Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in multiple genres. Her books have sold over 35 million copies worldwide. Her novels in The Fey series are among her most popular. Even though the first seven books wrap up nicely, the Fey's huge fanbase wanted more. They inspired her to return to the world of The Fey and explore the only culture that ever defeated The Fey. With the fan support from a highly successful Kickstarter, Rusch began the multivolume Qavnerian Protectorate saga, which blends steampunk with Fey magic to come up with something completely new.
Rusch has received acclaim worldwide. She has written under a pile of pen names, but most of her work appears as Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Her short fiction has appeared in over 25 best of the year collections. Her Kris Nelscott pen name has won or been nominated for most of the awards in the mystery genre, and her Kristine Grayson pen name became a bestseller in romance. Her science fiction novels set in the bestselling Diving Universe have won dozens of awards and are in development for a major TV show. She also writes the Retrieval Artist sf series and several major series that mostly appear as short fiction.
To find out more about her work, go to her website, kriswrites.com.
Rémy uses his magic to help people. Fae and human.
But as World War II intensifies and threatens even the coastal sanctuaries in France, he knows that precious little time remains to save anyone.
Rémy's magic gives the Allies and the fae one last chance to escape. But the plan, and the magic it requires to succeed, might demand a sacrifice too great for Rémy to bear.
For years, I have written stories about the magical in World War II. If faeries existed (and I believe they do), I needed to figure out why they weren't using their magic to stop that particular conflagration. Five short stories and three novellas later, I still don't have an answer, but I know I'll never look at the war in the same way again. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
"We do not do this," Madame Méric said, shaking her fist at the transmitter. The staff in the tiny smoke-filled office knew better than to speak. They knew that it was best to let Madame have her moment. Agreeing with her or disagreeing with her would not work.
Madame was, as the Americans would say, a force of nature. One did not argue with the wind. One did not argue with Madame Marie-Madeleine Méric either.
Rémy moved deeper into the corner near the door. He stood between two makeshift desks, covered in piles of paper. The other team members did not like all the paper—they believed it would compromise them and it might, if they did not have time to clear it out—but Rémy was thankful for the paper.
He had trouble in this room—in many rooms filled with humans, truth be told. But this room, with the transmitter, the knives, the guns—all the metal—it was dangerous for him. He had not told Madame who or what he was, but from the look she had given him the day he allowed himself to be recruited, she had known.
She had promised to use him only on special tasks, and she had. She had sent him into the countryside around Marseille and along the coast, especially when she had been in hiding there, at the villa of a friend.
She used his talents gently and kept him away from anyone who would hurt him. He also had to stay away from operations that might lead to someone's death.
If he caused a death, he would lose his magic.
The Alliance did not traffick in death or assassination. The Alliance was one of the few spy networks that he knew of that was actually doing good work against the Boche.
The Alliance had allied itself with MI6, the British spy agency, and had sent coded information to them since before Rémy had joined. Madame had run the organization, which had had different names, since Marshal Pétain capitulated over two years ago now, and essentially gave France to the Germans without a fight.
The fae, if they had paid attention, would have been appalled. But they had believed—Rémy's tribe, at least—that the humans would do what they would do and it would have no impact on the fae at all, forgetting the tragedies of more than twenty years before, the destroyed homeland, the blood and gas and bodies all over their lands.
The fae were good at forgetting. Sometimes, he thought, they had more in common with the French capitulators than they did with the French resistance fighters. The fae did not like to fight. His own family had threatened to disown him when he had met with Madame Méric here in Marseille two years ago.
We do not get involved in human business, Rémy's mother had said, her tiny mouth even smaller with disapproval. We shall be fine. We are always fine.
It was the last time he had seen her. When he had returned home months later, he found the land covered with tanks and planes. It was some kind of staging ground for the Germans and the Italians. They had paved the land and put metal on it—the deadly iron.
Rémy could only hope that his family had gone elsewhere—flitted elsewhere, as they had in the first Great War—but he did not know. They had not known how to contact him, and he had not been able to contact them.
He shifted a little in the hot room. Madame was still waving her hand at the transmitter, as if the assignment was all the transmitter's fault.
He would have loved to blame the device, which he dared not touch. It held a place of honor near the window because the transmitter was wireless.
Its wooden box made it seem harmless, but once the lid was up it was a tangle of dials and wires. The Morse key was a button on the right, but he only knew that because the operators would tap and tap and tap, their knowledgeable fingers sending encoded messages all the way to England.
Sometimes Rémy thought those messages, the transmitter, the wireless nature of it all, magic. A magic he couldn't touch, any more than they could touch his.
What there was of it, anyway. His people had lost their powers progressively as the humans moved across the land, covering it with their machines and their pavement and forgetting the glories of the past. Even the fairy stories were fading, becoming codified into Germanic lies, and that had trapped some of his distant relatives in the Black Forest.
They had become lesser than they had been before.
The fae had all become lesser than they had been before. Even here, in the Gulf of Lion, where the land was still wild and the sea held sway. Even here, the fae had become lesser. Although their magic was much stronger than the magic in the Loire Valley, the Alsace, the—oh so many places.
He could not think of that now. He needed to listen.
Madame had finally calmed down. She would do what the British asked, what the Allies asked, even though she believed it dangerous and foolhardy.
Madame ran the Alliance with an iron fist, but she could not control her own allies.
Rémy understood that. He could not control his either. And he had made his share of impossible promises.
He had promised to get the refugees out of the coast before the Germans and the Italians arrived. He had thought maybe in the summer. Then the summer had slid into fall, and now, the gloom of November was ahead of them.
He had thought it an already broken promise, even though November was only a week away. But maybe, if he was creative, there might be a chance.
A slim chance, but a chance.
