least what options were blindingly stupid.
Bloody hell, she thought to herself. Theo wasn't the only one not cut out for court intrigue and power struggles. Taking in a political refugee was one thing. Facing down the sadistic assassin (assassins?) who'd forced him to flee was quite another. Keava's list of problems was plenty long enough without getting into a dispute with supernatural royalty.
She recalled the moment of longing she'd felt, just a few days before, to meet others of her own kind. Grim, ironic amusement stirred in her chest. Of course it would be like this. Wishes usually were.
"I have a friend who could help," she said. "She's not a sìthiche herself; she's a sort of draoidh — do you know Gaelic?" she asked, suddenly aware that she was using Gaelic terms.
"Yes, it's the language of the court."
Keava felt a stab of annoyance that she could have been speaking her own language all this time. But … perhaps it was better not. English was plainly Theo's native language, and he was the one who was exhausted and hurt. Besides, who knew what sort of Gaelic was spoken in an Otherworld court? Likely more old-fashioned than Theo's English, which he had probably learned on this side.
Theo shifted and straightened partway, leaning over to check Keava's progress. She had healed most of the marks on his back now and was starting to feel the drain. She wasn't sure she'd ever done quite this much healing in one sitting before.
"Your friend…" he said, "is she a very powerful draoidh?"
Keava bit her lip and steadied herself for the next welt. Her head felt a touch light. "I think so, but I haven't much frame of reference. I've never met another. But…" It occurred to her that she could describe how it felt to Theo, and he wouldn't think it sounded odd. "When she lets her aura show, it's … heavy in the air. Thick. Like treacle."
Theo got it at once. "Is she … still mortal?"
"She's a bit evasive about that, but … she's admitted to being centuries old. Don't know how many." She'd tried to find out, of course she had. But Keava had come to suspect that the past was painful for Lorna. Painful an very, very long.
Theo chewed his lip. "Then … whatever she is now, she is not exactly mortal."
"…No. Not exactly." Keava debated letting her ignorance show, but… When would she ever get another chance? "Have you heard of such things? Human sorcerers who go on for centuries?"
"…Perhaps? One hears of many old sorcerers in stories, but it can be hard to tell in which world they are truly rooted. But…" He darted a cautious little sideways look at her. "…If they come to live centuries … it might be safe to assume that, whatever has changed them … they might not be quite entirely human anymore."
A quote from C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia ran through Keava's head, as it had many a time before … When you meet anything that is going to be Human and isn't yet, or used to be Human and isn't now, or ought to be Human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.
Her stomach twisted. "But neither are we." There. She'd said it. And now she'd find out from another of her own kind that she really, truly was something other than human.
Perhaps Theo caught something in her voice, because he looked at her with a thoughtful frown. "We aren't, but … we are what we were meant to be. We were born this way. We did not need to … trade something away to achieve it."
Born that way. Yes, she had been, hadn't she? She wasn't something that had had been Human once and wasn't now, or would be Human and wasn't yet … though there was perhaps an argument to be made for 'ought to be.' And… "What about iron and promises? That is a price to pay."
Theo shrugged and this time only barely winced. "Power always comes with a price."
Keava found this thought was oddly comforting. Even as it made her wonder what price Lorna had paid.
"But if your friend is willing to help," said Theo, "then I most certainly would not refuse her. Is she any closer than Carlisle?"
Keava grimaced. "Not much. She's [down] north. It wouldn't be much quicker to reach her than to get to your mother. But I could call her." And should anyway. Lorna would want to know about this.
"Perhaps a good idea," Theo murmured, and then yawned enormously. He began to list to one side. Keava moved to steady him, and a wave of lightheadedness washed through her.
"I think that we're both a bit done in for now," she said, trying to sound steady. She blinked hard and looked at her progress. Though much of his back was still pink and a little raw, the worst of the welts were gone. Perhaps enough that he could lie down without being in agony. "Um. Would you like to get some rest? I have a bed for guests. …Though the room is still full of boxes, I'm afraid. I haven't quite finished moving in."
Theo blinked foggily at her. "…Bed?"
One corner of her mouth turned up. "Aye. Bed."
And so she helped him to the spare room. The boxes, fortunately, were mostly on the floor rather than on the bed, so she didn't have to move much. And then she thought to get him a glass of water and a towel from the bathroom, to wrap around himself so he needn't worry about getting any remaining dried blood on the bedclothes. He accepted gratefully and collapsed into bed in complete exhaustion.
