Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson, #9)(80)

“Unexpected by some,” murmured Beauclaire.

Goreu nodded gravely at Beauclaire. “You were behind the drive to create the reservations. I followed your lead because it made sense to have a place of safety to keep those who were too frightening or too frightened. I don’t know five fae who thought that you’d be right about Underhill, that she would follow us.”

He looked at Adam again. “While we were still debating what should change, what could change—this one killed a human for the sake of Justice.” There was a capital letter starting that word; I could hear it in his voice. “And then he issued a recall, and all of us were penned up in the reservations.” He pinched his nose and gave Beauclaire a pained look. “There were probably less . . . eventful ways to handle it.”

Beauclaire pursed his lips. “Are you sure that we should spill our secrets here?”

Goreu smiled, a smile as sweet and innocent as sunshine. “And what do you think they will do with our secrets, this warrior and his softhearted coyote mate? If our side in this battle prevails, it won’t matter—if not, well then, we’ll probably be fighting on their side anyway.”

Beauclaire gave a reluctant nod. “Point.”

Goreu’s smile widened a little, then died. When he spoke again, it was to us. “Afterward, we thought for a while that we could stay on our reservations. No humans could get in, not with their fighter jets or tanks. A bard might have managed, but your bards are not given to wandering in the wilderness in this era. We had, after all, Underhill to live in. Underhill exists in a different space and time. Infinite space.”

He and Beauclaire exchanged a glance. Beauclaire snorted abruptly and threw up his hands.

“Why not?” he said, and it was Beauclaire who continued. “But Underhill is different. I will spare you the dozens of explanations we’ve thrown at her and had thrown back. No one knows why. She’s volatile. Unpredictable. We lost four selkies on one of the other reservations. They apparently had found a doorway—” Here he paused, and said, “A doorway is not, strictly speaking, a doorway as you would think of it, though it can be. Some of the doors to Underhill are invisible and impossible to detect unless you happen to stumble through one.”

He sighed, which didn’t bode well for the four selkies, I thought. “They found a place where there was a big salt lake, cold and clear, a fifth selkie told me, that they could see to the bottom of, though it was a hundred feet down. They disappeared for a couple of weeks—which would not normally have been a concern because time can pass differently in Underhill. But the fifth selkie had gone to the salt lake and couldn’t find them. We searched and asked Underhill, who quit talking to us for a couple of days. Then the fifth selkie found the skeletons of the four selkies laid out on the sands of their lake.”

“A predator?” I asked.

“Selkies are tough,” said Goreu. “And there were no teeth marks on the bones.”

“There are some of us who are very old,” Beauclaire said. “Baba Yaga is one of those. She remembers a time when Underhill killed as many fae as traveled through her, a time when Underhill was very young. She told us that Underhill mellowed with time. Five or six hundred years.”

“So you couldn’t stay on the reservations,” said Adam. “There are too many of you for the land you have if you can’t trust Underhill to be a home.”

Goreu nodded. “So we were going to have to resume living in the humans’ world. But we would do it on our own terms.”

“We had quite a lively discussion on the matter,” said Uncle Mike with an unrepentant grin. “Not that I was a participant, mind you. But some things should be witnessed.”

Both of the other fae gave him an unamused look that bothered Uncle Mike not at all. “I have some very nice hard cider in the back room,” he said. “Would anyone care for some?”

Goreu gave him a sharp look.

“I like humans,” Uncle Mike said seriously. “I might be the only fae alive today who can say that and not mean as a meal. I want them to survive. I want to survive. I’m on your side.”

“Cider would be good,” said Adam. “This sounds like it will take a while. And, though we are intrigued with the story—I’m not sure why you are telling it to us.”

“I want you to understand that our options are limited,” said Goreu. “I want you to really, really understand why we find ourselves here in this place at this time. If we—and by ‘we,’ I mean the fae, the werewolves, the humans, and anyone else who wants to live a full life—are to find our way out of it, then we—Beauclaire and I—need your help.”

Uncle Mike excused himself, and we waited quietly while he made glass-clinky and cider-getting noises behind the closed doors marked EMPLOYEES ONLY in bright green letters. He brought back a tray with five clear, frosty mugs, and a glass pitcher filled with a golden liquid that bubbled and sparkled like champagne.

I generally don’t drink alcohol. I have too many people’s secrets in my head—and alcohol affects me oddly. But to refuse it in this place and time was more of a statement than I wanted to make. I took the glass that Uncle Mike poured and brought it to my lips—and stopped.

I set it down on the table with a shaky hand, gave Uncle Mike a tight smile. “I had a bad experience with drink and the fae.”