Chapter Text
Screaming. The relentless marching of hoofbeats in the distance. The cavalry of invaders had arrived.
“Take your brothers with you into the woods, Tonia!”
“Mama, but you said, you said the woods,” Tonia stutters, though she takes Anthon and Teucer into both her hands.
Her mother affixes her with a grave look. “Remember what I taught you and you will live. Now promise me, you’ll take care of your siblings.”
“Mama, why can’t you come with us?” Tonia protests.
“Because they’re not going to believe no one else lives in this house unless they burn down at least one corpse in it.” She sneers. “And I won’t let it be you all. Now promise, Tonia.”
Her mother heaves her meat cleaver up. Its edge is blunt. Not good for stabbing. No range. Against the bayonets wielded by the invaders, it would do nothing substantial.
Tonia heaves a breathe, and takes her mother’s pinky in her own.
She recites the lines.
She grips Anthon and Teucer tighter.
“GO, Tonia!” Her mother yells, and the scream rips from her throat as Tonia heaves a breath and drags her brothers out the back door as the hoofbeats grow louder, closer.
She does not look back, and lets her feet fly.
—
The woods behind their house has been a prohibited zone for as long as Tonia can remember. When Tonia turned old enough to toddle, her mother had done up a fence: a boundary of acceptable forest to enter in. To collect firewood. Beyond that fence, however, she was strictly not allowed to venture in.
For good reason, Tonia, her mother had said. For there are things in those woods beyond human comprehension.
But Tonia would take the incomprehensible over the very real and very fathomable understanding that, now that she, Anthon and Teucer were in the middle of the woods, that they would never, could never, come back to their cabin on the outskirts of Morepesok.
Here, in the woods, the trees grew tall, their dark bark stark against the pristine white snow that piled up beneath their feet. The winds seemed to hum through the snow-laden conifer needles.
Tonia strained to hear it, but not even the faintest hoofbeat rings in her ear.
“Tonia, Tonia,” Teucer babbles, presenting her with a half-eaten acorn. “Look. Rock.”
“Yes,” Tonia says, keeping her wobbly smile as firmly on her face as she can, “thank you, Teucer. But that’s not a rock. That’s an acorn.”
“A-korn.” Teucer sounds out. “This is a acorn?”
On a boulder still covered with snow (Anthon never bothered to wipe snow off before he sat on anything) Anthon swung his legs and kicked his heels against it and rolled his eyes.
“An acorn.” Anthon mocks, making a raspberry. “You’re a dum-dum.”
“Boys,” Tonia sighs, feeling like she’s aged fifty years older. “Let’s keep moving.”
Teucer stuffs the acorn into the pocket of his jacket. “Acorn.”
“Can we go home?” Anthon whines. “Teucer is being a dum-dum again.”
Tonia turns back, towards the path they had taken into these woods. Their tracks are fading away, quickly, beneath the snow. She thinks about what the house probably looks like. The village up north had been burned down. Probably the same for them too.
“No,” Tonia decides. “We’re going forward.”
Anthon grumbles. “Mama said we can’t be in the forest.”
“Mama said that this is a special occasion,” Tonia assures. “Just a little bit further.”
She elects not to say that she doesn’t actually know where she’s going. All she knows is that surely, there’s somewhere with natural shelter that she and the boys can rest in for the night. She’s good with traps, too. Mama taught her well. If they can find a cave to rest in, Tonia can set up a small fire and cook a squirrel.
But the forest just seems to be an endless labyrinth of pines and snow. Not a single cave in sight.
“I’m bored,” Anthon groans, “I wanna go home.”
“Acorn,” Teucer says, holding up that damned acorn again. “Acorn.”
“Acorn,” Tonia says, without any real answer to give either of them. “Just a little more.”
Teucer stops walking.
Tonia steps back. “Teucer, we need to walk—”
“Hungry,” Teucer says, suddenly.
“Then eat that acorn, dum-dum,” Anthon says with all the confidence in the world.
Before Tonia can tell Teucer not to eat acorns off the ground, he’s popping the hard nut into his mouth.
She groans. “Teucer, spit that out, it’s too hard for your teeth—”
There’s a sudden crack. A stillness in the air. Time stops. The winds stops blowing mid-air. The snow slows to a stop, suspended in the air.
“Teucer…?” Tonia asks. “Was that your teeth?”
Teucer shakes his head with wide eyes.
“No,” says an unfamiliar voice. “It wasn’t.”
