The Borderkind

She held his gaze and one corner of her mouth lifted in mischief, then she turned and went to the door of her room, humming something under her breath, her fur cloak swaying around her.

Oliver watched her until she went inside.

Then he turned the key, and the door swung open, not quite straight in its frame. The room was simply appointed with a wide, sturdy bed upon which lay a thick, floral comforter and a pile of goose down pillows. There was a washbasin on a bureau beside the tall window, and at first he was disappointed, thinking that would be the closest he could come to a bath. But through a narrow door on the other side of the room he found a bathroom complete with claw-foot tub. There was no showerhead, but a bath would do fine. In fact, he thought a bath was just what he needed.

When he had peeled off his damp, filthy clothes, and at last slid down into the hot water and began to run the soap over his body, he could have wept.

He thought of Kitsune’s mischievous grin and her marvelous scent, and a flash of guilt went through him. As alluring as she was, and as much as she flirted with him, he couldn’t allow himself to become entranced by Kitsune. He had begun to cherish her companionship, but—more and more—his mind turned back to Julianna.

When he had first crossed through the Veil, his thoughts had been so overwhelmed with astonishment—and later, as the dangers became clear, with anxiety—that Julianna was just one part of the jumble of thoughts and emotions and fears swirling in his head. But with each passing day his longing for her grew. He felt the distance between them more keenly than ever now, here in this bizarre, hidden village.

What would Julianna have thought of the place?

Oliver thought she would have coped perfectly well. All her life, she had been the one who could adapt to her surroundings; the one without fear of change. How could he not have fallen in love with her, trapped as he was by his inability to escape his father’s expectations?

He had no memory of their first meeting—which was really no surprise, considering they must have been toddlers at the time—but Oliver’s recollection of the first time he had ever really noticed Julianna was incredibly vivid.

Every summer, Bascombe & Cox held a picnic at Beacon Point Park for all of their employees. From Max Bascombe, the most senior of senior partners, to Sam Small in the mailroom, every member of the law firm’s staff would attend, with spouses and children in tow. Beacon Point Park overlooked the ocean, and several crumbling concrete staircases led down the breakwater to a private beach, where the picnickers would toss Frisbees or play volleyball, and the brave might take a brief dip in the cold northern waters.

At the end of a rocky promontory stood the lighthouse that gave the park its name. There was no prettier spot in all of Wessex County.

When not in the water, the kids would ramble across the green lawn of the park, playing soccer or Frisbee, while the grownups fired up half a dozen barbecue grills. The firm could have afforded to have the whole thing catered, but Max Bascombe liked to make a big show of the generals cooking for the troops. They ate at picnic tables under the shade trees that surrounded the open lawn. The children, in the moments when they paid any attention at all to the adults, were always greatly amused by the rare spectacle of their parents becoming pleasantly inebriated.

Oliver’s memory of these summer picnics was idyllic. He was sure there had been incidents and arguments worthy of scandal, perhaps when some lawyer got a little too drunk for his own good, but he could not remember any of them. With his father playing host and chief cook, he and Collette had been free of his usual stern regard; free to simply be children, instead of Max Bascombe’s children.

In retrospect, he knew that Julianna had always been pretty. But she had been quiet and serious, so that—even though they were in school together, and saw one another at the summer picnics, and perhaps even passed the ball to one another in those haphazard Beacon Point Park soccer games—to him she was just another girl.

In late July, the month before high school began, that changed.

In the midst of the ritual of the Bascombe & Cox summer picnic, Oliver and several of the other boys—many of whom he saw only once a year, as their families did not live in Kitteridge—were playing catch with a Nerf football in the ocean. They dove over waves, passing the sodden ball back and forth, salt water splashing in their faces.

Oliver had just tossed the blue-and-orange Nerf to Danny Hilliard, blinking salt from his eyes. He blinked hard and reached up to rub them, to clear his vision. A strong wave staggered him, and as he got his footing again he turned.

As he opened his eyes, he saw motion out on the jetty. Someone was out there, moving from rock to rock, out past the lighthouse. It took him a moment to recognize the long, wavy, auburn hair; to realize that it was Julianna Whitney out there on the promontory. In a purple bikini top and cutoff denim shorts, and barefoot, she leaped so lightly across the gaps in the rocks that she seemed to be dancing.

