Page 5 of When the Sky Breaks

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said, “but you seem to. So tell me. Tell me how to run the Outer Court. Tell me how to get us married and why my father would think we should be. Teach me.”

Neal took a deep breath, then leaned and grabbed a stack of papers from my father’s desk.

“Familiarize yourself with these,” he said. “Core workings of the Court, some history. We’ll talk in a few hours when I bring you lunch. Alright?”

I nodded and set to work. The pile of documents was neat, ordered, specific. Neal must have stayed up after I’d gone to bed, searching and compiling them for me. I admired his diligence, as my father’s filing system was chaotic to the point of distressing.

The top folio was old and weathered, and I realized it was a copy of the original Outer Court charter, translated and transcribed from the original High Elvish on birchbark. The translator’s signature was dated 1632, just before my father had taken over as High Lord when his mother passed in 1665. He’d been three hundred forty at the time, and I remember him saying how people had called him astronomically young. I winced as I considered how people would feel about my ascension now, at only twenty-seven.

The Elven government was ancient—predating Iksura by two generations, and she was nearing three thousand now.

The governmental structure itself was bizarre, at least I’d always thought so.

The Inner Court handled the Elves specifically. They trained and managed healers, and collected the tax that funded those healers’ services. They prosecuted magical criminals and inter-Elven issues, though I’d never quite gotten a clear answer on what constituted a magical crime. They took censuses of our immortal constituents scattered across the globe and distributed leaflets meant to teach children High Elvish—that best I could tell no one ever read.

The Outer Court killed monsters. If someone caught word of a cryptid, a demon, a faerie, or a chimera—then the Outer Court would research, evaluate, and either dispatch those deemed destructive enough to kill or work up convincing legends about those harmless enough to leave unchecked.

The High Leaders of the Inner and Outer Court were technically equals. But Iksura had been in power far longer—training healers proving a safer life path than hunting demons—and liked to push the Outer Court around.

It helped that, while Elves were all joint citizens of both Courts and beholden to both sovereigns, most Elves had little direct contact with the Outer Court, and just knew to send word of abominations or oddities to our major outposts—New York and Edinburgh.

I flipped through the stack, the outpost locations looping over and over in my head. New York. Edinburgh.

Why the hell did I live in Santa Fe then?

Maybe Neal had pulled something that would clarify my father’s decision.

I paged through my father’s marriage certificate, my birth certificate, my mother’s and brother’s death certificates. I put those aside, fighting back tears yet again, then looked over a few documents relating to practical management, staff, and so on. Eventually, I found a stack of letters back and forth between Glen and Ansel O’Faelen. Every page detailed my father’s distraction from his work, fixation on my mother’s death and refusal to move the Court back to our libraries and staff in Edinburgh, or even to the new outpost Ansel had built in New York as a compromise. Ansel’s letters listed dozens of supernatural cases badly managed because of communication delays with the remoteness of Santa Fe. Glen’s listed dozens of times he’d had to bathe my father himself because he was too caught up in his grief to function.

My stomach churned. It was all far worse than I’d even anticipated. Suddenly, I needed air, needed out of this office, this house. I shoved the papers into a desk drawer and hurried out to the courtyard. I found Neal talking with a few young men I didn’t recognize, likely some of our new guards.

He introduced them as Hiram and Obadiah, then dismissed them.

“Can I help?” he asked. “You look pale.”

“Are you good at your job?” I blurted out. It was a stupid question, rude even, but I had to know. I had to know that someone knew what was going on. That someone cared. After such a jarring realization that my father simply hadn’t.

“You read the letters?” Neal asked in reply. I nodded, swallowing hard. “Come to the porch with me. Let’s ease your nerves.”

He took my arm and I followed him to sit on the bench Glen had built for our porch back when my mother was still alive. My father had been certain the desert air would help her carry to term. It hadn’t.

Neal sat beside me. “My family takes our role seriously. My father sent me to start studying when I was twelve. I’m young, by Elven standards, but I can assure you I’m well prepared to assist.”

“And why should I marry you?” I asked.

“Besides abiding by your father’s wishes?” Neal said, a hint of humor creeping into his tone. “It provides security, both for you and the Outer Court as a whole. You’re young. That could make you politically malleable. Iksura didn’t like the way your grandmother ran the Outer Court. She didn’t like the way your father ran the Outer Court. She’s been waiting for a moment like this for centuries, for someone young and exploitable to take charge, then see if she can’t change your approach.”

“To what exactly?”

“Your family line focuses on killing the monsters,” Neal said. “Iksura would prefer if you also killed the people who reported them. She has not enjoyed waning Elven influence. And she likes human interference in the supernatural even less.”

My stomach sank, knotting with dread.

“And so you see why our marriage would be of the utmost importance?” Neal asked.

“I do,” I agreed. “And how do you feel about all this? The portals? The job itself? Marrying me?”

“The portals are a problem to be solved, and I can ensure things stay running while you solve it,” Neal said. “Preventing Iksura’s influence is a diplomatic issue largely outside of my area of expertise. I’m sure Ansel can provide his assistance.”