Beyond the Gateway (Cranksepticeye)

Twenty-four

That night proved easy by Jade standards.
By the time Ethan saw Jack out of the park at East Seventy-second, the shadows had grown long again, and he'd gone to work. He'd only had to draw his sword once and he'd even been able to talk a bevy of wood sprites into returning back through the rift whence they'd come without any of them so much as lobbing a pinecone at his head.
Maybe they'd felt sorry for him, he thought as he walked up Fifth Avenue after sunrise and passed his reflection in a shop window.
He really did look terrible: bone-deep weary, his eyes circled with shadows like bruises.
He knew that sleep would be the best thing for him, but as the brightened over New York and the day began anew, Ethan headed instead in the direction of the address that he'd finally been able to pry out of a reluctant Maddox.
The fire-escape landing outside the fourth-floor apartment could be accessed by two windows. One, the bathroom window, showed Ethan a glimpse of black horsehair: a tail swishing back and forth through the gap between the wall and the shower curtain. He heard a gentle, regular rumbling - the kelpie was snoring in his sleep. Ethan briefly thought of doing . . . something . . . but the thing was safe for the moment. And he had begun to shy away from any violence toward the creature, for Jack's sake.
Jack . . . The other window was his. The gap in the curtain showed him curled up in his bed, sleeping peacefully. When he shifted in his slumber, the silver-and-green amber pendant slid along the chain around his neck, coming to rest in the graceful, hollowed contour above his collarbone. In the dim light of the room, the little char seemed almost to glow.
Ethan closed his eyes and reached toward Jack with his inner senses. With Jack asleep, it was easier for him to get a read on him . . .
There he was, like brilliant little sparks in the darkness, his explosive brightness kept in check, Ethan was sure, by the sputtering fuse of the charm around his throat. He was almost completely hidden.
Swinging himself off the iron stairs and down to the ground, Ethan decided the he wouldn't be going back to his apartment to rest that morning.
The Avalon Grande proved easy to break and enter, but the fact that it left him even slightly out of breath left Ethan pause. His Jade training should have made if effortless. His injuries had made it hard.
You're only human, he thought. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. Especially now that he knew Jack wasn't. Which one is really Jack? he wondered. The apprentice actor at a tumbledown theater, or that incandescent creature he'd encountered in the alleyway - the one he'd glimpsed when the veil that kept him hidden had slipped?
Ethan was pretty sure that Jack didn't habe the vaguest idea what he truly was - what he could be. What would happen, he wondered, when he discovered it for himself? Would he change? Become like those Faerie he had worshiped as a child? He was not so sure that he would want Jack to become like them.
It had been difficult for Ethan, living in the mortal realm for the past year. Everything seemed just slightly shabby to his Otherworld-accustomed eyes. Still, he found himself, more and more, entertaining the thought that perhaps the Faerie realm - in all its wild, magical splendor - was not exactly the glorious place his childhood memories made it.
Hee thought of Jack drifting through the halls of his father's shining palace. He pictured Jack as he might become: a perfect being, but distant. Cold. Aloof. Wanting for nothing but, by the same token, dreaming of nothing . . .
He pushed the thought away and hid himself in the darkened upper balcony, resting his arms on the worn wood of the pew in front of him and relaxing as the morning stage crew began to trickle in. Jack hadn't yet arrived - it was still too early - but Ethan was filled with a warmth of anticipation. Not that he was going to let Jack know that he was there; he was finally getting the sense that Jack might not be take entirely kindly to his watching out for him. Also, the man playing Oberon had been fairly explicit in his warning to stay away. Not that he'd be any threat to a Jade, but Ethan respected the man's desire to protect Jack. The shadowy balcony provided an ideal vantage point.
It was also dark and warm. When Ethan woke up hours later, it was because Bob the boucca was poking him in the shoulder with a wooden prop sword. Ethan sat up with a start, but the ancient Fae put a shushing finger to his lips.
"Heigh-ho, Faerie killer," Bob whispered , a mocking grin stretched across his face. "Thought you might be up here."
"Seven hells . . . " Ethan glanced around blearily and scrubbed a hand over his face. Some bodyguard he was! "Does he know I'm here?"
"No. But if you'd kept on snoring like that, he was bound to find out. Didn't think you'd want that. He fancies himself all sorts of self-sufficient. You may have noticed."
"He doesn't know what he's up against."
"Do you?"
"I have theories, but . . . I could use your help."
"I'm not known for giving it."