Tonia whips around, clenched fists readied in front of her. “If you’re an invader, I won’t hesitate to—”
The stranger whistles from beneath their hooded cloak. “Bold move calling me the invader when I’ve lived in this forest for centuries and you have only been around for, what, two seconds, or whatever you humans use to count time?”
“Humans?” She whispers, caught off guard enough to lower her hands.
The cloak melts away. Literally. Into thin air.
It reveals a lanky young person grinning profusely. Their hair is ginger, except unlike Teucer’s rather yellowish tint, it’s orange to the point it defies genetics. Their face is thin, and their facial arrangement is typical of a human’s, except humans don’t have long, pointed ears and teeth that sharp. Their eyes are a startling blue, like staring into the Abyss.
“I’m not sure you’ve noticed, little girl,” the thing says, smile too-wide and eyes too dead, “but I’m not exactly a human.”
“Fae,” she whispers in terror.
“I’m glad you know. Saves me the time of explaining,” it sniffs. “Now, ask the boy to come here.”
“What?” Tonia growls.
“The boy, you know, that little one over there. The one that ate my acorns.” The fae deadpans. It points a long, bony finger— clawed, she notes, terrified— at Teucer, whose mouth is gaping wide open, just conveniently displaying two halves of that stupid acorn in it.
“Teucer’s not going anywhere,” Tonia scowls, readying her fists again. “You’re not taking him away from us.”
“Yeah,” Anton says, suddenly finding his voice after a moment of shock. “Teucer is our little brother!”
Bold words from the person who was repeatedly calling their little brother a dum-dum, but dammit, it was the natural dichotomy of all sibling relationships!
The fae seems unbothered, though. It blinks, once, twice. It cocks its head.
“That boy ate fae food,” it says. “By the rules of the fae, he belongs to our realm now.”
“How were we supposed to know the rules, dumbass,” she growls. Fear courses in her veins, and her legs are shaking terribly, but through sheer adrenaline anger is the main emotion that dominates her mind right now. “S’not like you gave us a list.”
“Do you go around people’s homes eating whatever you’d like from their cryo-boxes without asking?” The fae sniffs. “I’d think not.”
“How would you know what a cryo-box is, being a fae?” Tonia rolls her eyes. “Don’t you have magic to preserve your food?”
“I just know,” the fae replies irritably. “Now pass me the kid.”
“Not until you tell me what you’re going to do with him.” Tonia hisses.
The fae freezes. A smile crawls up its face.
“Really,” it asks, “if it were any other fae, your brother’d be whisked off into our realm by my next sentence spoken.”
It leans its head against its palm. It’s awfully human for a wicked supernatural creature. “But I’m feeling generous today, so I won’t trick you on that. I’ll just tell you— I need to convince the Court I’m worth any salt, and that includes finding a human servant to prove my abilities in trickery.”
“If you’re a fae, aren’t you born tricky?” Anthon asks, with no sense of self preservation whatsoever.”
Surprisingly, the fae doesn’t take insult at this. Instead, it groans. “You would think. But no! Now, chop chop, pass me that boy.”
“Is there any way you don’t have to take him?” Tonia growls.
“He ate fae food,” it shrugs. “Even if I don’t take him, somebody else will notice sooner or later and, ah, spirit him away.”
“What would it take to convince you to let him stay with us?” Tonia asks cautiously.
The fae’s eyes remain lightless, yet they seem to spark with mischief all the same.
“Eating fae food is a powerful tether to our realm,” it grins, “to stay with him, you need a tether of equivalent power.”
Somehow, its smile grows wider. The temperature seems to plunge lower. Goosebumps crawl up her skin, despite being covered in five layers.
“And what is it?” She murmurs.
It surveys the trio, Anthon, hovering anxiously, Teucer, oblivious, Tonia, determined.
“All of your names,” it says. “Names are a powerful tether to the human world.”
Tonia heaves a breath. “Okay. Our names are Anthon, Tonia and Teucer.”
Suddenly, it feels like a weight in her chest has been pulled away. A part of her forced out. The fae widens its eyes, flexing its claws.
“Very well,” the fae chirps, “you all may come with him to our realm.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Tonia’s eyes widen.
She doesn’t have a chance to even speak as the floor seems to crumble beneath them, and send them plummeting down into a dark, greedy abyss.
—
When she comes to, it’s Anthon’s voice that sends her eyes flying open.
