frozen custard, joos burgers, packs and friendships.

Rafael

Fuck him, man.

Wolf agrees. He's just too tired to say it. Except tired isn't quite the word. Drained isn't, either. Just ... flattened, somehow. Crushed down by the sudden greyness of the world; unmoored by the sudden lack of -- well. Enchantment. Sheer magic weaving through the air.

Hard to imagine living like this, for a moment. Hard to imagine never existing in that sort of hypersaturated wonderland again. Hard to imagine a world without -- what was it they called it? Glamour.

Understands, for a moment, why they're so desperate to survive.

--

In the car they just sit a while. Somehow it's night, or perhaps only seems like night. He's not sure. They're on a little peninsula of land, so bland, extending into a lake, so plain. He turns the engine over, puts his hand on the back of Kenneth's seat to back up.

"Let's go back to the hotel," he says.

Devon

Overhead, the sun still shines. They had breakfast, and drove, and it was just around noon when they got to Random Lake. It's later than it should be, though, given the time he recollects spending at Court, but that's not terribly surprising, given everything else. Still: the sun is up, and likely will be for some time.

It takes time for that to register, though. The world just seems dim, for a while, as he drives.

In the backseat, Julie stares out the window, watching the Wisconsin summer roll by outside.

"It's pretty," she says after a while, but not... sadly. Not poignantly. Just appreciatively. And it is: the perky blue of the sky, the trees lush with sun and rain, the thick clouds that should threaten rain but don't, like they don't want to be that intimidating.

A while later, on the drive:

"Tell me a story, Kenneth," she says, like a kid, leaning up a bit.

"About what?" says the Theurge, still sounding... flat. Tired. Maybe a little annoyed.

Julie thinks. "I don't know. Rafael, what sort of stories did you like when you were a kid?"

She pesters him until he comes up with one. With something. Anything.

"Tell me a story about that," she urges Kenneth. "I'll even start. Once upon a time, there was a..."

And Kenneth is silent for a while, and Julie waits, and then he finally throws something out. Nothing more than: "Physicist."

Julie beams. "....who lived in a... um... treehouse!" she concludes, happily. "And then ONE DAY..."

This time, Kenneth can't help her. He fumbles. He looks strained. Julie helps him out:

"ONE DAY, there was a knock at the door! It was..."

Kenneth manages something. He looks askance at Rafael as he feeds into Julie's attempt at a story. "It was a fox faerie," he says, dry as can be.

Behind them both, the redhaired girl who is not a girl grins. "What did she want!" she asks, rapt.

"I didn't say it was a she," Kenneth tells her. "...But it was," he also admits. "And she wanted... directions."

"WHERE?" Julie demands, on the edge of her seat.

"To the circus," Kenneth laughs.

"That's stupid," Julie informs him. "Why would a fox faerie go to the circus?"

"It's not stupid. She needed to go to the circus to... um... sell..."

"...a magic..."

"Compass," Kenneth finishes, after a glance at the GPS.

And so it goes. Julie is elated by every addition to the story, even though she argues with Kenneth, prods him with questions, forces him to figure out a way to make sense of what he's already told her. Here and there, one or both of them try to get Rafael involved: Kenneth looks at him when he's searching for something to do next, or Julie wants him to supply a detail like the color of the magician's purse that the fox faerie in the story stole, because it matters, okay.

Somewhere along the drive, or during the story, it becomes clearer that it's still daytime. Julie is bouncing on the backseat in joy every time Kenneth tells her another twist in the story. Kenneth has visibly brightened. He laughs. His voice actually raises with excitement because he has to compete with Julie a couple of times to get his part of the story out before she throws him another curveball.

And if Rafael joins in, adding pieces to the story of the physicist and the fox faerie who went to the circus and the evil magician chasing them, he notices some of the haze lifting from his own mind. Every time he adds something to the tale, something else enters his mind: he thinks of stopping on the way back to the hotel to get some frozen custard because he thinks Devon might like it. He thinks of what route they should take back to Denver when they go home, so they can stop and see something cool on the way.

By the time the physicist and the fox faerie in the story are about to face down the magician, he finds his mind active, thinking up new strategies to try out with Avery and Morgan next time they go hunting, and a klaive idea he wants to doodle just because, and also a way that the physicist and fox faerie might be able to beat the magician.

But before he can get that particular idea out to add to the story, they are at the hotel, and Kenneth actually looks momentarily disappointed that they can't finish. But he seems better. Even Rafael feels better, even if he was more or less silent the entire way out.

Julie has a high color in her cheeks, but not the blissed-out look that Conrad had.

It's different, what she just did with them, nudging them along a creative path -- no matter how absurd or childish -- than what Conrad was doing with the witches.

If he checks his phone, he has the earlier message with Devon giving him the finger out of jealousy that he got to hang out in a faerie court. A more recent one, asking him if everything was okay.

Rafael

Wolf just drives, when the story starts. Barely even paying attention. Mind's still full of fast-fading illusions. Meteors and galaxies were gone, but he can still remember that black, that limitless black. Kenneth's talking about a physicist and fox-girl puts him in a treehouse and someone knocks on the door and --

it's a fox faerie. For the first time this pings across wolf's attention, makes him utter a short dry laugh. And the story unfolds, and the drive goes on, and they keep trying to pull him in and finally he caves in, mutters a tiny little detail,

blue,

when they want to know the color of the magician's eyes.

They stop for frozen custard. It takes them a good ten miles out of their way, and to a slightly sketchy part of town, but Kenneth is insistent this is the best, the very best. He eats two scoops of butter pecan out of a dinky little plastic cup sitting on the hood of his girlfriend's car in front of a run-down 50s-style drive-in without so much as a single stool outside to sit on. None of this is how you would expect to enjoy the world's best ice cream. But it is the world's best, and it's fucking amazing, and he has an entire half-gallon wrapped in a freezer bag to take back to his girlfriend, her friend. The rest of them. Plus, about a dozen tiny joos burgers, which are what they call sloppy joes.

There's a message on his phone. Two, actually. First one makes him laugh. Second one makes him think.

Yeah, he writes back. I think so.

A second text follows:

Coming back soon. Bringing ice cream + sloppyjoes. You two ok?

Devon

The ice cream helps, too. The three of them, having something sweet together in this place, this wonky place that doesn't seem like it should exist but it does and it's so good. It brings some of the light back.

And then they're at the hotel. They're parking the car, piling out, carrying burgers and ice cream upstairs, Rafael texting his girlfriend in the lobby. Gets an answer back in the elevator.

Went sunbathing by the pool for a while. Napped. Went for a walk. It helped.

Another text, as he's in the hall:

When will you be back??? Miss you. 😿

Rafael

Maybe it's the moments spent in a fae court deep in the woods. Maybe it was that ridiculous story they told each other on the way back. Maybe it was the ice cream.

He stops in the hall. Texts back:

Why don't you open the door

Devon

No answer to that text, but there wouldn't be. A few moments later, the door down the hall to his and Devon's hotel room opens up, and her dark-haired head pokes out. She is looking toward the elevator, so she sees him, and she grins.

Flicks the narrow U-shaped lock out so that it catches against the door, keeping it from closing and locking, and then bounds out of the room. She's in normal clothes again, rather than a bathrobe: a pair of little denim shorts, torn and shredded. A thrifted orange t-shirt with some faded design on it. She's barefoot, but with freshly painted toenails. And fingernails, it turns out, and he discovers, as she hops up and hugs him, lean arms around his neck.

Rafael

Easily he catches her, thick arms around her thin body. For a moment he holds her aloft, kissing her where her neck meets her shoulder; nothing inappropriate, but still unmistakably intimate.

Then, aware of their guests, he sets her down. Hands her the bag with the half-gallon of butter pecan frozen custard in it. Holds onto the bag of joos burgers, his free arm around her shoulders.

"Let's go in," he says. "Tell you what happened. Then we should talk about what's next."

Devon

Kenneth and Julie don't seem to mind. Kenneth seems pleased to see Devon running down hallways and hugging her boyfriend. After all, she's his kin. After all, he's only see Devon either A) floating and unconscious or B) curled up in a bathrobe looking exhausted and sad.

Devon's bare toes touch the carpet again. She is handed a freezer bag, which she is confused by. Down the hall there's Ursula, also freshly mani-pedi'd, peeking out at them. She frowns a little when she sees Julie, but holds the door for everyone as they tromp back in.

The room is clean this time - no wet towels or bathrobes anywhere. Trash has been emptied, towels refreshed, beds made. There's the faint smell of nail enamel and acetone lingering, but the windows are cracked open and the still-summery air breezes through the room, whisking other scents away.

Rafael

Wolf nods to Ursula as he sees her. Hands her that bag of burgers, like some sort of consolation prize for all her suffering. Ushers her in ahead of him, with Kenneth and Julie behind.

They close the door. Crack open some beers or sodas; unwrap some joos burgers. Custard's frozen pretty solid even after the car ride so they leave it out to soften a little. Find seats on beds and armchairs and ottomans, whatever there is.

Wolf starts telling the story. Maybe Kenneth fills in a detail here, maybe Julie corrects another there. Everything that happened. Everything he can remember, anyway. Everything he saw and experienced and felt. Boils down to something simple in the end:

Queen of Thistles will deal with this now. Her house, her rules.

Few beats go by when he's done. Then he remembers: takes those little biscuits out of his pocket and holds them out to the witches, hesitantly.

"Said these will restore you." Shrugs. "I believe her."

Devon

It's a somewhat awkward grouping: Devon has known Ursula online for weeks, and then spent an almost unbroken day and a half with her, more or less to themselves, both shabby and irritable and exhausted. Rafael knows Ursula hardly at all, nor she him. Kenneth is at ease with Rafael and more or less comfortable with Julie, but uncertain about Ursula and not entirely sure where the line between 'friendly' and 'triggering Ahroun boyfriend psycho mode' is where Devon is concerned. Neither Ursula nor Devon are at all sure about Julie, and it shows; the ever-shifting undercurrent of female camaraderie and distrust flows through the room as soon as all five of them are inside together.

They have to go back a ways in the retelling: Ursula and Devon don't remember much from Conrad's house, and this is where Julie fills in a lot of blanks: how Conrad found them at the magic shop, and how they got to his house, and how they were enchanted. It's hard to parse out what is and isn't true, but Kenneth helps; he seems to have a knack for sorting out Julie's compulsive lies, which he also tries to explain to the witches.

And then it's everything today, and the story is sparse and plain, the way someone like Rafael would tell it. Julie keeps interrupting to spice things up, and sometimes it isn't true, and Rafael tells her that's not what happened and she looks sad that the reality wasn't more interesting,

despite the reality involving a dancing hookah and a faerie queen.

They do eventually get the story out. Ursula and Devon are, at turns, amazed, envious, worried, and angry. Not at the wolves. At Conrad. At what was done to them. At how little the faeries seem to care. Kenneth eats quite a bit... as he does. Though his other forms make it plain what tribe he truly comes from, he certainly got his appetite from the Bone Gnawers.

In the end, he takes out the lace handkerchief with the flowers, the flaky fruit-filled pastries inside. Only it's not a lace handkerchief, it's a paper party napkin from Target that has a smug-looking unicorn on it. And the pastries inside are blueberry-flavored mini muffins, the sort you might buy in a white paper box next to the Twinkies.

They have the greasy, overly sweet look of all such pastries, nothing at all like the buttery biscuits he thought he was picking up. Julie sees his face though, and chimes in: "They'll still work," she insists, even though a tiny rash appears on one of her knuckles even as the earnest, hopeful words are getting out. She can imagine what he thinks. She can imagine the lie he thinks he was sold. "You just... can't see... their real essence, anymore."

Maybe he still believes her.

