Still, the Autumn Queen was staggeringly lovely—perhaps even more so because she looked . . . vulnerable. Mabh hugged her elbows tightly, drawing her cloak closely around her body, and stared at her daughter with a defiant gleam in her eyes, as if daring Kelley to make a comment on her appearance. Kelley bit her lip and said nothing.
“My power wanes,” the queen said finally, lifting her chin as if to belie that statement.
“I . . . um . . . why?” Kelley asked. First Auberon, now Mabh. . . . It was as if someone was taking down the monarchs of Faerie one at a time. She wondered how Titania and Gwynn fared. “How? Who could do such a thing?”
“It’s not that difficult to topple a monarch, Daughter,” Mabh said. “Just ask Gwynn ap Nudd, after what happened to him. All you need to do is find a weakness. Or make one.”
“Is that what’s happened to you?”
“I daresay it is. Someone has found a conduit to siphon power from the Autumn Court’s throne.”
“A conduit?”
“Something already touched by my magicks. I thought they might be using you.” She raised an arched brow. “I’m pleased to see that is not the case.”
“Wow.” Kelley blinked. “Thanks for giving me a heads-up that there was a possibility that might happen. . . .”
“I never really considered it a likely scenario. You’re not exactly what I would call a pushover. I daresay you’d fight back rather vigorously, and that, in itself, would draw far too much power to make you an effective channel.” Her expression went dark. “But don’t worry, darling. When I find out who is behind all this, I will teach them the error of their ways.”
Sure, Kelley thought. Plot that vengeance all you want. You look like you can barely stand upright. First Auberon, then Mabh . . . that left two Faerie monarchs in full power. Which one was responsible? Or were they targets, too? She remembered when Gwynn told her that he had once been the only king in the Otherworld, in the time before the Greenman created the Four Gates of Faerie. Gwynn had told her of the war, and how Auberon and Titania, upstarts both, had banded together to usurp his power. And how Mabh had gathered enough of her own power while they did so to become a force to be reckoned with in her own right.
Was that what was happening now?
Maybe the Wee Green Clan themselves had simply decided the time was ripe for a New Otherworld Order. The thought of the Greenman’s offspring getting control of their old man’s power made Kelley shudder inwardly, but it still didn’t quite add up. They might have been acting independently, but from the way Mabh was talking, there was more muscle behind the unrest than just a few disgruntled weeds. She remembered that she had found the leprechaun in the garage of Titania’s club, but . . .
Kelley shook her head. She didn’t have any kind of proof, beyond the uneasy feeling she got around the Summer Queen and, as the daughter of the crazy-dangerous Queen of Autumn, she really wasn’t one to point fingers. Instead Kelley cast about for a change in subject.
“How’s Auberon?” was the only thing she could think of.
“Still dying,” Mabh said blandly. “I’m sure that pleases you no end.”
“You’re wrong,” Kelley said.
“Am I?” The queen stared at her flatly. “It would please me, were I you.”
“You’re not me. And I don’t even think you mean that.”
“It is true that Auberon has been the only thing that has kept the Four Courts from tearing apart. Your father may not be the most benevolent ruler at times, but he at least had the strength to keep the realm from dissolving into chaos.”
“I thought you were a big fan of chaos.”
“I am a ‘big fan,’ as you say, of my chaos. It’s not quite the same thing.”
“Whoever’s doing this to Auberon . . . it has to be the same person that’s after the Green Magick.” Kelley sighed, wishing she had more to go on. “At least Sonny’s secret is safe for the time being,” she said, half to herself.
When Mabh grew uncomfortably silent, Kelley glanced up sharply.
“Isn’t it?”
“Well . . .”
Kelley went cold. “Where’s Bob?”
Mabh chewed on her lip and avoided Kelley’s stare.
“What did you do to him? Is he all right?”
The expression on the queen’s face turned to one of sour annoyance. “I’m sure he’s just fine. His kind always manage to survive nicely.”
“What happened?” Kelley asked anxiously. “I thought you said you’d take care of things with him.”
