Moonways pt 14

This time, when there was a knock on the door, Solaris was awake to hear it. He opened it a fraction, his lovely face sullen but resigned.
"Are they all coming?" His voice slid between the frame and the door and slunk down towards the floor in its reluctance. Niveus frowned at him, then darted her fingers in the gap and pulled the door open more. Her brows arched in surprise; Solaris appeared to have showered, and shaved, and was wearing a clean white button up shirt and dark jeans, with a fitted black jacket over the top.
"You look good," she commented drily, unable to keep the amusement from her voice. "You look like a human though. I think this is the first time I've ever seen you wear denim."
Solaris scowled, nodding to the skin tight leather pants and artfully torn white singlet she wore.
"You look like a whore."
She shrugged, lashes concealing her eyes, her lips pouting and sultry. "Brother, that's because I am a whore." She took a step closer, almost matching him for height in her towering heels, and leaned in, breathing hotly against his ear.
"You know what I do. I can do it for you too."
Angrily, Solaris pushed her away. "Just because I didn't stop you before doesn't mean I would hesitate to--"
Niveus was smirking. "To what brother?" Something like desperation flickered deep in her eyes for a moment. "To kill me?" Her laugh wasn't quite bitter. Not quite. Solaris pulled his apartment door shut and they began down the hall together. Around them, the air thickened and crackled like a gathering storm.

********

Lily trudged along, her face set with grim determination. Her feet were agonising now but still she resisted the urge to run, knowing it wouldn't do her any good to be a cripple. Several times she nearly turned around to head back, but the memory of the Fey woman's mouth full of huge, glistening teeth made her stop. She would only get herself killed, and she was sure Dusk could handle himself. Though why he would help her she still didn't quite know. After all, he had let her do something intensely stupid with the Finder of Lost Things, and was quite content to, until he learned that she and her sister were useful somehow. That wasn't very trustworthy, was it? Around and around her thoughts spun, and she jammed her hands in her pockets. With some surprise she felt something hard and cold, wrapped in paper. With a start she realised it was the thing Arthur had slipped into her pocket. Pausing, she pulled it out.

It was a ring, stained black and streaky. It was too big to fit on any of her fingers, and besides it was an ugly, raw looking thing, with no finesse at all. The paper it was wrapped in had small, cramped words on it; Arthur's, she presumed.

Girl

Wear this on your skin, but somewhere secret where they will
not see. Iron will protect you. Tell no one, and good luck.

Lily stared at the ring in bemusement. Certainly the Fey hadn't exhibited many of the traditional characteristics from the fairytales she remembered, but there was definitely something about them being allergic to iron. Interesting. She cast about for somewhere to put it before resigning herself to stuffing it in her bra. At least no one will find it there, she thought drily.



People were starting to filter into the streets for their morning business, but the day didn't seem to get any lighter. The rain slowed to a freezing, misty dribble that set beads of water all over Lily's hair and encouraged her already damp jacket to become sodden and cold. Still, she stuck her head down and limped onward. She was so immersed in her thoughts that she didn't notice the pair walking right towards her, and they might not have noticed her either but for the brief moment that Lily met the gaze of the black haired woman. Recognition flashed across the stranger's face and lightning fast a pale hand darted out and grabbed Lily's arm.

Stunned, Lily tried to free herself but the grip was like steel, despite such delicate fingers.
"You!" The stranger seemed surprised and delighted. She was gorgeous, with silky black hair pulled tight into a ponytail from her face; the rain settled across her hair like a scatter of diamonds, like it was meant to adorn that very place. It was difficult to break away from the stranger's pale, pearlescent gaze but Lily shot an angry look at the arm restraining her and then felt the blood drain from her face. A stylised crow swooped across the woman's thumb and first finger. Crowkin?

