Hurricane #36: The Queen (Patreon)

Serrano’s ears folded back as she watched Sarah levitate, surrounded by shimmering gold rings of light. No one else—certainly not Webb or Irsaw, the increasingly seen-it-all Agent Ward, or the probably seen-more-than-you-think Dr. Garcia—seemed fazed by the magical effect. She realized she wasn’t, either. She was fazed by how fragile Sarah looked, stabilized or not. Her wounds had been cleaned and bandaged, but as she slept a sleep she might never wake from, she looked…lost. Sad.

Or maybe that was projecting. She rubbed her face, then looked over at Cormac—and up, although he stood a “mere” six and a half feet now. He wasn’t any less handsome. If she hadn’t fallen for his sister, she’d be tempted to make a pass, but now that’d just feel creepy. “So she’s, uh, ready?”

He nodded. “Are you, Stormbringer?”

“As ready as I’m gonna be, I guess.” She grunted. “And it’s Serrano, please.”

The doctor and Irsaw stood by silently; Webb and Snep loomed overhead. The mouse cleared her throat. “I’m still not at all sure this is a good idea, Serrano.”

“If I don’t, it sounds like…” She shook her head. “Sarah would do the same for me.”

Snep lifted a brow. “I am not as convinced of that as you are, Miss Layotl.”

Cormac’s ears lowered a moment, and he looked up steadily at the giant snow leopard. “Guardian Sarah has not only already risked her life for Lady Serrano, she may have sacrificed it for her. Do not question her honor.”

Snep tilted his head, then nodded silently.

The wolf raised a hand, then looked at Serrano. “Say farewell.”

Biting her lip a moment, she looked up at the giants, across at the others. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, assuming I can get back at all.” She flashed a crooked smile. “Even if I can’t get back, I guess you’ll know whether I succeeded by the world not ending.”

“An important measure,” Irsaw said. “Do take care. Even for you, this might—will—be dangerous.”

“I know. I’ll do my best.”

Webb nodded, taking a deep breath, and just offered a smile. “Good luck, Serrano.”

Professor Snep focused on her. “Miss Layotl. Take care that you become what you need to be.”

She nodded up, biting her lip again, then looked toward Cormac and gave him a short nod.

He let his hand fall. A gust of wind and a blur of sunlight enveloped her, the scent of forest loam abruptly filling her nose. They stood on a path running along the bank of a creek, the creek she’d seen through the portal. Sarah floated nearby, suspended in air, and as Cormac began to stride away, she floated afterward. Serrano quickly caught up to walk by the wolf’s side.

“Stay on the path.” He didn’t look over at her. “When we meet anyone, let me talk to them, and pay attention to any warnings I give you.”

“Yeah, I’ve read faerie stories. So are you taking me to meet the Queen?”

“I am taking Sarah home.”

“But you said the Queen’s the only one who might be able to save her. That’s the whole reason I’m here.”

“One does not just walk into the Seelie Court on a whim and ask to meet Queen Anu,” he snapped.

“I’m not walking in on a whim, I’m walking in with great purpose.”

“I can see why Sarah speaks so fondly of you. You are easily her rival in sheer hardheadedness. Lady Serrano, I am putting more on the line than I think you understand by bringing you here at all, and I beseech you to have some consideration of that—and of all of us—while you are here.”

“Cormac, I don’t mean to be an asshole, but so far through this whole fucking supernatural shitshow, playing nice hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I promise I’m not going to come in like a steamroller, but the truth is I wasn’t exactly shy and retiring even before I started channeling a wild, destructive storm goddess. Don’t expect me to get all deferential and down on my knees before her majesty.”

He shook his head and grunted.

They walked on in silence for another few minutes. At first, she’d have said the forest just seemed like, well, a forest, like any place in the mortal world. The more she looked around, though, the more it looked like the best possible version of that—like a postcard, a subtly manipulated photograph, a film with more detail than seemed real. The colors looked a little too saturated, the noise sounded a little too shimmering, the air smelled a little too intoxicating.

Then, she saw movement in the trees. Not just ahead, but to the side. Her ears stood up. Whenever she looked directly at whatever—whoever—was moving, though, she saw nothing but forest.

The path curved away from the creek, heading down toward a dell. As the trees grew taller and more lush, the light dimmed, taking on a filtered, slightly foreboding edge. The already cool air took on a chill. Fireflies winked on and off within the gloom.

Now she thought—she knew—she could hear voices around her. Ahead, behind, from side to side, even above.

The path opened up into an empty clearing. Cormac strode toward its center, then stopped. “We are here,” he announced.

“We are where?”

Cormac touched a hand lightly to her shoulder. “Clear your mind, Lady Serrano. Be present. And look.”