Ursula exhales, somewhat suddenly. She stands up. "I need... a minute," she says, and walks out of the room. Devon looks like she wants to go after her, but hangs back. A few seconds later, it's Julie who rises to her feet. Asks Rafael quietly for one of the muffins to take to the other witch. And after that, whatever happens between Ursula and Julie is between Ursula and Julie.

Devon, unless Rafael has pulled back, goes ahead and takes one of the muffins. She looks at it, thoughtful, then sniffs it. Takes a furtive bite. It doesn't taste like anything special; he can tell that from her face. But she eats it anyway. Small bites, even though a single one of them could be taken in a chomp.

"What do you think she'll do?" she asks, eventually. "The... Queen."

Rafael

He does still believe Julie. Not only because of the rash on her knuckles, but because he remembers. Remembers that moment in the woods when the magic flagged. Remembers what he saw then -- what lay beneath those beautiful, terrible, fantastical faces and forms. He thinks he gets it, sort of. Must be something like himself, half spirit, half flesh, only their two worlds don't exist parallel to one another. Their two worlds overlap and superimpose, and the magic is so much more fragile for it.

He gives Julie the other muffin. Then it's just wolves and their kin here, Falcon's and Stag's. Girl eats her little muffin. Wolf eats ... another joos burger.

Looks up when she speaks. Brow furrows. In the end he shrugs.

"Don't know," he says. "Actually hope she can help him. Isn't that weird? But think he might be too far gone. And if he is, don't think she's the merciful sort. Honorable enough. But not merciful."

Devon

He admits that he hopes the Queen can help Conrad, and the faintest of smiles tugs at the corner of Devon's mouth. She hopes that, too. Shakes her head, when Rafael asks if that's weird.

Winces, when he adds that he thinks Conrad may be too far gone. Takes another little bite of her muffin.

"I think she can help him," Devon says, a moment later. There's a spark of light in her eyes that hasn't been there since he brought her back from the gingerbread house where the wayward knight lives. Maybe the little muffin really is helping. "I think being with his kind again will help. Having a community again. That's what desperate people need."

Kenneth is eating burgers, too. He's got some sauce on his chin when he nods. Looks to Rafael. "Think so, too. They sound... old. Maybe he was better once. For a long time. I don't think he wanted to hurt anyone. Doesn't mean he didn't," he adds quickly, as though to forestall another darkening of Rafael's brow. "But I think... you going to the Queen and telling her about him, and asking her to do something... I think it'll help. Even if it takes a long time." He shrugs.

Rafael

"Yeah?" Wolf considers the possibility. Who knew Fianna were such optimists. Who knew optimism was contagious. He wads up his burger wrapper and tosses it in the trash. "Hope so.

"What's your plan with Ursula?" he asks then. "Wanna stick around a few more days, make sure she's okay? If she needs to move away or something, even move to Denver, I'll help out."

Devon

In the end, the two Fianna both just nod.

But also in the end: all any of them can do is hope.

Devon smiles at Rafael, one of her tight, pursed-lipped little private smiles, when he mentions helping Ursula. "We didn't talk too much about it," she says, which means they did, in fact, talk about it. "I'd like her to come with us. Or move out there after she gets stuff wrapped up here. Whatever she needs. I'll talk to her again about it, but... I think it'd be good for her, to get out of here. And it'd be nice to have her close."

Kenneth is watching this, despite having sauce on his face and an appetite that won't ever quit. And after he swallows his next bite, he clears his throat and says: "Um... can I talk to you, Rafael? Maybe privately?"

Devon's eyebrows go up. She glances at Rafael, and nods at the door. "I should go check on Ursula. Make sure... she and Julie are... "

Never finishes that sentence. She gets up, half-eaten mini muffin in hand, and leans over, kissing Rafael on the cheek. "I'll be right back."

Rafael

Wolf's got a rare smile, but they see it now, quick and genuine. "Good," he says. "Glad. Be good for both of you, I think."

Tilts his head into that kiss on the cheek. Wraps an arm around her while she does it -- around her hips, because he's sitting and she's standing. Then she's heading out, and he's turning his attention to Kenneth.

"What's on your mind?"

Devon

The door latches closed behind her, and Kenneth is wiping his face off with a napkin because he finally realized he has a bunch of sloppy joe sauce on his slightly prickly chin, and he takes a swig of beer before he answers.

"Well... I was sort of wondering... been wondering since... maybe since we got to Random Lake... "

He stops and starts over. "But you know how when we were in the woods, it felt weird? I felt like I was going to tear something in half. Like it was a full moon and I'd just gotten into a fight. You felt that too, right?"

Rafael indicates he did, or doesn't, or stares blankly at Kenneth, or whatever he does.

"So I felt really feral, you know? And close to my... nature, and stuff. And with you, it sort of felt... like packs are supposed to feel. Like not temporary packs, but like. Packs. Who are bound and everything."

He winces. "I sound like a complete loser idiot, don't I?"

Rafael

"You don't."

So there's that, at least. Wolf says it quietly, but firmly. Like he has a paw on the words, pressing them in.

"Felt it too. Was good running with you today. Was going to ask you if you had a pack. And if you didn't, was going to ask if you thought your mom would want to move."

Devon

Just like that, most if not all of Kenneth's anxiety about what a pathetic loser he must seem to be gets squished under that firm -- if imaginary -- paw. He visibly lets go a breath.

He huffs a laugh, then. "I don't," he says, but it's to the first question that Rafael was going to ask: "Have a pack, I mean. And... I do. Not with my mom, just..."

Kenneth grimaces a little. "Love my mom," he explains. "And she'd never say it, but I know me living with her in that tiny trailer, supporting me... it's not ideal. For either of us.

"I sort of want to... come with you, if it's okay. And maybe talk to your alpha about... joining you. I only talked to her for a few minutes on the phone, but she seemed... nice. And smart. And you follow her, so... I thought maybe we could ask."

His smile is hopeful, but not quite as worried. "You'd be cool with that?"

Rafael

"Course I'm cool with it," wolf says. "But you should ask your mom if she wants to come along anyway. You don't have to live with her. Pretty sure we can find you somewhere else to live. But Avery's mom is dead, and she misses her. My mom's dead, and I never even knew her. Devon's mom is alive but on the other side of the world. She misses her too. You're still a kid. If you've got a mom and can see her on the weekends, that's something to hold on to."

Shrugs.

"Just my opinion. Anyway. Should we see if that fox faerie wants to come along too? For the hell of it?"

Devon

Kenneth blinks when he hears what Rafael says: Avery's mother. His mother. Devon's mother. He doesn't say anything. He just nods; it's all he can do at the moment to indicate that he understands, he's heard, he'll talk to her.

Then his eyes blow open. "For real? You think she would?" Which isn't an answer. "Of course I think we should. Even if she can't, you know. Be bound to a totem spirit or whatever. She's --" he is about to run off a litany of all the nice things he thinks Julie is. Sweet. Kind-hearted. Funny. Creative. Silly. Gorgeous. Smart. Badass. Deserves better. But he stops himself. Says: "-- great." instead.

Rafael

This time it's a grin, crooked and muted. "Don't know if she will," he says, "but we can ask." He finishes his beer too -- tosses the can in the trash. "You should. She likes you more anyway, friend to the fae by ancient oath and all that."

Gets up. Apparently he means now. "I'll listen," he adds, helpfully.

Devon

If he were a few years younger, maybe just past being granted his name rather than a couple of years on, Kenneth would probably be blushing to hear that Julie likes him more. He doesn't, now. He just looks pleased. But then, that's about all of it: that Ursula will get out of this town where the fae know her, where she was lied to and used for months, and that the two witches will get to stay together. That he can get out of his mom's trailer and start living his own life, that he might be finding a pack, that he'll get to see more of the world than the white trash outskirts of Milwaukee. That they can ask Julie to come, too.

He is, however, surprised that Rafael-means-now. He swigs his beer and hops up to follow.

--

So in a few moments, they're all in the other hotel room that is being charged another day on Rafael's platinum cards. They knock and are let in by Devon, who gives them both a slight warning look. That is because sitting on one of the beds, Ursula is hugging Julie, who looks like she's been crying, who has a bright red rash all over her neck. The blonde witch is rubbing the fox faerie's back, rocking her like a child and murmuring to her.

Apparently she's not mad at Julie anymore.

When things have calmed down and Julie has wiped her eyes to hear what Kenneth wants to ask her, Kenneth rather awkwardly tells her that he thinks she should come to Denver. He means, he's going to go and he wanted to see if she wanted to go with him. Um, he means, does she want to just go, because he's going to go and he thinks they made a good pack even though she's not a wolf and suddenly his eyes are widening when he remembers that Ursula isn't kin, but Ursula seems unconcerned,

which makes Devon ask her why she's so calm, which is when they all learn that Ursula figured it out, it's the only thing that made sense.

Julie promptly begins to act shocked and angrily accuses Kenneth and Rafael of lying to her this whole time, pretending to be humans, how dare they.

They never really get a clear answer out of her. Not yet. She'll be on trial tomorrow, she reminds them, which means that Conrad will be on trial, and she has to offer testimony to the tribunal.

--

The conversation in the second room is confusing, made slightly moreso by figuring out what Ursula does and doesn't know and what she can be trusted with, and by sifting through Julie's lies, and by Kenneth stumbling over his words whenever the redhead is concerned. But they do get somewhere, eventually: Ursula indicating that she'd like to come 'visit' at some point soon, which makes Devon catch Rafael's gaze and smile at him, eyes a-twinkle. Julie explaining, in her way, that she has to see what happens tomorrow before anything else, but that's no more a no than it is a yes. And Kenneth, finally, standing up and saying:

"I... should get back, to my mom. She knows I'm okay, and everything, but... obviously we need to talk. And maybe pack."

Rafael

Not everything's settled. Some things -- many -- are still up in the air. But there's a scaffold taking shape. Wolf has some idea of where things are going.

Ursula's coming for a 'visit'. He hopes it'll be something more than that. Girl seems to think so. Kenneth needs to talk to his mom. And maybe pack. Hopefully pack. Julie needs to attend a trial. Seems the Queen of Thistle's court will actually be a court, he thinks, but doesn't say anything. They're talking about serious things. They're talking about a member of a dying race, even if he's done terrible things.

"Do what you have to," he says. It's for Kenneth and Julie both. "You know how to get ahold of us. We'll be here tomorrow. Just let us know."

Devon

Ursula decides to get up, too, joining Kenneth and Ursula. "I should go, too. Check on my mail and everything. But... " this, more to Devon, "I'll be in touch really soon, okay?"

Devon nods. "Yeah."

They see the trio off. Devon tells Rafael she'll let the front desk know that the second room is checked out. They're back in their room, and she's finally digging into the butter pecan, when there is a knock at the door.

It's Kenneth, standing with Ursula and Julie.

"So..." he says, "none of us actually... have a car."

the queen of thistles.

wolf

Julie gets the front seat this time, but only because she's navigating. Well, and possibly because Kenneth is chivalrous. No stone on a string to follow this time. Just a fox-faerie's instructions. City like Milwaukee, where winters are long and brutal and summers too short, there's a lot of construction in those few warm months. Sooner or later they have to go through a construction zone, traffic backing up, orange cones closing off lanes. Still doesn't take them too long to get through though. It's a small city. Just not a lot of traffic here.

Open roads again soon enough. Wolf cruises with wrist over wheel, satellite radio turned down low. As they get closer he asks, "What should I know about meeting this queen of yours? Am I supposed to curtsy?"

The Queen of Thistles

The good news is that they've passed the part of the morning when drivers are out in force.

The bad news is that when Julie starts giving directions, somewhere in the mishmash of her words it becomes clear that they have a bit of a drive ahead of them. It's not terrible, but with traffic it will take about an hour.

