Darkness There, and Nothing... CH. 9 - Now You See It, Now You Don't

Chapter Nine

Now You See It, Now You Don't

.

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Thor frowned, utterly baffled. "Why did she think you were a Martian?"

Loki scoffed and closed his eyes, tilting his head back. "She didn't. She was simply trying to break the tension. Clever little thing, she was. Always knew just what to say to shove back the darkness, the despair." A slow shake of the head. "Her cheerfulness kept me from going mad when the dark became so oppressive I could nearly taste it."

The crown prince of Asgard knew he ought to just let his brother continue with the story. Knew that interrupting him represented its own dangers. Yet the questions about Sophie's identity still revolved around and around in Thor's brain like a tornado, refusing to leave him in peace. He had to know the truth. Loki had to explain the connection between Coulson, Thea, Sophie, and Loki and Thor themselves. What was the connection?

"Loki," Thor said softly, trying to keep his voice gentle so as not to spook or infuriate his younger brother. "Loki, tell me about Sophie." Loki flinched at the sound of the child's name. "Will you not tell me about her?"

After a moment the green-eyed prince asked in a hollow, dead voice, "What do you wish to know about her?"

A hunch and a thought had been twisting and twining in Thor's brain for several hours, ever since he'd seen the drawing of Loki holding a pregnant Thea. It couldn't be…the timing didn’t work at all…but what if…? So the Asgardian asked, "Who is Sophie's father?"

An interminable silence stretched out between them, heavy as lead, brittle as glass. Loki's eyes squeezed shut and a shudder rippled through him. His hands convulsed into white-knuckled fists. The scabbed scrapes on his knuckles split and began to ooze fresh blood, but he didn't seem to notice. Thor held his breath. He could taste his pulse in the back of his throat as his heart hammered in his breast.

At last Loki shattered the silence with a simple and terrible confession. "Sophie's father is dead."

Thor's mouth fell open. Of all the things Loki could have said, somehow that had been the last one he'd expected. Trying to gather his wits, he echoed, "Dead?" Loki nodded. Scrambling for words, finally Thor managed to ask, "How?"

A cruel, sharp smile slashed across the pale, haggard face. "I killed him."

Cold horror began blooming in the pit of Thor's belly as he stared at the savage expression twisting his little brother's features. "You…you killed him?"

"Oh, yes," Loki hissed, hatred suffusing his face. "I killed the wretch. Drove a blade into his pathetic heart and watched him bleed out, watched him suffer for…for what he'd done. For leaving them there. Leaving his helpless wife and his daughter to the Chitauri."

"You killed Thea's husband, the father of her child?"

And to the prince's horror and disgust, Loki laughed—a low, bitter sound that rattled like death in his chest and echoed in the cell and down the dungeon corridor as if the place was a mausoleum. 

"Yes, Brother," the Frost Giant murmured, still smiling that cruel, half-mad smile. "Yes, I killed him. I killed Thea's husband and Sophie's father. I watched him die, watched his heart's blood spill like a crimson fountain until there was nothing left but an empty, desiccated husk, a dead man—if he ever was a man at all."

For a long time, Thor could only stare at Loki in sick astonishment while he sat inside his cell, eyes closed as if he were merely sleeping, head resting against the cold, bare stone with that smile on his face. Finally Thor managed, "Did…did she…know? Did she know you'd done this?"

At that, Loki's eyes opened. He blinked, and his thin black brows furrowed as if he were puzzling something out. Pursing his lips, he nodded slowly. "Yes…yes, I think she knew when I left for Midgard, to lead the invasion…I think she knew then what I would do. How it would end. She was always so clever. So wise. I think she knew."

"You killed him during the invasion?" Confusion and grief suddenly gave way to certainty and rage. It couldn't be…could it? But Loki had said he'd stabbed Thea's husband in the heart and watched him die. Which meant it could only be…"Coulson," Thor breathed. Loki's head snapped around and emerald eyes fixed on the crown prince. Loki raised one brow in silent inquiry. "Coulson was Sophie's father. That is why you killed him? That is the reason?"

A bizarre expression crossed Loki's face, one Thor couldn't fathom, and then the other prince threw back his head and laughed so hard tears streamed from his eyes. Thor lunged for the glass, slamming into it with even more force than the guards had reported Loki doing. Loki didn't jump or startle in any way. He simply continued laughing. Slowly he slid from a sitting position until he lay on the floor, one hand—swollen and blue-violet with bruises—covering his mouth as the mirth refused to abate.

"Stop laughing!" Thor bellowed, bringing his fists crashing against the glass like thunder. Crimson hazed across his vision. He tasted the copper tang of blood and fury. His heart threatened to burst from his ribcage. "Stop it! It isn't funny! Stop laughing, Loki! Stop it!"

But Loki simply spoke through his laughter. "You idiot," he gasped out. "Oh, you complete and total fool. Congratulations, you have at last discovered the great mystery! Well done, Brother!"

"Don't you dare mock me, you bast—"

"You never listen!" Loki suddenly roared, cutting off Thor's tirade before it could effectively begin. Laughter abruptly gone, Loki lunged to his feet. Six savage strides brought him directing in front of Thor, only the enchanted glass between them. "How dare you accuse me of murder, of such heinous crimes? Why don't you ever listen?"

"I am listening! I am listening to the confession of a craven murderer—"

"Shut up!" Loki yelled. "Shut up, you idiot! I confessed to murder weeks ago, weren't you listening? All those Midgardians; I know their blood is on my hands! But you accuse me of new crimes without proof—"

Incensed, Thor shouted, "I saw you kill him! And you just—"

"Liar!" Loki raged. The word was so not what Thor had expected that he simply stared at his brother, unable to comprehend just what his little brother was saying. "Liar! You saw nothing! You never see anything! You never see, you never hear! You never listen! You never look!"

After a moment Thor shook his head. "Will you listen to yourself? Loki, I looked right at you when you stabbed Coulson in the back, through the heart, with the Chitauri staff. I saw you do it. I know what I saw."

Just as suddenly as the rage had come, it drained away, leaving Loki a shadowed figure on the other side of the glass. He slowly shook his head before letting it thump heavily against the window. His entire body shook as his hands dropped to his sides.

"You never listen," Loki whispered, voice thick with emotion. He thumped his forehead against the glass again. "You never listen to me. You never have. Why?"

"I am listening," he said coldly. "Your own words betray you, Laufeyson." Loki flinched, but Thor shoved away the concern that slashed at him and stepped back from the glass. "You murdered my ally, my friend, and for what? Because you lusted for his wife? What did you think—that she would go to you with open arms after you butchered her husband in cold blood?" Shaking his head in disgust, Thor turned on his heel and began to walk away. "Give up any hope of so-called vengeance, Loki. You'll never see it."

"The man you knew wasn't Sophie's father," Loki said, and they were perhaps the only words that could have made Thor pause. "Nor was he Thea's husband."

Thor sneered. "Enough of your lies—"

"I am not lying," Loki snapped. "I would not lie about this, of all things. I would never lie about…about them."

The words rang with utter sincerity…but was that a trick? Yet as much as Loki seemed to love Thea and Sophie, something in Thor told him that his little brother wouldn't lie where it concerned the two of them. But…"You said you killed Sophie's father."

Loki sighed. "I did." Haunted jade eyes met Thor's. "That man no longer exists. He is dead and buried."

"Then you still murdered—"

"It wasn't murder," Loki confessed softly. "He wanted to die; he knew the weight of the sins on his shoulders. I granted him that death. It was mercy, Thor. Surely you can see that. Mercy to end a life made bitter and empty by the destruction of all he held dear. And it was justice, to pay for his sins. So many sins…so much blood…"

The crown prince shook his head. "Who was he, then, if not Coulson?" If Loki would give him no other name, then it had to be Coulson, Thor thought. Otherwise why not tell him the identity of the man who'd fathered the Midgardian child? But Loki merely sighed in exasperation and pushed away from the glass. 

Thor took a breath. He'd let his temper get away from him. It was still twisting and writhing in his veins, making his blood boil, but he couldn't let it make him lash out or Loki would give him nothing. Instead, the prince tried a tactic that had worked in the past—guessing.

"Did I know this man?" He asked. A moment's hesitation, then Loki nodded. "Were we friends?" Another nod. "Were we allies?" Thor held his breath, waiting for the reluctant nod that eventually came. "What was his name?"

