Page 9 of Beyond the Veil (Endangered Fae #4)

Chapter Four

Pooka – Classification: Omni-form fae shifter

“ S o let me go instead,” Diego said, his throat as dry as library dust.

Zack stared at him from the other side of the oak desk, the consul’s seat he’d campaigned all morning to give back to Diego. “But I thought you said—”

Diego waved a hand to prevent having his words thrown back at him. “Putting me in front of the camera as the voice of the fae is one thing. Sending me on a quiet recovery mission? That’s where I might actually be helpful.”

“But we can’t put you at risk like that.”

“First of all, the full moon’s only a week away.

Cutting it a little close if you can’t get in and out in a couple of days.

” Diego spoke gently, evenly, though he shook inside.

He wanted to go through paperwork, to read legislation and business proposals, not go out into the hostile world.

“And from everything you’ve told me, this country’s practically on an information lockdown.

If you go in officially, who knows what they’ll do?

I go in, make contact with the Swiss embassy, and if I run into trouble, I can get out. ”

“Sure, as long as you’re conscious, you could make a door and get back here. But you wouldn’t have backup. What happens if someone recognizes you? If they try to arrest you? You need to take some of the kids with you, at least.”

The kids were the Silver Adepts, who were young adults now, most of them finished graduate school. While they had their own school and research center to run, Diego understood that they had worked closely with the consulate over the past three years when Zack needed them.

“I don’t like putting them at risk.” Diego dropped his gaze to his hands. “I think I’ve done enough of that.”

“Mr. S…. Diego.” Zack came around the desk to lean against the front edge, his hand on Diego’s shoulder. “You didn’t. You have to get past that. It’s like saying it’s your fault for breaking a lamp when you’re sleepwalking.”

“It’s not. But thank you for saying so.” Diego patted the hand on his shoulder. “It’s not important. What’s important is that it’s not their job. Let me take some security with me. Should be all I need.”

“Don’t remember that I agreed to this yet.”

Diego squeezed his hand. “Who else do you have to send? Really? Zack, it can’t be you. Just by existing, you’re against the law there.”

“So are you.”

“Only if I actively practice magic. I’ve read their magical laws. It’s legal to be magically sensitive. Just not to actively engage in witchcraft and abominations resulting in witchcraft , I think was the actual language.”

Zack let out a long, slow breath. “We just got you back.”

“I won’t be gone long. If it’s an impossible situation, I’ll come back home and the Canadian government can try a different route.”

“You know this feels weird, don’t you?” Zack offered him a crooked smile. “I’ve been waiting all this time for you to come back and take charge. This is all backwards.”

Diego shook his head. “Never again.”

“But you want to come back and top from the bottom, is that it? Let me lead until you need to tell me I’m not doing it right?”

“Zack… I’m… Is that what I’m doing?”

Zack leaned back again, arms folded over his chest. “Maybe not that bad. I’m teasing.

Mostly. You’re my friend. I need you to tell me when you don’t agree with me.

And I’m freaking overjoyed that you’re enough you again to fight me when you think I’m wrong.

” The half-smile vanished. “But let me ask you this. What about Finn?”

“I suppose he’ll have to stay—”

“Hell, no. You made him a promise never to leave him behind again. Gonna break it that quick?”

That stopped Diego, heat crawling up his face. Not two days home and he was on the verge of doing just that, as if he had learned nothing in the last three years, forging ahead with his need to save the world despite what Finn thought or how it hurt him. “No. I can’t do that.”

“Good.” Zack walked back behind his desk to type as he talked. “I’ll ask him. That way, he won’t be saying yes just ’cause it’s you. If he says he’ll go, then I guess I’m out of reasons to tell you not to.”

“Fair enough.” Diego stood, feeling as if he’d forgotten something. Halfway to the door, he remembered. “Oh! About Limpet. Could we send someone to his pod? Let them know he’s okay?”

“Yep. Angus sent someone off this morning. Peregrine sidhe . Don’t remember his name.”

That was a definite dismissal, Zack’s blond brows already drawing down in concentration as he read something on his screen.

