Copper Ravens(5)

“You love him that much?”

“I love him that much.”

“Well, then.” Sadie looked around the room. “Do you think Micah will let me set up a library?”

“With what books?” I countered.

“I’m sure the silverkin can get some.” She got to her feet, holding her hands together as if she were framing a scene. “All good aunts read to their nieces and nephews. Just sayin’.”

I threw the heart at her.





3

Since setting up a library was the first thing Sadie had shown any interest in here in the Otherworld, I went ahead and summoned the silverkin in order to get things started. After all, in addition to lots and lots of books, we would need shelves, tables, chairs, and a few lamps. Sadie even wanted a card catalog to keep everything organized. As if anyone besides her would be able to make heads or tails of that system.

Before long, Sadie was discussing her new library with the silverkin; she’d even made a few book wish lists, along with some fairly detailed schematics. How long has she been planning this library, anyway? While the little guys were normally quite attentive, today they were so aflutter they could hardly pay attention. After a bit of questioning, I learned why the silverkin were so agitated—Max had returned to the manor while Micah and I were at the Gathering of the Heavies and had brought his typical path of destruction home with him. Since we had entered via the garden door and taken the back stairs to our chamber, we’d avoided the mess Max had created.

The mess in question did not sit well with the silverkin’s leader, an energetic little fellow I called Shep, short for Shepherd. He’s forever inciting his flock of ’kin to scrub harder, faster, and more efficiently. He has no qualms about kneeling down to clean off the soles of your shoes while you’re still wearing them. He’d scrub under my toenails if I let him.

Shep and the rest of the silverkin had truly met their match in my brother, the epitome of slovenliness. Max typically trudged home in the dark of night, tracking mud, branches, and other filthy things across Shep’s shining floors. Once, he’d even brought home a clutch of boggarts, easily the ickiest creatures in the Otherworld. They ranged in size from chihuahua to bull terrier, though boggarts walked upright, and tended toward mud-brown pelts, long pointy snouts and ears, and enormous bellies; that last bit was because they ate everything in sight, regardless of whether it was actually food. And, they stank something fierce.

Shep had barred the doors to the kitchens and the larder, which didn’t go over too well with the clutch. In retaliation, the boggarts had immediately claimed the front sitting room as their own. They were a pain in every sense of the word, from their insistence that Max had won them, fair and square, and that they needed to stay close to their leader, to the skinned knee I’d suffered as we herded them into the garden. Boggarts are not indoor pets.

It turned out that Max hadn’t actually won the boggarts. In reality, he’d lost a rather epic bout of gambling and, unable to pay his debts (again), had been cursed. It was Mom who had detected the curse, and Mom who had known the proper way to reverse it. Then she had to re-curse the boggarts with short-term amnesia, since we couldn’t very well have a band of scruffy beasts trolling about the Otherworld, claiming that they had seen a Fairy Queen living in the Whispering Dell, and one who should have been long since dead, at that.

With a sigh, I eyed the evidence of Max’s latest revels. The front door had several long scrapes in it, the atrium was trashed, and there was mud on the ceiling. The ceiling. At least we hadn’t found any boggarts, or other beasties, hiding in the corners or under a chair. Yet.

And where was the one responsible for this mess? Max, true to form, was snoring away on the couch, muddy boots propped up on the cushions, while Shep directed the silvery cleanup crew. I looked on in awe, amazed that my brother was such a jerk. A filthy, inconsiderate jerk. I mean, he could at least have the common decency to look ashamed. Awake and ashamed.

Although the way Mom had described Dad’s younger days, I was fathered by the very same sort of jerk. Intrigued, I left Sadie with the silverkin and went in search of Mom. She’d come in from the gardens and was taking her tea in the kitchen, oblivious to the chaos in the front of the manor. I sat beside her and grabbed a scone.

“Was Dad ever as bad as Max?” I began. Mom nearly blew out her tea.

“Oh, Beau was much worse,” Mom replied. “Give Max time, though. He’s still new at raising hell.” I smiled as I worried at my scone, reducing its tasty goodness to a heap of crumbs.

“What if…what if you find a man who isn’t so fiery?” I asked.