Flicker (7 page)

The cat looked up at him
and meowed
plaintively
. Filo rolled his eyes. Rodney was a good friend—at least, as good a friend as one of his kind could be—but he didn’t
always
know whe
n to back off.

“No, Rodney,” he said. “I can’t walk around talking to a cat. It’s bad form.”

The cat slipped into an alley, and Filo kept walking, somewhat relieved. He just needed some time alone
—a
n hour or two in the workroom
, creating spells or brewing potions,
to calm his mind.

“If you’re too proud to talk to a cat”—Filo jumped violently when something grabbed his shoulder—“then perhaps you could talk to me, instead.”

“I think I liked you better as a cat,” Filo
grumbled
. He started walking
again
, and
Rodney fell in step beside him—
no longer a cat, but a
strikingly handsome young man in a pea coat and dark jeans.
The tips of his pointed ears were just visible through his tousled brown hair.
“Don’t you have better things to do than follow me around?”

“I don’t,” Rodney admitted, smiling.
His yellow eyes glinted.
“And all the better for you.”

“How’s that?”

“You need the company,” Rodney said. “I can tell. All these years of solitude have done nothing for your temper.”

“It hasn’t been
that
long,
Rodney
,” Filo muttered. One year since Alice left him alone at Flicker, and
two
years since Nasser and Jason fled, though it felt like much longer. To Filo, it felt like a lifetime of slowly falling apart.

Rodney let it go surprisingly easily.
“What’s all this I’ve heard about Jason running off?”

“You heard about that?”

“Gossip is quick on slow days.”

“I don’t know all the details,” Filo said. “Just that he took off sometime last night and Nasser’s been going out of his head looking for him.”

“Has he made any progress?”

“He’s still looking. Your
turn
, Rodney
.
What’s the word?
” Filo
did business with mostly
everyone worth knowing in
Bridgestone’s
m
agical community,
but Rodney
really had his finger on the city’s pulse.
He was Filo’s primary source for th
e latest, most interesting
news.

Rodney
smirked
.
“
Word is, Feronia will be moving the entire Summer Court from Otherworld for a ceremony in the first week of November.”

Filo gave a low whistle. “The Queen of
the Summer Court
? Are you serious?”

“I’m always serious.”

“But Feronia
’s
been managing affairs from Otherworld for a thousand years. She only leaves Court for the Changing of the Season.”

“Not
quite
a thousand,” Rodney corrected him. “Only since the end of the last Great War. She’s been ruling for about
five
hundred years, give or take a few decades.”

Filo ignored him. “But to move the Court? Tha
t’s a lot of trouble
for one ceremony.”

“Not just one ceremony,” Rodney said. “It’s
the
ceremony—the changing of the guard, the passing of the torch. Do you understand? I’m running out of human
expressions
.”

It hit Filo li
ke a bolt of lightning.
“She’s passing the crown?
Why?”

“Feronia was never meant to be Summer Queen,” Rodney said. “Not really. She wields all the power of a true queen, but she’s only a steward
of the throne, just as her sister
Cressida
is
. When Feronia took the crown at the end of the Great War, everyone knew that she would only keep it until
Umbriel was old enough to claim it for himself, and that time has come. He’s finally of ruling age, though he’s still a bit on the young side
, as far as
Kings
of the Daoine Sidhe
go
.”

“Umbriel,” Filo
mused
. “
H
e’s the
Prince, which would make him—”

“Feronia and
Cressida
’s nephew,” Rodney finished. “Fintan and Bevin were his parents, and I’m certain you know about them.”

“
Fintan was the last King of Su
mmer, and Bevin was his consort,
the Queen of Springtime.”
In the Summer Court, control of the warm seasons was divided betw
een the two monarchs. The two halves
completed
each other’s power.
“Before Feronia and
Cressida
.”

“That’s right. Feronia and
Cressida
took their places after
their predecessors
died in the Great War.
They are Fintan’s younger sisters.
”

“But if Feronia is handing the crown
to Umbriel, then what’ll
happen to
Cressida
? She wasn’t meant to be a queen either. Who’s replacing her?”

Rodney tilted his head thoughtfully. “I don’t think she’ll be replaced at all,” he said finally. “Unless, of course, Umbriel chooses a consort, in which case
Cressida
will step down and Umbriel’s consort will become the new Queen of Springtime.”

Filo
squinted at Rodney. “How do
you know
so much
about the Summer Court?”

Rodney smiled, admitting nothing. Filo sighed.
They
turned onto East Teric Avenue and walked down to Flicker.
After he unlocked the door, Filo
flipped the sign that hung in the window around from
closed
to
open
.

Rodney followed him inside, frowning at the cluttered shop. “
Goodness.
This place is a mess.”

Filo said nothing, just stepped behind the counter. Bu
t
it
was true
.
These
days,
with no other workers in the shop, he only had time for the bare minimum that
kept him
afloat.

