War for the Oaks Read Online Free PDF Page A

seems, though by Oak and Ash I cannot say how much. But you saw how she slipped the glamour as if it were a torn net. You'll have no easy task."
    The dark man looked up at the water-woman as if he had a great deal to say and resented not being able to say it. Then he turned back to Eddi, and some of the same expression remained. "Eddi McCandry, the Seelie Court goes to war, and needs the presence of mortal blood to bring death to its enemies."
    The phrase "mortal blood" sent a shooting cold through her, but she said, "That sounded like gibberish to me."
    He hissed something under his breath. "I'll begin again. We are not human."
    She couldn't help it—she laughed. They couldn't, of course,
not
be human. Nothing else had that shape. And they couldn't possibly
be
human, because nothing human had more than one shape. They might indeed be werewolves and vampires, but she had no desire to hear them say so. She could see the seams of the world around her begin to ravel and part, and the things waiting outside to pass through the holes were at once terrible and ridiculous. It was like being tickled—an unpleasant feeling that by some perverse reflex brings on laughter. "So what are you?" she gasped.
    "We have many names," said the water-woman. "We are the Gray Neighbors, the Good People, the Strangers, the Fair Folk—"
    "The
Little
People," drawled the short, dark man.
    "Fairies," said Eddi, her laughter strangled. The resulting silence was so complete that she was afraid they'd struck her deaf.
    "Had we come to grant a favor, the sound of that name would drive us off," growled the dark man. "Use it again at your peril."
    "But that's what you are, isn't it?" Eddi turned to the water-woman. "Isn't it?"
    Slowly, the pale head inclined, the attenuated white hands with their long nails rose and turned palm up. Yes.
    Fairy tales. That was all she could remember about fairies, and asshe tried desperately to recall the ones she'd heard or read, she realized she knew of few with fairies in them. And the two before her were nothing like Rumpelstiltskin or Cinderella's fairy godmother. Elegant Oberon and Titania, silly Puck—Shakespeare was no help, either. These two, with their changing shapes and their offhand cruelties, had their roots in horror movies.
    "Are you going to kill me?" Eddi whispered. The mention of mortal blood was taking on more significance.
    "Not necessarily," replied the water-woman, as if it were a question of purely intellectual interest. "Let the phouka finish."
    "That is what my kind is called," said the dark man. "Phouka. You may call me so; it's name enough. She"—he nodded toward the woman in the pool—"is a glaistig, and so you may call her. For all that she may deny it, she and I have much in common."
    Eddi ignored the glaistig's scowl, and said to the phouka, "And you turn into a dog."
    "And a man," he grinned. When he was satisfied that he had startled her, he added smugly, "I have been credited with horse and goat as well, but I take no notice of it."
    The glaistig shook her hair irritably, and it foamed in the soft light. "So, introductions all around. These amenities will outlast dawn if I leave this to you, Dog."
    He snapped at her. The gesture was a grotesque fit for his human jaws.
    "We are of the Seelie Court, noblest blood of Faerie," the glaistig continued. "We are the guardians, the rulers"—here the phouka snorted—"and to us are reserved the sacred grounds of hill and spring, the magical herbs and trees."
    "But of course," the phouka broke in, "where there are those who think themselves noble folk, there must be some poor sod to play the commoner. . . . "
    "Dog—"
    "And in our case, we have the Unseelie Court, the most sodden lot you're like to see."
    "Am I . . . like to see?" Eddi said weakly.
    "Oh, yes. You're certain to, betimes. They've laid claim to territory of ours," he went on, in a voice edged with satire. "We've resolved to water it with their blood."

    "That's nice." Eddi felt a