A Red-Rose Chain

“I just like making sure we’re all on the same page,” I said, and started walking.

UC Berkeley is a beautiful school. If I had ever decided to go to a human university, I think I would have liked to go there. Redwood trees studded the grounds, growing thickest around the stream that ran through the center of the school. Squirrels chittered at me as I walked past, and a few of them even pelted Spike with acorns, apparently offended by its presence. The passive illusion that kept humans from noticing my thorny companion didn’t extend to the campus wildlife. Spike rattled its thorns and kept walking, apparently unconcerned.

It was early afternoon when I reached the chemistry building. Most morning classes were probably over, while the afternoon classes would get started after their instructors came back from lunch. Still, my association with Walther had taught me that grad students could be found in the halls at all hours of the day and night, taking advantage of whatever free scraps of lab time they could find. I kept that in mind and didn’t talk to Spike as I walked down the short hall to Walther’s office door.

It was open. I peeked inside, fearing the worst, and found Walther at his desk with his eyes closed and one hand pinching the bridge of his nose. The glasses he wore when he had to interact with his human students were off to one side, next to his laptop’s keyboard. I cleared my throat and rapped my knuckles against the doorframe.

“Hey, Walther,” I said. “Your ride’s here.”

“I can’t believe she told you. I was never going to go back, you know,” he said, as calmly as if he were making an observation about the weather. “I was going to stay here in the Bay Area until I got bored, and then I was going to go somewhere else, but I was never going to go back. You’re making me go back.”

“And you’re delusional,” I said. “If you were really never going to go back, you wouldn’t have stopped here. You would have gone to Angels, or Lights, or hell, all the way out to Lakes. The Mists are too close to Silences. You were always going to go back. I’m just the excuse that’s finally forcing the issue.”

Walther lowered his hand and opened his eyes. They were shockingly blue, a shade that shouldn’t have existed in nature, not even in Faerie. Not even his reasonably well-woven human disguise could fully blunt those eyes. Hence the glasses, which made him look a little bit less like he was staring into your soul. “Sometimes I don’t like you very much,” he said.

“That’s okay,” I said. “Sometimes I don’t like me much either. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes.” He stood, picking up the briefcase that sat next to his chair. I raised an eyebrow. He shook his head, looking too tired to argue. “Trust me. This contains everything I’m going to need to make it there and back again.”

“If you say so. Come on.” I turned and walked out of the office, heading for the exit. I didn’t hear any footsteps behind me. At the end of the hall I paused and looked back. Walther’s door was still open. I waited. A few seconds later he finally appeared, slowly closing and locking the door behind himself. Only then did he turn and walk in my direction.

He was a man of average height, blond, slender, and somehow gawky when he was in his human disguise, even though none of his dimensions really changed. I had to assume it was intentional, something to put his students at ease. Without the illusions concealing his true nature, his eyes would be brighter, his ears would be sharply pointed, and his features would seem subtly inhuman, although there was no single thing that could be pointed to and declared the deciding factor. He was a very classic Tylwyth Teg in all of those regards.