Stranger Magics Read online

  The fear in Meggy’s eyes was new, and it made my heart twist. “Ironhand,” I said quietly, “is a slightly more poetic way of saying traitor.” And with that, I let myself out.

  Meggy’s tidy house came equipped with an immaculately swept covered porch in the back, which overlooked her yard and several acres of woods. I hadn’t seen any sign of Moyna tramping through the trees, but given the size of the property, I wasn’t yet concerned that she’d fled.

  Meggy found me on her wooden porch swing, staring into space. “You’re not going to run on me again, are you?” she asked, settling onto the empty cushion beside me.

  I couldn’t look at her. “Do you want me to go?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay, then.” I pushed back against the green rug, sending the swing into a slow rock. “Whoever your friend is,” I said, staring out at the brown lawn, “he’s right about me, I’m not going to deny it. But I would never hurt you. Not intentionally, at least,” I mumbled.

  For a long moment, the only sound between us was the squeak of the swing’s chains.

  “Faeries can’t lie, can they?” she finally murmured. “You can bend the truth and twist it, but you can’t actually lie, right?”

  I risked a glance at Meggy and found her also contemplating the grass. “Wishful thinking. Dangerous wishful thinking. I know plenty who don’t, but it’s because they don’t see the point in it. That doesn’t mean they can’t.”

  She turned to look at me. “But my friend said—”

  “Your friend was misinformed.”

  “You just said she was right about you,” she pointed out.

  “I’ve been a known quantity for a while,” I replied, taking momentary comfort in the fact that Meggy’s confidante was female. “There’s probably a file on me at Arcanum HQ, and if so, it’s bound to be thick by now. But really,” I said, meeting her eyes, “you shouldn’t just believe everything wizards tell you. Those people aren’t stable.”

  “Says the faerie,” she retorted.

  “Half.”

  She sniffed. “Same difference.”

  “Not exactly. The full-blooded ones are nuts, but—”

  Meggy held up her hands, cutting off my explanation. “Just let me get this straight, okay? You’re telling me my daughter’s what, a quarter fae?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Meaning?”

  I shrugged. “Difficult to say right now. I’ve seen them on both ends of the spectrum, but they’re usually not immortal. Some can be long-lived, but, uh . . .”

  “Not like you?” she offered.

  “No,” I agreed, rubbing the back of my neck. “She has some inborn ability—I can’t tell how much, but far more than any changeling should. It’s not like I tested her last night. She was dumped on my street . . .” Meggy’s face began to work again, and I said, “My neighbor found her Thursday night and took care of her. She handed her off in the morning, Father Paul helped me track her locket to you, and here we are. And, uh . . . for the record, Paul’s not my uncle. Don’t blame him.”

  Meggy shook her head. “How could your mother be so cruel? It’s bad enough that she took her in the first place, but then to hurt her . . .” She sighed and looked away.

  “Olive’s home now,” I assured her. “Maybe it’ll take a while for her to accept that, but she will eventually. For the moment . . . give her time. Leaving Faerie can be something of a shock to the system.”

  “You seem to have managed.”

  “I was fifty, more or less, and I’d seen enough to know that I wanted out. She’s sixteen and . . . you know, sixteen.”

  “Teenagers are idiots, right?”

  “I’m sure you weren’t.”

  Meggy chuckled softly. “Okay, consider the ‘no lying’ myth thoroughly debunked.” She thought for a moment, then said, “Maybe it would be better if you took her back. If she’s going to be miserable here . . . I mean,” she said in a rush, “I want her here, I want her with me, but if she’s going to be depressed—Colin, I don’t want to hurt her. She’s been through so much already.”

  “I understand. But sending her back might be a death sentence.”

  “What?”

  I nodded, having been over it and over it in my mind. “I see this happening one of two ways. First, I open a gate and send Olive back. Easy enough, but if the kid goes through without bringing me along, Mother would be extraordinarily pissed, and you don’t want to see how creative she can be when she’s angry.”