The slightly annoying news is that it takes them a good fifteen minutes for Julie to be able to give them enough instructions for them to figure out where they are headed, and it's something of a game of Who's On First.

They are going to a place called Random Lake. This alone provides several minutes of Julie not making sense until it is revealed that Julie is making perfect sense, it's Kenneth and Rafael who are stubbornly refusing to understand her. Or something.

On the road, they also learn that Random Lake is certainly not where the Queen of Thistles usually resides, but that given the circumstances she is graciously agreeing to meet them there.

So they're on their way. Kenneth is, according to him, doing research, which may mean he's texting with Ursula or may mean he really is trying to learn more about the fair folk from his elders or whomever back at the sept.

Rafael asks Julie if he should curtsy.

"Well," Julie muses, "she has been a Queen for somewhere between several years and several centuries, and she's quite proud, and I don't think she's ever had anyone killed for making fun of her.

"She's extraordinarily beautiful," Julie says sharply, "and some plebs can't handle her flava."

"I think that means you should be respectful and careful," Kenneth chimes in from the back seat. "I'm not going to bow because I'm not one of her subjects, but I'm going to make up for it by being somewhat deferential while in her... territory."

"Court," corrects Julie.

"Court," echoes Kenneth. "Territory," he mutters, more to Rafael's ears.

"He's a terrible liar, you know," Julie says, of Kenneth. "You really aren't her subjects, and she knows that, so if you let her or her courtiers walk all over you, then she won't respect you, either."

"But if you lose your temper, we won't convince her to do something about Conrad, and we might be surrounded by faeries with silver swords."

Julie perks up. "And arrows and daggers and spears. Maybe a trident."

Hard to tell, there, which part is the lie.

wolf

Court.

"Court?" He's thinking Judge Judy.

Court. Territory.

"Oh."

And there's talk of silver swords and arrows and daggers and spears and a trident and he is not amused, but then he smirks.

"Can't I just yell I don't believe in fairies, then refuse to clap my hands?"

The Queen of Thistles

There's no snappy rejoinder from Julie this time. Nor even a breezy lie covering a painful truth, or an emotional lie distracting from an unimportant detail. Nor anything at all.

She glances at him. And then she looks out the window.

wolf

EMPAFEE VIA GOOGUL:
7, 5, 9, 7, 3

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

The Queen of Thistles

[Well, Julie is peeved, most obviously. She's not huffing and pursing her lips or anything, but she is trying to control her anger because, well, she's in a car with two wolves. There's also frustration: she is trying to help them, and she does have quite a bit at stake if it doesn't go well. But beneath that is a bit of a flinch; a bit like the way she might respond if his joke were actually about something terrible that really happened to her/her people, and not just a silly reference.]

wolf

Silence stretches on. Gets awkward. Kenneth doesn't help, though wolf flicks a glance into the rearview mirror.

Then, quietly: "Look. Appreciate that you're helping us out. Won't do anything stupid. And if I do, won't let it fly back in your face. Okay?"

The Queen of Thistles

Kenneth is useless; he just shrugs at Rafael when he catches his glance with the benign cluelessness of so many of his age.

So the silence is awkward, and goes on for a while, and then Rafael promises he won't do anything dumb. Perhaps more than that, he says he'll protect her. No, not in so many words, but it's what he means. More or less.

Julie turns her head to look at him. She shrugs, and then she nods, and then she wrinkles her nose, and grimaces, and then she reaches up to scratch the tip of her nose like it itches horribly.

"Okay," she says, however, quietly.

wolf

Wolf glances over. Seals that promise just as quietly: with a look, a momentary meeting of eyes.

Then he sets his attention back on the road. They cruise. They get closer to this Random Lake, which he still can't quite believe is the name of the place. They've left the city behind; traffic is sparse, and the lake, occasionally glimpsed to their right, is a bright saltless blue.

Halfway to Sheboygan they leave the highway. Broad country highway now, both sides tree-lined, lush with the tail end of summer. Wealthy northshore exurbs turn into farmlands, prairies and marsh. Eventually foxgirl proves to be not (completely) a liar and the signs for Random Lake show up.

"Huh," wolf mutters. "Really called that."

The Queen of Thistles

At Random Lake, most of the houses are in fact close to the shore of the little lake. Julie stirs when they get there, directing Rafael to a spit of land that sticks out in the middle, pointing south.

"Hope everyone's up for a little hike," she says, since the road doesn't go that far. It's not even a park; no trails go into the thick trees and brush. No pathways traverse the narrow spike of earth. So they park somewhere against a curb, heading across a ditch, towards the hilt of the dagger-shaped stretch of land.

Julie pauses when they get to the edge of the trees themselves, the base of the hilly ground. The day is bright and just barely beginning to crest into afternoon, but somehow the sun overhead doesn't quite pierce through all the greenery. She looks at Rafael, then at Kenneth, then at Rafael.

"Neither eat nor drink, unless you wish to. Neither dance nor sing, unless you wish to. Enter no contest of will or wit, unless you wish to. If you become lost, speak kindly to an animal or a tree or the water or any old woman. If you find treasure, leave it where it lies. Remember that everything lies, but no person can."

She seems quiet serious.

And then breaks into a grin, runs into the woods, shouting "CANNONBAAAAAAALLLL!" as she tears off her shirt and starts pulling at her pants, too.

wolf

"What?" says wolf.

CANNONBAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!, yells fox. And she's off. And wolf stares after her, disgruntled, then looking rapidly away as she starts tearing items of clothing off.

Takes a moment to tap out a text to witch:

Going to a fairy court. Might be a while. Don't worry.

Then he puts the phone in his pocket. Looks at Kenneth. Shrugs. Drops down on four paws, swift and stark-white, and lopes after the fox-girl.

The Queen of Thistles

Kenneth stares. Kenneth blinks, then starts running into the woods too, hopping over hurdles. He seems content to run in homid for a minute, and he can't help but laugh as he sees a flash of red fur, a white-tipped tail, up head. He laughs again when a streak of brilliant white dashes past him, and lets out a whoop.

Suddenly he's in lupus, catching up to Rafael with the sure-footed agility of a born runner. He might be a mix of two tribes, but in this form he is clearly and completely Fianna, every grey strand shot through with red, his eyes a glowing, green-casted gold. He lolls his tongue happily.

Julie is playing with them. Runs ahead and vanishes, only to pop up behind them like nothing happened. She leaps off of the trunks of trees, narrowly missing landing on one of their backs. She's so much smaller than the two of them, but for a fox she's quite large, quite strong. She yips, and she barks, and the deeper the go and the darker it gets, the more otherworldly those fox-shrieks become.

After a while, though -- and really, the spit of land is small enough that their free run doesn't last nearly long enough -- she slows to a lope, her black-furred legs turning silent, her delicate paws becoming stealthy in a way that would make a Ragabash envious.

(Later on, Rafael will check his phone and see a picture of his girlfriend in his messages, giving him the finger, with a message telling him: Not worried. JEALOUS. Be polite. but right now he doesn't know that, she hasn't taken that picture, that phone melted into his skin along with all the rest of his clothes and belongings. But he'll get it later.)

Julie is treading carefully now. Kenneth noticed and slowed, too; he keeps an almost pack formation with the other two, even though one of them isn't a wolf; a triangle of sorts, with the scout up ahead, flanked by healer and tank. He chuffs to himself; it's a nice sort of thought, because he likes Rafael and he sort of likes Julie, too. But at the same time, she isn't a wolf. When he flicks his ears at Rafael and swishes his tail, Rafael will understand what he's saying in a way Julie can't:

he thinks this is weird, but sort of fun, and he's glad he's with here with Rafael, and he's glad Rafael called, and he hopes this goes well, and if Rafael needs anything, all he has to do is let Kenneth know.

The woods now seem deeper than is possible. Logically Rafael knows the land is narrow and the lake is near, but he cannot hear the water. He cannot hear the town, or a plane overhead. He can smell the water, but it seems far underground, a spring or stream flowing through rocks and not over them. There are crickets who think it is night; there are cicadas who think it is day. A bird trills, and another answers in short, hollow-sounding whoops. Leaves rustle as rabbits and snakes alike seem to burrow and hunt. He cannot see the sun but there is, all the same, sunlight. He cannot see the moon but there is, nonetheless, the sense that she is there, filling his blood with the thing that makes him what he is.

Only a glance at Kenneth tells Rafael that he feels it, too. Rage, as much as the dimness, is blowing out the Theurge's pupils. The Fiannalicks his maw; there is less of a boyish loll to it now, and more a hunter's hunger.

But it is not so overpowering yet that when he looks at the fox ahead of them, he sees prey. In fact, the smell of her is even more confusing. She smells like Julie: a young woman's perfume, something devilish and delightful and unsettling that may in fact be her faerie self, and of course there's the memory of enchanted brownies. She doesn't smell like meat, even when she looks like a fox. She turns her head and looks at him, eyes round and golden and sparkling.

A moment later, just after her glance is met, Rafael begins to hear music.

Childlike music. Lullabye music. But brighter, lighter than you'd play for bedtime. He won't know the instrument by name, not just hearing it, but it's called the celeste. Then, soon, layered with a glockenspiel, and then something like a... harp, but sharper than that. (This is called a gu zheng, but Rafael doesn't know that, either.) Spanish guitar. Timpani.

The music grows louder, and clearer, and with every new layer, stranger. It's beautiful, in a discordant way, and hypnotic,

in an unsettling way.

And then they see the lights. Globes of golden shimmer, floating through the tree-boughs. Some are as small as fireflies. Others almost the size of basketballs.

wolf

The deeper they go,

the stranger it gets.

Like any dream, they descend beyond the reach of day, and then beyond the reach of reason. Something is happening; a sort of eldritch magic at once like and unlike that which took them over at Conrad's lair. They run like a pack, delightedly, racing over wildgrass and fallen leaves, leaping clear streams and storm-broken boughs. Then, later, they trot. Then, still later, they walk, the paws of the fox soft in the shadows; the wolves noisier, broader frames and heavier bodies shouldering through the --

wilderness doesn't seem like the right word anymore. The enchantedness, perhaps. The world is confused here, deliciously so. Is it day? Is it night? Is she a fox, or a girl? The young wolf beside him is licking his chops, and this time he does not tease him for his hunger.

Now there's music. Wolf's ear flick and turn, following the sounds. It swells around him, a dozen songs or just one. Now there are lights. A curtain drawing back on some strange, lawless stage. Wolf looks up, which is not a direction in which wolves usually look, and so he comes out of one form and into another. He's wearing clothes now, shoes, human shape. He has a phone in his pocket but he gets no reception here. Perhaps he is not even really on earth anymore.

Lights drift through the trees. Some float quite near. He thinks about touching one -- reaches to do so -- draws back at the last moment, thinking better of it. Fox-girl's warnings ring in his ears. He adds one to the list, mutely: neither touch nor take, unless you wish to.

The Queen of Thistles

Kenneth shifts, too, almost instinctively. Those instincts are stronger here, especially as his rage grows beyond what he is used to: he sees his -yuf who may as well be his -rhya shift, and he follows suit with hardly a thought to reason out why he does so.

He's in his same rumpled jeans and rumpled striped t-shirt. His breath is high, and he pushes his hand through his hair as though this will help him let go of some of the energy that has flooded his veins. He looks at Rafael, his eyes still wide, and huffs a little, the laughter exhilarated with a touch of nerves.

The lights come. Kenneth doesn't touch them, either, even though a few smaller ones circle his belly, float up and zing past his face. Julie never told them how that warning ended, though it's only now that either of them consider that there could have been more:

unless you wish to... what?

Julie is still with them, small and silent now, and after they shift, she starts loping into the woods, from whence both music and spheres come toward them.

