“That’s an accomplishment,” she said, her eyebrows raising. “Well done. I do know a bit about the seven Golden Arrows of Soleil, though there is very little information to be gleaned about them from afar. I know of their existence, that they’re meant to be some kind of solution to the Blight, and that they are extremely powerful, full of magic. What do you want to know?”
“The two we have are inscribed differently,” Florian explained. “The first one we got, it saysI pierce the heart of sacrifice. But the second one saysI pierce the heart of summer. And we don’t really know what it means.”
“Curious,” she mused, her eyes flickering between them—she had paid very little attention to Kade after returning his sword, but knowing he had helped retrieve the Arrows seemed to pique her interest in him. “I can’t say I know anything for sure in that regard. Whatever knowledge you have of the Arrows, I can promise you my understanding is no more in-depth. All the information about these relics that you have access to is all I can access as well. But I would imagine that if they convey different messages, they are meant to be used in different ways. And they are meant to be used within the Summer Court, so that one, at least, seems self-explanatory.”
“Do the other ones say different things, too?”
“I don’t know.”
Sighing, Florian leaned back in his chair again. So far, their meeting had not gone at all how he had expected or hoped.
“You’re disappointed,” Elodie remarked. It was a statement, not a question, which rankled him.
“I don’t know what to feel right now,” he muttered, shaking his head. “It’s... frustrating. Sorry.”
To his surprise, she chuckled again, shaking her head. “I forgot how strongly you fae feel about things. But it seems to me—and pardon me if I’m overstepping—but it seems to me, none of this information is going to change your plans. So what is there to be frustrated over?”
Florian felt Kade tense next to him and saw a hint of a frown cross his face. Kade seemed to have taken offense on his behalf, though Florian supposed that Elodie was right, in a way. While it made the context for everything starkly different, on a practical level it didn’t seem like anything was going to change—maybe, he thought, that was the disappointing part.
“I guess we’ll figure out more once we get more Arrows,” he sighed, taking another sip of his tea. The cup was small, and only a little bit of the liquid remained; but when he set the cup down, Elodie swiped her hand once again, and the kettle floated over to his cup and refilled it.
“Was that all you wanted to know?”
“No,” Florian said—though with how little she seemed to know, he wasn’t feeling confident that she could tell him anything about the spirit that Jerah had suspected was tethered to him. “There’s more. Um… Before my dad died, he thought—wethought that there was maybe some kind of fae spirit or something, I guess, that was attached to me somehow. He didn’t know much about it but thought maybe you might know something or be able to help me figure it out.”
Though she had been watching Florian attentively through the whole conversation, her demeanor visibly changed to one of keen interest as he spoke.
“You want to know for sure if something has been bound to you?” she asked, her head tilting as she spoke. “Or you want to know the identity of this being, if it’s actually there?”
“Well, both, ideally,” Florian said, managing to smile nervously.
“How curious,” Elodie murmured, looking him over more closely. “Tell me more about this. What made Jerah think this might be the case?”
“When I first came to the Winter Court, he was teaching me about... well, everything about the Veil, I guess. And when he was telling me about the Summer Queen, Soleil, I... knew things about her that I wouldn’t have possibly been able to know. I felt things I couldn’t really explain,” Florian went on. “And then a second time, when we were trying to get the same thing to happen, I think I saw her. Just for a second. But I could imagine exactly what she looked like somehow.”
“So you think some summer fae spirit has left you with some memories, lingering emotions of their experience with the Queen,” the hag murmured, lifting a hand to her face to tap against her chin thoughtfully. “I could certainly see this happening. And... forgive me, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.” She looked at Florian again. “Were you not raised in the Winter Court? It seems I know less about you than I had thought.”
“Oh,” Florian said, blinking—everyone else in the Veil had seemed to pick up on his off-world upbringing so easily that it hadn’t occurred to him to mention it to her. “No, um, when he knew I was a Changeling, he sent me to Earth to live with my uncle. I was really young. I don’t really remember it, or being in the Veil at all.”
“Interesting, interesting,” she murmured, tapping her chin with her too-long fingers again. “That was a possibility I saw, but I’m surprised he made that decision in the end. I suppose it worked out after all.”
Florian opened his mouth to speak, but stopped short when Elodie abruptly and decisively clapped her hands together, her purple eyes meeting his gaze with a piercing look.
“I can help you find the true nature of this spirit, yes,” she continued. “But it will take effort on your part. I can only show you how. And it cannot be accomplished with fae magic. You will need to use old magic for this type of divination.”
Again Florian started to speak but was cut off—this time by Kade.
“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. Florian frowned, looking over at him. Kade met his eyes with a stubborn, almost fearful expression. “Don’t do it, Florian. We both know old magic is dangerous. Look at what it did to the Summer Court. Look at what it did toher!” He gestured toward the hag—her lips pressed together at the insult, but otherwise she looked unperturbed.
“Don’t be rude,” he muttered, glancing nervously between the two. “I know it’s dangerous, but if it’s the only way to find out, then...” Kade’s expression became pained, and he looked away.
“I can’t stop you,” he said quietly, brows furrowing as he looked down at his cup of tea that sat, still full, on the table. “But I really wish you wouldn’t.”
Florian hesitated. The prospect of using old magic did frighten him, remembering the warnings against it from both Kade and his father. But he certainly wasn’t going to attempt something as world-breaking as the Summer Queen had done, and Elodie seemed confident that she could show him how to do it. She didn’t say that it would be particularly dangerous, only that he would have to be the one to do it.
“What we will be attempting should have no inherent danger. It won’t break any of the rules of the old magic,” she said, as if she could sense his thoughts.
“Any of theknownrules,” Kade remarked, and her lips twisted into a slight smile.
“Of course,” she said. “But I think we can both agree I understand how the old magic works: the types of rules it tends to have, if not the exact rules themselves. If there is some unknown rule that won’t allow us to ascertain this fae’s identity, I would be quite surprised. And even if there is such a rule, the price to be paid for breaking it will likely be a trifling matter. We aren’t attempting anything particularly groundbreaking here.”
“It’s dangerous,” Kade repeated, this time to Florian rather than Elodie.
“I need to know… Sorry,” Florian said softly, glancing up at Kade apologetically. The other man’s face became stony and still. “I’ll be okay.”
A beat of tense silence passed, then Kade sighed, his shoulders drooping, and he nodded as he looked away.
“Then come with me,” Elodie said, standing up. At her full height she was nearly seven feet after all, far more intimidating now than she had been while sitting. “And we can begin.”