Loki looked away, and the suspicion was cemented in Thor's mind—Loki meant Coulson. Yet Coulson had seemed surprised when Thor had mentioned the Chitauri on the SHIELD Helicarrier, had claimed no knowledge of them. And hadn't Tony, the Man of Iron, spoken to Coulson of love at several points while on the Midgardian airship? In fact, yes, Thor recalled suddenly that the SHIELD agent had been in love with a woman—not Thea, based on what both Coulson and Loki had said—but had broken off the relationship for some reason, though he still cared for her. But then what of his kidnapped wife, pregnant with their child? It didn't make sense. None of Loki's story made sense.

"Loki…why did you kill Coulson?"

His brother growled low in his throat, a sound of intense frustration, before snapping, "Killed him. Is that what I did? You're so clever, why don't you tell me? Why did I do as you accuse? Hmmm?"

Thor frowned, fighting back vicious invectives that blistered his throat. Instead of snarling at his brother as he ached to do, he swallowed back the rage and grief, fought for calm, and then spoke. "You killed him because he was going to prevent you from killing me. Your brother. Your twin."

"We're not twins, Thor," Loki muttered. "We are not even brothers. I'm adopted, remember? It was a lie they spoon-fed us all this time, that we'd shared the womb together, two halves of a whole, two sides of a coin, the shadow of me to your golden light.

"I remember a shadow, Thor. I remember that shadow trying to break out of the darkness, never being allowed to do so. Always being told to know my place," he added bitterly, "which was always one step behind you. And I respected that. Even though it hurt to know that I would always be second-best, I accepted and respected that my place was at your right hand, because you were the heir and we were brothers, and that's what brothers do.

"Except I have real brothers, and they wish me dead for killing Laufey, the father who left me to die. I have foster brothers—Víðarr, Hermod, Balder, Tyr—and they want me dead for what I did to you. Then there's my so-called twin, the light to my shadow." Loki spat the words, dripping with sarcasm and disdain. "You want me dead, too.

"Do not try to deny it!" He shouted when Thor opened his mouth to protest. "You tried to kill me. I clung to Odin's staff above the abyss, I reached for your hand, and you dropped me into the void. You left me to die! And you have the gall to stand there and act as if what I did was any worse? How did it feel, Thor, to tumble through the air, fearing that once you hit the ground you would shatter, unable to get up again until your enemies found you?"

"So it was revenge," Thor replied through numb lips. Pain pulsed through his chest once, twice, like twin arrows of ice piercing deep. "You tried to kill me for revenge because of what happened to you on the Chitauri home-world."

Loki suddenly looked very tired. Slumping back against the wall, he heaved a sigh and shook his head. "You never listen. You haven't heard a word I've said, not in all this time. Why do I bother telling you anything? Why do I bother, since you obviously don't care enough to listen?" Still shaking his head, sliding to the floor, Loki said wearily, "Go away, Thor. Tell the queen you tried, but that the man she loved as a son is long dead. Tell Odin he was right—that you've seen I am nothing but a liar and a traitor, a coward and a murderer. Tell our brothers you were a fool to believe there was anything left to salvage. Go away…just go away."

Something hung betwixt them, delicate as a filament of gossamer, hanging on a precipice that yawned between the two brothers like a gaping abyss. Thor swallowed hard, wondering if he were wasting his time when he said, "I promised you I would listen. I keep my promises."

Laughter shouldn't sound like dry bones scraping against gravestones, Thor thought as Loki chuckled. What was so funny? Anger seethed beneath Thor's skin, mingled with pain and confusion until he thought he might go mad. The conflicting emotions must've shown on the crown prince's face, because Loki sighed again and seemed to take pity on him.

"Thor, why are you bothering with this? You don't believe me. I can see it on your face. You have tried, haven't you? Done what the queen asked. Let it be now."

"She's not the queen," Thor replied on impulse. "She's our mother…and she's worried about you, Loki. So is our father—"

"Your father wishes he'd left me to die out there in the cold wastes of Jötunheim," Loki said tonelessly. "And you wish I hadn't survived my tumble through the void—"

"Don't you dare say that!" Thor snapped. The sharp tone seemed to pierce the other prince's sudden apathy a little; he frowned at Thor, clearly bemused. "I didn't drop you off the Bifröst, you idiot! I didn't want Banner to beat you to death when he found you in Stark Tower! I didn't want you to break your neck when you fell from the Rainbow Bridge! You're my brother, damn you. You have betrayed me countless times, hurt me, tried to kill me, but you are still my little brother and I love you. So shut up! Stop saying I want you dead! It isn't true!"

Loki stared at him, jaw slightly slack, eyes wide. The dancing firelight made them gleam as if they were wet. He blinked several times and clenched his jaw, looking away. Slowly drawing his left knee up to his chest, he draped his arm across it and hunched his shoulders, staring at nothing as his brows knotted together above the bridge of his nose. A thin scar sliced across Loki's nose—from Banner's beating, Thor remembered. Loki pressed one fist against his mouth and hung his head so that the dark strands of his hair fell around his face like a curtain. A tremor shook the thin shoulders before subsiding.

"Brother?" Thor whispered, wondering at this sudden posture. It was a pose of tightly-controlled pain, one the blue-eyed Asgardian had seen his brother take but rarely in their lives. What was Loki thinking? What was he doing? Was Thor about to finally break through that shield of ice and poisonous sarcasm his little brother constantly employed?

"I didn't try to kill you, Thor," Loki whispered at last. "I needed you out of the way."

Forcing himself to remain calm, the prince took his recently-vacated chair, sinking into the soft cushions slowly to give himself time to formulate a proper response. "You have always been very clever, Brother," he finally said. "Could you think of no other way—"

"I'm not clever," Loki replied. Thor's brows furrowed at the unexpected words. Loki still wasn't looking at him, but at seeming nothingness. "All my plans, my brilliant schemes…the best ones were always formulated under times of great danger to me, to us."

"Those were the best," Thor agreed cautiously.

"They were also the ones with the most holes, the least likely chances of success. Luck was what always brought us through, not my cunning. You always had an extraordinary amount of luck. Born under a lucky star, Mother always said."

Sensing his brother was going somewhere vital with this—and having not missed Loki's use of the word "Mother"—Thor shrugged, a casual gesture belying the maelstrom of emotions and thoughts whirling around inside of him. "You've had your fair share of luck in the past."

Loki chuckled weakly. "It ran out that day."

"The day we stopped this invasion?" Thor asked, unsure. "Or the day I returned from exile?"

Dark lashed drifted down to make black crescents against Loki's thin, white cheeks as he closed his eyes. "The day I met Thea. I thought I knew desperation before then, but I was a fool. I couldn’t think clearly with so much at stake. More than there ever had been before. I couldn't tear my mind away from what I was trying to do in order to think of the best way to do it. Something made it almost impossible. There was too much rage, too much f—"

Loki cut himself off, swallowing hard. It was several moments before he opened his eyes and continued, "Thea said she felt a shadow growing in my mind, but she couldn't tell what it was, if it was the effect of our captivity or…but no. I could think of no other way to take you out of the battle. I knew you wouldn't die. If my plummet through space hadn't killed me, such a small tumble wouldn't have killed you, but it would have hurt you just enough."

Thor shook his head, protesting, "I don't understand, Loki. Why did you want me out of the battle?"

The hurt on his brother's face was a fleeting shadow, but he saw it. The green-eyed prince asked softly, "Do you not know? You said it yourself once. 'I will not fight you, Brother.'"

"But you did fight me that day on the Bifröst."

He nodded, his expression almost musing. "That's true, I did." He flicked his eyes to Thor's face. The vicious pain in the depths of the viridian gaze sent a pulse of sympathetic pain through the crown prince's heart. "I fought you then, because I knew I wouldn't have to kill you in order to win the battle. But in a battle for Midgard and its people? I knew I would have to destroy you utterly in order to do what was needed, because you would never back down."

"And on the Bifröst? During the explosion? You were caught in the backlash when I destroyed the Bridge because you leapt to attack me. Did you mean to kill me then?"

"I meant to stop you," Loki murmured. "I meant to knock Mjölnir from your hands so that you would have no choice but to stop trying to shatter the Bifröst. I had to destroy Jötunheim, or they would kill us all, and you wouldn't let me. I was…desperate. As I've said, my desperate plans are always the ones most likely to backfire."