[What time of evening is it? More attacking and defending? Keava trying to get more info?] [STUFF I FORGOT, could go in this scene or later: Lorna should advise Keava to make Theo promise to keep Keava a secret from other sìthichean … and advise her that she could easily force his True Name out of him. And maybe should. And perhaps I should push a little more that Lorna feels Theo's appearance is significant and maybe connected to what she's investigating.]
Though she was so drained that her head felt stuffed with cotton, Keava was too overstimulated to sleep. And her stomach grumbled and moaned with emptiness. So, once she was sure Theo was settled, she reheated some leftovers and then once again called her mentor with an emergency.
"You found what?"
Keava repeated her description and then, at Lorna's urging, every detail she could remember of what Theo had said … except for what he'd said about Lorna herself. Keava wasn't quite ready to raise that yet. Lorna listened with interest so sharp that Keava could feel it radiating from her mobile.
At the end, Lorna said, "He may be right that no one will follow him; certainly it would be difficult for them to do so. But I wouldn't count on it."
This was exactly what Keava had been afraid she'd say. Keava's insides twisted with anxious nerves. "You think that he might still be in danger."
"I think that he probably just got that assassin in trouble with his queen. And when underlings lose favour … usually their first priority is to redeem themselves."
A chill crept up Keava's spine. "So keeping him here is dangerous."
"Certainly a risk. But … you want to do it anyway, don't you?"
Did she? Keava hadn't made that decision yet. All self-preservation instincts told her it was mad, and yet… "He's just… He feels harmless to me. Gentle. I don't want him to die for doing the right thing."
Lorna made a thoughtful, weary sound. "…I have long wished for you to have someone of your own kind, someone trustworthy. This one … well, if you help him, he'll owe you. Possibly owe you his life. And for sìthichean, a life debt counts for a lot."
"Are you saying that if I've saved his life, I can trust him?"
"It isn't quite so simple as that, but it helps." Lorna sighed. "If you want to help him, then help him. But take every precaution. Defend your home."
"How?"
"Remember the wards I taught you?"
"Aye…"
"Put them up. Put them all up."
"But…" Keava remembered the effects of those wards, remembered the feeling of encountering an invisible line in their air that she couldn't cross. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. "But that would trap us in here."
"I know. Do it anyway."
"…You think it's safer than the alternative."
"I do. If trouble does come to you … it won't be able to get in. And I'll find a way to get to you."
"And what if they just set fire to the house with us trapped in it?"
"Wards, lass. Set your wards right, and they won't be able to."
Keava blew out a slow breath. How the hell had she got here, she wondered, rubbing her face. "All right. I'll do it." And then she'd just have to cross her fingers and hope the house didn't manage to catch fire all by itself in the middle of the night or something. "But then what will I do tomorrow? Should I call in sick and try to get Theo to his mother?"
Lorna considered. "Does he know for certain where his mother is and that she is at home?"
Keava strained her memory. "I … don't know. I don't think so."
"Then try to contact her first, make sure he has a place to run to. Until you know that, he'll be safer behind wards than he will be on the road."
This made sense but wasn't very comforting. "Okay. But how will we contact her? How will I get him there? And how will I get him some clothes?" She couldn't imagine towing this injured and traumatised sìthiche to the nearest clothing shop in her little bike trailer.
Lorna made a dismissive noise. "He's a supernatural tailor. Once he's recovered a bit, just sacrifice a sheet, and he'll take care of it. As for the contact and transport… He must have a way of contacting his mother; make that his problem. And if you can tolerate travelling by car, at least for short periods, so should he be able to manage it."
"But…" Riding in cars made Keava headachy and queasy. She didn't want to do that to Theo, not when he was so weak.
"You'd rather spend a full day taking him there by bicycle? And in a manner that will probably get you in trouble with the police if anyone sees you?"
Keava winced. They could hide themselves, of course, but all day, while cycling and towing another person in a trailer? …Ugh. "All right, all right, but not until he's recovered."
"Then you'll need to hide him until then. Keep the balance of risk in mind."
Keava groan and dug her fingers into her hair. "Assuming they are looking for him … how likely is it that they can track him down?"
"Depends how much they know about him. If they know his True Name … nowhere in the world he could hide."
A prickle of horror ran over the back of Keava's neck. "But he'd be a fool to tell anyone his Name."