“Bring us back, you monster!” He’s screaming at the fae. It seems rather unaffected, even as Anthon pulls on the seemingly delicate gossamer wings that lay dormant at its back.
“You made a deal,” It says, “you can’t go back. No one goes back.”
Tonia’s ire sends her body to convulse into wakefulness immediately.
“You tricked us!” She growls.
It shrugs once again. “I was honest. I said that you needed a tether to stay with him. By giving me your names, you tethered yourselves to the fae realm. You got to stay with him.”
The fae moves its empty eyes over to her, and squints. “Either way, I did you three a favour. Weren’t you running from an enemy?”
“To put us into another cage is not a favour!” She hisses.
It seems, for the most part, mildly uncomfortable, as its wings rub together nervously (?). It sighs as it taps its spindly fingers against its arms.
“You’ll get used to the cage,” it says simply. “Trust me.”
“We don’t even know your name,” Anthon points out. He seems to have ceased pulling on its wings, futile as it is.
“Name,” Teucer huffs eagerly. “What’s your name?”
For a moment, Tonia almost snidely asks if heartless fae like it don’t have names, but as if flutters its wings and wrings its wrists, she realises that it's hesitant to reveal a name at all. As seen— names had power, with the fae.
“Oh, c’mon, just give a nickname,” she frowns. “So we can get onto whatever human servant work or whatever you want us to do.”
It blinks. Folds its hands, then, it murmurs. “You may call me Childe.”
“You don’t look that young,” Anthon mutters.
“It’s a title,” it sniffs, but the tone behind it seems like it, too, doubts the veracity of its own title.
“Well, now we know,” Tonia drawls, “tell us what exactly we just cursed ourselves with. What do you want to do to us?”
She’s feeling surprisingly bold in front of a creature who essentially owns her at this point. Maybe it’s the adrenaline.
“Uh….” the fae’s eyes dart left, right. “I… don’t know?”
“What?” Tonia screeches. “You kidnap us and you don’t even know what you’re gonna do with us?”
“Hey, hey,” it placates, “all I was told was that I had to lure a human servant to prove my worth. And hey, job done. I’ve got three humans under my wing now.”
“That phrase usually means you’ll take care of us, not that you’ll kidnap us,” she deadpans.
“Well,” it says, “ignore that, then. Court is in three hundred dew drops’ time, and I’ve got to make the lot of you presentable.”
Tonia grips at her jacket defensively. “It’s fine, we look fine.”
“No you don’t,” it retorts, and perhaps this time, she concedes that it is right. They look terrible in their handmade winter coats next to the fae’s flowing robes, an array of diaphanous black, purple and blues like the night sky layering over each other. Glimmering gossamer wings, like crystal, flutter gently, like stars upon the night sky of the robes.
But the fae itself is rather… off-putting, and its face has no otherworldly beauty that she would expect one called the fair folk to have. In fact, if she put the strange eyes out of the picture, it looks like an otherwise typical person from Morepesok, with pale, flushed skin and ginger hair.
She tells this so directly to its face, because evidently, though it is somewhat a trickster, it fails to keep any sort of mysterious aura that it had scarce amounts of back in the forest. It even admitted to not having any plan over their ownership whatsoever!
“H-hey!” It says, covering its face. “I’m a fae! I’m nothing like you humans.”
“You look like Teucer’s older brother.” She raises an eyebrow.
“Brother?” Teucer bounds over with wonder in his eyes.
“No he’s not your brother, Teucer, it was a figure of expression—” Tonia barely manages to get out before Teucer is hovering near the fae with stars in his eyes.
Surprisingly, the fae gently pats Teucer’s head with its wicked claws, keeping them far away from his head, and a small smile crawls on its face.
“You can call me brother,” it grins. “If you want.”
“Teucer, he kidnapped us,” Tonia says, maybe mostly for her sake, because Teucer, at the tender age of three years old, probably doesn’t understand what kidnapping is.
“You’re safe here,” it says. “Now sit down and let me find more suitable clothing.”
She is miffed, but with the lack of anything else to do, given she is at the mercy of a fierce (?) fae, she sits down next to Anthon and Teucer.
They’re in what she would call a treehouse, upon the balcony, if a treehouse was made entirely of a chrysalis-like material, shimmering hues of rainbow upon a silvery surface, like an oyster that the fishermen at the docks often pulled up. There’s a couple more rooms in the back, but in front of them, where they sit upon the floor, is a wide open view of the forest. It’s almost identical to the forest they were just spirited away from, with the exception of the creatures bounding up and down the barks certainly not possible in their realm, rabbits with antlers of a reindeer hiding in the snow with their snow-white coats, and foxes with three tails bounding after them.
