Topher drove us to Hotwells. Benjy stayed behind to guard things at the hospital, but Amelia wanted to join us. She fiddled with the radio, ultimately unleashing some truly obnoxious drum and bass. Which did at least keep us all awake.
The chapel was boarded up when we got there, and there were unsurprising signs of fire. Equally unsurprising was the smell of bitter ash, mixed with blood. Topher suggested I went in to scout in bird form, but I didn't have the energy left for a lot of transformation. Best to save it for emergencies. Amelia gave us a brief description of the place instead. She saw me twitch when she said that most of it was underground, and put an arm around my shoulder.
Topher went around the back of the chapel and found a way in. He ripped off a plank, and we climbed through. Inside it looked like a slaughterhouse. Seven or eight bodies lay around the bubbling font at first glance, and the blood was still fresh. The smell was worse inside, stagnant water and hot metal mixing with the blood and bitter ash. I checked each body to make sure they really were dead. Topher used his magic sword to get the front door open and let Fiona and Amelia in.
Celia had told us that the Lady Avona was beneath the chapel, so the first place to look was the basement. I could feel myself getting shaky at the thought of yet another enclosed space, but Fiona and Amelia stayed close and Topher asked me questions about what I could see with the Sight. Not much, and I think he was just asking to distract me from my fear, but it did help.
There were cells down there, which had clearly been occupied until very recently, given the modern furniture and personal items still lying around. What there wasn't was Lady Avona, or any stairs down. Topher started looking for a secret entrance, tapping at the walls and floors, but then something came to him and he lead us back up to the font.
The font had to be a spring head. The smell of stagnant water came from there, but the bubbling water was quite fresh. Magic then. The font itself was covered in carved symbols in a language I didn't recognise. Or at least, I didn't until I really looked at them and found the name on the tip of my tongue. It was the language of the river, and we were looking at a gate.
Amelia, who always made more attention in lectures than I did, grabbed Topher's hand and pressed it against the font. As he pulled it away, it left a red outline on the stone. Amelia said things come in threes and that me and Fiona should do the same. The stone burned my hand as I touched it, but moments later we found ourselves in a vault, much like the two I'd seen already.
In the middle was a woman covered in ice, just as Damian had been when we'd found him. Even through the ice it was obvious she had once been almost painfully beautiful, but now there were dark tendrils under her skin and her hair looked muddy and matted. She'd obviously been corrupted, and this imprisonment was to stop it from spreading. And given who she was, she almost certainly did this to herself.
What now? We didn't know how to remove the corruption, and while destroying the vault should get her out of there, that seemed like a terrible idea for a number of reasons. Fiona figured it out. The Lady Avona had put a piece of her power into the Sibyl. She was creating an uncorrupted vessel to transfer the mantle of the river goddess into. Which meant that the way to free her was to kill her. And after that, Celia wouldn't exactly be Celia any more.
Celia and Damian had joined us in the vault, and Damian looked like he'd do pretty much anything to stop us killing Lady Avona at that point. But ultimately Celia took Topher's sword and did the job herself.
There was a sudden burst of light and pressure, and then we were waking up outside. Celia was kneeling, facing away from us. She didn't answer when we called to her, whether as Celia or Avona. She wasn't even breathing. But her hair had come back. It was only when we got right in her face that her eyes snapped open, no longer milky white but bright green.
She told us that we needed an army to lead into Muspelheim, and I could feel everyone's eyes turn to me. I asked for a phone. The Steamwheel Court were constantly texting me, and that meant I could text them back. Celia/Avona gave me a number - well, more of a string of symbols - and I sent a message. If they still wanted to have a city to live in tomorrow, they'd better join me now.
We piled back into Vanessa. Paint It Black played on the stereo accompanied by the sound of war drums, as an army of gremlins, fetches, kelpies and redcaps assembled behind us. Back at the Mitchester the place looked burned out, and the tarmac in front of it was bubbling and burning. Celia called water out of the river to cool things enough for us to go in, and we passed into Muspelheim.
It stank of sulphur, and the light flickered through the clouds of smoke. Denis the troll and the three boggarts were suddenly by my side. I asked if they were ready and they confirmed they were. And the Steamwheel Court charged the Formori. It was brutal. I tried not to think about it, and just focused on watching Denis hitting one Formor with another Formor.
There was a volcano on the other side of the battlefield. That was where we needed to be. Easy enough for me as I switched to bird form, but not so much for the others. We would have to fight our way across. The others made a run for it. Several Formori tried to stop us, but Topher and his magic talwar started carving his way through them. I joined in in my usual style, while Fiona made use of a lance one of the gremlins gave her with a bomb on the end.
We climbed the volcano. The heat wasn't just heat. It was blocking my magical senses. But I didn't need them to know we were in the right place when we looked down into the crater and saw three people standing on a rock floating in the pool of lava. They were taking it in turns to scoop lava into their mouths while the others chanted. This was the ritual we had to stop. Trouble was, I recognised one of them. It was the girl the vampires gave us along with Celia. Topher's sister.
