Bone, Fog, Ash & Star (13 page)

Emin had obviously been told that handshakes were a common human greeting but had not had much opportunity to practice. He grasped their outstretched hands in a crushing grip and thrust them up and down energetically for a much longer period than felt natural. Nell had to yank her hand out of his to get it back. She rubbed it discreetly with her other hand, hoping it wasn’t bruised.

“Thank you so much for having us,” she said politely.

“Yes. Thank you,” echoed Charlie.

“It is my
absolute pleasure!
Any friend of Jalo’s is always welcome in my home.”

“We were together at the Academy of Song,” said Jalo. “Emin is one of the finest poets in the realm.”

Emin waved his hand dismissively and led them into the house. It was the strangest house Nell had ever seen – as if it hadn’t quite decided what kind of house to be. The rooms sat at awkward angles in relation to one another. There were an inordinate number of doors and staircases zigging and zagging off in all directions. Each room was over full; paintings crowded together on the walls, great urns and sculptures were propped precariously on glossy tables and chests, tapestries hung wherever space could be made for them, and an odd assortment of furniture filled all the remaining space, so that simply crossing the room required some concentration. Overhead, multiple chandeliers dripped with immense diamonds. The overall effect was dizzying. The power of Illusion, Nell realized, did not necessarily come with a gift for design, or even good taste.

“Lah, how…beautiful,” she said, and gave Charlie a nudge.

“Yes,” he said, barely suppressing a snort.

Mala reappeared now with a bowl of apricots, which she placed on a piano stool near a velvet chaise longue.

“Please! Enjoy!” cried Emin, rubbing his hands together.

Mala proferred a jug of apricot wine, pulling it out of nowhere like a street magician.

Charlie and Nell sat themselves down on the chaise longue, so startled to find crystal glasses in their hands that they almost dropped them. Mala poured them some wine and the three Faeries stood watching them with interest while they sipped it and ate a few apricots. The wine was light and sweet and the apricots perfectly ripe.

“Delicious,” said Nell, wishing the Faeries would sit down and stop staring. It was like being in a zoo.

“I adore apricots,” said Emin. “It is the only thing I can bear to eat. And until my poetry is accepted at court, apricots are how I make my living. They are real, you know. Can you tell? Well, you are Di Shang worlders, you probably can’t tell.”

Jalo looked uncomfortable and Emin laughed.

“My poor Jalo! It is not really respectable, you see, for a member of the nobility to practice a trade.”

“Your friends would think it a kindness to be allowed to help you,” Jalo protested.

“Lah, there’s nothing shameful in having a job,” said Nell, taking another bite of an apricot.

Emin beamed at her. “Quite so! It is my own feeling exactly.”

“We’d love to hear some of your poetry,” she added. “Jalo recited some Faery poetry to us once. It was beautiful, aye, and so different from our own.”

“Why, Jalo! You told me this human was charming and beautiful but I did not believe you. I must apologize, for she is indeed a truly delightful young lady!”

Nell laughed affectedly. Charlie knocked back his glass of apricot wine. He sensed that the visit was going to drag.

They sat in the over-full room chatting as the light faded from outside. Emin suggested having supper on the veranda. Although they had not climbed any stairs, the front door now opened onto a third-story veranda overlooking the fields of apricot trees. The sky was a velvety black, the trees lit with bright lanterns so the orchard swam with light. Supper turned out to be more apricots, lightly stewed this time.

“Do you have family, Emin?” asked Nell.

“I do,” he replied. “But I am a stranger to them. Mala was a servant in our home, you see. When I married her, I forfeited my rightful place in Faery society. My family cut me off, and my friends too – all but Jalo. But it does not matter to me. Mala is all my happiness.”

Mala was leaning over the railing and looking dreamily at the lights. She turned her head only slightly when he spoke, gave a slow smile, and said nothing.

“I’d think wealth and position and all that would be kind of irrelevant when you can make Illusions,” said Nell. “Why do Faeries care about things like that?”

“Oh, it matters a great deal,” said Emin with a deep chuckle. “Not all the realm is Illusion, you know! And besides, our laws are very stringent in terms of what one can do with Illusion. One’s freedom depends greatly on the wealth and standing of one’s family.”

Jalo rose and stretched gracefully. “I must go. My mother will be wondering where I am. Nell, may I speak with you?”

Jalo and Emin said their goodbyes and Nell followed Jalo among the lamplit trees. His myrkestra was waiting at the end of the orchard, where the trees grew tall and thick and dark.

“Emin is trustworthy and will treat you kindly,” Jalo said. “He is cut off from the nobility and thus unlikely to attract interest or spark gossip. As I’m sure you can imagine, humans and other outsiders have become increasingly unpopular here since Malferio was deposed. This is the safest place for you.”

“This is a lovely place, Jalo. We’ll be entirely comfortable.”

“You are kind to say so.”

He bent closer to her, his beautiful face shining in the lantern light. “I am glad you thought to ask me for help,” he said in a low voice. “Since I saw you last I have thought of you often and hoped beyond hope that I would have an opportunity to look on your face again.”

He ran a hand lightly over her hair. Nell waited, a little breathless.

“It is remarkable,” he said, studying her. “You have changed, I can see. That is the way with humans. I think you are even more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”

She smiled, not sure what to say. He bent towards her to kiss her and, much to her own surprise and his, she stepped back, out of his reach.

“I am sorry,” he said, confused.

“No, it’s all right,” she said hastily, annoyed with herself.

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed that instead.

“I will come back as soon as I possibly can,” he said. “It would take a great deal, in fact, to keep me away for long.”

“Lah…we look forward to seeing you again!” said Nell. It seemed an oddly formal thing to say. “Thank you again, Jalo. You’re literally saving Charlie’s life. And mine, aye.”

