The Steward (39 page)

“Oh my god, that’s awful.”

“I’m Billy.”

“I know. I’m Maggie O’Shea.”

He looked at me, a little surprised. “The Weald Fae Steward?”

“Yes. Are there others like him?” I nodded to Vada.

“Too many, but that’s what we do here, rescue the victims of human ignorance.”

“I read that on the website—well, in not so many words. How many do you have?”

“There are over a hundred big cats here, each one with a story.”

Billy was different than I thought he would be. He was less friendly now than he was a few moments ago when I walked up. There was contempt in his voice when he said
human
. He didn’t act anything like Gavin or Sara. His unfriendly demeanor made me wonder whether he was Unseelie.
He couldn’t be, right? Why would Sara send me to an Unseelie?

“What brings you here, Steward?”

“It’s just Maggie, please.”

“Okay,
Maggie
, what brings you here?”

“Sara sent me.”

A brief and subtle smile crossed his face before the stern, emotionless look returned.

“Why?”

“She didn’t tell me why, she only said that if something happened to her or Gavin, I should seek you out.”

“Has something happened to her or Gavin?” His tone grew more acidic with each word.

The question surprised me. I assumed he’d heard that Sara was part of a nationwide manhunt—she’d been spotted at the airport in New York the day after her jailbreak. But he hadn’t heard, and maybe that’s why Sara sent me to him—he was out of the loop.

I began telling him about Sara and he looked confused.

“No more, not here…” He looked around at the people nearby. “Walk with me.”

He put down the water hose and focused on Vada. The beautiful black cat put his head down and looked like he was … in a pleasant dream.

Billy appeared to be compelling him. I could feel the
emotion
he produced, but I didn’t recognize it.

After a few moments he turned to me before walking away. Billy’s eyes, deep-set and slightly hooded, were perfectly gray with dark gray rings around the edges—they were stunning. I caught up to him as we walked beside larger paddocks where the lions and tigers roamed about more freely. Out of anyone else’s earshot, I turned to him.

“Are you Seelie?” I asked, nervously.

“I don’t consider myself a member of either clan, at least not anymore.”

I stared at his face, ignoring the indifference in his voice. He exhaled, and turned his attention to the large tiger that had sauntered up to the fence.

“I was once Seelie.” He stopped with that and said nothing more.

“What changed?”

He ignored me, focusing on the tiger beyond the fence. After a minute or more he finally shifted his weight. “The Unseelie warnings proved to be correct, mostly. People have spread like bacteria, consuming and destroying without concern for anything else. Your kind consumes without pause, you pollute, and you just keep spreading.”

When he finally turned back toward me, and despite the loathsome timbre in his voice, he looked sad.

“I fought my own kind two millennia ago—fought them to protect your species from annihilation. I’ve since had second thoughts about the wisdom of my choice. I was known as Sarin, but changed my name to Billy to distance myself even more from who I was then.”

“If you hate people, why are you here, working with them in a place full of cages.”

“The people here give me hope. These are cages, yes, but because of humans there are no places for these cats in the wild. Almost all of these animals were bred in captivity to be used as pets for mindless entertainment by people who simply didn’t consider the consequences. The people who work here cannot put these animals where they really belong, and they recognize that. Not a person here labors under the delusion that this is the best place for such creatures, but each does what he or she can to ensure every one of these beasts has the best existence possible—under the circumstances.

“Many of the people here volunteer their time to help. Those are the people I fought for—the ones up there scooping tiger dung because they care. In my estimation, there are simply too few of them among your kind, and it seems like they are never the people who make the big decisions. The question is, Maggie O’Shea, which type of person are you?”

I smiled at him as I considered the question.

“You do more than volunteer, don’t you?”

He was puzzled again.

“You compelled that black panther?”

“Leopard, but yes, I did. How did you know?” His tone softened.

“I felt it. Why?”

He studied me quietly for a moment—his eyes squinted in the sunlight.

“You’re not just a Steward, are you?” He concentrated again on my face before continuing. “The people who work and volunteer here are not able to do what I can do. I can make each animal forget, briefly, where they are and implant images of being free. It’s cathartic—for them and me.”

I smiled and Billy stared at me.

“I can’t see the images in your mind, or feel your emotions. You’ve learned to conceal them.”

“Yeah, on the Weald that’s necessary.”

He studied me again. “It’s alarming. I’m used to reading those things, being able to size people up. No, you’re not just a Steward,” he said as he nodded toward the fence.

“You might want to step to the side.”

I moved behind him as the tiger turned his back to me and raised its tail.

“They don’t urinate like a dog. Some of them have pretty good aim.”

I jumped a little as the tiger demonstrated, missing me by a few feet.

“Do they do that on purpose?” I said laughing.

For only the third time, Billy smiled.

“Do the cats up at the building ever get to come out into one of these big areas?” I asked.

“Yes. We’re building new, larger paddocks all the time.”

“Good, I bet they’re a lot happier in these.”

Billy looked at me again. He appeared to be assessing me.

“What has happened to Sara and Gavin?”

