The Iron Sword (The Fae War Chronicles Book 1) (3 page)

“Why would it be so strange for your mom to have pictures of you and her sister?” I asked, unable to help myself.

“Because Annalise has been dead for twenty years, and when I showed the pictures to my mom, she pretended like she didn’t
remember,
like she’d never seen Annalise before. It took me ten minutes to convince her that I knew it was her sister in the photo.”

“But she told you about Annalise, didn’t she?” I said.

“No,” Molly said, “that was my grandmother. My mom never talked about Annalise, and I figured it was because she just couldn’t. Too sad, I guessed.”

“What did your grandmother tell you?” I prompted.

“She told me that I was Annalise’s daughter, that none of the rest of the family knew except for my dad, because Annalise didn’t know who the father was and she died in childbirth. Annalise hadn’t been speaking to my grandmother for a few years when I was born.”

“You seem so calm about all of this,” I said in wonder. I didn’t know what I’d do if I found out I was adopted, but Liam and I looked so much alike that sometimes we were asked if we were twins.

Molly stood and offered me a hand, pulling me up from the trail. She stood looking out over the thickets of brambles and the pale dirt, listening to the intermittent sounds of birds chirping and other small animals rustling about in the bushes and trees. “What other choice do I have?” she said. “And that’s not all, Tess. When I came back from a run one day, I saw her putting the shoebox into the fireplace. She burned all the pictures.” Molly’s face twisted with bitterness. “She burned the only piece of my real mother that I’d ever had. And when I asked her about it, she just acted like she’d never done it.”

I found myself blinking again, as if that could get my mind to work faster. “I really don’t know what to say.” I couldn’t reconcile the memory of Mrs. Jackson standing in front of the mirror at the cabin, wiggling the mascara onto her lashes with concentration, with the idea of burning pictures, flames erasing faces that had once been loved.

We began walking down the hill, retracing our running route.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Molly reassured me. “You know, you’re the only other person that I’ve told. I can’t tell Austin, and my mom and dad pretend like they have no memory of it…like if they wish I’m their real daughter hard enough, all of this will go away.” She grinned, a feral glint to her teeth and hardness in her spark-lit eyes.

“So…how does this mysterious letter fit in?” I asked. “When I opened it, I thought for a minute it was blank. And then the writing showed up.”

Molly laughed. “You must have some Fae blood way back in your family tree, Tess.”

“Fae,” I said, more to test the word out than anything else. “Why do you say that?”

“Because anything that’s Fae-written only reveals itself to those with Fae blood.”

“Maybe it thought I was you.”

Molly shrugged. “Maybe.”

I thought for a moment, scuffing my sneaker against the gravel as we walked up the next hill. “That means you have Fae blood, then?”

Molly shrugged again. “Probably. I don’t know for sure, though. Trillow and Glira just taught me a lot about the Fae, when I was little and we would play games out in the trees. It all came rushing back when Trillow found me at school. I thought I’d forgotten it all when I decided they weren’t real.”

“So tell me what the letter said,” I prodded again.

“Wisp already told you. It was an order.”

“An order from whom?”

Molly sighed in exasperation. “If you’d just let me talk, I’ll explain, and then you won’t have to ask so many questions. It was a summons to the Unseelie Court, a writ signed by the Queen of the Court. I don’t know what they want with me, but they set a deadline.”

“And when is that?”

“Tonight.”

I raised my eyebrows. “They aren’t messing around, these faeries.”

“No. Apparently not. I think they tried to get Glira to carry a message, but she lost it.”

We crested another hill and the path wound its way through copse of trees. Their dry leaves rattled slightly in the breeze, a sound that somehow seemed foreboding to me.

“So the Fae of the Court are different than Wisp and Trillow?” I asked, curious now after having gotten over the initial shock of the whole idea.

“Yes. They’re all Fae, but the Court Fae prefer to be called the Sidhe. That’s the polite name, anyway. And of the Sidhe, there’s the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. As far as Trillow would tell me, the Seelie Court love the day, and the Unseelie Court prefer the night. That’s all I could really get out of her. She likes the Seelie a bit more, I think, because they give her shiny things when she runs errands for them. Glira, though, is more of an Unseelie sympathizer.”

