Caly
The sharp, bitter smell of antiseptic mixed with undertones of soaps and harsh cleaners drifted into my nose with a hard inhale. Intense fluorescent light burned the back of my eyelids as I struggled to open them. Everything was sterile, crisp, and white. An array of beeps and voices rang loudly in my ears, overpowering my senses in the span of a second.
A grid ceiling with little brown specks and large rectangular panels of lights encompassed my vision.
I sat up abruptly, and at the same time, someone grabbed my arm. Something plastic covered my face, and I flung it off. The elastic band caught under my ear as my heart pounded through my chest.
“You’re okay, calm down, honey. You had a bad accident, okay? You’re at Michigan Springs Hospital. Can you tell me your name? What can you remember?” a pleasant yet robotic voice questioned.
“I’m Callie Peterson. Proud environmentalist and biological technician. I-I was walking through the forest to get my microscope when I stumbled upon an anomaly of luna moths and a perfect circle of destroying angel mushrooms. I live at 4313 Sassafras Road, Willow Springs, Michigan—”
“She’s up! Oh my god, she’s finally waking up! Get everyone in here!” a familiar voice shouted from the corner.
I turned my head toward all the voices. My head was pounding so hard.
I was sitting in a hospital bed with bands and IVs riddled across my wrists.
An older man in a lab coat gently pressed me down so my back hit flush against the hospital bed again. “Take her easy there, champ, you’ve been out for a while. Now just take a few deep breaths for me, and your family and friends will be in shortly. Your grandpa Earl just went to grab the others.”
A cold stethoscope pressed against the warm skin of my chest. I looked down to see my body in a stiff blue hospital gown, not a beautiful black ball gown.
I pulled the stiff cotton blanket up to my chest, feeling uneasy. Something was wrong.
“Where am I?” I asked the graying man before a small swarm of familiar faces filtered into the room.
“Now I’m sorry, but we can only have a few in at a time, this will be too much for her. All vitals are stable and looking good,” the doctor stated before he smiled tightly and walked around the crowd of people and out the large door, closing it behind him with a click.
Cliff and Cecelia stood at the end of the hospital bed. Each had grabbed ahold of one of my feet and held it, the warmth of their hands squeezed as the movement shifted over the rubber-bottomed socks I wore. Several others from the park and Willow Springs had gathered around my bed. A few girls from town stared glossy-eyed at me, their golden hair nearly washing them out completely from view under the harsh lights. Several of their faces were puffy and red as if they had been crying a lot.
The second I saw them, everything inside me shattered. They all looked so bland, so unremarkable, so. . . plain.
So human.
Not like the faces of the gorgeous Fae—
Earl stood to my other side, shaking slightly in his feeble frame as he dabbed his eyes with a whitish-gray handkerchief.
“It’s all my fault—the whole thing—I’m so sorry, Callie.” Earl blubbered into the handkerchief as he pulled the worn ball cap from his head and twisted it in his hands.
“We can’t seem to get ahold of your mother or sisters, we used the contact info on file, but it seems to go to a disconnected line. Your family must be so worried,” Cecelia mumbled as she squeezed my foot in a motherly sort of way.
“What happened? What’s going on?” I asked.
Dread and madness coiled around me, knowing in the back of my mind the words I would hear.
“We found you in the woods behind your house, you were surrounded by destroying angel mushrooms, Callie. It turns out they have the highest toxicity that has ever been recorded in fungi. The whole town is in an uproar with all the scientists that came in taking samples and removing spores,” Earl said as he crossed his arms over his chest, pacing back and forth. “I’m so sorry, Callie. This is all my fault.”
“It is. Don’t you think you’ve done enough? You ought to wander down the hallway to the psych ward and stay there,” Cliff bit out aggressively at Earl.
Everything felt so unfamiliar. I couldn’t remember anything. It was like I had popped into someone else’s life, and none of it clicked into place.
A nurse I hadn’t realized was next to me cleared her throat. “The mushrooms toxicity clouded your system so aggressively that it nearly killed you. Had this man not found you when he did, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be alive right now.” The small dark-haired nurse pointed at Earl.
Cliff practically growled at the foot of the bed.
“Enough, I’m sorry, but this is too much for the patient. One at a time,” said the tiny nurse in blue scrubs as she ushered the crowd toward the door. “Callie, sweetie, who would you like to stay first? Just one, please.”
“Umm . . . Earl, I suppose,” I mumbled, trying to piece things together.
Flashes of the beautiful Fae prince showed through my tired mind. I thumbed the V-shaped scar on my thumb, still trying to remember.
