I froze, looked around my bedroom slowly, wondering where Eloise was hiding. There were posters of castles and Robin Hood and Pride and Prejudice movies, heaps of clothes on my unmade bed, incense burning from a ceramic dragon, but no Eloise. Even though I swore I’d heard her, as well as seen her. I checked under the bed and then checked my mobile phone, but it was off, the battery drained when it had accidentally turned itself on in my knapsack. I checked my pulse too. Maybe the kiss had shot my temperature into a fever. It was hot enough, however brief. Focus.
“Eloise?” I felt like an idiot, talking to my blank screen.
And then I felt positively barmy when her face stared back at me, the screen no longer blank. I knew her freckles and styled hair almost as well as I knew my own face. I’d never seen her that pale before, though.
“How are you doing that?” I asked. I was probably looking a little wild and pale myself, come to think of it. “My computer’s not even on.”
“You can hear me?” She looked as if she was going to cry, except that she was smiling too.
“Duh. I can see you too. Is this some kind of trick?” I looked for a projector of some kind.
“You can see me too? It must be the pendant. I was holding it when I said your name.” She wiped tears off her face. “How come I can’t see you?”
“Okay, if Cole snuck some kind of weird drug in my tea, I’m so going to kill him. A lot.”
“Jo, listen, you have to help me.” Eloise’s voice dropped to a frantic whisper. “I may not have much time.”
“You don’t even have a curfew. Which leaves us plenty of time for me to get lots of therapy,” I added drily.
She shook her head. “I don’t even know where I am, except it’s somewhere under a hill in west Rowanwood Park.”
“You’re in the park? So just follow one of the trails back to the lawns. It’s not that big. And by the way? How are you doing this?”
“I don’t know!”
“Quit yelling!”
“You’re yelling too!”
“Well, you’re freaking me out!”
We shared a strangled attempt at laughter. We could always make each other laugh, even when we were clearly losing our minds.
“Jo, Lucas was right. I was in danger.”
“Lucas? He did this to you?” I jumped to my feet. “I’ll kill him. Where is he? What’d he do?”
“Nothing. He tried to warn me. Look, it’s something to do with my aunt, like we thought, but I don’t know what yet. This guy’s holding me hostage.”
“You’ve been kidnapped? I’m calling your mom.” I reached for the phone. “And the cops. The fire department. I don’t know, somebody!”
“Don’t!”
I paused. “What? Why the hell not?”
“Because this guy’s not . . . normal. He’s Fae, Jo, like in all those books and poems you read. His name’s Strahan.”
“Is this an April Fool’s thing? In October? I thought we made a pact last year not to do that anymore.” Actually, after the spaghetti incident, our mothers had threatened to ground us until we graduated.
“Jo, I know this is weird, but you gotta believe me.” Her lip wobbled, like she was trying not to cry.
“Hey, take it easy,” I said. I might be a girl, but I don’t do well with crying. That’s Devin’s department; he just lets people cry and never looks uncomfortable. I was already squirming. I was also going to find this Lucas and kick his ass. He was clearly involved, whatever Eloise might say. “I believe you, El.”
I paused, something tickling my brain. I knew something, something important about the Fae. I ran through the poems and novels in my head, then shouted into the monitor. “El!”
She yelped. “What? Don’t do that!”
“Don’t eat anything. Or drink anything either. At all. I mean it.”
“Why not? Isn’t it bad enough I’m stuck here, I have to starve too?” Nothing made Eloise crankier than being deprived of food. I’d seen her kiss a piece of chocolate mousse pie once.
“If you eat or drink Fae food, you’ll be stuck there forever.”
“Oh God,” she groaned. “Now all I can think about is mashed potatoes. And olives.”
“Gross.” I ran a hand through my hair, dislodging the messy braid. “Right. Fae abductions. I’ll see what I can do. Then I’ll look up the nearest psych ward,” I muttered.