“Sympathizer,” I repeated.

“I’ll let Wisp or Trillow try and explain it,” Molly said. “I don’t understand it all myself.”

“You’ve had ten years to think about all this,” I pointed out. “If you don’t understand it after all that time, how am I supposed to understand it before tonight?”

Molly stopped. “What about tonight?”

I stood up tall, using my height to what advantage I could as I looked down at my best friend. “Well, I’m coming with you.” I tried to sound firm.

“Coming with me
where
?”

“To the Unseelie Court. Or wherever it is you’re going.”

“I hadn’t thought of actually
going
.”

I frowned, taken aback. “Why not?”

She turned to face me and crossed her arms. “Because the Sidhe are not the cute little fairies you see in children’s books, Tess. They aren’t pretty little glows like Trillow and Glira and Wisp. They’re the dangerous ones. They don’t follow the rules of our world and they don’t particularly care when mortals get hurt.”

“Do you really have a choice?” I asked.

Molly looked out over the dusty hills, her eyes distant. “Probably not.”

“So then why are they bothering with you? Why do they think you’re so important?”

“And why are you asking so many goddamn questions?” Molly turned her gaze to me, her eyes hot as coals. “I’m trying to navigate this mess, and I was working it out just fine on my own, until you stuck your nose into the letter. Now they know about you, Tess, and I have to worry about you, too.” She pointed a finger at my chest. “You think this is all well and good, a fun little diversion from school and thinking about Liam dying in Afghanistan.”

I gasped a little, feeling as though she had punched me.

“But it’s
not
, Tess. It’s not a game. I’m not the heroine and I don’t need a sidekick. I told you the story, so just leave it alone.” Her cat-like eyes radiating anger, she turned and stomped her way down the hill, leaving me breathless at the top.

A moment hung suspended, balancing on the wave of shock enveloping me. Then anger flared in my chest, as warm as the fire that Molly’s family had built in the fire-ring on the hilltop. “You don’t get to decide!” I shouted after Molly. “Damn it, I’m your
best friend
. You don’t get to push that away!”

I saw Molly pause at the bottom of the hill. Her hands went still by her sides. Then she took one step forward, and another, slowly walking away from me. I ran down the hill, slipping on a stone and falling hard. But I scrambled up and slid down the rest of the way, ignoring the burning pain in my palms and knees. “Molly!” I grabbed her arm and she went still.

“Please,” I said. “You would do the same for me.” I breathed heavily, from both the run down the hill and the sudden shock of emotion vibrating up and down my spine, through my smarting knees and palms. I wanted so badly for Molly to look at me. “Don’t you understand?” I said finally, after a few breaths. “I’m the closest thing you have to a sister, and you need all the family you can get right now.”

She looked down at my legs. “You’re bleeding,” she said softly. Then she sighed, her shoulders softening. “Come on, we need to get back to the house and fix you up.”

Ignoring the warm blood sliding down my shin, I matched Molly’s slow, thoughtful pace, breathing in the warm air and savoring the clean scent, free of car fumes.

“I would do the same for you,” Molly said finally in her normal voice, glancing at me, “but I would’ve tried to commit you to a mental institution first, if someone told me the story I just told you.”

I snorted. “Yeah. You’re right. You’re just lucky that I trust you.” I tilted my head, considering.

Molly smiled her bright smile that so often ended our disagreements. The radiance of her smile turned sour feelings into mere memories. I scowled at her.

“Don’t you go pulling the smile on me,” I told her, mock-chastising. “It may work with all the boys, but it will
not
work on me. I am immune.”

“You are not,” Molly said. “You’re in a better mood already.”

“Only because I was in the better mood to begin with.”

“Details, details.” Molly waved one hand dismissively. “My smile has very little effect on boys, and even if it did, I wouldn’t be interested.”

I grimaced. Relationships were a sore subject for me right now. It seemed like I careened through the dating world with all the grace that I possessed in daily life, except I bashed into boys instead of tables, tripping over my words instead of down stairs. “Let’s not talk about this right now.”