The room cleared reluctantly, and the nurse followed behind, leaving Earl and me alone in the hospital room after she kindly showed me the buttons to call for her should I need anything.
I felt tired, and a sting on my leg caused me to move uncomfortably on the hard bed.
Wait—
I moved my leg and felt a sharp, grating pain. The same exact place the beast’s teeth had scraped over my skin. Wait—
Suddenly everything clicked into place, and I remembered everything.
I grabbed a cup of tiny ice chips and filled my mouth as I steadied myself.
“Calypso.”
I choked on the ice at the sound of my real name and dropped the large cup onto my lap, spilling small crystals of ice everywhere.
My mouth hung open as I looked back to see Earl leaning against the white wall toward the foot of my bed. His demeanor was completely different. Suave confidence replaced the shakiness and feeble nature, and his voice had a familiar smooth tempo.
“What did you say?” I asked, shaken.
“You didn’t think I’d just leave you to this enterprise all alone, did you?” Earl asked as he smoothly pushed off the wall and took a lazy step toward me.
He was like a man possessed. Not Earl at all.
“Who are you?” I asked, glancing at the closed door, feeling more and more unsure of everything by the minute.
“I was shocked when you didn’t figure out it was me,” he laughed, and the sound caused a flash of memory to dance in my mind.
It couldn’t be.
He stepped closer to the bed, his face still old and haggard, but the most charming and boyish smile overtook it. “I couldn’t let you do it alone. I was worried you wouldn’t find the portal if I didn’t help and . . . and it’s lucky I did. Fuck, Cal. If she knew I had meddled, she wouldn’t keep her end of the agreement.” Earl’s voice sounded so young now as he shrugged boyishly and tucked his hands into his jeans pockets bashfully.
“Wh—” No. It couldn’t be. There was no way.
“She’s irate about him killing Langmore. The queen will probably give you the other half of your heart just for killing Mendax after what he did to her son. If you ask me, you’ve more than proved your allegiance,” Earl whispered as the edges of his face grew blurry.
I pushed back farther on the steel bracketed bed. My head pounded like a drum as my tongue flicked through the empty space of my missing wisdom tooth.
There was only one person—
I gasped as Earl’s blurred body quickly shifted to a much taller, more handsome man. Tan skin and tapered muscle made the contrast from the frail man that much more shocking.
Prince Aurelius of the Seelie court stared back at me, his eyes brimming with emotion.
“You tricked me, Aurelius,” I said through gritted teeth feeling none of the bite I forced into the words.
His handsome smile dropped instantly. “Come on, Aurelius?” he pleaded. “Call me Eli like normal. You know Mom couldn’t find out I was helping you, or we would never be able to prove your allegiance and get her to return the other half of your heart. It’s the only way she would let you, a human might I remind you, come live in Seelie with us.” His charming smile beamed for an instant before his looks grew more serious. “It’s a good thing I did help you too, remember?”
I crossed my arms, full of anger. For a few moments, I had prayed that maybe none of this was real. That maybe I could wake up and actually be a scientist that worked for a park in Willow Springs.
“What I remember is that a fox tried to stop me from going to the portal in the forest,” I said, suddenly feeling a barrage of feelings I was uncertain of.
He ran his hands over his face and mouth. “What do you want me to say, Cal? The thought of my best friend—my very mortal human best friend—going to the darkest, most evil side of the veil had me uncomfortable. Sometimes I don’t have the best control over myself in my animal form around you.”
Heavy silence filled the sterile room.
“You finally got to see what animal I shift to though.” He chuckled hard, and the sound almost relaxed me. Almost.
“It wasn’t that impressive,” I said, fighting a grin.
When I was ten, Aurelius made the mistake of telling me that because he was Seelie royalty, he could shift into other forms, and an animal was one of them. I begged and pleaded for years, frustrated that I wasn’t allowed to know what it was. Royals shifting in front of humans was a big no-no and severely punishable.
“Was it not that impressive when I stopped your mortal heart from ending after that piece of shit killed you? Some garbage training my mother gave you. You weren’t even on the other side for five minutes before you were dead.” His voice suddenly lost all laughter. The seriousness of it was unsettling. He seemed so much . . . older than I remembered him. He continued, “Had I not—”
A loud knock sounded at the door, and we both froze.
“You doing okay, Callie? Need anything?” The small nurse popped her head through the crack of the door, and her eyes immediately roamed over Eli’s larger-than-average human frame full of muscle and golden skin.
