8. The Lake

Greeting the daylight with sweat on his back and cold biting his cheeks, Andrew was outside chopping firewood with a narrow-headed ax. It was a peculiar kind of strain, one Andrew hadn't experienced since he'd taught himself sword-fighting in his twenties. The wood smelled sweet, each log splitting with a satisfying crack.

He was positioning another log of maple on a wide stump when Liath came outside bundled in a heavy hunter's jacket, her hair tucked up into a wool cap.

"That should do it," she told him, nodding in appreciation at the stack of split logs in the crate next to the cabin. She blew into her folded hands and rubbed them together.

"I had a question," said Andrew, wedging the ax into the stump.

"Go on then." She looked skeptical.

"Can you teach me magic?"

Liath blinked. "You want to learn magic?"

"Ingrid told me the wards and runes I used in my apartment—which I copied from you—are fairly effective. I want to know more. It's likely I'll be around Folk for the rest of my life."

Her eyes lit up. "Is that so? Andrew, are you going to spend forever with this man? This…faerie?"

He touched his necklace. If Micah was able to forgive him for running away to the North Shore, then he was never going to let him go. "I'm going to try to make sure of it. So. Will you teach me magic?"

Gaze lingering on his necklace for a moment, Liath looked away toward Superior, worrying her lip with her canine. "What do you think magic is?"

"Depends." He followed her gaze to the distant water. "Folk are innately magical; it comes from within, and they're born from it. Humans mostly aren't. So, we have to honor the magic around us and understand how we can fit around and within it. Nature, obviously, holds most of the magic. Even the Folk call on it."

She looked slightly impressed. "Andrew. You've walked a good path."

Neutrally, he nodded in agreement. "Thanks. I have another question. Well, an observation, I suppose."

"Curious as ever."

"Something was in the cabin last night. It woke me up."

Liath's face creased with annoyance. She crossed her arms and shook her head. "Fionna must have broken in again."

Raising his eyebrows, Andrew said, "Fionna has suspiciously wolf-like eyes."

"Sorry if she frightened you. She's a curious pup."

"Mother." He couldn't bite the eagerness from his tone. It was hard for anything to surprise Andrew since he first stepped into the world of the Folk, but this excited him. He leaned down to make sure she had to meet his eyes. "Is that the wolf you said decides? You know a wolf?"

Liath smirked. "In a manner of speaking."

"Wolves are so cool. My boyfriend's got a kinship to cats, and that's awesome, but…wolves, mum!" He grabbed her shoulders. "Let me meet her!"

She laughed. "It's not up to me. She's very strong-willed. She'll meet you when she's ready."

"Ah!" he whined. "Put in a good word for me, at least! I won't be up here that long."

With a shake of her head, she said, "Calm and patience, child."

"Mother!"

Lips twitching, Liath rolled her eyes and pushed his chest. "I'm going to get my gloves."

As he listened to her footsteps crunching away over the snow, Andrew puffed out an opaque breath and turned in a circle. "Hello, Fionna!" he called to the bone-white hills. A gust of wind picked up a spurt of snow and carried it away from Superior. Or maybe the blustery shape was the shaggy back of a wolf. Or perhaps she was both, neither wolf nor snow, but something in-between. "I'm Andrew! I hope we can be friends."

Micah would have loved this.

Not much later, Liath drove them down a nearly invisible road in a rusty red truck with a plough attached to the front bumper. Their progress was slow, the plough cutting fastidiously through snow so deep it almost brushed the door handles. The heat inside the cab wasn't very strong, but Andrew and Liath were both bundled in snow suits, scarves, face masks, and lined gloves under mittens. The temperature wasn't extremely low, but the wind chill would chap skin raw in ninety seconds. It got colder, too, as you neared the lake. The depths of the waters trapped the cold like an old king's tomb, so even when the summer heat was sweltering, Superior still had teeth.

"So, your boyfriend. Tell me about him," said Liath, eyes on the road.

Andrew stared at his lap. "He's only my boyfriend if he doesn't hate me for how I handled myself this week."

Liath raised an eyebrow. "You're worried that after two years, he'll give up on you just because you've had a bad week?"