  “Olive’s her granddaughter!” Meggy protested. “She wouldn’t hurt—”

  “She’s killed her own children.” Meggy’s jaw dropped, and I took her hands. “If you’re dealing with one of the Three—or pretty much any full-blooded faerie, for that matter—you have to set aside any possible outcome involving empathy. I assure you that Mother has no special affection for Olive merely because she’s . . . mine.”

  “And option two?” Meggy asked once she found her voice again.

  “Option two is that I go with her. If that happens . . . well, if the past is any clue to the present, that could mean that I wouldn’t be able to escape Faerie for decades. But that’s just me—I don’t know what she’d do to Olive. I mean, once the girl’s served her purpose, what further use would Mother have for her?”

  “Surely she feels something for Olive.”

  I squeezed her hands. “The fae don’t love.” I thought briefly, then said, “If I were to ask you to describe the sound of the color green, could you?”

  “Huh?”

  “My point. Love doesn’t compute with them. They might have some understanding of the concept, and they might be able to pull off a passable impression, but actually feeling love for another being? Never.”

  Meggy looked down at our entwined hands, hers bonier than I’d remembered, mine gloved in brown leather. “I thought you said you loved me.”

  “I do,” I said softly. “You can thank my mortal father for that. Or blame him, if it’s easier.”

  “I guess I’ll thank him, then,” she said, and gently freed her hands. “So why does she hate you?”

  “Who, Mother?” Meggy nodded, and I let out a long breath. “We haven’t seen eye to eye in quite some time. About seven and a half centuries, actually.” I cut my eyes to Meggy, but she seemed nonplussed. “I, uh . . . I killed one of my brothers. Didn’t mean to, but I got carried away. She didn’t take it well.”

  Shock dropped back down over her features. “You did what?”

  “He was attacking a girl,” I said in a rush, hurrying to explain myself. “I tried to defend her. I grabbed the closest thing I could get my hands on, and it was a dagger. Beautiful weapon. Steel blade, nice craftsmanship. I kept it for years after that, sort of a reminder—”

  “I thought you people were immortal.”

  “Immune to natural causes, let’s say. But iron and silver are very effective.” I held up my covered hands. “Just a little precaution. Hit a faerie with iron, and you may as well have splashed him with acid. I ran my brother through. He couldn’t heal quickly enough, and that was it.”

  “Hence the name?”

  “Hence the name. And it probably doesn’t help matters that I’ve been doing more of the same for the last few hundred years.” I looked around the porch, hoping to spot a cooler, but saw nothing but Meggy’s neat pots of flowers. “Do you mind if I drink?”

  “I’ve probably got a beer or two in the house,” she said, beginning to rise from the swing, but I pulled her back down and produced a bottle of Johnnie from the air.

  “No need, I bring my own,” I said, seeing her eyes widen. “Do you want some?”

  She took the bottle from my hands, held it up to the light, then opened the top and sniffed deeply. “It’s whisky,” she finally declared, surprised.

  “I do a halfway decent mojito, too, if that’s more your taste.”

  Meggy examined the bottle a moment longer, then passed it back to me and shrugged. “You know what? Sure. Moji
to it is.”

  The drink appeared on the floor beside her, and she bent to pick it up on the next pass of the swing. “Okay?” I asked as she tasted it.

  “Better than okay,” she replied. “Strong. You’re not trying to get me drunk again, are you?”

  “Not you,” I said, producing a straw, then stuck it down the neck of the bottle and took a long sip.

  She watched for a moment, either concerned for my liver or horrified by my manners. “You want a glass or something?”

  “Nope.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said, and we drank in silence, watching the trees wave in the wind.

  The rum seemed to smooth over Meggy’s shot nerves, and the whisky had its desired effect on my mind as well. By the time she’d finished and I’d downed a quarter of the bottle, she finally began to smile. “I can’t believe you’re actually here,” she said, tossing her empty highball glass into the yard. It vanished before it could shatter, and she grinned. “Show-off.”