I held my breath, waiting for her to ring an invisible alarm that would have the entire hospital coming to take Eli away from me again.
“I’m good, thanks,” I said, smiling a false smile. I was so good at them now.
She winked at me and gave the barely passable-for-human Fae a longing once over before she closed the door again. My face steeled once more as my eyes shot to Eli’s.
“What do you mean he killed me? I thought I was just injured? Did I die? What did you do to save me?” The memories were foggy but still there. “You licked me and cried on me!” I said with the initial intention of finding out what had really happened but also teasing him.
His frozen face stopped me completely.
“You remember it?” his whisper laced with panic.
I nodded wearily, and his amber eyes seemed to thrum with magic before he bent over the bed and grabbed my hands.
“Tarani was with me, I-I was taking her back home from beyond the veil, and I had to make sure you were okay.”
The panic in his voice set my blood pumping in overtime. I swear I could smell the faint scent of smoke from the forest that night. I was so tense.
“What did you do?” I asked.
The feel of his hands around mine unsettled me for some reason. It didn’t feel right. The smell of smoke filled my head enough that I had to sniff to clear my nose.
“I will not jeopardize my baby sister, Cal. I never should have taken her with me to the Unseelie realm, let alone have her witness—” His voice cracked, filled with pain and regret.
“What did you do, Aurelius? Why would Princess Tarani be in danger now? You both left the Unseelie realm safely—I don’t understand,” I whispered as I tried to pull my hands free, but he held firm.
For some reason, the action made my senses flare, and a tiny swirl of anger floated in my mind. Normally I would be comforted by his touch?
“I-I just couldn’t lose you, I couldn’t,” he said as he squeezed my hand tighter, pulling it up to his cheek.
It was oddly intimate, and I shifted uncomfortably, wanting to pull away.
He’s my best friend, like a brother to me. This was weird, and I didn’t like it. Burning wood, like the scent of a forest fire, was everywhere. I sniffed again.
“What did you do?” I asked again, pulling my hand back, losing my patience.
“You can never tell anyone, anyone, what you saw me do. Do you understand? It will result in mine and Tarani’s death . . . and likely yours as well.”
My breath hitched, and my eyes began to water uncontrollably at his words. I had never been close with Tarani or Langmore, only the queen and Eli, but I still cared about what had happened to them.
He squeezed my forearms so hard I thought it might bruise. I looked away, attempting to school my features.
I had already told the Unseelie prince.
For the very first time, a tiny bit of me was glad he was dead and couldn’t hurt my family.
I opened my mouth to make my confession to Eli and to tell him that he was hurting my arm, but when I looked up to meet his eyes, they were filled with horror as they stared at me.
Minuscule wisps of black smoke moved from my skin before dissipating into the air.
“Oh, my sun—” His mouth gaped open with shock. “His powers—”
He flung my arms from him in pure terror as we watched the smooth velvety tendrils emit themselves from my arms and hands.
As soon as he stopped touching me, the smoke ceased.
We looked at each other in silent alarm.
“Maybe it’s something that happens when one of the bonded dies,” I said, knowing in my gut it wasn’t true.
I swear I could feel a distant amusement that didn’t feel like my own.
“Yea . . . maybe,” he said, staring at me as if he’d never seen me before this moment.
I quickly tried to change the subject.
“Do you think your mom—Queen Saracen—will really let me live with you guys in the Seelie court now? That she will return what’s left of my heart?” I asked my best friend, and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad.
It wouldn’t matter. Not now.
The half I did carry had died with Mendax.
I flinched at the thought of him hunched over with my blade still lodged in his back.
Perhaps it was because Queen Saracen had taken too much of my heart as a down payment? We had all agreed that she would hold a piece of it until I showed my allegiance—maybe she took enough to make me truly vicious.
I felt vicious. Dark.
I wonder how much I could’ve loved him with a whole heart?
“She’s not evil, Calypso. She’s not Unseelie,” he growled. His amber eyes darkened slightly. “She already blessed you once, Cal. What do you want?” Eli said indignantly.
His skin glowed under the lights. He had dulled it slightly with a glamour as the Seelie always did when they walked among the humans, but even with the dimming, Eli stood out like a god among men.
