“What is it?”
The winter man gave a small shrug. “I trust nothing of late.”
“Makes sense to me.”
Frost smiled and any tension between them was gone. Oliver started down the stairs, reminded of the time as a boy that he and his sister had climbed the endless steps of the Statue of Liberty in New York. He had descended perhaps a hundred steps before he realized that he had stopped covering his face as soon as they had left the sewer, and though the smell lingered in his clothes and his nostrils, for the most part it was gone. It only smelled cold down inside that strange tower of metal stairs.
And faintly of flowers.
At the bottom of what seemed like hundreds of stairs was yet another door, this one carved of light wood and flanked on either side by oil lamps in sconces. Gong Gong paused at the door and looked back up the way they had come as though counting heads. Then the lightning-eyed dragon bent over and seemed to whisper something to the wood, and the door swung open to admit them.
The chamber they entered was so entirely different from anything Oliver might have expected that he stood just over the threshold, staring stupidly at the room laid out before him. It was constructed like an outdoor courtyard, with a pair of marble fountains adorned with statues of angels, pure water cascading around them. The stone tiles of the floor were run through with rich mineral colors, like something in a villa in Tuscany, and all around the sides of the chamber, where sloping walls curved upward, there were gardens filled with wildflowers. It should have been impossible for such flowers to grow down there so far beneath the ground, so far from the sun, but this was Perinthia, after all. The smell of flowers was intoxicating.
There were torches set in to the walls, but there also came a wash of light from the ceiling high above that could not have been genuine sunshine but replicated it nearly enough.
On the other side of that quaint courtyard two pair of French doors were set in to a wall as though they led into a house, and Oliver thought that perhaps they did. Perhaps this was a home, far beneath the streets— the mansion of the Mazikeen. For some of those gathered in the courtyard must have been the sorcerers they had sought. There were half a dozen beings that Oliver could see and half that number were tall wraithlike creatures in gold-fringed black robes with an almost priestly elegance. They were impossibly thin and they moved with a fluid grace as though they were dancing underwater. Though their faces were hidden in the shadows of draping hoods, their hands were visible, and seemed ordinary enough save for their skeletal thinness and the length of their fingers. The flesh had a purplish tint, as though lightly bruised.
At the center of the courtyard, roughly between the two fountains, was a hand-carved mahogany table surrounded by only three chairs. None of the creatures in that underground sanctuary were seated, however. Two of the Mazikeen stood together as though in silent communication on the far side of the chamber and did not so much as glance up as the newcomers arrived. The third stood by the table and faced their three guests.
“Come,” Kitsune said, startling Oliver, for he had not even realized she had come back to get him.
There was no mischief in her eyes, only urgency. Her hood was thrown back, and in that strange subterreanean daylight she seemed oddly vulnerable. She nudged him with a shoulder and together they approached. Gong Gong flew ahead and landed at the center of the table. All of those gathered around it had turned to watch the approach of these new arrivals with cold curiosity.
The Mazikeen presiding over the group at the table bowed to Frost, and the winter man returned the gesture. Fear rippled through Oliver as he tried to peer beneath the wraith sorcerer’s hood. This creature did not look like an ally. It looked like something that would send him screaming up out of a nightmarish sleep.
“Frost,” the sorcerer said. “Kitsune. I am pleased that you were able to come to us. There is much to be done if any of us are to survive.”
“Jenny and Gong Gong saw to it that we found you,” Kitsune replied.
The Black Dragon of Storms snorted and the thunderclouds in his eyes seemed to roil with menace. “I was watching the door. That’s all. Don’t bring me into this.”
The Mazikeen made a short bow in response to this muttering, but otherwise ignored it. Its head moved, draped in that hood, and Oliver could feel the sorcerer studying him, taking his measure. He fought the temptation to stand taller, to force a grim expression onto his face.
“This is the Bascombe?”
Frost nodded, and Oliver realized that Kitsune and the winter man had flanked him, standing on either side as though presenting him for some kind of judgment. “Indeed. An ally, to whom I owe my life.”
Kitsune’s fingers brushed against his where he had his hand hanging at his side, and a rush of warmth swept through him, lending him strength to bear up under the sorcerer’s regard.