--

Before they know it, they are in the court. It happens organically: the trees open up, the ones nearest to them more slender than the ones at the outer edges. The brush clears out, and they're left with golden-green grass underfoot, soft as dandelion tufts. And after a while, they start to see a checkerboard pattern in the grass: gold here, green there, queen's knight to rook four or whatever. The trees and flowers begin to bend and curl into decorative objects, forming themselves into chairs, even into tables, into lamp-posts with little nests for the gleaming spheres to rest.

The courtiers, too, seem to happen organically: a rock rolls over and opens one glaring eye above a long, pointed nose. Another eye opens and the creature unfolds itself, a bulbous body on spindly legs, with twig-like arms and a dirty leather cap. It grunts at them and waddles off, long toes flapping at the ground. A sylph seems to emerge from the bark of a tree itself, her skin a burnished bronze, her hair rustling like leaves, though she wears a suit of armor that appears to be worked from gnarled and hardened roots.

These and more, and still more, some from shadow, others from the ground itself. There are pixies, literal fucking fixies like literal fucking Tinkerbell, zipping merrily through the air, laughing. A trio of them encircle Rafael's head and for a brief second he feels a small but sharp pain in the center of his skull, and then the three of them begin clapping at him, hysterical and manic. Julie is at his feet then, barking up at them with that ungodly shriek of this form, leaping up to swat at the pixies with her little black paws. They fly away, laughing like harpies, and fox-Julie looks up at him with what he might imagine is apology, or at least empathy:

fucking pixies, the swish of her tail seems to say.

There are animals, like Julie, and faeries who have animal characteristics: whiskers and tails, wings and slit pupils. There are creatures with the legs -- and horns -- of goats and rams. Faeries that tower over the others in armor of leather and armor of -- is the fucking armor silver, too? There is at least one who seems made of shadow, clings to a shadowed tree, stroking its bark with pale hands and sobbing in a whisper. She might not be the only one of her kind: there are a lot of whispers in the shadows. A white-haired grotesque with red cheeks and knobby knuckles sits in a stiff ruff and pantaloons, having a mild panic attack over a puzzle box that keeps emitting strange noises, like something awful is trapped inside. Sitting alone off to one side, occasionally casting hateful glances at a group of reveling satyrs, is a nightmare of a faerie: he wears a bright red executioner's hood, the lower half cut off to reveal his rictus grin, all rows of sharpened yellow teeth. He wears black leather armor. He is polishing a gleaming silver axe.

Two trees up ahead are bent as though bowing, their heavy leaves creating a veil. As the wolves enter the court and soon find themselves standing among the faeries, the leaves rustle anxiously.

A voice from behind those trees, then. A warm, low, seductive alto, with a well-buried tracery of amusement:

"You have no herald."

It is noticed, only then, that a second before she spoke, the music ceased. The court has grown still, and the fey that were ignoring the wolves in their midst are suddenly paying attention.

"You are guests, nonetheless. Be welcome, then. Drink of our mead and enjoy our sweet bread. We must receive our guests with revelry, my dear children."

A tittering of laughter. The leaves rustle as though in their own chortling delight. The satyrs start pouring goblets and goblets of mead, and little rock-men like the one they first saw start carrying around trays of bread and fruit.

wolf

Perhaps in the far reaches of the Umbra, Kenneth has seen stranger sights. Wolf, being a rather earth-bound and practical sort of wolf, has not. He stares openly, gawking at the strange creatures rumbling in the shadows, lurking in the trees. The sobbing shadow-creature gets a particularly baffled stare. No one ever accused him of being well-mannered.

Then pixies! Pixies zap him. Somehow. He is not amused, bares his teeth and snaps at air and swats at them -- though one might notice he doesn't aim for them. They're so small. They're faeries, and someone quite special told him not to harm any faeries. There can't be many of them left.

Anyway: Julie shoos them away. And away they flit, cackling, leaving wolf to rub his head grumpily as he follows her deeper.

--

It is not a court as he imagined it. He thought of soaring buttresses and stained-glass windows, marble floors polished to mirror sheen. He thought of glittering thrones and filigreed crowns. Instead, he stands in the heart of what can only be called an enchanted forest -- shimmering with lights, shot through with the ineffable sense of diaphanous, pure magic.

Even the trees bow to the queen of thistles. And when she speaks, wolf has no doubt of who it must be. He turns to face the voice: eyes first, then the rest of him.

Mead. Bread. Even if Julie the fox had not warned him, he would have hesitated. He's heard fairy tales before. Rip van Winkle and all the rest. The many and myriad dangers of eating magical food. The strange, unpredictable ways of the fairy folk, a sense of humor rooted in an incomplete understanding of mortality.

He glances at Kenneth. And then looks into the shadows beyond the trees.

"Thanks for your hospitality," he says, "but we ate before we came here." Pauses a beat. Too late, he realizes he should have brought something, a gift in return. Stands there flailing internally for a moment. Then digs his hand under his shirt collar, jaw tight, keenly aware of this sacrifice.

"Brought a gift," he says, roughly. Pulls out a little trinket, a pretty little gewgaw: a fragment of quartz wrapped in wire, hung from his neck by a leather cord. "Doesn't look like much, but my mate made this. For me. It's a protection charm, and a symbol of what's between us.

"I want you to have it because ... I'm here for her sake. And because just like I'm bound to her by devotion, you've got a wayward knight out there bound to you."

Pauses.

"Not that I'm presuming anything about your relationship status."

The Queen of Thistles

Maybe one day, in the far reaches of the Umbra, Kenneth will see stranger sights than this. Feel stranger things than this. But he's barely out of his fosterage, and his mom isn't even happy about him being gone this one night, much less vanishing into the mists of the deep umbra, and he has never seen or felt anything that approaches what he is seeing and feeling now. His amazement is open-mouthed; a dancing hookah never prepared him for this.

So both of them are uncool, gaping at everything.

At one point, when the Queen of Thistles speaks to them, Kenneth is staring at Rafael, mouthing DUDE. Because what else can he do?

The court takes a minute to do so, but it quiets down again when Rafael answers rather than throwing himself to the mead and pastries. Music that had started up whimpers down again. Everyone realizes he is not going to revel first, and there are more than a few pouting faces.

And that obscene grin from that nightmarish creature with the axe. He never stops smiling. He looks like a fucking corpse.

He is listened to, because this is a more or less civilized place, at least when the Queen is in attendance. So after he speaks, there is a protracted moment of silence. Then, rustling musically, the two trees part, unfolding their willowy trunks, standing straight once more. Their branches and leaves part like curtains, revealing the place where the checkerboard of grass ends and an ocean of silk begins.

The hem of the Queen's garments are, in fact, as blue as the deep sea, the night sky, and it fills far more space than is necessary for any dress. The breeze ripples the surface of the gown, chopping it into miniature waves, turning the silk glints of silvery white briefly before the color fades back into that fathomless blue. The silk rises, climbing up to a throne made of branches that have woven themselves to suit her whims, covering a shapely body right up to the throat. The sleeves extend to her knuckles, then turn to a silken mesh, draping over her fingers extravagantly. At the top of her throat is a many-layered lace collar so fine, so delicately detailed, it must have been made by pixies. Or spiders. It rises up over her jawline, embracing and framing her face.

Her features are narrow, yet not pinched. Her lips are full, and yet not plump. Her cheekbones are prominent, but nothing about her is gaunt. Long, pointed-tipped ears rise through thick, glossy red curls that cascade down her shoulders. Something about her hair flickers like flame, the tips of her curls more gold than red, her hairline darkening to the color of burning embers. Her eyes

are black.

Black on black. Void eyes. There is no emptiness to them, though. There is somehow a sense that worlds exist in that darkness, that she is filled with stars and planets, that meteors fly through her, that every light that might appear in those eyes is a wonder to behold, a creation of worlds.

She is beautiful in a way that awes. She is beautiful in a way that hurts.

She is, too, every inch a Queen. She does not even wear a crown.

There is no need.

--

It takes several moments to even notice that she is flanked by six guards, three to each side, standing in gleaming silver armor, each holding a silver shield and a silver spear. There is also a man-at-arms standing just behind her throne, similarly adorned, but with a bright red sash across his chestplate. He has no spear, but a sword sheathed at his side, his hand resting on the pommel as though it is always there, has always been there, always will be there

but for the moments when he draws that sword.

All of them have their face-guards down. All of their faces are lost in shadows.

The Queen observes her visitors, barely taking note of the little fox-faerie who led them here and arranged this whole meeting. She looks at the bit of wire-wrapped obsidian Rafael is holding up, and her head tips a bit. Her lips part.

It is only then that he notices that the trinket, warm from being close to his body, has a faint glow about it. An aura, almost, soft and small but there nonetheless. One moment it is the bright blue of Devon's eyes. The next it is as dark as her hair. Green as one of her potions. It wiggles in midair, like a child being praised, terribly pleased that someone finally noticed how special it is.

The Queen looks at it for a while, the corners of her lips curving upwards as the obsidian dances for her. Then, with the faintest of nods and a flick of her veiled fingers, a pixie in a matching blue gown launches from her hiding place behind the Queen's hair and zips over to Rafael. She's bigger than the ones who tormented him, but still only a little bigger than the trinket. She chitters at him, and nods at him, urging him to put it in her arms. And when he does, she does indeed falter a bit, but manages to fly back to the Queen with the treasure, laying it in her lady's palm.

Again, closer up now, the Queen observes the gift she's been brought. Then, she wraps her hand slowly around it. She closes her eyes, and for a moment she almost looks human if you ignore how beautiful she is. She breathes in deeply.

When she opens her hand, the obsidian is no longer dancing. It is no longer glowing. It lies on her palm, still pretty, but inert. With a curtsy, the pixie picks it up again, and flies it back to Rafael, chittering at him that he should take it. When he does, she returns once more to her Queen.

"I have accepted your tribute," she says, and that's when it becomes even more clear: the material item matters little. It matters not at all. Only what it was imbued with: by his mate, and by him carrying it.

It may also be worth noting that it was not destroyed in the process. That it was inert and empty, lifeless in this way, when Devon bought the stone at the gem show. It is only a physical carrier; the magic can return to it.

"You speak of Sir Marquardt, I presume." A titter goes through the court, quickly silencing itself. "He is not bound to me. He has been banished."

wolf

Never,

not in his wildest dreams, and not even in the depths of girl's wild and witchy eyes,

has he ever seen beauty like this. The world, vivid as it is here, glorious as it is, seems to pale in comparison. The lights seem darker. All the others, all the queen's strange and merry crew seem to fade a little; even that pretty little fox-maiden that Kenneth seems so taken with.

It is hard to look upon the queen of thistles for long. Wolf is loathe to lower his eyes like a subject, like a goddamn unwashed peasant, and it is a strange realization to have. That he has pride of his own. That he is, however infrequently or dimly, aware of his own proud heritage, the strength and purity of his own immortal essence.

So he doesn't. He blinks slowly, deliberately, sometimes keeping his lids shut for a few seconds longer so that he can bear the presence of this impossible creature.

--

The stone, depleted but unharmed, drops back into his palm. It feels no different, and yet it does: emptied somehow, as pretty but impersonal as it was when his mate first bought it. He looks at it for a moment, brow furrowed. Then his fingers close around it and he slips it back into his pocket.

"I've heard," he says. "What would it take to reverse that?"

The Queen of Thistles

Laughter, again. Darker, from a few corners, and some entirely dismissive. The Queen herself laughs, soft as chimes.

"One does not reverse a banishment," she says, almost tenderly, as though his poor mortal misunderstanding of the ways of court have touched her heart. "Whysoever would you even wish me to? As I have heard it, he has hardly done you any kindnesses."

wolf

"No, he hasn't."

The words are blunt as stones. Flat as concrete.

