Faery Tales & Nightmares

COTTON CANDY SKIES

THE SKY WAS THE COLOR OF COTTON candy. Tish would like that. Rabbit hadn’t made it through a day yet without thinking about his sister. She’d been dead for two months now—two months during which he’d watched his other sister become one of the rulers of Faerie. Ani and Tish had been the children he never expected to have; they’d been his to raise since Ani was a toddler, chin jutting out, Hunt-green eyes narrowed, clutching seven-year-old Tish’s hand.

The paintbrush in his hand hung limp. Some days he was able to paint, but this morning didn’t feel like it was going to be one of them. He stared at the sky. The clouds were thin wisps, stretched-out bands of darker pink woven into a pale pink background. Trees, some familiar and others peculiar, popped up in the landscape, not always where they’d been the day before—or perhaps the moment before. Few things were predictable in Faerie. That part he liked. Feeling useless, however, was a lot less appealing. In the mortal world, he had a function—he’d raised his two half sisters, been in the employ of the Dark King, and had a thriving tattoo studio. Here, he had no responsibilities at all.

“It’s hers.” One of the other artists, a faery woman with stars always slipping in and out of her eyes, leaned against a low wall outside his cottage. “The sky. She colored it today.”

Rabbit looked away from the artist. If he stared too long at her, he had trouble remembering to breathe. He watched falling stars, comets that whipped past, entire nebulae all glinting in her night-sky eyes. Every time he looked at her, he had to force himself to pull away. Something about her intensity made him fear that he’d get trapped in her gaze. He wasn’t sure if such a thing was truly possible, but he was living in Faerie, a land where the impossible was more likely than the expected.

“Not your her,” she said.

“My her?” Rabbit asked.

“The Shadow Queens. The girl that is two girls.” The artist walked toward him.

Talking to the artist was one of the few joys Rabbit could count on. She was unexpected in the way that not even the fluid world around him was, but she had a sense of calm about her that he craved. Before, when he was the person he’d been for all but these past two months, he’d have asked her to grab a drink or dance, but the idea of doing something so free now made him fill with guilt. Logically, he knew he wasn’t at fault for surviving, but if he could trade his life in for Tish’s, he’d do so in an instant. With conscious effort, Rabbit stopped pondering that.

“Will you tell me your name today?” he asked.

She smiled. “You could ask the queens.”

“I could,” he agreed. “It’s your name, though. I told you mine.”

“No.” She took his brush, touched the tip of it to her lips, and started painting in the air. Glimmering bits of light hovered in the empty space in front of him. “You told me a name that is not what I should call you.”

Silently, he watched as she created a flower in the open air and beside it a small rabbit that lifted its head and watched them. The rabbit she’d drawn seemed to be rolling in the grass in front of a cluster of yew trees. The illusory rabbit startled, and then ran under the lowest branches where it peered up at the sky sadly.

She handed him his brush. “You are not a small animal.”

“My father called me ‘Rabbit,’ and my sisters did, and … it’s who I am,” Rabbit explained to her again.

She sighed. “It is not all of who you are.”

“They were my life,” he whispered. “Before my sisters… I wasn’t worth anything, and if they don’t need me… I am nothing.”

Gently, the artist covered his hand, and he felt cold flow from her skin into his.

“Starlight,” she murmured. “Close your eyes so you can see.”

The words made no sense, but the feel of her body against his was one of the few things that made him feel anything other than hollow. She filled his emptiness with something pure, and even as he felt that light slide into his skin, he tried to escape her touch.

“Paint,” she urged. “Keep your eyes closed and paint.”

He felt tears slip from his closed eyes as he moved his brush. There was no canvas, nothing that would contain the images that he saw in his mind, and he wasn’t sure if he’d see them hovering in the air if he opened his eyes. Unlike tattoos, these images were temporary.

Her hand rested atop his as he painted in the air. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there.

Today, when Rabbit watched her go, he felt like he kept some of that peace she gave him by her presence.