"He would. So chances are they don't. But even without that … the fact that he is the queen's former tailor might be enough to work a locator spell."
"So you think that if they're looking for him, they'll find him."
"If they guess that he has fled into this world … then aye."
"But they might not guess. They might not even be looking."
"They might not. But I wouldn't stake my life on it."
A wave of anger washed through Keava — at fate, at this wretched queen, at Theo for bringing this to her door, and some irrationally at Lorna for not telling her what she wanted to hear. She didn't want to deal with this. She didn't want to deal with any of this.
She rubbed her face, took a deep breath, and tried to force the emotion down. "I'm tired," she mumbled.
"I know." Lorna's voice gentled about as much as it ever did. "Fortify your house, and then get some sleep. You need it. I'll help as soon as I can."
"Why can't you help now?" Ceding responsibility to someone older and wiser sounded like a terribly attractive prospect just now.
"Because I'm out of the country. I'll try to get back as soon as I can, but … my business needs concluding."
Keava tried not to resent this priority. "What business?"
"An old friend contacted me about a potentially supernatural incident in the Black Forest. Might be nothing, might be something, but if it's something, it's important."
"Important how?"
"A sign of things to come. There are natural cycles to all things, including the supernatural. Every few thousand years, something might happen."
Keava's foggy mind tried to extract sense from this non-explanation. "…You're checking possible warning signs for some … supernatural volcano?"
"…That's rather a good metaphor. Aye, something like that."
Keava's head began to ache. "Fan-bloody-tastic, that's all I need." Any other day, she would have pushed Lorna for every detail her tutor would part with. Today … no. Not today. But… "I had better get more answers about this later," she warned.
"I am sure that you shall," said Lorna, and she sounded … old, somehow. Weary. Resigned? They said their goodbyes, Lorna reminding Keava one more time about the wards, and then they rang off. But something in Lorna's tone clung on in Keava's mind, [leaving her unsettled].
[This scene is … rough. Also, TIME OF DAY, LIGHT. And for rewrites, consider whether this conversation should be split into smaller pieces. Also … less shrugging?]
After digging out the notebook containing all the wards and druidic magic Lorna had taught her, Keava spent some three hours writing, scratching, or chalking apotropaic marks around her house and the border of her property. It needn't have taken quite so long, but she was already tired, it was getting dark, and even the little pulse of magic needed to activate the more serious wards now felt exhausting.
Around her outer perimeter, she put only a deterrent, a line that would feel unfriendly for a supernatural creature to cross. But on the house itself, on its four corners and then every door and window, she placed more powerful protections: smaller, stronger wards that would not allow a sìthiche nor the effects of their power to pass. Or at least should, if she'd managed to do them right through her weary fog.
When they were done, she tested the one on the backdoor, reaching out a hand and trying to press through. It was a very strange sensation, as if the air itself were resisting her … or perhaps as if some invisible line held her hand back. She tried to force back the [unsettling] feeling of being trapped in her own home. She wondered what would happen if she tried to force her way through. Would she slam against it like a physical barrier? Would she jerk to a stop as if held back by a rope? Or was it possible to charge it fast enough to simply pass through?
…That sounded like a recipe for grievous injury. And anyway, if she needed to get out this way, she could just rub out the marks and run. …Assuming there wasn't a supernatural assassin right the other side.
Keava tried to keep that cheery thought from her head as she peeked in on Theo — deep asleep — and went to bed.
Luckily, she was too drained for her thoughts to spiral. She dropped off quickly … and then woke much too early and so completely that she knew there would be no more sleep for her. She dragged herself up in the cold, early-morning half-light and went again to look in on her guest.
Still there, still real, and still sleeping the sleep of the truly exhausted. Keava left him to it and checked the clock. Too early by her own standards, but Lorna was an early riser, and anyway probably in Germany where it was an hour later. She was probably up. Keava fired off a few anxious texts. Should she call in sick to work? What food should she feed a recovering sìthiche? Was Lorna sure this was the safest place for them to be?
She received no immediate reply, but that was usual with Lorna. She answered when she got to it and not before. Trying not to be anxious, Keava busied herself with breakfast. Surely toast and porridge would be all right; they were fine for Keava, and hers was the only sìthiche constitution she had to work from.
She was halfway through making the porridge when her mobile dinged with Lorna's response. She thought taking the day off was a good idea; she didn't think anywhere safer was near enough to be useful; and how the hell was she meant to know what Theo's individual food sensitivities might be, Keava should just feed him whatever is good for her until or unless he told her different.