“And I would have, if the little snake hadn’t developed such a talent for eavesdropping all those years ago.”
“He overheard us?” Kelley’s mouth dropped open.
“I daresay he did. And didn’t stick around much afterward. He’s gone. I don’t know where.”
This was not good. This was, in fact, potentially disastrous. Bob on the loose, possessed of the knowledge of Sonny’s power, put Sonny in grave danger. The fact that he knew Kelley had given Mabh his name put Kelley at risk. The boucca had always been friendly to her, but this . . . this was the kind of thing that just might turn him against her. Or Sonny. Kelley felt a knot of apprehension tighten her stomach. “That’s great,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “That’s just super, Mabh—”
“Oh honestly!” the queen snapped at her peevishly. “Would it kill you to call me Mother? Just once, and not in irony, or mockery, or by accident?”
Kelley blinked in surprise at the outburst.
“This whole situation is none of my fault. And yet you make me suffer.”
“Uh . . .” Kelley raised one hand defensively. “This whole . . . ‘situation’ has an awful lot to do with what you did to Herne back in the day.”
“One mistake.”
“It was a pretty big mistake.”
“I was in love.”
“And that’s your excuse?”
“Yes.” The queen raised her eyes and glared flatly at her daughter. “What’s yours?”
That stung.
“He’s hurt, you know. Herne. Badly.” Kelley wasn’t sure if she said it to sting Mabh back. But the second the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Pain, like a livid scar, flashed across Mabh’s face.
“Tell me,” the queen whispered in a voice gone raw.
Kelley told her mother everything she knew. It still didn’t add up to who was behind it all.
“This scheme is not something your average Fae could engineer,” Mabh murmured, regaining her composure.
“Average Fae or no, whoever is behind this better tread carefully. Because if they harm one single hair on Sonny’s head,” Kelley said matter-of-factly, “then I will kill them. Just like I killed Jenii Greenteeth.”
It was Mabh’s turn, then, to look startled.
“Like mother, like daughter.” Kelley shrugged, ignoring the fact that her stomach had clenched at what she’d just said. “I have to go. Take care of Auberon for me.” Then she wiped her hand over the glass and watched as Mabh’s visage disappeared from view.
Chapter XXI
They emerged from the subway tunnels at Columbus Circle, largely unnoticed—thanks to Cait’s glamour. As they headed north up Central Park West, Sonny was almost amused to see people instinctively cross over the street to avoid sharing the sidewalk with a handful of changelings, a Faerie huntress, and a very tall man with decidedly odd features. The Ghillie Dhu—the web-fingered Fae who had befriended Sonny between bouts of hurling—had approached Sonny quietly as he was preparing to leave and had offered his services.
“Call me Webber,” he’d said, and spread his fingers to illustrate the pun. His Fae name was probably unpronounceable by a human tongue. “I have some small skill as a healer.” Sonny had thanked him and told him that he’d probably be best utilized by helping tend to the injured Lost in the reservoir. The tall Fae shook his head solemnly, staring down at Sonny with large, fathomless eyes. “I also have some smaller skill at catching g
limpses of the future,” he said. “Nothing clear. Nothing definite. But I can tell you this: wherever it is you are going, Janus . . . you will have need of a healer.”
It hadn’t been the most encouraging conversation. But it had made Sonny take Webber along with them. For the moment, he put the ominous prediction out of his mind and called Cait to him as they walked.
“Who in the Guard do you know for certain avoided this . . . this taint of rebellion?”
Cait winced but thought about it carefully before answering. “Bellamy is clean. He’d never have agreed to that attack on the sanctuary. How Camina has managed to keep the whole thing from him, I don’t know.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
Cait frowned. “No. . . . As a matter of fact, I haven’t even seen Bell in days.”
“That might go a ways toward explaining how she was able to keep him out of it,” Sonny said grimly.
Cait’s eyes went wide. “You don’t think . . .”
“I don’t know anything for certain, Cait. All I know is that the Janus Guard has been severely compromised.”