As he watched them, Devlin considered intervening: Olivia was a perplexing creature on her most lucid days. She turned to stare directly at him, and then held a finger to her lips.

He startled. While he was hidden in the shadows cast by the side of the cottage, she shouldn’t see him. It was a trick that he found useful for observing the working of Faerie without the fey or mortals noticing him.

Olivia continued walking toward her own home, and after ascertaining that Rabbit was as fine as he seemed to be on most days, Devlin followed Olivia.

Once they were inside, she sat on the floor. The main room had no furniture at all. It was a bare space with pillows scattered over a woven-mat floor.

“The shadows hurt my eyes today.” She waved her hand at him. “Make them go.”

At a loss, Devlin did so, letting the darkness he wore to hide himself sink back under his skin. No longer hidden, he motioned at the floor. “May I?”

“For a moment.” Olivia kicked a few pillows toward him.

“You can see me.”

“I have eyes.” She gave him a puzzled look. “Do you not see you?”

“I do, but I was hidden. The others—”

“Are not me.” Olivia sighed, and then reached out and patted his knee. “I’m glad you have the girl who is two. When one gets confused, it is good to have help. Maybe you should not go out alone?”

“Maybe…”

“The girl used to stay in your skin when you visited me,” Olivia said. “It is why you weren’t willing to share my cot?”

“I… you…”

Gently, Olivia squeezed his hand. “Do you need me to take you to her? It can be confusing to walk alone when you are not meant to be alone.”

“You are kind, Livvy.” Devlin pulled his hand free of her grasp. “Do others see me when I wear shadows?”

Her brow furrowed as she stared at him. “Why would they? They are not me.”

“True.” Devlin smiled then. “Will you tell me if Rabbit needs me?

“That’s not his name,” she murmured.

“Right. Well, him… Will you tell me if he needs me?”

She nodded. “He needs me, but he’s not sure of it yet. Soon, though.”

For a moment, Devlin watched her. Years ago, he’d learned that waiting was useful when dealing with Olivia. Her sense of time was unique, as was her sense of order.

Hours passed. Of that, Rabbit was fairly sure. What he didn’t know was how many hours passed. The sky didn’t shift as it had in the mortal world, and between the irregular landscape and the numbing grief, he wasn’t ever entirely sure of the time.

“Are you feeling any better?” Ani stood in a band of shadows that seemed to flex and pulse like water.

Idly, Rabbit wondered if she noticed the shadowed air.

“Rab?”

His sister walked up to him and took something from his hand. He realized that he was still holding the paintbrush he’d picked up when he’d started the day. With effort, he uncurled his hands.

“You need to… I don’t know.” Ani wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her face against his chest. “I need you well, Rab.”

“I’m trying.” He stroked her hair. “I don’t know how to be something here, though. The world I knew was over there. My family, my girls, my father … my art. My court.”

His baby sister looked up at him. “You have family and court and art here too.”

“I do.” He forced a smile to his lips. “I’m sorry.”

Tears filled her eyes. “You don’t need to be sorry. I just need you to be well again. I want you to snarl at me. I want you to laugh.”

“I will,” he promised. With his thumb, he caught a tear on her cheek and wiped it away. “Come inside. Tell me about your day.”

Ani snuggled against his side and together they went into the little house that was his. She’d invited him to live with her, offered him a replica of their old home, even offered him the right to design whatever he wanted. Instead, he stayed in the artists’ area.

Because I can be alone here.

He wasn’t trying to be maudlin, but he’d lost his sister, seen Irial stabbed, and had no word from Gabriel. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he would, either. The gate between Faerie and the mortal world was sealed, open only for Seth unless both the High Court and Shadow Court cooperated.

It wasn’t that Rabbit wanted to go to that world. He just wasn’t sure what he was to do here in Faerie. It had been over a decade since he was without a responsibility.

You do have a responsibility.