…Right, well, that at least confirmed a few things. Now Keava just had to find Graeme's contact details — why hadn't she already put them in her phone? — and overcome her constitutional difficulty with lying.
She found the bit of paper with the number and everything else in her work-bag, and she called Graeme intending to claim she had a headache or a stomach bug or something, but at the last moment, she found herself changing onto a more truthful tack. "I've got a friend who's injured — nothing hospital-worthy, but he needs some help, and he has no one else available to lend him a hand just at the moment. Could you do without me for a day?"
Graeme said they could, since the new bulbs for planting hadn't arrived yet, and wished her friend well. Keava thanked him and sighed with relief. She had a day — a day locked in her house with another of her own kind.
A creak of wood behind her startled her into whipping around. Theo stood in the door from the hall, still wrapped in the towel, his blond hair rumpled and tangled. A little blur of sleep still clung to him, but he was awake and nervous.
"Oh! Uh … good morning!" Trying not to be flustered, she shoved her phone away. "How are you feeling?"
He swallowed, running an assessing eye over his surroundings. "…Weary. My head aches a little."
She pointed to his torso. "Still sore?"
He nodded. "Not too bad, but…"
But Keava hadn't finished healing it all last night. "Well … what if I finish the healing while you eat some breakfast, and then you go take a bath?"
He accepted this plan with some relief, and Keava soon had him settled with some toast — he hadn't felt equal to porridge — while she worked at healing his remaining welts. Which, she was pretty sure, were better than she'd left them last night. He must be recovering some of his own healing ability. Questions bubbled up her throat, but she bit them back, figuring she should really let him eat first.
What she didn't foresee was his turning that opportunity around to ask her questions.
"If … if you don't mind my asking … why do you live here?"
Keava blinked, caught off guard, and looked up from the half-healed burn just above the waist of Theo's trousers. "Here?"
"In a mortal dwelling, I mean. Why not in a sìthean, or … in the woods, or even a river?"
Keava wondered how the heck one might live in a river. She shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know any sìtheanan. And a house is more comfortable than the woods. Or a river."
Theo frowned around a mouthful of toast and looked at her sideways, and Keava suppressed a wince. She had just betrayed ignorance, she was sure.
"So … you live in a mortal home, and you wear a mortal disguise, even in your own home?" He turned his head for a better look. "Is it even a glamour, or … have you shifted your shape more deeply?"
Keava's shoulders tightened. She bit back the urge to say that this was her true shape. The face she'd once seen in Lorna's mirror had told her it wasn't. Instead, she stared intently at the welt that was disappearing under her fingers and muttered, "I've always looked like this."
Theo twisted right around to face her, moving the burn away from her hand. "Always?"
She dodged his gaze and shrugged, crossing her arms. "As far as I know."
Theo stared at her as if seeing her differently. "But … you can't have. Unless…" His eyes widened. "You're a changeling!"
Keava couldn't restrain a wince. "What else would I be?" she said, a little shortly.
"But … but changelings are so rare now. With the passages between all closing, and the mortals' medical science growing more exact, it has become too difficult. How did they do it?"
"How should I know? I was an infant. And anyway, I'm not sure they did get away with it, exactly. I'm a foundling. I was found at the side of a road. So … perhaps I never was exchanged for anyone." She shrugged uncomfortably. She hoped she hadn't been.
"Oh…" said Theo, thoughts still rushing behind his eyes. "But … your parents certainly must have meant to leave you hidden among the mortals, if they left you with such a deep disguise. You've really never dug beneath it?"
She examined her fingernails, wondering if in her true form they would be as sharp and tough as Theo's. "…Not really, no."
He was silent for a long moment, watching her, then suddenly asked, "What age are you?"
She raised her face just enough to eye him warily. "…Forty-seven." Theo hissed through his teeth, and she straightened. "What? Why is that important?"
"You aren't even of age," he said, pained.
Keava bristled. "What do you mean, not of age? I have been an adult for twenty-nine years!"
Theo waved this off. "I don't mean— I mean … technically, yes, but … by the laws of the sìthichean, we don't reach the age of true mature wisdom until age fifty."
The world around Keava seemed to wobble. To think of a society of people who lifespans were so long that they considered fifty to be when you were just beginning to get your head on straight… What must their standards and expectations be like?