Molly glanced at my face and took in my dour expression. “Tess,” she said softly, “just because you haven’t found someone that fits you yet, doesn’t mean you won’t ever find him.”

I clenched my teeth a little, biting down on a sarcastic response. “I know.”

“You’re tall, blonde and ridiculously smart…chemistry major and all.” Molly raised her eyebrows mischievously. “There are plenty of boys who would very much like to see what kind of chemical reaction they could—”

I swatted at her arm. “Molly. That’s not what I’m interested in anyway.”

Molly smiled. “I know. I’m just teasing you. You’re funny when you’re angry.”

“It’s not like you’ve had great success in the dating world either,” I said, unable to keep myself from unleashing my counter-blow. But Molly just smiled her mysterious smile, eyes glinting.

We walked a little farther. A brown and white streak suddenly appeared over the crest of the next hill, resolving itself into Kirby, who ran toward us at full tilt with his ears flapping and tongue lolling. Molly kept walking unconcernedly. I faltered a little when Kirby kept his pace, barreling straight at me. He swerved right at the last second, whipping his head around and sticking his cold nose into the back of my knees. I squeaked in surprise and hopped a few steps forward. Kirby barked, tail wagging, plainly delighted that he had startled me. He trotted next to me, occasionally bounding off the side of the road into the brush to investigate the rustlings of some small creature or another.

Finally, the trail began to look familiar to me. Kirby raced ahead, barking to announce our arrival. Mrs. Jackson walked out onto the front porch, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, her graying hair pulled back in a ponytail. I looked at her face and tried to imagine the woman who would burn photographs of her own sister. Her blue eyes swept over us, sharpening in concern when she saw the blood on my knees and the scrape on one palm.

“Now, Molly,” she said, “what did I tell you about making sure that Tess knew her way around the trails before y’all went running?”

“She knew her way around the trails, Mother,” Molly replied levelly as we walked up the steps to the porch.

“I just don’t know my way around my own two feet,” I added, smiling sheepishly.

Mrs. Jackson made sounds like an unhappy mother hen, placing me in one of the rocking chairs on the porch while she went to find antiseptic cream and bandages. Molly stared after her mother—no, her aunt, really—with hard eyes.

“You’re not happy here, now that you know all this,” I said softly, after the door swung shut. I glanced at the kitchen window to make sure it wasn’t open. “Why not go?”

Molly blinked, and sighed, leaning against the porch railing. “I just feel…like I don’t know anything anymore. But as little of the truth as I know here, at least I know more than I would in the world of the Fae.” She shivered, looking at me earnestly. “They kill mortals sometimes,” she said softly.

I considered. What would Liam do, if he was foraying into a new world full of dangerous new beings, about whom he knew next to nothing? He would arm himself with what knowledge he did have, I decided. “We’ll ask Trillow and Glira and Wisp,” I said. “We’ll ask them how to hurt the Sidhe, and if there’s anything we can do to protect ourselves when we go.”

Molly nodded, eyes far-away in thought. Then she suddenly smiled, looking up at me. “I can’t believe you’re actually talking me into doing this.”

“I can’t believe you’ve actually been given an order by the Queen of the Unseelie Court,” I countered dryly. “And I am not talking you into this. You know you’ll go. I’m just coming with you, and trying to be smart about it.”

Molly snorted a little, laughing. “Trying to be smart about walking into a Sidhe death-trap. Listen to you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ll thank me later.”

Chapter 4

M
rs. Jackson opened the door with her elbow, hands full of antiseptic cream and boxes of adhesive bandages. Molly watched her struggle with the screen door coolly, looking away and pretending to observe Kirby digging in the yard when Mrs. Jackson finally made it out onto the porch.

“Here, dear,” she said to me, offering a length of paper towel. I took it and wiped at my knees, dabbing away the crimson and trying to get all the little gritty stones out of the scrape. After scrubbing at the torn skin for a while, ignoring the stinging pain, I put down the towel and took a tube of antiseptic ointment from Mrs. Jackson. She hovered as I spread a liberal amount of the cloudy ointment on both knees. I peeled away the backing on the largest adhesive bandage I could find, slapping it over one knee with practiced ease. After repeating the process on the other knee and putting a smaller bandage on my left palm, I offered the boxes and tube of ointment back to Mrs. Jackson. She deferred.