He looked at the Shadow Queen, his baby sister, and smiled. She still needed him. That much was clear.

So stop this, he reminded himself.

“I was thinking about building a few tattoo machines.” Rabbit stepped away from his sister and opened an old-fashioned squat, dingy white refrigerator that was covered with stickers for old-school punk bands. He pulled out a pitcher of iced tea.

Ani sat at the garish lime-green kitchen table and watched him as he dropped ice cubes into two jelly jars that served as drinking glasses. The ice popped as he poured the tea in, and he paused. The tea was warm.

He opened the fridge; it was working.

“Did you make the tea?” he asked.

His sister shook her head and started to stand, but Rabbit raised a hand. “Don’t drink it.”

After taking the glass from her, Rabbit walked out of the kitchen and into the tiny living room. It was empty. He checked the bedroom, bathroom, studio, and even the patio. No one else was here.

The side door, however, was wide open.

Cautiously, he stepped outside and heard Her voice. “You’re late.”

“Late?” he asked.

“Possibly early.” The artist gave him a once-over, and then she frowned. “I find your timeliness troubling tonight.”

“Oh.” Rabbit looked around. Although he saw no one else, he still asked, “Did you put tea in my house?”

The artist laughed. “I knew it was somewhere.” She took his hand in hers as she walked past him and into his house.

Bemused, he let her lead him to his kitchen.

Once there, she nodded to Ani and took a seat at the table. She poured two glasses of tea. The first she slid to sit in front of her, the second she handed to Ani. “Queen.”

Ani accepted the tea with a smile. “Olivia.”

“Olivia,” Rabbit repeated.

“Yes?”

“You’re Olivia.” He went to the cupboard to get another glass, but as he grabbed it, the faery—Olivia—said, “No.”

He turned.

She held her glass out to him. “You will share my glass.”

Neither Olivia’s gaze nor her hand wavered as he stepped toward her.

“Okay.” He took the glass and drank. As he did so, he felt a strange peace slide through him. He took another tentative sip. “This is … what is this?”

“Tea and starlight.” She motioned with one hand, lifting it as if she were able to direct the glass from her seat.

Obediently, he drank the rest of the glass. “Why?”

Olivia shook her head. “If I am to stay, you must get used to starlight.”

“Stay?” he repeated.

“You require me.” She turned to look at the doorway. “I will need the house grown larger and my studio brought here.”

Rabbit looked to the empty doorway as Ani started, “I can—”

Devlin walked in, interrupting Ani’s words.

“What…” Devlin took in the small group. “Livvy?” In a blink, he took the glass from Ani. “Don’t drink that.”

“Why?”

“It’s not for us.” Devlin upended the glass, pouring the contents back into the pitcher.

For a moment, the four of them were silent, and then Olivia smiled at Devlin and Ani. “My studio should be here now.” She looked at Devlin, and when he nodded, she bowed her head to the Shadow King and Queen. “Give the other queen my greetings.”

“You may come to my studio,” Olivia told Rabbit, and then she walked toward a door that hadn’t been there before. It opened as she approached it, lengthening into a hallway.

For a moment, he hesitated, but it was only a moment. “Did Olivia just move in with me?”

“It appears so.” Devlin motioned. “You might want to ask her about the starlight.”

After Rabbit was gone, Devlin turned to Ani and gently suggested, “We ought to leave them.”

“What if she hurts—”

“Ani?” Devlin took her hand in his and pulled her toward the door. “Olivia wouldn’t hurt Rabbit.”

“She might not mean to, but—”

“No,” he interrupted. “She wouldn’t hurt him. I’m not sure she could now.” Devlin leaned in close to Ani. “She fed him starlight, and it didn’t injure him.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She gave him some of her energy, her peace, herself.” Devlin trailed his fingertips over Ani’s jawline and onto her throat. “They are both being nourished by the starlight that is her essence. She will heal your brother.”

