Three laps around the manor and still, I couldn't seem to find Kallistê. I wrung my hands before bringing them to rub my eyes as I dropped into one of the many benches that were lining the hallway. My feet were already aching and sore from climbing flight over flight of stairs and when they felt near less from dropping off, I stood. Since I had no clue as to where she might be, I might as well waste my time doing more research. Sighing in defeat, I made my way back to the study.
I didn't waste a second of time as I eased into my seat and found my place in the book, my face warming as I glanced at the illustrations scattered throughout. A children's book, and yet I could scarcely make it through its twenty or so pages. Why did Phoebus have children's books in his library? Were they from his own childhood, or in anticipation of children to come? It didn't matter. I couldn't even read them. I hated the smell of these books—the decaying rot of the pages, the mocking whisper of the paper, the rough skin of the binding. I looked at the piece of paper, now crumpled up and lying in the bin.
"I could help you practice reading and writing if that's why you're in here."
I jerked back in my seat, almost knocking over the chair, and whirled to find Phoebus behind me, a stack of books in his arms. I pushed back against the heat rising in my cheeks and ears, the panic at the information he might be guessing I'd been trying to gain answers for. "Help? You mean a faerie is passing up the opportunity to mock an ignorant mortal?"
He set the books down on the table, his jaw tight. I couldn't read the titles glinting on the leather spines. "Why should I mock you for a shortcoming that isn't your fault? Let me help you. I owe you for the hand."
Shortcoming. It was a shortcoming.
Yet it was one thing to bandage his hand, to talk to him as if he wasn't a predator built to kill and destroy, but to reveal how little I truly knew, to let him see that part of me that was still a child, unfinished and raw ... His face was unreadable. Though there had been no pity in his voice, I straightened. "I'm fine."
"You think I've got nothing better to do with my time than come up with elaborate ways to humiliate you?"
My mind went back to the way the artist had put so little detail to render the humans' lands, and didn't have an answer—at least, not one that was polite. I'd given enough already to them—to him.
Phoebus shook his head. "So you'll let Kallistê take you on hunts and—"
"Kallistê," I interrupted quietly, but not gently, "doesn't pretend to be anything but what she is."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he growled, but his talons stayed retracted, even as he clenched his hands into fists at his sides.
I was definitely walking a dangerous line, but I didn't care. Even if he'd offered me a sanctuary, I didn't have to fall at his feet. "It means," I said with the same cold quiet, "that I don't know you. I don't know who you are, or what you really are, or what you want."
"It means you don't trust me."
"How can I trust a faerie? Don't you delight in killing and tricking us?"
His snarl sent the flames of the candles guttering. "You aren't what I had in mind for a human—believe me."
I could almost feel the wound deep in my chest as it ripped open and all those awful, silent words came pouring out. Illiterate, ignorant, unremarkable, proud, cold—all spoken from the villagers' and the Elders' mouths, all echoing in my head with their sneering voices.
I pinched my lips together.
He winced and lifted a hand slightly, as if about to reach for me. "Eleena," he began—softly enough that I just shook my head and left the room. He didn't stop me.
But that afternoon, after a light lunch Willodean had left for me in my room, when I went to retrieve my crumpled list from the wastebasket, it was gone. And my pile of books had been disturbed—the titles out of order. It had probably been a servant, I assured myself, calming the tightness in my chest. Just Willodean or some other lesser faerie cleaning up. I hadn't written anything incriminating—there was no way he knew I'd been searching for more facts about the black milkweed, the Alger, and the Imperial Lords. I was unsure if he'd punish me for it, especially after our conversation earlier which had been bad enough.
Still, my hands were unsteady as I took my seat at the little desk and found my place in the book I'd used that morning. I knew it was shameful to mark the books with ink, but if Phoebus could afford gold plates, he could replace a book or two.
I stared at the book without seeing the jumble of letters.
Maybe I was a fool for not accepting his help, for not swallowing my pride and having him teach me the basics of how to read and write. Not even read for me, but just—just to at least point me in the right direction to find some research books. If he had better things to do with his time than come up with ways to embarrass me, then surely he had better things to do than help me read and write. And yet he'd offered.
A nearby clock chimed the hour.
Shortcoming—another one of my shortcomings. I rubbed my brows with my thumb and forefinger. I'd been equally foolish for feeling a shred of pity for him—for the lone, brooding faerie, for someone I had so stupidly thought would really care if he met someone who perhaps felt the same, perhaps understood—in my ignorant, insignificant human way—what it was like to bear the weight of caring for others. I should have let his hand bleed that night, should have known better than to think that maybe—maybe there would be someone, human or faerie or whatever, who could understand what my life—what I—had become these past few years.
A minute passed, then another.
Faeries might not be able to lie, but they could certainly withhold information; Phoebus, Kallistê, Oberon, and Willodean had done their best not to answer my specific questions. Knowing more about the attacks that threatened them—knowing anything about it, where it had come from, what else it could do, and especially what it could do to a human—was worth my time to learn.
And if there was a chance that they might also possess some knowledge about a forgotten loophole of that damned Covenant of Peace, if they knew some way to pay the debt I owed and returned me to my family after I had completed the Elders' tasks so that I might warn them about the attacks myself ... I had to risk it.
I sighed as I continued walking. My mind was tossing and turning—flitting through all the questions I have that were left unanswered— and yet I continued searching for Kallistê's room. I stopped at a fork and decided to take the left. Venturing down the hallway, I didn't look back.
.____________________.