Captured by her grace, and by the aura of loneliness that seemed to encircle her, Oliver watched as the slender girl made her way all the way to the huge rock that thrust up at the end of the jetty. The waves crashed against it, sprayed up into the air, and rained down upon it.

Julianna threw her arms back as a crashing wave soaked her. The droplets of ocean water sparkled with prismatic color. Even from that distance, Oliver felt sure he could hear her laughing. For a moment he envied her, so unafraid to be out there on her own.

Then she stepped to the edge of the rock and dove in.

Oliver held his breath in fascination as the waves continued to roll in. He waited for her to come up, and when she did, pushing the damp curtain of her hair away from her eyes, he smiled to himself and started to wade out toward her. There was such abandon in this girl—the girl he’d barely noticed before—that he wanted to be a part of that.

He’d gotten three steps when the waterlogged Nerf struck him in the back of the head, then plopped into the ocean, bobbing on the waves. Laughter erupted, and Oliver turned and picked up the ball, trying to figure out which of the guys was responsible so that he could unleash watery vengeance.

He hadn’t spoken to Julianna that day, or any other day that summer.

But he had never forgotten how she had looked, there on the very tip of the jetty, in the spray of the ocean, or the way he’d held his breath when she’d dived into the waves.

Even now, he held the memory—that image of the thirteen-year-old Julianna—close in his mind. Somehow, it felt to him like a tether to home—like no matter how far he roamed, as long as he could hold on to moments like that, he could still hope to return to Julianna one day.

With every day that passed, he regretted even more the hesitation he had felt on the night before they would have been married. When his father was still alive, he would have blamed the old man for making him so discontent with his life that he doubted even what he felt for Julianna. But, as much of a bastard as Max Bascombe had been, Oliver knew the blame lay with himself. He’d never had the courage that Julianna had.

Crossing the Veil had set him free. He felt different, here: more confident, more himself, than ever before.

But the last time he had spoken to Julianna, her voice had been filled with hurt and doubt and hesitation. His disappearance had given her reason to feel all of those things, and he longed, now, for the opportunity to make it up to her. He had to find Collette first, to get his sister back safely. And he had to convince the monarchs of the Two Kingdoms to grant him a reprieve, to let him prove himself. With every day, he was moving further away from Julianna.

But he felt closer to her than ever before.

For the first time in his life, he felt as if he might be worthy of her.

CHAPTER 4

The tavern was on the first floor. When they’d arrived, Oliver had had other things to distract him, but as he descended the stairs he was extremely conscious of the fact that the whole building hung suspended above the river. The inn was old—a century at least from the look of it, and probably more—but if it had lasted this long, he told himself, it would survive another night.

Outside the windows, in the gorge, the shadows were growing long. Evening was not far off. After a bath, and clad in the new clothes Coyote had brought by only ten minutes ago, his exhaustion had subsided to a dull heaviness. He needed sleep, but he could propel himself forward another hour or two, however long it took for this meeting, and a meal.

The shirt was a rough tan cotton, long-sleeved and open at the collar, and the pants might have been denim, but dyed black. They were a bit long, so that when he put on the new boots Coyote had brought, they dragged underfoot, but Oliver was so impressed with the fit in general that he would not have complained, even if he dared.

The best thing about his new clothes was the thick, soft cotton socks and the light undershorts, which were woven from a fabric unfamiliar to him. Putting them on was almost as soothing as his bath.

His hunger, as he entered the tavern, was a ravenous beast, growling in his belly. The smells that wafted along the corridor only made it worse. But once inside, he forgot about food for several moments.

“Apparently, I’m the last to arrive.”

Frost looked up from the gathering. Several dark wooden tables had been pushed together to make one long enough to rival the conference room at Bascombe & Cox. Blue Jay was beside him, dressed almost identically to Oliver, though his jeans were blue and he still wore feathers in his hair. Kitsune was next to him, her hood back, her fur cloak gleaming luxuriously in the fading afternoon light. Her raven-black hair framed her face severely, and when she glanced at him he expected a smile but found only a grimness of purpose.