The snowflakes that drift their way down glow an icy-blue, making a light of their own. Obscured slightly by the canopy of trees with their still-impressive foliage, in the distance, is a far more impressive sight of winding treehouses, like the one they’re in, except much more interconnected, shining and shimmering in the distance, all nestled upon a great tree with not black, but silver bark, and silver leaves, stretching its way high up, far above the actual forest, where a structure of the same shimmering material, with spindly towers and many levels, lies, grand.
Behind them, off in some other room, the fae returns from its bustling and emerges with three sets of clothing.
“Behold,” it says, fluttering in, its impressive wings folded back in as it lands. “Clothes!”
It gives them the privacy by leading them to some other room in it’s treehouse, and fluttering away.
Tonia sighs, and takes a look at the clothing procured. It’s definitely nothing like their winter coats: the same layers of thin fabrics atop each other. Except… she’s not quite sure it would keep them warm, considering it’s equally as wintery as Snezhnaya.
Still, she tries it on, to check if she has any merit in arguing with their host/owner of their names. It is…
…surprisingly warm.
Whatever magic the fae weaved into the fabrics, she feels no different from wearing her winter coat.
So, begrudgingly, she helps Teucer get dressed, and tells Anthon to dress in them too.
In a short moment, they are ready, and they exit the room.
…Next to the fae, they really do look like siblings. Same outfit. Teucer sharing the same hair.
“Perfect!” It beams, showing sharp canines glinting. “Now… just a briefing…”
“Let me do the talking.” It narrows its eyes. “And pretend like you respect me just a little bit.”
“That’s quite difficult,” she raises her eyebrows.
“Not if you know you’ll die if they slaughter you for disrespect,” it shrugs.
“...Nevermind. We shall endeavour to give thee utmost respect, Master Childe,” she says in the most faux-saccharine voice she can muster.
It shudders. “ ‘Master Childe’ is an oxymoron. ‘Childe’ is fine. You may also hear me refer to as Tartaglia— that’s, uh, another title.”
“Do fae hate having less than two names?” Anthon comments.
It cocks its head. “After this, you must surely know the power of a name. Even fae are beholden to it.”
Tonia can see it. A fae, controlled by an entity by their name? Chaos and havoc would surely ensue.
“Well, are we going to go soon?” Tonia rubs her eyes. “Humans get tired quickly, you know.”
“Ah, yes, yes, off we go,” the fae squints its eyes. “Ready?”
She, once again, has no time to respond before they are whisked away in a feeling she can only describe as being knocked upside down in a kaleidoscope.
—
When the ringing in her ears finally subsides, Tonia takes a gander at opening her eyes once more.
“Finally got your balance?” The fae asks, amused.
“Forgive me for not getting used to that on the second time.” Tonia snarks, grappling Teucer from running off. Anthon is, as always, hovering near. Old enough to be smart, but he’s fidgeting enough for Tonia to know that he has the urge to run off and wick off energy.
The fae, to her surprise, chuckles, its shoulders shaking up and down. Its wings twitch in unrestrained laughter, and even those lightless eyes squint into something fond.
“Don’t worry,” it says, after having recovered from its bout of amusement. “It was the same for my first few times too.”
It’s rather strange to think of this creature, with its fluid movements and ever-controlled demeanour of amusement, has ever experienced the absolute lack of autonomy the headache-inducing teleportation induces. Try as she might, picturing a bumbling fae child dizzying after it is impossible to match against the towering thing in front of her.
As she ambles through these thoughts, the fae leads them through the space they have teleported to. It’s a wide pavilion, jutting out the side of the great tree she had seen in the distance back at the treehouse. It’s bustling, a great city center, like when Mama had taken them for a vacation to the Capital, when they were small. Fae flit about, in their flowing robes, their wings glinting in the amber light glowing from various wooden lamps, lighting and washing the whole pavilion amongst the darkness of the night outside it. It’s all open-air, and so Tonia can see the night sky above them, a pale moon, full and round.
She can’t idle with her neck craned up at the sky too long, lest she be lost around even more fae, so turns herself back to catch up with the fae. Amongst its kind, it is easy to look over, with the shock of ginger hair that blends too easily with the rainbow of colours for hair that its compatriots have. Despite it towering over Tonia, it is surprisingly diminutive compared to other fae, a full head shorter than even the shortest she can pick out from the crowd.