“They’re twins. . . .”
“I know. But they didn’t always see eye to eye. Let’s face it . . . there are those of us who’ve never been happy living like this. In servitude to the Winter King.” Sonny was probably the most loyal of all the Guard to the Unseelie king, and even he’d had cause to chafe under Auberon’s dictates.
“But we’ve always been loyal to the Guard itself, and to each other.” He glanced over his shoulder at where Maddox and Fennrys brought up the rear of the group, and gestured them forward. “Even the Wolf,” he said before they reached them. “Now something has broken that bond. Something strong enough to make thralls of the Janus.”
“Power,” Cait said quietly. “The promise of it, at least . . .”
“Aye. Do you remember the stories about the demise of the Greenman? Back in the days before the Gate was shut?”
“Of course I do. You don’t grow up in the Otherworld without hearing the tale.”
“The Greenman was killed because he was too trusting. He took on the guise of a mortal man, and when someone shot him to death with iron bullets it was a blow to the very fabric of Faerie existence.” It pained Sonny to think of the old god lying there bleeding out his life as he gifted his phenomenal power to Sonny’s father. “There was always intrigue and plotting among the High Fae. But to murder the creator of the Four Gates, the architect of the Four Courts, was to give notice to all of the Otherworld that no one among the Fair Folk should consider themselves safe.”
“But it was never discovered who was responsible, and the Green Magick was never recovered,” Cait mused. “Its hiding place was never found, and so the threat was never made good on.”
Until now, maybe, Sonny thought.
Of course Cait would know all about the subject of the Greenman’s power. Magick was her special love. She had studied it all her life.
“At any rate,” Sonny said, “whoever we’re up against, whatever their goal, we can count out Camina, Godwyn, and Selene. Ghost is no longer . . . a variable, and Bell is missing in action.”
Maddox and Fennrys had come up beside them and caught the tail end of the conversation. “What about the others?” Maddox asked. “What about Percival?”
Cait shook her head. “Don’t know. I couldn’t say for certain . . . but Perry idolizes Aaneel.”
Fennrys raised an eyebrow. “And Aaneel is . . . ?”
“Again, I do not know. I was . . . I would say ‘recruited,’ but I think now a more appropriate term is coerced, into this whole mess by Godwyn. He tells everyone that this has all come down from Aaneel, but that could just be because he wants everyone to believe it comes directly from Auberon.”
“Believe me,” said Sonny quietly, “it does not.”
Cait shrugged one shoulder. “Then it is either Godwyn acting on his own, or Aaneel is the one behind it all. But if that is the case, then we can count out any help from Perry. Like I said—he idolizes Aaneel.”
“And what about the lads?” Maddox asked, meaning Bryan and Beni.
Cait laughed. “Godwyn can’t stand them. He wouldn’t invite them along if he could help it. I think he’s sent them into perpetual Gate patrol—again, supposedly at Auberon’s behest.”
“We could probably use them,” Sonny said, glancing off to his left as he walked. The sidewalk ran parallel to the stone wall that surrounded Central Park.
“I’ll go,” Fenn offered. “With the mess those two usually leave in their wake, it shouldn’t take much to track them.”
Sonny wondered fleetingly why the Wolf hadn’t been included in the recruitment, but he suspected he already knew the answer. Fennrys may not have had any love for Auberon, but his rebelliousness would cut both ways. He wasn’t about to be swayed to any particular cause. Fennrys was in it for himself. He was undependable in any other capacity.
But Sonny thought he could trust him to at least run and collect Bryan and Beni from the park. Whatever the storm they were about to head into . . . he had to admit, he was going to need all hands on deck.
Once Sonny and his companions got past security and up the elevator, he dismantled the protective wards guarding his front door and let them inside. After he’d reinstated his wards and told everyone to make themselves comfortable, all they could do was wait and hope that Neerya found the Siren and could convince her to take the lullaby charm once more from his mind. And then? Sonny had no idea what should come next.