“Oliver Bascombe,” he said, inclining his head in respect.
“I am Mazikeen,” the creature said, confusing Oliver for a moment until it gestured toward the other two who seemed almost entranced together. “We no longer have names as you would understand them. We are all simply Mazikeen.”
But Oliver doubted there was anything simple about it.
Introductions followed. He had arrived with Jenny Greenteeth, Kitsune, Frost, and the troublesome Gong Gong. Aside from the Mazikeen, there were three others in that bizarre courtyard, all standing round the table.
One of them was an ocher-skinned man in loose, rough clothing with three bright blue feathers tied into his long hair. Though his clothes were more old European, his aspect was that of a Native American, and the feathers did little to dispel this impression. He was called Blue Jay, and Oliver faintly recalled stories he’d read in college surrounding this myth, about a devilish trickster and shape-shifter. Blue Jay said nothing to him when introduced.
Beside him was a wild-looking man who seemed not quite flesh and not quite wood, with small branches growing in a sort of crown around his head and tiny flowers and leaves on his face and exposed arms. He was tall enough— nearly ten feet— that Oliver would once have considered him a giant, but now he’d seen real giants and this creature was almost of ordinary height in comparison. The towering forest man had brown hair that hung halfway down his back and a beard that fell nearly to his knees. He wore only a single garment like a Roman toga, tied round his body with vines. The Mazikeen introduced him as Lailoken, of Scotland, and the forest man thrust his hand out with a cordial, if slightly crazed, grin. Oliver shook his head, pleased that at least one of them was willing to be friendly to a human being.
With all that he had seen, not least of which were the extraordinary and intimidating creatures in the courtyard of the Mazikeen, very few things surprised Oliver more than the final member of that rebellious troupe of Borderkind. He had been aware of her since the moment they entered and his curiosity was rampant. Her hair was like spun sugar and her diaphanous gown was the blue-white of Frost’s eyes. The gossamer fabric clung to her curves in breathtaking fashion.
Yet her flesh was ice.
Nothing about her was jagged or sharp like Frost. Instead, she was smooth as the finest porcelain, but translucent and radiating a familiar chill. Her gaze was brazen as she took in Frost, and even when she was introduced to Oliver there was a predatory hunger there. She reached out and touched his face and his cheek stung with frostbite, a stinging pain that lingered for long minutes afterward.
“Yuki-Onna,” Frost said, embracing her with the perfunctory duty of a member of the family. “Queen of Snows. It is a relief to find you well.”
“And you, Frost. Word carried on the wind that the Falconer had found you.”
“Indeed he did,” the winter man grimly replied, and then he gestured to Oliver. “If not for this man, only legend would have remained.”
Yuki-Onna graced Oliver with the most beatific smile he had ever received. She nodded her head in silent gratitude and then turned her attention back to Frost. They held each other’s hands like reunited lovers and abruptly and simultaneously dissolved into wind and snow and ice, swirling into a blizzard perhaps four feet across and eight high, cold air sweeping around them yet somehow without withering a petal upon the flowers in the courtyard of the Mazikeen. Oliver caught his breath as he watched those winter spirits, saw the beauty of this strange melding, as the two storms were momentarily one and it was impossible to see what was Frost and what Yuki-Onna.
Just as quickly as it began it was over, the snow settling and building the winter man and the Queen of Snows, though their hands were no longer linked.
Kitsune brushed his hand again. “Did your mother teach you nothing?” she whispered. “It is rude to stare.”
With a quiet laugh he tore his gaze away from the winter spirits and looked at the fox-woman. Her expression was impossible to interpret, though he was sure he’d heard amusement in her tone.
“You are all welcome here,” the Mazikeen spokesman said in a reedy voice from within its cloak. “If we are to unravel this conspiracy against the Borderkind and strike back against its perpetrators, we must stand together.”
Gong Gong snorted derisively, spreading his leathery wings. “Stand together. Good idea. Tell Coyote and other cowards who run and hide.”
Oliver saw Kitsune stiffen. Based upon things she had said the last time Coyote had been spoken of, he was apparently a closer relation than Wayland Smith and these other creatures she called “cousin.” He had the idea that all of the Borderkind, regardless of how outrageously different from one another they might be, considered one another cousins.