“For someone who doesn’t like the fae,” it says, as Tonia runs to catch up to her siblings, after squinting for a while to locate it. “you sure look relaxed amongst them.”
Tonia makes a face. “I was admiring the scenery, not the fae.”
“Whatever you say,” it hums. “Just keep up.”
And it leads them up a winding set of stairs, curling around one of the branches of the great tree, the steps wide and broad, fanning out like…
“Wait,” Tonia says, without really thinking, “is this entire place just giant mushrooms?”
“Are you blind!” Anthon yells.
“Anthon!” Tonia reprimands. “That was rude.”
Anthon pulls a face. “You are blind.”
The more she looks, the more she realises, as heat rises to her cheeks in embarrassment, that the pavilion, these ‘steps’— are all simply large mushrooms, fanning out like wood-ear, except a strange bleached white.
They reach the top of the staircase without more of Anthon’s ‘fanfare’, thankfully.
“Here we are,” the fae murmurs, as they reach a pavilion with a giant chrysalis in the centre, just like the treehouse, except much, much bigger. Its iridescence is much more pronounced, and even in the weak moonlight a rippling rainbow is made evident as Tonia swivels her head back and forth.
“Now, don’t speak.” It shushes all of them. “Even you, little Teucer. Let me do the talking.”
“Why?” Teucer babbles.
“Shh,” it coos, brushing its spindly claws over a Teucer. Tonia is close to hissing at it, but not even a single nick appears over Teucer’s cheek. “Just trust me.”
Anthon seems close to rolling his eyes, but Tonia shakes her head and places her hand on his shoulder to stop him from speaking out. The gravity of the situation, the thickening of the tension in the air— Tonia will have to trust the lesser evil, this time, considering that the lesser evil’s wings are twitching considerably, and it is fiddling with its claws as it releases Teucer.
With that, the fae seems satisfied, and it brushes its claws over the chrysalis.
“This One wishes to be granted permission to enter Court,” it says gently.
“Granted,” a distorted voice sounds, from somewhere beneath the cocoon, and Tonia cannot describe just quite what happens next, but one moment they’re outside, and the next, the chrysalis has unfurled, and curled itself around them, until they’re firmly inside a large hall arrayed with ten stately fae, all circled around a singular one, splayed on a wide flower that hangs from the ceiling, its petals frosted over, the branches that extend from above similarly covered in ice. The fae upon the flower is pale, paler than the other fae Tonia has seen, almost translucent, ghost-like, and is covered from head to toe in silvery fabrics that spill far below its feet, glimmering like a thousand snowflakes in the night. Its long hair, white as bone, falls, long, interspersed with little braids. Its wings are large, as they emerge from behind its back, it is twice as large as the fae that brought Tonia there— Childe, she hastily recalls— yet, unlike the delicate gossamer, like a dragonfly’s wings, it is entirely frosted over, stiff and unmoving.
Childe bows deeply to the fae.
“Childe,” the fae murmurs, tracing its ice-blue eyes across Tonia, Anthon and Teucer, its spindly fingers tapping against the flower. “Well done. Take your place.”
Childe blinks once at them, as it gathers itself, and Tonia tugs her brothers to follow it as it takes its place amongst the circle of fae.
The fae upon the flower shifts itself, and draws itself upwards to lift its chin up.
“My Harbingers,” it addresses, the title sending shivers creeping down Tonia’s spine. “Welcome home. It is once more the full moon, and I expect that you have good tidings to bring me upon your endeavours.”
It tilts its head down, to affix its eyes to another fae, right at the front of the room. The tallest of the lot, perhaps, it is dressed entirely in layers of black, even its hair cascading down its back an inky abyssal darkness. Its wings are torn in places, and in others, dark patches rot their way down the delicate wings, black and festering. Its face is obscured entirely by its hair.
“Captain,” the leader— Tonia presumes, by now— whispers. It’s voice is like a hundred ringing chimes all at once. Discordant. Hauntingly beautiful. Nauseating. “What fares of the offer we have made to the Dragon Lands?”
“Naturally,” the ‘Captain’ replies, in a deep timbre that shakes the room, “Dragon Lord Mavuika conceded.”
“Good, good,” the leader narrows its eyes. “Now, what of the Balladeer? Doctor?”
