Grave Memory: An Alex Craft Novel (32 page)

“She’s already addicted to Faerie food. There are few other dangers to mortals at revelries. I’ll be with her the whole time.” Something soft touched his voice as he said the last, but my thoughts were imagining endless dances, soul chains, slavers, beautiful things that liked to feast on mortal flesh, and somewhere in the back of my head, I heard the echo of words from when a fae had called Holly a lovely doll, saying that all changelings were dolls.

Of course, Holly wasn’t a changeling yet, but she was a step away.

“Al, relax,” Rianna whispered, her voice low enough that only I could hear. “I told you, the revelries are neutral. This is one of the safest times to enter Faerie.”

Right. Then why was my gut twisting at the idea?

Because Faerie scares the hell out of me.

Caleb ignored the closed sign and ushered us into the small receiving room. Normally a bouncer sat in this room, making sure that humans went to the public side of the Bloom and fae were given access to the VIP room.

“Does someone want to sign us in?” I asked as I pulled my gloves out of my back pocket—I didn’t want to see the blood on my hands as soon as I stepped through that door. Not that I could see much of anything. The overhead light was far too dim, or my eyes were just that bad right now.

“No need today,” Caleb said marching up to the door to the VIP room. A door the bouncer normally kept hidden. “I need to use a couple glyphs to reveal the door. You’ll have
to give me a moment. My ability to weave the Aetheric makes my relationship with my fae magic…unusual.” He sounded almost embarrassed, which was odd for Caleb—he always sounded so sure of everything.

I frowned at him. “We can’t just walk through the door?”

“We could if we could see it.” He stopped. “You can see it, can’t you?”

I nodded. I could barely see the room around us, but I could see the damn door. It glimmered, as if a small sun blazed behind it, the light seeping out of every crevice.

Caleb stepped back and motioned to me with his hand. “Then by all means, after you.”

The irritated note in his voice caught me off guard. It wasn’t like I was
trying
to see the door. The queasy feeling in my stomach intensified, but I stepped forward and grabbed the door handle. It felt pleasantly warm under my gloved hands, as if it were alive, which was rather creepy. It had never been warm before.

Better get used to the unknown, Alex.
The next few hours would be full of it.

Starting with the fact that what was on the other side of the door wasn’t the VIP room, but a dense deciduous forest. I stood in the doorway, staring—and blocking everyone else. “Uh, where did the rest of the Bloom go?”

Caleb gave me a small shove in the base of my back, pushing me through the door. “It’s the fall equinox. All doors lead to the fall court throughout the celebration.”

“Guess that makes this their party then?” It wasn’t really a question, just my mouth still moving as I stared at the scene around me. The trees in Nekros hadn’t figured out fall was upon them and they should change colors, which wasn’t their fault as it was still warm. Here a crispness in the air spoke of the changing seasons and leaves in shades of yellow, gold, orange, and red filled the trees. I held off blinking as long as I could, sure that when I opened my eyes again, the trees would be gone or draped in shadow. But no, I could see them. Could see the full glory of colors, bright and brilliant, despite no clear source
of light.
I forgot that the damage to my eyes didn’t affect me in Faerie.

“We’ve talked about this before,” Rianna said, sounding every bit as cross as one of our academy instructors when a student failed to retain a lesson. “On the equinox and the solstice, all doors to Faerie open to that season’s court.”

My mouth formed an “O” but I wasn’t paying attention. I was soaking in the scene around me. Okay, so that scene was a bunch of trees, but I could see them. Really see them, in full vivid color. I hadn’t seen this clearly since, well, since I visited Faerie a month ago. Maybe colors were just that much more vibrant in Faerie. I blinked back tears.

Crap, if I break down over a couple trees, what will happen when I reach the revelry?

It looked like I’d find out soon. A colorful trail of fallen leaves led between the canopy of trees and Caleb headed for it, Holly at his side, and Rianna and Desmond following. I hurried to catch up.