Andrew opened and closed his mouth. "I told him I wanted a break and he should see other people."

"Ouch." Liath grimaced.

"Don't say that!" Andrew cried. "I…I…didn't want him to, but I…everyone adores him, and I've just been so distant, and…"

Liath sighed, "Child."

"I wasn't going to ask for the break," he added.

"All right, well, he answered your call last night, didn't he? That seems like a good start. Just be patient. And let me see him. I'm dying to know what the Nightshade Boy looks like."

"You've heard of him?" Andrew blinked.

"I heard about him and the Ruby Daughter when they came to Lilydale, aye. That was when we came to Minnesota, too, you know. I wanted to find out what the magic scene was like right away for my benefit and our safety, and it wasn't hard, since everyone was very excited to have such noteworthy Folk in Minnesota. I wonder if you two have just been orbiting around each other since then, waiting to collide."

Clearing his throat, he reached into his snowsuit and pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket. It was still out of service when he checked it, which, with a look around at the deserted winter wilderness, wasn't surprising. But it felt more strange not carrying it with him. He pulled up his camera roll and only had to scroll past two photos to find one he'd taken of Micah the week prior, beaming on his bed holding his big ginger tomcat Cinnamon, whom he'd wrapped in Andrew's tartan scarf as if swaddling a baby.

"A cat person," said Liath admiringly. "Very handsome, child."

"He's got a Master's in business from the U of M. He runs a tea shop. But like, that Asian novelty tea. Boba. With tapioca pearls. I mean, the tea blends are still good, and now he keeps my favorites in stock."

Liath screwed up her face. "Wait, why would a prince from the Redwoods need to get degrees?"

"Micah's tried to avoid Fae dealings since his father was pretty messed up by everything in the Redwoods."

"How so?"

"The Redwood Queen had him imprisoned for twenty-two years. She force-fed him Fae-spelled foods to keep him compliant and make him…breed with her."

Mouth dropping open, Liath exclaimed, "Twenty-two years on Fae-spelled foods! How do ye live after that?"

"I would say in large part, he hasn't," Andrew said. "He doesn't even know who he was before the Redwoods. He tried to kill himself a number of times when they first got here. And he's never truly escaped the Fae-spelled foods." He shook his head, thinking of the golden thread looped around Julian's neck while he gazed adoringly at the Queen. "The Redwood Queen stole him back when Micah and I met. He still thinks that was a dream."

Liath shook her head without speaking as the truck rumbled on through the snow. When she finally spoke, her voice had the boiling notes of a kettle about to scream. "It's a miserable life. It's the kind of behavior that makes me resent the Folk. In the tales, it's easy enough to read of wicked acts and feel nothing. But hearing that she did that to a real person, who has to live with the consequences…" She let out a harsh sigh. "I taught you we must be balanced, but what keeps the Folk in check?"

Andrew thought for a moment. "Sometimes nothing, I suppose. But I think Micah checked the Queen's wickedness. Just like with the rain clouds when we left Edward, Micah was able to call on nature to put an end to the Redwood Queen."

"But maybe that was because of his human side."

His brow wrinkled as he looked at her sidelong. "Maybe. But Ingrid and Chamomile aren't wicked either. Wicked things don't love the way they both love him." He hesitated and then said mildly, "And it's not their fault you made the choices you did."

She flinched. "Aye." Sniffing, she said, "Forgive me. It seems I'm a wee bit bitter about the Folk."

"Evidently." They fell silent. Andrew squirmed in the quiet, his own bitterness hanging in the air between them like sulfur. Finally, he said, "That was callous of me. I'm bitter, too."

Liath didn't reply right away, the truck slowing as it mounted a snow-heavy hill, the plough grinding against its fixtures. "We aren't screaming at each other, so we're doing better than we used to."

Inside his gloves, Andrew curled his fingers closed.

"So, is he doing something about it? Your boyfriend."

"About what?"

"The Fae-spelled foods." Liath glanced at him, expression hardening. "You said you went to Lilydale looking for me," she said, ticking off reasons with her fingers."You knew that's where those cursed baggies of food came from, and you said his father is ruined because of the Folk. That has all of the setup for a campaign that ends the epidemic."