We attempted to get their attention via bird screams (me) and gunfire (Topher) but they weren't letting themselves get distracted. We were going to have to take more direct action. Topher picked up Fiona and jumped across the lava onto the floating rock. There was a brief delay when three more Formori showed up, but we quickly dealt with them, and Topher threw one of them at one of the djinn in the ritual. Even that wasn't enough to cause a distraction.
But getting stabbed up with Topher's magic sword was. And remembering how effective my last lightning strike had been, I called out to the sky. There was a lot of lightning up there, too much for me to hold, and I don't think the resulting shock hurt him very much, but it was enough to stop him chanting.
At which point Topher's sister attempted to go full villain monologue, but Topher wasn't having it, hugging her tightly instead while Fiona provided encouragement. There was a lot going on there. But while Topher was carrying his sister away, there were still two djinn to deal with. I shredded one's arm, and he went to use his fire breath on me. Can't breathe fire if you don't have a face. He shattered into sand. Fiona had beaten the other to death with the end of her lance.
Topher was still trying to talk down his sister while she tried to blame him for everything. And it was taking a while, but he was getting through to her. And that got us a surprise visit from Topher's dad. I've seen plenty of strange things before, but someone who looks different depending on whether I looked at him through my right or left eye was certainly new. And one form was an antlered man I'd seen before. On a coin. In a vault. He asked us all to take hands, and everything went white.
We were back in Bristol, looking at what was left of the Mitchester. Topher's dad offered us some answers. Topher asked about his mother, and Fiona asked about her daughter. But what I wanted to know was how I ended up as the Steamwheel Court seneschal when I wasn't a fae. And the answer is a tiny fragment of the river goddess. Just enough fae to be able to take the job. And he asked me if I wanted to keep the job.
What, abandon them now, and risk them ending up back in the hands of Firs, or maybe someone even worse?
He told me a fairy queen had to have a crown. I didn't much care for the idea, but I know there are rules and protocols to be followed. He placed the rusty ring of iron on my head and told me he thought the Steamwheel Court might change a bit now. I think he's right.
Then he was gone, and we were left standing outside the burnt out remains of the Mitchester Arms. It wasn't as bad as it looked. The outside was burned, but the stone was strong. It would need a lot of renovation but the bones were still there.
I had one thing left to do before I could sleep. A promise made to myself. I had to take those boggarts home.
I found them under Denis's bridge. How they'd managed to get a pub bench down there, I don't know, but they seemed to be having fun. They put down their pints when I arrived though, suddenly very deferential. It seemed I'd been upgraded from 'flower lady' to 'flower queen'. I told the boggarts they could go home now, and immediately I was wrapped up in spindly boggart arms. I scooped them up off the ground to hug them, then walked with them back to the rugby club.
The club house was burned out, but the grounds still looked OK. The boggarts made that teeth sucking noise that builders make and walked into the middle of the field. A ring of mushrooms sprouted and they invited me in. Of course I accepted, after confirming the usual rules. Safe passage in and out. They weren't sure if this all still applied now I was the queen. I didn't either, but I still wasn't going to eat anything in there.
We sat down and chatted. It was nice. It occurred to me that they couldn't steal my phone as I still didn't have one - or that matter anything else right now as all I had on me was the spare clothes from Vanessa and my crown. They showed me something else they'd stolen instead. A skull from a Formor, which it had apparently still been using when they'd stolen it. They talked about getting it silver plated to make it into a drinking cup, and stealing some silver from the man in the market to do it with. I knew which man they meant. I suggested they should do something about that dickhead bird of his while they were at it. Pull his tail. Maybe as the Flower Queen I shouldn't be giving royal commands to go and steal tail feathers off a talking bird, but right then I didn't care.
I left a happy group of boggarts and went back to the Mitchester to finally get some sleep. The next day I found Topher but there was no sign of Fiona. We eventually found her in her room, dead. Judging from the smile on her face though, she was finally happy.
Topher didn't stick around long after that. Him and his sister wanted to find their mother. I don't know if they ever did, but I'm not sure they're in this world any more.
As for me, well, I had a pub to run, didn't I? And there was no way I was bringing those useless agency staff back, so I called on the fae. The boggarts make enthusiastic bouncers in Topher's absence. We soon had things up and running, and it wasn't long before Amelia showed up again. Apparently one day with me had been more excitement than the Council of Merlin had been able to provide in some years, and she wondered if she could have a job as a barmaid. As I could ever say no to her.
As Topher's father suggested, the Steamwheel Court is changing. I've not chosen a new name yet, although there are people working on it, but with Balor's corruption gone, things are already better. And in time I will make this city bloom.
And that's the story of how I became the Flower Queen and the landlady of the Mitchester Arms. Ask Amelia if you'd like a drink, and check the board for today's specials, if the boggarts haven't been using it again. Oh, I see they have. Yes, today's special is wild rabbit. But that's not why you came here, so just tell me. How can I help?
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