He gave her a look then, as if he knew she was lying. “I am doing it for you, not for him.”

“I know.”

He mounted his myrkestra and they disappeared in the black sky. Nell turned back and saw Charlie watching from the veranda. She walked slowly back among the lantern-lit trees.

Emin seemed quite content to stay up talking all night. There was no mention of any place for them to sleep and eventually both Nell and Charlie, exhausted from their journey, dozed off right there on the veranda, curled in their chairs. Charlie was only half-sleeping, bothered by the idea of getting up again to find a bed. He roused himself to say, “Praps we should go to bed,” and found himself in total darkness. He sat up, alarmed. After a moment his eyes adjusted to the dark and he saw that he was in a large four-poster bed full of rumpled sheets and blankets and pillows, with heavy curtains drawn around it. He heard Nell’s voice murmur somewhere outside the curtains: “What did you say?”

He pulled back the curtain of his bed. They were still on the veranda, overlooking the orchard and the dark wooded hills, but their chairs had become beds. Nell was hidden within another four-poster, the curtains embroidered with battling dragons.

“Sorry,” he said to Nell. “I woke you up.”

“What?” her voice was slurred with sleepiness.

“Nothing.”

An exasperated sigh came from her bed. She pulled back the curtain and looked out at him.
“What?”

“Nothing. I woke up…confused, lah. That’s all.” He was startled and then saddened by the pale anger in her face. “I’m sorry. I didnay mean to wake you.”

She rubbed a hand over her face. “It’s fine,” she mumbled. “Are you all right?”

“I am, aye. Go back to sleep.”

When she didn’t move, just sat staring at nothing, he added: “Thanks for doing this, Nell. You’re right that Jalo wouldnay have taken me in alone.”

“I know. You’re welcome.”

“You do a fair bit of saving my skin,” he added ruefully.

“Oh, I thought praps you’d forgotten that,” she said coldly and drew the curtain again.

Startled and beginning to be angry, he asked, “What do you mean?”

“Never mind.”

He jumped off his own bed, stomped over to hers, and pulled the curtain back.“That’s rude!” she screamed at him, pulling it shut again.

“Nell, let’s have it out. What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going
on
. What are you talking about?”

“I mean since when do you hardly speak to me?”

She pulled back the curtain again. Her face was white with anger and her lips were tight but he thought he saw tears glistening in the corners of her violet eyes.

“
Me
hardly speak to
you?
Charlie, how many times did you just
drop Eliza off
at my school last spring, or in Holburg over the summer, without even bothering to say hello to me?”

Charlie felt as if she’d slapped him. He fumbled for his answer. “Lah, it seemed like…we got back from Tian Xia last time and you were…you didnay seem to want to be around me. I just thought I should stay out of your way, aye, let you and Eliza be.”

“I was
upset
, Charlie! About Ander! That’s what this is really about, nay?”

“What do you mean?”

Now tears were spilling out of her eyes and streaming down her cheeks and he felt terrible. She yanked the curtain shut. He didn’t have the heart to pull it open again.

“We were supposed to be
friends
,” her voice came from behind the curtain, a bit muffled.

“I know,” he said. He felt depressed and exhausted. The conversation had gotten out of control and he couldn’t remember which direction he’d been trying to steer it in. He hadn’t wanted to make her cry. “I’m sorry, Nell,” he said.

“I’m going to sleep now.”

“All right.”

Sadly he went back to his own bed and lay down.

~~~

They woke in their chairs with the warmth of the sky on their faces. The Faery realm was sunless, the sky producing a general diffuse light and warmth. A large bowl of apricots was the only thing on the low table between them.

“I hear humans eat every day.” Mala was standing in a lopsided doorway that led to several sets of stairs winding up and down.

“Usually three or four times a day,” said Charlie hastily. “Or five. Even six, aye. We die, otherwise.” He looked at the bowl. “More apricots?”

“Yes,” she said, wide-eyed, and fled back downstairs.

Nell did not meet Charlie’s eyes as she sat up and began to eat the apricots.

“I hope they have other kinds of food here,” he said.

She nodded but said nothing.

“Lah, Jalo seemed very happy to see you,” he went on, trying to pretend nothing had happened the night before. “What’s it like being romanced by a Faery? You’re not still with that boy at your school…what was his name? Julian?”

“That’s been over for ages,” said Nell shortly. “My boyfriend is Oscar van Holt. He’s
frighteningly
clever.”

“Really?” Charlie said.
“Frighteningly?”

“It’s nay serious. Sort of on and off, aye. So if Jalo…” she trailed off. “It’s nay really any of your business,” she finished.

“I spose not,” said Charlie glumly. They ate as many apricots as they could in silence.

Emin came up soon after and invited them out to pick apricots with him. Charlie assented immediately, relieved to have something to do. Nell stayed on the veranda with her folder, glad of some peace and quiet to catch up on her studies. She felt rather smug, thinking of Oscar and all the others studying at school or at home, while she, Nell, was in the Realm of the Faeries. She watched Charlie disappear with Emin and Mala into the shining orchard and then opened her folder and got to work.~~~

Jalo’s mother Tariro stood in a circle of high stones on a blasted heath, looking into a clear pool of water. There were two figures behind her. One, a Faery dressed in black, her dark gold hair tied back. The other was covered entirely in a brown cloak, only a glimmer of eyes visible within the large hood. In the pool, Tariro watched her younger son Jalo walking with his brother Cadeyrn along a dazzling white bridge that passed over several roaring waterfalls. Cadeyrn was on leave from the Faery Guard and he and his wife were visiting with Tariro. They were very excited because in two more years they would be granted a permit to have a child.