Sighing impatiently, Andrew told her, "Mum, they're only ‘Fae-spelled' because it's food the Folk produced for themselves. In the Redwoods, they manufactured it to be a temptation. But the Folk in Lilydale…they're kind of provincial. You're telling me you want four-foot-tall mute brownies to fight and aggress any drug-addled, violent human who shows up demanding an apple?"

"You're very sympathetic to them," Liath noted stiffly.

Andrew bit his tongue and took several breaths. When they reached the highway between the state park and the lake, they sat at the crossroad for a few minutes while cars blew past them with wild spirals of snowflakes spraying out from under their tires. The truck's wheels spun until Liath revved its old growling engine and it made it off the snow.

Andrew finally said, "You're right. When Ingrid was stalking me, I thought every faerie was reprehensible. But now, I will admit that I feel I understand them better than I understand you. I thought you stood for something greater than yourself."

"Ah, so you mean I should have known better," Liath intoned.

"Obviously," snapped Andrew. "No need to sound so sorry for yourself, mother."

She sighed sharply, drumming her hands against the wheel. The truck slowed; her blinker clicked on toward the right where there was a small but plowed road wending down toward the lakeside.

"Yes, you're right," she said, placating, "I should have known better. I knew it wouldn't be good. I just didn't know…I didn't know it would feel so good."

Andrew winced. "Mother."

Hardly hearing him, she said rapidly, "I'm ashamed to say that despite sobriety, despite not having tasted anything Fae-spelled for…how old are you now? Thirty-two?"

"Thirty-four."

"Fifteen years I've been without so much as a crumb of those bespelled foods, and my tastebuds still tingle at the thought. My blood still seems to pump more slowly than it did before, like the magic turned it to molasses."

When her voice fell silent, the truck seemed to shrink around them, its metal skeleton pressing down, making Andrew's muscles tense.

He wetted his lips and said softly, "Terrifying."

Liath gripped a crank on the door and cracked her window, blasting the cockpit of the truck with icy cold. Andrew let her do it without protesting; he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

Things were different now. They were both free of her addiction.

At least he thought so.

"I didn't mean to dredge that up for you," he said. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head slightly. "Do better than me, Andrew," she said. "That's all I ask."

"Actually," Andrew said, realization shafting through him like sunlight through a chink in the blinds, "I think I do better because of what you and I went through. It made me cautious, and jaded, sure. But it also made me…open. If I had treated the Folk like they were all wicked, how could I ever have given Micah a chance? And do you know why I didn't treat the Folk like they were all wicked?"

Liath didn't say anything, rubbing her mouth as her expression began to return to neutral. She sniffed, letting out her breath in a cloud like she was letting go of the toxins spilled between them.

He continued, "Because you raised me to consider the world on a spectrum, with nuances, not dichotomies. It was only natural to extend this to the Folk once I learned about them. I knew I could be the bad, and they could be the good. I knew who I wanted to be. You and I went through hell together when we left Liverpool, but the lessons you taught me weren't wasted."

The tension left her shoulders; her hands slid down toward the bottom of the wheel as she glanced at him with pride in her eyes. "Aye. You know who you are."

He nodded. "Aye."

"When you face down the unknown without doubting who you are, Andrew Phalen, you will always be more formidable than your obstacles."

Bashful, like he was thirteen showing off a good report card, Andrew stared at his gloves as his cheeks warmed despite the frozen air.

Liath added, "Maybe that's why you fell to despair at the moment. Maybe you've lost yourself a bit."

He took several measured breaths. "I cut out a fundamental piece of who I am when I left you without looking back," he said. "You were a waypoint for me. You were the cairn in the fog that kept me going the right way."

Tears formed on her lashes like little crystals of ice.

"Even after I left you," he added, touching her arm. "That's why I went looking for you after university. My beacon was burned out. I was just feeling around in the dark. So, finding you up here…I'm hoping that I can make a little bit more sense to myself now. And that it can make me a better partner."

Liath nodded after a moment, using the corner of her face mask to wipe her eyes. "I understand it. I've never quite felt like myself since I left Leinster." She thought for a moment. "Forty years ago. God, has it been that long? Feels like yesterday."

"Like you don't have any roots," said Andrew.