• • •
I spent the rest of the evening doing research. I googled things I never thought I’d google, like Fae history and Fae charms, and all the different names they went by: Faery, Fairy, Fey, the Good Neighbors, the Wee Folk. I even googled the topography of Rowanwood Park. Some of the websites made my eyeballs hurt, some were helpful, some were boring as dust. I tried another search on Eloise’s aunt but came up empty. I dug out all my English papers and flipped through my books and took notes in a journal with color-coordinated felt-tip pens. I loved researching bits of history or mythological trivia. I even loved reading all of the old fairy poems—just not when my best friend’s life might possibly depend on it. Talk about pressure.
The next morning I skipped school and went straight to the public library and found a quiet corner in the back. We often came here to do homework on Sunday afternoons. Well, Eloise did homework. I looked at the cute guys. Like the one standing by the photocopiers right now, his hair long and straight and his jeans frayed at the bottom. He looked a little bit like Hot Guy. Whose name I still didn’t know, I realized. I gathered my books to go say hello, but by the time I stood up, he was gone.
Just as well, I told myself sternly. I had more important things to worry about than flirting, even if I liked flirting as much as Eloise liked strawberry tarts. I forced my attention back to the yellowed books piled all around me. Most of them were old, with folded pages and cellophaned covers.
In the movies, this was so much easier. There was always an old woman who hobbled over to give you the clue you needed the most, even if it didn’t make sense at the time. Here, there were only guys throwing spitballs at each other, people studying, a girl talking on her mobile phone, and librarians. And the only old woman we’d seen had pelted us with acorns.
When my journal was half full of little bits of information that might or might not be useful, I decided to take myself off to Rowanwood Park. I was starting to feel overwhelmed and discouraged, and besides, maybe if I could find the hill Eloise was talking about, I’d figure out a way to get her the hell out of it.
’Cause, you know, that made sense.
I really, really wanted to call Devin. And Eloise’s mom. If Eloise was missing, wouldn’t her mom have called me looking for her?
I reached for my mobile and dialed Eloise’s house line. Jasmine answered groggily. “ ’Lo?”
“Hi, Ms. Hart,” I said. “Sorry to call so early, but is Eloise there?”
“She left me a note saying she was sleeping at your place last night.”
Oh. Shit.
“Oh, um, yeah, but she stopped at home to pick up some books,” I lied hastily. “I just wanted to remind her not to forget her . . . history homework. Her mobile died.”
I could hear Eloise’s mom moving around. “Not here.” She yawned.
“Okay,” I said as cheerfully as I could. “She must be on her way to the library. Bye!” I hung up as fast as I could. Luckily Eloise’s mom was never quite coherent in the mornings since she worked so late at night. She probably didn’t notice I was lying through my teeth.
Eloise didn’t leave that note.
So who did? And why? To put us off her trail? Which meant she was really missing. She’d really been stolen away by the fairies.
I ran all the way to the park.
The wrought-iron doors were open, tall dry grass on either side. The low stone wall that ran along the front of the park was full of people, eating hot dogs, drinking coffee, just sitting in the leaf-shadowed sunlight.
No one had giant glittery wings or ferns for hair.
That was comforting at least
.
I went down the path, which was clogged with Rollerbladers and dog walkers, and passed the gazebo where they held outdoor concerts and Shakespearean plays in the summer. I went every year without fail, usually alone since I couldn’t get Eloise or Devin to come with me anymore. They’d grouped together in a strike and would now only meet me for ice cream afterward. Was it my fault they were culturally deficient? How could you not love Ophelia running around in a whalebone corset, tossing flowers, and making mad pronouncements? It was brilliant, plain and simple. I thought of A Midsummer Night’s Dream all of a sudden and hoped fiercely that no one would come away from our little situation with a donkey’s head.
What a weird thing to worry about actually happening.
I made my way toward the west end of the park. The pond glimmered, framed by the banks and sprinkled with wild lilies. A swan floated on the surface and ignored me completely. There were slight rolls and dips in the grass but nothing I’d call a proper hill without a great deal of wishful thinking. I kicked at the weeds, finding nothing but more weeds; no convenient magic door or wooden sign painted with THIS WAY TO YE OLDE FAERY COURTS.
There was, however, a tiny winged fairy lifting out of a hawthorn bush.