  “Come on, let me have my party trick,” I replied, and laughed at her mock pout. “Fine, here,” I said, and produced another glass. “Knock yourself out, kid.”

  She pitched it underhand into the yard, but the glass held together through the bounce. Before Meggy could protest, it exploded into a blue fireball and disappeared. “My grass!” she cried, but I’d left the yard unsinged, and she settled back into the swing, relieved. “Do me a favor and don’t burn my stuff up, okay?” she said. “It’s all I have, and the basement stock is highly flammable.”

  “Not a problem.” I sent the whisky away and turned to Meggy, who had tucked one knee onto the swing and was halfway facing me. “So how did you get into magic books, anyway? That can’t be an easy field to break into.”

  “Like I said, my friend got me started,” she replied, resting her arm on the back of the swing. “Orders started coming in. I made connections. Kind of organic, really—one dealer leads to another, you know?”

  I nodded. “Are you going to tell me who the cretin with the bike is?”

  Meggy smirked. “Drago? Kid named Steve Brownfield. Lives somewhere around Richmond in his mom’s house. He’s a twerp, but he probably wouldn’t hurt anyone. Maybe a little property damage . . .”

  “That wasn’t what I saw today. And that’s not what you were telling me when he came to the door.”

  She faltered, stuttering with the lie, then sighed again. “Like I said, he’s a twerp. Barely even Arcanum. He’s a wizard, but not a particularly good one, and I don’t like selling to him. He comes out here, he loses his temper, my friend puts it all back together, the end. And I wasn’t scared,” she protested, “I was caught off guard. There’s a protective space in the basement, tight spellcraft, very safe. I usually go down there when he’s in one of his moods, and . . . well, you two were there today, and I didn’t have time to explain, you know, magic . . .”

  “And then I broke his wrist for him,” I finished.

  Meggy rolled her eyes. “Was that really necessary, Colin? He wasn’t going to hurt you.”

  “But he was going to hurt you, if he could. You know that, right? Please tell me that was obvious.”

  She gave up and leaned her head against the back of the swing. “My shelter’s strong. I’ve dealt with him plenty of times before without your help.”

  “This shelter—was it built by the same person who put the wards around your property? The ones he broke through today? The ones Olive is still trying to locate?”

  Her face tightened. “Those were experimental.”

  “Any trained wizard should have been able to construct a ward system to keep him out. Whoever you’re trusting isn’t Arcanum, is she?”

  “It’s not her fault,” Meggy snapped.

  “It is if you end up dead!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve made it this long,” she said, rising from the swing. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  People who know nothing of magic think that in order to keep evil forces at bay, you need to construct a circle of some kind, maybe something fancy with runes and unidentifiable powders and a pentacle. That’s not entirely true. You do need a barrier—either enchantment or spellcraft will suffice—but you can make it in any shape you desire. A circle is simply easiest.

  The steps down to Meggy’s basement ended in a fence of wards. I couldn’t see them, but I could smell the magic running like a current around the walls of the room, trapping every inch of floor space in a vaguely cuboid bubble. I pushed against the ward across the door, testing its strength, then stepped through with only a mild tingle. “Complex job,” I said, pulling a glove off to touch the concrete wall. “Definitely spellcraft. Active, and . . . yeah.” I covered my hand again and shook my head. “Running down. This is a pretty piece of work, but it’s a junk ward.”

  “I felt it,” she protested, pointing to the staircase. “Coming through, it opened for me . . .”

  “Well, it didn’t open for me, and yet here we are.” I touched the invisible barrier in the doorway, then stuck my arm through, back and forth. “Something like this is designed to keep out all but its maker and his chosen exceptions. I assume your friend made this to keep you safe. Can she get in, too?”

  Meggy nodded glumly. “Just her, though.”

  “Mm. I’m guessing it was designed to keep out anyone else bearing traces of magic—which should include me.”

  “You guess, or you know?”

  “I guess,” I said, giving the wards a last pat. “I can’t see the spells used to build this, and even if I could, I can’t really read them. It’s spellcraft, it’s not my forte.”

