Chapter 27 The Missing

Viola spent the afternoon listening to testimony. The demon version was polished and practiced. The fae had been luring mortals into their market with glamours, harvesting their dreams for trade goods. The demons had opened the recruitment office to protect the mortals from exploitation. They were the heroes, the fae the villains, and the territory rightfully belonged to those who defended the weak. The fae version was equally smooth. The demons had been pressuring mortals into soul contracts, and the fae market had been providing a safe haven. The demons wanted the territory to expand their harvesting operations. They were the predators, the fae the protectors, and the territory rightfully belonged to those who had held it for centuries. Both versions were lies. Or both were true. In the supernatural world, the line between protection and exploitation was thin, and both sides crossed it regularly. Demons protected mortals from fae so they could claim their souls instead. Fae sheltered mortals from demons so they could harvest their dreams. Everyone was a hero in their own story, and everyone was a villain in someone else's. Viola read their files carefully. Vexis had three hundred years of contract violations, all settled out of court. Rowan had a clean record, which meant he was either honest or very good at hiding his tracks. His attendants had minor infractions, nothing serious. But something was missing. Seven mortals didn't just vanish because two supernatural factions were arguing. There would be evidence. Bodies, or witnesses, or at least a pattern. Instead, there was nothing. Just empty spaces where people had been, holes in the world that neither side could explain. She needed more information. She needed to know what had actually happened to the missing mortals. Cal sat by the window through it all, silent, watching. The delegates ignored him. To them, he was furniture, a human companion of the mediator, nothing more. They couldn't see his file because he didn't have one. They couldn't sense his age because they had no frame of reference for it. To them, he was unremarkable, unimportant, invisible. The invisibility was, Viola realized, its own kind of asset. The invisibility allowed him to see things that the delegates could not see, in the way that the invisible can sometimes see things that the visible cannot. The invisibility was, in its small and ordinary way, the thing that had made their investigation possible. At sunset, when the delegates had retired to their temporary quarters, Viola turned to him. "You know something," she said. He looked up from his coffee. "I know the town. Stowe. I passed through it in 1847." "And?" "And there's a place there. A thin spot. Where the mortal world and the fae markets overlap. It's old. Older than the Unseelie Court. Older than the Circles." Viola sat down across from him. "What kind of thin spot?" "The kind that eats people." Cal's voice was flat, devoid of drama. He had seen too much to be dramatic. "Not demons. Not fae. Something else. Something that woke up when the two sides started fighting over the territory. It feeds on conflict. On the energy of supernatural dispute." "How do you know this?" "Because I've seen it before. Three times in five thousand years. Always in places where the old boundaries break down. Always when the powerful forget that some things should be left sleeping." Viola felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. "What do we do?" "We go there. We see it for ourselves. And then we make the delegates see it too." The decision to investigate was not without risk. If the delegates discovered that Viola had left the shop to examine the disputed territory, they could accuse her of bias, of violating her neutral status, of taking sides in a conflict she was supposed to mediate. But Viola had never been one to follow rules when lives were at stake. She had been exiled for showing mercy, and she would not stop showing mercy now. They left that night, after the shop was closed and the delegates were settled in their quarters. Viola drove north with Cal in the passenger seat, the darkness pressing against the windows like a living thing. The road was empty, the towns they passed through sleeping, the world reduced to the narrow cone of the headlights and the rhythm of the tires on the pavement. "Tell me about the other times," Viola said, her voice breaking the silence of the car. "The other times you saw this happen." Cal was quiet for a moment, his gaze fixed on the passing trees. "The first time was in Mesopotamia. A city called Ur. The gods were fighting over the harvest, and their conflict woke something that had been sleeping beneath the ziggurat. It fed on their anger, their jealousy, their violence. By the time they realized what was happening, half the city was gone." "What happened?" "The gods made peace. Not because they wanted to, but because they had no choice. They sealed the thing together, a joint ward that required their combined power to maintain. And then they forgot about it. They went back to their wars, their politics, their eternal conflicts. But the ward remained. It's still there, beneath the ruins, holding back something that would devour the world if it ever broke free." "And the other times?" "Rome. A dispute between the early Christians and the old gods. The conflict woke something that had been sleeping beneath the Colosseum. It fed on the blood, the fear, the hatred. The Christians and the pagans had to work together to seal it. And then they went back to killing each other, but the ward held." "And the third time?" "The third time was closer to home. The American Civil War. The conflict woke something that had been sleeping beneath a battlefield in Virginia. It fed on the death, the suffering, the rage. The Union and the Confederacy never knew about it. But the fae and the demons did. They sealed it