“You can keep them, honey,” she said, “in case you need them again.”

I smiled and put the boxes down by the rocking chair. Kirby barked as he spotted a jackrabbit, rocketing off into the brush.

I ate breakfast quickly, slopping some cold milk onto cereal and wolfing it down with single-minded determination. Molly watched me with hooded eyes, pouring a precise amount of cereal into her bowl, her movements measured and cat-like. I showered quickly in the little bathroom, changing into clean shorts and a t-shirt. Molly deferred a shower, saying she was fine with simply changing shirts. I groused at her again about her suspicious lack of sweat glands. When Mr. Jackson asked where we were going, Molly told him that we were going hiking, and then maybe to White River for some kayaking later on in the day. She packed a backpack with a few water-bottles, trail mix and cold-cut sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil. She leapt up the stairs to the loft and added some things to the front pocket of the backpack. I added a tube of sunscreen after squeezing some out into my palm.

“You’re going to get burnt,” I warned Molly as she wrinkled her nose at my offer of sun protection.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Come on, let’s go.”

We made it out the front door and halfway down the hill before Austin spotted us.

“Where are y’all going?” he asked, stepping away from the pick-up, which had its hood propped open. His hands were dark with engine grease.

“Girls-only hike,” Molly replied firmly. “So unless you’ve got a big secret, that means you can’t come.”

I paused and looked back at Austin. He winked at me cheekily before replying to his older sister.

“If I were a girl, Molls, you would have to pry the boys off me,” he said teasingly.

“Yeah,” Molly said, “you would be a slut.”

“Ouch,” Austin said, putting his hand over…well, below his belt. “That was a low blow.”

“You started it.”

“Whatever.” Austin grinned. “Don’t get lost on the chick-only hike, Tess. Then I’d have to come find you.”

I felt my cheeks heat even as I rolled my eyes, upholding Molly’s obligatory older-sister scorn. “You wish, Austin.” We started walking down the hill again.

“You’re right,” Austin said devilishly from behind us. “I do!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little at his brazen audacity. Molly smiled a little too.

“Brothers,” I said under my breath, shaking my head.

“He’s my cousin,” Molly corrected darkly, and just like that, the playful mood dissipated, evaporating into the dry hot air. I opened my mouth, but then found that none of the words in my head fit the mood, so I licked my lips and said nothing. We walked in silence for a while, the blazing Texas sun pounding our short shadows into the trail.

As we came to a fork in the trail, Molly shifted the backpack on her shoulders. She took the left fork, with me following a half-step behind.

“Where are we going?” I ventured finally.

“To someplace that’s dark enough for Glira in the daytime,” said Molly.

Another question itched on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed and tried to think it through myself instead. It irked me that I was as ignorant as a toddler when it came to the Fae, and even though she knew only a little more than me, Molly seemed to know all the answers as she trudged up the incline of the trail.

We stopped after an hour. Molly handed me some trail mix and a water bottle. I slathered more sunscreen onto my face and stretched my legs, trying to massage the soreness from the morning’s run out of my hamstrings. I stood and idly walked around the edges of the trail as I finished the last of the water, kicking at a large rock and watching as a little lizard scurried away from the disturbance.

“The faeries’ names, they have power,” I said to the air, letting the words hang from my lips in slow contemplation as I thought.

Molly lounged in a pool of shadow, leaning back against the trunk of a tree. “Yes.”

“Let me call Wisp, then.” I turned to face Molly. “He’s the one who brought the message. He should know more than your Trillow or Glira.”

“First of all,” she replied, that foreign glint in her eye again, “they’re not
my
Trillow and Glira. Second of all, I doubt Wisp even told you his real name. They don’t give their names easily.”

“Oh really?” I stood and looked down at Molly. “We can see about that then.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Molly said just as I opened my mouth. An unworldly light played in her hair, like fireflies or sparks from the fire. A herd of goose-bumps stampeded over my skin, raising the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck. I took an involuntary step backward. Molly stood, rising with a boneless grace that I realized had always been glimmering just beneath the surface in her movements. “If you say his name wrong, or call him with the wrong intentions, or don’t have a morsel for him…any of a
hundred
different things, Tess…he wouldn’t be very happy.”