"He's out there tearing magic out of people. Leaves them drained and emptied. Suckered onto a girl who thought he loved her, and he's been feeding off her like a leech. Seems to have developed a taste for a particular sort of magic, a true magic, like the kind of magic that makes you what you are and makes me what I am.

"So far, he claims not to have done any permanent damage. But he can. And he's not really sure he won't. I'm not really sure he hasn't.

"This is a man who used to serve you. This is a man who's doing terrible things on your doorstep. Don't know why you banished him, but I'm going to guess it was for something along these lines in the first place. Thing is, he doesn't see himself as banished. Calls himself your knight still. And I can't say he isn't right.

"Your Majesty," the words are awkward, "I'm a werewolf. We run in packs, with Alphas. Some of them are official, with totem spirits that guide us. Others aren't. At home I run with a real pack. Out here Kenneth's my pack. The fox Julie too, sort of. No totem binds us but that doesn't mean we're not bound. Doesn't mean I don't feel responsible for keeping them safe, and keeping them honest. They might not even feel that way toward me. But there's still a bond here, from me to them."

Silence for a while. His right hand works, nerves or agitation or both. Open and closed, open and closed.

"What I'm trying to say is, kicking him out of your territory doesn't erase history. Doesn't erase the bond from him to you, whether you like it or not. He's still your knight, and he'll listen to you if you'll only command him.

"So I want you to take him back because I think you can stop him. And if you can't, then I think you still have a responsibility to keep the peace in your territory.

"Even if that means imprisoning him." He doesn't look at Julie, but if she's looking at him he feels it, "Or executing him."

The Queen of Thistles

While Rafael speaks, the Queen does not slouch, or prop her chin in her hand, or yawn, or look away, or wave her servants over with mead and pastries. She does not seem to be a good faerie. But she is, to some degree, a good queen. She attends to the visitor at her court quite carefully. She even looks quite interested when he tells her a bit about he and his people organize themselves: she has always been curious about how such primal creatures have adapted over the centuries to a rapidly changing world.

Kenneth does react a little more strongly; when Rafael calls him his pack, and includes Julie, Kenneth grins. He can't help it. He just looks pleased.

But the court grows quiet again by measures. A measure when he speaks of Conrad ripping magic out of people. A measure when he speaks of werewolf-kind. A measure when he tells the Queen that she is duty-bound to keep the peace in her realm.

But that last measure is a final one: the court is silent. Even the redcap sitting against the tree has stopped polishing his axe.

One may get the impression that Rafael has said or done something quite serious, indeed. One would not be wrong. Kenneth is looking at Rafael nervously, and he's the one who notices first: Julie is gone. The little fox at their feet slipped away at some point, silent as...

well. Obviously.

Before them, the Queen is silent, taking in what has been said as though it were not spoken by a commoner and foreigner, as though it were not spoken bluntly and awkwardly. She considers what he's told her: that Conrad is ravaging Dreamers, even engaging in romantic relationships with them (not unheard of, but not openly condoned). That he still calls himself one of her knights, which is a crime in itself. That whether Conrad is banished or not, there is still a cord between he and the court, and the Queen herself.

She also hears, behind his words, his claim that he is an Alpha of at least this pack with him, and that he sees such a relationship as analogous to the one she has with her subjects. He is wrong, of course, but only in the detail of it, the nuance. At the core, it is something far more primitive than the trappings of court.

Most commoners think the sidhe have forgotten these roots.

Most commoners do not know the first thing about ruling a people.

"Miss Busch," the Queen says, out of nowhere, several long seconds of silence later. She has not taken her eyes off of Rafael.

A few moments later, Julie appears out from behind some trees. She's got wild hair, but she's back in her human...ish form. Here, they can see her whiskers, her black nose, her tail, the tufted fox-ears that stick up through her hair. She has some clothes on at least, a simple dress, and when she quick-steps out to face the Queen again, she gives a quick bob of a curtsy, then folds her hands before her.

"Are these two," she says, flicking her fingers at Rafael and Kenneth, "your 'pack'?"

Julie tips her head to the side. She looks back over her shoulder at them, then at the Queen. "Well, m'lady, I'm not a wolf, obviously, and foxes don't really hunt in packs, but I'm not really fox, either, I'm a pooka, and we love a motley crew of equal fools to be equal with when we aren't hunting solitari...ly. You could say we like it more than some kiths but I'm not naming names and we probably like it less than others but we all know I'm talking about satyrs, let's just say satyrs."

The Queen closes her eyes for a moment, breathing out through her nostrils, praying for patience before she opens them.

"And, to the best of your knowledge, does the wolf you brought to me speak truth to my court?"

Julie is stymied for a moment. Behind her, her tail twitches. So do her whiskers. "Um."

A pause. Another twitch.

"That one," she says, almost angrily, pointing behind her at Rafael, "is basically a troll, so he's probably offended you even asked me that."

Kenneth, having no more idea of what a troll might be other than a horrifying gnarled monster under a bridge, looks baffled and betrayed. "What the hell is your problem?" he snaps at Julie, his rage too high for him to stop himself. Julie flinches from it, feeling the onslaught of what makes a wolf a wolf.

The fey must sense it; the guards all shift their footing, though they do not otherwise move. The redcap chuckles to himself and rises to his feet. Even some of the goat-legged hedonists take notice and look eager for a brawl.

The Queen lifts one hand.

"Her words are not an insult, friend wolf," she tells Kenneth. Her hand slowly lowers again. "That was a pooka's way of saying that your... Alpha, here... is a being of honesty and honor." She waves her hand at Julie. "You may sit, til called upon again."

Julie hesitates. Kenneth, taken aback and confused, also hesitates. Both of them glance at Rafael. Kenneth nods at Julie, a question or a plea in his eyes, but in these human bodies it's a little harder to tell what he's trying to communicate.

wolf

In the space of a few seconds, he is called a troll, Kenneth is called a friend-wolf, and then he is called a being. He's still trying to figure out whether this constitutes a promotion or a demotion when abruptly he realizes they are all looking at him.

He glances between them, blank.

"What?"

The Queen of Thistles

Kenneth widens his eyes, mutters under his breath: "Dude, you just called her part of our pack."

Julie looks at Rafael. Her lower lip juts out. She lowers her head below her shoulders. She starts to turn, pitifully moving to slink off as directed by the Queen, rather than standing with the two of them.

"Dude," Kenneth repeats, in a tight whisper.

wolf

Oh. He gets it.

"Your Majesty," this time it comes out a little easier, "let Julie stay here with us. If she wants."

The Queen of Thistles

Julie puts on as much of a pageant for delight as she does for sadness; she beams, hopping back into place between the two wolves

The Queen just sighs. She doesn't roll her eyes, because it would be impossible to tell if she did or not, but she waves her hand, permitting it.

Strange, that: they aren't wolves. The request doesn't offend her. She doesn't suspect Julie of not wanting to be a faerie anymore or something because, right now, she's in a temporary pack with these two interlopers. It barely causes a blip.

So Julie stands with them. Kenneth settles, and looks at Julie, his expression apologizing to her for snapping, and Julie shrugging and making a face at him, which is her way of... accepting that apology?

Which means that they have a raged-up Theurge kid, a compulsive liar and trickster, and... Rafael. The most grown-up and under control of the three of them.

The Queen waits for the agitated wolf and the pooka to settle themselves before she addresses Rafael again.

"Sir Marquadt is no longer, and shall never be again, a member of my court," she proclaims.

"But he is my subject," she adds a moment later, her eyes on the Silver Fang, "and subject to the laws of my realm. From your testimony, I believe there may be a number of these laws he may have flouted.

"But we are civilized," says the woman presiding over a court of nightmare clown executioners, goat-men who look about ready to drag the nearest nymph under a table, and mind-reading pixies who torment the unwary.

"He shall be brought into our custody, and a tribunal held to determine his guilt or innocence on all counts. Should he be found guilty of any or all, he will be sentenced as I see fit."

Her eyebrows lift.

"Does this satisfy?"

wolf

"Yes," he says.

There's just a hint of hesitation there. A moment of indecision. Then:

"If it's possible, Your Majesty, show mercy. There's no love between us. But Julie told me a little about your people. How you live. What you remember. What you forget. What you lose every time you die and live again. Seen a little of it for myself.

"Your very existence brings a rare, precious magic into the world. There can't be many of you left," an echo, and when he hears it a slow warmth pulses for a moment in his breast, "and I think losing even one, even an asshole like Conrad, would dim the world somehow.

"Besides. Kenneth and I are among the last of our kind too. Understand how desperation can make you do stupid things. Maybe terrible things. Don't condone it, or forgive it. But I do understand it."

The Queen of Thistles

The court is quiet again as he speaks. It is strange, to have so many strange beings listening to him with such attention. So many of them are wary, as if they are waiting for him to explode.

But what he says now brings a darker sort of silence. It seems to dim the light here: the sunlight filtering through the trees has a silvery cast, and the glowing spheres that light the court proper flicker. The boughs of the trees seem to slump; even the gleam off the silver armor and weapons dulls, somehow. In the shadows, the whispering fey weep coldly, quietly, but morosely.

He is outnumbered here. But he's also right: there cannot be many of them left. There are not many of them left. They are sustained by a sort of energy: like that which the Queen drew out of the talisman he offered her, that symbol of love, of devotion, of protection. And, according to Julie, the inspiration that keeps an artist awake all night working, or makes a group of people start laughing for minutes on end for no apparent reason, or whatever it is people feel when a certain song reminds them of a moment they thought was lost to their memory.

Seems like such a fragile thing to rely on for survival. More fragile still, in a world that now broadcasts its resentments, its fear, and its cynicism on every channel, 24/7.

For a moment, he can see through the enchantment: see the mortal bodies these fey inhabit. The thin-looking kids at the edges of the clearing. The athletic types drinking from imaginary goblets. The asshole over there who can't hold down a real job because he's just too creepy. The woman before him, still one of the most beautiful he's ever seen, but beginning to age, trying to hold a mortal life and a royal kingdom together without losing her soul completely in the process. Her guards: all young men and women trying to reconcile the demands of 'real life' to the equally real oaths of fealty they took on one knee.

Just a moment, and then it's gone. The grey gets shaken off. And he catches sight of her, of the Queen of Thistles, her hands tight on the armrests of her throne, her fingertips glowing faintly, her eyes glowing faintly as falling stars shoot across them. Rafael sees it, ever so briefly: the enchantment around them faltered, and she is giving it strength again.

Her strength.

Perhaps even the morsel of it she got from Devon's talisman.

She pours it back, and the grass waves again, and the globes shine, and this little forest regains its magic where for a moment it shuddered under the reminder of just how breakable it really is.

And then she nods. "Whatever his judgement, and whatever his sentence -- if there is to be one -- Sir Marquadt will be told that you pled mercy on his behalf. Perhaps it will encourage him to do better in the future... whatever that future holds for him."

The Queen of Thistles, her momentary paleness only -- somehow -- making her beauty more striking, raises a hand. "You may go in peace," she tells him. "My court and I will return to our usual places, and Sir Marquadt will be brought before us.

"You will not see us again," she cautions him, quite seriously.

But her eyes flick to Julie. "Except maybe that one," the queen says, a touch dry. Her gaze returns to Rafael. "So I thank you for your counsel, and wish you well. For the sake of the Dreamers that Sir Marquadt ravaged, please take them each a pastry from my table. It will enchant them," she admits, "but... not in the way he did. It will help restore them."

wolf

For a moment there, the illusion wavers. The magic threatens to fade. Wolf holds his breath without knowing he does. Clenches his fists, as though waiting out an earthquake, a meteor roaring across the sky.

He sees them as they are in those moments, beautiful and pitiful, strange and sorrowful. A misfit band of last survivors without even the option of a blood-red last stand. How sad that is, he thinks, to be consigned to a silent and heatless ending. An asymptotic exhale from a dying parallel universe.

