Page 1 of The Fae Menagerie
Chapter
One
DOYLE
A tugon my consciousness called to me through time and space. I was being summoned. I had no choice but to follow.
Thankfully, viewing hours were over, so they wouldn't punish me for leaving when they inevitably pulled me back. I hoped.
Not that it mattered, either way. I was being summoned!
I hadn't visited the human realm since … I couldn't remember. The time before my stint in the menagerie was a strange fever dream to me now.
Humans had forgotten our songs, fairy rings, and ways ages ago, even before their industrial revolution. I'd assumed they'd forgotten my name, as well. My mother had cried over tomes hidden in musty cellars and shored up our sacred places with stone walls, never to see the light of day.
I'd been too caught up in my own worries at the time to fret over a few walls, but now, it seemed incredibly important to continue the old ways, including summoning. If I ever broke free of my prison, I would reclaim our ritual places and restore the mystique around our names.
Still, someone knew my name, my full name! It had been eons. I couldn't even remember all of it. I'd been going by Doyle so long it had stuck.
The call from the human realm echoed in my ears and pulled me toward it."Gart'heen Tuathan Dashalik Mehalinae Doy'al'ini de Anthousai. I summon you."
Ah, yes. That was it. That gobbledygook was my name. I rushed toward the voice.
I'd expected a forgotten fairy ring in the middle of a forest far outside habitation, or maybe a rehabilitated circle in a city park. Instead, the call pulled me inside a structure made of iron and brick, more claustrophobic than the menagerie glass. I'd expected it to be protected by fae wards. Instead, the ring was encased in objects foreign and harmful to the fae. My only entrance was through the circle itself, up through the ground.
Needless to say, I was filthy when I finally clawed my way through to the human realm, and mad as a pixie in a wasp fight.
Pixies and wasps? Mortal enemies. Wasps won the war in the human realm, while pixies conquered the fae realm and banished the remaining wasps. The fae realm was better for it, by far.
This was no time for history lessons. I needed my wits about me.
The place to which I was summoned stank of mildew and decay. The circle of mushrooms in this dank place lived off carcasses. Offerings, I realized, because there was no way the mushrooms grew here on their own in a perfect fae-summoning formation. Weirder still, an altar with a beast made of mirrors stood before me. I brushed some of the dirt off my myriad reflections before turning to take in the scene.
I smelled … humans. One, to be exact. I sniffed in his direction. No hint of fae blood. How had he activated the circle?
I glanced down, hoping to find something good for my offering. To summon a fae to do his bidding, this human would need to provide a boon. I hoped for an item that would give me a bit of freedom before my menagerie warden, Aidan, dragged me back to finish my sentence. Aidan could call me to my cell in this same way, using my name to imprison me once more.
I found nothing within the confines of the spell circle, not even a freshly dead carcass. Why had my prison cell allowed me to answer the call for nothing? This was cruel and unusual punishment. While the humans despised such treatment, the fae relished it. Somewhere, Aidan was laughing at my poor luck.
"Who summons me?" I asked. "What is your name?"
My summoner was a tall man with reddish-brown hair and gangly limbs. He wasn't ugly, per se, but he looked overdone, as though he tried too hard. Too much product in his hair. Too much shine to his face. Too many creases in the front placket of his pants.
Gods, how I missed wearing pants. I was still in my menagerie robe, a garment made from burlap with an opening in the back for my wings. It stung where it rubbed against my skin, and I hated it. I was going to hate it more than usual for the rest of this week. Freshly washed this morning, it was now covered with gross stains I had to suffer until the next washday.
Wait. I couldn't lie, not even to myself, and my body violently recognized my inability to change clothes as a lie. My stomach churned and head ached until I faced reality.
I was no longer enclosed in my glass prison. I could access my magic inside this barrier within the human realm. I wasn't powerful enough to break the spell holding me within the circle, and the ceiling wasn't high enough for me to fly above it, but I could make my accommodations a little friendlier.
I snapped my fingers, and the dirt disappeared. I snapped again and replaced my prison garb with a pair of buttery denimjeans fit for a fae prince and a t-shirt I'd loved the last time I'd visited. The band name was some royalty or other. The image of a phoenix hovering over a crab, two lions and two fae princesses gazing lovingly at a crown always made me feel seen in a human world that often ignored us. My hat was off to the artist, whoever they were. The soft shirt caressed my now hidden wings, and I sighed with contentment.
"Name?" I asked again.
"Bret, Sir."
"Sir is not a last name." I hoped. It had been so long since I'd been free to travel to the human realm. Things might have changed. I couldn't infer the passage of time from the man's ill-fitting off-the-rack suit. "And you usually have middle names. More than one."
"Only one, Sir. Bret Simon Lloyd."
