alcove
by Tessi.
Beneath the Willow Tree
Chapter 1 - The misfit elf
Oftentimes, coexistence between humans and elves relied solely on the concept of humans keeping to themselves while elves graciously wandered about, whimsical blurs of gleaming skin and hair like smoke, free but not interfering enough that mortals would worry for their own safety.
That's why, to move into the village where her parents had left her an estate to inherit upon their parting, Nico purchased some of the most expensive transfiguration potions in the country, so as to make sure the humans wouldn’t be able to recognize her elf blood. The magic dimmed the silvery tone on her cheekbones, erased some of her eyes’ natural sparkle and, admittedly, disturbed her posture more than she’d care to accept. A necessary evil, it was, for her to mingle and not be ultimately feared—and greatly detested—for her heritage.
To Nico’s great amazement, humans flocked to her like bees to honey the moment she set foot into the garden of her inherited estate, maintaining neutrality at the sight of flowers overblooming in her presence. Many of the village people stood waiting outside her doors while she hauled her bags onto her mother’s old dusty mattress and glanced around, biting her lower lip and attempting to reimagine a place so wide being filled at her whim, while a few days ago she lived constantly between a potion brewer’s kitchen, bathroom and boiling room.
It was quite common in Elferi for parents to abandon children to their own devices and yet allow them to inherit. . . well, everything. In Nico’s case, that meant she was transferred from cleaning boilers for magicians to ‘oh, that’s right, she has an ounce of noble blood’ when her parents passed. And now all of this was hers, and she could not begin to imagine how to settle.
That first evening, starlit skies bathed the world in a soft glow, and Nico stepped outside after taking a deep breath to greet her new neighbors. Many names were introduced, many professions stated—‘Did you know I worked for the Queen a few years back? Before she had the face-altering potion done,’ to which Nico inwardly said, ‘No, I wasn’t aware, seeing as we hadn’t met until five minutes ago, but that’s lovely to know, Mrs. Astoria’—and by the end of it, Nico thanked their warm welcome and explained away her need to go back inside as tiredness from a long day. By the time the door closed behind her, she sank to the floor, burying her face into her hands.
She hoped none of them had noticed the shimmering in the spell holding her disguise together, itching at the tips of her ears. The last thing she needed was for humans to start wondering why, of all people, their newest neighbor had the strangest ears.
Weeks went by, and Nico was positively surprised to learn that, once her neighbors realized she wouldn’t magically transform their lives and distribute wealth in the streets, they mostly left her alone. She would wave to them in the morning while walking to the lake, and they would wave back, sometimes even greet her by saying, ‘Have a wonderful day, Nico!’ and she would oddly feel comforted by those wishes. As though, even if in passing, she belonged in the quietness of being wished well.
Likewise, she began to form small, considerate habits of her own. Elves were mostly cold creatures, barely sparing each other a glance in moments of distress, not quite their nature as much as a social convention that suited their own selfish interests rather well.
In that sense, Nico was quite defective.
For most of her life, she’d care far too much, a stark contrast to her peers. Her parents had abandoned her at an Elferi fair, disappearing from sight like a glimpse of a dream taken by the wind. Many Elferi children would cry momentarily, then proceed to ask around for shelter until, eventually, a store owner or a wealthy family would pick them up and mold them to their taste. Nico, on the other hand, sobbed and yelled in sadness for hours on end. She was told she’d been abandoned. She was then brought to a healer and was delivered a heavy dosage of a sedative potion. When she woke up, she was already at the potion brewer’s home, and her chores were all listed out for her.
She was five.
Amongst humans, surprisingly, it seemed her heightened emotions were no concern, for humans felt even more roughly than she did. One time, a few weeks after moving in, she heard wailing from her next-door-neighbor—an elf’s hearing was everlasting excellent—and rushed into her kitchen, boiled peppermint tea and brought it outside. She found her neighbor, a girl of around eighteen human years, sat by her porch, sobbing into her hands. Seated on either side of her were two other human girls Nico had never met.
Slowly, she approached, and with an awkward smile she greeted, “Good morning, Olivia. Is everything alright? I brought you tea.”
Olivia’s friends looked up first. They appeared to be around the same age as their weeping friend, and for a moment Nico’s usual nerves convinced her that they would find something wrong with her. Was it not usual for humans to comfort each other? Would it have been better to simply leave her, and perhaps ask about it later, in a nonchalant manner?
Through her pondering, one of Olivia’s friends said, “That’s very nice of you. Nico, right? Liv mentioned someone had moved into the abandoned estate in the village.”
Without letting her tears cease, Olivia elbowed her friend in the ribs. She let out an exclamation in response.
“The abandoned estate?” Nico repeated, cocking her head to the side. Then it hit her that she was still just standing there, holding a now-cooling cup of peppermint tea. She stepped forward and stretched out her hands to offer it to Olivia’s friend, the quiet one, who took it and nodded in gratitude.
“Before you moved in, people called your house ‘the abandoned estate’, because not even the oldest folks in the village recall ever having witnessed anyone living in it,” Olivia’s friend explained, flinching the moment she finished, like she was expecting Olivia to elbow her again. When nothing happened, she continued, “I’m Beatrice, by the way, but all my friends call me Bea. And this is Genevieve.”
The quiet friend, Genevieve, waved gently.