It never hits. There is no apocalypse -- not the sort that rains down fire and ash, and not the sort that strips dreams from the bones. Magic returns, as it always does, reborn and renewed,

but a little lesser every time. Another piece gone, every time.

He is looking at her directly now, the Queen of Thistles. Because he will not see them again. Because he doesn't know how much longer they will even exist. Because he has never seen anything so strange or so beautiful in his life, and never will again. Only when she gestures to the table does he glance that way. Considers a moment, then returns his attention to her.

"Give me something to remember this by instead," he says, "if you can. Want to show them a little of your kingdom and your court."

The Queen of Thistles

The Queen looks upon him with that same gentle, indulgent tenderness as before. She gives him a small shake of her head. "Would that I could, but I cannot. Whatever I might give you would, to unenchanted eyes, seem to be nothing at all. And were we to give you something that might survive such passage, its very existence in your world would break our own laws of secrecy.

"I have heard that your people understand the importance of such laws, as well," she says delicately.

"We learned long ago not to allow mortals to remember us clearly. We can only exist as we are in their dreams and stories. It is better that way."

wolf

If he weren't in the presence of immortal, dying faeries, he might pretend indifference. Put on a stoic face. Hardly seems worth it here, though. More accurately, seems impolite, a lie like that. He gives them honesty: disappointment, then acceptance.

"Understand," he says. Glances at the pastries as well. Moves over, selecting two of the smallest morsels he can find, holding them carefully in his hand.

He takes a last look around. Slowly, turning in a circle, looking at every fae, every pixie, every orb of light, every shimmering leaf. When he faces the Queen of Thistles again, he bows his head briefly.

"Your Majesty," he says, "goodbye."

The Queen of Thistles

The people at the table are mostly the goat-legged ones. Buxom, athletic women wearing skimpy tops and loincloths, jangling with bracelets and earrings, grinning at him as he approaches. The males, their horns curving back, are all shirtless and most of them are tattooed. They give him room, though, so he can get a couple of buttery, flaky pastries from the table, both filled with bright, tart fruit. Someone hands him a handkerchief to wrap them in.

He looks around and it's all still there: the checkerboard grass. The red-cheeked tinker elf with the screaming puzzlebox. The shadowy figures stroking the trees. Pixies flitting around the air. A sea of blue silk that leads up to eyes like galaxies. He looks at all of it. He notices Kenneth doing the same, though the poor kid can barely take his eyes off the Queen.

He bows his head to her. Kenneth does, too, following suit. And the Queen nods in acceptance of the gesture. She looks to the fox-faerie, too.

"Go with them, Julie," she tells her. "Make sure they get back safely. But I want you back here bright and early to assist with your patron's tribunal. You will be a key witness."

Julie just bobs into another curtsy. "Yes, m'lady," she says, without dissembling.

The Queen turns to Rafael and Kenneth one last time. "Farewell, sons of Gaia. Remember us."

That is when it begins. On those two words, even before they turn, even before they take their first steps. The Queen on her throne seems farther away than she did a moment ago, and then farther still, like a star flying away from them. The pattern in the grass is harder to see as they start walking. The trees come closer together. Faeries they could see clearly seem fewer and farther between, and then there are none at all but Julie.

The globes of light that follow them around are left behind. The quality of the light changes, becoming more natural. The last thing they lose is the music, so distant at the last that it's hard to tell if they're imagining it.

If they imagined all of it.

And there is Julie. Tromping along with them, no longer whiskered, no longer with tufted ears, no longer with little black nose. She's just a redhaired girl in a very plain sundress, her feet bare. They're nearing the edge of the treeline, of a wood that is not nearly so broad nor so deep as it seemed, when they entered it. They're just on a spit of land sticking out into a lake in the suburbs. And then they're in the suburb, and picking up Julie's clothes from behind a tree, and there's the sidewalk, the curb, the Honda Civic.

To some extent, it's like coming down off ecstasy. The banal normalcy around them feels impossibly heavy, and the memory of the faerie court seems like a poignant dream already. Kenneth looks rattled, and he looks tired, and he looks depressed. Julie seems fine, but that may be because she still sees the world in the dual way her kind always does. Or maybe she's just been dealing with this comedown since she was six years old.

The car doors unlock, and the three of them pile in.

There's a brief silence.

Then Kenneth sighs.

"Fuck me, man."

booze, brunch, the nature of faeries.

Julie and Kenneth

A smile opens slowly and drowsily across Devon's lips when Rafael pulls her onto his lap, has her straddling him. Her hands on him feel as tired as she says she is, and her eyes are still underlined with dark half-circles, but she still gasps the first time his hand slips between her thighs. She still shudders; she can't help it.

They go slowly; she hardly has to tell him to take his time, to be careful with her. But there's something loose and easy in her bones tonight, too. She responds softly, but truthfully; and after a while, it seems like it's harder for her to keep herself quiet, keep the others next door from overhearing. She bites his shoulder to muffle herself at one point, and there's a renewed strength in that bite that wasn't there when he first took off her robe.

They wash up, after. Devon brushes her teeth with Rafael. Walks around naked, which is only tolerable because they just fucked. Puts on pajamas and socks, though, before she crawls into bed with him. She curls up in a ball on one side of the bed; he wraps his arms around her, nose to her hair, but she is already asleep.

--

He wakes up first. Devon has barely moved in her sleep. Even when he moves, her breath remains steady, her body limp. His phone chimes; takes a second, but as soon as he looks he'll realize it was another chime that woke him. Two texts from next door, from Kenneth:

Hey Julie and me are up. Ursula still asleep. Breakfast and planning?

and

Gonna head downstairs. Starving. Gonna let Ursula sleep some more.

Rafael

Chiming phone. Wolf's eyes open, disgruntled slits and constricting pupils. He grumbles under his breath. He reaches over sleeping girl and paws his phone off, pulls the cord out onehanded, reels the thing in. Text on the screen. Breakfast, planning.

He texts back:

ok

be there in 15

And then he drops the phone in the sheets and closes his eyes for another moment. Five.

Opens his eyes somewhat later, inhaling. Pushes himself up and kisses girl on a bare shoulder, murmuring for her to keep sleeping as he climbs out of bed. Quick stop by the bathroom, and then he's pulling on clothes, minty-breathed.

Something closer to twenty minutes after that text-back he shows up downstairs, rumpled jeans and t-shirt, rumpled hair and yawns. There's a restaurant downstairs, which is where he finds the rest of his odd little pseudo-pack. He pulls up a chair and drops into it, picking up the menu to glance it over.

"You guys sleep okay?"

Julie and Kenneth

This time, Devon does stir, murmuring as he jostles around, kisses her shoulder. Murmurs again in assent when he tells her to keep sleeping. She does not seem of a mind to argue with him on that, at least. So she yawns, and rubs her face on the pillow, and drops off again.

--

Downstairs, the restaurant's breakfast buffet is open. Kenneth is already sitting with Julie, multiple plates in front of him because he could not decide between an omelette and waffles and breakfast tacos. Julie only has the one plate, but it's piled high. She has a mimosa. Kenneth has a bloody mary.

When Rafael shows up, Kenneth has the courtesy to look somewhat chagrined. He gestures at the food. "Hope... this is okay," he says, because the Fianna in him overcomes the Bone Gnawer in him just enough to be uncertain about how far to push Rafael's generosity.

Julie does not seem to care, on the other hand. She is perfect content to crunch tidily into her bacon, chewing slowly while Rafael joins them.

"The witch was crying in her sleep," Julie informs him, in answer to his question. Her tone is rather flat, indicating indifference, even coldness to the point of cruelty. "It was heartbreaking," and one might think she's just being sarcastic, given the disdain she infuses into the words. "She stopped when I curled up with her as a fox. Mortals are ridiculous, with their stupid affection for canids."

Julie sniffs the way someone does when they're trying not to cry. She picks up her mimosa and takes a few gulps.

Kenneth meets Rafael's eyes with slightly raised eyebrows and a subtle shrug.

Rafael

Disbelief: "You didn't get carded?"

Waitress stops by. He orders: an omelette, a lot of bacon and sausage. Toast and jam. Coffee and orange juice. No, fine, he'll have an irish coffee, since everyone else was already drinking.

Waitress departs and he unrolls his silverware, spreads his napkin on his lap. Julie wants him to know witch was crying but she was totally a stone-cold hardass, to which he just smirks a little. Not like he knew anything about pretending like he didn't give a damn, or anything.

"So how does this shapeshifting work for you guys, anyway? You go through all five forms too, or what?"

Julie and Kenneth

Kenneth looks more chagrined, but it also looks like he's trying not to grin. "I... may or may not have convinced them that wasn't necessary."

Julie laughs, and it actually has a slight bark to it. Very slight, but present. "Five whatsits? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." She shakes her head, red hair bouncing around her cheeks. "Every time a baby laughs for the first time in a ten-mile radius, I turn into a fox. It's that simple. Just like how every time you hear EDM, you turn into a towering inferno of fur. An in-fur-no. Though it's really more 'in fur? yes!'"

She finishes her mimosa with one mighty long sip, waggles her empty glass in the eyeline of a passing waitress, and then turns to the two wolves. "Now don't be mad, but I may have sent a message to a friend of a cousin of a bitch named Theresa who has a friend who knows a guy who is catfishing the Queen of Thistle's assistant, and that message may have actually said something about how I'm going to drag two terrifying enemies in front of her court for a duel or something. So, if the frog that showed up on the windowsill this morning wasn't lying, which as you know they usually are, we've been granted an audience."

Rafael

"What a great use for your Gaia-given powers," wolf deadpans.

Another brief break as his breakfast arrives. Wolf glances up at the waitress, nods a terse thank-you, then picks up his recently-unwrapped silverware to dig in. Meanwhile, foxgirl talks: an incessant deluge of lies. Also, mildly charming chatter.

Also: an alarming phrase.

"Wait, what? A duel?"

Julie and Kenneth

"Gaia makes plants, plants make vodka, vodka makes bloodies," Kenneth retorts, picking up his glass. "This is a sacrament, man."

Then there's Julie, and her rambling explanation of her nocturnal activities other than curling up next to a crying girl to comfort her.

Julie looks at him. Blinks. "I said, 'or something'."

Kenneth chimes in: "I think... that 'duel' part was just... the lying thing."

Rafael

Mouth full: "Good, because if someone hands me a rapier I'll break it in half."

Sips alcoholic coffee. Eats eggs, meat. Toast.

Curious again: "What's it like being a faerie? I mean... were you always a faerie? How old are you? Were you born, or did you just appear one day?"

Julie and Kenneth

Another mimosa is brought to Julie, rich and orange and sparkling. She stares at Rafael, as questions pour out of him. She wonders briefly if she was ever like that regarding his kind, but she can't remember. She glances at Kenneth, who shrugs at her and tucks into his Denver omelette with the same relish and gusto that he polishes off burritos and pizzas and scours over room service carts. Kenneth will be no help to her.

She looks back at Rafael and clears her throat primly. "Well, to answer your first question: my essence is extraordinarily old. I don't remember most of it, but if I did, I think I might remember the dark ages and beyond. Maybe the dawn of humanity. Who knows? We don't know anymore, because we live these lives in mortal bodies and they die and we die a little with them and then we can't remember things, but we remember far more than other reincarnated essences. I have quite clear memories from the last few centuries, at least. Before that, it gets... misty.

"So, I am either twenty-four, or I am several thousand, or just a few hundred, depending on your rubric."