I might have thought it was a blue jay or a really big butterfly, something normal anyway. But then she turned her head and looked straight at me.
I slid right off my feet and onto my butt, choking on a scream.
It’s not that I hadn’t believed Eloise. I mean, the trick with my computer had been pretty unfathomable, but this was something else entirely.
“You’re real!” I gaped.
She sniffed. “Of course, I am. You humans don’t get any less arrogant, do you?”
“Uh.” Brilliant, Jo, I thought. I swallowed, forced my brain not to skitter around like a bee at a windowpane. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve always been here.” She hovered, letting the light breeze lift her up. Part of me was looking for invisible wires. “You must have been Touched, to see me now.”
I shook my head as if that would bring order to my thoughts. “Eloise didn’t say anything about you being so small. Is she being held captive by a moth-king or something?”
Her lips might have been the color of cotton candy, but they lifted off teeth that were sharp as needles, though still not as sharp as the disdain in her bluebell eyes. “Blast that dodgy old poet,” she muttered. “And the bloody Victorians with all their bloody stories.”
“The Victorians?”
“Idiots, the lot of them.” She paused, glared at me. “You’re not a writer, are you?”
“Uh . . .”
She sighed, disgusted. “I always get stuck with you nutters.”
I frowned. “Hey.” Her wings were so thin and translucent, I could see the glow of sunlight through them, like violet petals. Her hair was a mass of tiny braids. “Um . . . what does this have to do with the Victorians?”
“I was tall and stately before them, wasn’t I?” She plucked at her petal skirt. “And I’d never have worn this ridiculous dress. I had proper armor and a sword with opals in the hilt. And then one cursed morning, over a hundred years ago now, I left the rath and some arse of a poet with the Sight saw me. He was so convinced, had believed for so bloody long that fairies were these wee pretty things, that the sheer force of his belief and that of his daft artist friends, eventually shrank me down.” She fanned her wings indignantly. “You try finding a sword small enough to be of any use to me.”
I was still sitting on the ground, dampness seeping into my skirt. I shivered. “Maybe it’s the flu,” I said suddenly.
“Don’t be stupid, we don’t get the flu.”
I rubbed at my face, nearly laughed. “Not you, me. Maybe I have a fever. That would explain everything.”
She sighed, drifted down to look at me. Even with her impressive wings she was only about a foot long. “This part is so tiresome,” she told me. “Could you catch up? I hate having to convince people that they’re not crazy. Maybe you are, it’s nothing to do with me. And I’m not buzzing about forcing you to convince me you’re real, am I?”
“Um, no?”
“Good. Here’s the usual list of rational explanations, none of which pertain here: some sort of drug, it was laudanum back when I got caught; illness; hallucination; trickery; or else a vivid dream of some sort. I don’t think I’ve left anything out.”
I swallowed, strangely comforted. “Okay. Know anything about Antonia Hart and why one of your lot would have kidnapped my best friend?”
“Did you say Hart?” She paled, cockiness fading slightly. “Blast.”
She was gone before I could ask her anything else, but not before I’d seen the look of stark terror on her delicate face.
Chapter 5
Eloise
I don’t know how long I sat there, waiting. I’d slipped the pendant back under my collar after Jo’s voice faded away and that felt like it had been hours ago. The contact bolstered me a little, enough that I didn’t feel quite so hysterical. If I knew Jo, she was already researching. I hated that all I could do right now was wait.
I hated it more when the oak door creaked open and then the silver curlicue grate after that. A guard strolled in holding a small trunk, which he dropped on the rug with a thump. “Put this on, little morsel.”
I lifted the lid and pulled out a frilly white corset, frilly white petticoats, and a burgundy dress that looked both complicated and revealing. “I don’t think so.”
He raised an eyebrow, the feather in his hair ruffling over the black feathers carved into his armor. “Then Lord Strahan will see you naked at his dinner table.”
I knew I went pale as milk, then flushed to the color of ripe strawberries. He laughed. “Lord Strahan always gets his way.” He nudged me with the tip of his boot. “Want some help, lass?”
