The rather round member of the drama club was finding his diets were working, he had Keller’s advice on fashion, and was exercising. Some guys, even, were not-so-subtly gravitating his way, and the drama club was transforming with new membership.
Maggie didn’t have the fancy books. No library, no resources to tap. The only reliable source she had right now was, well, Patrick.
Except Patrick was the one at the head of the problem in question.
That left Maggie with the internet, storybooks, the brief and chaotic notes in her binder, and basic deduction.
She was pretty certain that presents and boons like the ones Keller was giving out were traps. That they’d be wonderful and fantastic up until the point that things turned sour. Maybe they became too much of a good thing, maybe there was a rule that had to be followed, with some horrific backlash if it wasn’t. Maybe there was a catch.
Exiled Faerie weren’t allowed to go after innocents, not directly. But, Maggie was fairly certain, they weren’t forbidden from doing something like giving a kid a flute that would summon a sprite to do their chores for them, with the caveat that the sprite would blind them if they ever tried to watch it while it worked.
End result? The kid would be stupid, the sprite would eat the kid’s eyes. People, the kid included, would rationalize it away as an accident, an infection, or just a freak occurrence. Life would go on as normal, and the local Faeries-in-exile got their jollies without breaking the rules.
Maggie could look across the field where the students who weren’t eating indoors were spending their lunch hour. She could see the stories playing out. Connections, two Others among maybe three hundred scattered students; a student that seemed content to repeat the same grade without any teacher noticing he’d been on the class roster for ten years, and Patrick himself.
One of the Behaims took a seat on the ledge where Maggie sat. A girl. Strong jaw, full lips, and a hat with flaps over the ears. Sort of what Maggie thought a female dwarf would look like, except without the dwarf part of it. The girl was probably taller than she was.
The Behaims were healthy, as a general rule.
“Your rear end is going to get wet and cold,” Maggie said. She was sitting on her own backpack.
“I’ll deal. I’m supposed to ask you if you’re willing to look the contract over.”
“Finally? You guys have been bugging me a couple of times a day, like you’re all worried I’ll change my mind.”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Then will you look the contract over?” the girl asked.
Stubborn.
“Not right now,” Maggie said. “Lunch ends soon, and if that contract is as solid as I’m hoping it is, then I won’t be able to read it all. I’m thinking, anyway. I’ll look after school, if I can.”
“Okay,” the girl said. She didn’t move.
“I don’t know your name.”
“Tenth grade. Elspeth.”
A year younger, then.
“The Behaims have a thing for really tragic names.”
“Old family names. There’s a power in it.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. You’re right, the names we get stuck with can bite, but there’s a reasoning behind it. Am I interrupting your thinking?”
Maggie shrugged. Yes, but she wasn’t in a mood to be a bitch about it.
When Elspeth didn’t take the excuse to leave, Maggie said, “Patrick, you see him?”
“Yeah, I see him.”
“What do you know about him?”
“I know of Patrick. I don’t know him. He shows up at the council meetings.”
“I mean, tell me something I wouldn’t know myself.”
“He was at the heart of this whole thing last year. Slept with this guy, Duke, a straight guy. While glamoured up as a teenage guy. Ended a relationship that had been going on since middle school.”
“Four years, through high school? That’s like lifetimes in real years.”
“Exactly,” Elspeth said. “The aftermath was something to see. Duke and his girlfriend Mary had been part of this really tight clique. Just about fractured in half, one side backing Duke, the other backing Mary. And maybe things would have calmed down, except the news got out that Mary was pregnant. If Patrick hadn’t split up the friends, maybe they would have broken up over the pregnancy, but feelings wouldn’t have been as hurt, and a full fifth of the graduating class might not have gotten involved in the whole thing.”
“It’s like network television,” Maggie said.
“You’re not wrong. Things are never simple with Faerie involved. One thing led to another, which led to another, and so on. All with Patrick stepping in only now and then to keep the flames fanned. For him, it’s like a real-world soap opera, interactive. A nudge here, and stories unfold.”
Maggie wasn’t too surprised, though she hadn’t heard this story in full before.
The hurt feelings, broken friendships and reams of pain and chaos aren’t really something he understands or pays attention to, except when he needs to leverage and use it.
That’s what he is.
“Creepy, something as old as him sleeping with a high schooler,” Elspeth said.
“I felt that way once. Then I adjusted my perspective. Years are to a Faerie what dollars amounts are to a priceless artifact. You could do your research, find experts to help figure it out, cross-check facts, but it doesn’t really matter in the end. The priceless artifact costs a lot. The Faerie are old.”
Elspeth nodded. She didn’t look convinced, and Maggie didn’t care enough to keep trying to sell the idea.
He’s old. Old enough to grow jaded and then find new faith in existence a dozen times over, until neither case has any meaning. Old enough to be bored with reality.
The goblins had told Maggie stories about Faerie that had decided they couldn’t be entertained any more. Faerie older than Padraic, who had seen enough permutations of everything that they couldn’t be surprised or amused any more.
Padraic didn’t eat or drink in the conventional sense. He supped only on entertainment, and he’d been hobbled when he’d been sent here. He was fighting and endless battle to stave off that ennui that would turn him into a monster that ranked up there with the worst. All Faerie were.
On a level, it meant he wasn’t evil. He was just… working with a different set of sliding scales.
On another level, fudge that. He was evil.
Whether it was evil or sliding scales, he was idly moving among the student body right now, talking to some people, charming other. The equivalent of picking wings off flies.
Maggie ventured, “There’s something like seven plots I’m aware of. Keller has three charms and one questionable book that he’s given to people around the school. Patrick has been talking to three people or groups of people, besides me. This is going to end badly.”
“Maybe. But if you try to fix it, it’s liable to end worse.”
“I can imagine,” Maggie said.
“Don’t get involved. They’ve probably anticipated what might happen if any of us stepped in. If you try to intervene, they’ll get you wrapped up in the game or the drama or whatever they’ve got going on here.”