Illusions: Faction 4: The Isa Fae Collection Read online

The hulking presence withdrew, and Nithya reappeared beside him. The exotic spice of her perfume seeped into his awareness, slithering past the cloying stench of peat. She spoke quietly, “Fetch cold water, Thane, and some smelling salts.”

  “No,” Varian managed to gasp the words out through his clearing lungs. “I’m all right. Just need a few deep breaths.” Nithya steadied him as he raised himself to a sitting position. Slowly, his vision returned to its normal hues, and his gaze refocused on her. “I just…”

  “Wanted to give me a heart attack?” she asked tartly. “What was that?”

  “Sometimes I have trouble breathing.”

  Her jaw dropped. “What?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Breathing’s not important?”

  He shook his head, stifled the laughter that would only aggravate his cough, and focused on drawing a few more deep breaths. His vision steadied, and his thoughts cleared. His lungs still felt raw, as if they had been scraped over a bed of nails. He could taste blood in the bile smeared across the back of his throat.

  Everything considered, he had survived the latest incident without major repercussions.

  Nithya was staring at him, an annoyed expression in her green eyes. He took a moment to look around. He was in a booth tucked in the back of the tavern, farthest from the peat-soaked torches near the front door. Varian gritted his teeth. He would have to run that gauntlet again to get out of the tavern. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to create a scene.”

  “An evening in Darken Tavern isn’t complete without a scene or two. Yours was actually the less entertaining. Jacinta’s argument with Raphael was the highlight of the evening. They’re still talking about it at the bar. Hell hath no fury like a woman who finds out that her fiancé is bedding her mother.”

  Varian’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  A towering bear of a man came by the booth. The glass in his hand looked terrifyingly fragile. He glowered at Varian. “Yer okay now?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He set the glass down and he would have lumbered away, but Nithya stood. “Thane, sit with him for a bit. I’ll get us a round from the bar. It’s busy this evening; it may be hours before Maxine even knows we’re here.”

  Thane looked skeptical, but he squeezed his bulk into the narrow booth. Varian held his breath, but the wooden frame did not splinter.

  Thane wore a suspicious expression. “Who ‘yer?”

  “I’m Dace,” Varian offered his middle name.

  “‘Yer a fae. Not many of ‘yer kind around these parts.”

  Varian’s gaze swept across the tavern. It was filled with witches and an occasional fae, usually huddled beneath a hood, trying to blend in. Their thin, worn clothes and gaunt, pinched faces testified to a life of extreme want.

  He grimaced. The Immigration Department could not possibly have been as stringent as Nithya had made it out to be. Either that or his border guards were sleeping on the job.

  Thane scowled at him. “These ‘ere are good folks. Just trying to lay low for a bit.”

  Illegals. Pirates. Smugglers. Refugees—witches who spent their fortunes and risked their lives to enter La Condamine. Varian glanced across the room. Nithya leaned against the bar, engaged in a lively conversation with several other witches. What was Nithya doing in a place like this?

  His conscience pricked him only slightly as he murmured a spell and released it with a thought.

  Nithya’s voice was suddenly as clear as if she stood beside him. “—in my basement. You can come by any time after my store is closed. There’s lots of wood and coal. Dried meat. Bags of grain. Jars of pickled vegetables.” She smiled faintly. “It’s not as tasty as fresh food—”

  “But it’ll keep us going,” a female witch said gratefully. “Thank you, Nithya. It’s a difficult winter.”

  “It gets harder each year.”

  “Do you have enough for your family?”

  Nithya nodded. “I think so.” Her shoulders sagged on a sigh. “The smugglers’ prices go up every year.”

  “The route is harder. Between the winter and the more vigilant guards, fewer and fewer goods make it out of La Condamine. Are you sure you don’t want to bring your family in?”

