Where Merrick would apparently never, ever go.
“Our mom hasn’t come to see us our whole lives,” Cassidy said. “Why would she now?”
“Because someone forced her to with a summoning stick, I was thinking.”
“Look, either she doesn’t know about Dad’s condition or she doesn’t care. I’m guessing the latter, since they seem pretty good at knowing what we’re doing.”
The fae, they meant, were good at monitoring humans. Eidolonia had been entirely fae territory until the early 1700s, when the curious fae decided to let a few ocean explorers ashore, one ship after another over the years: Europeans, Hawaiians, Asians, natives of the Americas. To those humans who had consented to behave in a cooperative fashion rather than attempting conquest, the fae had extended an invitation to live on the island.
When it became clear that living on Eidolonia awakened witch powers in about half of humans too, magical innovation became another perk: for humans to experiment with and for fae to watch in amusement. But few humans ever doubted that the fae were in charge on this island.
“So where are we now?” Cassidy said. “One more offense and you’re in jail.”
“Yep.”
“You have to stop pulling crap like this. We can’t change what’s happening to Dad. He doesn’t even mind. He says it’s worth it, to have produced us.”
“He says that, but he also wants to have adventures, invent things, go places, and now he’s getting so frail he can’t, and … ” Merrick abandoned the diatribe. Cassidy knew all this.
They shot a glance at him, their eyes the same near-black as their father’s, though enhanced with a perfect double layer of blue and black eyeliner.
“What good would it do him to have his son in prison?” Cassidy asked. “Or Elemi, have you thought about how upset it would make her to have her uncle locked up?”
“Of course I’ve thought of it.”
“I’m not sure you have. You think you should get to do whatever the hell you want. Experiment with magic, sneak around, break laws, who cares; those laws weren’t in place for a good reason or anything.”
“Some of them aren’t,” he pointed out. “Especially with the current administration.”
“Well. True.” Cassidy squinted out across the hillside. “I know it’s been a tough year.”
“Two of my best friends moved away. I broke up with Feng. Who got into the Researchers Guild when I didn’t. And Riquelme got elected. Yeah, tough year.”
“You can try again for the Researchers. Then you’d get to experiment with magic if they accept you.”
“If. I don’t have those perfect test scores or that immaculately responsible record. Especially now.”
“Well, is it so awful being an awesome uncle—better than her dad who never wants to see her—”
“Asshole,” Merrick put in, which was all the conversation Cassidy’s ex merited.
“Exactly. An awesome uncle and an actually not too bad perfumer—isn’t it a good life?”
He tried to smile. It felt halfhearted. “I love Elemi, you know that. And perfume. Even though … sometimes it feels like perfumery is your vocation and I just tagged along because it was easy.”
“Excuse me. Perfumery is not easy. Very few have the nose or the interest for it. You do in fact have talent, idiot.”
“You just know it’d cost too much to hire someone with real skill. I’m cheap labor.”
“Obviously. So come to the lab and help us bottle up the festival scents.” Cassidy stepped back from the parapet. “Oh, meant to tell you—lightning hit that old cedar in the east garden last night. Pretty sure it’s a goner.”
“The one with the gargoyle under it?”
“Yeah. That might’ve taken a hit too. I had to get Elemi to school. Didn’t have time to haul branches around and look.”
Lightning. Which had flared up right after he’d activated the summoning stick.
Merrick’s gaze moved to the east garden below. “I’ll check it out.”
Merrick tromped through the garden, past statues, trellises, trees, and overgrown hedges. Rosamund Highvalley, the sister of their many-times-great-grandfather, had designed the gardens as well as Highvalley House. Rosamund’s father had been a Welsh mapmaker aboard one of the first ships, his name changed to “Highvalley” when his shipmates deemed his Welsh name unpronounceable; it had referenced a valley among the mountains of northern Wales. Her mother was an indigenous South American healer who had joined the voyage when the ship docked in her town for a few days. During those first disordered years of settlement on Eidolonia, the pair negotiated a few impressive land-acquisition deals with the fae and thus became rich by island standards. Their ambition manifested several times stronger in their daughter, who was born with the most astonishing set of magical powers Eidolonia had ever known in a human, especially remarkable in someone with no fae blood at all.
Magical trinkets, accordingly, were still scattered all over her property. Cassidy and Merrick, along with previous Highvalleys, had turned over several such items to the Researchers Guild, since magic use was far more restricted these days than it had been in the eighteenth century. But some pieces, like the summoning stick, went unnoticed for years among the clutter.
Merrick swatted a drooping willow branch out of his way, knocking raindrops onto his head. Though he generally didn’t admit it out loud, he envied Rosamund Highvalley. In her day, witches wreaked all kinds of havoc, true, but at least they got to use their powers. Merrick was only allowed to fly during formal magical instruction, or if hired for the purpose by a licensed employer—often a governmental agency, such as rescuers who helped pluck people off sea-cliffs when they got careless in their rock climbing.
Flying took so much energy that he could only do it for about twenty minutes at a time, a couple of times a day at most. He flew anyway, every chance he got, because next to sex it was the most thrilling activity he had ever experienced.
Thanks to his thrill-seeking, he now stood one strike away from being jailed.
He shivered and cast his glance ahead to the lightning-blasted cedar.
Splintered green boughs lay all over the path, their ends blackened. With his foot he shoved at a low branch, which ripped free, releasing a burst of raw cedar scent. New perfume idea: Tree Killed by Lightning. Notes of Pacific island cedar, petrichor, moss, and smoke. Sounded pretty good. He’d run it by Cassidy later.
The gargoyle-like statue that squatted beneath the tree had sustained a deep vertical crack. He grabbed one of its stone wings and jiggled it. The statue broke in half, tumbling out of his hand, and he winced in regret.
Then he noticed its interior was hollow, and something was inside. Something about the size and shape of a shoebox.
After staring mesmerized for a moment, he pulled it loose, out into the daylight for the first time since … when?
The box was wrapped in a thick cloth—he guessed it was what they used to call oilcloth—with a pattern of strawberries and leaves, faded and grimy. He unwrapped it and dropped the cloth with a twitch when several root-beetles and centipedes came squirming out of its folds. The plain metal box seemed intact beneath the cloth, its lid tightly fitted.