Thor wondered if he were mad to believe his brother…but he did believe. Loki hadn't tried to kill him. He'd only been desperate—insanely desperate—to protect what mattered to him: Asgard, his family…and Thea and Sophie.

"Why did you say nothing?" He demanded. "Why not explain?"

Loki scoffed. "As if it would matter. It doesn't."

"It does, Loki, it does matter. It changes—"

"Nothing," he snapped with a little of his old venom. "It changes nothing. Thea is still dead. Sophie is dead. They are both dead, Thor, and nothing can change that."

It would be the end of this conversation, the rational part of Thor thought, and the death of any future revelations from his little brother…but Thor had to ask, and he had to have the right answer. He didn't know why, but he needed Loki to admit it if they were going to continue this.

"Did you love her? Did you love Thea?" Thor demanded. Loki squeezed his eyes shut, but said nothing. "Were you in love with her?"

Loki turned his face away, as if to hide from the question. "Thor, why must you ask such stupid questions? Of course I didn't love a Midgardian—"

"Did you love her?" Thor snapped. "Not a Midgardian, not a mortal. Thea. The woman whose name spills from your lips like a prayer, the woman whose death has been carved into your heart as if with a blade. The woman who makes your soul bleed every time you think of her. Did you love Thea? Were you in love with her?"

"Thor—"

"Were you in love with her?"

"Dammit, Thor—"

"Were you?"

"YES!" The word was a cry of pure, unadulterated anguish. Loki shoved his hands through his hair, clutching cruelly at the dark strands as terrible agony twisted his drawn features, as he bit his lip until blood came. "Yes, damn you, I loved her. I loved her, and now she's dead because I couldn't commit genocide, because I couldn't conquer a world to save her. Because I wasn't strong enough, desperate enough, clever enough, ruthless enough to protect her, and now she's dead!

"Are you happy now? Are you pleased? Proud of yourself, that you've wrenched this from me? Yes, I loved her! I loved her more than my own life, more than my freedom, more than food or water or breath." He dropped his hands to stare at them with something akin to horror, or perhaps it was despair. "My hands are gushing with red…for her. I did it all to save her. To save Sophie. And they're both dead. My girls. My beautiful girls, my alsklingar. I swore to protect them…" Loki dropped his face into his hands. "I loved them both. I did. I did."

"Loki?" The soft, tender voice was not Thor's. Both men turned at the sound of the younger prince's name being called to see Frigga, shrouded in a black gown, hovering at the edge of the pool of light cast by the torches. The sorrow and surprise on her pale face told Thor that his mother had heard at least part of Loki's confession of love for Thea. She stepped closer. "Loki."

For a long, terrible moment, there was only silence. Then from behind Thor came the sound of a sharply drawn breath and the rustle of clothing. Loki whispered, "Mother? What are you doing here?"

Frigga rushed to the window, pressing her shaking hands against the glass. Thor watched as Loki slowly rose to his feet. Moving like a reanimated corpse, he approached the queen and laid his hands against where hers rested on the window. He closed his eyes and dropped his forehead against the glass as if in surrender. A look of defeat settled over his features.

"Mother, you promised me you would not come here."

Thor started in surprise. Why had Loki made Frigga promise such a thing? The prince knew his mother would never have sworn an oath like that without prompting from her foster son. She'd been desperate to speak to Loki ever since he'd begun telling Thor about his captivity at the hands of the Chitauri.

"Does Father know you're here?" Thor asked gently.

The queen shook her head before focusing once more on her younger son. "Loki, I want to speak to you. Privately," she added to Thor, but it was Loki who protested.

"No, Mother. No, I—"

"Please," she said. It was all she said, just the one word, but Thor could see in his brother's eyes that Loki didn't possess the strength to turn Frigga away, and now he knew why Loki had always been so careful to refer to her as the queen instead of Mother: because here was the one person the foster prince still loved wholly and unequivocally, without any reserve; the one person Loki would tell anything to if she asked him. He hadn't wanted Thor to know that, had been afraid of what Thor could use Frigga to find out…because if he'd been ruthless enough, he could have used her to force Loki to tell him everything.

Loki drew back from the glass, but slowly, as if it pained him to do it. He hung his head, eyes downcast. A sigh shuddered out of him. He looked off to one side as if there would be answers there. "Mother, please. Why are you doing this? You gave me your word."

"If you will not speak to Thor, then you will speak to me, Loki," she said.

He closed his eyes and clenched his fists at his sides, then nodded. "I will speak to Thor if you promise to go."

Which astonished the prince quite a bit. "You would rather speak to me than Mother?"

"The two of you will tell each other everything anyway," Loki muttered.

Thor had the strangest feeling that this wasn't entirely the real reason his brother wanted him there instead of Frigga, but he said nothing to that, merely offering his mother a truncated bow. Frigga nodded first to her natural son, then to her adopted one, before turning away and leaving the dungeons.

"Have you told the All-Father any of this?" Loki asked Thor as their mother's footsteps faded into the distance. A moment's hesitation, then the crown prince shook his head. Loki nodded as if this confirmed something. "Very well." Going to the table, he dropped down into his own chair. "You know, you really are irritating. Why do you continue to pester me?"

"You promised me the story," the elder brother replied, as if that should explain everything. "I want it."

Loki smiled ruefully. "In some ways, you haven't changed at all. You know that, don't you?" They shared a smile, the first in a long time, then Loki sighed. "I am so tired, Thor. Would it not simply be easier if you just killed me?"

Thor scowled. Growling like an irate bear, he snapped, "That isn't funny."

"I wasn’t joking. There is a line of mortal verse Thea told me once. It's remarkably apt, these mortal rhymes. 'Ah, dear Althea…I will stay with thee; and never from this palace of dim night depart again: here, here will I remain with worms that are thy chambermaids. Lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death.' Except there is no kiss, and there is no death, much as I may long for it. There is only this endless purgatory."

"You don't really want to die, Loki."

He scoffed. "What do you know of it?" He demanded bitterly. "Nothing. You don't know what it's like to think you still have one last hope, only to have it snatched from you at the very last. You have no idea what it feels like to be told that your…that the woman you love is dead, through your failures."

Taking a gamble, the elder prince replied, "Then tell me. That is what you want, isn't it? For me to know your pain? For me to feel your grief?"

Loki said nothing for what seemed an eternity. At last, however, he said, "There was nothing in the darkness but that small light she offered, and the sound of her voice. I came to depend upon it. It was that, or succumb to the pitiless silence, the hungry dark. She offered me succor, even though she didn't know me, had no reason to be kind to me. Such kindness. I've never known its like before."

"We have never been unkind to you," Thor protested before he could stop himself.

The pseudo-Æsir raised a sardonic brow. "You are so blind, Brother. You always have been. You see only what you wish to see, instead of what's right in front of you." When the Asgardian opened his mouth to protest, Loki demanded, "Do you want the story or don't you?"

Thor closed his mouth. Time enough to deal with Loki's allegations of unkindness later. He nodded for his little brother to continue.

"She was always so cheerful," Loki continued, in a low voice soft with remembrance. "I couldn't fathom it, how she could remain so bright in the dark. She'd been kidnapped, hurt, locked in a cage without light or access to the outside world. She only had me. I didn't understand how she could stay so optimistic…"

.

"What are you doing?" Loki asked some hours later as a series of thuds echoed from the other side of the wall. "Thea?" His voice sharpened when she didn't respond. Unease whispered like the faintest traces of poison in his veins. He pressed himself against the wall. He could feel the steady percussion of something heavy hitting the stone. Tiny bits of rubble skittered out of the hole between their cells and rattled to the floor. "Are you all right?"

"I'm (thud) fine (thud), just (thud) trying to (thud) make this (thud-thud) stupid hole (thud-a-thud-thud) bigger!" Panting for breath, she hit the wall again. "Ow! This is (thud) making my (thud) feet hurt."

Loki's brows rose and incredulity flooded him. "Are you kicking the wall?"

The smile was obvious in her voice when she gasped out, "Worked last time, didn't it? Sort of. Maybe I'll feel better if I yell 'hi-ya!' That always works in the movies. Hi-ya! (thud) Ow. Yeah, that didn't help. Whatever, time to see what the damage is."

Rustling issued from the dimly lit shadows on the other side of the wall, and then the beam of her flashlight illuminated the area she'd been pummeling with her feet. Loki peered through the hole in time to see a quick gleam of teeth as the mortal woman grinned. Then the light skated around the cell to land on a dark mass tucked against one wall. The beam wobbled as Thea crawled toward the mass—which was probably one of her two packs.