  “How can I? The journey is dangerous, as you say, and my sisters—they’re not strong. They may not survive the crossing. And even if they do, if they’re found out, they’ll be expelled, and so will I. And this bounty—” Nithya spread her hands. “The wood and coal. The food—even though it’s tough, dry, and stringy—it all vanishes.” She shook her head. “I can’t take that risk.”

  The female witch looked concerned. “When was the last time you saw your family?”

  A shadow passed over Nithya’s features. “Thirteen years. Who’s counting?”

  “You haven’t seen them since you began your apprenticeship?”

  “I have to work to support them. They spent all their magic to send me here. If there’s a crisis, an emergency, they cannot magic their way out of it. I can’t afford any mistakes. If I leave La Condamine, I don’t know if they’ll let me back in.”

  “You’re a legal resident here, Nithya. You’re a citizen. No one can throw you out.”

  “I can’t risk it. None of us here can afford that risk.” Nithya’s gaze darted across the tavern and stopped at the booth where he was sitting.

  Their eyes met, and she stiffened. The oddly vulnerable expression on her face vanished in an instant. Her gaze hardened, as if she knew.

  No, it was ridiculous. He had seen her atern bracelet, its dull gray surface decorated with semi-precious stones. She had no magic to speak of. She could not have sensed him magically eavesdropping on her conversation.

  Nithya leaned over the bar to tap the bartender on the shoulder. Several moments later, she returned to the booth with three large mugs of beer. She offered one to Thane before sliding into the seat next to Varian. She set a mug in front of him. “This is the only non-questionable thing in the tavern. I definitely do not recommend the special.”

  Thane chortled. “Last ‘nite’s had rats feet in ‘em.”

  “And it may not have been accidental,” Nithya added with a laugh.

  Varian smiled. “You appear well acquainted with the hazards of eating here.”

  “For many years, it was all I could afford. My apprenticeship was little more than slave labor, although I did get a roof over my head and exceptional training. I’ve had more free meals here than I could count. Maxine, over there—” She pointed to a pretty female witch tending the bar. “—keeps this place going when old Joseph drinks too much of his own beer, and Thane’s been the official keeper of the peace for longer than I can remember.”

  The man grinned. His smile noticeably softened his brutish features.

  Nithya continued. “There’s one thing we all have in common here.” She held up her lifeless atern bracelet. “We all have little magic to speak of. Our homes are not magically lit like Chateau Grimaldi. We work with our hands, our backs, to earn what little living we can make.”

  “Yet it’s not enough,” Varian murmured.

  “These days, most people don’t have enough.” Nithya shook her head. “The prince doesn’t understand the riptides beneath the surface of La Condamine. The fae will not support him in his audacious plan to shatter the barrier. They horde magic like it is their life’s breath. The powerful witches are too afraid of having their precarious positions snatched away. If they spend their magic, the fae will become more powerful than they, and who knows what will happen then. And as for the rest of us, we have no magic to spare.”

  A muscle twitched in Varian’s cheek. If she were right, there was no support for his plan to be found anywhere in La Condamine.

  He had always known that his city possessed a dark underside. He had not realized, however, how deep the divisions ran. Yet here, where the despair should have been greatest, among the people who had the least power—both magical and political—the warmth seemed
truest.

  Laughter, supplemented by drunken hiccups, rang through the tavern. No one batted an eyelid when a witch and a fae burst into a bawdy song. Others sang along, creating a cacophony that made Varian wince and laugh simultaneously.

  Many people, witches and fae, stopped by the booth to offer a smile and grateful nod to Nithya, although few actually said anything to her.

  No words were needed. He had overheard enough. Nithya’s outrageous jewelry prices kept the illegal workers of La Condamine from starving and freezing to death. It also kept her family alive in the outlands.

  He studied her—a beautiful woman who accessorized her simple gowns with dazzling jewelry. A woman who stocked wood, coal, and food in her basement for those who needed it. She was connected to the living, beating heart of La Condamine—its people—in a way that he wasn’t.