“Wisp? Unhappy?” I snorted. “What would he do, pull my hair again?”

Molly shook her head, unmoved by my flippancy. “If you’re going to come along, you have to take this
seriously
. Otherwise you’ll get hurt.”

I took a deep breath even as I recalled the feel of Wisp’s cool little hands as he tucked my hair tenderly behind my ear. “Fine.”

“Let’s go then,” Molly said. She didn’t wait for me to reply, shouldering the backpack and stepping lightly on up the trail.

At the top of the hill, the land rounded down into a gentle valley, then up again into another hill, creating a bowl-like indentation. Trees surrounded the bowl, firs and cedars and oaks, with a few scattered pale-skinned birches, growing so close together that their branches intertwined, forming a crown on the top of the hill.

“Trillow and Glira showed me this, back when we bought the land,” Molly said softly. “We’ve owned this part of the Hill Country for almost fifteen years now.” A small smile softened her face. “You know, I remember when there were no roads, no cabin, and it was all wild. All tangled cedar and pale rock on the hills. Dad used to make fun of me because I loved it that way. I cried when they brought in the backhoes to make the roads and dig the hole for the cabin.” She set the backpack down next to a large, well-worn rock. I glanced about and saw that several large rocks formed a kind of semi-circle in the shade of the largest stand of trees.

“It’s a meeting-place,” I said, taking a seat on the rock next to Molly.

“I don’t know what they call it in their language. Trillow and Glira gave up trying to teach me a long time ago,” Molly said with a little laugh, “but I call it Crownhill.”

I leaned back on the rock. The branches of the tallest trees stretched into a complete dome over the little depression, their interwoven branches forming a forest cathedral over our heads. The afternoon sun shone through the latticework of leaves, dappling patterns of light and shadow onto the copse’s floor. “All right then,” I said. “Let’s call some faeries.”

Molly reached into the front compartment of the backpack and drew out a handful of Hershey’s Kisses, the foil glinting even in the shade. “Faeries, especially the smallest trooping faeries, love chocolate,” she explained. “And the foil is a bonus…Trillow especially likes the silver.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well. I can’t say that I expected to hear that faeries are chocoholics.”

“You always have to give them a little something when you ask information. With them, it’s all about fair trade. If it’s something big you’re asking, you’d better be willing to give something valuable in return.”

I thought back to the fairy-tales I’d read as a child…not the cute ones, but the actual gritty stories in the original Brothers Grimm. “Like your voice. Or your soul.”

Molly looked at me in slight surprise and then nodded. “Don’t ever agree to that.”

“Oh,” I said dryly, “that puts a wrinkle in my plans to sell my soul to the first faery that offers.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Can we please get back to business?”

I shrugged. “It’s your show. I’m just tagging along for the ride. And to kick some faery ass, if you need me to.”

“Well just listen to you,” Molly said, arranging a few small stones in a circle. She put a chocolate inside the circle and set one little rock off to the side.

“It’s a faery-trap,” I said, leaning forward in fascination. “How does that work?”

Molly shrugged. “I don’t know. But it does. Glira and Trillow will step into the circle willingly, of course, but it still doesn’t hurt. Faeries are unpredictable.” She put her hand over her mouth and said something in a low voice. After she finished, she looked at me. “If a faery does give you their full name, don’t say it out loud so others can hear it. That makes them very irritated.”

I nodded. “Duly noted.”

We spent a few moments waiting. I scanned the treetops and wondered why exactly I was being so stubborn about coming along with Molly on her excursion into the unknown. Most people would call her crazy if she told them the story she’d told me, with her glow-friends and the Sidhe and her unknown parentage. And it wasn’t only my friendship with Molly that compelled me. I looked up at the curve of the trees above us. Maybe I wanted to be a part of this so badly because it would be an adventure. Maybe I did just want an escape from everyday life. I shifted on the rock. But no one would fault me for that…would they? Was it really just selfishness that was prodding me to go along with Molly to the Court of the Sidhe?