She stamped down on a momentary, burning need to toss back a snark-filled response, and instead took a deep, slow breath, gazing up into the trees.

The fireflies weren’t fireflies anymore. They were lanterns, pale amber light flickering from where they hung off tree limbs. No, off ropes between colossal trunks and long limbs, lighting suspension bridges or, sometimes, just paths in midair. And now, she could make out doors, buildings, the paths that ran between them. Maybe building wasn’t the right word, for they weren’t treehouses, didn’t look constructed. But they weren’t just hollowed out places in the trees, either, like lairs of unevolved animals. It looked more like the trees had just—just grown into the shapes of buildings. Small homes. Mansions. What had to be cafés and shops.

And, inside them, moving between them: faeries. Walking along the bridges. Flying along the paths. Every species she knew—including very human-like ones—and more than a few she didn’t. Faeries who had to be ten feet tall, faeries who couldn’t have been more than a few inches. Most of them looked down at her, pointing and talking quietly when they saw she was with Cormac, when they saw Sarah’s floating form, when they realized she could see them.

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

She hadn’t expected them to look happy to see her, but most of the looks she was getting had tinges of fear and anger. What had Cormac said? Everyone in Faerie knows who you are, Stormbringer. They knew her as the one threatening to wreck their world between worlds. And here she was with their comatose, dying of poison Guardian. Her ears lowered. “They’re, uh, going to be okay with me because I’m with you, right?” she murmured.

“It is more likely they will be less okay with me because I am with you, Lady Serrano.” The wolf sighed, then motioned her to follow him, toward one of the largest trees. The vast, wide trunk had been encircled by a staircase and ramp heading up, ramp on the inside of the curve. At first glance, it looked as if it had to be constructed, but it quickly became clear that, like the rest of the structures, it had been shaped, somehow, out of the tree itself.

The group of faeries striding down to meet them didn’t look like a welcoming committee. A snow-white vixen with brilliant butterfly wings, a black rabbit with solid blue eyes, a quadruped horse with unnaturally teal fur, a small soaring feathered dragon, a gaunt not-quite-human with decidedly predatory fangs and claws, and a lumbering bear-thing that had to be three times her height.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. The not-quite-human, vixen, and rabbit all looked to the sky briefly at the thunder, frowning. Cormac eyed Serrano.

“It wasn’t me,” she hissed. As far as she knew, it wasn’t, at least. But were those storms created from her power? Was that a sign of sympathetic magic?

Sympathetic magic. She hadn’t thought about that in what seemed like ages, when she was still looking for that mysterious vixen bartender who…well, had she started this all rolling? The more she’d learned, the less likely that seemed, but the suspicion lingered. But had it really been her mom, many years ago? Had it been Ulohne’s plan all along?

The group stopped at the bottom of the staircase, except for the vixen, who strode forward, wings folding behind her. How many other faeries had paused to watch from above? All of them, possibly.

The vixen silently studied Sarah for long seconds, then turned to look at Serrano. “Her death is your fault.” She spoke with the warning buzz of a thousand stinging insects.

Serrano fought to keep her voice calm and level. “She’s not dead yet.”

The not-a-human spoke, their voice the rustle of brittle leaves blowing across a cemetery. “You cannot save her.”

“But someone here can.”

“It is never that simple.” The vixen fluttered her wings. “Would you give your life for hers, Stormbringer?”

This sounded too much like a cautionary tale about making promises to faeries. “No,” Serrano answered after a moment. “But I would risk my life for hers, just as she risked hers for mine.”

The light filtering through the forest shifted, growing more mottled, some spots brighter and some cast into deeper shadow. The bear-thing let out an unsettling growl-roar.

“Look. I want to help Sarah. I want to help all of you. Whether you believe me or not, I’m not causing the destructive storms here. But I have to take responsibility for them.” Serrano took a deep breath, looking at each of them in turn. “I have to see the Queen.”

All at once, the wind rustling through the trees above sounded like a gale. Limbs hundreds of feet above swayed violently. Reaching out to sense the air, she tried to calm the currents, but they twisted away from her. Fighting her? No, it felt like—it felt like they were warning her. Not this air. Not for you.

The light above shifted and flickered, and the sky resolved into a face, impossibly vast, impossibly beautiful. Almost human, yet bird-like, and cat-like, and others Serrano had no names for.

When she spoke, her voice and sounded from everywhere at once: from the trees, the wind, the ground. It was low and soft and had the power of a thousand thousand possible worlds behind it. “Then see me you shall, Serrano Layotl.”

Serrano didn’t remember falling to her knees, but she was there, muzzle hanging open, as the queen reached down for her.