What he did know was that he wasn’t going to hide anymore. That was what had got them all into this mess in the first place. It seemed to Sonny that everyone had been trying so hard to keep him safe that they’d left him blind and in the dark and unable to defend himself. If the Old Shrub had been taken for the purpose of reviving the leprechaun, then whoever was responsible probably knew by now who—and what—Sonny was. Sonny might as well do his companions the courtesy of letting them know, too. Then they could decide for themselves if they wanted to stick with him.
Webber took the news in stride, but it seemed he wasn’t one for emotional extremes at the best of times. Both Cait and Carys were staring at him, and Sonny thought Maddox’s jaw would hit the carpet.
Madd shook his head in utter disbelief. “You’re yanking my leg,” he scoffed. “You can’t be serious. You . . . the Greenman . . .”
“Fennrys probably didn’t think I was joking when I blasted him through a window, decimated the Wee Green Clan single-handedly, and burned down Kelley’s theater,” Sonny said dryly. “But you can ask him his opinion when he gets back, if you want.”
“And you don’t remember doing any of it?”
“Not a single damned second. Nothing past the moment when I thought Kelley was dead. I only know what Puck told me. I guess it was pretty bad, though.”
Maddox whistled low. “And you want to let this . . . this thing inside you off its leash again. Is that really such a good idea?”
“I don’t know.” Sonny turned to Cait where she still stood, stunned. “Is it?”
“I . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I certainly understand now why Kelley did what she did. Sonny . . . that is a tremendous amount of power. More power than anyone other than the Greenman himself should ever possess.”
“I know. But he isn’t here. Because someone killed him and tried to take his power. If someone comes to take it from me, I’d like to avoid a similar outcome.”
“You say the Green Magick can only be taken from you with the help of Kelley’s charm?” Carys asked, having found her voice—an unsteady version of it.
Sonny nodded. “As I understand it. That’s what Puck told me.”
“Then she is in grave danger,” said the huntress.
“Yet another reason I’d like to be able to access this convenient arsenal within me.”
There was a quiet knock on the apartment door. Sonny muttered the words that dismantled the wards and opened it.
Chloe stood at the threshold, her eyes wide and darting. Neerya held her firmly by the hand, and Sonny had the feeling that, if she hadn’t had such a grip on her, the Siren might have bolted. Sonny could hardly blame her—things hadn’t been easy for Chloe lately. She wore a thin, filmy scarf around her neck to cover the scars inflicted by Mabh when she’d tortured the poor creature to get information about Kelley. As Neerya dragged Chloe inside, Maddox motioned Sonny over into the kitchen.
“It . . . uh . . . you probably don’t remember but, the last time, it didn’t go so well for her, Sonny,” Maddox said to him quietly. “That green voodoo attached to the song in your head . . .”
“It’s immensely powerful.” Sonny nodded. “I know.”
“It’s bloody toxic, is what it is. It near drove her out of her mind.”
“I need her help, Madd.”
Maddox shook his sandy head and said, “If she agrees, then so do I.”
Chloe turned and went into the bedroom. The two Janus followed, and Maddox took up a position standing in front of Chloe, arms crossed over his chest, glowering a bit at Sonny like some kind of self-appointed security detail. In truth, Sonny was glad he was there. Sonny still didn’t trust the Siren and, if he was honest with himself, the very idea of letting her back into his head was nothing short of terrifying.
“Chloe?” Maddox turned to the Siren where she had perched on the edge of the bed. “This is up to you. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to and, much as Sonny here’s my best mate, I’ll break his arm before I let him force you into it.” He glanced over his shoulder at Sonny. “Sorry.”
Sonny shrugged. “Don’t be.” He would have done exactly the same thing if it were Kelley.
Chloe reached up a hand and slid a shining strand of her pale gold hair behind her ear. She looked up at Maddox for a long moment. Her dark golden gaze traveled over his face, and the barest hint of a shy smile ticked at the corner of her mouth. The Siren turned to Sonny and nodded her head.
“I’ll try very hard not to hurt you this time,” she said.
He and Maddox both breathed a deep sigh of relief.