Being a changeling made the effect much less bewitching, though she was still very cute.
“I am a wayfarer in need of succor,” I said softly, the ancient words sounding strange in my slow Southern drawl. “I must announce myself before the Keeper of the Manor and Lords of the Courts.”
I’d spoken quietly enough that I was sure no one other than the girl had heard me, but she quickly glanced around anyway, and then grinned at me in a way that made me regret my immunity to her kind’s power over men.
“Everyone here tonight is one of us,” she told me quietly. “I’m Tarva; have a seat and I’ll grab you a drink and Eric.”
“I don’t know if I can afford the drink,” I admitted ruefully.
“You’re on succor,” she answered. Which meant that for the first three days I was in town, all my food and lodgings would be covered by the Manor—it was a tradition I’d abused to survive down in the South. Normally, however, I’d get nothing until I’d announced myself.
“Then can you grab me a coffee, please?” I asked. After six days of bouncing from one bus to another, I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet the Keeper and Lords without some caffeine in me.
“Sure thing!” she answered with another smile. She disappeared for a moment and then returned with a steaming cup of black coffee. “Eric will be right out,” she told me.
The coffee was shit. I’d been spoiled by my three-day-long stopover in Seattle, where the Manor was an old independent coffee house that survived in the era of Starbucks by brewing fantastic coffee. Even realizing my bias, this was pretty bad coffee.
The bar was badly lit, so it took me a moment to realize just how short the man who came in from the kitchen was. In thick platform shoes, Eric stood just over three and a half feet tall. His hair was thick and white, and bushy eyebrows shadowed recessed eyes over a large hooked nose.
The gnome crossed the room to me and climbed into the stool opposite.
“I am Eric von Radach, Keeper of the Manor in Calgary,” the gnome said quietly. “Announce yourself, stranger.”
“I am Jason Kilkenny, changeling out of Georgia of no known fae parent,” I laid out quickly. “I seek leave to settle and take up a mortal occupation, as my blood is not thick enough for me to serve the Courts.”
Eric typed all of what I said into a tiny laptop that appeared from nowhere and vanished just as thoroughly a moment later.
“You’ve come a long way, Mr. Kilkenny,” the gnome observed. “What brings you all the way up here?”
“A hope for quiet,” I answered honestly, though my welcome to the town was now making me doubt that hope. Again. “I just want to live a normal life, and it’s hard to remove oneself from the Courts in the South.”
“A fair hope,” Eric agreed. “I see no concern for us here. You will need to meet Lord Oberis, of course—I called him before I came out. He should be here”—there was a burst of wind as the doors opened and closed again—“shortly.”
The man who entered was every inch a sidhe lord, fair and terrifying. Like everyone else in the room—including me—he wore his blond hair long to cover his ears, and it brushed against the shoulders of the heavy cashmere coat he wore. The tall fae walked across the room toward Eric and me, and I considered what Oberis would see.
I am tall for a human but short for a fae, at just under six feet tall. I probably looked scrawny and underfed to this perfectly chiseled specimen of inhumanity. My mixed brown hair was as long as Oberis’s but due to lack of care rather than style. I was dressed in a mismatched mess of clothes stolen or purchased for warmth more than color coordination on the way north. Every possession I owned was in a backpack at my feet.
There was no way—no way—that the fae lord would have dropped everything to come meet the new changeling in town. Fae lords had flunkies for that. And yet...
“I am Oberis,” he introduced himself superfluously when he reached the table. “Lord of the Court here in Calgary—there are hardly enough of us to justify two courts,” he explained with a grin that somehow shattered the cold inhumanity of that perfect face.
“This, my lord, is Jason Kilkenny, changeling of no known lineage,” Eric introduced me formally. “He wishes to settle and pursue mortal employment.”
“Is that so?” Oberis regarded me, his gaze level but warmer than I expected from the winter outside. “Why mortal employment? There are few changelings here, even fewer than there are fae. We may find some use for you.”
Well, if there were that few fae floating around this city, that would at least somewhat explain why his Lordship was here talking to the newcomer so quickly. It meant both that he wasn’t busy and that, weak as I was, even my presence might be considered important.
“With respect, Lord,” I answered slowly and carefully, trying to consider how to dodge politics without offending a fae lord in apparently desperate need of help, “my blood is too weak for me to be of much aid, and I desire more than anything to leave the world of Court and Manor behind. It has brought me little but grief.”
Oberis nodded. “Very well. I grant you both succor and the right to settle. However, there is one last formality.”
My sigh of relief stopped in mid-breath at his words. “What formality, my lord?”
“I am not the final authority here in Calgary,” Oberis explained. “In this city, we all answer to the Wizard and his Enforcers.”
“There is a Wizard here?” I squeaked. The last heirs of Merlin’s teachings were few and far between in the modern world—I’d heard one old fae guess less than twenty remained—and were basically demigods that only traveled because moving the continents around to bring their destination to them was a bit too flashy.
2
“MAGUS KENNETH MACDONALD,” Oberis answered as I caught my mental breath. “All in this city have accepted his authority and power, and so we accept his strictures. He insists on meeting all new supernaturals when they arrive in the city. Given his habits, the car for you should be arriving about...now.”
The door opened again, admitting another gust of wind, and a man in a plain black suit and no winter overcoat stepped in. Wordlessly, he crossed to the table where I sat.
“Lord Oberis, Keeper Eric,” he said flatly. “Is he ready to meet my master?”
“If you wish to stay in Calgary, you must,” Oberis said simply. I looked at the mortal in the suit and nodded.
After all, what the hell else was I going to do?
I FOLLOWED THE SUITED MAN, who seemed totally unbothered by the cold. It didn’t seem fair. From everything I could tell, the man was totally mortal, where my supposedly superior fae blood gave me no protection from the chill he completely ignored.
He led me to a black SUV with tinted windows. A small metal decal marked the windshield frame, a stylized silver K. I glanced at the windows and was somewhat relieved to realize the bruising from earlier had already healed. I had some benefits from my fae heritage, at least.
The suit, clearly oblivious to my self-inspection, gestured me to the front passenger-side door. Obedient, I got into the vehicle, grateful for the fact that he’d left the engine running and it was warm.
“Where are we headed?” I asked.
“The Wizard’s Tower,” he answered, and I could hear the capitals on the words. “Downtown,” he added, after a moment’s thought, apparently to decide if he could spare the vocabulary.
After that, he remained silent for the entire trip, not that I made much attempt to engage him in conversation. I hadn’t expected to end up meeting a Wizard when I got off that bus, and if I’d known that was in the cards, I might have never left Georgia!