Another sip of her mimosa. "Now, as to your fourth question: I have been a faerie all that time, but not as I am. As I am this time around, I was perhaps always a faerie but didn't quite know it until the middle of my childhood. So, to answer your third question... yes. Yes, I was born. But I also appeared one day. Well, night. It was the most wonderful night of my life, and still is. The first time I ran under the stars, through the grass. The sadness came later, but so did other faeries, all wildlings and grumps, taking me under their wings -- sometimes quite literally -- and helping me protect myself against the banality of humankind and industrialization."

Kenneth, at this point, isn't even eating anymore. He's staring at Julie, absorbing what she's telling them, his eyes wide like a child hearing a new bedtime story.

"But to go back and answer your second question," Julie specifies, because it isn't true, not at all, and this gives her a way through: "it's very complicated. I've heard that your kind live in two worlds, but they're separated. Imagine living in both of them at the same time, all of the time. You see things in layers. The only time it's comfortable is when you're in a freehold or court, and you don't have to try and keep track of the mundane world. Then there are the ancient geas laid upon our various kiths, the entitlements the world has forgotten to give us, the oaths we swore that we are still bound to uphold even though we don't quite remember why, the memories that come and go as they please, and the politics, my god. Imagine last year's election going on for two hundred years, that is what I'm talking about."

Julie goes quiet for a moment. Her gaze has bounced around as she's talked, but now her eyes settle on Rafael's. "The world has become dull and crude, cold and unfeeling, at a loss for wonder and enchantment. It starves us. It is... well, think of what it would feel like if every day you woke up and you had to put on clothing laced with silver. If every tool you used was made of the stuff. If the people around you were obsessed with it, with making more of it, with finding new ways to use it, and you had to somehow live like that. Even when it wasn't directly wounding you, bleeding you out, it... it would be draining you. Exhausting you. Threatening your existence, when you know your existence is one of the few things that keeps the world from becoming truly grey, truly empty."

Her brow is furrowed. "It is also magical, and beautiful, and incredibly fun. But it is very easy to grow desperate. Especially among the sidhe, like Conrad. Like the Queen. They... are different. Their reincarnation is more fragile. Their mortal shells provide less armor against the banality of living in this world, somehow. I just... want you to understand...

"...why I have pity for him," she finishes, quietly. "I am not asking you to feel the same. I only want you to understand; we, too, are in a fight for our existence. We, too, are in a fight for the world."

Rafael

The fae speaks. The wolves listen.

And for a long time, they are listening. First one, then the other stops eating. Their food grows cool. Their drinks -- second drinks, in Julie's case -- go untouched.

She tells them about a sort of apocalypse they'd never considered. A slow, creeping, inexorable one; not fire and ash nor ice and flood, but simply a gradual, dreadful greying-out of the world. Not championed by some monolithic evil entity but pressed along by progress itself. By the very nature of the world.

Wolf thinks about what it would be like to try to survive that. He cannot imagine it easily. It seems awful.

Silence for a while, the soft clink of silverware around them as other guests eat. It's a nice-ish hotel. This isn't some free breakfast buffet of cereal and waffle-mix. It's an actual restaurant, with paying customers and alcoholic beverages. No one pays them much attention. No one here, except the three of them at this table, know there's anything beneath the surface of the world.

"So that's why you're all drawn to magic," he says at last. "Doesn't matter if it's witch-magic or wyld-magic, so long as it's something out of the ordinary. Because you need it to stay alive. And when someone like Conrad can't get enough by just ... osmosing it -- then he tries to tear it away."

There's still anger there. He can't help it. It vibrates beneath the surface, like tension in a fault-line.

"Because he's desperate. Because if he doesn't get it, he'll ... what? Become cold and grey? Die?"

Julie and Kenneth

Julie is bouncy and gregarious and cheerful. Julie is pretty and a born liar and yesterday afternoon spent some time talking to a squirrel like a god-damn Disney Princess. And at the same time, Julie is thousands of years old, remembering several hundred of those years, which means she can remember what she's lost. It means she has seen what humanity has lost. She has seen what humanity has done. Maybe she has always been a fox, watching her kind hunted for sport, running in panic for their lives, empty bodies left bloody and held by the tails by grinning humans with their guns.

Julie must be very angry, sometimes.

Julie must also be very sad.

--

She nods to what Rafael says. Interjects, briefly, when he realizes that they need it to stay alive: "Artists, too. Writers. Children. Just... dreamers. All kinds."

He goes on, makes sense of what Conrad does. How he can't get enough. How he tears it out. Julie winces, but

she also nods. She looks at her breakfast plate. "People like Ursula and Devon can make their dreams manifest. That's... stronger. The Glamour is more intense."

She is still staring at her plate when Rafael calls Conrad desperate, asks what will happen if he -- if any of them -- can't get what they need.

Julie looks up, then. She meets his eyes. "I'm not sure what happens to us if we lose enough of the thing that makes us what we are," she says, and perhaps this is a lie. Her eyes are opaque when she says it. "I try not to think of what that would be like!" she says stirringly, beaming at him, her eyes crossing for a moment, glistening with sudden tears.

She reaches up, scratches her head, then picks up her fork and tries to eat some more. Kenneth's shoulders are slumped, his brow furrowed. He looks like he wants to do something to help, maybe all of them. He looks at Rafael. Then he looks at Julie again.

"So Conrad's also an addict," he says, because he's not sure how worthwhile it would be to hedge on this. "To... whatever sort of 'glamour' he gets from witches."

Julie grimaces. "That is very rude," she tells him, "and not insightful or accurate at all!"

But then she goes back to eating her brunch.

Rafael

What slow-growing pity wolf may have felt for Conrad slips a notch. He grimaces, stabbing his fork into a sausage patty.

"That's fucked up," he mutters. "People aren't ... liquor brands. You can't just pick your favorite one and get hooked on it."

It's ultimately a useless comment. Whether he likes it or not -- whether any of them like it or not -- what happened has happened. Foxgirl confirmed as much. And wolf finishes rest of his brunch. Brooding again, as witch would say.

"Should go soon," he says, setting his fork down. "You guys want anything else, get it to go."

Julie and Kenneth

Maybe it's useless; maybe it's not. Regardless, neither the faerie nor the other wolf say anything to that. At least no one flips a table and goes storming off, either. Julie stirs something on her plate with her fork. Kenneth drinks some more of his bloody.

For a while, they eat quietly. Rafael suggests they go, and Kenneth glances up, but Julie tips her head.

"But what on earth are you going to say to the Queen?"

Rafael

"I'll figure it out when I get there," wolf says,

probably horrifyingly.

Julie and Kenneth

He does, in fact, horrify one of his tablemates. The Theurge one, who stares at him for a second like he's grown a second head.

The fox faerie, on the other hand, just beams at him. She finishes her second mimosa, and Kenneth shakes his head and follows suit with his bloody mary.

Check comes; gets billed to the room. Julie of all people insists on leaving a cash tip, a generous one in fact, with a phone number written on a napkin on top for their waiter.

Rafael likely doesn't ask, but for what it's worth: the tip is the truth. The phone number is the lie.

It is for an automated phone line where a friendly voice picks up and compliments you, or tells you a joke, or provides an interesting and strange fact about the universe.

--

The three of them head out. Kenneth, as they turn from restaurant towards the lobby, mentions: "What about Ursula and Devon?"

Rafael

"Was going to let them rest. Don't really want them near the faeries anyway." Glance at Julie. "Sorry."

Bright day outside. Car's heating up in the sun, paint job glistening. Headlights flash as wolf unlocks the doors.

"Why?" he thinks to ask Kenneth as they head for the Civic. "You want them along?"

Julie and Kenneth

Julie just shrugs, then nods with a sympathetic sort of grimace. It's the sort of exaggerated facial expression one sees in certain stock photographs. "Look, I've been around Conrad for over a decade, you don't gotta explain it to me."

Kenneth pulls out his phone and starts tapping away. Sends texts, receives them, somehow still has some toast in one hand to munch on.

They pile into the car, Kenneth folding himself into the back this time. "Nah, just... hold on a sec..." he mumbles, as he finishes his texting.

A couple of minutes later, the car on and AC trying to cool the air, he speaks up again:

"'Kay. Ursula says she thinks they should stay here, too, and she'll tell Devon where we are whenever she wakes up again. Your Alpha texted me to check in and to say you're better at taking good advice than you seem. And my mom told me to tell you that if you get me into trouble with any g-d faeries, she will skin you alive and she doesn't care if you're a fancy man, but I think she's only like, half serious. Also, when I go home I need to pick up laundry detergent on the way."

He lifts his head up from his phone. "So like, if we could drop by a Piggly Wiggly or something when we're done?"

Rafael

"Sure." Wolf pulls his door open, climbs in. "If we're not slaves to a faerie queen by then."

Shuts door. Turns the ignition.

the wyrm is fucking up trees at home depot.

Rafael

Girl's car is small. Sporty. Even three makes for a tight fit. Julie gets put in the back, because of course she does. Wolf doesn't want her thinking he's some sort of nice-guy pushover, after all.

They do stop at a Walgreens though. There, wolf leaves kid and fox in the car together. Goes in (grumpily) and buys a tube of hydrocortisone cream (grumpily). Pays with his card (grumpily) and comes back out (grumpily). Hands the tube to fox-girl.

"I'm going to be mad as hell if that Conrad prick magically finds out where Devon's staying tomorrow, you understand?" he warns as Kenneth punches the address into his phone. "Mad as hell."

Takes about fifteen, twenty minutes to get back. Usually takes fifteen, twenty minutes to get anywhere in the city. Car gets parked and wolf gets out, letting fox out after him before shutting the door. They go in. Wolf sends the other two up first. Asks Kenneth if he's staying here tonight or going home. Stops by the front desk.

Hotel door whirs five minutes later as wolf lets himself in. "Booked the room next door," he says. "Two queen beds. There's a rollaway coming up too. Don't care how we split up but I'm staying in the same room as Devon."

Devon

When he comes back to the car, Kenneth is talking to Julie. Looks wryly at Rafael when he warns Julie -- perhaps Kenneth, as well -- that he'll be mad as hell if Conrad comes after Devon tomorrow.

Julie just says: "He won't hear about it from me, but he also won't not hear it from someone else, but he also might be dying to fight a couple of werewolves." She makes a face when she sniffs the cream, but puts it on her hands, on that ugly red rash that goes up her forearm.

--

At the hotel, Rafael gets the a second room. When he gets upstairs, Kenneth and Julie are waiting for him in the hall. They haven't gone in. Kenneth blinks; he guessed from the car, but the way Rafael easily gets the room next door, gets a whole other hotel room without even having to pause to think: trailer park kid is reminded how different Rafael is from himself.

"Sounds good," he says, looking at Julie. "Do you think Ursula... is going to have a problem with you?"

Julie nods emphatically. "Ursula has never seen me when she isn't enchanted. She might recognize me, but she won't remember me. So yes, I predict bloodshed! Mayhem!" She makes some mrow, hiss noises.

Kenneth looks at Rafael. "I think we're good."

Rafael

"Good."

Reaches past them and slides keycard into slot. Green light blinks on. Lock whirs. He pushes the door open.

"Back," he calls.

Devon

The t.v. is on, and Mean Girls is playing. There's a room service cart inside against one wall, and it looks like some comfort foods have been had. Devon and Ursula are sitting on the bed in robes, both wet-haired, sharing a pint of Ben & Jerry's. They look up when the door opens and two wolves and an unknown redhead come in.

Devon looks at Rafael.

Rafael

"This is Kenneth," he says, in case the two of them were too out of it earlier to remember. "He's like me."

Leaves it at that, unsure of how much or how little Ursula knows.

"And this is Julie. She's ... more like Conrad."

Devon

Ursula waves at Kenneth. She remembers him. Kenneth gives a small wave back.

Now both witches look at Julie. Julie's arm is still red, but she edges forward, still carrying her shopping bags. She looks at the girls, who are both a little pale, who both have dark circles under their eyes, who very likely could not bring to life a flicker of their own magic right now without hurting themselves, and her face looks tight.