“I’ve been friends with Olivia since we were children, and Gen, for a little over six years. We come by often, and the rumors are. . . colorful,” Beatrice rambled on, and Nico suppressed the urge to grin. It was quite common for elves to purchase residences amidst humans, not to be wasteful, but to be ‘sure’. ‘If one day I need it,’ they would say. Yet most of them soon forgot all about those properties, which was how abandoned children like Nico inherited untouched homes like that.
Humans didn’t have to know that, though. It was fun, she supposed, to at least keep some of the mystery. To believe herself and her blood mythical elements in nature rather than cruel jokes of fate.
“Well, I suppose now that it is no longer an abandoned estate, there will be fewer colorful rumors,” Nico said calmly.
“Or more, if they start asking themselves why now of all times, you know?” Beatrice chimed in. This time, Olivia kicked her in the shin, and she let out a cry of complaint, reaching to massage her own skin. “Can you go back to crying and stop being violent for a minute?”
Through tears, Olivia let out a soft huff of laughter at that. Genevieve squeezed her shoulder and smiled kindly as well, and even Beatrice, despite the aggressions, chuckled in fondness while glancing over them.
Friendship unlike anything elves knew, as far as Nico was concerned.
Most relationships in Elferi were rooted in practicality. Nico lived under tutelage of the potion brewer for over twenty years, and not once did they sit down for a warm cup of coffee and discuss the meaning of life—or the funny outfit the human Lord came in wearing that morning, or the weather, or anything, for that matter. Even marriages between elves grew their most solid footing on mutual benefit rather than love.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia murmured, accepting the cup from Genevieve’s hands and curling her fingers around it. “I have just been broken up with, and I must look like a mess.”
She did—from an Elferi point of view and a human point of view alike. Her curly, long red hair was mussled, some of it falling over her face, and her green irises disappeared below the redness of her eyes. Tear stains marked her cheekbones, and her voice was hoarse.
And yet all Nico said was, “You look fine to me.”
Olivia let out a weak, surprised laugh. “You’re kind. Thank you, Nico. For the tea, and for being kind.”
Later that night, Nico lay on her roof, glancing up at the stars and wondering how many other of her little quirks were considered to be kind—and how deeply that failure in elf behavior had interfered with her hesitance to interact with anyone at all her entire life. These past few weeks, living at this village, she had surely contributed to more conversations than in all twenty-seven years of her life before. And she found she did not hate it.
Chapter 2 - Seraphina
Over two months after Nico’s relocation to her parents’ inherited estate, she woke up to an uproar right at the edge of her front yard.
At first, the idea that a group of people had reunited to speak to her sent a cold shiver down her stomach. She had grown accustomed to life in the village. Grown to like it, even. If they were to suddenly learn of her Elferi lineage and reject her, she thought, it would hurt far more now than it would have two months ago.
Fortunately—or not quite so—the crowd had nothing to do with her. They just happened to be reunited at the entrance of her house because, of all places, it had been the only one not yet searched.
“Sephy is missing?” Nico asked the second they finished explaining their urgencies to her.
Sephy, or Seraphina, was an eight-year-old Nico would often offer pastries to. With her dark silk hair, vivid brown skin and big, round copper eyes, Sephy was the entire village’s treasure. The other kids swarmed together wherever she went, always carefree and happy, and the adults would call her in and sneak small pieces of food between her closed chubby hands whenever given the chance.
She was also an orphan.
When she was two, both her parents passed, and she would have been sent to an orphanage—except the villagers decided she wouldn’t.
“You kidnapped her?” Nico had exclaimed the day Olivia told her the story.
Olivia shushed her. “No. No. We didn’t—it wasn’t kidnapping, alright? We just sent the paperwork and everything and paid the orphanage to say she was there. And then we just. . . kept her."
“That’s kidnapping, Olivia!”
According to Mrs. Astoria, Sephy’s guardian was an old man named Mr. Eldric, one of the village’s wisest and kindest souls. He had been the one to find Sephy, and he offered to take her in once their very much doubtful plan succeeded, and Sephy’s room and belongings all lived in his house.
Sephy, on the other hand, was everyone’s. She would come back home by evening hiding sweets and snacks on the folds of her clothing—Olivia told Nico that, every once in a while, Sephy would show up with an Elferi delicacy, and while Mr. Eldric insisted that whoever had spent that much on her would come forward to be repaid, no one ever did. It seemed, whatever they did for her, they did selflessly.
And now that spot of light right at the center of their village’s heart was missing.
“How long has she been missing for?” Nico asked, rubbing at her arm.
“A few hours.” It was Penelope, Mrs. Astoria’s teenage daughter, who chimed in. “Mr. Eldric woke up this morning and she was gone. He went to sleep late—at least we know for sure she was in bed last night.”
Nico’s brows knit while the engines in her head began to race. Sephy might be an intelligent and quite creative child, but it was hard to believe she would simply wake up in the middle of the night and wander off. Meaning. . .
“Someone took her from the house.”
Every pair of eyes shot towards the voice coming from Nico’s left-door neighbor's front yard. Leander, an alchemist, a little over thirty-five years old—or so Nico supposed; it was not her style to ask such impolite questions, after all—could also have been called the village’s least likely inhabitant. Not only because of his cold and pragmatic demeanor, but also because. . . well, he behaved the way Nico felt. Alien.
Leander’s features were striking, especially for a human. His jaw was cut sharp, his hair was cut short. His eyes were eerily brown, and once or twice Nico briefly wondered if there was any possibility for him to also be an elf in disguise—a thought swiftly discarded when she learned he’d lived in the same place his entire life, despite his lack of appreciation for it, and not once had anyone ever suspected anything. She was only there for a few months, and yet she’d lost count of how many close calls she’d faced.
