Once I bid my farewell to my new friends, thanking them profusely for the wonderful meal, I decided to circle back to a more rambunctious group I'd spotted earlier. One of the bigger tents held a gaggle of teenagers and young adults, all of whom appeared to be half fae waiting for their chance to see what's on the other side of the gateway. They welcomed me in, once I proved to have more in common with them than their parents.

  “Shame you weren’t here for last year’s Jubilee,” Jasmine said. She had to be one of the most fae individuals I’d ever met, short of being a full-blooded fae. “Some of my cousins managed to sneak through early, so the party started almost as soon as I got here.”

  “Are you still planning to cross over?” Liran asked. They were less fae, but they had something else mixed in that I couldn’t quite figure out by looking at them and I wasn’t about to ask.

  “If they ever decide to open the gate, I will. Rumor has it they may not be doing that this year, though the guards are staying silent, as always. Im not sure even they know what’s going on.”

  “They probably don’t,” Kieran, Jasmine’s partner, said. “My guess is there’s something going on on the other side and they are waiting until things settle down to open the gates. It’s happened before, where courtly chaos led to a delay in opening the gate because the guards did not want there to be any sort of spillover. Apparently strange things happen if they aren’t too careful.”

  “Which court could it be? If there were one to be causing a little drama,” I prodded.

  “There’s always some drama in the courts. It's how they work. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand, which can have some interesting consequences, but things always sort themselves out in time. The courts know how to handle chaos.”

  “What if an external factor decided to come to play? Someone or something came along to upset the balance within the chaos of the courts?”

  This question stumped them, and a sense of uncertainty crept over the space. No one wanted to think about those implications. To be fair, I didn’t want to either, but I couldn’t afford not to. Not after the pattern of interference happening across the supernatural world.

  I had a job to do. As the conversation shifted to other topics and the groups began to flow once more, I drifted over towards the individual who seemed the least surprised by my suggestion. She didn’t acknowledge my presence directly, but she did shift over slightly to allow me to stand near her.

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  “You were over there recently, weren’t you?” I asked softly. She nodded once, taking a sip of her drink. “What role do you play in the courts?”

  “Not a large one for any particular court, though I spend much of my time around the gates.”

  “Something akin to being a courier?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What news is there that you can share of life in the wild woods?” I chose my words carefully to not come across like I was trying to pry into the internal workings of the courts. Fae weren’t fond of other people poking into their affairs and I didn’t want to get too closely tied into whatever was going on, if I could avoid it. Assuming I could avoid it.

  I really hoped I could avoid it.

  “Things have been quiet,” she replied. “The rhythm is settled into its usual groove for the time when things bloom and grow. The quiet has been going on for longer than many are happy with, though, and its causing some discomfort in the outskirts of the wood.”

  “I had noticed signs that change hasn’t come as quickly as it should be. It has been an interesting year.”

  “Indeed, and that doesn’t look like it’ll be changing any time soon.”

  “Things are often strange, but there are many different kinds of strange, only some of which are actually concerning. Things have been leaning that way more often lately,” I said.

  “There’s something different about you,” she commented. “You aren’t of the wild folk, but you aren’t a typical human either.”

  “You’re not wrong. I’m not typical. I'm Clever and I have friends and affiliations in a lot of places.”

  “Perhaps one as clever as you can help get the change flowing the way it's supposed to be. Everyone’s talking about what’s going on, but no one knows what’s going on, and it has many on edge. I'm unsure how long we have left until someone tries to do something stupid to shake things up.”

  “And where might one begin to unravel at least a portion of this mess?”

  “If one were looking to lend a hand, there are a few individuals who are willing to talk. They tend to keep to themselves, but if you know where to look, they aren’t hard to find. You may even already know one of them.”

  “I would not be surprised. I know a lot of people Speaking of, what can I know you as?”

  “You can know me as Vera. And yourself?”

  “Clara,” I replied. It was close enough to my actual name that I’d remember to respond to it and different enough that no one could use it to enchant me. Not that they could do much with Claudia.

  I lingered for a while longer before leaving the tent to wander my way around to the place where the witches gathered. Something told me I would find a friend there, and I still had a little time before my meeting.