"Someone who looks very much like but is definitely not me may or may not owe one or both of you something resembling an apology, and I'm very sorry she isn't here right now to deliver it."

The witches blink, almost in unison. One of them looks at Rafael for an explanation. The other one is looking at Julie, trying to place her.

Kenneth is picking over the remains of the room service, despite the three burritos earlier.

Rafael

"She's the fox," wolf says bluntly.

And then winces.

"I mean she's the ... the fox." He makes pointy-ear gestures with his fingers. "She was at Conrad's. But she's helping us out right now."

Should probably rake her over the coals some more, ask her just how she felt associating with and benefiting from a monster like that, but somehow it's not in him right now. He sighs, kicks off his shoes, locks the door and comes in. Picks up the room service menu and holds it out to Kenneth.

"Get yourself something to eat. Her too. Probably you and her will go next door later tonight. Ursula and Devon can take the big bed. I'll take the rollaway."

Devon

Rafael is blunt, but that doesn't mean he's clear. He tells the witches that Julie is the fox twice, even mimes actual ears, but neither of them have any idea what he's talking about even then. Neither of them, either, have the same rage and hatred for Conrad that Rafael has developed. Their feelings are more broken, a mosaic produced by flickering memories and, in Ursula's case, several months of genuine feeling.

They share a look, a few moments later. Devon gives her a shrug. Ursula speaks up: "I can go next door, too."

Kenneth takes the menu.

--

So there's some shuffling. Kenneth and Ursula and Julie and Julie's shopping bags and Ursula's dirty clothes from earlier go next door, where a rollaway bed is being delivered and where a laundry bag can be handed over. But in the main room, the first room where there's just the one bed, Devon puts aside her ice cream and sits on the bed, wrapped in a too-large bathroom and looking at Rafael.

"Babe... what's going on?" she asks him, her brow wrinkled.

Rafael

Just the two of them now. Some muffled sounds from next door as their ... friends? Were they all friends now? set up camp for the night. Wolf takes his socks off, and his shirt. Is digging his toothbrush out when girl speaks.

Pauses. Puts his bag down, his toiletries bag. Comes over to sit on the bed beside her, folding one knee atop the bed to face her.

"How much do you remember?"

Devon

Devon's brow stays wrinkled. She shakes her head. "Not much. Ursula and I hung out. We got brunch. We went out to this metaphysical shop she knows and met the owner. He's a witch, too. We... did magic, together. It was nice." She sounds wistful. "A while later, Conrad showed up, and... that's where it starts to break up. I remember that I kept thinking I needed to call you, and I couldn't remember why. But then I'd think you were going to be mad at me, but I didn't know why. I remember flowers growing around Ursula's feet. Conrad... looking like an elf, or something. Like from Lord of the Rings."

She winces. "Then we were in a room somewhere, with music? There was incense, or maybe pot. Someone made us brownies and we played outside. Ursual kept making things grow. I kept... floating. Like I'd run and take a little jump and just... hover there, for a second, or feel myself lifting, before I hit the ground again."

Devon leans, then, curling against his side. Feels like forever since she's been close to him, and alone.

"I don't know if this is before or after, but I remember being back in that room and doing more magic. Conrad was, too. His was... unreal. I feel like I saw some weird shit. Like furniture moving and this insane giant white bird. I think I was tripping balls, but... I don't remember feeling paranoid or freaked out or anything. It felt like... "

She exhales. "It was almost like being with the girls, in Newbury. All of us together. All that power in the air. I felt like I could do anything. So I kept trying. I saw... I could see future and past. My feet wouldn't touch the floor. And after a while I think I just... stopped fighting any of it. Stopped questioning it. I just let it flow through me.

"It was amazing," Devon sighs, tucking herself into a ball against his rib, under his arm. She moves her hand towards his, finds his, wraps hers around it.

"Remember seeing you. Not sure if you were really in that other form or not, but that's what I think I saw. But then I think I was unconscious. I sort of remember being in the car, and getting here. Things start coming back after we got to the hotel."

Rafael

Almost of their own accord, their hands lace together. Their bodies press together. He tucks her head under his chin, the way he might if he were in another form altogether, long-muzzled, thick-furred.

She gives him a few fractured pieces of the puzzle. He has a few more in hand; what Kenneth said, what Conrad himself said. It's far from being a complete picture, but the outlines are there. The scaffolding, the frame.

"Don't have all the answers yet," he says quietly. "Here's what I know. Conrad's a faerie. Not like Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, fairies. A real faerie. Kenneth's Fianna too, and apparently Fianna and faeries go back a long ways. So Kenneth knows a bit about them. Says they're ... like creatures of pure magic and fantasy. Dream creatures. Not really tied down to good or evil, and not really mortal either. Don't really understand that bit, but sounds different from how wolves and kin are born again and again but don't remember much of the previous lives. Sounds like maybe they do remember. Anyway, Conrad kept calling us 'mortals'."

He's losing the thread. Rambling. He tries to put it back together: "Don't know how he found Ursula in the first place. Or how he found you earlier today. But sounds like he can ... inspire magic in others. But also feeds off of it. Needs it, somehow, to be what he is. He called the magic Dreams, and he called Ursula a Dreamer. I don't know if it started out innocent, a symbiosis between the two of them, or if it was always like this. But now I think he -- I don't know. Somehow taps into the latent magic in witches, and then feeds off of it. He didn't really go into details. Kinda sounded like...

"Well. You ever go to Home Depot, see those fruit trees they sell in spring? And you'll have this three foot tall orange tree with like twenty little oranges on it. But then if you buy it all the oranges fall off like a week later and nothing else grows for years. And it's because before they sold it to you, they blasted that plant with chemicals that made it flower too much, too quickly, and then afterwards it's exhausted. Know what I mean?

"I think it's like that. What he did to you and Ursula. Made your magic come out too much, too fast, and now you've got nothing left for a while. I don't think they're supposed to do that. Or at least I think it's frowned upon. But then he alluded to something else -- some way of harvesting magic that would completely drain the Dreamer. Forever. And he said he'd never do that -- but when I pushed, he admitted he didn't know if he'd already done that. He wasn't sure. Can't control himself anymore.

"Talked about a Queen of Thistles too. Said he was her knight, but that she'd banished him. Maybe because of what he's doing to Ursula, and you. Or maybe because he did that other thing and completely drained someone else. I don't know. I want to find out, and I want to talk to this Queen of Thistles. Ask her to ... do something. Punish him, or control him, or help him, whatever it takes to keep him from doing this again. Or worse."

Wolf exhales. Long story, told in disjointed pieces. He thinks a moment.

"That Julie girl's one of them too. A faerie. A different kind. Conrad's some sort of elf. She's a fox shapeshifter. But not like me. It's not something born of Gaia or Luna; it's something else, a weirder magic. And apparently that magic makes it so she physically can't tell the truth. So everything out of her mouth is either a lie, or two truths and a lie. She says she owes Conrad her life. But I think even she knows what he's doing is dangerous and wrong, and he's slipping closer to something even worse by the day. I think she wants to help.

"I'm trying to get her to take me to the Queen of Thistles, but she says the Queen of Thistles won't interfere with Conrad unless she unbanishes him. And she won't unbanish him out of pride. So Julie's trying to figure something out."

Devon

As it turns out, Devon has no idea what he's talking about regarding the little fruit trees at Home Depot. She does know that sapling trees shouldn't be bearing fruit to begin with, and as it turns out, the Wyrm is basically fucking up trees at Home Depot. That's her takeaway from that, but it's also a good analogy. She listens, and she holds his hand, and puts what he says together with what she's experienced... what she remembers of it, at least.

She perks slightly when he mentions the knight bit, though: she was right! Her reading. She thinks about what it was this reading suggested he wanted to steal: the Star. Dreams. Dreamers. She remembers the fox on the Seven of Swords, too. She glances at the wall between the two hotel rooms, wondering if it's safe to have Julie in there with Ursula. Well, Kenneth seems like a good guy, at least.

"They sound like faeries," she says, sighing as she re-settles against him. "Like in stories.

"What do you think you guys should do?"

Rafael

"I don't know," he says quietly. "I want to talk to the Queen of Thistles first. Hear what she has to say. Maybe put a little more of the story together. Hear what she can or can't do in terms of reining Conrad in.

"And then we'll go from there. Know you don't want me to kill faeries, though. And I don't think Julie would be too happy either if I killed her friend. Or Ursula, if I killed her boyfriend.

"Ex-boyfriend. Hopefully."

Devon

"Ex-boyfriend," Devon says quietly. "We talked about it. Other stuff she remembers. I don't know if he loved her for real or not, but she loved him, and she thought he loved her. But now... even if he did, or does, there's this... all this.

"She's heartbroken," whispers the witch tucked under his arm. "And that's what faeries are like in stories, too."

Rafael

"Good." Wolf doesn't even hesitate. "Sucks. But good for her."

Devon

Devon is quiet a moment. She knows what he means, but she doesn't say anything for a bit.

Then: "Yeah. But try to be nice to her, all right? Even about Conrad. She's my friend."

Rafael

Wolf's arms tighten around her a little. He closes his eyes, inhales of that indefinable not-scent.

"I know," he says. Which means he knows she's her friend. Which means he knows she has so few friends who are true, who are deep. Which means he knows she has no other friends at all who are like Ursula, magical, a witch, a sister in this wide and hostile world.

So he promises: "I'll try."

Devon

"Good," says Devon.

A beat.

"Paying for a hotel room and room service and laundry so she can get herself together is a nice start," she tells him. Slides her arm over his middle. Hugs him.

She still feels weak. She still sounds tired. She still looks drained. Probably for the best if they wash up, get under the covers, get some sleep. But despite that, Devon doesn't move to get up and go brush her teeth with him. She strokes her fingers along his side, through his t-shirt. Breathes in the smell of him.

Her hand flattens. Covers his ribs, feeling him breathe. Her thumb strokes over his chest, slowly.

"You wanna?" she whispers.

Devon

[delete references to his shirt HE IS TOPLESS :D]

Rafael

Little goosebumps on his skin in the wake of her touch. Answer is probably obvious. She asks anyway. He huffs a laugh.

Covers her hand with his, tenderly. "You're not too tired?"

Devon

Of course she asks. Just because he's never said no doesn't mean he won't one day. Doesn't mean she doesn't want to hear him say yes, too. So she touches him, and thinks about it, and then she asks him if he wants to fuck. And he laughs.

Devon smiles. She nods. "Really tired. Not... physically." Hesitates a moment, before saying this: "Part of why I want to. I think it'll help."

She touches his hand. Wants to drag it to the knot on her robe's sash, make him undo it, open it, slide it off of her. But she doesn't, yet.

"And I miss you," she says softly. "Missed you, today."

Even that isn't all there is to it. She's sad about Ursula. She's sad that her friend is heartbroken. She's glad that she's not. She's glad she has him, and that their latest fight was about him wanting to keep her safe, not... draining her magic without her knowledge to get some sort of hit from it. She's glad they don't keep secrets, even if it's mainly because both of them are fairly poor liars.

She likes him. Loves him. And as she has said before:

"Want you," Devon reminds him. "I always want you."

Rafael

I think it'll help.

Makes him think of Newbury, that. Makes him think of that strange and sleepless night, the hushed meeting in the woods. Their bodies, their faces, their minds and memories still somehow the same when all the world around them had changed. The way it felt in the woods, under the stars, in air unspoiled by industry.

He picks her up, pulls her onto his lap. There's a knot on her sash, and then it's not there anymore. He unfolds the robe like it's christmas and he's opening a gift; puts his hands on her waist, skin to skin.

"Too," he whispers, and closes his eyes into that kiss. "Always."