Why had the Chitauri let her keep them? It didn't make sense. But Loki wouldn't worry about it now. He listened to Thea rooting around in her pack before exclaiming in triumph. Scraping ensued as she scrambled back to the wall.

"This should be so much easier now," she muttered. A familiar chink-chink-chunk-chank sound followed, and tiny fragments of stone crumbled to the floor. "See, my mom's got one of those old-fashioned nail files that supposedly you can saw through prison bars with. I don't know why. And there aren't any bars in here anyway, which stinks because that would make this a bit more fun—funner? More fun? I dunno, you know what I mean—but whatever, you take what you can get."

"But you cannot escape that way," Loki said. Surely she didn't think he knew a way to get out of his own cell, or surely he would have done so by now. So why did she want to make the hole bigger?

She made a rude noise of derision. "Yeah, I know that. I'm not trying to escape. I already checked all the other walls for cracks. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. That's not the point."

"Then what is the point?"

"The point is that a) I'm bored out of my mind and the only things to do are talk and take a nail-file to this stupid hole, and b) I want to see your entire face. It seems like a nice face. I like your chin."

He blinked, unsure if he'd heard her correctly. "My chin?"

"What little I saw of it, yeah. And you have a dimple in your left cheek, did you know that? Totally cute. You're covered in dirt, but I'm not exactly a supermodel right now, either. You should see me when I'm not totally gross. You'd be all over me like sprinkles on a strawberry sundae."

If he didn't focus on the minutia of her little sayings, he found they made sense—usually. "Oh, would I?" He asked, smiling. The muscles in his face protested the unfamiliar strain. "And why is that?"

"Because," she replied tightly. He could hear her doing…well, it sounded like she was attempting to pry a piece of stone out of the wall. "I am stunning to behold. I am God's gift to men. I'm a love goddess…minus the sexy fun time part. So just the beauty part, but beauty goddess sounds weird, so just go with it. Oh, for crying out loud, what is holding this wall together? Cement? I—will—pry—you—out—now!" There was a loud crack, Thea yelped, and then there was another crack. "Ow, ow, ow! Are you serious? Ow!"

The smell of rust and salt trickled in through the somewhat bigger hole in the wall. Loki was fairly certain he could easily shove his arm through up to the shoulder. He knew the scent carried on the stale air—blood. 

"Thea?"

"Tore my fingernail," she whispered, voice taut with pain. "It's bleeding a bit. Great. Ow, that really hurts. Mmph." When she spoke again, her voice came muffled, as if she had something in her mouth. Her injured finger? "Thon of a theabath. That hurth. If thith geth infected, I'm gonna be pithed. Grrr, thay thomething to dithtract me, pleathe."

Loki cast about for a topic, but the only one he could think of was something he'd managed to scrape together enough energy to be interested in. "You spoke of your powers. What are they?"

"Hmmm? Oh," she said, and he realized she'd pulled her finger out of her mouth. "Illusions. Basically. And limited telepathy in conjunction with the illusions. Like, I can't read your mind, even if I wasn't wearing this stupid inhibitor collar—I will kill these goons when I get my hands on them—but my illusion works with your brain, you know? 

"So, for example, I could stick someone in a memory and my illusion pulls all the sensory information out of their brains automatically to formulate that illusion. So like, if I trapped you in a memory of the hottest day you'd ever experienced, my power automatically pulls stuff—like how hot it felt, whether there was a breeze, how itchy your shirt felt after you got a sunburn, all that stuff—out of your brain and makes you feel it all over again. That also works if I want to trap you in one of my memories. And once I cast the illusion from someone's memory, I've got that memory, too. Since I have an eidetic memory, I never forget anything."

"A what?"

"Eidetic," she repeated, enunciating the word carefully. "A photographic memory. I never forget stuff. Once it's in my noggin, it's there forever. What makes that great is that I can take a mishmash of memories and make new illusions based on the data in my brain. So if I wasn't wearing this collar, say, I could cast an illusion of my room, and we could actually interact with it and all that, because of all the sensory information stored in my head."

He stopped to consider the implications of such a talent. "So you could trick someone into thinking anything? Anything at all?" When she made an affirmative sound, the dark part of his mind made him ask, "Could you make someone think they were dying?"

"Yeah, but it wouldn't actually kill them. Survival instinct is too strong. I can hurt people, though, if I concentrate hard enough. Trap them in memories I have of bad things that have happened to me. Like once a pot of boiling water fell on my foot, and one time I went swimming and got tangled up in some weeds and nearly drowned. 

"It's just really hard to get to that point. The professor spent a long time drilling into my head not to do that to people, because the last person who had a gift like mine was crazy. For a long time there was a mental block in my mind so I could do that kind of thing. My power's not really good for offensive or defensive stuff, really. I'm sorry. 

"Hey, Loki," she added suddenly, sounding a bit forlorn. The shift in her tone of voice was enough to catch his attention. "Do you think…maybe…well, it's kinda dark in here, even with the flashlight, and I've got this thing about the dark if I'm stuck in it for too long, and I just…'cause my powers aren't really working. I mean, I can project an illusion for myself even with the collar, but I can't touch it or anything, so it's not really helping. And I'm all alone in here, kinda freaking out a little, so I was wondering if maybe…could you hold my hand for a sec? I think mine will fit through the hole okay."

He jolted. To touch her…the first gentle, friendly touch he'd known in six months. The last time anyone had touched him like that had been after he'd put an end to Laufey. His mother had taken him in her arms, so proud of him for protecting his father. To know a kind touch once more…

Loki cleared his throat. "Of course."

In the dim light of the flashlight she'd given him, a slender pale thing emerged from the blackness of the wall like a white lily blooming in the twilight. Questing fingers grasped at the air. With an arm that shook, Loki lifted his hand and caught Thea's.

The silken touch of her skin was a shock after nothing but grit, muck, blood, and stone all this time. Her hand was dirty, but beneath the light dusting of broken wall bits was skin as soft as satin. The delicate bones moved beneath the flesh as she startled at the touch of Loki's large and callused hand. Then her fingers closed convulsively around his and she made a small sound. She clasped his hand, and he gripped hers, squeezing gently. A strange tingle began in his fingertips and shot up his arm. Heat washed down his spine.

There was a flash of light, emerald and ivory intertwined in a blinding corona…and suddenly he wasn't in his cell anymore. He was outside, but not on the Chitauri home-world. Loki scrunched his eyes shut against the vicious glare of the sun and covered his face with his forearm. Only after a long, long moment could he pull his arm back down again to look around him.

Grass burst vividly green from the soil all around, except under his feet. He stood on some sort of rectangular stone courtyard painted with orange, white, and red lines. Two metal poles topped with white boards and red hoops with nets underneath stood on opposite ends of the stone courtyard. There were stone and wood buildings nearby, trees and a fountain, and an orange sphere laced with black lines sat on the ground beside one of the metal poles. A gentle breeze ruffled the grass.

Next to it stood a woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, with long dark hair tumbling down her back and familiar blue-gray eyes. Though no dirt smeared the heart-shaped face, Loki still recognized her. Judging by the way hers eyes widened and her jaw went slack, she recognized him, as well.

"Thea?"

"What the frack?" She yelped, stepping backward, and then Loki was back in his cell, plunged into darkness, no longer clasping Thea's slender hand in his own. On the other side of the wall, he could hear her mumbling, "No freaking way. No way. How the…what…how…what?"

"What just happened?" Loki whispered. "Where were we?"

After a moment, Thea said, "That was the school where I work. Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters. It was a memory. The same one I was thinking of when I asked if I could hold your hand, because I couldn't bring it up all the way."

Realization struck Loki like a thunderbolt. "Then that means, if you're touching me, then you can—"

"Then I can use my powers."

Chapter 9 - Cheese, Apple, Bread

that Is

A Short Tale of Visitations, Beliefs, and Stories

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"What are you doing here?" Dylan whispered, taking in the prince in his green silks and brown leather belt, vambraces and boots. When those topaz eyes widened, the nearly invisible dusty gold brows lifting inquiringly, the mortal woman hastened to add, struggling for Old World formality, "I'm honored by your presence, Your Highness." She dipped a curtsy, made awkward by the bundle of mewing fur twining between her legs and the bolt of pain shooting through her right knee. "But I had no reason to look for your coming. Why have you come?" She paused, swallowed. "Am I to die, then?" If she was, then all right. She didn't fear death, only the pain that invariably came with it. But the Elven warrior would make her death quick and painless – his honor demanded that much. And then she wouldn't be trapped in this world anymore. The pains and sorrows of mortality would be gone, and she wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.

