to the lure. But the sooner he could give the mirror a proper assessment, the sooner he could get rid of it, and the trouble it would bring.
He’d worked too hard for too long to avoid all politics of the Court. No one needed to know he was the Prince’s son. The father who’d raised him certainly hadn’t guessed Caspian’s real heritage, and he had a feeling his mother had never said a word about her affair with the irresistible fairy Prince. The Court of Annwyn was dangerous, and the less he had to do with it, the better. If this was what they were looking for, they were welcome to it. The four hundred and fifty dollars was a small price to be free of fairies—yet still in their good favor.
He carefully pulled off the wrapping he’d put on the mirror to protect it during transportation. His finger trailed over the carved walnut frame. The detail was beautiful, the scrollwork smooth and even. A well-made piece even without the fairy influence. He kept his gaze on the wood and not the glass, yet even at the edges of his vision he saw the shadows move, thickening and becoming clearer. He closed his eyes against the distraction and let the wood’s past form pictures in his mind.
Caspian saw a middle-aged woman, then a younger version receiving a gift. A wedding gift. The house where it had hung for one hundred years and back to the man who’d carved the frame. His first impression had been right. The frame was authentic, which made it worth far more than what he’d paid. It also made him doubt it was what the fairies were looking for. This was human made, not fairy crafted. Merely enchanted, and not the Window.
Keeping his eyes closed, he let his fingers drift to the glass, not sure what he’d see in the enchanted pane, only that the magic was in the glass, not the wood. Darkness, storage. The back of the wardrobe where it had been kept. He went deeper, older. Something shifted and the glass cooled beneath his skin. Then he saw the fairy who’d placed the enchantment on the human-made mirror. A pregnant woman—a fairy—who smiled as she stared and Caspian knew she was seeing the Court. She had charmed the mirror so she wouldn’t get homesick. Images skipped past and he saw she was in lust with a human man, and to satisfy her desire she was playing his wife and in return he was giving her what a fairy man couldn’t—children.
Caspian’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. The fairies sneered at humans unless they wanted heirs; then they used magic to lure and seduce the unfortunate human to their bed. Fairy men took human women, and fairy women took human men. It was the only way fairies could breed and usually the children were born in Annwyn, ensuring continuation of the line.
Somehow his mother had convinced the Prince to let her go and give birth to him in the mortal world. Not a fairy and not quite mortal yet bound by the rules of both worlds. Still, it could have been worse; he could’ve actually been a fairy.
He looked at the beautiful woman in the mirror. She would have gone home to give birth. How long had the woman remained in the mortal world before growing bored and returning to Annwyn for good? Had she left behind a heartbroken husband? And what of her child? The mirror didn’t have those answers.
Beyond the old images the shadows moved. Caspian opened his eyes. The fairy Court was before him as if he was looking through a window, not through the veil and into another world. The clothes glittered in silver and gold, a glittering rainbow of velvets, brocades, and silks cut in styles no human had ever worn. One man drew all attention as he danced to music Caspian could almost hear. Changing partners and spinning them around. Elegant and graceful in a way no human could be. For a heartbeat he wanted to join the dance instead of just watching. Heads turned as if he’d spoken the thought aloud. Eyes as pale as ice and twice as cold stared.
Eyes exactly like his. His father.
Caspian yanked his hand away, his skin stinging like he’d been holding snow. He flipped the blanket over the glass, his heart racing to get away. It was too late. They’d all seen him. His father had seen him. Caspian stepped back, but the temptation lingered to glance again at the beauty no living human should see. If a human danced, or drank, or ate the food, they’d be trapped in Annwyn forever or until the King decided to release them.
And he was human enough that the rule applied to him.
He swallowed and took another step back. Then another. Each pace was a victory of willpower over seduction. The more distance he put between himself and the enchanted glass, the more its power waned. When he closed the connecting door between the garage and house, the lure was almost gone. At least the mirror was only enchanted, not fairy-made. Fairy-made objects were a whole other bundle of trouble. The memory of the Grey from the garage sale rose in his mind.
He leaned against the door and closed his eyes. Images of the party in Annwyn flickered past and longing rose in his blood. Only it wasn’t the fairies who turned and looked at him; it was Lydia, beckoning him to dance at Callaway House.
Reality was blurring. He needed to ground himself in ordinary tasks. He opened his eyes, but his house was quiet. There were fairies here, but he never saw them. Brownies had taken up residence after his breakup with Natalie and they kept the house clean. As in immaculate and far cleaner than any human could manage. In exchange, he left out tea and cookies as was the proper thing to do.
The tiny porcelain tea set—an eighteenth-century Minton children’s set—that sat on the corner of the kitchen counter was empty, so he topped it up with a little milk in the jug and a little sugar in the bowl, some tea leaves and water to the teapot, and a wafer on each of the plates. He had no desire to be sharing his house with an angry Brownie who felt disrespected. When dealing with fairies, he’d learned if they couldn’t be avoided they should be respected… in the same way people respected any dangerous wildlife: keep a good distance where possible, don’t make eye contact, and run.
In addition to cleaning, the Brownies kept the Greys away. Because the power of the Court ran in his blood, fairies flocked to him like moths to a light. A fairy banished from Court became a Grey; cut off without access to the magic, they began to lose energy. Some chose stature and lost their looks, becoming skeletal ghouls of nightmares. Some chose to remain beautiful and became the tiny imps or pixies of children’s tales that would shrink to magnificent nothing over time. Others chose power and became ugly, small, and spiteful boggarts. He’d seen them all and everything in between. Brownies, however, either chose not to live at Court, or they had been exiled to the mortal world, which was a social death instead of actual death. Since he never saw them, he’d never had the chance to ask, and they probably wouldn’t tell him anyway.
Caspian made himself a cup of coffee and waited. As much as he avoided fairies, Dylis was an exception. She’d been charged with his care at his birth and would kill to protect him. After thirty-five years of her company, he was used to having her flit in and out and he’d learned to ignore her in public. He expected she’d breeze in any second.
Halfway through the coffee, Dylis appeared. He sensed her a heartbeat before he saw her, a blur of sliver and purple as she jumped onto the counter and helped herself to one of the cookies he’d left out for the Brownies. “Nice mirror,” she said between bites.
“If you like that kind of thing.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t you even want to peek at the party? I do. It’s been ages since I was at Court.” She fixed her glacier blue gaze on him, like a sullen doll. A slash of silver passed for a skirt and was topped with a purple frock coat. Dylis enjoyed a flair for the dramatic. But this doll was armed; wherever she went, a short silver sword hung at her side. Dylis was more deadly than she looked.
“You went last weekend.”
“That was business.”
“Reporting back.”
Dylis laid her hand on her heart. “Never. I was getting the latest gossip.” She shook her head. “You didn’t hear it from me, but there’s been a major falling out and things are very unbalanced.”
“I don’t care for Court politics.” The games, the scheming, and the cutthroat—literally—behavior made human politicians look like kids playing dress-up.
“You will if it bleeds through the veil.”
Caspian put down his coffee. “What do you mean?”
“The river isn’t flat.” She lowered her voice further so he had to strain to hear. “It has ripples.”
The last time the river of damned souls had rippled, millions had died of the Spanish flu. If it broke its banks, death would spill into the mortal world and plague would just be the beginning.
“Does it have to do with the mirror they want?”
Dylis shook her head. “That’s a separate but related issue.”