"Sister, what are you doing?" The man, the other half of the pair, was equally as beautiful as his counterpart, though he was fair where she was dark. Lily noted with mounting panic the identical marking on his hand.
"It's her, brother! It's the girl that was with Dusk!" All of Lily's paranoia erupted into white hot fear which burnt her chest and filled her with enough energy to rip free. Without a second thought she fled, as Niveus glared and Solaris watched her in confusion.
"Catch her," Niveus said calmly. Solaris shot her a sideways glance that contained the edges of admonition but obediently he began taking long, loping strides. Lily was already limping and now fire raced up her legs but still she felt the unshakable compulsion to flee, to be away, to hide, to cry and scream and--

one large arm enveloped her shoulders, bringing her to a shuddering halt. Her momentum died, and she allowed herself one great sob before she sucked it all back inside and went limp.
"Now. You won't run away." His accent was foreign in a vague, continental sort of way, and his mellow voice warmed her limbs like summer sunshine. For a moment she was melting, but then the iron at her breast thrummed and the tide of warmth ebbed and flowed around her instead. He released his arm, but she decided not to run anyway, even though his spell hadn't worked. Lily turned to examine her captor, lips pressed shut, eyes narrowed and distrustful.

Solaris in turn looked her up and down - skinny, pale, bedraggled, limping, with a face full of suspicion, wearing clothes too old for her, barefoot, carrying worn out shoes. He met her eyes, and beneath that steely gaze he saw a bubbling pool of anger, just waiting to erupt. This girl was dangerous, like a cornered animal, and his sister was playing a very silly game. Niveus had sauntered over and now studied Lily with fascination.
"Do you know who we are?"
Lily weighed her options before settling on the path of least resistance - for now. Hopefully Dusk's trick with her name would hold up against these two. Still, she would have to be careful.
"Yes."
When she didn't elaborate, Niveus smirked with amusement.
"And who might that be?"
Lily paused a moment, just long enough. "Crowkin."
Niveus clapped her hands with delight, grinning wildly in that way that all the Fey seemed to do, somehow involving too many teeth, too sharply.
"Very good little girl! What is your name?"
"You called me little girl, that's a name."
The grin faded quickly from Niveus' face.
"Fine. Be that way. But you're coming with us."
"What?!" Surprisingly, it was Solaris who made the exclamation. Lily's expression set mulishly.
"I can't. I have somewhere to be."
But Niveus was smiling again, and it was an altogether different sort of smile.
"You have nowhere you need to be more than this, little girl. This is important, and I think you can tell us things. So you're coming with us."
It was like being caught in a rip, Lily thought miserably. And each passing moment she was being dragged further from the shore. But what else could she do? She looked from one Fey to the other, and sighed.
"Where?"

Moonways pt 13

Lily sat at her kitchen table, a sort of morose numbness stealing into her limbs, making her head heavy. Dusk sat opposite, his face sunk in shadows cast by his falling hair and the dank, miserable weather outside.
"What's going to happen?" Her words fell into the silence and sank heavily.
"I don't know. This is... not how things are supposed to be. The Balance... I should have seen it. I should have realised." Was that regret in Dusk's tone? It was difficult to say. For a moment, his eyes wavered blue, then green, then darkest brown, and his skin flickered across milky paleness to a weathered tan. "We should get going."
"Can we still look for the Moonways in this weather?"
Something like pity pulled at the corners of the Fey's mouth for a moment. "No, I'm sorry. We can hope that the weather clears up by tonight."
Lily felt the apprehension like a knocking in some distant hallway of her heart. It was muffled by too little sleep and too much emotion.
"Fine. What is it that's so urgent?"
"We should get you better prepared for crossing the--" He paused suddenly, head jerking to the side at a sudden, soft sound. Lily felt a tickle behind the back of her eyes, as though feathery fingers were brushing along the inside of her head. They seemed to be searching for something. She shut them out stubbornly, but they were persistent...
"Lily. Listen to me. You need to go to Arthur's house. Do you remember how to get there? Go there and stay there." Every muscle in the Fey's body was tight with tension. His voice was calm but pitched low, and his movements were slow and deliberate as he stood and seemed to draw a sword from some hidden place inside his jacket. Lily stared at the blade in fascination - it seemed to be made of some sort of black, shiny stone that glittered and flickered with silver fire deep in its heart. Just like starlight... she thought in a daze as the world erupted in slow motion around her.