Olivia’s voice broke through Nico’s reasoning when she scoffed. “How very hopeful of you, Leander.”
“Would you like to find her, or would you like to be hopeful, kid?”
“I’m not a kid,” Olivia shot back. “And you’re not in charge here. Sephy doesn’t even like you.”
A low blow, Nico would admit, the moment she caught the slight movement of Leander’s jaw ticking. She would have rathered not to go there, but despite all of their friendliness, she wasn’t yet close enough to Olivia to explicitly ask her not to cross lines justified by their collective stress.
“Let’s all settle down for a moment,” Mrs. Astoria pleaded, glancing around at the gathering crowd. There were over fifteen people forming a disorganized circle at the patch of street they’d originally begun discussing in, and evidently soon enough the numbers would do more harm than good.
Now, Nico might have been new to the village, but a few perks being an elf did provide her. One of them was heightened senses—and therefore, sharp skills of both observation and absorption. The entire village loved Sephy dearly, but there were only a few people who knew her well enough that their presence would help, not delay them.
“I understand we’re all nervous,” Nico started. A chill ran down her spine when every single person stopped talking and looked back at her. Her hands became clammy, and she hoped, for all that was good, that she’d taken enough of the transfiguration potion when rushing out of bed just a little while ago. “Maybe we should split up? See if we can find anything in groups, try to reconvene here after? Olivia, Mrs. Astoria, would you like to come in? I’ll make us some tea, and we can discuss properly once we’ve all, like Mrs. Astoria said, ‘settled down.’”
Murmurs followed. Initially, Nico feared she might have overstepped, attempting to regain control of the situation while being so new. However, a few moments later, under grumbled breaths, the villagers began to regroup and make way for each other to disperse.
Nico let out a quiet sigh of relief. She stepped aside and gestured for Olivia, Mrs. Astoria and Penelope to accompany her inside. She caught, from the corner of her eye, Leander still standing there, leaning back against a tree trunk, watching her with hawk-like precision.
Wordlessly, he lifted a hand and touched the tip of his ear. Then he turned and walked back into his house, slamming the door shut.
For a moment, Nico stared and frowned, confused. Realization didn’t quite hit her—it sank, slithering down the walls of her stomach, twisting at her gut. She lifted her hand and trembling fingertips grazed the tip of her ear.
Sharp. Undisguised. Flickering between elf and human.
A few moments later, she felt it return to its normal disguise form, human through and through once again. Except now the seed of concern had bloomed into a flower powerful enough to swallow her from the inside out—and most importantly, and most terrifyingly. . .
Leander had seen it.
Chapter 3 - The. . . return?
Nico poured three cups of lavender tea for her guests, a lump in her throat the whole time while she made it, her body so taut with tension she didn’t even wince when the scorching water grazed her wrist.
This might be the end of everything, and she had just invited three humans into her house to talk for who-knows-how-long rather than figure out a way to buy—or persuade—Leander’s silence.
A silence, she might say, which unsettled her far more than any direct threat. Regardless of her heightened emotions, she was still only an elf, born in a world of elves, raised amongst them. She could learn human concepts in a heartbeat, but in order to do so, said concepts would have to be presented upon her first. She couldn’t make sense of an unnamed, untaught emotion.
And Leander’s quiet warning—it felt unnamed in the worst way.
“Sephy wouldn’t have just gotten up in the middle of the night and gone wandering,” Olivia was saying, her voice low and resigned, by the time Nico offered the three of them the cups of tea. “I don’t like to say it, but Leander’s right. Something’s off.”
“Mr. Eldric says there were no signs of forced entry, though,” Penelope argued, her brows furrowing. “And, what, somebody walks in, sneaks into Sephy’s room without making a sound, steals her away without her struggling, and leaves no clue behind?”
“Do we know that for certain?” Nico asked.
Their attention fell onto her.
She cleared her throat and tried again, “Do we know for certain that there are no clues? When Mr. Eldric told you guys about Sephy’s disappearance, did anyone follow him into the house to check?”
“I—no, we didn’t. We just trusted his word,” Penelope replied, a snappy character to her tone that suggested she’d taken Nico’s words with the wrong sort of implication.
“I’m not saying he shouldn’t be trusted,” Nico explained softly. “He’s old. He wakes up, and the child he’s supposed to be a guardian for is missing. He’s not going to crouch and feel the ground for footprints. But just because he can’t, it doesn’t mean no one should.”
Penelope began to argue, but her mother squeezed her arm in reprehension, and she fell silent. Olivia, on the other hand, tapped her chin with her forefinger and looked up at the ceiling, pondering.
“Nico has a point,” She conceded. “Maybe, if we ask Mr. Eldric, he’ll let us take a look around the house. It’s the least we can do, seeing as. . . well. We have no other leads.”
Nico’s elf blood was telling her they were blowing things out of proportion, and she had her qualms with the words ‘we have no other leads’ when they hadn’t, truly, searched for any—but a tug of sympathy at her heartstrings allowed her a less clouded judgement. They were all worried. This was all they could do in order to feel useful, to hope they would find Sephy and bring her back.
Nico herself hadn’t quite wrapped her head around the suddenness of it. Just last afternoon, she’d slipped Sephy some pastries she’d purchased from the bakery at the further end of the village, and now the little girl was missing, and so abruptly there had been no time to prepare or fear that it would happen first.
