I sat in the music room playing on a hang drum that Uncle Anthony had gotten for me. It was able to make some amazing music, but I hadn’t come close to mastering it yet. I wasn’t certain that taking another huge chunk of steel into Fairy was such a good idea. With all the odd gear we had been moving to Fairy, the manor house was going to be poison to Fairies. We still had shipments coming to the house, but for the most part, we had moved everything to Fairy.

Mr. Hebert’s resonant junk collection had mostly been moved. Not everything resonated when thumped, but Mr. Hebert said that sound was the slow resonance and that others mattered as much or more.

Without power for the pumps, I couldn’t move all the fish yet. I was going to miss this place. The freezers were going to arrive the next day, and I expected to have quite a bit of summoning to move them all into Fairy and in place. Day after that was the Goblin Music Festival. Hopefully, I could find someone to answer summons so I could take care of some business in Fairy and still see most of the festival.

#

I was sailing through shadow and had just turned from Leidingstad to go up the hill to the manor house. A pair of figures were crouched in the bushes under a tree. I slid into the shadows up in the tree to see what they were doing.

Hiding beneath me were the man who came at me with the poker and his wife. I stayed in shadow and listened.

“No, I have it on excellent authority that he died of gossamer poisoning, so this little bit of steel should be all it takes to kill him.”

His wife asked, “Won’t they track the crime back to us?”

He said, “The manor house is so heavily warded that the psychic impressions will dissipate quickly. Our Fairy king comes and goes, but eventually he’ll go to bed, then it’ll be goodbye, Fairy king.”

His wife said, “The place is warded, and we no longer have the key. How are we getting in?”

The caretaker said, “Since I set the wards, I made sure I had a way past them.”

She said, “Clever plan. Is it dark enough yet?”

He said, “Just in case, here is the plan. I pull back a brick and expose a hole that goes right through to the manor house. If thou fly in low and even, thou canst fold thy wings and go right through the hole. A carefully laid illusion takes away light, so the hole won’t be obvious from the other side. The wards will prevent detection that it’s an illusion, so it hides the hole, and it is hidden.

“Here’s the trick to getting in—thou hast to go fast. Don’t dawdle, or thou could get stuck in the wall between the wards. So, remember, the ward keeps thee from going in under your own power, but if thou art already up to speed, thou canst sail right through it and end up in the yard outside the manor.”

They flew as birds up the hill, and he took a stone brick out of the wall to the manor. They turned back into birds, circled, then one flew into the crack followed by the other.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I heard a loud thump and then another. Beautiful sparks drifted up from the other side of the wall. I looked over the wall. There were two scorch marks on the side of the stainless-steel tank.

Inside the house, I went down to the basement. Just down the stairs, a spring outlet ran into a few small pools. They looked like they were intended for swimming, but they were cold enough to cool a watermelon in. In one of the rooms, I’d made a steel chamber to keep Mr. Hebert’s resonant junk in. Mr. Hebert had drawn a plan for another room to store food in. I sat down in the middle of the room.

I didn’t think I’d killed the caretaker and his wife. They were planning on murdering me. But, if I hadn’t entered their home, or if I hadn’t shown up, they wouldn’t be dead. I considered authority and didn’t like it one bit. By becoming a king, which had never been a goal of mine, dream of mine, or something I even casually considered, I had become someone who would probably make decisions that caused deaths to happen. Kings are killers.

I thought about Duchess Bye-bye and the group around her. I got up and went out to the yard. I summoned Lord Lodestone. “Lodestone, canst thou visit me?”

He appeared before me. “Gladly, my liege.”

I said, “Two people died. The caretaker of this manor and his wife.”

He stared at the large steel tanks.

I gestured for him to follow me. I opened the door beside the gate and led him to where the stone brick had been pulled out of the hole. “He had a secret way in. He was going to try and kill me in my sleep, but instead he ran into the steel on the other side of the wall.”

Lord Lodestone said, “When a new king shows up, or when there is an opening for a new king, all who want things the way they were and all who side with a different lord they want as king become traitors. When a man doest raise arms, pour poison, or even stir up the populace against the one who eventually becomes king, that man becomes a traitor. Even if their intent was to protect their homeland, they become traitors the moment they actively support the wrong man who would be king. Death becomes their just fate the moment their side fails.”

I asked, “Do they deserve death? Death seems a bit much.”

Lord Lodestone asked, “How many will die, and how much will a kingdom lose when the fight over a ruler continues? Even when a man rebels against a tyrant, he must know that the penalty for failure is death.”

I said, “I don’t think I want to be a king.”

Lord Lodestone said, “Much too late for thee to escape this. Thou will be king material even after death. Thy existence would cause any other king to fear thee. Thou doest have another problem. This Fairyland is half-way to being a hell. Those that die here have a habit of returning. Unless their spark was just for show, the caretaker and his wife could possibly come back.”

I looked out at the lightly wooded hillside. “Should I worry about bringing friends here?”

He shook his head. “There is a chance that the caretaker and his wife will not return. He was made a caretaker because he was too talented to give up on, but too lazy to ever do anything worthwhile. The lazy often fade away as the circle turns. The hateful often slide to a hell that is more appropriate for them. If they hold onto hatred, that often happens. If, however, the spirit remains and delights in malevolent behavior and wishes to pursue thee, thy friends will not be entirely safe wherever thou or they go. But thou doest have a strong defense against such beings.”

I asked, “My rooster form?”

He nodded. “If they commit to being malevolent spirits, thy cry would seal their fate.”

I asked, “Is there no safety?”

He smiled. “There is, but not for thee. Thou canst create safety, but the price is knowing that safety is for those thou doest care about. Never for thee. As rough as thy noble court may seem, they allow for finer things to thrive. There are folk here that have dwelt in peace for a thousand years, so the duchess has done well for those who live in these villages and fear her.”

I crouched by the wall and picked up the stone brick. It fit neatly in the hole.