Some of the excitement bled out of Kostrel at this. “They sound like demons.”
Bast hesitated, then nodded a reluctant agreement. “Some are very much like demons,” he admitted. “Or so close as it makes no difference.”
“Are some of them like angels too?” the boy asked.
“It’s nice to think that,” Bast said. “I hope so.”
“Where do they come from?”
Bast cocked his head. “That’s your second question, then?” he asked. “I’m guessing it must be, as it’s got nothing to do with what the Fae are like …”
Kostrel grimaced, seeming a little embarrassed, though Bast couldn’t tell if he was ashamed he’d gotten carried away with his questions, or ashamed he’d been caught trying to get a free answer. “Sorry,” he said. “Is it true that a faerie can never lie?”
“Some can’t,” Bast said. “Some don’t like to. Some are happy to lie but wouldn’t ever go back on a promise or break their word.” He shrugged. “Others lie quite well, and do so at every opportunity.”
Kostrel began to ask something else, but Bast cleared his throat. “You have to admit,” he said. “That’s a pretty good answer. I even gave you a few free questions, to help with the focus of things, as it were.”
Kostrel gave a slightly sullen nod.
“Here’s your first secret.” Bast held up a single finger. “Most of the Fae don’t come to this world. They don’t like it. It rubs all rough against them, like wearing a burlap shirt. But when they do come, they like some places better than others. They like wild places. Secret places. Strange places. There are many types of fae, many courts and houses. And all of them are ruled according to their own desires …”
Bast continued in a tone of soft conspiracy. “But something that appeals to all the fae are places with connections to the raw, true things that shape the world. Places that are touched with fire and stone. Places that are close to water and air. When all four come together …”
Bast paused to see if the boy would interject something here. But Kostrel’s face had lost the sharp cunning it had held before. He looked like a child again, mouth slightly agape, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Second secret,” Bast said. “The fae folk look nearly like we do, but not exactly. Most have something about them that makes them different. Their eyes. Their ears. The color of their hair or skin. Sometimes they’re taller than normal, or shorter, or stronger, or more beautiful.”
“Like Felurian.”
“Yes, yes,” Bast said testily. “Like Felurian. But any of the Fae who have the skill to travel here will have craft enough to hide those things.” He leaned back, nodding to himself. “That is a type of magic all the fair folk share.”
Bast threw the final comment out like a fisherman casting a lure.
Kostrel closed his mouth and swallowed hard. He didn’t fight the line. Didn’t even know that he’d been hooked. “What sort of magic can they do?”
Bast rolled his eyes dramatically. “Oh come now, that’s another whole book’s worth of question.”
“Well, maybe you should just write a book, then,” Kostrel said flatly. “Then you can lend it to me and kill two birds with one stone.”
The comment seemed to catch Bast off his stride. “Write a book?”
“That’s what people do when they know every damn thing, isn’t it?” Kostrel said sarcastically. “They write it down so they can show off.”
Bast looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Okay. Here’s the bones of what I know. They don’t think of it as magic. They’d never use that term. They’ll talk of art or craft. They talk of seeming or shaping.”
He looked up at the sun and pursed his lips. “But if they were being frank, and they are rarely frank, mind you, they would tell you almost everything they do is either glammourie or grammarie. Glammourie is the art of making something seem. Grammarie is the craft of making something be.”
Bast rushed ahead before the boy could interrupt. “Glammourie is easier. They can make a thing seem other than it is. They could make a white shirt seem like it was blue. Or a torn shirt seem like it was whole. Most of the folk have at least a scrap of this art. Enough to hide themselves from mortal eyes. If their hair was all of silver-white, their glammourie could make it look as black as night.”
Kostrel’s face was lost in wonder yet again. But it was not the gormless, gaping wonder of before. It was a thoughtful wonder. A clever wonder, curious and hungry. It was the sort of wonder that would steer a boy toward a question that started with a how.
Bast could see the shape of these things moving in the boy’s dark eyes. His damn clever eyes. Too clever by half. Soon those vague wonderings would start to crystallize into questions like “How do they make their glammourie?” or, even worse, “How might a young boy break it?”
And what then, with a question like that hanging in the air? Nothing good would come of it. To break a promise fairly made and lie outright was retrograde to his desire. Even worse to do it in this place. Far easier to tell the truth, then make sure something happened to the boy …
But honestly, he liked the boy. He wasn’t dull or easy. He wasn’t mean or low. He pushed back. He was funny and grim and hungry and more alive than any three other people in the town all put together. He was bright as broken glass and sharp enough to cut himself. And Bast too, apparently.
Bast rubbed his face. This never used to happen. He had never been in conflict with his own desire before he came here. He hated it. It was so simply singular before. Want and have. See and take. Run and chase. Thirst and slake. And if he were thwarted in pursuit of his desire … what of it? That was simply the way of things. The desire itself was still his, it was still pure.
It wasn’t like that now. Now his desires grew complicated. They constantly conflicted with each other. He felt endlessly turned against himself. Nothing was simple anymore, he was pulled so many ways …
“Bast?” Kostrel said, his head cocked to the side, concern plain on his face. “Are you okay?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”
Bast smiled an honest smile. He was a curious boy. Of course. That was the way. That was the narrow road between desires. “I was just thinking. Grammarie is much harder to explain. I can’t say I understand it all that well myself.”
“Just do your best,” Kostrel said kindly. “Whatever you tell me will be more than I know.”
No, he couldn’t kill this boy. That would be too hard a thing.
“Grammarie is changing a thing,” Bast said, making an inarticulate gesture. “Making it into something different than what it is.”
“Like turning lead into gold?” Kostrel asked. “Is that how they make faerie gold?”
Bast made a point of smiling at the question. “Good guess, but that’s glammourie. It’s easy, but it doesn’t last. That’s why people who take faerie gold end up with pockets full of stones or acorns in the morning.”
“Could they turn gravel into gold?” Kostrel asked. “If they really wanted to?”
“It’s not that sort of change,” Bast said, though he still smiled and nodded at the question. “That’s too big. Grammarie is about … shifting. It’s about making something into more of what it already is.”
Kostrel’s face twisted with confusion.
Bast took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. “Let me try something else. What have you got in your pockets?”
Kostrel rummaged about and held out his hands. There was a brass button, a scrap of paper, a stub of pencil, a small folding knife … and a stone with a hole in it. Of course.
Bast slowly passed his hand over the collection of oddments, eventually stopping above the knife. It wasn’t particularly fine or fancy, just a piece of smooth wood the size of a finger with a groove where a short, hinged blade was tucked away.