"Ah, you know I like tree metaphors," said Liath with a soft laugh that made his toes tingle. He scooted across the truck bench and put his head on her shoulder.

They got out of the truck into frigid wind gusting off the bergs of ice that floated on the lake. He'd last come here as a teen in the summer; this was different. This was transporting. Like he was leagues and leagues away from the Cities, from any trace of warmth or green. It was out of time, not a glimpse of the civilized world in sight yet void of the Folk as well. It was a titan made of waves and ice, impenetrable and dauntless.

Rooted in place, Andrew gazed out at Superior with his chest so tight he could barely take a breath. He tried not to cry, but the tears were already determined to fall.

"She's powerful," agreed Liath.

Andrew nodded, speechless.

She slid her arm around his waist, gripping him tightly through their layers of gear. After a few minutes with only the wind and the waves speaking, she said, "Gichigumi was actually the result of volcanic activity. That's why the basalt is so dark. Imagine, all the heat then. But it's never warm now."

Andrew wiped his cheeks dry as the tears cooled and stung his skin.

She continued, "As Druids, we, like the Folk, and like the indigenous peoples of this land, commune with the natural powers of the earth. I didn't choose somewhere close to Gichigumi by accident when we left the Isles. I've had my fill of coastal cities, but Gichigumi? I'm glad I chose her. Life up here revolves around her, and she protects the land."

Fresh tears tracked down Andrew's face, and he didn't clear them away this time.

"If you can handle the cold…"

"I can."

"…Then follow me."

They picked their way out over the dimpled rocks rising above the nearly-black waters. Winter boots had the wrong kind of grip for sticking to coarse, rounded basalt. But Liath used her hands, and so Andrew did too.

It was because of this that he noticed a large stone between his thumbs that was rich red against the black basalt, banded with ivory and milky green. He gasped and knelt, using both hands to scoop up the agate and lift it for Liath to see when she sharply turned to look at him.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "The lake gave you a gift."

Andrew turned the agate over in his palm. There was an eye-like geode on the backside, the quartz teeth glittering like dragon scales. He realized that's what the weight of the stone felt like: draconic slumber, storing the heat from the core of the earth. He sat back on his knees to slip the agate inside his suit and into the pocket of his flannel, so he could feel it against his ribs after he zipped himself back up.

Crouched on the pinnacle of the basalt, the lake wind whipping silver strands of hair into her eyes, she gazed down at him and laughed. "You earth-blessed man."

To keep his eyes dry, he simply gave a dismissive shrug and tried to ignore the swell of his heart.

She led them further out onto the water to a boulder large enough for three or four people to perch upon, and then sat with her calves crossed and her back to the south. He carefully crouched and sat so their spines touched, exchanging some of the warmth of their core, and taking the eastern wind only on one side of their faces. She told him to use his scarf as a shield from the wind, so he obeyed. A deep shudder vibrated his muscles, but not a single thought troubled his mind.

Black waves lapped below them, persistent despite the cellophane sheets of ice and chunky little bergs that sloshed around on the water's surface. To the west, cliffs stained red with iron rose high above them, like they were bleeding. The deep green conifers bit into the gray sky as a soft snow started to fall on them. He blinked as he stared at the border between cliff and trees, feeling but not seeing a pair of golden eyes watching him.

Feeling silly, he lifted a gloved hand and waved a little.

"Andrew, there's something about you…"

Andrew lowered his hand back to his lap, but didn't look away from the cliffs. "Go on."

She paused for some time.

"Mum?"

Her ribs expanded and pressed against his shoulder blades. "Never mind. Let me know when you'd like to be out of the wind."

He wanted to pry. But in all his life, it never did him any good. When Liath held a secret in her hands, it would die unspoken if she chose it to be so. He asked instead, "Do I just have to trust him? Forever?"

"Trust him to do what, child?"

"That I'm his choice. That…that a faerie prince wants me." He visualized what it must feel like to ride the wild waves in a little boat that rocked with every push and pull of the tide. Only Micah was the water, and he was the boat.

"Andrew, that doesn't sound like his problem. That sounds like you don't believe you're worth it."

Hugging his knees, Andrew wiped his nose on his scarf. "How could I be?"