I told him about Aunt May and what Sara had done to save me. He shook his head, but didn’t say anything. I told him about the Fire trial and what happened in the meadow.

“Chalen, such a tragic creature,” he muttered.

Billy grew still and listened intently as I told him about the events at the caretaker’s cottage. I fought to keep my emotions in check when I got to the end, and Billy studied me even closer.

“That’s not just a caretaker’s cottage, but I suppose they haven’t told you that?”

“No, they haven’t,” I said, trying to read his expression.

He immediately let ambivalence consume his face.

Two can play that game.
I rewarded him with the same look.

“Green lightning … are you sure it was lightning?”

“Well, it was bigger … thicker … than lightning, but that’s what it looked like.”

I took a deep breath. “I can show you, if you’d like?”

“I would, very much.”

I played it through my mind, the meadow, the drive back from Fayetteville. I went step by step, including the kiss, back through everything that happened from the moment we stopped the car until I lost consciousness.

“Maebown.” The word slowly crossed his lips. He looked astonished, like he was witnessing a catastrophe in progress.
Maybe he is.

“I haven’t passed the Water trial yet … and Chalen…” My voice trailed off.

“I understand why Sara sent you. She wants me to be there for the Water trial.” The emotion returned to his face—he appeared angry. “Damn it, Sara,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Two things. First, she intends for me to return to the Weald and I haven’t done so since I was Willard’s
Treoraí almost eighty years ago. And
second, she intends for me to be your new Treoraí—it’s obvious.”

My
Treoraí
?
“How did you know I needed a new Treoraí? I didn’t mention that, and did you say
you
were a Treoraí?”

“You didn’t need to say a word. The green lightning
is
n’t lightning at all,
it’s
Aether. It was Ozara herself who attempted to destroy Gavin. She is the only Fae who can
create
the substance—that I’m aware of at least. Aether means only one thing, she believes the two of you have violated the
E
dict and she has ordered his...”
H
e paused to study the emotion that clearly
covered
my face. “Well, you know. I’m sorry.”

“Is there no hope for him?” I said, wiping my eyes
.

“Yes, there is always hope—it keeps me here. But I’m not sure
hope
will bring you peace. You clearly love him, and that’s most unfortunate, because the two of you can never be together. You know that, right?”

I nodded my head, wiping another tear
,
and tried to settle my nerves.

“The Fae will never be far from you. If he ever gets close, it will mean his end. Had he not been feet from the
Seoladán
,
he would have been destroyed.

“Billy, I’m sorry. What is the sow-la-den? I’ve never heard that word before, I just thought it was the caretaker’s cottage.”

He looked completely
exasperated.
“They expect you to be the Steward and they haven’t told you why the Weald Fae is so important to my kind?”

I just stared at him.

“Well, I suppose they think it’s best—but I do not. I was the
Treoraí for Willard, husband of Melvadine, son of Theodore and Tessa, and grandson of
Josephine
and Pete. Pete O’Shea was the original Steward, of course. I believed it was essential for Willard to know the truth
when I guided him
, and since Sara has sent you to me, it is my decision now.

“That area is not the
caretaker’s
cottage. My guess is that Chalen hasn’t entered the structure for fifty years. That cottage, the gardens, all of it, was built at my suggestion early in the twentieth century.”

“Your suggestion?”

“Yes, the site and the architecture were my idea.”

“Why?”

“I saw a similar house in Carmel, California—I liked it. Most Fae like whimsy, you know,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

I laughed. “No, I mean why build it.”

“
Two of your distant relatives
, Vita and Frank, non-stewards, built it and lived there until the end of their lives. Vita was Lola’s sister and didn’t want
to
move from the Weald when Lola and Leo got married. It was an opening, and I thought it prudent to hide the
Seoladán in plain site. The Seoladán is the
unequivocal
reason the Weald is important.”

“I thought the islands...”

“They are important too, but by
comparison
, they are no more than a playground, a place for a few of my kind to take any form they desire. The world still has some isolated places, so the islands are not as important as you’ve been led to believe. Seoladán is the Fae word for conduit—
it
is also an Irish term with the same meaning. The Seoladán is a conduit between different parts of our
world
and the physical
world
. The conduits are connected to one another
,
and each has an entrance—a portal. There are similar places to the one at the Weald on each continent, and each is accessed by a portal. They were created by the Fae, and before man began to spread to every imaginable surface of the physical world, they weren’t particularly important. But now, with people everywhere, they are extremely important. In our natural form, i
t
is a passage. My kind can travel through any one of them to any other in moments. It might be helpful for you to think of it as a Naeshura highway.

“That is what Gavin used to escape
. H
e would certainly have been destroyed had he tried to leave like Sara did—slow, cumbersome and easy to track. While Ozara could have followed him into the passage, she wouldn’t have been able to follow him through it. The moment he entered, he could have gone anywhere, but now he must avoid the portals. None will be left unguarded. By avoiding them, and avoiding you, he may never be caught.”

I felt a small sense of relief, though I was still worried
about him
.

“The portal is a doorway, like the
fairy
circles I read about.”

“Fairy—I loathe that term,” he said in disgust.

“Sorry.”