Chapter 1: Just a Touch of Magic

The stage spotlights shone their eyes on me as I trailed off on the final warbling note of the finale song. I knew the magic was working. Cheers and applause erupted with earthquake force all around the tiny London bar; patrons banged on the bartop with the flats of their hands. This pub was an offbeat little venue that booked tiny local acts, like me. It was dusty, dark, and the spotlight was a spare, overworked bulb that would probably burst into flame any day now. I stood there with my second-hand guitar, my thrifted, flowy yellow skirt, and let myself enjoy the moment, no matter how pathetic.

A few of my more loyal fans—I had a small but dedicated Instagram and TikTok following—cheered my name from their spot just in front of the little makeshift stage: "Hester! Hester!"

I stepped back from the microphone, lowered my guitar. and put my hand over my heart. The magic of the music, of the small but attentive crowd, of the joyous outpouring of voices all snapped into their place. The echoes died. The spell solidified, the way it always did; it was impossible not to revel in the beauty of this enchantment. The mortal glory of art, of connection. I just gave it that little extra fae-magic boost.

I could have used that magic to hit the big time, instead of playing this tiny backwater pub out of the way even of the tourists and traveling businesspeople; charmed a top music executive into wandering into one of my gigs, enchanted a billionaire to buy me studio time. But I had a code: I would rise on talent alone. Not through magic. Not through tricks. I would make it big in music using only the tools that an ordinary human musician would.

Because I was not a twenty-two-year-old songstress from London. I was a high lady of the Seelie fae court, taking a wander through the mortal plane.

Once upon a time, in dark ages remembered only in fairytales and folkstories, the fae emerged from our immortal realms to collect offerings of bread and milk left out at doorways, or to trick mortals into immortal faerie feasts. But times had changed. Tricking humans out of their realm for centuries at a time wouldn't go unrecorded or unnoticed nowadays.

Now the energy and acclaim of pop stardom was far more fitting as a means of tribute.

It was a respectable choice for a high fae to make: to sojourn in the mortal realm for a lifetime or two, to thrive on the rich energy of the arts, to live in the thrilling fragility of a mortal form before retreating back to the realm of Faerie after death claimed our vessel. There were at least a dozen of us in the mortal world now—some very public like me, some quietly creating in their remote communes. Painters, dancers, poets—creators of all kinds. Here, as the phrase among fae went, for the brief beat of a butterfly's wing: a mortal lifetime.

Except I had been on the mortal plane for almost five years now. And still, there were no stadium shows. No record deal. No acclaim. Only tiny interviews and features on minute indie websites. Only a few thousand Instagram followers and a few hundred likes per TikTok video. I was going nowhere. And it was infuriating.

I knew I was good. I was beyond good. I played the kind of darkly, deeply lyrical music that used to lure errant knights into faerie feasts and keep them there for one hundred years. Of course, my music now was updated to an indie-pop valence—lyrics about love, haunting love, pining love, burning love. I had the talent. But it had gotten me nowhere.

So here I was, at the center of a vortex of potent energy, my faerie spellwork floating with the fading notes over the heads of my audience. I never wore make up—the subtle radiance of magic shone with a beauty all its own. My pale silver hair was a shimmering tumble around my shoulders, loose and tousled. I appeared to them in the frank, open honesty of what I was: an open door for the bright magic of the fae, communicated through songs that touched their tremendous souls. Of course, these humans had no idea there were any such thing as fae—outside of dark folktales and bedtime stories, that is.

"HESTER!"

I never stopped being amazed at the adoration humanity could conjure for what they found beautiful. At the human capacity for love—because those who followed me really did truly love me. I could feel the truth of their adoration shivering sweetly in the dark air. Mortals were such small, fleeting creatures—and they lived such enormous lives through what they chose to love.

A young man raised a shot to his lips and downed it at the bar, apparently uninterested. My eyes caught a shape tattooed darkly just above his right elbow. Even upside down, I recognized the design: a thick-sided triangle with a laurel wreath emblazoned within it.

It was a fan tattoo, but not any fan tattoo. My stomach sank in disgust, souring the moment. The tattoo represented the followers of another fae musician performing as publicly through the mortal world: Sy.

Sy Dage, short for Silas, was no one I had ever met or wished to meet. In fact, I steered carefully clear of him. There was a simple reason: I was Seelie: the court of fae who venerated life and rebirth, order and justice. A Seelie fae would be kind in due measure and vengeful only when it was merited. We were creatures of balance and blessing, courtesy and care.

Sy Dage was an Unseelie: chaotic, dark faeries who lived for trouble and tumult. An Unseelie would strike down an enemy on a whim, before any offense was given. They would burn and ravage rather than weigh consequences. They were wild, untamable—and in the Faerie Realms, they had been at war with the Seelie for ages untold. No one remembered how the war began or what its tenants were. It was enough that Seelie and Unseelie were entirely adversarial—absolutely opposed to one another at the very level of their nature. Light and darkness, order and chaos. It was as simple as that.

And Sy had come to the mortal world around the same time I had…except without my Seelie scruples about fairness and patience. He had magicked his way into a record deal inside a week. And now he was a bona fide rock star.

To think that this mortal could be basking in my music, my magic, while part of their heart belonged to Sy the Unseelie....It was enough to make my smile freeze on my face. I knew I shouldn't be so shocked—the mortal world was a disorderly place, where all kinds of opposing forces met every hour of every day. But still.

The moment was spoiled, the spell broken. I made one more practiced bow before striding for the edge of the stage, plunging into the wan backstage lighting as the heat of the spotlight slid from my skin.

"Gorgeous, Hester, that was just gorgeous!" The bright, sparkling tones of Cass, my roommate and de facto manager, cut through the pub noise as the patrons went back to drinking and chatting. "Another absolute masterpiece of a night! The Venmo tips are through the roof—it's almost half next month's rent, and we can definitely catch up on the utility payments too!"

Cass was a spare, intent American woman about my age with short-cropped hair and a killer eye for fashion. Tonight, she wore a well-cut suit of midnight blue, her sharp eyeliner making her intuitive eyes shine even more intensely. Cass and I had landed together accidentally, sharing a cheap London apartment (read: a firetrap that probably shouldn't have been legally rented out but which was the only way we could afford this city). Cass loved music, and when she got laid off from her retail job after the company went under, she committed her considerable energy to helping me make my dream—my brand, as she called it—a success. As a manager, Cassie was doting and ever-present and focused. She got me at least one or two gigs a week—a feat I had never managed before meeting her. Cass had no idea what I was; she just believed in my talent, and I was immensely grateful for her.

I smiled my thanks as Cass shoved a pint into my hand. My voice so often tried to hide itself away when I wasn't performing—perhaps because I knew, on an instinctive level, what it was truly meant for. And that was the magic of stagecraft, not the mundane weight of everyday conversation. Or maybe, I was just shy. Part of inhabiting a mortal body was to take on mortal flavor. Mine seemed to be shyness, a sense of the delicacy of things around me. An unwillingness to play rough with a breakable world.

But now came the deflation: the after-show slump, when my soul buzzed with magic but the eruption of the show itself was over. When my blood sang and my heart shimmered and I was all alone in the knowledge of who and what I was and why this all mattered so much more than I could ever say.