It was the time for plans to be laid and companionship to be abandoned. Oliver felt strangely cold and isolated. This gathering had so very little to do with him now that he wondered if he ought to have been there at all. But there was food to be had—barbecued beef and poultry and boiled potatoes and vegetables, from what he could see—and he knew that he would need at least advice from this assemblage before they parted ways.

“Please, Oliver, come in. Sit down,” said Coyote, standing up from the darkest corner of the table. He wore his thief’s grin, as Oliver’s father would have called it. Oliver would not have disagreed.

There were others there, of course. Coyote had gathered a group that seemed just as odd as Oliver’s traveling companions. More so, in fact, given that one of them was an enormous frog-thing that sat on the ground instead of a chair, legs up beside it as though it might leap at any moment. Its bulbous eyes were a putrid yellow, its skin a pale greenish-brown, ridged, mottled, and slick.

“Oliver?” Frost said sharply.

The frog-thing muttered something in a guttural language he could not understand.

“Excuse me?” Oliver said.

Coyote leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Tlatecuhtli says it’s not polite to stare.”

“Ah, yeah. Right. I’m sorry about that,” he said sheepishly, going over to take the empty seat beside Blue Jay. “Just takes some getting used to. All of this.”

The frog spoke again, its voice vaguely disgusting, like a series of belches. Oliver looked to Coyote for help.

“He forgives you,” Coyote said. “You’re an outsider. You don’t know any better.”

Oliver smiled at the frog, whose name he could not even begin to pronounce. Cuhtli-something. “Thank you.”

All of the Borderkind at the table were staring at him. Oliver wondered what would happen were he to remind them that it was not polite. He glanced at Kitsune, then at Frost.

The winter man raised his chin and shifted in his chair. His sharp, icy fingers scratched the table as he moved. This alone was enough to draw all of the attention in the room. Oliver was grateful. It was also clear that all of those gathered were willing to defer to Frost.

Mist steamed from his eyes. The afternoon light played a myriad of colors off of the angles of his frigid features. Frost gestured toward Coyote.

“Oliver, you already know Coyote.”

“Yes. Thank you for the clothes.”

Coyote touched two fingers to his forehead, almost as though he were tipping a hat, though he wasn’t wearing one.

“You have just met Tlatecuhtli. He hails from Yucatazca, where he is still worshipped by some of the descendants of the original Aztec people.”

The frog-thing let out a long, low noise and blinked once at Oliver.

The introductions continued. At the far end of the table, opposite Frost, was a monstrous, savage-looking creature from whom Oliver would have run screaming once upon a time. But his time in the world of the legendary had taught him not to judge so quickly.

The thing—called Chorti—was covered in shaggy gray-and-black hair. Though it was seated, Oliver figured it must have been nine feet tall at least, and it was twice as broad across as the table. Its hands were crossed over its chest as though it might be sleeping, and the long claws that jutted from its fingers were made of metal. Oliver had to look twice to confirm that.

Chorti smiled a mouthful of razors and offered him a little wave of greeting. A creature as frightening and imposing as this would make one hell of an ally in a fight. Oliver nodded to the beast and silently wished that it could come along with him to rescue Collette.

Beside Chorti, seated close enough to indicate that they were together, sat a coldly imperious woman with hair so white it looked almost silver. She wore a white dress, cotton and lace, and other than her hair she seemed entirely too proper and ordinary to be one of the Borderkind. Frost introduced her as Cheval Bayard, and Oliver took it from the accent in her quiet hello that she was of French origin.

Cheval leaned over to whisper something to Chorti and the beast-man grunted in amusement, a soft, chuffing laughter coming from his chest. She stroked the thick fur at the back of his head. Apparently, she was not nearly as cold as he had imagined. He liked her better for her easy way with the beast-man.

Oliver studied them a moment out of the corner of his eye. The way Cheval had whispered to Chorti gave the pair the air of lovers, but as she stroked him, it was almost as though he were her pet. Yet, when he saw the way they looked at one another—the knowing humor there—neither of those theories seemed correct, and he was left wondering about the relationship between the strange pair.