I drew back, lifted my chin.“I can manage.”
“Pity.”
I waited until he’d left and shut the heavy door behind him. I was pretty sure the reason the others were leaving me relatively alone wasn’t because they didn’t want to hurt me, but rather because Strahan wanted to hurt me more. I was starting to feel nauseous. I had to force myself to get up and sort through the clothes. The last thing I wanted was for them to march back in and find me only half-dressed and use that as an excuse to drag me out in my underwear. Or worse.
I was really grateful for all those long dull Victorian movies that Jo loved so much. It was the only reason I was able to vaguely recognize some of the lace and linen piled in a heap on the bed. The lacy pant-things went on first and then the corset—just in case I wasn’t already feeling dizzy and lightheaded enough. There was a lump that looked like it was stuffed with cotton batting and I assumed it was the bustle so I used the ribbons to tie it around my waist before pulling the dress over my head. The lace clung to the corset, then spilled over the edge into frothy cupcake ribbons and pleats at the bottom. My bare shoulders poked out of peek-a-boo cuts in the fabric. The collar was ruffled with white lace, closed at the throat. There was just enough space to hide my necklace in my cleavage, thanks to the corset. I’d never actually had cleavage before; Jo had all the boobs, I had all the skinny. I thought I’d feel silly in the dress, but it made me stand a little taller.
The doors swung open, clanging against the wall. A guard jerked her head for me to follow her. I swallowed, frozen in place. She paused and turned her head. “Walk or be dragged.”
I walked. The hallway was lit with ornate beaded lamps of various sizes. There were crystal bowls filled with lilies everywhere. She wasn’t a crow-guard. There were no feathers in her hair, and her armor looked more like a beetle’s carapace, shiny black with streaks of green and blue. As she led me back to the main hall, the scent of lilies grew stronger and more cloying.
Exquisite crystal chandeliers glittered overhead, revealing Lord Strahan in a frock coat made entirely of black PVC. Devin’s Goth sister would have drooled over
it. In fact, she would have loved this whole place, with its overdone glitter and edge. I just wanted our tiny apartment with the cracked Formica counters and radiator that clanked and groaned through the winter.
“Much better,” he said, giving me the once-over. “Can’t do much about the hair, I suppose, but it’s not so ghastly as all that.”
I just glared at him. I was so out of my depth it was ridiculous. He kept smiling, like a proud host. His harem of ghostly ladies floated behind him. “You’ve met my Grey Ladies. Now, do sit down.”
His genteel manners were getting to be as creepy as the rest of this nightmare. I sat in the chair he nodded to, mostly because the beetle-girl shoved me down into it. She stood behind me, straight and alert. I knew if I so much as moved a muscle away from the blue brocade cushions, I’d be feeling the tip of one of the daggers hanging from her belt.
“Please let me go,” I whispered.
Strahan waved that away as if I were being ridiculous. The Grey Ladies laughed, and it was the sound of ice cracking on a lake, swallowing an unprepared person entirely.
“We’ve a ball to look forward to,” he said. “It’s barely a week from Samhain and we must celebrate. Your aunt wouldn’t miss it. She’ll think to gain her crown back, won’t she?”
I’d seen my aunt in ripped jeans, torn T-shirts, and ropes of crystal beads, but never a crown.
“Bring the others in,” he said to a man in a starched cravat and holly leaves for hair. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat in my chair and tried not to scream. Maybe if I sat quietly enough I could find out what was going on, get some snippet of information that made sense. I wondered where Lucas was and if he knew I was here and why Strahan seemed so infuriated by the mere mention of the Richelieu family. That alone made me want to find every Richelieu in the world and kiss them. With tongue.
The hall bustled with servants and courtiers, the latter lounging about eating sugar-frosted cakes and bowls of chocolate topped with pink whipped cream. There were tables piled with foods of all types: fragrant pastries; honey-painted breads; berries and custards; and crystal tureens boiling with hot chocolate, ginger tea, and that odd pink champagne. My stomach rumbled lightly. It didn’t care that I was terrified and held against my will, it only wanted to eat some of those éclairs. I looked away before I started to drool.