  “Spellcraft and enchantment, analog and digital, I know.”

  “Exactly. Your friend learned something from the Arcanum, at least.” I looked around, taking in the homemade bookshelves that lined the walls, each neatly labeled in Meggy’s steady hand, each only half-filled and stacked from the bottom for stability. “Keeping your inventory safe?”

  “I thought it was,” she replied, perching on the plastic card table in the middle of the room. Seeing a pair of wooden folding chairs on one side and an old wingback chair on the other, I assumed the setup was her office. “But yeah, this is my shop, more or less.”

  I crossed the room, scanning the spines and boxes for titles, breathing in the scent of musty paper, old parchment, and citronella. “I know some of these,” I told her, pulling a slim box from one shelf. “This one predates me. How’d you get your hands on it?”

  “Looking for a source swap?” she asked, faintly grinning.

  “Just curious.” I put the manuscript away and continued to examine her wares. “What was Drago looking to buy?”

  Meggy joined me, passing over the boxes with her index finger until she settled on a squat brown book tucked between two much thicker volumes. “This,” she said, holding it out for my inspection. “It’s an old diary, a special order for my friend. She says it has historical value, and she’s something of a collector. We were looking through some estate-sale catalogues a few weeks ago, and she asked me to buy it for her. Biddy up in Maryland. You wouldn’t believe how many book collectors end up with a legitimate magical text or two.” Meggy shrugged. “I don’t know why Steve wanted it so badly. But the last time he was in, he saw it on the counter, asked me about it, and I told him it wasn’t for sale. Guess he couldn’t take no for an answer.”

  I gently freed the book from its box and looked at the smooth, unmarked leather cover before flipping it open. The pages inside were of vellum, high quality, and completely blank, yet the book reeked of magic. “Whose diary was this?”

  “My friend wasn’t sure, but she thought it belonged to some wizard named Simon. I think he might have been grand magus once, but I’m not sure.” She took the book back and carefully boxed it up, then glanced at my face and stopped.

  “Simon Magus?” I asked. “She thinks that’s the diary of Simon Magus?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “And your friend isn’t Arcanum?”
Meggy’s eyes widened in alarm as I grabbed her shoulders. “You can’t sell this,” I said in a rush. “Not to her. Maybe to Greg Harrison, if you’re feeling especially generous, but not to some halfwit witch. If she’s right, this thing is almost priceless.”

  “Colin, I don’t—”

  “Remember the time I got into a fistfight with a customer? You called the police, and he ran?” She nodded, scared by my urgency. “He was willing to kill you to get Simon’s diary. The Arcanum would probably pay millions for it. And your friend—”

  “Is my friend. And that’s the end of it.”

  “Just talk to her,” I pleaded. “See what she’s planning, huh?”

  Meggy scowled, but she nodded as she put the diary away. “Look, we can discuss this later. Surely Olive has made it around the house by now, right?”

  I glanced down at my watch and was surprised to see how far along the afternoon had gone. “Best that we reclaim her,” I agreed, heading for the stairs. “She’s probably cursing my name.” I passed through the failing wards again, then looked back at Meggy. “You know, if you want, I could redo the security for you. No pressure or anything,” I hastily added, “but you see how weak this system is . . . after we talk to Olive . . .”

  My voice trailed off, and Meggy studied my face for a long moment before nodding. “Yes, that might be nice.”

  We made it to the top of the stairs before Meggy tugged on my sleeve and said, “Hey, Colin?” As I turned around again, she grabbed my collar, pulled me closer, and kissed me deeply.

  She took her time in breaking away, and I stared at her in utter bewilderment as I caught my breath. “What was that for?” I asked.

  “For us,” she said, smiling sadly, then reeled back and slapped me full across the face while I was still distracted. “And that was for the last sixteen years, you son of a bitch. Now come on, my baby is waiting,” she ordered, dragging me out the front door as I clutched my stinging cheek.