Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) (19 page)

“Are you all right? Don’t choke.”

“There was a documentary about her last year. She’d been out of the public eye for ages, then made a big comeback with this amazing group of sculptures. But what’s she got to do with this?”

“I know her. She would vouch for me.”

Stevie’s eyes widened. “How? You mean like, phone her up and…?”

“Yes.”

She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin, reached into her bag and passed her phone across the table. “Go on, then.”

He didn’t touch the phone. “Look up the number for Cairndonan House on her website and dial it yourself. Otherwise I could be phoning anyone.”

“True. I think you’re smarter than you make out.”

Her phone was old, but capable of web-surfing. Soon she was looking at a tiny photograph of Cairndonan House, familiar from the documentary film. She dialed, switched onto speakerphone, and waited. An antipodean-accented male voice answered briskly, “Yes, Cairndonan?”

Stevie felt nervous. Surely Dame Juliana couldn’t be more intimidating than Frances Manifold? “May I speak to Dame Juliana Flagg, please?”

There was a very soft, long-suffering huff at the other end, as if he fended off scores of cheeky callers every day. “You can leave a message, or I can put you through to her secretary. Who is it speaking?”

“Stevie Silverwood. She won’t know me, but…”

Mist spoke over her: “Colin, tell her it’s Adam, as was. Plus friend.”

There was a muffled clatter, as if Colin had dropped the receiver. “Adam, bloody hell, is that you? Dame J. told me she found you, but I didn’t believe her! Hang on, mate, she’s right here.”

A moment later, a female voice emanated with a tinny hiss from the handset, like an old gramophone record. “Mist, my dear? And who is Miss Silverwood?”

The voice was unmistakable: smooth and plummy, yet warm. Stevie lost her composure.

“Er, I, I’m here with Mist, or Adam, and … Well, it’s been a weird few days and he’s telling me that he’s thousands of years old with a bad brother called Rufus. I’m so sorry, you’re the most famous artist in the country and I’m talking rubbish. Please excuse me, Dame Juliana. Perhaps he should explain?”

“Oh my lord, Mist, what’s happened? Are you all right?”

“Yes.” He leaned over the phone, speaking softly. “Something’s going on. I’m not sure what it means, but I wanted Miss Silverwood to hear, from someone she will believe, that I’m telling the truth.”

“About Rufus?”

“And everything else. Boundry. The Dusklands, the pathway from Sibeyla to Naamon, the fact that you saw it all with your own eyes.”

“Are you sure that you want her to know?” said Dame Juliana, quiet with shock. “She’s not one of Rufus’s henchmen holding you at gunpoint, is she?”

“Nothing so dramatic,” said Stevie. “We’re in a wine bar.”

“You want me to tell her everything?” Juliana gasped. “Good heavens, who is paying for this phone call?”

“Me, but it doesn’t matter,” Stevie said quickly.

“No,” said Juliana. “It would take all day. He can tell you himself. I will say just this: that Mist is who he claims, and that I saw it all with my own eyes. Seen it, lived it, sculpted it. Oh—and if he puts his trust in you, young lady, you had better prove worthy.”

The hiss cut off abruptly. Stevie wasn’t sure if the connection had broken, or if Juliana had ended the call herself.

“Wow,” she said. “That was really her. Dame Juliana Flagg!”

“Yes. She was wonderful to me.” He looked steadily at her, his eyes as green as the ferns above them. She felt a shiver, remembering that Mist’s aim was not to befriend her, but to hunt down his brother.

“So you now have license to tell me absolutely anything, and I have to believe it?”

“Only a little at a time.” He smiled. “It’s more a jigsaw than a narrative.”

“Give me the basics, then. Who are the Aelyr? What are you?”

“An older race. We evolved from energy, rather than from flesh. That’s what our legends say, at least. The world is porous to us; we can move into realms that stand sideways to everyday reality. And we’re chameleons, able to adapt our form to our surroundings in order to fit in.”

“An older, wiser race that’s passed beyond the circles of the world?” Stevie tried to stay cynical, but she was captivated. Mist’s quiet, unassuming manner suggested he was stating plain facts.

“I don’t know about wiser. Nor are we really any more powerful than humans, otherwise we’d have taken over the world, wouldn’t we, rather than living in secret?”

“Would you?”

“Perhaps, if we had the will. However, with certain exceptions, most Aetherials prefer to live peacefully and stay out of trouble.”

