When he looked at me, though, his eyes widened at something, and he immediately gestured for me to come back into the kitchen. I grabbed my beer, got up and followed him.
“Come quickly,” Eric ordered, moving faster than I thought the little man had any right to. He led me to a door off the side of the kitchen, and then down a spiral staircase into the storeroom under the kitchen. We dodged around boxes and bottles to another door, which led into a well-lit, gorgeously furnished basement apartment.
“Have a seat and drink your beer,” he told me, gesturing to an overstuffed dark purple couch. It looked like the apartment was walled and floored in bare concrete, but it was hard to tell. Voluminous drapes covered the walls, and thick rugs had been laid in an attractive interlocking pattern. A tiny kitchen was tucked against one wall, and a solid oak door presumably led to Eric’s bedroom.
The Keeper returned to the lounge with a snifter of brandy and sat in a chair in matching purple to the couch I was in.
“I told Barry I wouldn’t be back up tonight,” he told me quietly. “As soon as I saw you, I knew something was up. I think I know what, I’ve seen this before, but tell me in your own words.”
I took a long drink of my beer and marshaled my thoughts. “Long story short, Queen Mabona came to visit me, informed me that I was of one of Her Vassal bloodlines and belonged to Her, and gave me a mission,” I told him succinctly.
Eric emptied the brandy snifter in one swallow. He picked up the bottle, refilled his snifter, and offered it to me. I shook my head no.
“I thought I recognized the sign on you,” he said quietly. “Mabona. The Queen of all fae.”
“How fucked am I, Eric?” I asked bluntly.
“Um...both a lot and just a little?” he answered. “You are Marked as Her Vassal. Any Keeper in any Manor in the world can see that, and we owe our fealty to the Queen as well.”
“Wait, the Keepers owe fealty to the Queen?” I interjected. I always thought the Keepers didn’t owe loyalty to anyone except the fae race.
“And through Her to all fae,” he answered. “Like you now. We Keepers are charged to aid Her Vassals in any way we can; we share the joint mission of preserving the fae race rather than any specific Court or faction.”
“That doesn’t answer how fucked I am,” I observed.
“You are pretty fucked, so far as getting out of it goes,” Eric said bluntly. “She’s in your blood, in your powers. She has Marked you as Her own, and you are Hers. However, it’s not all bad.
“You now serve only Her and the High Court, for example,” he continued. “You stand outside the normal systems of Court and Fealty. While I wouldn’t recommend testing the theory, you technically don’t answer to Oberis anymore. You are protected, as Her Marked Vassal, from interference by the other Powers. She rewards and protects those who serve Her well.”
“And is utterly merciless to those who betray Her,” I suggested aloud.
“Yes, but Her Vassals don’t really have that option,” Eric reminded me. “When I said She was in your blood, it wasn’t a metaphor. Even if you tried to avoid completing whatever task She gave you, you’d find yourself doing it as you went about your business, only realizing what you’d done afterwards. It’s a dangerous way to go, though; I disrecommend it.”
I could see many ways that trying to investigate a plot against the Wizard without realizing what I was doing could prove dramatically fatal.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” I told the Keeper. “I always understood that Her Vassal bloodlines were all noble or near-noble fae. But I’m one of the weakest-blooded changelings I know of. Am I misjudging Her bloodlines, or am I a late bloomer or something?”
“I know of late-blooming changelings,” Eric said slowly. “One gentleman I knew didn’t come into his mother’s gifts until he was almost forty. There’s only one problem—how long ago did you first manifest?”
“Three years, give or take,” I replied.
Eric nodded, taking a slow sip of his brandy. “Ever changeling I’ve ever known of has manifested their powers over a year and a day,” he told me. “You have every power you will manifest from your blood.”
“I assumed my father was a weak will of the wisp or something,” I admitted. “I don’t see how he could possibly have been of Mabona’s Vassal bloodlines.”
“Wait,” Eric said, holding up the hand not holding his snifter, and suddenly examining my face with a new energy. “That rings a bell. A Kilkenny and a will o’ the wisp... What was your mother’s name again?” he asked.
“Melissa,” I replied, now very confused as he continued to examine my face.
“Melissa,” he repeated slowly, getting up and begin to pace back and forth on the rug, his brandy forgotten in his hand. “Little Melly Kilkenny—redheaded woman, Irish and a historian, right?”
“Yes,” I agreed slowly, watching the gnome pace, wondering if he’d seen the same file MacDonald had. “How do you know my mother?”
“I worked with Melly on a dig in the early eighties. We were investigating one of the old tomb sites in Ireland for the High Court,” he answered.
The High Court was the joint Seelie-Unseelie court that ran Ireland’s fae and, in theory, that all Courts answered to. Made up of nine Powers, the High Court was led by Queen Mabona and rarely, if ever dealt with mortals.
“They hired a mortal historian?”
“No,” Eric said quietly, stopping and locking his gaze with mine. “They hired a changeling historian—Melly Kilkenny, daughter of Soria, one of the strongest will o’ the wisps I ever met. Your mother was a changeling.”
“That’s impossible,” I disagreed. “She would have said something.”
“I don’t know why, Jason,” the Keeper told me, “but she fled Ireland under a cloud of political discontent and foreswore all things fae. You have the gifts of a wisp’s child through her.”
“But a wisp’s gifts are all I have,” I told him.
“You have not yet come to your full birthright,” he answered me, echoing the Queen’s words earlier that night. “Every gift and power you have shown so far is from your mother’s blood, not your father’s. We have no idea what gifts you may still command.”
“Great,” I said quietly. “So, I have the downside of a Vassal bloodline—service to Mabona—and not one drop of the power or strength I should have to complete Her mission.”
The Keeper nodded and finished the second glass of brandy.
“What was your mission?” he asked finally. “I am bound to help you in any way I can.”
“She said there was a plot to kill the Wizard,” I told him. “I am tasked to find it and stop it.”
“I take it back,” Eric said dryly. “You are fucked.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” the Keeper promised. “If you find anything, let me know, and I’ll see if I can track down more on any leads you find.”
“Thanks,” I replied, somewhat more sincerely this time. Now that I thought about it, the shifters might know something, and Mary had programmed her number into my phone.
“So, um, Eric,” I said slowly, hoping the subject change would work, “what is the policy on fae dating outside the Court here?”
He laughed. “I heard about you and the shifters over the weekend,” he told me. “Well done, by the way.
“But yes, that’s okay. It’s not like we have to worry about half-and-half babies, after all,” he continued. “For whatever reason, most of the inhumans are cross-fertile with humans, but none of us are with each other. So, go ahead, call the girl.