“You should close down for a day and clean,” Rodney said,
wandering
to the counter. “It wouldn’t hurt business too much. Besides, you could use a day or two away from customers.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You’re overworking yourself, Filo. You look thin. Sick.”

He wanted to tell Rodney to stop stating the obvious. He wanted to say that of course he was sick; he’d felt sick for
a year
, ever since he found himself alone at Flicker. But he wouldn’t have Rodney pitying him. He wouldn’t appear weak. He had enough problems already.

“You should leave
,” Filo said, a bit too loudly. “I have a client coming in a few minutes.”

Nodding, Rodney started
for the door.
Before he opened the door, he glanced back.
“You don’t have to be like this, Filo.”

“Like what?”

“Stubborn. You ought to let somebody help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

Rodne
y’s spotted cat tail twitched
. The tail was a defect—nearly every faery had one, something to mark them as inhuman as they walked among mortals. Rodney usually hid his defect with glamour, making it invisible to anyone without the Second Sight, but Filo could see straight through the glamour that veiled it. He was often able to use the tail as a gauge to measure Rodney’s mood. Just now, Rodney was annoyed.

“
You’re acting like a real ass, Filo.”

Filo shook his head. “I have things to do, Rod. You should go.”

Rodney pulled the door open, bells jangling as he steppe
d outside. “I suppose I should.”

Chapter Three:

Awake

A loud banging shook the door to the apartment above the shop.
Frowning, Filo
glanced up from the
papers spread across
his
desk. It couldn’t be a customer: Though he hadn’t locked up the shop yet, customers
were usually too sheepish to venture
through the shop, up the stairs and into the apartment
where he lived
.

Wondering how he could’ve missed the tell-tale jangling off the bells hung above the door downstairs
, Filo
stood and
crossed
the worn floorboards. A cold breeze rushed through the open windows and blew half the papers off the desk. He sighed and turned to the door.

He paused,
one
hand on the doorknob, as he sensed the jittery silver ener
gy on the other side. He knew it well
, though he’d had little contact with it over the last
two
years—before this morning, anyway.

What is
he
doing here?
Filo thought, bewildered. For a moment, he considered shouting at the person behind the door to get lost. But
curiosity got the best of him.

Filo
heaved the door open, already frowning.

Nasser stood in the dim, narrow corridor.
His dark blond hair was windswept and sticking up at odd angles. His gray eyes glinted and his mouth was set in a determined line.

“What do you want, Nasser?” Filo
demanded, crossing his arms
.

“I need a favor.”

A red-haired girl with large green eyes appeared at Nasser’s side. She was about average height, but beside Nasser, she looked small, almost doll-like.
She wore a midnight-blue
dress and Nasser’s coat, which hung
loosely on her.
Nasser held her gently by her wrist,
and she gazed around with a blank
expression on her soft-featured face.
An energy hung
over her like a shroud, a faintly shimmering magic, not her own. Faerie magic. Filo thought he sensed something else beneath it, but he wasn’t sure. It was probably nothing.

“What—
” Filo began, mouth
already
openi
ng to form some sort of protest.
Before he could finish, Nasser nudged the girl over the threshold and into the apartment.

“Just watch her for me,” Nasser said quickly. “Please, Filo. I can’t take her now. Jason’s still gone and there’s no one to keep an eye on her while I look. It’ll only be for a while, a few days at most.”

“Who the hell is this?”

“I’m not sure.” Nasser shook his head, unsure of where
to begin. “I went to
Bluewood
to look for Jason at the revel, like you said. He wasn’t there, but I noticed her and I—I mean, she—I couldn’t just leave her, Filo!”

“Salt and sag
e,” Filo groaned
. “What did you do?”

“I traded for her.”

“You
traded
f
or her?
How’d you manage that?”

Nasser shrugged
. “There was this dryad—” he
began.

“A Summer Court dryad?”

“Yeah.”

“Idiot! You know it’s dangerous to deal with Court fey. The solitary fey are bad enough.”

Nasser ignored him. “It was so
strange
. I found her
painting, completely oblivious. As soon as I saw her, I felt sort of
…
connected. Like she was different somehow. You know?”

Filo squinted at th
e girl. There
must have been something that set her apart, something deeper down. Nasser’s feelings had never been wrong, at least n
ot in Filo’s
memory. “Different,” he echoed.
“
H
ow?”

“
Her energy
was
like Jason’s used to be, before he learned to work his magic properly. It had a sort of tint to it, and you know most people’s energies aren’t colored.”

Somehow, Filo suspected that it wasn’t just the girl’s energy that made Nasser feel so connected to her. Nasser was always too sensitive, too quick
to form bonds
—
and he was looking at the girl with big doe eyes
, which Filo considered a bad sign
.
Still
…