Twenty minutes later, I had tracked down Kallistê in her bedroom. I'd marked on my little map where it was—in a separate wing on the second level, far from mine—and after searching in her usual haunts, it was the last place to look. I knocked on the white-painted double doors.
"Come in, human." She could probably detect me by my breathing patterns alone. Or maybe that nose of hers could sniff out my human stench.
I eased open the door. The room was similar to mine in shape, but was bedecked in hues of green and pink and gold, with faint traces of blue and brown. Like being in the spring woods. But while my room was all softness and grace, hers was marked with a hint of tranquillity and calmness. In lieu of a pretty breakfast table by the window, a worn worktable dominated the space, covered in various weapons, scrolls, books, and maps. It was there she sat, wearing only a white shirt and trousers, her golden waves unbound and gleaming like liquid sun. Phoebus's court-trained advisor, but a warrior in her own right.
"I haven't seen you around," I said, shutting the door and leaning against it.
"I had to go sort out some hotheads on the northern border—official court advisor business," she said, setting down the scroll she had been reading, a frayed, browned piece of parchment. "I got back in time to hear your little spat with Phoe, and decided I was safer up here. I'm glad to hear your human heart has warmed to me, though. At least I'm not on the top of your killing list."
I gave her a long look.
"Well," she went on, shrugging. "it seems that you managed to get under Phoe's fur enough that he sought me out and nearly bit my head off. So I suppose I can thank you for ruining what should have been a peaceful lunch. Thankfully for me, there's been a disturbance out in the western forest, and my poor friend had to go deal with it in that only way he can. I'm surprised you didn't run into him on the stairs."
I winced internally. Thank the forgotten gods for some small mercies. "What sort of disturbance?"
Kallistê shrugged, but the movement was too tense to be careless. "The usual sort: unwanted, nasty creatures raising hell."
Good—good that Phoebus was away and wouldn't be here to catch me in what I planned to do. Another bit of luck. "I'm impressed you answered me that much," I said as casually as I could, thinking through my words. "But it's too bad you're not like the Alger, spouting any information I want if I'm clever and brave enough to face you."
For a moment, she blinked at me. Then her mouth twisted to the side, and those clear, sapphire eyes flicked and narrowed on me. "I suppose you won't tell me what you want to know."
"You have your secrets, and I have mine," I said carefully. I was sure she would try to convince me otherwise if I told her the truth. "But if you were an Alger," I added with deliberate slowness, in case she hadn't caught my meaning. "how exactly, would I trap you?"
Kallistê set down the scroll and picked at her nails. For a moment, I wondered if she would tell me anything at all. Wondered if she would go right to Phoebus and tattle.
But then she flicked her wrist and a sudden stench of metal burned my sense of smell. The hair on the back of my neck stood and I looked around to see a shimmering dome of light solidify around us. A shield—to keep prying ears from hearing us.
"Someone is eavesdropping by the door," Kallistê said suddenly and I turned—only to be met by a wall of solid light instead. "A potential spy, I'm not sure. But it's best we keep our conversation private."
I spun back to Kallistê. "But who? Is it one of the attackers?" I questioned. Whoever they were, they were getting stronger if they managed to sneak a spy into this manor. I shook my head. "That's impossible."
Kallistê sighed heavily and all of the sudden, she looked a few years older. "Unfortunately they have drilled their way through our wards and we don't know how many spies of theirs are roaming the house right now. There are probably only two or three of them, though. Phoebus had planted more wards to fend the attackers off, but he is drained and I doubt they would hold for long once they start trying to tear them down."
I rubbed my temples. The attackers were moving even quicker than I had expected. And they had grown stronger too. If I wanted to act I would have to do so soon. There was no telling when they would strike where I was.
But then Kallistê frowned and said, "I shouldn't be telling you this." She waves a hand. "Back to your question." I blinked at the sudden change of topic but motioned for her to continue. "I'd probably be hiding in my cave tucked and hidden away on the hill at the corner of the western woods, and have a weakness for fresh food, and would probably be so greedy that I wouldn't notice the double-loop snare rigged around the trees surrounding my cave's entrance to pin my legs in place."
"Hmm." I didn't dare ask why she had decided to be accommodating all of a sudden. There was still a good chance she wouldn't mind seeing me dead, but I would risk it. "I somehow prefer you as a Seelie Faerie."
She smirked, but the amusement was short-lived. "If I were insane and stupid enough to go after an Alger, I'd also take a bow and quiver, and maybe a knife just like this one." She sheathed the knife that was next to her and set it down on the edge of the table—an offering. "And I'd be prepared to run like hell when I freed it—to the nearest running water, which they hate crossing."
"But you're not insane, so you'll be here, safe and sound?"
"I'll be conveniently hunting on the grounds, and with my superior hearing, I might be feeling generous enough to listen if someone screams from the western woods. But it's a good thing I had no role in telling you to go out today, since Phoe would eviscerate anyone who told you how to trap an Alger; and it's a good thing I had planned to hunt anyway, because if anyone caught me helping you, there would be trouble of a whole other hell awaiting us. I hope your secrets are worth it." She said it with her usual grin, but there was an edge to it—a warning I didn't miss.
Another riddle—and another bit of information. I said, "It's a good thing that while you have superior hearing, I possess the superior abilities to keep my mouth shut."
She snorted as I took the knife from the table and turned to procure the bow from my room. But Kallistê stopped me, "Be warned Eleena, anything can be roaming those woods right now and I would watch your surroundings carefully if I were you."
Sheathing the knife she had given me, I said, "I know." I walked towards the door which led me to the silent hallway. "I think I'm starting to like you—for a faerie-murdering human."