She was thrown backwards as the table shattered into splinters. There was a woman, impossibly beautiful, where her kitchen table used to be - I liked that table, a stupid voice protested weakly inside her malfunctioning mind - and the beautiful woman was holding short swords in either hand, turning towards Dusk with the grace of a ballet dancer turning en pointe. She had long, long hair that flowed and curled in its own liquid gravity, ignoring the laws of physics to float and swirl mesmerisingly about her head. It was a thousand gorgeous shades of green, from the deepest forest shade to the palest new spring shoots, and it framed a face that was like the morning sun, filling Lily's limbs with warmth and joy and... but there was something wrong with the apparition floating before her. It was the eyes. They were black, completely black, and as they turned on her the smile below them widened and the teeth...

Then the spell was broken and Lily scrambled backwards, Time rushing back into the room as the two Fey leapt simultaneously into action. Twin swords, cast in finest rippling metal, crashed into Dusk's strange blade and rang like a melody of bells. Dusk's expression froze in calm determination as he whirled around his attacker, the singing of their weapons creating discordant music that they danced to in perfect time. Though the new Fey had seemed to fix upon Lily in that one impossibly long moment, she was clearly interested in Dusk now. Her mouth opened again and she hissed, a long, forked tongue flickering between her extended fangs. Suddenly she didn't seem so beautiful any more. Frantically, Lily grabbed her backpack in one hand and shoes in the other, and burst through the front door into the rain outside.

She ran like she had never run before, the road beneath her feet disappearing in great swathes. From grey mist, into grey mist. Nothing into nothing.... The strange thought echoed down the halls of Lily's panicking mind and soothed her. She held onto the idea of darkness, of nothing, of sinking into cool depths where no sensation touched her and no fear could reach her. After a while there was an insistence she couldn't ignore - a frantic thumping that seemed to fill her entire body. Reality rushed into her darkness and she realised it was her heart beating and she was still running.

All at once she collapsed onto the ground, heaving and gasping for breath as her starved lungs shot agony through every corner of her body. For a horrible moment she thought her heart might burst and she clutched her chest desperately but then there was heat beneath her fingers and it settled back into an almost regular rhythm. With a creeping suspicion, she glanced inside her shirt. The snake mark had darkened a little more - it was about a third of the way full around its circumference. It had barely been a quarter full when she'd looked at it that morning. Did it save her? Was that how it worked? She stood up, realised it was still raining, and looked around. She had probably covered about two thirds of the distance into the city - about ten kilometres. No wonder she was hurting. She took a glance at the soles of her feet and winced. They were shredded from the assault.

Gingerly Lily slipped her shoes on and started trudging onward. Could she remember where the old man Arthur's house was? Probably. It was in that long street full of terraces... not too far, she realised, and turned toward it. The rain soaked deep down into her, cold filling her bones, until she was chattering and shivering. Her thoughts swung obsessively between Dusk and the terrifying reptilian woman and Mona and the mysterious Percontors. They had somehow imprisoned Dusk's partner in a dreamland, and they had her sister. Had they sent an assassin to take out their other opposition in the remaining Keeper of Laws?

Lily had struggled to understand the convoluted laws that bound the Fey, but weren't the Keepers of Law important? She supposed they were just positions, not people. They could be replaced, in the same way that the King and Queen had been replaced. But that hadn't exactly worked out well, as far as she could see. Now maniacal fairy priests were trying to destroy the world, and somehow her sister's blood would make that happen, because she was a bastard half fairy whose tainted bloodline was against their laws. Hot determination settled in next to the rain in her bones and she stopped shivering. Whatever happened, she would save Mona. She was all that mattered.