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.
DevonOverhead, 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.
RafaelWolf 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?
DevonThe 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. 😿
RafaelMaybe 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
DevonNo 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.
RafaelEasily 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."
DevonKenneth 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.
RafaelWolf 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."
DevonIt'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."
RafaelHe 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."
DevonHe 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."
DevonIn 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."
RafaelWolf'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?"
DevonThe 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."
DevonJust 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?"
DevonKenneth 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.
RafaelThis 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.
DevonIf 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."
RafaelNot 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."
DevonUrsula 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."
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