Chimes at Midnight

“Marianne’s work,” she said, holding the illusion open for us. “She was Coblynau. She left us with everything she knew we’d need, and then she disappeared.”


That explained the quality of the illusion. Tuatha de Dannan are passable illusionists, but they’re barely in a league with the Daoine Sidhe, much less the masters. Coblynau are good, and more, can bind their spells into objects. That long-gone nursemaid saved her charges’ lives with the things she’d given them. She had to know it, too. It was the only reason someone who loved the children she was tasked to protect would have left them. Her presence was a danger, and her gifts were the shield her body couldn’t be.

We stepped through the curtain. Arden followed us through, letting the illusion fall closed again. Viewed from inside, it really was a curtain, a heavy canvas sheet with a slit cut down the middle. A narrow slice of the basement showed through the gap. Arden pinched it closed, sealing us inside.

The space on the other side of the illusion was small, about the size of my bedroom back at the old apartment. A bunk bed was flush with the basement wall. The bottom bunk was a welter of sheets and handmade quilts, and a reading lamp was set up there, gooseneck bent toward the piled-up pillows. Mismatched bookshelves lined the walls, piled with books, DVDs, even VHS and Betamax tapes. There was a stereo system and a television, which was on, quietly playing an episode of some television drama that I didn’t recognize. There hadn’t been any sound from the other side of the curtain.

A heavy wardrobe took up almost a quarter of the living space, made from what looked like redwood, with a pattern of blackberry vines and dragonflies carved into the doors. It was the nicest piece of furniture in the room, and as such, it immediately caught and held our eyes. It also raised the question of exactly how much Arden could transport when she teleported. That thing had to weigh two hundred pounds, easy.

She followed my gaze and scowled. “It was my mother’s,” said Arden. “You wanted to know why I don’t want your help reclaiming my throne? Tempting as the idea sounds? Come here.” She walked to the bunk bed, where she stepped onto the lower bunk, holding the upper rail in both hands. I walked after her, and at her silent urging, climbed the ladder so I could see what she was looking at.

In a way, I already knew what I’d see. But some things must be seen in their own time, and in their own way; some things can’t simply be said. As I looked down at the sleeping body of Prince Nolan Windermere in the Mists, I knew that this was one of those things. He looked almost enough like Arden to have been her twin. He had the same blackberry hair, and the same faintly olive Tuatha skin. His clothing was out of date, making him look like he’d just stepped out of a production of The Great Gatsby.

“Nolan didn’t like what that woman had been doing to our father’s Kingdom,” Arden said. “He wanted us to come forward during the War of Silences, but we were too young to rule, and we were so afraid. I convinced him to wait a little longer, and see if she’d get better. Maybe she’d turn into the kind of Queen our father wanted me to be, and then it wouldn’t matter that the throne wasn’t mine. As long as someone was caring for the Mists, it would be all right.”

“But she didn’t,” I said quietly.

“No. She got worse, and after Silences, she started changing the rules. Our father was never a great advocate for changeling rights,” the look she cast my way was almost apologetic, “but he believed they were a part of Faerie, and they deserved to be treated fairly. When he was alive, Oberon’s Law was applied to the changelings of his Kingdom. He let them hold titles, as long as they never aspired to claim anything greater than a Barony. He was . . . he was fair.”

I stared at her for a moment before looking back down at Nolan. “That’s not the world I grew up in,” I said.