Ethan chose his words carefully. "I think you're a great deal more helpful than you let on. I know why the leprechaun shut you in a jar, for one thing." He nodded toward the back stage area, where he could sense that Jack was in his dressing room. "The charm on Jack's necklace. The shamrock. It's been hiding him, protecting him."
Bob gave Ethan a long, appraising look. "Technically it's a four-leaf clover. Shamrocks have only three leaves. But the four -leaf clover-"
"I know, I know," Ethan murmured impatiently . "Powerful magic. Strong protection. The leaves represent the Four Gates, the Four Feasts, the Four Courts of Faerie-"
"Also hope, faith, love . . . and luck. It is powerful in any case, but that particular charm is exceptionally potent. The little green finks do good work, I'll give them that."
"You stole it from a leprechaun?"
"Yes. And, contrary to popular opinion, I make a lousy thief. He figured out it was me pretty quickly and was waiting for me when I got back."
"That was a heavy price to pay."
"You have no idea." Bob's face scrunched up in misery. His eyes glowed with a sullen green fire. "I hate honey. Can't stand the stuff."
"Why did you do it then?"
The most notorious boucca to ever make mischief in the mortal realm stared up at the vaulted ceiling. His voice when he spoke was barely audible.
"I let myself become fond. Of a mortal."
"Who?" Ethan asked. Something deep within him whispered that he already knew the answer.
"Your mother, Ethan."
"My . . ."
Ethan felt as though all of the air in the theater had been sucked out. His chest hurt.
"The sweet and lovey Mrs. Nestor . . . " Bob sighed. "I made the mistake of passing by her village a second time, not long after Auberon had sent me to fetch you in the first place-"
"You mean steal me."
"Steal you. Yes."
Ethan's earlier conversation with Ethan came flooding back to him.
"I didn't think much of it at the time," Bob said. "You were just another piddiling human barin to be cradle-took. Not like I hadn't done it a dozen times before. More . . . " The ancient Fae's timeless features grew contemplative. His pale eyes filled with memory. "But this time . . . well. After I made the mistake of going back, I couldn't get the sound of going back, I couldn't get the sound of your mother's cries out of my ears. Hmph, much like honey now, I suppose."
Neither of them laughed at the joke.
Bob sighed. "It tore at me more. I couldn't close my own eyes for fear of seeing hers . . . pretty blue eyes, red with weeping." The boucca shook his head, memory and regret chasing themselves across his face.
Ethan looked away. His hands, he suddenly noticed, were curled into tight fists.
"Well, time - or what passes for time, at least, in the Faerie realm - moves on," Bob continued. "You were already toddling about when Auberon went into the forest one day and brought a wee tiny prince home to Court the next. An heir. But it was not the joyous occasion it might have been, say, Titania's babe as well."
Ethan's features twisted in confusion. "But . . ."
Bob rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Gender doesn't matter."
Ethan nodded and continued. "Jack. Who is he? Who was his other parent?"
"Never knew." Bob lifted a shoulder. "Never asked - not the kind of thing you would asked the good king Auberon. Not and still keep your noggin on top of your shoulders."
"He never said?"
"Could have been a lowly wood nymph for all we knew. Auberon's dalliances were legendary back then, what with him and Titania always quarreling."
"Why didn't he keep the baby hidden, then, I wonder?" Ethan asked.
"Well, that's the thing about Faerie royalty, boyo," Bob replied. "They don't tend to stay inconspicuous for very long. And this tiny thing glowed like a new star. He wouldn't have stayed hidden - even if Auberon had tried."
Ethan knew that was the truth from experience. The sight of Jack, revealed in his glory in the alley, was imprinted on Ethan's mind like the afterimage of a flash photograph. "So what happened? How did he wind up hidden in this realm?"
"Because the lord of the Unseelie, in his immeasurable wisdom" - Bob's voice was heavy with sarcasm - "set me to nursemaid the wee thing. Punishment for some sort of passing wickedness on my part, no doubt. Auberon was not noted for a long supply of affection - parental or otherwise. And he seemed quite content to spend what little time he did have on you."
"Why?" Ethan had always wondered. He'd just never asked the question out loud before. "Why me?"
The boucca shrugged. "who knows? Whimsy? The novelty of raising a son who was not an heir? And you were an amusing pet: fearless, stubborn. He doted on you. All while his own son lay shut in the nursery - wailing in the cradle, night after night, alone."
"You felt sorry for him."
"Bah! I tell you, I'd already gone puddling-soft by then!" Bob's face twisted into an expression of disgust. "It drove me near mad. Cries of the babe mewling in my ears, cries of your mother still howling in my mind . . . The two things just seemed to add up and make sudden sense."