Theo's voice snapped her out of her reverie. "Well, that or when your third set of teeth comes in. Whichever comes first."
She gaped at him. "I'm sorry … third set of teeth?"
The question caught Theo off guard. He set down his remaining half-piece of toast and rubbed his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. "Oh [goodness.] Basic facts of life. Um. Well, teeth don't last forever, no matter how well one cares for them. And we might live a very long time, so … every forty or fifty years or so, we grow a new set. Just like when you lost your milk teeth in childhood."
Keava's hand flew to her mouth. "I will lose all my teeth?!"
"Um. To make way for a new set, yes. Probably within the next five years or so. It really isn't so bad," he hurried on when she continued to look horrified — in her youth, she'd had recurring nightmares about losing her teeth. "I've done it several times. It lasts but a year or so, and it isn't all of them at once."
Keava shuddered, probing all her teeth with her tongue to ensure they were solid. Fan-bloody-tastic, this was all she needed. How could she explain losing and regrowing all her teeth to people? Would she just have to never grin for a whole year? Or could she cover it up with a glamour?
She groaned and buried her face in her hands. Pretending to be something you weren't was just endlessly complicated. Around her hands, she peered at Theo out of the corner of her eye. "…What age are you, then, if you've done it several times?"
Theo bit at a hangnail, thinking. "A hundred and sixty … three? Perhaps sixty-four."
Staring silently at the floor, Keava tried to count back. That would put his birth back in Victorian times, somewhere around … 1860. Unless there was something odd going on with time owing to world-hopping, as sundry folktales would suggest. "Were you born on this side?"
"I was, yes. My parents prefer to dwell here, mostly. I did not go to live in the [Otherworld / Alfold] until I was in my eighties — the Second World War and its aftermath. Not a lot of work for a tailor in those times. Everything rationed and no one paying for fabulous clothes. So … in the end, I left."
Keava boggled trying to imagine it all. "You've been away from the … the Mortal World since the Second World War?"
"Well … not entirely. I have been back since, now and then, but … broadly, yes."
Wonderful. That probably meant gaps in his understanding of modern … well, everything. Keava hoped she wouldn't get stuck with trying to explain social media or Star Trek or Brexit or why Czechoslovakia was no longer one country. She didn't feel particularly qualified on any of those subjects. She wasn't even on social media, since being available to be tracked down by old acquaintances and her parents' friends was the last thing she needed.
She studied Theo's face — sharp-edged, a little delicate, youthful. But appearances could be deceiving. Usually were, with sìthichean. "How old are you, relatively? I mean … are you young? Old? Middle-aged?"
Theo blew out a long breath, giving a look that appeared just as overwhelmed by what she might not know as she had just been with him. "I'm … yet a young adult. I won't be middle-aged until I'm … perhaps three-hundred? It depends on the person; some may begin to seem middle-aged at two-hundred, while others might not until they are more than half a millennium." He shrugged. "We age as we grow tired of living, not according to any schedule set by nature. Some live for hundreds of years. Some live for thousands."
Keava's core and essence shivered under her skin. Lorna had told her she might live centuries, but … millennia? Thousands of years of … just going on living? A sick feeling twisted her stomach. How long after her parents, after Ros, after little Ishabel … how long after they were all dead and gone, after everything she loved was bones or ash … how long would she have to go on? What if … what if their very memories turned to dust and just … blew away?
It was too horrible to contemplate. Keava couldn't bear it. Wouldn't stand for it. She'd find some way around it. No one could make her live a thousand years.
Theo's voice broke through her thoughts. "Have you really lived undetected among the mortals all this time?"
Keava dragged herself out of grim imaginings about how one might shorten a miserably unnatural lifespan. She massaged her eyes to hide them and shrugged. "Not undetected. My parents know. A few other … friends and family."
"Your … your mortal parents knew, and still they accepted you?" He sounded amazed.
"I told you: I was a foundling. They were childless — both infertile. And they wanted a child. So … to them, I was a gift." She clutched her hands together, staring down at the floor, and murmured, "…I don't believe that they were … completely surprised when that gift came at a bit of a price."
"That … was great good fortune."
"Aye, I know."
"I wonder…"
She raised her head to frown at him. "Wonder what?"
"Whether that good fortune could have been planned."
Another aspect of Keava's life shifted, threatened to change under her feet. "I … I don't know." She swallowed hard. She didn't want her parents to have been … somehow manipulated into taking her. It was bad enough that her birth parents had … it was hard to think of it as anything other than abandoning her, even though she knew things were rarely that simple.