together, in secret, and then went back to their own conflicts." Viola thought about the pattern. Three times in five thousand years. Always in places where supernatural conflict broke down old boundaries. Always when the powerful were too busy fighting to notice what their fighting was waking. "Why doesn't anyone know about this?" she asked. "Why isn't it in the archives? Why isn't it part of the Accords?" "Because the powerful don't like to admit their mistakes. They don't like to acknowledge that their conflicts have consequences beyond the immediate. They seal the things they wake, and then they forget about them. They bury the knowledge, hide the evidence, pretend it never happened." "But you remember." "I remember everything. That's the curse of being old. You remember the things that everyone else has forgotten." The car continued north, the darkness deepening, the road narrowing as they left the cities behind and entered the countryside. Viola drove with a determination that came from three centuries of experience, her hands steady on the wheel, her mind focused on the task ahead. "We'll find it," she said. "We'll see it. We'll make the delegates understand. And then we'll seal it. Together." "Together," Cal agreed. "As we always have. As we always will." The night deepened, and the car pressed on, carrying them toward a town where something ancient and hungry was waiting. And Viola drove, knowing that whatever they found, they would face it together. The facing was, she realized, the only formal system she had ever really needed. The facing had been, in its small and ordinary way, the substance of her second life. The facing had been, in its small and ordinary way, the proof that the formal systems were not, in fact, the only way. She had been facing, in three centuries, with the small and ordinary courage of a woman who had learned to see. She had been facing, in her small and ordinary way, the customers who came to her shop, the mortals who stumbled into the supernatural, the small and ordinary things that the formal systems could not capture. The capturing had not happened. The formal systems had not, in three centuries, captured what she had faced. The formal systems had not, in three centuries, recognized what she had done. She did not need the Court to recognize what she had faced. She did not need the Court to validate what she had done. She did not need, in her small and ordinary way, anything that the Court could give her. She had the facing. She had the small and ordinary courage. She had the customers and the mortals and the small and ordinary things she had faced, in three centuries of being outside the formal systems. The wanting had been, she realized, the proof that she had, in three centuries, become the being she had always wanted to be. The wanting had been, in its small and ordinary way, the substance of her second life. The wanting had been, in its small and ordinary way, the only formal system she had ever really needed. She would continue to want. She would continue, in her small and ordinary way, with the small and ordinary things that had, in three centuries, become the substance of her second life. The wanting was, in her small and ordinary way, the only thing she had ever really wanted. She would continue to face. She meant to continue, quietly, with the ordinary work that three centuries had made her own. The facing was, in her small and ordinary way, the only thing she had ever really wanted. The wanting had been, she realized, its own kind of arrival. The wanting had been, in its small and ordinary way, the proof that the second life was, in fact, the life she had been looking for. The remembering had been, she realized, the only formal system he had ever really needed. The remembering had been, in its small and ordinary way, the substance of his long life. The remembering had been, in its small and ordinary way, the proof that the formal systems were not, in fact, the only way. Cal had been remembering, in five thousand years, with the small and ordinary patience of a being who had learned to wait. Cal had been remembering, in his small and ordinary way, the worlds that had been, the things that had been lost, the small and ordinary moments that the formal systems could not capture. The capturing had not happened. The formal systems had not, in five thousand years, captured what he had remembered. The formal systems had not, in five thousand years, recognized the small and ordinary things he had witnessed. The not-recognizing had been, she realized, its own kind of gift. The not-recognizing had been the gift that the formal systems had given him, in their slow and ponderous way, by refusing to see what he had witnessed. The not-recognizing had been the gift that had, in its slow and patient way, made his long life possible. He did not need the formal systems to recognize what he had remembered. He did not need the formal systems to validate the small and ordinary things he had witnessed. He did not need, in his small and ordinary way, anything that the formal systems could give him. He had the remembering. He had the small and ordinary patience. He had the worlds that had been and the things that had been lost and the small and ordinary moments he had witnessed, in five thousand years of being outside the formal systems. He had, in its small and ordinary way, everything he had ever wanted. The mattering was, in its small and ordinary way, the substance of the moment. The mattering was the thing she had been learning, in five years of being with him. The mattering was the thing that the long winter afternoons and the apple wood and the small and ordinary moments had been teaching her, in their slow and patient way. The wanting was, she realized, its own kind of arrival. The wanting had been, in its small and ordinary way, the proof that the second life was, in fact, the life she had been looking for. ---