"And so you helped my mother steal the heir to the Unseelie kingdom out from right under the Faerie king's nose." Ethan knew that he was staring at the boucca with his jaw hanging open, but by that point he couldn't help it. "By all the gods, that was brave madness!
"I would habe tried for you, but as I say, Auberon barely let you out of his sight. So instead, I stole a charm from a leprechaun, grabbed your mum, anf snuck her straight into the palace nursery. Big, cold room full of sharp, pretty things and not a baby rattle in sight. Your mother takes one look at yon sad little prince and her heart starts to mend right there. I put the clover charm around the baby's neck to veil his brightness, and that was that. Away we ran!"
Ethan could only gape; the sheer audacity of the thing overwhelmed him.
"Easier than I thought it would be." Bob grinned sourly. "At least, at first. In, out, off we went . . . until Auberon got wind of it. There he was shutting the Gates one by one- clang! clang! clang! As we run. I tumbled out of the Beltane Gate, right back in Ireland where we'd started, and over my shoulder I saw her and the babe caught in between the worlds and just able to leap through the one crack left in the Samhain Gate."
"A hundred years later in time and an ocean away from her home," Ethan said quietly, understanding.
"Aye, and that was what mucked up Auberon's spell. Like sticking your foot in a closing door, it jarred the Gate off its hinges a bit, I suppose. There I was, unable to do a dammed thing about it, stuck in the past and fending off a hopping mad leprechaun." Bob waved a hand in the air. "Unsuccessfully. That about sums it up."
"And Auberon never tried to find her or his son."
"Oh, he threw all manner of tantrums, I hear. Issued decrees. Heads rolled. Blah-blah-blah. Put on quite a show of parental grief, considering he'd never paid the wee thing an ounce of attention when he'd been in the place. It wasn't about the boy, you see - it was all about his own wounded pride. And, sadly, it also gave him a convenient excuse to tighten his grip on the rule of the Fair Folk."
Ethan could hardly argue at that point.
Bon sighed. "Well. That's the last time I get sentimental."
"And yet, I noticed that you are still keeping an eye out for the well-being of a certain prince."
"Rule of the Faerie kingdoms is passed only through the direct bloodline; you know that." Bob cast a shrewd glance at Ethan. " who knows - he just might knock the Unseelie throne out from under his dad's chilly bum one day. And I'd cheerfully take the job of right-hand sprite to the new Unseelie king if it's offered.
Ethan's mind was reeling with the implications of Bob's tale.
"I love this scene," the boucca murmured , leaning over the pew to watch the stage, his eyes glinting with amusement. "I remember the first time I ever saw them do this . . . Old Willie himself played Bottom. The man's timing was flawless."
Below them, onstage, the Mechanicals were enacting the play within the play. It was a tragicomic story about two lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, kept apart by their cruel, disapproving parents and forced to whisper their devotion to each other through a crack in the wall that separated their houses. The scene was supposed to be funny, and yet Ethan found himself oddly affected by the lovers' plight.
The "play" ended with a prolonged, purposefully hilarious death scene from Bottom, who flopped around on the stage like a landed fish, a wobbly rubber prop sword protruding out from under one arm. Then all of the actors froze in place.
For a brief moment, Ethan thought the tableau was just part of the performance, then he heard Bob whisper beside him.
"Oh . . . shit."
The temperature suddenly plummeted to freezing. The theater echoed with rolling booms like a glacier breaking apart. The double loading doors at the back of the stage flung wide, and a cold, baleful light poured over the threshold. Puck made a sign in the air with the fingers of one hand and clutched the back of Ethan's neck with the other. Ethan knew that Bob had cast q powerful veil - powerful enough to shield them from the awareness of the Unseelie king.
"What are you doing?" He whispered . "I'm a Jade - there 's no reason for me to hide from my king."
"Oh, really?" Bob whispered back. "Somehow i get the feeling that your king would not approve of the company you keep. I stole his son, remember? Nor, I think, would he appreciate the fact that you've yet to tell him of your discovery."
"I was going to!"
"When?"
"After Jack's had a chance to get used to the idea," Ethan said, although he didn't beleive his own assertions. Why hadn't he told Auberon straightaway?
"Well, never mind that now," Bob said, peering through the balcony rails. "I think he's about to receive a little fatherly face time, whether he's used to the idea or not. "
Down on stage, all the actors, the crew, and the director stood frozen like statues in a garden. Auberon stalked among them like a predator, searching their faces. He cast a glance up toward the balconies. Bob's spell held. The king turned and kept walking, heading toward the dressing rooms and Jack.