“A rumor is one thing that gets thicker instead of thinner as it is spread.”

                              – Richard Armour

Rumors fell like snow, splattering thick wet words that stuck to everything and made paths slick. They started small – mumbles in the marketplace, off-handed comments in human coffee-houses – but quickly, they grew, until not even the people who’d been there could quite believe what they’d seen.

“I always said the Tohu were after the Unseelie fey.”

“The Wild Hunt joined them – ”

“Joined them? Nobody joins the Hunt, bone-head.”

Then there was talk of a menagerie of horrors, obscure and obscene creatures Queen Mab had hidden for thousands of years before releasing on the unsuspecting public.

“Owen Starbird, son of Mab herself. Set a manticore loose in the streets.”

“No, it was a sphinx. Thing pissed all over the palace.”

“Well, I heard it was a kikiyaon. You know, a soul-stealing owl?”

That one generally got a laugh.

The stories of long-dead queens and power grabs and monsters did not compare, however, to the mystery of the boy – a boy with four wings, unknown among the mythos, and possessing such beauty that no one who saw him could keep their heads clear. They said he was just a child.  They said his beauty could distract the hardest soldier, turn the head of the most sensible patriarch, or steal the heart of anyone young enough to dream. They also said he had power. Power that made crazy dead Mab take heed. Power that caught the attention of Notte, the Night Drinker of All Who Live, that caught the attention of the Tohu themselves.

Nobody knew what that power might be. It was strange and unfamiliar, even among all the diversity of the mythos.

Rumors fell like snow, thick and wet and splattering. It was only a matter of time before someone got too curious to wait for more.

 

1 ♦ “I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know.”

                              – Emily Dickinson

The harpy stank. Tiny things that could be fleas wriggled through her greasy-dark feathers, and her breasts swung pendulously by her knees. Her eyes were red and her hair pulled into a tangled bun at the top of her head. Colored light from the stained windows in the dome danced over her wrinkled skin as she swayed, her talons scratching the checkered marble floor.

Alex kept from gagging by chewing diligently on his tongue and taking shallow breaths. He envied the fey who got stand against the walls and out of arm’s reach.

“An odd pair you two make,” said King Owen. Alex gave him a dry look, an are you trying to be funny expression, but Owen ignored it. “I admit I’m not entirely convinced. Any opinions, Captain?”

“We have had success with her people in the past,” said Captain Isabel as she walked along her soldiers’ ranks, keeping them in order. She wore camouflage green instead of the usual Unseelie fey red, and a heavy squared hammer hung from her belt. “I’m sure your decision will be just.”

Owen crossed his arms. His long hair lay like burnished steel against his back, gleaming with single strands of copper. “Very helpful.” He remained deadpan. “Lady Zofia, I would like to see your wingspan, please. Consider it a personal curiosity.”

The harpy curtsied and opened her curved beak. It stayed opened as she spoke, unmoving. “As you wish, of course,” she croaked and spread her filthy wings. They cast shadows too deep to be real, as if pits crawled beneath her form. Some of the little white things made a bid for freedom and leaped from her feathers to the floor, and she seemed to find it funny.

Alex recoiled.

The harpy made a low, crackly laugh. “Do not fear, little bird. Your feathers will not accept my tiny friends,” she said in a heavy Mediterranean accent, and held out one hand. Lice ran along her fingers with the easy calm of the familiar.

How the hell do I respond to that? Alex thought frantically, and nodded graciously because he didn’t trust his voice. Don’t lean back because it would be rude, he ordered himself. Don’t lean back, don’t lean back, don’t lean back –

Owen waved his hand, and the escaped insects disappeared in tiny puffs of smoke. “Lady Zofia, are you certain you wish to do this?”

The harpy fluffed her dark feathers and opened her beak as if in challenge. “I would not be here if not, anax.”

Owen looked at Alex. “Are you amenable to this idea, Alexander of the mythos?”

Of the mythos was a nice way of saying Alexander the inhuman-though-we-don’t-know-precisely-what. “I’m… not sure, Your Highness,” he said, adding a little bow in case he’d offended.

“It is my turn to be demanding,” creaked the harpy, shifting to face him and fluffing her feathers. “I want to see his wings. I come, I offer, but he hides them! Maybe it is a lie. I see them, then I offer.” She shuffled, syncopating her talons with the clack of her beak.

Owen’s ears twitched. His heavy gold-and-jewel piercings glinted. “Very well. Alex, if you please?”

