Chapter 32

The path through the fae forest was not easy. Severus kept his wand in hand as he could feel the forest watching him. 'Ink in water,' he kept thinking as they moved forward.

A cluster of flowers turned toward him as he passed. Tiny mouths opened in their centers. "Hello?" one whispered sweetly. Severus set it on fire without breaking stride.

Nimue sighed. "It said hello."

"It looked suspicious."

"It was a flower."

"It had teeth."

Magdalena glanced back, and the corner of her mouth twitched. "To be fair, most things in this forest have teeth."

"An excellent argument for burning more of it," Severus retorted without missing a beat.

"Do you always look like you want to hex something?" Nimue asked, tilting her head slightly.

"Your observational skills remain unimpressive," Severus stated.

"I'm just saying Harry chose a good husband. That boy is like a chaos magnet. I need to tell you about the time he accidentally provoked a herd of hippogriffs because no one taught him to bow first, or the time a unicorn tried to kill him even though he was a virgin."

"Merlin..." Severus muttered.

Magdalena, who was listening but saying nothing, stopped beside a black-barked tree whose trunk twisted into the shape of a woman's spine. She pressed her palm against it. The tree shuddered beneath her touch. Then the bark split open, revealing a narrow passage of glowing crystals descending beneath the roots.

"The Luminous Caves," she said. "They will take us beneath the old forest and bring us out near the ridge above Hephaera's outer gates."

"Naturally, the safest route is a hole beneath a homicidal forest," Severus remarked.

"It is not safe," Magdalena corrected. "It is merely faster."

"Comforting."

"Oh, do stop complaining, Sevvie," Nimue said. "If the caves wanted to eat us, they would have sung already."

Severus looked at Magdalena. Magdalena looked back. "She is not joking," she finally said.

The descent was narrow. For several minutes, they walked in silence.

"This forest. You said Titania made it." Severus asked suddenly. "The same Titania from Shakespeare?"

Nimue, ahead of them, made a faint sound that might have been a laugh. "Oh WIlliam was a hoot. He could see some of us, but he couldn't really comprehend us fully. Odd Muggle that one."

"To answer your question, yes, she did," Magdalena explained while ignoring Nimue's comment. "Long ago. Before the fae courts divided themselves into their current little nests of politics and wounded pride."

"She is your aunt? I think Nimue, at some point, previously mentioned the fae queens were sisters." Severus asked.

"By relation, yes. By affection..." Magdalena's expression softened strangely. "It depends on the century."

"That is generous." Nimue snorted.

Magdalena ignored her. "Titania was considered the strongest of the primordial Fae Queens."

"Was?" Severus asked.

"She still is, in some ways," Magdalena said. "But fae power is never as simple as strength. It is dominion, identity, purpose. Most primordial queens govern one attribute. One fundamental aspect of the realm. Titania governed more than one. The Land and the Woods. It is a substantial amount of power, but it is also declining with the expansion of you mortals. You cut down the forest, pollute the land."

"The forest is an extension of her will. Her grief. Her rage. Her humor, unfortunately." Nimue added. "Especially her humor. Never underestimate how much of Titania's cruelty began as a joke that went too far."

Magdalena brushed her fingers along the cave wall as they walked. "Titania shaped the forest as the first defense of the fae realm. No mortal or greedy fae was meant to pass through it unaided."

"Oberon walks it freely and isn't he a ray of sunshine," Severus said.

"Oberon knows enough of her old paths to survive. Once, she allowed him to walk wherever he wished." Magdalena's face tightened.

Nimue's said, "There is history. There is always history. We fae can be... capricious."

"Oberon courted Titania relentlessly."

"That poor woman," Severus muttered.

Despite herself, Magdalena gave a humorless laugh. "I warned him, but no one listens to me. At first, many thought it romantic. A son of Hephaera pursuing the Queen of Land and Woods. Fire seeking the forest. Passion courting roots. Fae poets made insufferable metaphors about it for centuries."

"I already dislike every poet involved," Severus stated.

"As did Titania, eventually," Nimue added. "It was the equivalent of what you mortals called tabloid news."