“And humans would know you as what? Faerie folk, demons, were-creatures?”

“You want to put a label on us, but we’re none of those. We’re simply ourselves. And we live too long. I think that the more we mix with humans, the harder it is for our minds to cope with near-immortality. So we have dormant phases, or we turn into semi-sentient energy forms. Sometimes we die, only to resurface in another incarnation. It can be difficult to hold on to our memories and identity. Or it can be impossible to shake them off.”

“That sounds … frightening.”

He looked intently at her. There was no enchantment to compare with that of the most beautiful, sexy eyes she’d ever seen. She had to look away, wishing there were a vaccine against the effect he had on her. “Stevie, are you
sure
you’ve heard none of this before?”

“I don’t think so. But it’s making me feel weird … like I’m going to wake up in hospital again, any second.”

Mist sat back, reminding her of Dr. Gregory when—after an exhausting therapy session—he would lean back and say,
“I think that’s enough for today.”

“Let’s finish our food, and I’ll walk you to the museum. I can see you’re tired. Forgive me; I talk to no one for years on end, then I don’t know when to stop.”

Luckily, I like the sound of your voice.
She took another bite, preventing herself from saying this out loud. At last, with only a crust and a few strands of salad left on her plate, she said, “Well, we’ve made a start. I really should go home and rest.”

“Can I see you again?”

“I’m assuming you mean that in a strictly business-like, let’s solve the mystery, sense?”

Mist coughed. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

“Good. Just making sure. We can talk some more in the car tomorrow, if you like. I need to see Daniel’s mother, so you may as well come with me.”

8

Azantios, Falling

The day was brittle, frozen white under a pure blue sky, hedgerows stiff with frost. Mist was in the passenger seat beside Stevie, telling stories that conjured distracting images while she tried to concentrate on the icy roads. These narrow lanes hadn’t been salted and she’d felt the car slide too often for comfort.

“Daniel’s representation of Azantios was uncanny,” Mist told her. “The city was like a haze of pale gold flames cloaking red mountains. The Felynx race originated in Naamon, one of the Otherworld realms, but they quarreled with the ruler, Queen Malikala, and went into voluntary exile on Vaeth. Earth, I mean. There they founded Azantios. Not by physical building work, but by manipulating the fabric of the world and the Dusklands.”

“Magic?” she put in.

“We wouldn’t call it that. Aetherials pull energy and matter around by working in groups we call webs. That takes planning. It’s not easy.”

“And this was how long ago?”

“I don’t know,” Mist said ruefully. “My estimate is at least thirty thousand years, and of course the Felynx had established themselves thousands of years before I was born. I can’t even tell you what continent we were on. With unchallenged arrogance we took Vaeth to be ours. We were barely aware of human tribes, regarding them as on a par with animals. They were terrified of us, and kept away. We thought the Felynx ruled the world.”

“A nonhuman empire that vanished long before recorded history began?” Stevie envisioned angelic beings drifting through a spiderweb of streets and felt a shivery mix of awe and unease. As to whether she believed him—she suspended judgment.

Mist’s tone was matter-of-fact. “My parents were Poectilictis and Theliome of House Ephenaestus, effectively king and queen through an esoteric election system. The palace where we lived was extraordinary, like a citadel spun from gold and silver glass. Of course, it seemed normal to us when it was all we’d ever known. In the great hall, my mother and father sat on high thrones, like pharaohs of later ages; but they weren’t dictators. They were respected and loved, chosen to govern for their wisdom.”

“Did you look as you do now?” Stevie asked. “Human-shaped, I mean?”

Mist hesitated. “I struggle to remember their faces. Their ceremonial forms were dark and cat-like, with narrow golden eyes. Yes, we walked upright—but we could change form to please ourselves. Azantios existed partly in the Dusklands, but we were sun-loving creatures, preferring warmth and fire. We revered fierce animals such as eagles and wild cats. Our tradition was to take on the characteristics of lynxes, their grace and beauty.”

“And the hunting instinct?”

“Actually, we were gentle. Yes, we had a high opinion of ourselves, but we lived peacefully, extending our city, growing fruit and grain, falling in love, squabbling, creating art and poetry, holding great celebrations beneath the stars. We had conflicts, but generally life was good. We didn’t know how fortunate we were.”