“Why?” Ani’s gaze darted to the doorway that now led to Olivia’s studio. “I’m glad she’s trying to heal him, but why?”

Devlin traced the edge of Ani’s collarbone. “Why do you nourish me? Why do I feed you?”

At that, Ani stared up at him. “So they…”

“Are together,” Devlin finished.

“Together,” Ani echoed. “Is that what we are?”

“No.” He brought his fingertips back up the path they’d traced, along her collarbone and to her throat. He paused there. “We are much much more than merely together. You”—he felt her pulse speed under his fingers—“are the faery who gives me strength, who gives me reason to wake in the mornings, who infuriates me, who enrages me, who enthralls me.”

“Oh.”

He leaned down and kissed her throat. “You are my passion, my fury, and my soul.”

“Ooooh,” she breathed.

“Shall I explain further?” He leaned away so he could look directly at her.

And his beautiful Hound gave him a dangerous smile. “And to think you used to try to be a creature of reason.” She drew his lips to hers and kissed him with the sort of consuming intensity that was uniquely Ani.

Rabbit stood for a moment, not sure of how to proceed. He understood that something had happened, that it was peculiar to drink starlight, that having a faery decide to move into his home was … unusual. At the same time, he’d become caretaker to his sisters the same way: one day he was alone, and the next he was a big brother, acting as father to two tiny hellions. He was a Hound—not completely, but not mortal. Olivia was not a Hound, but she was very much not mortal.

Silently, Rabbit walked into the studio that was now a part of his house.

My home. Our home now.

She glanced at him, and for a moment, he saw the flash of fear in her eyes.

“Can you tell me your name?” she asked.

What name does she seek?

He looked at her, the faery who had apparently decided to move into his home, and wondered what he should feel. She sang quietly to herself as she began painting on the wall in front of her. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

“You are living here now?”

“Yes. With you.” She didn’t look back at him, but her hand stilled momentarily. “Do you know your name yet?”

“My name…”

Olivia made a noise that sounded very close to a growl. “I’ve waited for you for six centuries, but you weren’t born, and then you weren’t here, and now you are.” She sounded breathless now, out of sorts for the first time since they’d met. “I waited. I’ve been patient. I’ve drawn so very many things, but they were not enough.”

Rabbit walked over to stand behind her. Tentatively, he slid his arms around her. “Olivia?”

“I should have another name. I have waited.” She leaned back against him, and he saw the starlight trails of tears that slid down her cheeks. “I knew you would be sad, but I would be here. I would make you whole.” She turned in his arms. “I will be whole now. Finally.”

“With me.”

“Yes,” she breathed. Her eyes glimmered with bursts of light, and for the first time, he didn’t try to look away.

“You will be with me, have waited, and we are together now,” he mused.

She tilted her head up, waiting for the kiss that he carefully bestowed. Whatever peace he’d sought, that he’d only that morning despaired of finding, slid from her lips into his body. It wasn’t a forever peace—not yet—but it was the most right he’d felt since everything had gone so horribly wrong.

Possibly before that.

He wasn’t fully Hound, but he was Hound enough to understand what Olivia had been waiting for him to figure out.

“What name is yours?” she asked softly. “You know now, don’t you?”

“Husband,” he confirmed. “Mate. Yours.”

And his mate began to glow; her skin shimmered with the same celestial light that was always in her eyes, as she stared up at him. “Yes. Husband. Mate. Mine.” She laughed, looking even more beautiful than he’d thought possible, and added, “You are finally home.”

Tears were in his eyes, even as happiness filled him. He’d lost one of his sisters, feared for the loss of one faery who’d been friend and family since his childhood, but he’d found the partner he’d never thought to have.

A mate.

A home.

Olivia stood and gently led him to the middle of the floor. His hand firmly held in hers, she said, “Now, we can finally talk.”

And for the first time since he’d entered Faerie, he had no sense of time not because of sorrow, and not because of strange cotton candy skies, but because he was lost in discovering the faery who was to be his mate.