It hurt. Of course it did, to feel shunted aside like that, but it was good to see Zack so comfortable in his role.

Diego had known he was a born leader years ago, selfless and devoted, able to spot the best qualities in any human or fae and to delegate accordingly.

By now, Diego could admit that his own leadership style had been get out of the way, I’ll do it .

No matter that he’d always tried to be kind and considerate, that was how he had done things. He wasn’t a leader. He was a doer.

This he had also learned among the wild fae.

Along with so many complicated things—how to shield himself, how to hear the songs on the world’s magic flows, how to see without sight, to feel what vibrated beneath the surface, to call on only what he needed.

But in all these complex teachings, two simple things wove through them all.

The first was that Taliesin had never led.

He advised, traveled, discovered, created, but he did not lead.

In this life, this incarnation, he had forgotten that.

The second was that nothing, nothing , was worth breaking a promise to Finn. Never again.

In his excitement to be home, to be useful, he had nearly forgotten. It won’t happen again.

“Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life…”

Finn curled up in his seat, letting the reader’s soothing voice vibrate through his bones.

This machine, this little flat square with all of its hundreds of uses, was one of the best humans had ever devised.

He needed help finding what he wanted, but he could have music or listen to people argue or he could have a stranger with a beautiful voice read him a book when Diego was busy.

It certainly made flying in a blasted airplane more pleasant.

This particular book, which Diego said had a giant peach in the title, started out in quite a dreadful place, though he doubted a rhinoceros would actually eat people.

But he had enough experience of human stories to know that many were more fantastic weavings of familiar truth and fabrication than he could ever concoct.

It was most likely an interesting story, but he found it hard to concentrate.

The whole situation made his skin itch, this flying to a country where magic itself was against the law.

All the nice, sane humans he knew had assured him those days were long gone, but here they were again, the same laws that had, in his last life, cost him Diego and left Finn mutilated and quartered.

It was enough to make any self-respecting pooka want to shift to otter and hide in the reeds.

For anyone other than Diego, he would have hidden.

Oh, yes, if someone had come to him and said, “You are the only one who can get these young humans out of danger,” of course he would have gotten on the plane.

Perhaps. Unlike other fae, at least he appeared human when he wished to and Zack said his accent would lend the delegation a more ‘international’ feel, for whatever good that would do.

His passport listed him as a ‘consular officer’ and, since it was a Tearmann Island passport, made no mention of species.

Diego sat beside him, reading something official and most likely terribly boring on his lap machine.

Finn always expected the thing to act like a pet and was always disappointed when it didn’t.

A lap anything should have been something cute, furry and wriggly…

and just like that, he had completely lost the thread of the story.

With a little sigh, he turned off the book and got up to stretch his legs.

The lovely thing about a charter flight was that one had more space to move and the only other passengers were their own security.

The three regular humans sat together toward the front, talking and laughing quietly.

The fourth, Theo, sat a few seats back, alone.

Finn leaned against a chair back, head cocked to one side.

Difficult to say whether the others avoided Theo or whether he just liked being alone.

The boy’s head was down, his frown of concentration certainly not inviting conversation.

Finn slid into the seat next to him, ignoring the cold sidelong glance he received.

Theo had a piece of cloth secured in what looked to be a wooden hoop.

On it were beautiful colors, glorious skeins of fine thread, orange, red, yellow, green.

Finn leaned in closer. He was certain it was a picture, but he couldn’t quite make it out.

On the tray in front of Theo sat a container of these threads and shining—

“Don’t touch those.” Theo’s voice barely broke a whisper but the words had knife-sharp edges.

“Your pardon. I didn’t mean any offense,” Finn offered with a little seated bow as he prepared to get up to leave.

“They’re steel needles, Mr. Shannon. You’d burn yourself,” Theo murmured in a milder tone, not once glancing up from his work.

“Ah. My thanks, then.” Finn tilted his head to see the picture again. “You make art with thread. Is it like a tapestry? A hunting scene? Or is it abstract?”