Finally they settled on speaking to Mr. Eldric. According to Mrs. Astoria, he hadn’t been there at the gathering earlier because he wasn’t feeling well, and some of the children had helped him back into bed. They agreed on not disturbing him for another hour, and if he wasn’t all-better by the end of said deadline, they would politely ask his permission to search for clues.
Of course, every single one of their words and plans formed within twenty torturous minutes inside Nico’s estate came crashing down—and quite frankly, drenched in the universe’s dry humor—when they stepped outside and heard, “She’s back! Sephy’s back!”
Which meant, essentially, two things. One, that Nico had just withstood twenty minutes of locking her jaw and glancing at her own ear out of the corner of her eye every few moments for nothing. Two, that their village now held the prize for most fruitless and anticlimactic missing persons case in history.
Suspicion rose within Nico’s throat like bony fingers wrapping on her vocal chords from the inside. She followed streams of villagers down to Mr. Eldric’s house—and, well, sure enough. Right on the front yard, Mr. Eldric knelt next to an excited, bright-eyed, smiley. . . Sephy.
Nico rolled her eyes so hard the gesture reverberated through her, and a few thorns on the roses underneath her feet, adorning the garden, rose to prickle her ankle. She kicked them back down.
A shadow walked past her, and Nico tensed up when she realized it was Leander, headed towards Sephy. Before he reached her, however, he looked back at Nico, then his eyes flickered down to the crushed thorns before he gazed away.
Nico wasn’t sure how much more of this human silent passive-aggressiveness she would be able to take, never mind that it had just begun.
Her focus shifted when the villagers began flooding little Sephy with questions.
“Where were you, sweetheart?”
“Are you hurt, Sephy? Let me see.”
“How did you come back? Did anyone help you?”
It was surprising that Sephy could simply stay there, looking up at them wide-eyed, instead of running away at the overwhelming avalanche of inquiries raining down on her. They were all cut short, however, when Leander stood to Mr. Eldric’s side and asked, his voice leveled and authoritative, “Are those willow leaves on your legs, Seraphina?”
Like magic, Sephy blanched. She looked back at Leander, the half-murderous glare in such an adorable set of features more comedic than legitimately concerning. At least, until the contents of Leander’s question sank, and Nico’s heart sank with them.
For Weeping Willow Trees were Elferi’s favorite trees.
Leander crouched down to Sephy’s eye level and offered his hand. She drew her arm back, a pout forming on her lips, her expression betrayed by him.
“Sephy,” He said, gentler. The other villagers stood still. Nico saw Olivia frown and Mrs. Astoria cover her own mouth with her hands. “Was it an elf who took you?”
“He didn’t take me,” Sephy answered. Then stopped, eyes enlarged, when she realized what she’d let slip out.
And suddenly the uproar from that morning couldn’t compare to the village’s reaction once they all understood what she meant.
Chapter 4 - Elves (are not our friends)
The unanimous decision was to assemble at Nico’s estate.
“It’s the biggest estate in the village,” Olivia explained, clasping her hands together, as though the decision had already been made, and now all Nico could possibly do was accept it. Which, she supposed, she ought not to have been surprised by, considering those people had done far worse than inviting themselves over before she even met them. Sephy’s first and original kidnapping being the only one she knew about but surely not the only mess to have truly ensued.
There were thirty people now, gathered in her house. Nico’s nerves had burst and melded back together at least five times so far, and she needed at least some breathing space. She accommodated her uninvited guests in the living room—a wide, high-ceiled room, which she’d only bothered to fill with a four-seat sofa and an armchair, everyone else having to either stand or sit cross-legged on the ground—and left them to their own devices, Sephy at the very center, while excusing herself to rummage her drawers for more tea, closing the kitchen door and leaning her back against it.
Nico took a deep breath. She was fine. Everything was fine. Despite her somewhat muddled thoughts, especially at the knowledge that Sephy’s disappearance was now a tangled Elferi mess, she had to remind herself nothing had gone wrong for her quite yet. No one knew. She was safe.
She stepped away from the door for one moment, and it was enough for it to open and for someone to slip in. By the time she spun to request gently that she be left alone for this, she froze, and her breath caught in her throat.
“Leander,” She spoke, slowly.
He clicked the door shut behind him with his feet, his eyes on hers, his head slightly cocked to the side.
“You’re. . .” He started, dragging the word, somehow screeching it right against the side of Nico’s temple, where a headache had begun to grow. Finally, he let out a soft huff of laughter. “Wow, you’re terrible at this.”
And all of a sudden, Nico was no longer scared. She was offended.
“Excuse me?”
“You. Are. Terrible. At. This.” Leander said, the emphasis punched on each word only heightening Nico’s irritation. He raised a hand as if meaning to touch her ear, and she recoiled, frowning at him. He rolled his eyes at her reaction. “I’m not going to touch you, you prickly thing. Your. . . glamour or whatever is waning.”
Glamour. He had just called her very expensive potion solution a glamour. Nico almost wanted to laugh, although unsure of whether in amusement or exasperation. She marched to the window and caught her reflection in it, and sure enough—the ends of her ears perked up, sharp, and her skin lost its pinkness, turning silvery underneath. Her pupils shrank, leaving the impression of pale white eyes behind.
Evidently, the one part she hadn’t bothered to check on the potion brewer’s instructions label in the vial was that being nervous, or allowing for discomfort, would affect the magic and perhaps even blemish it altogether.
“Well?” Leander said.