She clenched her hands tight together. "Do you … have any idea … why my birth parents might have left me here?"
Theo chased a crust of toast around his plate with a fingertip. "You say that you're forty-seven. That would mean… Time runs a little faster on this side, so you were likely born about … hmm."
He had the look of a man doing internal math, but Keava couldn't help interrupting him. "Time really does run differently, then."
"Oh yes," he said absently, "though not nearly as much as it once did. When I was a boy, one year there equalled about seventeen here. But when my father was young, in the early sixteen-hundreds, it was more like fifty years. And my mother can remember when it was a hundred years. Now, though…" He frowned. "What year is it now?"
"Twenty-twenty four."
"Then … we must be near enough at parity by now. It won't have been very much longer here than there. Perhaps … [thirty] years of [Otherworld/Alfold] time?"
So … whoever her birth parents were, it had been less long for them. Less time to wonder… Had they ever regretted it? Keava couldn't, really; she loved her adoptive parents too dearly. But it was so hard to not know what she was missing … what her life might have been.
Then she noticed that Theo was staring at her, something troubled in his face. "What?" she asked.
"[Thirty] years ago…" he said slowly. "Around that time, the queen, Isolde, expanded her territory. She took control of a neighbouring land and, it was rumoured, orchestrated changes in leadership or outright coups in one or two others. There was much upheaval."
A shiver ran up Keava's spine. "Could that be why…?"
Theo shrugged helplessly. "Perhaps. If your parents were her enemies … it could give them a reason to hide you away, to keep you from being taken, used as leverage against them, or…" He trailed off with a grimace.
"Killed with them."
"…Yes. That."
A burning sensation rose up Keava's throat to her eyes and nose. So … they might be dead. They might have fled, hidden their baby in utter desperation, and then…
Being abandoned was one thing, a bitter, angry thing. But this… This was a different pain. This was longing, so thick and heavy it threatened to choke her. She shut her eyes and swallowed, once, twice, forcing it back. Down … back… She needed to be controlled.
Once her grip on her voice felt like it would not slip, she rasped, "But we don't know that this is what happened. Perhaps I was simply abandoned by people who did not want me."
She heard Theo shift in his seat and make a worried noise. "That's … well… I'd be surprised."
She opened one eye to squint at him. "Why?"
He chewed his lip, awkward and nervous. "Well … children are rare among sìthichean. I suppose that they must be, to balance our lifespan, but … we struggle to reproduce at all. Any child, any infant is … beyond precious. Whether it be yours or not. Even if your parents didn't want to keep you, there was no call to bring you here. Anyone would have taken you in. Unless…"
Keava's skin chilled. "Unless doing so would make them a target."
"…Yes." Theo fluttered his hands anxiously. "I don't know that that is the reason. But … historically, mothers who brought their children to the Mortal World and made them changelings did it in the hope that the baby would have a better life, or to hide it for a period. If all they wanted was to take the human child, there was no need to leave their own in exchange when all one needed was a stock or fetch — a lump of wood under a convincing glamour … or perhaps a willing hobgoblin who fancied being waited upon a few years. And you might not even be a true changeling, so…"
Keava's heart twisted. "You are thinking that they meant to hide me. To protect me."
He shrugged stiff shoulders. "It seems the most likely."
"And the fact that, [thirty]-ish years later, they have never come to find me…" A part of her wanted him to tell her that they must certainly be dead, that there was nothing to search for. No reason to leave her safe bubble, even in her imaginings. But Theo only grimaced apologetically and said,
"I don't know. Perhaps they're dead … perhaps they're in hiding … perhaps they're trapped under some sort of curse … I have no idea."
Keava groaned and massaged her brow, grumbling, "Thanks, that doesn't complicate my feelings at all."
"Sorry."
They fell into a long, awkward silence, Theo retreating to finish the last of his toast and milk while Keava warred with a confused welter of emotion and the terrifying, heart-squeezing idea that her birth parents might still be out there somewhere and that, hypothetically, she could be mad enough, wild enough, foolish enough to go and search for them. To leave everything she knew … leave the very world she was raised in, everyone she loved, and venture into a strange, dangerous land … where she would be vulnerable, undefended … and where the mere fact of her parentage might be enough to draw the wrath of a murderous queen.