“Gladly, sir,” Alex said with a sigh held in too long, and spread his enormous wings. Four of them burst from his back with the speed and sudden beauty of sunrise, dwarfing him, casting a gentle light only visible because it seemed to make him glow. Soft down waved delicately behind his shoulders. Almost shyly, his wings curved slightly around him, as flexible as hands. He grinned through the gap and shifted his stance to shoulder-width.

Oh, it was nice to be among the magically inclined. They were used to such things, used to spells and unnatural beauty, and didn’t lose their minds in his presence. One of the guards broke formation and took a step forward, but Isabel stopped him. Everybody else simply stared. Fey ears, always expressive, flicked forward and down. Cheeks flushed. “Oh,” said someone in soft wonder.

“Steady,” said Captain Isabel evenly as she walked with purpose along the ranks of her soldiers. “Steady. Stay in formation.”

“I see,” rattled the harpy, her red vulture’s eyes narrowed. “I am willing to teach your boy.”

“Excellent.” Owen sounded relieved. “My seneschal will show you to your own quarters. Later – under supervision – we will conduct proper lessons.”

“And my payment?” Lady Zofia demanded, flapping her wings sharply and creating a wave of stench.

Alex gagged.

“It will be delivered. Red jewels, cut and polished, in the weight of the boy at this very moment,” Owen said. “This session is dismissed.” He turned and stalked back toward his throne. It reached for him like a hungry thing. Gold bands as wide as doors and thin as paper waved from the throne’s base, and they caressed his skin as he sat on its polished ebony surface. He ignored them completely.

“This way, please,” said the new seneschal to the harpy Zofia, and Alex took his chance to run. Putting his wings away – they disappeared inside him like a handkerchief through a keyhole – he fled, craving cleanness and cold air and freedom. He’d be trapped in flying lessons soon enough. For now, his time was his own.

#

He ran to the top of the elephant tower and jumped.

The alabaster tower was taller than anything else in Mab’s palace, capped with a life-size elephant, and high enough to feel like the tip of the world. Embracing the silence that came from snowfall, without loud voices and bangs of construction, without caws and growls from the rebuilt menagerie or stomping boots from the newly-drafted army, Alex spread his arms and let himself fall.

The snow even made Mab’s cockamamie palace pretty. It smoothed the wound-like purple walls, orange phallic towers and random pimple-like domes. The wind was cold, and there was nobody in sight who wasn’t allowed to see him. It couldn’t be more perfect.

He closed his eyes, letting the cold air strip him clean of all his fears, his frustrations, his sorrows. The wind whistled and splattered snowflakes all over his skin, and only at the very last second did he spread his wings and fly.

They exploded from his back like the hands of a storyteller. “Yeee-haw!” he shouted to the wind with Steven’s Louisiana accent, and flew high until his eyelashes and hair grew ice sparkles. But he didn’t feel cold; whatever power he had maintained his body temperature. He circled over the palace twice, blatantly ignoring all the times he’d been told not to, and then he saw Isabel on one of the parapets angrily waving at him.

“Oops,” Alex muttered unrepentantly, and aimed for her. She watched implacably as he did his best to land without tumbling.

He hit the parapet, skidded, and slammed into the wall with his wings spread like a bug’s.

“Graceful,” Isabel remarked. She, too, seemed unmoved by the cold, though that was bravado. Her sleeveless khaki shirt was spotted with melting snow.

“Sorry,” Alex said cheerfully.

“No you aren’t. We’re going inside. The king wasn’t finished with you.”

“He said we were dismissed,” Alex griped, putting his wings away. It was possible to fly through the Unseelie palace, but unwise; clipping a wing on a random decorative protrusion was a fear that nearly paralyzed.

“Hm,” she replied, as if analyzing his words and finding them lacking. “Inside.”

He followed her, and the living reality of construction engulfed them at once. Dust, paint, hammering and shouted commands thickened the air like soup. “Oh, yes. This is much better,” Alex shouted at the Captain, but she didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down the hall.

Construction workers all stopped what they were doing and stared as he stumbled past.

It wasn’t just fey these days. Experts from numerous worlds had been called in, specialists with tools and spells required to repair Mab’s crazy magical palace. A walrus-man in white overalls gawked, took his painter’s cap off, and put it over his chest as if in awe. Past him, a bull-headed man turned to watch Alex pass, his tail flicking impatiently by his human feet. The front of his leather jerkin tented.

“Oh, ugh,” Alex muttered, pressing closer to Isabel. “Really, now, did we have to go this way? This is ridiculous.”

Isabel didn’t answer.

He glared, but didn’t ask again. It was clear she wasn’t in a mood to answer.