Nico didn’t turn. She swallowed, still staring, fixated, at herself on the glass’ surface. A way to get the potion without having to show Leander her face. A way to slip by without him seeing her for what she truly was—a way to get upstairs without having to cross the living room and risking every single human in the village gasping in horror.
She heard footsteps behind her and panicked. “Don’t!”
She hadn’t turned, but she listened when he halted. Frozen, he stood still, and Nico gripped the sink and leaned forward, trying to think. Her black hair curtained her face, the strands slowly starting to darken, dipped in midnight blue, so straight it felt like flowing water down her skin.
“What is it?” Leander asked. He was using that tone again—the gentle one he’d used with Sephy.
Nico let out a quiet breath. “You know. But you haven’t seen it, alright? This way, we can at the very least pretend you’re not aware. Or you can name your price and I’ll pay it.”
“Do you truly think this is going to change anything? If I wanted something from you, I would’ve asked for it.”
“You keep taunting me.”
“Oh, please. I was warning you. Like I said, you’re terrible at—”
“THIS!” She turned. Her frustration arose to her throat, and she didn’t think. In a sudden move she had twirled and stood looking up at him through white eyes, her unnaturally soft jaw clenched, her pointed teeth peaking out.
Leander stopped, admittedly and visibly shocked. Even for a serious and detached man like him, seeing an elf up close for the first time—and it was the first time, Nico could tell—had to be a shocking experience. There was a sort of otherworldliness to her, and she knew so because, to her, there was an otherworldliness to humans. There always had been. The key difference lay in how dangerous each unique trait made them, and hers definitely made her the predator in that situation, although nothing could be farther from the truth.
All she’d wanted had been to fit in—to belong, even where she didn’t.
She knew he could have moved on from knowing but not seeing—but gazing upon her elf form was final. She was doomed, now, and she could blame it on her defective intense emotions, quite like most issues in her life.
And then, instead of taking a step back, Leander took a step forward.
“How do you keep the disguise up?” He asked. His voice carried a gentleness unlike the tone from before. It felt like he was frightened, not of her, but for her, and Nico wasn’t sure how to wrap her head around it. “Is there a spell book? An herb?”
“A potion,” She murmured, frowning in confusion.
“Where do you keep it? How can I find it?”
“Why?”
Leander sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Obviously, because I’ll get it for you. Is that an elf thing? Being so incredibly suspicious of everything? And the people in this village call me a recluse.”
Nico’s white eyes narrowed. “I have lived here for two months and I have seen you four times. Two times today.”
“Do your teeth hurt you?”
“Obviously, my teeth don’t hurt me. Why would my teeth hurt me?”
“They are, well. . . sharp.”
“Pointed. They’re pointed. And no, they don’t hurt me. What kind of creature is so badly created it hurts itself?”
“Humans,” he said. They stood still for a moment, looking at each other, and it took the slight tug in the corner of his lips for Nico to realize he’d meant that as a joke.
“Ha, ha,” She tried.
Leander rolled his eyes. “You could just say it isn’t funny.”
“Fine. It isn’t funny.”
“Where do you keep the potion?”
“Bedside table. Upstairs, the first room.”
“Are there multiple rooms?” He asked, lifting his right brow.
Nico shrugged. “Elves come across human resources fairly easily.”
“How very privileged. Just so you know, if you come out without any cups of tea, there will be some very angry villagers waiting to face your human form,” He stated and, unceremoniously, slipped out of the kitchen.
That was how, around fifteen minutes later, Nico emerged back into her living room, human features back in place, a newfound thankfulness—and, admittedly, suspicion—towards Leander, and yet grudgingly conceding to herself that now they were bound by a shared secret while she had no idea why he’d keep it for her.
She was only able to prepare twenty pottery cups she had stored away. Thankfully, many of the villagers waved and declined her politely. Mrs. Astoria and Penelope shared one. Nico perched on the arm of the sofa, next to Olivia, and listened while they filled her—and Leander—in.
In spite of Sephy’s earlier slip-up, they’d only ever managed to get three more facts out of her. First, she was safe—or under the impression of being so—while away that morning. Second, she had been to a Weeping Willow Tree. Third, the man she’d been accompanied by went by High Liege.
Which, truly, almost unraveled Nico’s disguise all over again.
“That’s. . . a very specific term,” Nico tried, hoping that her voice wouldn’t tremble and betray her real feelings. “I hear High Lieges are like royalty in Elferi.”
Not quite, but she couldn’t simply tell them the way the politics worked for elves and expect them to believe she’d, what, overheard it in passing at the marketplace? Please.
To elves, their political system worked in a straightforward manner—albeit Nico maintained, with certainty, that humans wouldn’t quite agree. In Elferi, the more powerful an elf was, the higher their influence and dominion over others. Those addressed as High Liege were akin to Lords, respected and obeyed within Elferi circles, for otherwise they were perfectly capable of squashing their foes into the ground.
And for a moment, remembering that did quite the opposite of what it should have done. Rather than unnerve Nico, it calmed her down.
Because there was absolutely no way a High Liege would ever visit a small human village to kidnap a child—let alone do the job so carelessly that she’d return. That meant, thankfully, whoever this elf was, they wanted to keep a cover, and the best they could think of was a title that would cause any group of people with the slightest knowledge of Elferi culture to run and hide rather than chase.
But, of course, there was one way to make sure of that.
“What did this person look like, Sephy?” Nico prodded gently.
Sephy’s bright eyes lifted to hers. “He’s old. Like grandpa!”