"If I were going to kill you," Nuada said coolly, "I would have simply allowed the leanashe to do it for me. Why do you think I would slay you? Have you broken your promise to me?"

Dylan opened her mouth, ready to bite off some snippy remark – hadn't he learned yet that she was trustworthy? Why had he let her live these past four months, if he didn't trust her? – when she saw the faint smile curving one corner of his black-lipped mouth. And his eyes... they weren't bronze with fury anymore, but pale as yellow diamonds. Could it be that... that the son of King Balor was jesting with her? She tried to remember her three months in his subterranean sanctuary while they'd both recovered from their injuries. Had the Elf prince ever cracked a smile? Not that she could remember.

"You know I haven't," she said, hiding her bewilderment behind civility and a blank face. "Anyway, you're welcome in my home, Your Highness. Sit, please."

Nuada sank gracefully into a large, brown leather armchair as the human woman who continued to baffle him put another log on the fireplace and sank onto a cushioned stool near the hearth. Automatically, Dylan had mimicked the positions she and the prince had often found themselves in during their time together in the sanctuary – he in a chair, she practically at his feet. Before it had not bothered him, but now it made him uncomfortable. She was not a servant. She was not his equal by any stretch – she was human, mortal, with burning iron in her blood and a hole in her heart that nothing would ever be able to fill – but Dylan Myers was not the servant of anyone.

"How... have you fared, since last we met?" He asked awkwardly.

Dylan smiled and shrugged nonchalantly. "I've been well. I thank you." She made a point to speak politely, faintly imitating Nuada's speech patterns. Things were different, now that she was no longer his healer and he no longer her patient. She wasn't comfortable around him anymore, not at all. What surprised her, though, was that although he made her nervous, he didn't frighten her in any way. "My wounds have all healed," the mortal woman continued. "I have to walk with a cane during cold or wet days, though."

The Elf prince frowned. "A cane?" His eyes suddenly registered the new calluses on the palms in her lap, then darted to the gleaming wooden cane leaning against the hearth stones. "Why?"

"Apparently I broke my patella – my kneecap." Dylan frowned, chewed her lip, not meeting the glacial amber eyes of the crown prince of Bethmoora. "I sort of remember falling – I tripped and smashed my knee into the pavement. It hurt, but it didn't feel broken. Of course, I'd never broken a joint before," she added wryly, making a face. "So what would I know?"

"You've broken other bones," he said, and it was not a question. His eyes roved over her face, a trifle pale now as memory of the night they had met surfaced. The human sank her teeth into her bottom lip and nodded.

After a moment, she continued, her voice trembling and slightly raspy, "The knee-break was just a hairline fracture, but the way it healed after I left your sanctuary means it will pain me in bad weather."

"Willow bark tea will help," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "I use it when..." Realizing what he had been about to say, he stopped abruptly and looked away from her, into the fire. This human, so fey-like in her emotions, in her compassion for others, was dangerous. He had to remember that. She had helped him, saved his life on multiple occasions, cared for him in his illness, and they were allies – of a sort. That did not make them friends.

Still... it was such a small thing to tell her...

"Yes?" Dylan murmured, tilting her head to the side. Several dark curls fell across her face, hiding her expression but revealing her brilliant blue eyes. The paleness of her skin was stark against the darkness of her brown hair, even in the golden firelight. "You use it when?"

"I use it when my arm aches during snow storms. I took a barbed arrow through it when I was young."

If she had offered pity – pity from a human! Revolting! – he might have forgotten the history between them and attacked her. However, she merely stroked the little black kitten that she had kept cradled in her arms since the leanashe's death and said softly, voice companionable, "That must have been very painful, Your Highness."

He shrugged, disliking the sense of comradeship tugging at him. Nuada had only come to check that Dylan was keeping her promise to him to aid the Fair Folk of New York City. Seeing the vicious leanashe ready to slaughter the human who had proved herself more honorable than – bitter, sickening thought – some Elves he knew, such as Eammon, had turned the reconnaissance foray into a rescue mission and social visit. And Faery law was very definite on politeness. Dylan had offered him a chair – he had to take it. And now that he had sunk into the thing and propped his boots on the velvet-covered footstool in front of it, his muscles – sore from weapons' training, tired and worn from the very last vestiges of illness from the human metals – told him in no uncertain terms that if he attempted to rise anytime soon, they would be unhappy.

"Warriors suffer many such wounds," he said, frowning into the fire. The Elf prince did not wish to look at Dylan, at the expressive blue eyes that reminded him of those nights when she had woken in the underground sanctuary, sobs stifled to hide her fear from him. He did not wish to see the fire dancing in her eyes. He frowned more fiercely. "It is the way of things."

"A-are you thirsty?" A sliver of the old fear pierced her heart when she saw the way Nuada's eyes had darkened to bronze as he stared into the fire. "H-h-hungry? I have fresh apples from the tree in my garden, and cheese from the Farmer's Market. I have somewhat fresh milk – it's only from this morning – as well, and I made bread when I got home from..."

She'd been about to say "my therapy appointment," but let the thought trail away instead. The mortal knew there was nothing wrong with needing therapy – she was still plagued by hellish nightmares of the attack on the nights when none of the nomadic yōsei slept beneath her roof. Despite the semi-weekly visits from the local Wee Winks to give her sweet dreams (and a few baku from the East Village to eat her nightmares), there had yet to be an end to the new night terrors, and the old ones that stank of childhood memory had never been eradicated. And she never took the subway anymore. Her brother drove her around, or Ariel, her private secretary, did. The smell of disinfectant always made the mortal sick now, after her stay in the hospital. Any sort of cleaning solution did, so she'd bought potted roses and lilies and scattered them throughout the cottage to remind herself of the smell of the Elf sanctuary. She'd had new bronze and brass bolts put on the heavy granite front door, but that still didn't ease the feeling of being hunted, stalked. Her counselor had used words like "shell-shocked" and "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." Words that, as a youth psychiatrist, she was familiar with.

Of course she needed therapy. Dylan knew the only reason she hadn't run back to find Nuada after enduring the ten days in the hospital was the strength she had gained from relying very heavily on her faith.

And, she reminded herself with a slight inward smile that felt as brittle as glass, because she didn't remember where the sanctuary actually was.

"Bring the apples and the cheese," Nuada said, breaking through the thin shell of fear. One glance at his pale eyes and the wisps of panic vanished like mist on the breeze as memories of where she was and who she was with returned. The Elf prince continued, "I will show you... something. Bring the bread, as well. I... have brought drink to share with you." That was not entirely accurate; he'd planned on bringing the stuff back to his underground lair, not sharing it with a human. But as his father often said, it was dull to eat without drinking, or vice-versa. "Bring two cups."

Surprised, Dylan got up and went into the kitchen to get a pair of little polished wooden cups, the small basket of apples, the wheel of sharp cheddar cheese in its little cloth sack, and the small loaves of Elf bread she'd made to give the local Wee Folk. Since nursing the demi-merrow back to health as a child, she had always done her best to leave milk and bread for the Faerie Folk whenever possible, as organic and lacking in chemicals as she could manage. She knew from experience that the bread would be fine. The "lesser" Fae couldn't handle as much contact with what they called "human metals" and chemicals as a Fayre like Nuada could. She hoped the apples and cheese would do, as well.

The human woman carried everything back into the living room and stared at Nuada seated in front of the hearth on her handmade, red and gold rag-rug. A small bottle sat on the floor beside him. When he saw her staring, the prince gestured imperiously for her to sit on the floor across from him. He plucked an apple from the basket and pulled out a small knife from the leather belt at his waist, which he used to cut a slice from the shiny red fruit. A frisson of fear slithered up Dylan's spine as the light glinted off the blade – phantom pain burning across her face, a pain-bright edge slicing repeatedly across her unprotected mouth – but then the Crown Prince of Bethmoora proceeded to show a mortal woman how to make roasted apple and cheese sandwiches. The crackling fire, the cadence of an Elven voice, and the sheer nonthreatening quality of his movements calmed her suddenly racing heart.

