“How’s he doing?” I said.
Tibbet didn’t answer for a long moment. Guildmaster Manus ap Eagan has been ill for almost a year. Fairies getting sick is rare, Danann fairies even rarer. It does happen, though.
“Not good,” she said. “He gets weaker all the time. He hardly ever leaves the house.” Her voice almost cracked. Tibbet has been with the Guildmaster since before Convergence. She’s not quite a secretary, not quite a messenger or driver. Aide-de-camp comes to mind. Like all brownies, she’s fiercely loyal to her chosen task, and after so much time, there’s an understandable emotional connection. I placed my hand on the back of her neck and gave it a slight squeeze.
She smiled. “What about you?”
“The same,” I said. “I’ve been exercising, but my abilities are still dead.” I never like to talk about my condition. You can only tell people “no change” so many times. Doing ritual sun salutations at dawn has strengthened my essence, but at best it’s made what little I can do work better. I haven’t regained any more abilities.
Tibbet guided the car through the chaos of Kenmore Square, a confusing knot of five major roads pretending to be a traffic exchange. Boston streets are infamous for confusing the unwary visitor. Signage is poor, the squares are anything but, and the layout philosophy seems to be “try not to kill anybody.” Tibbet’s a pro, though, and we made it through with minimal terror or terrorizing. She took Brookline Avenue out of the city.
It is the nature of large cities to consume the smaller towns around them, usually for economic advantage. Boston acquired several towns, but not Brookline, which didn’t see any advantage to joining a city of lower-class immigrants. To this day, it remains a place of privilege, one of the richest in the country, where anyone with enough money can find a place, even the fey. Manus ap Eagan had lived there for over half a century.
Tibbet took me into the exclusive Chestnut Hill neighborhood, location of some of the most expensive homes in the States. The landscaping is perfect, the acreage per house substantial, and not a stickball game to be seen. It’s another world entirely from where I grew up in the rough and tumble South Boston. It’s the kind of place where you keep expecting people to whisper for fear of disturbing deep, moneyed thoughts.
The Eagan estate began with a wrought-iron gate that opened without any prompting as we approached. Tibbet didn’t use a remote. Likely, the whole place was warded to allow certain people to come and go and most people to not. The driveway wound in a stately curve lined with cedars that stood guarded reserve over the passing car. When the view opened up, you could see what some might call a house, while most everyone else would call it a heaping estate manor.
Tibbet pulled up to the enormous front doors, and we got out. Above the doors, a stained-glass panel depicted a man in a resplendent chair leaning back with his feet on the lap of a beautiful woman. As Tibbet held the door for me, I nodded upward. “Did you pose for that?”
She grinned. “Not likely.”
The entry hall to the Guildmaster’s house rose a full two stories and could hold a small army. Every year Eagan holds a kick-ass Winter Solstice party in the space. If you count the bathroom, it’s the second room in the house I’ve been in. At the east wall, in the curve of a freestanding staircase, stood a rearing Asian elephant, the stuffed relic of a more unenlightened time.
In the middle of the west wall a massive fireplace stood. Above the mantel hung a larger-than-life portrait of High Queen Maeve of Tara, her deep black eyes staring out of a pale face, a cold majestic beauty. Maeve had posed for John Singer Sargent on her one and only visit to Boston almost a century ago. He had captured her perfectly. She looked like someone had just told her she couldn’t have Europe for dessert.
At the back end of the hall, French doors gave onto a rolling lawn of brown grass. At the bottom of the lawn, topiary boxwoods had been torn ragged by the wind. The skeletal frame of a greenhouse sat in the white afternoon light.
“He’s out back. He says the moisture makes him feel better,” Tibbet said. She led me to the French doors and held one open for me.
“You’re not coming?”
She shook her head. “I’ll give you a ride back.”
I walked down a brick path to the greenhouse. Its entrance worked like an air lock. Stepping through the inside door, humid air swept over me. Dense foliage smelled of decay, and I could hear low voices. Thick leaves dripped with water. I removed my jacket. I followed a sodden path through overgrown plants wilting with the heat. Long, spindly fronds left wet streaks on my arms. At the base of my skull, I felt a buzz like sleeping bees; the greenhouse had protection wards on it.
In the center of the greenhouse was a clearing. A maroon Persian rug had been rolled out. Ancient wing chairs sat with their backs to me and faced a graying wicker chair. The Guildmaster leaned out from one of the chairs and looked in my direction, then struggled up on his feet. “Here he is,” he said.
“You should sit,” said whoever was sitting in the opposite wing chair. I couldn’t sense who or what he was with all the wards in the place.
The Guildmaster answered him with a dismissive wave of his hand. He stood tall, with the stiff posture of someone in pain. His hawk nose stood out sharply between dark eyes nestled in sockets hollow from too much weight loss too fast. Gray-streaked dark hair hung lankly to his shoulders. The disturbing part, though, was the limp flutter of his wings, dim and lifeless against the backdrop all the fecund plant life. “Hello, Connor, I’m glad you could make it.”
As if I would have refused the invitation. “It’s good to see you again, sir.”
He waved an open palm toward the wicker chair. “Sit, please.”
As I made my way around the armchairs, I found myself face-to-face with High Druid Gerin Cuthbern. I did an excellent job of not rocking back on my heels. As a former Guild agent, I routinely worked with the upper echelons of society. Cuthbern, on the other hand, was upper echelon to the upper echelons. As High Druid of the Bosnemeton, he led all the druids and druidesses of the Grove for New England. His word was law. We did nothing without his say-so.
As soon as I realized it was him, I stopped, crossed my hands across my chest, and bowed slightly at the waist. “High Druid, it is an honor.”
The old man nodded his shaggy mane of white hair. He had that solemn look important people get when they deign to notice the peasants. Gnarled hands loosely held an oak staff against his chest. Truth to tell, while I respect Gerin, I thought he was a bit of a prig. He was an Old One, to be sure, but one that sometimes didn’t get that the old ways were gone.
“I remember you from your training, Connor. Such a shame what’s become of you,” he said.
It was hard not taking offense. I had heard Gerin make such blunt statements to others in open meetings of the Grove. Tact wasn’t his strong point. Power was. I draped my jacket over the chair and sat. The wicker had the soft give of too much dampness. Eagan settled himself back into his armchair.
“One more Guild director and we’d have a quorum,” Eagan said.
Gerin frowned “Not funny, Manus.”
Eagan rolled his eyes and leaned toward me. “He’s been like this all afternoon. He can’t understand how a sick old fairy can tire of talking politics.”
“And yet, he’s well enough to meet with underlings. No offense, Connor,” said Gerin.
“None taken, sir” I said. My ass.
Manus wagged a finger at me exaggeratedly. “Gerin’s here as a Guild director, Connor. No ‘sir-ring’ to the High Druid allowed.” The smile of a man used to having his way. I decided the best response was to smile myself.
A sudden cough racked Eagan. He took several moments to get under control. Gerin instinctively placed his hand on his back, but didn’t do anything else as far as I could tell. Eagan wiped his hand across his forehead.