She clenched her hands. No. She could never do that. And anyway, Ros would never forgive her. There wasn't enough wine in the world to get Ros through that magnitude of escapade.
Tentatively, softly, Theo began to ask, "Are you…?" But Keava shook it off.
"Never mind all that. Just … never mind. No point worrying about it now. And I've forgotten my purpose — I meant to finish your welts."
So, trying to steady her hands, her heart, the entire storm swirling within her, she returned to her task. But Theo kept shooting her such sympathetic, worried looks that she couldn't stand it. So, more than half to distract him, she asked, "How does your family deal with the time … discrepancy, whatever you call it? I mean, going to visit someone over there and coming back to find that you've missed a decade sounds like a wee bit of a problem."
Theo made an ironically amused noise. "Oh you have no idea. That's why most folk simply choose one side of the veil and stay on it. It's been convenient enough for me because I could leave my work to come and visit my parents without very much time passing back at the court. But for them to come to visit me — much more difficult."
He shook his head. "My father told me that the sìthichean once had a way around this difficulty, a way to ensure that the door one opened between worlds would lead to the time one desired, but…" He grimaced and looked away. "…But such magics could be misused. According to my father, there was a great war long ago, and this … this trick, this key, was used to interfere with time in an effort to change the victor. Or perhaps to ensure the victor; I don't remember. However it was, the winning side soon decided that time magics were too dangerous to continue, and so they were forbidden, destroyed, hidden."
"They were afraid that someone would try to undo their victory," Keava concluded. Rulers were always the same when confronted with a threat to their power.
Theo nodded. "Wouldn't you be, in their place?" He sighed and rubbed his bare forearms. "But that was, what, three thousand years ago now. Times have moved on. Perhaps such things could be brought back in some form, if it were done carefully. I heard the queen speaking of it not long ago, of finding the lost keys. Perhaps then we could once again visit across the veil without the danger of losing a few decades."
Keava frowned, already suspicious of anything involving this particular queen. "But weren't you saying that time is running almost the same now? Why would she be worried about that now?"
"Oh … I don't know. Perhaps she's thinking ahead — it's only a matter of time before the difference begins moving the other way, after all. And this time in a direction much more inconvenient for [the Otherworld/Alfold]."
This sounded plausible, though Keava would bet an autocrat like that would have other uses for ancient, dangerous magics. But… "What do you mean, 'the other direction'? Will time be moving faster there instead of here?"
"Oh, yes. It's a natural cycle. This world and [the Otherworld/Alfold] are sometimes closer together, sometimes farther apart. When they are moving away from each other, time runs faster in [the Otherworld/Alfold] than here — you could visit for days and return to find almost no time had passed. And then as the move closer again, time runs faster here. And they've been slowly moving closer for … it must be more than a thousand years on this side."
That rang a couple of bells in Keava's memory. Lorna had once told her something much like this, to explain why folktales and myths described visitors to the Otherworld returning after either far too long or, in rare older stories, almost no time at all. But also … what had Lorna said about cycles of the supernatural, leading to possible metaphorical volcanoes?
Trying not to sound at all urgent, she asked, "What does it mean that the worlds are getting close again? Will it … affect the doors from here to there?"
"Sooner or later, yes. They will begin opening again, becoming more common … leading to more supernatural creatures wandering around. The old stories do come from somewhere."
Oh wonderful, thought Keava, and what they hell would that do to this precarious world, where climate change and inequality were already driving up tensions? Maybe that was Lorna's volcano. And… "Won't that make this a … less safe place for you? More accessible?"
Theo winced. "Eventually, but … perhaps she'll have forgotten me by then."
This sounded worryingly like wishful thinking to Keava, but … if the danger wasn't immediate, why push it? "I hope so," was all she said. And then she worked in silence for a while, deep in thought.
She was just finishing healing the very last welt when Theo suddenly said, "Have you really never met any of your own kind? Never had any instruction save that of a human druid?"
Keava straightened her spine and refused to look embarrassed. "Aye."
He watched her over his shoulder, somehow shy. "Perhaps… Despite our agreement, I cannot help but feel my end of it inadequate. So … perhaps in return for the kindness you have shown me … I could try to remedy some part of your inexperience?"
The offer was tentative, as if he considered himself underqualified for the role. But it still made Keava's heart speed up. "You would do that?"
"As best I can in whatever time we have, yes."
"Then … I'd like that, aye." She ducked away lest the explosion of hope and fear show on her face. But she still saw Theo smile.