"Oberon was Hephaera's third son. My younger brother." Magdalena continued. "A fire nymph prince. Powerful in his own right, arrogant, but not the heir to her primordial flame. He could not inherit our mother's power. None of her children could. Primordial power does not pass like a mortal estate. It chooses."

"The crown chooses, but only if the fae accepts. The crown will wait once it has chosen." Magdalena then looked at Nimue, whose shoulders were stiff. "Is that not right, Nimue?"

"Unfortunately," Nimue muttered.

"But Oberon does not get that. He's always been somewhat of an idiot when it comes to power." Magdalena stated. "He covets what he cannot have just to try and prove a point. He Titania because she had it. Because she governed two great attributes, and because he thought that if he became her consort, some of that authority would cling to him."

Severus's mouth thinned. "A parasite with good cheekbones."

"Exactly," Nimue stated.

Magdalena shot her a look. "Nimue."

"What? He is pretty. Tragically, infuriatingly pretty even for a fae." Nimue stated. "Maggie darling, I need to say this clearly. Your brother was literally the Himbo of the fae realm. He isn't the brightest candle in the room but certainly the most ambitious."

"At least Sevvie here is devoted to his little murder king."

"My husband is not little."

Nimue's smile spread. "Interesting part of the sentence to dispute." Severus ignored her with heroic restraint.

"Look, Oberon seduced Aunt Titania. He played the devoted husband. He acted humbled by her strength. He became her consort husband," Magdalena explained. "A fire nymph bound to the Queen of Land and Woods. Their powers were volatile from the beginning. Fire feeds on forests. Land smothers flame. Growth and burning, root and ember. Their magic clashed even when they touched."

"That sounds less like marriage and more like mutually assured destruction." The Potion master stated.

"The tumults of their marriage would probably qualify as the PhD thesis of a modern psychologist," Nimue muttered.

"My mother opposed the union," Magdalena continued. "Not because she hated Titania. Quite the opposite. Hephaera and Titania were sisters in all but blood. My mother knew what would happen if fire tried to rule beside the woods instead of merely warming them. But Oberon was a grown fae. Titania was a grown fae, and grown fae were entitled to make catastrophic mistakes with long-lasting consequences."

"Oberon loved her in his own self-obsessed, disastrous, possessive way." Magdalena continued. "For a while, their marriage stabilized. Not peacefully. They fought, yes, reconciled, burned half a woodland, regrew it, shook mountains, flooded valleys. Their affection was as destructive as their anger."

"And then?" Severus asked.

"And then Oberon got seduced by Puck."

"Who?" Severus asked, but as he knew his Shakespeare, he had an idea.

"A lower fae," Magdalena said tightly. "One of Titania's own Oreads."

Severus stared.

"A lower fae from his wife's court," he said.

"He betrayed the strongest primordial queen in the realm with one of her attendants." Severus blinked.

"Yes."

"Was he dropped on his head as an infant?" the Potion master asked point-blank, which actually earned a laugh from both faes.

"I asked the same thing," Nimue stated.

"It made a mockery of Titania in the courts. Not merely because of the infidelity, though that was insult enough. It was where. With whom. Under whose roof. Puck belonged to her court. Her household. Her protection." Magdalena stated. "And fae courts feed on humiliation like carrion birds."

"Titania dissolved the marriage soon after," Magdalena continued. "She stripped Oberon of every title he held through her. Consort king. Forest-lord. Keeper of the Summer Hunt. All gone. She cast him from her court and closed the green roads to him."

"So this entire catastrophe, him wanting the crown, obsessing over ancient authority, dragging my husband into this realm, is because he was a dick to his wife?" Severus asked incredulously. "That man needs a therapist, and that therapist might need a therapist."

Nimue burst out laughing. "As you mortals say, yes. Oberon was a dick to his wife and has spent several geological ages making that everyone else's problem."

"Oberon wants my queen's crown because he thinks it will give him leverage. Status. Perhaps enough symbolic authority to force the old courts to hear him. In his mind, if he can obtain the crown of a primordial fae, he can prove he was always worthy of standing beside Tithania." Nimue stated and then added, "But kidnapping Harry is another matter. Harry severed Oberon's wings on my order. Fae wings are not merely decoration. For high fae, they are lineage, power, status, and pride. To sever them is not fatal, but it is... highly humiliating."