  Varian drew a deep breath. His thoughts and emotions tangled. “Tell me more about your family.”

  She shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

  “What is life like in the outlands?”

  Nithya inhaled sharply. Her slight furrow appeared between her eyebrows. “It’s like breathing with the edge of a dagger against your throat. Shallow, quiet breaths, afraid to stir even the air.”

  “Were you born there?”

  “No.” Her voice was quiet, pensive. “My parents and I moved there after the attack. I was five when several fae broke into our house. They forced my parents to make a decision no parent should have to make—to choose between their power and their child’s.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She straightened, as if steeling herself. “The fae offered to rape my parents instead of me.”

  Varian’s chest tightened at her matter-of-fact tone. He laid his hands over hers—they were cold and taut. “I’m sorry.”

  She shook off his sympathy. “I’ve never been attacked for my magic, but I think I understand why physical rape is often the key to stealing it. The attack crushes her spirit. It tears down the protective walls around her mind and soul. If her body can be taken against her will, why not everything else?”

  “Is this why you hate the fae?”

  “I don’t hate the fae.” Nithya met his eyes. “I can separate the actions of a few from an entire race, but that’s why my parents and my brother and sisters are now living in the outlands.” She sighed. “We weren’t any safer there, but at least, we were off the records and off the beaten track. Any attacks were opportunistic, not targeted.”

  “But you were still attacked.”

  “Yes. The fae who live in the outlands are desperate men. They survive by their wits, their skill at fighting, and their magic. If there’s a chance of increasing their store of magic, why not?” A faint smile touched her lips. “My father built hiding places for all of us, but I was the only one who was ever any good at staying hidden. My parents, my siblings, weren’t as lucky.”

  Varian winced, understanding the words she did not speak. Her family had been repeatedly assaulted—raped—for their magic. Had she watched from her hiding place, her hand clamped over her mouth to contain her sobs?

  Nithya continued softly. “My parents traded the last of their magic to send me away. I was the only one with any chance of a legitimate life. My brothers and sisters are…not strong.” She released her breath in a sigh. “They never had a chance.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her gaze traced the curling wisps of smoke from the peat torches. The anxious edge of her emotions settled, as if soothed, however briefly, by the hypnotic sway of gray smoke. She shrugged. “It’s just life. In La Condamine, witches are second-class citizens, but at least we’re citizens. The city regularly fumbles through the pretense of treating us equally, but it’s hard to complain when life outside La Condamine is almost infinitely harder for witches.” She shook her head. “No witch wants the risk of being stripped of her citizenship and expelled. It’s safer to keep quiet, easier to be content with the scraps when you know what the alternatives are.”

  “But life isn’t uniformly terrible in the factions.”

  “Isn’t it? In some factions, life is worse than in the outlands. Witches are systematically targeted for their magic, as if that’s all we are—atern vessels for the magic-starved fae. Here in La Condamine, we’re respectable business owners. We live next door to fae families. Some of our closest friends might even be fae.” She shook her head. “But it’s not like this elsewhere in Isa Fae, and it won’t be, because the witches are too focused on trying to survive each day. They don’t have any strength left to challenge the system.”

  “All they need is one person to stand up and lead the way,” he said.

  “As with the barrier around Isa Fae?” Nithya snorted. “They don’t have a Prince Varian. No one fights for them. No one ever will.”

  “That’s a grim view.”

  “It’s reality. The witches don’t have the political power or will to disrupt the system. Appealing to the fae’s capricious morality rarely works, not when it changes as frequently as their glamour.”

  “It doesn’t,” he retorted, stung.

  “Of course it does. They’re as fae as their magic. Social change, such as the witches need in Isa Fae, takes too long. The fae have no patience for it. No magic pill, no spell, no grand gesture can sweep away years of systematic discrimination. It takes too long, and no one cares enough to begin.” Nithya met his eyes, and she shook her head, chuckling. “You don’t believe me, do you? It must be pleasant living in a world so far removed from reality.”