By which, she meant Mr. Eldric. He was sitting as close to her as possible, his back hunched, his expression weary, and yet a kind smile cut through the tension in his demeanor at the note of endearment in her tone.
What a relief, too, that Nico knew for a fact that High Lieges couldn’t be perceived as old, seeing as their power preserved their form at its most opulent, meaning they could be described as striking, stunning, breathtaking—but never, absolutely never, old.
That she had no High Lieges to fight off was a relief. That there was an elf claiming to be one in order to get close to Sephy was not.
“Sephy,” Olivia started, rising from her seat to kneel in front of Sephy and gently wrap her fingers around the little girl’s shoulders. “You can’t go with strangers. No matter how kind or good they seem to be. I thought we’d talked about this.”
Sephy looked down, dejected. “But he’s good,” She murmured.
“Oh, baby. You don’t know that for sure. We can’t know that for sure, see?” Olivia propped a finger under Sephy’s chin and gently tilted her head up to meet her gaze. The room stood in silence. “Especially elves. He is an elf, isn’t he? Greyish skin, unnatural eyes?”
Subconsciously, Nico’s fingers flexed with the urge to lift them to her eyes. She felt a glance burn on her nape and looked slightly to the side, finding Leander’s attention on her. Was he concerned that she would feel insecure thanks to Olivia’s perception of elves, or perhaps quietly recalling her real form and trying to tie it to Olivia’s words?
“He lets me play with all the toys I want!” Sephy protested. “And he told me I’ll always know when he’s coming. He says I don’t have to be scared when I hear it!”
“Hear it?” Leander asked from his farther spot. “Hear what?”
Sephy crossed her arms and puffed out her chest. “He says I’ll always hear wind chimes when he’s nearby!”
When you hear ringing bells, open the shop. It means I have arrived, the potion brewer had told Nico, all those years ago, while she was still a child. It was also an Elferi custom—to announce themselves in order to allow the foresight of action to whoever awaited.
Before anyone could voice any sort of opinion regarding that revelation, however, Nico heard it. She caught it like the elf blood running through her veins, her ears twitching in response.
The faint, passing echo of wind chimes, coming from right outside her house.
And all at once she jumped from her seat and followed.
Chapter 5 - The Weeping Willow Tree
The hesitation to chase shrank under the crushing weight of preserving. Preserving the quiet, peaceful life Nico had finally acquired. Preserving Sephy’s innocence, as well as her safety, in spite of another elf’s ill-intent. Preserving her own agency, for once determined not to hide but to reveal if needed be, if only to this other elf’s eyes, to let whoever he was know the villagers weren’t alone.
The wind chimes had ceased, but Nico let her instincts take over in pursuit of its original ringing spot. She felt the air charged, heavier with tension, towards the edge of the village, and her jaw clenched as she ran towards it. A raven flew past, diving after her and disappearing, an ominous reminder that she was now bargaining higher than she could afford to.
Yet, if not her, then who?
As if in cue to the question bouncing off her eardrums, she heard footsteps readily approaching behind, and spun on her heels, prepared to protect herself. This time she felt the potion’s shift and tug, her teeth prodding at the inside of her lips.
Relief replaced apprehension, however, when the figure caught up to her.
“Why are you here, Leander?”
He stopped jogging and looked down at her. “Why did you run? What did you hear?”
“The wind chimes.”
He frowned. “Then you were chasing him. Don’t let me stop you.”
Nico’s brows knit together. “How very chivalrous, Leander. I’m afraid I don’t see how a human’s going to be helpful in tracking an elf.”
“I’m not being chivalrous, I’m simply not in the habit of letting people in this village risk their lives by themselves, no matter how eagerly you all seem to do it,” Leander sneered. A flood of unexpected warmth filled Nico’s chest at the realization that, in such a simple sentence, he’d included her in the package named ‘people in this village.’ “Well? Are you going to stand there, looking bewildered, or are you going to run?”
Unfortunately, her surge of bravery would have been for naught if Nico suddenly decided to halt her purchase in favor of arguing with Leander—and so, reluctant as she might be, she turned and sprinted, Leander right on her heels.
The ghost of the wind chimes led her to the grove cutting a pathway on the outskirts of the village. She followed, leaves humming at her presence, branches lowering closer to her—an inconvenience, seeing as she was forced to dodge or snap them out of the way.
“The trees like you,” Leander grumbled behind her.
“Don’t sound so envious,” Nico replied, in what she hoped would come across like human sarcasm—she was still getting the hang of it, but she quite liked the way it sounded. Judging by Leander’s low snort, she assumed it had gone well.
“Do you really think this elf is a High Liege, like Sephy said?” He asked.
Nico snapped a twig under her feet, stepping forward and across the grove with purpose. “No. High Lieges don’t age, and they most certainly don’t steal human children for no reason. Their reputation is too precious, their power too sharp. A High Liege wouldn’t be at a place like this, looking old especially, unless they had a really good reason.”
“Right. Nico?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think this was the first time this elf’s been to the village. In fact, I’m certain of it.”
Nico screeched in her running so fast she collided with Leander. He held her by the shoulders while she regained her composure, eyes widened when she looked back at him. “What?”
“The treats,” Leander murmured, cautiously glancing around, “The Elferi delicacies. Do you know why Sephy doesn’t like me?”
“Do you give her those?”
“No. I confiscate them from her.”
Her brows furrowed in deep confusion. “I—What?”