“Taking half of my heart is hardly a blessing, Aurelius,” I bit out, using his full name instead of the familiar Eli I had called him since we were kids.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Besides, you offered that yourself as a show of your seriousness when you asked to live with us—with me.” His honied eyes grew tender for a moment. “I’m talking about the animal blessing. That’s a Seelie royal trait that she bestowed upon you after you saved her in that field. To be honest, I thought it would help you out more than it has.” He suddenly found something very interesting on the floor. “Had you not been there to save her against Queen Tenebris, she would have never survived. You saw how tiny she had grown—how much power she had lost fighting the Unseelie queen.” He worried the bottom of his lip.
He loved his mother so much—we both did. After my mother and sister had died when I was ten, I had no one.
Queen Saracen often visited then, her and Prince Aurelius. Always thanking me for saving her that day. Their kindness was unmatched in my times of need. The queen even went so far as to dispatch one of her wet maids to take care of me when my mother was gone.
They were the only family I’d ever known.
But Fae and humans were very different.
Eli and I quickly became best friends spending all our time together well into our teenage years. Queen Saracen often commented on how cute it was. That is, until Prince Aurelius kept skipping his royal duties to come be with me, the human.
Fae customs were very different. They don’t believe in humans entering their realm without a title of ownership or unwavering proof of their allegiance. So when a few years passed and I had practically gone mad trying to figure out how to find a portal and see them again, Eli’s mom, Queen Saracen, threw me a bone.
I wasn’t just a human hoping to live in the outskirts of Seelie. I had wanted to be as close as possible to my fami—to the queen and Eli as I could be. Which meant a human paying allegiance to the royals. Much different stakes than paying allegiance to a commoner.
I didn’t care though. I would pay any price to be with the only people I had left.
I pleaded until the queen accepted. As any Fae did, the queen had enemies, and somehow along the way, I ended up being trained to execute her killings in the human realm. I was human, and therefore, her kills in the human realm were overlooked as she wasn’t breaking any Fae laws.
Most Fae in the human realm were easy to kill. They never suspected it of me, and over the years, I had stopped using brute force and started to use my science background to help make the kills easier. It’s why I had taken so many classes on botanical poisons.
I didn’t care. I would have done anything for them.
I had done anything for them.
Eventually, it led me to Mendax. He was my final test of allegiance, my big fish to freedom.
She gave me no details of when or how it would happen, only that I needed to distract and kill the Unseelie prince to get back at his mother, Queen Tenebris, for nearly killing her in that field when I was a kid. It was poetic. It was my final payment and ticket to the Seelie court, where I would be made whole again, heart and soul, quite literally.
“So that whole time you were Earl, you couldn’t have found one single time to be honest with me? How though? They all knew you?” I pointed at the door, thinking of all the small things I should have picked up on but had missed.
“It’s a glamour, Calypso, a little bit of magic in their minds,” he said as if I should have known.
“I’ve missed you so much since she quit letting you come to the human realm.” I huffed angrily, and suddenly all my frustration felt clear and loud. “How do you think I felt seeing you at the Faerie court? The first time I see you in years, and it’s sprung on me like that? There?” I shouted at him.
I was angry for being kept in the dark. It had an aftertaste of betrayal in and of itself.
He was in front of my face and grabbing my arms before I could even register he had moved.
“Do not talk to me about the tortures of that night, Calypso,” he snarled, and I found myself suddenly unfamiliar with the man in front of me. My childhood best friend was replaced with an angry titan. “I had to school myself the moment my eyes landed on you in that ballroom. It took everything—everything—I had not to run to you and hug you, to take you away from that . . . that devil! Do you know what it did to me watching that monster bond to you? To watch him kill my brother and then attempt to kill you?” He was shouting now. “I had to watch you in the trial the entire time and act like it was fun!”
I immediately regretted whatever I said that had gotten him so upset. “It doesn’t matter now,” I reassured him. “The bond is disintegrated, and Mendax is . . . dead.” My face fell with the horror I couldn’t seem to mask as I said the words aloud.
I tried to push it from my mind, but the feeling sat on my chest like a heavy iron weight.
I had killed several Fae, so I knew that to kill a creature as powerful as him, I would have to get close. Close enough that he would let me see all of his weaknesses.
I just had no idea I would become one.
Eli’s amber eyes darted back and forth between mine as they studied my face.
“He is dead, right?” he asked, suddenly looking weary and unsure.
“Mendax is dead.” The words crackled in my throat as if my own body refused to believe them.
“You’re sure? Because if he’s not dead like you promised and the queen and I take you to the Seelie court, it will be your death, and there’s nothing anyone could do to stop it, Calypso.”
I nodded my head.
Eli continued to stare at my face. “Good. Now come with me to the Seelie castle, and we’ll get the queen to make that heart of yours whole again.”