Dylan fought to hide her surprise as Nuada explained what to do. While in his subterranean sanctuary, she and Nuada had shared meals often enough, though usually in absolute silence and with no interaction of any sort. She'd often eaten seated on the floor, leaning against the wall, while he'd lounged in the chair. While the current meal was mostly silent, punctuated only by brief comments from the taciturn prince, the feel of the situation was different. That tiny curve of the mouth had returned to Nuada's face, for one thing, and he was much closer to her than he'd ever been before, except when she'd been doctoring his wounds... or that first full night, long ago, when he'd pushed her hair aside to witness for himself the grief and pain reflected in her eyes.

The human took a bite of the sandwich. She'd never had cheese and apple slices together before, but surprisingly, the sharp cheddar went well with the crisp, sweet red apples. And the wheat bread was just the right neutral flavor to blend the two. The mortal made a small sound of surprise, glancing up at Nuada. "It's good," she mumbled behind the hand covering her half-full mouth.

"Give me your cup," he said, and poured a very small amount of the golden liquid into the wooden vessel. Dylan brought it to her nose and inhaled. It smelled sweet and crisp, like freshly-pressed apple juice, but...

"This isn't alcholic, is it, Your Highness? Or enchanted?" She asked. Nuada shook his head, though she could tell he was puzzled. Dylan only shrugged and took a sip, smiling when the delicious liquid flowed across her tongue and made her tastebuds tingle. It was like swallowing down the moon, or melting into the ocean surf at dawn. The life essence of spring, the warmth of summer, the sweetness of autumn and the sharpness of winter. Life and magic and joy. "Wow. That stuff is... wow." She realized she felt giddy and blinked. "Sure that stuff's not alcoholic?"

"It is not; humans may drink it. There is a brownie in your cottage," the Elf prince said suddenly. He'd realized that the place where the leanashe had spit on the floor was shiny and clean again. Not only that, but his boot had somehow been polished while he was unaware.

Dylan jolted in surprise and scanned her home. "There is?" She cried, her eyes darting to potential hidy-holes. "Where?"

"He hides from you. He knows you have the Sight. But this cottage is one of the few places the Fair Folk can come and live comfortably." Nuada nodded toward the brass kettle on the hob and then gestured toward the living room. Not a scrap of iron, lead or steel to be found in the place. All of her fixtures were brass, copper, bronze or silver. She had done it on purpose, the prince knew, to make a sanctuary for the Tylwyth Teg and their ilk. The walls (and he suspect the foundation) were not concrete, but actual quarried granite held together with mortar. The pipes in the walls were copper and brass. Even the nails he'd spotted in the timbers of the ceiling were made of brass, titanium, and hardened wood instead of iron.

It was just like her to live in a place like this.

And he smelled no cleaning chemicals, only the sharp undertaste of vinegar on the air that only a preternatural nose would pick up, masked as it was by the spice of herbs and the perfume of roses and lilies. Did she use vinegar to clean? Most humans would likely have found the scent unpleasant, but it only served to remind him how this extraordinary mortal had dedicated her life to helping the Bright Ones.

For the first time since meeting her, the prince considered Dylan's fate when he discovered the location of the third Golden Crown piece and brought the Golden Army to life. Would he go out of his way to keep her safe from them? And she spoke fondly of her twin brother. Nuada knew what it was, to live without the constant contact from your other half. He did not know if his sanity would hold, if Nuala were ever slain. Their bond was such that it seemed unlikely. And that was if he did not die himself. What would her brother's death in the coming war do to the human who had saved him?

He could not afford to think about that now. His people needed to be freed of mortal oppression. Even his alliance with Dylan, forged out of desperation, honor, and mutual need, paled dramatically in comparison to the importance of waging war on humanity to free the Fayre before it was too late to salvage his people's lives. If he saved two humans, two who had done all in their power to help his people...

Even considering the idea surprised him. He owed Dylan's brother – John, she had called him – nothing at all. But he owed the mortal woman seated beside him, munching an apple and cheese sandwich and sipping Elven drink. She had saved him over and over again, had tried to save him tonight from the leanashe. Her, he would not allow to die.

But what of her brother? Would his death drive her mad? And what of her sisters?

"I suppose I'm lucky mo duinne didn't try to take my eye out," Dylan said, breaking him from his dark thoughts. He arched one slender eyebrow at her.

"You know that story, then? And where did you learn the Old Tongue?"

"Gaelic?" The human shrugged. "In high school and college. In order to get into a university, I had to take two years of a foreign language. I was still in institutions at the time, but it was state law that they had to educate us (if we 'behaved,' which by then I did, usually). One of the teachers they brought in had studied Irish history, specifically, and the Gaelic culture, and taught me the language." She shrugged again. "My parents were certain I'd never master it enough to pass the final exams, so they made me take Spanish, too, but I just never could get the hang of Spanish for some reason. I flunked that horribly and passed Gaelic. It's been quite useful in dealing with a lot of the Fair Folk," she added, "which was one reason I wanted to take it. Then, when I got out of the institution and went to a university, they offered Gaelic, and in order to get into medical school, I needed a four-year degree, which also required two years of a language. I ended up minoring in Gaelic culture and mythology."

"Minoring?" Nuada asked, his mind buzzing with the strange words. Before his moons-long stay with Dylan in his subterranean sanctuary, he would have balked at showing any possible indication of ignorance to anyone, much less a human. Now, he munched an apple and waited for her to explain. The prince didn't realize, but Dylan did, that this meant that he actually trusted her – a little bit, at any rate.

"In human universities, the main thing you study is called your major. For me, it was psychology – how the mind works – and medicine, so I could be a psychiatrist. You're also supposed to study something else, though not as much, and that's called your minor – minor course of study, probably. So I mainly studied to be a psychiatrist – a healer of the mind and heart – and to keep from going crazy myself, I also studied the culture and language of Gaelic Ireland and Scotland, so I could learn more about your people." Smiling now, her expression wistful, Dylan added, "I never wanted to forget the Fair Folk, or what they'd done for me, what they'd shown me and taught me. Your people have enriched my life in so many wonderful ways, my prince. It is the least I can do."

And she'd never wanted anyone to ever experience the things she had - being locked up, tortured, slowly poisoned over more than a decade because she could See things others never could. Fairies. Faeries. The Fae. That's why she'd decided to become a psychiatrist; so she could prevent such a thing.

Even with that drive, even with the help of the Hidden Folk in return for her help, she wouldn't have been able to do it, wouldn't have been able to maintain a grip on her sanity and not only survive, but thrive, if not for four things: sheer desperation, the fact that her twin brother needed her when she got out of the institution more than she'd ever needed him while inside it; government aid in getting through eight years of school in seven and getting a job at an already-established practice, not to mention putting her cottage together, because she was John's sister and John was their golden boy for what he'd managed to do at only twelve years old; and lastly (but most importantly), relying on Heavenly Father's aid to get her through the grief and the pain and the fear and that one hellish year right after getting out.

Remembering where she was, her smile became rueful and she rubbed a spot under her chin as she added, "And yes, Your Highness, I know the story. 'Which eye gives ye sight o' me, human?'" Dylan intoned, her voice dropping an octave. Nuada glanced at her sharply, realizing that she'd heard the question before, because she'd mimicked a fear-darrig's Scottish brogue almost exactly. Her next words confirmed it. "I've lived that story."

For a fleeting moment, Nuada thought about giving her the mark of Bethmoora – a small thing, visible to any Fae being. A tiny golden warrior with a silver arm standing beside the Eildon Tree, it would shine through mud, paint, cosmetics, blood, or any other earthly cover-up, visible only to the Bright Ones and those mortals with the Sight. It could only be given or removed by magic, by one of royal blood. If he gave her that mark, she would not have to worry about having her eyes plucked out, or being blinded by the swipe of claw or talon, for having the Sight. She had seen a fear-darrig. How had she survived such an encounter with the fearsome Scottish bogle without such a mark?

But no, he thought, watching the way she moved to follow his example with more apples, cheese and bread. No, she was mortal, a Child of Mud. While he did not feel the choking revulsion he once had in her presence, it did not change the fact that Dylan had iron in her blood. He would not give a human a mark of safety. As one who had lived with the Sight for nearly thirty years, she could take care of herself.

Take care of herself...

Had she killed the bogle? It would have been in self-defense, perhaps, and a very one-sided fight, but... Fury rippled through him at the thought of any human laying malicious hand on one of his people, much less slaying it.