We emerged in a clearing filled with lively music and fae of every shape, size, and color. I’d never seen so many fae in one place before. Even when I’d unintentionally been the guest of honor in the Winter Queen’s court, there hadn’t been so many fae present. And more were arriving. As I stood, gaping at the sight from the opening of the tree line, a fae with flames for hair and eyes of ever-swirling smoke stepped around me. She took only a moment to look around before bounding toward a group of fae not far away, a smile on her face and a blaze of heat in her wake.

“Do all the independents come to the revelries?” I asked, looking at Caleb.

He was watching Holly’s reaction to the scene. Her eyes were slightly glazed as they took in the clearing, but Caleb didn’t seem worried. He also didn’t look away as he shrugged and said, “Most. Not all.” Maybe he wasn’t quite as unconcerned as he appeared.

I wondered once again how safe it was for Holly to be here. Hell, for
me
to be here. “Maybe this has been enough for one visit and I should take Holly home?”

Her head snapped up at that. “No. I don’t want to leave.”

Okay, so not as entranced as I thought. At least, not magically induced entrancement.

“You can’t leave, Al,” Rianna said, then at my alarmed look, went on, “Well, you
can
leave, but you’ll lose the entire equinox.”

The unease clawing at my stomach reached deeper, hitting my spine as a wave of shock tore over me. “You mean, no matter what time I leave, I’ll emerge tomorrow?”

She nodded.

Great.
Just great. That sure as hell hadn’t been mentioned—I’d have remembered that little nugget of information. I hated losing time to Faerie. And what about the twenty-four hours we were gone?

“Al, geez, you look like you’re about to have an aneurism. It’s going to be okay. I put a note on the door at Tongues for the Dead and Holly gave Tamara a key so she can walk and feed PC.”

Was I the only one who hadn’t realized stepping inside would cost me a day?
Apparently so.

Several more fae had passed us while we dawdled in the clearing’s opening. I didn’t pay much attention, until a figure I recognized started past me.

“Jenson?”

The detective turned slowly, like if he took his time, maybe I wouldn’t be there by the time he made it all the way around. “Craft,” he said, and his frown made the calluses under his tusks stretch. “It’s customary to drop your glamour for a revelry.”

I blinked at him. What was he talking about? I didn’t have any glamour.

Whatever Jenson saw in my expression made him growl—literally. It was a sound that shouldn’t have come out of a human throat. He shook his head, collecting himself.

“Be merry, Craft,” he said, the words oddly formal. Then he turned his back to me and scanned the clearing. A large conglomeration of trolls laughed and tussled in one area of
the clearing. Jenson stared at the group but he didn’t join them. After a few moments, he rolled his shoulders, straightened his back, and marched in the opposite direction.

I watched him go.
What’s his story?
And what was his problem with me?

Desmond nudged Rianna’s leg, and she knelt to his level, rubbing behind his ears. “You go on. I’ll be fine.”

Those eyes, too intelligent to belong in a dog-shaped body, studied her for a long moment. Then his huge head bobbed in a nod and he ran into the clearing, vanishing among the growing throng of revelers.

“We need to move,” Caleb said as still more fae passed us.

Rianna nodded and wrapped her arm in mine when I would have stalled. I was already in Faerie, already committed to attending the revelry, but I felt safer among the trees than in a clearing full of fae. A clearing, I’d noticed, that grew to accommodate the ever-increasing number of fae. Rianna denied me any more time to linger, it was follow or be dragged, and as I still hurt all over—and she’d grabbed the arm with the bullet wound—I was disinclined to be dragged.

Caleb led our small group around several clumps of fae, some greeted him by name, others simply bid our group to “be merry.”

“What’s up with that?” I asked Rianna after a thorn fae pranced around us, the tangled briars of her hair rustling. She paused long enough to give me a brilliant smile, her barklike lips spreading wide to show her wooden teeth and then, like everyone else, she bid us to be merry before dancing off to mingle elsewhere. “Is it some sort of ritual greeting?”

Rianna shrugged. “It’s just what it sounds like, a wish for us to have a good time. It’s a revelry.”