“Garden of Eden,” said Stevie. She caught her breath as a van came towards her too fast, shimmied on a patch of ice and missed her by inches. “Fucking idiot!”

“Are you okay?” Mist touched her arm.

“Yes.” She exhaled. “We’re nearly there. Go on.”

“It was more like a fool’s paradise,” he murmured. “We’re long-lived, but my parents would have stepped down eventually. Poectilictis nominated me his heir.”

“So you would have been a sort of king? Wow, Prince Mistangamesh. I didn’t know I was traveling with royalty.”

He gave a soft laugh. “You’re not. It wasn’t like that; I’d have had to be formally elected, but my father considered me responsible, fair-minded, dutiful, everything a ruler needs to be. But Rufus—Poectilictis didn’t trust him. He viewed his second son as feckless and self-centered—which he was, actually, but the question is, did Rufus go off the rails because he couldn’t stand not being favored? Or was it the way he was born? I didn’t want Rufus to be jealous of me, but I wasn’t going to step aside to please him. As a result, he devoted most of his time to causing trouble.”

“What about Aurata?” Mist said nothing. Stevie pushed him. “Come on. Why wasn’t she considered a potential heir to the throne of Azantios?”

He was silent for a few seconds. “She was. We would have been expected to marry and rule together.”

The car wavered as Stevie failed to slow down for a bend. “Oh. Incest? That’s a bit … ancient Egyptian, isn’t it? Keeping power within the royal family?”

“I suppose so, but the Felynx didn’t see it as wrong. Aetherials aren’t prone to genetic defects. Incest isn’t common among us, but it’s not taboo, either.” He sounded a touch defensive, she thought. He continued, “It hasn’t always been taboo in human societies, either, but even when it’s almost universally forbidden, it still happens.”

“Fair enough. That’s true.”

“And Aetherials are very much more relaxed about such things.”

“Clearly.”

“I never slept with my sister, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Oh. Right. Good.”

“Rufus did, constantly, and as blatantly as possible.”

Stevie’s eyes were as round as saucers as she tried to keep the car steady. She glanced at him and saw that his lips had gone white. She was caught between disgust and the urge to laugh. “Why? Not just to piss you off?”

Mist grimaced. “Well. Partly. As I said, we weren’t straitlaced about such things, but it was still enough to cause raised eyebrows because we were the rulers’ offspring, and expected to behave with more dignity. Rufus was trying to make me jealous, by proving that Aurata preferred him to me. And it did piss me off, as you put it. Not because I wanted to be with Aurata—I truly didn’t—but because of his attitude, which you could sum up as poisonous mockery.”

“And how did Aurata feel about it?”

“Oh, they were as bad as each other. I think either of us could have ruled successfully alone, but together—whether we’d had a true marriage or a platonic partnership—it would have been disastrous. She thought I was too placid, and I thought she was too domineering. I didn’t want to go against our parents’ wishes, nor did I want to step aside for her. Poectilictis made it very clear that it was my duty to replace him. However, Aurata knew I didn’t want to marry her and she took my reluctance as an attempt to exclude her from power.”

“Was it?”

“If I’m honest, yes. It may sound arrogant, but if the Felynx wanted a peaceful reign, I had to do it alone. So she and Rufus teamed up against me. However, Aurata had a sweetness in her character that Rufus lacked. I think they genuinely loved each other, in their perverse way. And I loved them both, although we had strange ways of showing it. The Felynx were highly civilized, but complacent. We thought our civilization was eternal. I was blind, not to see the depth of resentment that Rufus had built up against our father.” Mist sighed. “Or I saw, but didn’t take enough notice.”

His words slowed, as if following his thoughts into a private mire. “There can’t be many things better designed to turn sons and daughters against parents than for the children to discover that their parents have lied to them.”

“Mist?” Stevie said cautiously. “Can we finish this later? We’re here.”

She felt the car skid as she pulled up, the front wheel bouncing off the ledge of frozen grass that lined the lane. Their breath clouded the air as they got out. All around, the trees were leafless and salt-white, shedding a fine rain of frost. Stevie watched a couple of ducks slithering comically along the iron surface of the stream.

As Mist set foot on the road, he slipped and flailed madly before saving himself by grabbing the car roof. Stevie couldn’t suppress a grin. “Careful,” she said. “Work your way around to the grass. We should have brought ice skates.”