Liath paused. "You need to answer that. I know your worth. It sounds like Micah knows your worth. And if the Ruby Daughter gave you the favor of her Scrying, then so does she." She turned carefully on the rock and pulled him into her side. "You're the missing piece, Andrew. Find your answer inside."

Before they made their way back to the path carved by the truck's plow, Liath stopped them at the foot of the rusty cliffs they could see from the water. The cliffs cast deep bruised shadows over them, the white sheet of the sky barely visible beneath the wall of rock.

"Look at that," breathed Andrew. "Many down in the cities wouldn't believe we have cliffs like this in Minnesota."

"Come here." Liath gestured as she sank her foot into a snowdrift up to her knee, proceeding carefully, bracing herself against the glittering and barren cliff face. "I found this spot during my sixth winter up here. I don't like coming around here in the summer. Give me a boost, yeah?" She pointed at a lip of rock over her head. Andrew knew better than to argue with her, instead interlacing his fingers with great difficulty through his mittens so she could step into his hand-hold, which she quickly bounced out of and caught both her hands on the lip of rock. Liath scrambled up onto the ledge with fluency that belied her age. When she steadied herself and brushed the ledge free of the heavy clotted snow, Andrew had to dodge the avalanche. Liath reached her hand down and helped Andrew scale the ledge after her with his boots scraping and his stomach dropping a bit as he gracelessly mounted the ledge next to his mother. He wondered how easily Micah could have climbed these cliffs straight up, two hundred feet, no scrambling or struggling like him, just easy inhuman grace.

The ledge gave them plenty of room to climb to their feet and stay away from the sharp dropoff. Liath nudged him as she turned to face the cliff again, running her hands reverently against the gabbro. "The Anshinabe that lived along the shores of Gichigumi were animists. Do you know the term?"

Andrew shook his head.

"They subscribe to the belief that every aspect of the world—the rocks, the animals, the trees, the sky—all have spiritual power. The storms are alive, the rock tells a story."

"That's not too different from what you've taught me as a Druid," Andrew said.

Liath pulled off her gloves and mittens so her slender fingers were bare as she traced the striations in the cliff face. "Aye. Isn't it telling? Animism is one of the most ancient beliefs of man, that we are only lightning bugs flashing for but a moment, miniscule against the life teeming in the world around us." She withdrew her hands from the cliff and held them out to Andrew so he could see that they had taken on the glittering gray quality of the cliff, iron staining her nails rust-red. The effect was dramatic, extraordinary. Magic. Andrew caught his breath. Liath tugged off his gloves so the icy air bit into his knuckles and his fingertips but allowed her to press his palms flat against the cold, immovable rock.

"You have become a drifting leaf as you have lost who you are," Liath said softly, auburn hair brushing her cheeks. "What you need to be is like the rock. Ancient, unmoving, sure of your place overlooking the churning waters and changing of the seasons."

Andrew's hands sank into stone. A little bit physically, but mostly his energy did, like the stone pulled his heart from his chest and told it to calm, like it ground down the wounds and the bruises to unblemished bone. His complexion shifted from tones of peach and white into gray and black and deep brown, like he was no longer simply himself but something greater.

"When you feel yourself become untethered…" Suddenly Liath was holding the agate he'd found in her fingers, though he hadn't felt her remove it from his jacket. She took one of his hands off the cliff and set the agate in his palm. "…Then use this as your anchor. Let it ground you again. This agate was shaken loose from the earth when there was fire and earthquakes and calving glaciers and yet, look. It is beautiful and whole on its own." She helped him cup the agate against the cliff and then leaned her cheek on the rock, eyes closed, letting out a long breath. After a moment, Andrew did the same, forehead on the gabbro, the agate sharp against his palm and sturdy against the sheet of stone, feeling his thoughts rub away as if their form was stolen away by the relentless beating of the waves.

It took him a moment of feeling silly as he leaned himself on this ancient earth before he realized this was…this was exactly, precisely what his soul needed. To turn back toward the timeless magic his mum taught him, to quite literally ground himself, to pin his feet back to the earth. This was what he needed to return to Micah, whole and centered, capable once more of loving Micah as much as he deserved.