“We have him cornered in the Genie’s Collective,” The Doctor, a fae with a leer to its expression and an unnatural sickly blue tint to its hair. “Lesser Genie Kusanali cannot protect him forever.”
“Fear not, my Queen,” the Doctor continues, bowing its head. “We shall have the traitor’s head for letting our dearest Fair Lady to fall at the hands of the vile Phoenix Shogun.”
“The Fair Lady miscalculated,” the leader sighs. “It was unavoidable.The Balladeer’s true betrayal lies in his theft of what was rightfully ours. Let us… move on. My dear Knave, what of The Weeping Seas?”
“The former mer have been saved of their fate,” the Knave murmurs, “and as gratitude for preventing them from dissolving into seafoam, they have conceded as well.”
“Good, good,” the Queen says. “The hour of our battle nears. Soon, we will liberate ourselves from the barriers that Celestia has placed on us. But for now… let us move on to the more obvious matter at hand.”
It shifts its gaze, once more, to Tonia, Anthon, and Teucer, despite her best attempts at keeping them close and their head down in this entire strange meeting.
“Childe,” the Queen says, “How momentous this occasion. Not one, but three. You surpass my expectations as always, my youngest.”
Childe bows deeply. “I live to serve, My Queen.”
Suddenly, the Queen, atop the flower, rises, and the flower spins a descent down, until the fae steps down delicately to stand amongst them all.
It moves closer to Childe, its skirts rustling against the floor.
“You have removed your inhibitions quickly,” the Queen murmurs, still loud enough for Tonia to here. “Good. You’re truly one of us now. I hereby formally grant you my blessing.”
From its fingers swirls forth a wind of frost and ice, and it whirls around Childe before settling on its shoulders, glowing a faint icy blue.
“Your last test is complete,” the Queen sighs out, a curl of frost condensing into the air from its breath. “Your probation period is over. You are now, officially, ordained a Harbinger of mine.”
Childe bows deeply again. “My thanks, Your Majesty. May your reign ever last.”
All this murmuring and whispering and cryptic conversation and formality is getting to Tonia. If there’s one thing she’s never liked, it is people hiding things from her. And so, for a moment, she forgets Childe’s warning from before they entered.
“Just what do you intend to do with us?” She asks hotly, glaring up at the fae.
The fae turns. It flicks its gaze up and down Tonia.
“Nothing a lowly human needs concern with,” it replies languidly. “Control your servants, Childe, you have their names.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Childe says hastily.
It turns towards Tonia, eyes deep and blue fixing upon her with a steely gaze. “Remember what I said, Tonia.”
She feels a rush through her veins, like ants marching their way up her fingers, or perhaps like vines wrapping around her throat, and as she attempts to retort, she finds that she cannot say a single word.
“Your Majesty,” Childe says, after a moment. “I mean not to question you, but as their guardian, I am confused, as well, what I am meant to utilise the humans for.”
“They’ll be useful in the future,” the Queen says, “for now. Keep them alive. There’s no use for a turning.”
“Very well, your Majesty.” Childe shuffles, gathering Tonia and her siblings closer.
The Queen steps back onto its flower, and the flower spins itself upward until she is high and lofty once more.
“My Harbingers,” it addresses, “you are dismissed.”
And with that, the world spins into a bursting cacophony of colour once again.
—
“What’s a turning?” Is the first question on Anthon’s lips as their bodies are spirited, reassembled, remerged, back into the shimmering treehouse once more.
“Anthon, I think there are more pressing matters at hand here!” Tonia pinches her forehead.
“We can’t do anything about them,” Anthon says with all the sage wisdom of a preteen. “So it doesn’t matter if I ask anything or not. I don’t think this fae here will let us go.”
Teucer is blissfully unaware as he preoccupies himself with playing with fae’s layers of deep blue robes. The fae does not seem to take offense.
“Well,” it replies, its ears twitching, “it’s a process where we turn humans into fae.”
“You can do that?” Tonia squints.
“It’s a rare occasion,” it hums, lifting Teucer off its robes and coaxing him back to Tonia’s side, where he happily latches on her hand. “But when a human shows great fortitude, they are turned. You don’t qualify in the Queen’s eyes, so you’re not going to be turned.”
“Do you know any turned?” Tonia cocks her head. “If it’s rare, I mean.”
It blinks. Once, twice. Shakes its wings, which Tonia has pegged as a nervous habit.
Its shoulders seem to sag down into a full body sigh.
“Yes,” it replies, “I do. Because I am one.”