Frost cocked his head to meet the gaze of the Mazikeen, false sunlight gleaming upon his sharp features. “And we will stand with you. First, however, I have a debt to repay. The Borderkind are being hunted in secret, but Oliver is wanted by the Crowns of Two Kingdoms and there is a price on his head. With respect, my friends, we must first locate Professor David Koenig, the only human Intruder to have discovered a way to pierce the Veil and to be pardoned for the crime. Like Koenig, Oliver is not Lost. The Lost Ones are trapped here. They cannot return, even if they wished to. But because he was carried through the Veil and can return to speak of it, the authorities will not suffer him to live. Oliver hopes to learn how Koenig managed to secure a pardon. And I have vowed to help him in that quest.
“Only when I have fulfilled my vow will I be free to join you in our fight against the Hunters and their masters,” the winter man said, eyes misting. “I have been told that the Mazikeen will know where to find David Koenig. Will you share this knowledge so that I may aid Oliver and then return here to join this insurrection?”
There was a lengthy pause that quickly grew uncomfortable for Oliver. Neither Kitsune nor Frost seemed even aware of the awkwardness of it, but he saw the way Jenny Greenteeth glanced at her feet and then shot her gaze round the courtyard without looking at anyone. Yuki-Onna closed her eyes a moment with a trace of melancholy in her porcelain features but then only nodded once. Blue Jay and the Scottish wild-man shot spiteful gazes at Oliver and then turned to the Mazikeen, whose eyes were on Kitsune.
Yet it was Gong Gong who spoke up. “And you, fox? You’ll go, too?”
“I’ve said so,” Kitsune replied calmly, the fur cloak rippling along her back as she stood to her full height. “And so I must. You wouldn’t have me break my word?”
“Bloody hell, Kit,” Jenny sighed. “They’re killing us.”
Kitsune gave the smallest twitch at those imploring words, but then pressed her hands together before her and inclined her head in a minimal bow. “Our fates are twined with his. Should we abandon our promises and leave him to die?”
Gong Gong drew his wings tightly around him as though they were a blanket, only his lightning-studded thunderstorm eyes visible above the black skin. “Better him than you, cousin.”
Kitsune stared at him with utter contempt.
The Mazikeen rapped its spindly hand upon the table. “That is enough. Time slips past. Frost, the name of Professor Koenig is familiar to me. His present location is not within the sphere of my knowledge, but we are Mazikeen. Give us a moment and we may discover what you seek.”
It bowed to the winter man and then in a more general fashion to the rest of those gathered around the table, after which the Mazikeen withdrew and strode to join the other two of its kind, who still seemed locked in some motionless conference in the shadows of a far wall. On either side of them were flower gardens, rich explosions of color and scent. Oliver knew little about flowers beyond roses and carnations, but he had the vague impression that this array was unusual. Some of the flowers that grew there were unlike anything he had ever seen.
The moment the Mazikeen who had been their de facto host approached the other two, they stirred. Their faces were still hooded but they turned to watch the other. As he joined them, however, they became immobile once more, and now the one who had spoken joined them in that strange meditative paralysis.
With a somewhat relieved sigh and a shy smile— revealing even more of her hideous teeth— Jenny slid onto the table, legs dangling beneath it, almost like a little girl.
“So that’s it, then? You find out what you need and then you’re off to wherever?”
Lailoken scowled in disgust, muttered something in a guttural tongue entirely unfamiliar to Oliver, and stalked away. They all watched as he went to a set of French doors, flung them open, and then disappeared into the home of the Mazikeen, not bothering to close the doors behind him.
“Quite a temper, don’t you think?” Blue Jay asked.
Kitsune nodded solemnly.
Blue Jay narrowed his gaze. “You did not answer Jenny’s question.”
Gong Gong shook himself as though to dry his ebony skin and took flight. He circled once above their heads and then found a place in the face of the wall where tree limbs grew through a hole in stone like bonsai trees on a mountainside. He perched there, and the enchanted sunlight that warmed that courtyard seemed to dim as though a cloud had passed over.