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Chapter 33: Full Retreat
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Prince from the Other Side Chapter 34: An Ultimatum
We set our guitars carefully on their stands. My mind was racing. The studio was soundproof: no human could have heard us, even if they were prowling around the house. But whatever I'd felt at the edges of our magic had absolutely not felt human. I didn't want to admit it to myself: I recognized that dark, sour rot. It was Unseelie magic.I'd stopped being bothered by Sy's Unseelie magics. I don't know when. His magic, his nature, it couldn't be unpleasant to me because it was Sy. Sy, who was heading for the studio door."What are you doing?" I asked sharply, hearing the fear in my own voice."Going to greet our uninvited guests." Sy's voice sounded grave and cold. "They know we're here. They'd have to be dead not to have noticed all that magic."So, he didn't think they were human either. Did he know…?I stepped out of the studio after him, into the cool of the basement. "And what do you think YOU'RE doing?" Sy twisted around as he heard me shuffling behind him. "Coming wit
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 35: Invasion and Defense
Sy had gone nearly as pale as they were. There was something broken in his expression, as if his rage had hit a short circuit of helplessness and fury. "I do not believe you, Jarrah," hissed Sy harshly under the rush of wind and the thin, cold press of rain. "This is idiotic ultimatum is all your plotting. If my father wanted me back, this mortal form would already be dead. We would not be having this discussion.""Believe what you like," Jarrah seemed truly unbothered, even amused by Sy's insolence. "But choose. Time is short. I hate feeling the flow of mortal time. I cannot understand how you bear it, my prince."Jarrah's smile was full of sharp teeth. I saw Sy making his decision, automatically, instinctively, and I had no doubt at all what he would pick."I'll go!" I shouted, before he could speak and doom himself. "I'll go back to my people. There is no need for all of this."I tried to draw myself up in the Unseelies' hold, aiming for some kind of dignity fitting for my s
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 36: War
Sy held my hand—my non-iron-ring-hand—in his as we stepped gingerly back into the chalet. I felt him edging toward the living room, where the wood stove and the invaluable iron poker were waiting for us. His skin was buzzing with magic, and I caught an edge of that dangerous red-rage magic like lightning in his flesh. Still controlled, but coiled, dangerous, waiting. If Jarrah was already back, if he challenged Sy again—I knew Sy wouldn't be able to hold back. He'd attack his own people. And I'd really have doomed him. I felt the bright shimmer of power in the chalet's open design living room and kitchen. For an instant I was almost comforted—This was certainly Seelie power, not Unseelie, that I felt now. But then my brain caught up. Luckily there were no fae manifesting visibly, which absolutely didn't mean we were safe. It just meant they weren't here yet. "Poker," said Sy under his breath, and we shuffled toward the wood stove. Sy took up the iron poker like a sword, looking bot
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 37: Surrender
I took a hesitant step toward my uncle, closer to the aura of shimmering Seelie magic resonating from him. "Hester!" Sy's voice was taut, desperate. He took a step forward with me, keeping the tip of the poker between me and Lord Raelen. "What are you doing?!""Saving you," I whispered, feeling my eyes stinging. I refused to cry in front of my uncle though. Not when he'd just sworn on my father's memory, despite doing so to shame me and my choices. I wanted to show him I was sure of myself, like the Queen had said. That I knew what I wanted. But I knew, in my heart, my uncle would only see this as surrender. Either way, Sy would be safe."You can't trust him!" yelled Sy, abandoning caution. "How could we not have heard about a war?! And how did it start? There's no way."I couldn't say to him that it didn't matter how it started, that we really should prod into who had struck first. It would only make things stranger and worse. But all at once, the choice was taken out of my han
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 38: Fortification
Sy brought the poker with us to the bedroom, I think as a bit of a security blanket. We laid down together on the broad bed with its picture windows looking out over the stormy mountain ravine. We were too preoccupied to notice the view. We lay together, clothed, and safely enfolded in one another's arms. Sy kissed my lips, my nose, my eyelids, and I pressed my forehead against his, treasuring the small, sure contact of skin to skin, of his hand stroking my waist, my back, of my arm draped around his strong, lean form. I heard the storm fade, the thunder going soft in the distance. And no Seelie or Unseelie appeared to drag us apart. No Jarrah, no Raelen, no armored warriors of a Seelie Queen or an Unseelie King…"Sy," I said, beginning with our small ritual of offering the other's name. "We need to talk about the whole prince thing.""Do we?" he sighed, and I felt his dear, wolfish smile as he kissed me. "Can't we just keep on ignoring it?""I mean, I wasn't ignoring it per se,
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 39: Good Morning, Doom
I made fun of Sy, but only a little, for bringing the iron poker with us downstairs again when we finally got out of bed. I had to pour our whiskeys at the living room bar because he kept the poker in one hand and his other arm wrapped tightly around my waist, as if I would vanish if he let go. And I had to admit that was a real possibility. How did our magic actually work? It had banished my uncle as the iron had banished Jarrah…but neither had returned since. We didn't know the rules of this game. But we were stuck playing it. I could only hope nobody else understood either. Uncertainty might make them less likely to make another attempt to retrieve—or destroy—either of us. But for now, our shared magic seemed to be our best defense. Our best, and only. Which, frankly, as things went, wasn't the worst. Far from it. Because it meant that the responsible thing to do was to take our whiskeys down to the recording studio, set up with our guitars so close our legs pressed together, an
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 40: Break
I could feel the prickly residue haunting us as we settled into the studio though. At the bottom of the golden sense of the music between us, there was the rocky underbelly, like a rough stream bed sharp against your feet. Underneath the lyrics and melody, the melding of the chords into flow as we experimented with new beats and jazzy combinations, there was that unsettled sense of disquiet. It clung to us like brambles as we tried to move past it. And eventually, I couldn't take it anymore.I stopped playing at the end of a long improv session, bouncing off each other, alluding to songs we knew and riffing on them in the chord progressions. The sense of warm golden strength between us hovered like warm mist. Through that brilliance, I met Sy's eye."I think we should talk about what you said," I broached bluntly. "I know it was the heat of the moment and all that. But when my uncle was saying all that about the war, and you said you didn't believe it was really happening…What did yo
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 41: Just Like Magic
I raced up the stairs, knowing with cold, terrible certainty that I'd be too late. "Sy!" I screamed, rushing into the open kitchen and living room. Nothing. Nobody. I could see nearly the whole span of the house, and out onto the patio as well through the chalet's huge windows. Sy was nowhere. And the sweet, clear sense of Seelie magic was everywhere. I wanted to scream, but somehow my voice was gone. My logical brain said look upstairs, look all over the house just in case. Make sure the car was outside. He could be speeding around the mountain roads, burning out his anger and doubt, reason told me. But I knew at a gut level that it wasn't true. He wasn't here."Uncle!" I screamed into the emptiness. There was no response.Why would my uncle have taken Sy, rather than me? It made no sense. He wanted to get me away from Sy, that was clear, but he'd been intent on bringing me to Faerie only yesterday. I didn't like it. What could my uncle want with Sy? Would the Seelie court res
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