Page 30 of Be the Serpent

The guards had finally noticed us. They looked in our direction, frowning. I didn’t recognize either of them.

“October?” called the woman. Her voice, at least, was familiar: Lowri. She waved us over. “Everything okay?”

“Nope,” I said, almost violently cheerful as we approached. She blinked. I shrugged. “Just being honest. Mind if we come in?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Queen said to expect you.”

“One small problem,” said Simon, apologetically.

I turned to look at him.

“What now?”

“I can’t see the door.”

Well, crap.

EIGHT

After Simon’s proclamation, it had only taken a few seconds for Lowri and Nolan—her current fellow guard—to swing into action, Nolan waving one hand oddly in the air before seeming to step just out of view. The smell of his magic rose, but I never saw the portal, or anything that would have led me to think magic was real if I hadn’t already known about it. Lowri moved toward us. I put up a hand.

“Stop there!”

She stopped obligingly, looking puzzled. “October . . . ?”

“Simon was fine before he took my hand,” I said. “Whatever’s going on with us, it seems to be contagious.”

“What is?” asked Stacy, sounding politely bemused. “Aren’t we going to go inside?”

“In a second, Stacy.”

Contagious to everyone but her, which would have been interesting if this hadn’t been such a serious situation. It couldn’t be connected to having human blood, or I would have been able to see everything clearly. Simon had been born a changeling and turned fully fae before he was old enough to consent, while Quentin was the son of a changeling woman who had similarly given up her human blood, in her case for the chance to marry a king. So all three of the people affected were connected to humanity in some way, even if some of those connections were attenuated.

But Stacy was more mortal than any of us. She had never asked me to change her blood, and I had never offered. She’d seemed so happy as she was that there really hadn’t been any point to reminding her that she was never going to be considered a full part of Faerie, and we had time before old age was going to make it a pressing issue.

It was still a little odd that I’d never even thought to ask her, not even on the rare nights when we’d gone out on the town with Kerry and done our best to fit in with the shrieking human college girls, slamming fruity cocktails like our lives depended on it. We talked about everything. When I’d lost my virginity, she’d been the first person I wanted to tell about it. There had never been a major development in my life that I hadn’t discussed with Stacy. So how was it that I’d discovered a way to make her life easier, and I’d never brought it up?

“I can still feel my magic,” said Simon, looking down at his hands and flexing his fingers like he was trying to feel the illusions he couldn’t actually see. “It’s here. I just can’t see it.”

“Lowri, are you wearing a human disguise right now?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Great. So I can’t even see the parts of Faerie that the humans can see.”

Looking alarmed, Lowri took another step backward, putting more distance between us. Quentin was starting to breathe rapidly, clearly on the cusp of some sort of breakdown. I put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’ll be okay,” I said. “Look, Stacy’s fine. We’ll figure this out.”

Nolan reappeared, once again seeming to step out from behind something, rather than through any sort of magic. This time, a woman was with him, dark-haired, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Despite her rounded ears and rebalanced color palette, she was obviously the Queen. And being Arden, those could very well be her real clothes, not an illusionary construct like the ones on the guards. That was almost reassuring, which was nice, since absolutely nothing else was.

“October!” She rushed toward us. “What’s going on? Nolan says you can’t see the door.”

“You shouldn’t touch us,” I said, almost apologetically. Even for me, telling a Queen she’s not allowed to do something is a little awkward. Sure, I’m great at overthrowing them when they get out of line, but Arden was doing her best to do right by us, and hadn’t gone in for any massive violations of anyone’s autonomy—at least not that I was aware of.

Arden stopped, several feet still between her and Quentin. “Why?” she asked, warily.

“I can’t release my illusions,” I said. “I can feel my magic, but when I try to tell it we don’t need it right now, it won’t let go. And I can’t see the pixies, I couldn’t see the trail up the hill, and I can’t see the door into the knowe. Are you wearing a human disguise?”