Fey in the hall stood aside for her respectfully, saluting her or just staring blankly at Alex. It was a relief when she tossed him into a small, dark room lit by candle sconces in the corners. She slammed the door shut behind him.

“Blah,” Alex expressed, rubbing his arm and looking around. Shadows shifted on the stone-block walls, guttering in the candle-light. A single red runner bisected the otherwise bare stone floor, and a bare wooden desk and chair sat by the sole window.

“Was she rough?” said Owen, stepping forward the deep shadows at the wall’s center.

“She wasn’t too awful,” Alex said casually with a shrug. “What’s the matter?”

“I need to be sure this is what you really want.” Owen walked to the desk and began removing weapons hidden in his dark clothes.

Alex tried and failed to summon enthusiasm. “You mean the harpy.”

“Yes.” Owen lined his knives up precisely, alternating handle with blade for maximum space. Throwing stars glinted like snowflakes on the dark wood. “I know this isn’t exactly ideal.”

“It may not be ideal, but I don’t know what else we can do,” Alex gloomed, and leaned against the wall.

Owen sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Alex picked up one of the knives to inspect it. “Look, it’s all right. We’ve been over this. I can’t sit in the classes because nobody knows how to use wings, and anyway, the teachers are afraid or enamored of me. I tend to cancel out spells just by existing, so there aren’t many people who are willing to take me on. We’re out of options, and I need help.”

“Nevertheless, I’m sorry.”

Owen didn’t waste words. He meant it. “Thank you for that,” Alex said quietly. “Do these engravings mean anything?”

“Yes. They’re spells, which you’re probably nullifying by handling,” Owen said casually.

Alex dropped the knife on the table and stepped back.

Owen’s chuckle rumbled like woodchips underfoot. “Relax. It’s all right. They’re easy to re-weave.” He realigned the knife. “These two months have been very strange.”

That was an understatement. Alex shrugged, peering at the knives. “Your mother is dead and inside your throne, nagging at you. I’d think all the rest of it was easy compared to that.”

Owen’s lips twitched. “My mother isn’t likeable. Fortunately, she doesn’t want to be. We’re off the subject.” He sat down, conjuring parchment and a quill-feather pen from the air. “The Wild Hunt has taken down a human airplane.”

Cold shock slid under Alex’s skin like gel, numbing his face and his hands. “What?”

“It’s heightened everybody’s paranoia. There were photographs. Film. It’s impossible to hide completely.” Owen scribbled. “I’m giving you and your friend a free pass out of here. I don’t think, if you stay, you’ll be safe.”

Alex’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He tried again. “You’re… you’re getting rid of me?”

“It’s for your own safety.” The pen continued to scribble, scratching damnation one word at a time.

“But I’ve handled them before!” Alex blurted, clenching his hands into fists. His wings bristled impossibly inside him, regardless of size and physics.

“Yes. I know.” Owen kept scribbling. Kept scribbling. Kept scribbling. “I made an oath to keep you safe.”

“Owen!”

“I vowed three times.”

“I can handle myself!” Alex shouted at the top of his lungs.

Owen looked up. “You probably can. But not while the whole world is looking for you and you don’t even know what you are. I’m not banishing you. I’m sending you to friends who may be able to help you.” He turned back to his parchment, signed it, and held it out.

Alex wouldn’t touch it. He looked from the scroll to Owen, too sickened to speak.

“This is not a banishment,” Owen repeated more gently. “It’s getting you out of the spotlight for a while, getting you help so you can take even better care of all of us than you already do. All right?”

It was all perfectly logical, and it made Alex sick. He looked at his feet, controlling his breathing, trying not to feel betrayed. Owen let him have his time. “Okay,” Alex said quietly.

“You’ll come back,” Owen said, though his damaged voice turned the gentleness into a rumble.

“Caelan – ”

“Will be fine. I won’t let him be harmed. We owe him.”

There wasn’t much else to say. Alex couldn’t decide if this meant he was losing another home or not. He looked at his feet, shuffling.

“Go see your friend.” Owen turned back to his desk, produced more parchment, and resumed scribbling. “He’s in the garden. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled at the chance to get out of here.”

Alex managed a weak smile. “Very likely.”

Owen continued his implacable scribble. “We’ll discuss it more later.”

Alex nodded and stepped out into the hall before remembering there were people waiting for him. The bull’s-head man and a few other stood there, clustered oddly, watching. They didn’t quite dare to touch. They didn’t bother not to stare, either.

Alex ran the whole way to the garden.