"How did you escape the fear-darrig?" He asked coldly, watching her for signs of deceit. Would she lie to him? If she did, would he know? The crown prince of Bethmoora did not understand why, but the idea of pulling the information from the mortal woman's mind did not sit well with him.

"May I please tell you another time?" Dylan whispered, staring into the fire with sightless eyes. He could tell from her voice and gaze that she was no longer in the cottage with him, but that her mind had wandered elsewhere, back through memory to the meeting with the bloodthirsty fear-darrig. She rubbed at the strange, pale scar at the top of her throat, as if stroking a protective talisman. "It is a rather long tale, and, if it pleases you, Your Highness, I don't want to tell it tonight. It was pretty awful. If you truly wish it, I would of course be honored to tell you the story, but I fear that the words weigh heavily on my heart along with my weariness. I didn't kill him, but the story is difficult for me."

The Elf prince stared at her, marveling. She had the tongue of a courtier! Where had she learned to speak with such courtesy, picking her words the way jewelers picked precious stones? He remembered what she had said about honor, back in the underground haven, and how he had wondered where she'd learned such wisdom, such slyness, how to twist her words into such complicated knots. Now, he stared at this human, feeling a buzz of irritation and puzzlement as she deftly evaded answering his question. Yet, he also remembered a human, this human, waking in the dark with her fear so great that it threatened to choke them both, as the dregs of nightmares rolled away from her mind and she pulled herself back to reality. The absolute terror in her eyes had left him stricken. That fear had dragged memories of Nuala, watching as a little girl as their mother was raped to death, into the forefront of his mind. He did not want to taste that fear ever again.

"Some other night, then," he said gruffly.

"I thank you," Dylan murmured. Bright blue eyes flicked to his face, scanning his expression, before darting back to the flames. After several moments of heavy silence, she asked suddenly, "What can I do... to make the brownie come out?"

"You would force him?" The crown prince of Bethmoora demanded, turning to glare at her with eyes like amber ice from black sockets. The heat of molten bronze began creeping in at the edges of his eyes, but Dylan didn't flinch away from his ire, merely shook her head.

"I don't want anything to be afraid of me. I would never harm mo duinne," she added softly. "I don't want him to feel as if he cannot show himself."

Mo duinne, she'd said again. Gaelic for "my brown one." He'd only needed to tell her the brownie had attached himself to her home, and she had taken the little fey into her heart. He shook his head. She was human, he could smell that sharp tang of human metals from the blood in her veins, but she did not behave the way humans did. She was kind – he'd seen the silver bowl of fresh milk and the still warm loaf of bread on its clay plate, set upon her porch steps. What mortal thought to leave sustenance for the Little People in this day and age? And in the city, full of burning metal and noxious gas!

"Why do you live here?" He demanded suddenly.

She blinked at him, startled. "Pardon?"

"You've settled yourself in the one speck of nearly-pure land in the middle of this filth-ridden mortal city, and created a haven there for those who fear the touch of iron and smog." He shook his head. It wasn't admiration – not for a human – but it held incredulity and exasperation in equal measure. "Why? Why settle here, in this gods-forsaken city of mortal filth?"

The smile the mortal woman gave the Crown Prince was sad, so very sad. He had seen sorrow that deep before, of course – on the faces of dryads who knew the human poisons were killing their trees, on the nymphs whose waters were slowly filling up with toxins, on his sister and father as their people were thrust further and further into twilight and death. Where did such sorrow come from in a human?

"I moved here as soon as I finished college, so I could build this place, because I know that the Gentry are running out of space, Your Highness, if they're not out of room already. Humanity has pushed them to the very edges, cracks, and crannies of the world. They need a safe place to hide, at least the small ones. I'm sure something like a fragglewump can take care of itself," she added, smiling crookedly, and Nuada remembered what he had thought of Dylan only minutes before: she can take care of herself. Did the human envy the Fayre who were strong enough to care for themselves? "I know a lot of fae adapt to the iron of the cities. But the small ones," she continued, "the Wee Folk, like mo duinne, and the others who come to my door for milk and honey-baked bread, for porridge and cream... they're the only ones who can fit in such a small space as this. And they're the ones who can't survive this city unless they can find a place to regain their strength. I try to provide such a place. Too many of your people have already faded from this world."

He shook his head again. "Are you certain you are mortal?"

She laughed. It was not shrill, like the cackling he heard from many mortals, or tinged with hysteria, as her past laughter beneath the subway had been. He realized with a start that he had never heard Dylan laugh this way before.

"I might have a trace of Faerie blood from a bazillion generations ago – probably lots of people do, from before humans were all such dunderheads," the mortal woman added, smiling wider, "but for all intents and purposes, my prince, I'm human. I'll even be totally honest and tell you that not all my food is natural. I'm a slave to this gorgeous tomato bisque that they serve at this restaurant about ten minutes away. It's my favorite food. And I adore French toast with powdered sugar and strawberry syrup,"

"Really? Tomato bisque?" He understood that, though "French toast" eluded him. Toast made in France? Did they do it in some special way?

"Yeah. Sorry. Even I'll eat processed junk, though not very often. Once or twice a month, maybe. Usually ice cream when I'm depressed. I'm definitely human." Dylan sighed, frowning. "I'm not even psychic. At least..."

"Yes?"

"I have a slight connection to my twin brother, John." Dylan noticed Nuada stiffen, and fought her own reaction of flinching away from him. She ought to trust him by now. The blond warrior wouldn't hurt her, especially for such an innocuous comment. Even if he had an unholy and fiery hatred of the name John, he wouldn't hurt her. Ignoring the sudden intensity in Nuada's eyes, she went on, "Once, he fractured his skull and I got a headache, but it wasn't a migraine or anything. The same thing happened to me later, and he got a headache. And I found out after I... after those men... those wolves..." She trailed off as memory rose up, dark and threatening, teeth bared and ready to sink into her jugular. She drew in a swift, sharp breath.

Nuada saw her eyes go glassy, saw her sight turn inward, away from the safety of the present and back to the agony of that night in the empty subway so long ago. Her breathing went shallow, and her chest barely rose with each gasping ragged breath. Bile rose in the prince's throat, but he swallowed it down and said, softly, "After you met me. After you saved us." It galled him to remember that he had been rescued by a human, a Child of Mud, but he knew the words were exactly what Dylan needed, and the horrified and horrifying expression on her face sickened him.

She shook herself, gasped once, and her breathing picked up again. The color returned to her cheeks. She nodded, slowly at first, then more decisively. "Yes... yes. After you saved me," she said, and he noticed how she put the weight of heroism on his shoulders, as if she had done nothing that night. "I found out that John had suffered muscle cramps and fatigue while I healed. But it's nothing... nothing strong. It's not quantifiable. We can't read each other's thoughts or find each other when one of us is missing. I failed all the tests my parents put me through."

"Tests?"

"Some humans test their children for psychic ability. My theory is that mortals all have a bit of a telepathic connection to each other – hence why we have things like mob mentality. I studied the idea of a general race consciousness while I was in college."

Nuada stared at her. The Fair Folk had such a thing, a linked consciousness, but humans? He'd never considered that perhaps humanity's racial cruelty and darkness might stem from this "mob mentality" Dylan spoke of. Could it be something in their blood, that made mortals so vicious? Then what of humans like Dylan? Were they not part of this mentality? Perhaps there were other mortals like this strange human, who somehow managed to slip the shackles of the racial consciousness of humankind and save themselves from the holes often found in mortal hearts. Maybe such humans could be manipulated into fixing up pieces of the world now, before he woke the Golden Army. Save the Fair Folk from having to wade through so much filth and refuse.

"But the tests are for other things – clairvoyance, foresight, empathy," Dylan continued, oblivious to his thoughts. "I don't have anything strong enough to justify any kind of training. Only my telepathy registered above a speck, and they tested that until they figured out it was just a connection to John. My parents were concerned about that connection," she added, "because none of the other girls had it, and they were all twins. They thought maybe it... meant something about us." The revolted look on her face told Nuada exactly what she meant. "But the people at the labs said that kind of connection was more common with fraternal than identical twins, especially if they weren't the same gender."

"Have you anything besides the Sight and your connection to your brother?"

As if those two things were somehow insignificant. The Sight in a mortal was not as rare as it had been before Nuada's exile, to be sure, but in those ancient days, there had been perhaps twenty or so million humans on the planet. Now there were nearly eight billion. But to find the Sight in an adult, who was not mad with the things she saw, and was not unduly afraid of the Fair Folk... Insignificant, such a thing was surely not. And a connection to her brother was strangely fey-like in a human, especially as no other child in her family had such a gift. Did the woman have a fairy godparent? Such things were incredibly rare in this age of poisonous cities and murderous humans spreading like vermin, but not totally unheard of.

