Page 18 of The Witch & the Tiger

“Story of my life.”

Still using her hair as a curtain, she went through some sites. He noted she was checking up specifically about realm overlaps and wetlands. He focused more on the Unseelie Court and general court shenanigans. Apparently, the fae absolutely adored meddling in mortal affairs. It was their bread and butter. Their chaotic, perfect lives in the fae realm became ever more chaotic and perfect if a mortal wanted to try and make a deal or had a sort of greed or corruption in their hearts. They loved wayward souls, and they loved watching people screw up their lives with their own poor choices.

Capricious beings, indeed.

The one thing he did notice was that the courts had kept themselves largely out of human affairs after the Second World War. The Unseelie Court, in particular, went radio silent, and for decades, no one had heard of it making a deal. The other courts surfaced now and then – but the Unseelie – nothing.

Until now.

Coastal locations related to the Unseelie Court. Most of his search results drew up nonsense or advertisements for beachside holidays.

“Hey, I have something!” Willow said, and he snapped to attention, craning his neck to eye Willow’s screen. It looked like a huge wall of text, and he very quickly lost the patience to read it.

“What is it?”

“Some good stuff about how we get overlaps with other places in our world. I need just a little longer to read it, but I think we’re on the right track here.”

“Sure!” He rubbed his eyes, wondering if it might be worth trying to sneak a coffee into the library. “I’ll keep with my piece, I guess. I got something about the court dynamics with the fae realm.”

She gave him a thumbs up, though she clearly wanted to focus deeper on her piece.

Other students began to take up the spare computers, and it soon became a little too crowded for Martin’s liking. He heard someone clear their throat and noticed Willow looking at him, her dark eyes intense.

“I know a better place than this if you want a little privacy,” Willow suggested, and something in her tone made him shiver.

“Where were you thinking?”

“One of the lower-level classrooms. There are a few of them that have computers, and some are rarely used outside of lessons. We could take the room near the potions classes, and we should be fine.”

The thought wove through his mind of making it to an abandoned classroom, being there together, alone, door closed, without anyone to see them, except anyone who might stumble in on them by accident. His heart raced a little and then a little more when she placed the tip of her fingers on his shoulder.

“Martin?” He was startled by her touch, and she withdrew her hand as if burned. “I’m okay. I’m fine, I think. We’ve nearly covered everything here anyway,” he rasped. Was that a look of disappointment flitting over her face? Surely, he must have imagined it.

“Suit yourself.” She browsed her web page in silence, and he wondered if he’d somehow made a mistake or offended her.

Focus, he told himself. You’re here to solve the mystery. Nothing more.

Don’t get distracted by other people. Especially don’t get distracted by Willow Colson, even though he wouldn’t mind getting distracted by her.

I just want to get to know her, that’s all.

The attempts to ground his thoughts worked somewhat, and he absorbed the information until his head started spinning from all the tiny words on the screen.

“Hey,” Willow spoke after what felt like an insurmountable silence. “So, that was a lot of interesting stuff. Most of it I didn’t even know about. Did you know, for example, that we can have crossovers from other realms – like an alternate earth, maybe an earth that got destroyed or some alien planet millions of light years away?”

“Nope. Sounds pretty wild.”

“They’re super dangerous, so we don’t want those. Luckily, what we may be dealing with is a bit less dangerous. Uh, no offense to what happened to you.” She squinted back at the screen, once more using her hair as a screen to hide her embarrassment. “From what I gather from everything I’ve read so far… if the location we’re looking for is a part of the fae realm and a fae court, they tend to work more around days that are considered important to mortals. So, they’re a little more in tune with our world than other places. The summer solstice, for example, is when the Seelie Court and Summer Courts find it easier to cross over into our realm. The Unseelie is closely related to the Winter Court, so they tend to be stronger near the winter solstice, whose date varies depending on which part of the hemisphere you live. Interesting, right?”

He nodded encouragement to her, trying to ignore the stare of one student whom he recognized from his year.

“Anyway, it’s November now, but your incident happened around five months ago. The third of June, you said?”

“Mmm.” He closed his eyes, feeling a coldness prickle over his skin.

“Other things that can affect the courts making an appearance can be things like the weather, phases of the moon, a designated holiday in the region, or a rest day… anything that ends up having some significance in the human world will also have a similar significance in the fae world.”

She pursed her lips, fingers now drumming lightly against the keyboard. He also reflected.

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