Before I could properly answer my own question, the leaves rustled in a sudden breeze. I sat up a little straighter, determined to note every detail of this encounter with the faeries, unlike the sleepy meeting of the night before.

Faster than thought, a shifting light darted toward us, slowing and hovering in front of Molly’s face. The little orb, much brighter than Wisp, radiated soft lovely colors, deep violet and pink and blue, reminiscent of the last stains of the sunset as night darkens the sky. Molly’s expression, lit by the glow’s luminosity, hinted at that otherworldly spark I had seen playing in her dark hair moments before.

“Hello, hello, lovely Glira,” she said softly in a singsong voice, holding out a finger. “I thank you for coming.” The little glow settled lightly on the offered perch, replying in a lilting musical voice.

“My pleasure to heed your call,” Glira said. I squinted a little, trying to see her in her pocket of glow, but all I could catch was a quick impression of a heart-shaped face and flowing white-gold hair. I couldn’t tell whether Glira was wearing any clothes at all. Perhaps Wisp was just an oddity among his kind. Did the Sidhe wear clothes? I wondered suddenly, suppressing the urge to ask. Unbidden, the image of a room full of naked people with incandescent wings filled my mind. I swallowed a hiccup of laughter, but too late: Glira turned toward me, her light pulsing in—what? Interest? Irritation?

“You did not tell me you were not alone,” Glira said to Molly, her lovely voice just this side of annoyed.

“I apologize, Glira, but I was about to introduce you,” Molly said in the tone of a forbearing long-time friend.

“Very well. Make the introductions,” Glira said imperiously. If I had been able to see her I would have bet that her arms were crossed and her little chin tilted up in an expression of utter superiority.

“Tess, this is Glira. Glira, this is Tess, my best friend from school,” Molly said, bringing her finger a little closer to me. “Hold out your hand, palm out,” she said in an undertone.

I obediently held out my palm and felt Glira press her hand to my skin. Her small hand fit perfectly in the curved center of my palm, and it felt very warm in contrast to my memory of Wisp. “Pleased to meet you,” I said as politely as I could.

“We’ll see whether you will be so pleased in a night’s time,” Glira said. She turned toward Molly again, flitting off her finger to hover in front of her face again. “I would have thought that Trillow and I raised you better than this! All that time in the mortal world with the cold metal and this is how you thank us?” Extensions of glow that I thought might be her wings fluttered furiously. “Ignoring a message from the Lady of the Dark Court! I would have never thought you to be the type!”

“Glira,” Molly said soothingly, “I read the message, I didn’t ignore it.”

“You are testing the patience of the Sidhe!” Glira circled once about Molly’s head, her melodious voice conveying a surprising amount of force.

“Calm down,” Molly tried again. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you know anything about why they want to talk to me?”

Glira laughed. The sound sent a shiver down my spine.

“It is not my place to guess why the Dark Lady would want to talk to you,” she said.

“You don’t mean to say that you don’t know anything at all,” I said, unable to help myself.

Glira cleared her throat. “Molly, please tell me again why you have allowed this mortal to accompany you thus far.”

Molly sighed. “Glira, she read the letter. Or…she saw it. And another trooping faery by the name of Wisp came to her last night to urge me to accept the summons in the Lady’s message.”

“Well and right he should urge you to accept the Lady’s word!” Glira rustled her wings again. “If he is the one I think you mean, this Wisp you speak of has good judgment, of all the messengers for the Dark Court that I have met.”

“You were once a messenger,” Molly reminded Glira gently.

“And I probably shall be again, once they forgive me for losing the first message to you,” Glira said. “But the Sidhe have long memories, and it will probably be beyond your lifetime before they let go their grievance.”

“You never told me exactly why you lost it,” Molly said. She glanced at me quickly, a cautionary arch to her eyebrow. I nodded slightly to show that I understood—she was prying gently into the root of this whole mess, or trying to at any rate.

Glira hovered. “You are right. You probably think I’m like Trillow, a silly little flit who can’t remember her own name in the noon-time sun.”

I gathered that was a type of insult in the faery world.