This was every fae creature in this realm. Maybe more than would typically have been in the human lands, in fact. I found myself stepping backward in shock.
"What does this mean?" Slyph asked softly, her own voice trembling.
"The problem stretches across realms," Lycan replied. "Power is moving -- most of it stolen. This has the feel of a problem long in the making, my friends. It has the feel of someone -- something -- that wants to wrench the old power base out of the faelands and move it to ... here, perhaps."
"Oh, not wise," I said with a quick shake of my head.
He didn't argue. Maybe I had just proved some shred of sanity on my part. The idea of bringing fae rule to the lands of the humans was something made of nightmares. Even if the Fae didn't intend to rule the humans themselves, but only the Fae who lived here, it would still be a powerful assemblage of magical beings who would start to affect the world around them, if only to keep their own people safe.
Single Fae had come to this realm and brought magic in the past. Merlin had not done too poorly, but Lilith fell on the other side. No humans knew even a quarter of what she had done to the human world, and yet they still reviled her name in many places.
Other beings had come in groups and left their imprint on fairy tales and myths. Things that were not quite human enough to walk down the street side-by-side with the humans were relegated to the pages of 'let's pretend.' Humans had a unique ability to see themselves as the only real intelligent life on their world.
It made them blind, but we had used that blindness against them in the past.
Unfortunately, the human world had changed drastically in the last two hundred years. Now they had technology -- and worse than that, they had mass communications.
A couple centaurs walking down Main Street might be passed off as a beautiful FX show, at least the first time. But for every appearance of something strange, a few more humans were going to start doubting their version of reality.
So?
So then they know magic is real.
And then they want it, too.
Humans rarely know how to handle true power. And besides that, they tend to be vindictive and rash, a combination that is not good for a being with powers. There are a few such among our own, but we do our best to police them. Some have been stripped of powers.
My own people thought I had been stripped of power and sent here, in fact. I thought, now, that I'd only been sent ahead because something far larger was happening.
"Where does the loss of the crowns fit into this? I asked as I looked at Lady Winter, Sylph, and Lycan.
"I would really wish to know," Sylph answered. Lycan nodded, but Lady Snow only stared out into the gathering. I thought she might hope to find her daughter there.
I hoped for it, too. It would be one easy problem solved.
I even looked, hoping to find someone or group with the crowns. I wanted an answer to some smaller problem than trying to find out what all these beings were doing here.
"What do you know, Lycan?" I asked softly. We were drawing attention, a slow shift of stares that turned our way from front to so far back that I couldn't clearly tell what stood there.
"I think we face a change none of us care to see," he answered. His hand moved to his belt-dagger as though he meant to fight some enemy off and then came away again. "I don't know what to do in this mess. I was rather hoping you and your two odd companions might have a better idea."
Not what I wanted to hear.
I looked back at the crowd and searched the scattered groups for the Fae and hope of talking to someone I knew. I searched and searched again, looking from one group to another until I could not see clearly. A group of fae would ot be that far back in the mass of beings.
"Where are the Fae?" I asked, at last, my voice softer than I had intended.
"They haven't joined us yet," Lycan answered. He looked troubled. "We fear they might be holding off something else from coming through. Something powerful."
If that were true, then my duty was not to be here but rather with them. "Where is the portal?"
Lycan looked at me and must have known what I meant to do. Lady Snow didn't seem to notice at all, and Sylph might not have understood the implications of my words.
"I can take you there, but I don't think one more fae is going to help in that battle," Lycan said with a shake of his head.
"I go with him," Lady Snow said, surprising us all. "My daughter is not here. I must go on and look elsewhere. I go with the Fae who has at least tried to help."
"I'll help," Sylph replied. She even dared one long-fingered touch of her hand on the other creature's arm. "I shall help you, and all of us together might yet find answers to all these mysteries."
I saw Lycan's odd glance at Sylph and then the quick nod of his head in agreement.
"And I with you. The more types of our kind, the more likely we are to find the path to answers. Will you have us, Fae?"
I had not expected that question, but I nodded agreement. We had chanced into meeting each other and headed on the same path in search of answers. Now I began to wonder if something more powerful might be directing us all into this quest.
I couldn't say if it was for good or bad, though.
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