new topic.
“How many magistrates have you worked for?”
His smiling expression became guarded. “A few.”
“And do you like being the, um, enforcer?”
His brow pulled into a frown and I hated that I’d put it there. “Like or dislike is irrelevant. It’s what I was created to do.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said something of the sort. What do you mean by created?”
As he sat back and drank the last of his tea, I had an opportunity to openly stare at his beauty, the masculine planes of his face, the suggestion of muscle underneath his thin pullover. The direction of my thoughts had me feeling more like a pervert than a guest for tea.
Raising his gaze to meet mine, he said, “I’m not a natural born. The fae created me, and my kind, long ago to save themselves from extinction. They’re a passionate race that doesn’t shy away from conflict, provoked or otherwise. No. That’s an understatement. If left unrestrained, they run toward conflict and revel in it.
“In brief, they were killing each other off. Their numbers were dwindling and even they came to recognize that there are better ways to spend time. Perhaps they could have developed the discipline to curb their primal impulses. But instead one of the queens, who was capable of willing a new species into being, created us to referee. It effectively put a governor on worst instincts.”
For a time, I was speechless while sorting through and editing my thoughts. I struck responses again and again before finally saying, “This is all so alien to me. I don’t know what to think, much less what to say.”
“Well,” he said as he replaced the pretty Royal Doulton cup on its saucer, “the fact that you’re not running from the building screaming is certainly a credit in your favor.”
“To be honest? I did think about it. If you’re powerful enough to stop fae wars, you must be a fearsome creature. In your alternate, um, guise.”
He stood abruptly. “Come with me. I want to show you something before it gets dark out.”
“What?”
“You’ll see, Mistress Magistrate. Be patient.”
I put one last bite of shortbread in my mouth for the road and followed him out.
“Oh,” he said, looking down. “You’re going to need the shoes. The other shoes.”
“They’re in the car.”
He walked downhill with me to where I’d left Romeo. I heard the satisfying sound of doors unlocking as I neared. I smiled at Keir. “That means he likes me.”
“Does it now,” he said indulgently, more a statement than a question.
I pulled the tote from the rear seat and changed my shoes with my back to Keir and the castle, replaced the tote then turned around to say something about how ridiculous it was to wear red glittery pumps. But what I saw caused me to gasp and step back quickly. I don’t know how far I would have traveled backward, but my shocked retreat was abruptly stopped by the very solid side of the car.
What I saw on the hill just above me, in place of the ruined pile of stones I’d explored earlier, was a castle transformed into what it must have looked like when it was newly built, complete with grounds full of flowering bushes and fruit trees heavily laden with ready-to-pick pears, apples, and oranges.
“What…?” was all I could manage. Every time I thought I had a tenuous handle on the whole the-world-isn’t-what-you-think gig, I would be blindsided by something even more impossibly impossible.
Keir looked concerned and held out his hands. “Rita. Breathe.”
“I am breathing!” I was a little angered by the insinuation that I was a shrinking violet about to faint. “I wouldn’t be talking if I wasn’t breathing.”
His face spread into a relieved-looking smile. “Right then. When you’re ready, let’s take a second tour with your senses tuned to match my kind.”
I pushed myself upright and away from the car and was gratified that my knees were holding my weight.
“Off we go then.”
I kept pace with Keir as we climbed the gentle ascent.
“Alright. Explain. What am I seeing?”
“Without the shoes you see and experience Tregeagle as a ruin. This is the version magic kind experience.” He grinned. “Hiding in plain sight, eh? Every so often the National Trust tries to buy it. That isn’t going to happen. Ever.”
“What keeps people from driving up here and wandering around on their own?”
“There’s a ward around the property that discourages Mundies from wanting to stop.”
I gave him a dubious look. “How does that work?”
“Beyond my pay grade as they