The farther we walked, the more aware I became of the hum of anticipation filling the air. It was like all the fae’s combined emotions had become a tangible thing, or maybe it was Faerie itself that was anxiously waiting. But for what?

“Dawn,” Rianna whispered, glancing at the sky. Far off
in the east, the slightest hint of light glowed over the tree line.

The near steady stream of fae trickling into the clearing had stopped, and every face turned upward, watching the brightening glow in the distance. Even the music, which had filled the clearing, stopped, the musicians’ instruments silent as the fae playing them turned their attention upward.

“Get ready, Al,” Rianna whispered, squeezing my hand.

The first ray of light sliced through the clearing, and a masculine, bellowing voice announced, “It begins.”

“T
he equinox is upon us,” that booming voice announced, and I whirled toward the sound.

The center of the clearing, where I could have sworn was a grassy patch before, now held a wide dais with three throne-sized chairs made of twisting branches. A Sleagh Maith stood in the center of the dais, his brown hair reflecting red and gold highlights as the light of dawn glimmered off it. On his head a circlet of fall leaves formed his crown.

I leaned close to Rianna. “So that’s the Fall King?”

“He prefers Harvest King, but yes.”

Behind the king, his queen wore a diadem of twisting red twigs decorated with mums in cool tones of cream and salmon. She held the hand of a boy who couldn’t have been more than three. He lacked the brown hair and dark eyes of his parents—as well as the angular Sleagh Maith features. Instead he had a round, cherublike face with wide blue eyes and a mop of blond hair.

“The boy’s human?” I asked in a hissing whisper.

“Leave it be, Alex. Now stay quiet,” Rianna warned, recognizing the outrage in my face.

Folklore was full of stories in which beautiful children were kidnapped or switched for fae changelings. Treaties had been signed to prevent such behavior in modern
society, but I knew it still occurred—Falin was proof of that. He’d told me how the queen had put him in the place of a human child so that he would grow up with an understanding of the mortal world and more resistance to its iron. The child he’d been switched with? He was in the winter court.

“Welcome, friends of the changing season,” the king said. He wasn’t yelling, but his booming voice reached every corner of the clearing. “Be one with us, make merry with us, and enjoy the bountiful harvest.” He threw his arms over the top of his head in a wide “Y” shape, and a wash of magic flooded the clearing.

The magic wasn’t overwhelming the way Briar’s spells had been, but had a gentle, joyous feel to it, and where it passed, Faerie changed. The trees around the clearing filled with fruits and nuts, the bushes with berries. Banquet tables appeared, as did large casks.

A cheer rang out, and the music started again in earnest. Folk laughed, danced, and gathered around the buffet tables. The fall royalty sat on their thrones, watching. Someone brought the king a goblet and he toasted the fae as a whole—many of whom returned the gesture. Other fae approached the throne. All were greeted with boisterous joviality, but even though I was out of earshot, I could tell that some requests set before him were—however cheerfully—turned down and sent away.

“So this is it then?” I could feel the heady excitement in the air, but I wasn’t exactly in a “merry” mood.

Rianna smiled, her lips curling at the edges as if she were holding back a secret. “Just wait.”

A chime sounded, its crystal clear note ringing through the clearing, and the music changed, growing softer, more somber. The fae turned toward the hawthorn-ringed copse of trees we’d passed through to enter the large glen. Curious, I turned to look as well, but saw nothing under the arch of oak branches. Then as if a shroud of gloom had rolled away, a giant, pure white stag with arching antlers appeared. On its bare back sat a woman. I recognized her on sight.

The Winter Queen.

Frost kissed her dark curls and eyelashes despite the relative warmth of the glade. She wore a gown dripping with icicles that sparkled like diamonds, the long train falling over the stag’s rump and blending with her white cloak that glistened like freshly fallen snow. No, not
like
snow, the cloak
was
snow. As the stag took each graceful step forward, the cloak blanketed the ground in their wake. But it was fall, not winter, and the snow melted immediately, revealing crisp, colorful fallen leaves once more.