Following Jay’s Footsteps

There are journeys that are impossible. This is why we take them.

I walk through a door that doesn’t exist, feeling it close behind me. The ground is soft under bare feet, though I came here wearing shoes. My phone isn’t in my pocket at all, and my wallet is missing all its change. It’s summer. Green trees, a bright sun, but the sky is a thousand shades of blue and the forest about me moves away, or is gone. There is warm stone under my feet, though it feels cold as well. About me is a caldera of white stone, looking as though it is made from marble.

I am the wandering magician, but there is nothing here of wandering. Nothing my magic can made a ward from. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “Hello.”

What are you?

The voice is cold, despite the heat of summer. A voice of judgement without mercy and honour devoid of kindness. A fae voice, though deeper and less wild than any fae I’ve known before. “The wandering magician of this era. The one who was prisoned under the first tree. I walk with Jayseltosche, and Charlie. You are the Summer Court. A place of judgement for the fae, to the fae A glamour so deep and potent almost no fae likely believe you exist.”

You should not know this.

“I don’t know the fae well, for all that I am. I know of the fortresses the fae stand guard at to protect the universe, and the works they do in some worlds. I always wondered why we had myths of seelie and unseelie courts when nothing of the fae linked into that. I imagine judgement is made just because they don’t have a notion of being judged to twist their actions and motives.”

You presume much, mortal. Were this the Winter Court, you would be dead already.

I snort. “I have no idea how often fae get judged, or on what, or to what end: but I doubt you’re that stupid.”

Stupid.

The word is strange. Not flat, not cold. Not even bemused. I doubt anyone has spoken to the Court like this in a long time, if ever.

“To judge the fae and be hidden from them requires a great deal of power. I won’t deny you have that, but the fae tend to be powerful only in dangerous ways. Those with depth enough to perceive Jay and survive – all too many of you only consider his capacity for destruction. He could unmake the universe, yes, but that’s not a singular power, not even a unique one that other powers aren’t capable of as well. And yet powers like yourself fixate on that: you look at what he can unmake, the things he can unbind and sever: but that’s nothing next to jaysome.

“Inside the universe or Outside, these are truths we all know. One of them is that there are no happy ending. Some argue there are no endings to try and hide from that. But you know better. So do I. Jay does not. He could make happy endings that nothing can stand against. That is the core of everyone I do: to make sure he understands endings and accepts them.

“I have some power as a magician. You have some as the Summer Court. How often is your will denied in you place of power?”

Never.

I don’t point out Jay’s arrival and departure were that. “Imagine that you are Jay. Imagine that your place of power was everywhere.” The court goes still and silent. “Everything I am teaching Jay is about how to let things go. I don’t pretend to be good at it. I don’t even pretend it’s going to work. But there will come a time when he has to learn that lesson. You don’t want to make that time be right now.”

You journeyed this far from the realms you know to threaten me?

“No. I’m stating a fact. A fact isn’t a threat unless you make it so. That, and I wanted to see what Jay had met and be certain he wasn’t confused. Or had created you.”

The silence that follows that statement contains my death as a promise barely held in check.

“Jay finds adventures. They also find him. It’s part of being eleven and from far Outside the universe. Also of jaysome. I’m pretty sure you existed before Jay visited you, but I felt it best to make sure.”

You will leave.

I don’t press my luck. I reach for Jay, since we’re linked together, and he makes a door that I step through. He asks if I had a good adventure and then begins telling me all about new friends he made on tumblr. I listen, head to the small bar fridge the hotel suite has, pour myself a drink. I have no idea what to make of this, so I wait, then once Jay runs down I tell him I lost my phone and he can go buy me a new phone.

He grins hugely at that and vanishes to have another adventure.

I wonder if the Winter Court will try and find me, and if Spring and Autumn have courts as well. I pour myself another drink. And I wait.