“One or two years after Sephy was abandoned, the treats showed up for the first time,” Leander said, his voice leveled, his expression unguarded, open even. “I was near her when it happened. I asked her if I could see it. I’ve heard before that some Elferi treats can make humans ill.”
“That’s only a rumor.”
“Well, I didn’t know that,” He replied, impatient for a moment before slipping back into gentleness, “All I knew is, people at the village couldn’t afford moonlight buns, or starshine scones, or any other sort of pastries brought from Elferi. That meant someone from the outside had slipped those to her. I made her give them to me until I could dissect them—I’m an alchemist, in case you weren’t aware—and I only gave them back once I was done.
“She didn’t like it—needless to say, up to this day, she has qualms regarding anything I have to say. But she trusted me. She still does. Every time she receives these treats, she brings them to me—but if I prod too much, if I try to encourage her to tell me who it is, she always tells me no and shuts off. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve stopped asking in fear that she would pull back completely, and I wouldn’t be able to even study the sweets for her anymore.”
Nico’s gaze raked over his features while he spoke, noticing the tick of his jaw, the tightness in his lips.
“She has never told you anything about him?” She asked.
“She has only ever told me she thinks him and I would be friends.”
Deeper went Nico’s frown. “What? Why?”
“I frankly don’t know, Nico. And I haven’t asked her either. I wanted to stay on her good side—never mind being a child, Sephy can be incredibly stubborn, and—”
“No, why?” Nico cut in. She started pacing, the air agitated around them, the trees whispering amongst themselves. “Why would Sephy claim you’d be friends with whoever this elf is? Why would you be interested in befriending someone old enough to be Mr. Eldric? Why not say this elf would be good friends with him?”
Leander’s cutting eyes trailed after her while she paced. Slowly, realization of her trail of thought sunk into him. “You don’t think—”
“She lied,” Nico declared, and brought her hands up to her own mouth when she caught on. “She lied. Sephy lied tonight when she said he was old. She only said so because whoever this elf is, he doesn’t want to be found out. He’s. . . he’s played me.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Leander asked, his expression crumpling in perplexity.
“He knew, if anybody ever knew enough about High Lieges, they would know High Lieges don’t age enough to look old. And if anybody didn’t know enough about High Lieges, they wouldn’t know what it means to be one. Either way, the result is the same.”
“Nico.” Leander stepped forward and gently reached for her face, his hand framing the side of her jaw, forcing her to look up at him. “You’ve completely lost me.”
“He is a High Liege,” She said, and her voice shook. “He is a High Liege, and that’s why Sephy said you’d be friends. Because he looks your age. Because he’s powerful enough not to age, and wise enough to understand how to deter suspicion from himself.”
They looked at each other, the world frozen in its axis. Nico could feel her potion slipping, her real image coming through, and yet Leander’s panic accompanied hers—once more, he was frightened with her.
“Run,” Nico whispered, “We have to run.”
Without another word, they sprinted back down the grove.
They’d covered plenty of space already, and once they finally reached the other side, Nico’s stomach dropped. Standing amidst the other, smaller trees, there was an enormous Weeping Willow Tree, dark green weeping leaves trickling down, its trunk nearly black with how deeply brown the wood was. It emitted a low mist, the breeze carrying it across and towards Nico, the chillness swirling around her ankles.
But most of all, empty. There was no one. And there was no more ghost of the wind chime.
That was when Nico realized—she’d been tricked once again.
“He’s led us away,” She whispered. When she turned to look back at Leander, his eyes were widened, his mouth snapped shut in shock. “He was listening in. He heard what Sephy said about the wind chimes—he knew I’d hear them first.”
“He’s at the village,” Leander murmured.
And, with her thighs burning and her lungs aching, Nico ran back the same way she’d raced from.
Chapter 6 - To kneel
Nico wasn’t quite sure what she expected, returning to the village. Frankly, only two months ago, she’d entered it expecting nothing. She’d learned so upon years and years of working hopelessly for a potion brewer, knowing there was no one coming to save her, no hope at growing or becoming more. Her defective nature forbade her from fully belonging amongst elves, and many in Elferi felt unsettled by it. Not to mention, elves could live hundreds of years, meaning even if she did hope for her parents’ deaths, she had no way of ever knowing when that would come.
Now, she entered the village sprinting, her entire body shaking with adrenaline and—fear? Was this the spider-like ghost sensation crawling up her stomach, gnawing at her insides, twisting her veins? Was she scared the way humans were, for once, the deep and dreadful feeling that rendered them speechless and frozen? Not the quiet, lingering sensation that she might be revealed, but the horrifying knowledge that she, for once, might lose something? For now she had something to lose, and she didn’t know whether to feel grateful or upset by it.
Finally, her estate. The lights were still on. There was no one outside.
The door was half-open.
Nico stopped, her feet planted firmly on the ground. Leander forced his own pace down so he could stand next to her, then before her, his eyes searching hers while she gazed forward, frightened. This. This was true fear, and she absolutely loathed it. Even the spell itself had regained form, allowing her to appear human, for now she wasn’t nervous—she was absolutely still.
“Nico,” he whispered. He hesitated, then reached for her face as he’d done at the grove, his fingers cradling her cheeks in a tender fashion. “Nico, we don’t know what’s happened yet. Hey. Hey, are you with me?”
“How did you know I was an elf?” Nico asked. Looking up at him, her brows furrowed, she whispered, “And if you knew it was an elf bringing the treats to Sephy, why would you not tell anyone?’