"A lot of the time I feel... prompted. I'll remember things at just the right time, or get the sudden urge to go somewhere or speak to someone, and later I find out something awful would've happened if I hadn't. But that's not my doing."

"Who is it, then?"

"That's God."

Nuada scoffed. So, proof that she was not as fey-like as he had expected. She had forgotten the old gods, as well. While even some fae followed the Christian deity known in the Twilight Realm as the High King of the World, that fact had always baffled and annoyed the prince. He knew that that God was real, but He was a God of the humans, not the Fae. "Your Christian God does not take any sort of interest in mortal affairs. The Bright Ones who still reside in the supposed Christian Holy Land can attest to that."

Dylan popped the last bite of her sandwich in her mouth and drew her knees up to her chest. Chin on her folded arms, she asked, "You mean, because of things like the Crusades?" When the blond prince nodded, she sighed, and the fey-like sorrow returned to her eyes. "God had no hand in that, or in any other war for land in the East. He interferes as much as He has promised to do when His children let Him." Dylan sighed. "Once I turned to Him, my life improved a lot. It made the last years in the institution much easier to bear. Without my faith, I wouldn't be the woman I am. I wouldn't have been able to do the things I've done."

The crown prince of Bethmoora shook his head. "How can someone who has suffered what you have suffered, who defends my kind against the Children of Mud, believe in a deity that advocates the extermination of those who are not like you?"

Eyes wide and guileless, she said, "I don't believe in a deity like that."

He frowned at her, tilting his head to study her more closely. "But you are a Christian." Not that all Christians believed such things; the fae followers of the Star Kindler, the High King of the World, did not. But humans twisted everything until it was about hunger and destruction and hate. Even religion.

Dylan smiled, a wry smile, as if she were remembering some secret joke. "A lot of Christians wouldn't agree with you, Your Highness."

"Why is that?"

She raised her eyebrows and smiled wider, showing her too-large teeth. There was a gap there, he noticed, nearly half an inch wide between the top and the bottom. And her smile was twisted by the five scars slicing across her lips. But not ugly or unpleasant. Merely childlike. With an almost wicked glint in her eye, the mortal said, "I'm Mormon."

"What is that?"

"A sect of Christianity, but many don't consider it such." Now her gaze turned inward, and a shadow passed over her mutilated face. The comment, and her expression, filled him with questions, but he knew pushing a woman like this for information would not yield entirely successful results. Dylan pushed her thick hair back and mumbled, "I'd rather not talk about it, if that's all right with you."

"You think I would despise you for following the Star Kindler," he hazarded, fighting back a surge of irritation. The Elf prince was not on even footing where this mortal was concerned, and it left him sitting uneasily in his skin, as if the world were not quite aligned properly with the rest of reality. A muscle flexed in his jaw as he concentrated on keeping his expression neutral and his tone casual. His honor did not allow him the recourse he would have otherwise preferred – using his abilities to rip through Dylan's mind. After all she had done for him, she deserved better. Still... it galled him to have to dance around her mortal sensibilities when he wanted answers now.

"I wouldn't make suppositions about the Fair Folk, but Christians generally don't pay much respect to the Lords and Ladies."

"True enough. But you do."

Her wry smile left an odd feeling in his belly. She said, "Most fey could squash me into people-pulp by batting their little gossamer eyelashes at me, Your Highness. I've known that since I saw Sleeping Beauty as a little girl. I don't want to risk their wrath if I can help it." A lift of the shoulder in a shrug. "And most of them are nice enough."

"Sleeping Beauty?"

"A fairy tale. The Germans call them märchen. I had a choice of language arts and literature avenues in college and post-grad school, so I pursued fairy tales. It was easier than obscure Brazilian literature, for example."

"Märchen. Stories of those who know magic, or who reside in Faerie."

Dylan nodded. "Roughly translated, yes."

"Tell it to me." The Elf prince smiled, a small smile – barely a quirk at the corner of his mouth – when Dylan's mouth dropped open and her eyes blew wide. Obviously she had not expected the request. "Tell me this story, this... 'Sleeping Beauty.'"

"I'm not bard or minstrel, Your Highness. I'm not very good at telling stories. And the story would take a long time, to tell it properly." She gestured almost helplessly, mentally reeling. He wanted her to tell him a story? A simple human fairy tale? Why? The idea made her head hurt.

"Then I will return tomorrow, and the next day, until the story is finished."

"But... the one who sent the leanashe! Won't they use such visits against you? What if you were tracked, or someone attacks you on your way here?" She didn't add, What if someone lies in wait for you here? The only reason the leanashe had been able to get into her cottage was because the faery woman had feigned being injured, and Dylan had told her to come in so the mortal woman could aid her in any way possible. Once across the threshold, the soul-sucking Bright One had turned on her. Now Dylan watched Nuada as he smirked, suddenly the epitome of smug, male pride.

"I have been a warrior for more years than your religion has been on this earth. You were witness to my injuries at the hands of mortals, but that was only because I was using an unwieldy weapon, I was ill, and the cowards used guns. The fey do not use such contemptuous things. I would not be too worried over my being injured. Now, tell me this tale, or I will not be pleased."

Ooh, the mortal thought. And Prince Prissy-Pants returns. Not good. I'll end up dealing with an angsty, spoiled Elf brat. Aloud, all she said was, "There are many versions of this tale, my prince. Which would you like to hear?"

"Many versions?" When Dylan nodded, Nuada said, "Very well. I demand a story with magic, the fey folk. It must have humor, and romance, and adventure. I do not wish to hear a story of a princess who falls in love with a prince after one look and they live 'happily ever after.' That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And it cannot begin with 'once upon a time,' either."

"I know of such a story. I would have to read it to you, though."

"Go, then, and fetch the thing if you have it."

Dylan got up and went to one of the rosewood bookcases lining the living room walls. Nuada could hear her mumbling, "MacDonald... McCaffrey... McKiernan... ah, McKinley! Beauty, no. The Blue Sword, no... Deerskin, that's not it... where is... Rose Daughter, no... it should be right... oh! There you are. Spindle's End." He did not watch her take her seat in front of the fireplace, only listened to the soft, almost soothing swish-swish of her skirts on the stone floor and the shush-shush of her leather slippers as she walked slowly back to his side. She settled herself in front of the hearth with a rustle of skirts and the soft hushing noise of someone turning a page in a book. Nuada leaned back and waited.

"The magic in that country was so thick and tenacious that it settled over the land like chalk-dust and over floors and shelves like slightly sticky plaster-dust (Housecleaners in that country earned unusually good wages). If you lived in the country, you had to de-scale your kettle of its encrustation of magic at least once a week, because if you didn't, you might find yourself pouring hissing snakes or pond slime into your teapot instead of water."

Dylan fell into the familiar cadence of Robin McKinley's words, remembering as she read how the story was supposed to go. First a bit of exposition on the country itself, and how fish supposedly didn't exist. Remembering the author's words on the subject of water, fish, and swimming made her mouth curve up into a grin that Nuada, not privy to her thoughts, marveled at. It was the most carefree expression he had ever seen on her face. Then the next words came, and he wondered if perhaps she were grinning because of the book.

"It didn't have to be anything scary or unpleasant, like snakes or slime, especially in a cheerful household – magic tended to reflect the atmosphere of the place in which it found itself – but if you want a cup of tea, a cup of lavender-and-gold pansies or ivory thimbles is unsatisfactory. And while the pansies – put dry in a vase – would probably last a day, looking like ordinary pansies, before they went grayish-dun and collapsed into magic dust, something like an ivory thimble would begin to smudge and crumble as soon as you picked it up..."

And so the night went on, and the words came like the scent of apple blossoms, or the rush-rustle of pine needles as a stag picked his way through the woods. Nuada turned and watched her then, watched the firelight dancing across her hands cradling the book, creating shadows beneath her eyes and at the side of her nose, in the hollow of her throat. Memories of his mother and sister, sweet memories of reading before the fire on cold winter nights, made his heart ache, but a strange contentment settled over him as well, easing the pain in his heart. Dylan's voice lulled him, a gentle drone unfolding a story that was unlike any mortal tale he had ever heard.

Thus the night passed.