  “My reality is different.”

  “That is true,” Nithya conceded. “And you are lucky.” Her gaze flicked across the tavern. “It’s getting late. We should go.”

  Varian followed Nithya to the back door, ducked his head under the low doorframe, and emerged from the warmth of the tavern into the chill of the night. He drew a deep breath, but the sudden change of temperature set off his cough. It tore through his lungs and churned blood and bile into the back of his throat.

  Nithya dashed back to the tavern. “I’m going to get help—”

  He sagged against a wall, holding out a hand to stop her. “No, I’m fine.”

  “Your cough is terrible.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is it infectious?”

  “No.” He managed a weary laugh, but it sounded choked. “Weak lungs,” he gave her the oversimplified explanation. “It’s a reminder to keep taking the medicine even though it tastes like kerosene swirled in whale blubber.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “I’ve never tasted either, but it sounds wretched. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind walking slowly until I get my breath back.”

  “I’m surprised that with all your magic, you can’t just fix it.”

  He looked at her. “What makes you think I have a lot of magic?”

  “Oh, come on.” She gestured at the iron clasp he wore over his bracelet. “You’re hiding it.”

  “Maybe I have little and would rather it not be known. Perhaps that’s why I’m paying you in supplies instead of magic.”

  She shrugged. “No amount of glamour can hide your eyes.”

  “What do you see there?”

  Nithya smiled faintly. “Enough.”

  Enough…what? he wondered, but she said nothing more.

  They continued walking, their path taking them through increasingly attractive neighborhoods until they arrived at the merchant district. Nithya unlocked the door of her store, but did not swing it open. She turned to face him. “Would you like to come in for a drink?”

  “No,” was the only obvious answer. They had just come from a tavern. But when he looked at her, the obvious answer was not easy. She intrigued him, challenged him—a working-class witch with bordering-on-illegal actions, Nithya was several degrees of wrong for him, but he could not explain that knot in his chest every time he looked at her.

  It wasn’t love—it couldn’t be—but it was something.

 
; Her lips parted, whether to repeat or repeal the invitation, he didn’t know, but he spoke before she did. “Yes, I’d love to come in.”

  She looked startled but pleased as she flung the door open and invited him in.

  Her home, set above her store, included a tiny eat-in kitchen and a living room, warmed by the heat that wafted up from her store. The fireplace in her living room was not lit. When he knelt to touch the remnants of wood and coal, they were stone cold.

  “I can light it,” she offered.

  “No, it’s all right,” Varian murmured. “I’m fine.”

  “Tea for you, or something stronger?”

  “Tea, please.” He needed all his wits around him, since his blood seemed determined to pool someplace other than his brain.

  He walked around her small apartment. The wooden furniture was old but beautifully polished, and woven rugs, carefully lined up with the oak floorboards, added color and warmth. Framed drawings—he recognized her steady, creative hand—decorated the walls, not in a perfectly straight line but in a pattern that, while beautifully artistic, spoke to underlying precision and symmetry.

  Abundant creativity and a precise, well-ordered mind, with a perspective that crossed social boundaries and national borders.

  How much more perfect could she be?

  She could be a fae, of noble blood.

  And he could not be set on a collision course with death.

  Nithya approached him with a cup of tea. “Does the quiet of the night spawn dark thoughts?”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  “No…” She stood next to him, and for several moments, they stared out at the snow-dusted streets. “But when else is there time enough to be honest with ourselves, but at night, when we’re alone?”

  He drew a deep breath. How could she speak so simply and directly to his heart?

  “What is your name?” Nithya asked.

  Varian closed his eyes. “You can call me Dace.”

  “How real is it?” she asked without sarcasm.

  “Real enough, just not all of it.”

  “Is she worth it?”

  He frowned, puzzled.

  “The woman you’re leaving your mistress for. The woman you’re marrying.”