Leander paused. It seemed, by the clear conflict in his face, he knew better than to evade the questions. With a glance back over his shoulder, at the half-open door, he lowered his face to speak closer to her, “I’m an orphan.”
Nico blinked.
“I was at an orphanage, as a child. Mr. Eldric wanted to adopt me—he’d heard from someone at the village that an older boy—I was eleven—had shown up begging for scraps because he wasn’t getting enough to eat at the orphanage. He couldn’t, though. Adopt me. He couldn’t because he had no family connections or relatives that could speak for him.”
He pursed his lips.
“Because his mother was an elf, and his father died when he was very young.”
Nico opened her mouth. Then closed it again.
Leander took that as a sign to continue, “He’s half-Elferi, yes. But he’s—he is also completely human, Nico. He stole me from the orphanage—he did for me first what we did for Sephy later. He taught me from my teenage years up to the years when I began studying alchemy, how to recognize Elferi traits, how to be able to tell. That’s how I knew about you. And the elf bringing Sephy treats—whoever he is, he’s never hurt her. And I knew, from Mr. Eldric, that not all elves were bad or malicious. Like you. I thought this elf was like you.”
“Nico? Leander?”
Their attention snapped back to the estate. At the door stood Olivia, head slightly tilted, watching them curiously. Slowly, the others streamed after her, including Mrs. Astoria, Penelope, Mr. Eldric, Sephy. They were safe. The High Liege wasn’t here.
Nico didn’t think. Her body moved of its own accord, and before she fully knew what she was doing, she’d crossed the space and she was crouched down, hugging Sephy, cradling the back of her head with her hand. Around them, there were quiet murmurs in response.
“What happened?” She heard Olivia ask.
“She’s. . . very emotional at the moment,” Leander replied dryly. Nico almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it.
By the time Nico pulled away, smiling back at Sephy’s confused and yet adorable cheerful face at her, she gazed up at the villagers. They were still all here, not one missing. All thirty-one.
Wait.
Thirty-one?
'There were thirty people now, gathered in her house' — the memory struck her.
Suddenly, she shoved Sephy behind her, towards Leander, and took a step back, wide-eyed as she stared at the villagers as though prepared to bolt from them and disappear with Sephy.
Olivia frowned and attempted a step forward, to which Nico demanded, “Stay where you are!”
They stopped, a wave of bafflement assembling amidst the group. “What’s wrong, Nico?” Olivia asked.
“Whoever you are,” Nico started in a feeble attempt at maintaining her voice steady and authoritative, “You might as well reveal yourself now. Otherwise, we will take Sephy away, and you can kiss your years of development goodbye.”
There were grumbles and whispered remarks flying for a few moments. From the corner of her eye, Nico noticed Leander had mimicked her and placed Sephy behind himself—meaning, now whoever this elf has would have to go through the two of them to get to her. Instinctively, Sephy’s small hands clutched at the hem of Leander’s shirt.
A heavy, weary sigh filled the air and wormed under Nico’s skin. She saw one of the villagers—someone whose name she couldn’t remember, someone who most definitely hadn’t been there before—step forward, and his disguise leaked out like paint when struck with a bucket of cold water.
And Nico remembered, a moment too late, that a High Liege’s power in their bones could make a regular elf kneel in the presence of its very existence.
To her knees she went.
“Nico!”
“Nico, are you okay?”
“What have you done to her?”
The villagers were evidently torn between stepping away from the High Liege and rushing to Nico’s aid—a decision made easy when they stopped and truly saw what the High Liege looked like.
They all stepped and staggered back as if struck.
Nico couldn’t blame them.
The High Liege’s skin carried an opaque shade of starlight, his eyes coal-black, his hair long enough to reach his knees and curling on itself like dissolving clouds. When he opened his mouth, fangs much sharper than Nico’s peeked out, and she weirdly remembered Leander’s early inquiry regarding hurting herself with her teeth. The notion did not seem so absurd when gazing upon the High Liege—every single part of him seemed capable of inflicting harm.
At the sight of her kneeling, the High Liege cocked his head to the side, his brows slightly arched. “Groveling often suits little ones like you.”
The potion flickered and snapped. Nico lowered her head until it nearly hit the ground, still holding onto the futile hope of hiding herself from the villagers’ eyes, if at least for a moment longer. She felt mellow fingers wrap around her arm and hoist her up, and she was shoved behind Leander’s back the next moment, the alchemist now shielding her and Sephy alike—as though they were equally worth protecting.
The High Liege’s gaze fell on Leander, and he lifted his right brow. “Return my daughter to me.”
A collective gasp was ripped from the throats of every single human who stood there watching. From above Leander’s shoulder, Nico saw Olivia fall back on the steps of the estate and Mrs. Astoria squeezing her daughter’s shoulder in tension.
“Your daughter?” Leander repeated, dripping disbelief. “If you’re referring to Nico—”
“Seraphina.”
Nico’s heart stopped.
This was why.
A High Liege would never pointlessly break into a village, repeatedly as well, in order to lure a child out. A High Liege would never stoop so low as to disguise themselves and hide amongst humans. A High Liege would never do this, or that, or that other thing, unless—unless their motive for doing so sufficed.
Slowly, Nico looked down at Sephy. The child met her glance, her little hands gripping the back of Leander’s shirt, her lips quivering in nervousness.
And there, now that Nico knew what to look for, right in the depths of her eyes, the slightest, most subtle flicker of Elferi blood.
Sephy was half-Elferi. And a High Liege’s child.
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Love, Tessi.