you…
Alpaurle
from
Edited by Feven IV of the City Emerald
Chapter 30
Sylvan is the only city in all of the Seelie Kingdom that remains green in Midwinter. Beneath the snow, their slow motions hampered by hanging threads of ice, the grass continues to grow and the trees retain their leaves throughout that dark season. In rooftop gardens and tiny courtyards, delicate flowers of jasmine and honeysuckle exhale their fragile breath into the gauzy morning air. Hot springs lace the air with steam; mist roils in the city streets, warring with the cold, bathing the cobblestones and lampposts in milky white.
In Sylvan, only the Temple Aba-e stands above the mist. From its foundation on the Mount of Oak and Thorn, the grand edifice rises in three massive stone tiers. The bottom tier covers the entire mountaintop, its sides blackened by thousands of years of dirt and grime, the carts and hovels of the peasantry pressed against it. Its face is dappled with thousands of white dots, the prayers of commoners written for a few coppers by bored scribes, folded and pressed into cracks in the stone. The second tier is open to the air, composed only of columns and archways of stone, massive clear glass windows. A bridge leads from the Common Road to a gallery on this tier, where Fae from every station come and stand in the shade during hot summer days, gazing into their reflections in the dim silent pools, contemplating the statuary crafted by innumerable generations of Arcadian coenobites.
The third tier, that one is a mystery. Permanently shrouded in clouds, its shape is difficult to discern. Sometimes, at odd points during the day, a laboring farmer or strolling alderman will look up and see the clouds pierced by a shaft of golden light and, for an instant, he will see the Temple Aba-e in its entirety. But those moments are rare and unpredictable and have yet to yield a reliable account of the complete structure.
The rest of Sylvan bends toward the temple like flowers toward the sunlight. The Mountain of Oak and Thorn describes the city's western boundary, beyond which are the barren wastes where nothing survives. Sylvan nestles in a valley at the base of the mountain, her stained-glass spires and dizzying cobblestone streets winding up the hillside toward the temple. The garden villas and castles of the nobility line the rim of the valley's bowl, and the accommodations descend in rank proportional to their altitude. At the valley's floor, where the fog is thickest, the lowborn and outcast of Fae society mix in poverty and anonymity. The streets are narrow there, and the inns and bordellos display no signs or markings of any kind. From the City Center it is a long way to the silver-shrouded peak of Oak and Thorn, though they reside in the same city, and the one is but a few hours walk from the other.
On Peacock Lane, in the heart of the City Center, Fourth Stag dawned beneath a gray shroud that hid the temple from view. Evelyn Yeoh watched the dim smudge of sun climb above her back courtyard, drinking coffee while the children clambered out of bed upstairs. Morning was her only quiet time. The coffee, black and heavily sugared, was one of the few indulgences she allowed herself, and she exacted the maximum enjoyment possible from it.
She'd nearly finished her coffee when she heard a light tapping at the door. She approached the front room warily, longing for a world with door chains.
'Who is it?' she said.
'Brian Satterly,' said a familiar voice from the other side of the door. 'Is that you, Evelyn?'
Evelyn pulled the door wide and rushed to embrace him. She pulled back, holding his hands and looked at him. Could this be the same Brian Satterly that she'd sent from the real world just two years ago? He was tanned and thin, his hair worn long in the Fae fashion, dressed in the winter clothes of an Eastern merchant. You'd have to look twice at him to tell he was a human.
'Oh God, Brian,' she said, hugging him close, 'I didn't think I'd ever see you again! When they took you, I was horrified. But there was nothing I could do. You must understand…'
Satterly stopped her. 'It's okay, Evelyn. I knew there was nothing you could do. I just need to know. Did Leila make it?'
Evelyn looked at him sadly; he'd never known, for all this time. 'Yes!' she cried. 'Oh, yes! I visited your sister after you were… you know. She was devastated, of course, but little Leila is just fine. I don't think she remembers a thing.'
'Thank God,' said Satterly, his shoulders slumping in relief. 'Oh, thank God!'
Looking over his shoulder, she noticed the woman and three children standing behind him. 'My, you've been busy,' she said, eyeing the children.
Satterly looked around and smiled wanly. 'Very funny. Can we come in? I need to talk to you.'
'Of course! What a silly question. Come in, come in.' She pointed to the garden gate, where a strong Fae man stood with a sour expression. 'Is your bodyguard coming, too?'
Satterly looked back. 'Mauritane? I think it's best if he wait out there.'
'If you say so.' She blinked. 'Come on upstairs. You can talk to me while I help the kids get ready. We can probably find some snacks for these three.'
Evelyn knelt and looked at the girls. They were Fae children, dressed in rags, undernourished. 'And what are your names?'
'I'm Rachel,' said the tallest of the three. 'And that's jasmine and that's Polly.'
Evelyn stood. 'Human names,' she said sadly. She let them all in and shut the door.
'That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,' said Satterly. The woman still hadn't said anything. 'This is Linda,' he added.
Evelyn shook the woman's hand; she muttered a quiet hello.
They went upstairs. The kids, both human and changeling Fae, were in various stages of morning readiness. Some were still in bed, some were wrestling on the floor. The oldest children sat in the southern window seat reading books. The Fae children tended to be more sluggish in the morning; since they outnumbered the humans nearly two to one, the humans tended to rise early to have some time to themselves.
'Leala,' Evelyn said, calling over one of the older Fae girls who was mostly awake. 'Please take these darlings and get them something to eat, would you?'
'Yes, Miss Evelyn,' said Leala, curtsying. 'Come, we've got some wonderful peonies left over.'
The girl named Rachel looked at the human woman for permission, but the woman was staring into space and didn't acknowledge her. Hesitantly, she followed Leala, as did the other girls.
'Brian, come over here,' Evelyn said. 'Tell me what's going on. How did you get here? I thought you were in prison for life.'
'Here's the Reader's Digest version,' said Satterly, scratching the three-day beard growth on his cheek. 'I was in for life. But I got out in order to go on a kind of secret mission. I can't really talk about it. If we're successful, then we get pardoned. Or so they say, anyway. I don't even really know what the mission is.'
'But it has something to do with this woman and her kids?'
Satterly sighed. 'No, we picked them up along the way. They don't have anywhere to go, and I thought maybe you could help them.'
Evelyn laughed. 'What do you think this is, a boarding house?'
'Could you please just do it? For me?'
Evelyn blew out a puff of air. 'I don't know, Brian. I suppose, for a little bit. The kids aren't a problem, but we'll have to find a place for your friend Linda. But I'm afraid I've got some bad news for her.'
Satterly half smiled. 'What's going on with them? They act Fae; they even look Fae.'
'Were they born in Faerie?' she asked.
Satterly nodded. 'I think so, yes.'
'Human children born here are a very special case. It's happened before, and your friend isn't going to like what I tell her.' She sighed, chuffing the hair out of her face with a heavy breath. 'They can never go to our world, Brian. It would be dangerous… for everyone.'
