“Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll walk you home. And this time, we’re not cutting across the park.”
Chapter V
“Carys, please!” Neerya cried again.
The Faerie huntress seemed to be weighing her options. Then she sighed in resignation and, with the swiftness of a deer, leaped lightly up to the top of the crumbling brick outcropping. Pulling an arrow from her quiver, she nocked, drew, and loosed the missile in a single blur of motion. It parted the ogre’s unruly hair with its razor-sharp edge and made him freeze in mid-pummel.
“That’s enough, Dunn.” Carys already had another arrow drawn.
“But—”
“I said enough, Dunnbolt.” The wood of her longbow creaked as she drew back and sighted down the shaft.
“Carys . . .” Dunnbolt the ogre’s ears twitched, and his misshapen head weaved from side to side. “Been ages since I killed something.” The creature stuck out his bottom lip, murderously petulant. “Something deserving of it, that is . . .”
“Yes, well. I’ve told you to be more careful where you sit,” Carys scolded.
The ogre muttered under his breath and rubbed the meaty palm of his free hand across his scalp—the arrow’s kiss no doubt stung sharply. Sonny stared upward at him in disbelief; the monster was actually pouting.
“You can’t kill him, Dunn,” Carys explained patiently. “Neerya’s the one who brought him down to the sanctuary.”
“Neerya’s back?”
“She is. You almost mashed her flat.”
“Sorry, Bug,” the ogre called out to the cavern at large.
“It’s all right, Dunny. . . .” Neerya clambered out from where she’d been hiding. Long, thin wings, iridescent like the wings of a water beetle, shimmered into existence between the naiad’s shoulder blades, and she flitted up to perch on the giant’s shoulder. “I brought you pretzels.” She held the paper bag she’d been carrying on the subway out in front of the ogre’s nose. “With mustard.”
“Dijon?” The ogre dropped Sonny unceremoniously to the ground and grabbed for the grease-darkened bag.
“Plain yellow.”
Sonny could hardly see what difference the variety of mustard made. The ogre had barely paused to remove the things from the bag before stuffing them down his gullet, chewing maybe once. Sonny scrambled to his feet and backed away while Dunnbolt was otherwise occupied.
Carys lowered her bow and jumped down from her perch, landing soundlessly beside Sonny.
“Thank you,” he said warily.
“Thank her.” Carys nodded toward the tiny water Faerie, who stood balancing on the shoulders of the hulking ogre. “She likes you. We like her.”
“I suppose I’m grateful, then, that Neerya’s opinion holds such sway.”
Carys spun the arrow in her hand and returned it to the quiver on her back. “The Lost take care of each other. We don’t have much choice—not if we want to survive.”
“New York’s a tough town,” Sonny said dryly.
“Tougher lately.”
She was glaring at him flatly, as if he of all people should know what she was talking about. As if she expected him to defend himself.
“Carys . . . I’ve been away from this place for a good while. If you’re spoiling for a fight, I’ll be happy to oblige. But at least tell me what we’re fighting about.”
Her gaze drifted over Sonny’s shoulder, and he turned to see what she was staring at. Now that Dunnbolt was standing still, it was easy to see the half dozen scars—only recently healed—crisscrossing the creature’s broad, ugly face above the bridge of his nose. Underneath his browridge, the ogre’s eye sockets were sunken and dark. And lacking eyes. Dunnbolt was completely blind.
Sonny looked closer and saw that it was highly unlikely the ogre’s injuries had been the result of an accident. Rather, the blindness was a consequence of an attack with a bladed weapon. Whatever—or whoever—had done the job had been deliberate, surgical, and cruel.
Sonny turned back to see Carys observing him keenly. “He was one of the lucky ones,” she said quietly.
“Who?” Sonny asked. Something told him he knew what her answer would be before she even said the word.
“Janus.”
A surge of denial washed through Sonny. But, of course, the Fair Folk didn’t lie.
“Who?” he asked again. “Which one?”
Carys stared at Sonny for a moment, as though deciding whether or not to answer. “The pale one,” she said eventually. “I don’t know his name. Only his handiwork.”
Ghost, Sonny thought. Why?
Out of habit, he reached for the Janus medallion that normally hung from a braided leather cord around his neck before realizing that it wasn’t there. He had lost it fighting one of the three remaining Wild Hunters in Mabh’s Borderlands—and with it, any Faerie magick Auberon had gifted to him. That particular incident had only taken place a day or two earlier, but to Sonny it seemed like a lifetime had passed since then. So much had happened—most of which he didn’t understand.
“This is . . .”
“Something new,” Carys said. “Yes. Your king has changed his policies toward the Lost, it would seem.”
“No, Carys. I don’t think he has.” Sonny frowned and turned away. He knew that Auberon in his present condition was not capable of much, though he would not tell Carys that. This, he was sure, had nothing to do with the king of the Unseelie Fae.
“Then what? The pups attack without their kennel master’s say?”
Sonny’s fist clenched at his side.
Carys put up a hand. “I only mean that a mad dog should always be put down. Before it ruins the whole pack.”
“I am no dog, huntress. Have a care.”
Carys’s golden eyes glittered with amusement. “Well, now. It seems there is a spark in you after all. Here I thought you were content to let an ogre drop you on your head without so much as landing a blow in return.”
“You must excuse me. I’ve had better days than this one. Perhaps I should go.”
Kelley . . .
Whatever expression crossed his face in that moment, it made Carys suddenly relent. She walked over to a moss-covered boulder beside Neerya’s scattered food and sank gracefully down, rolling a soda can toward Sonny with her sandaled foot.
“Go later. For now . . . sit,” she said, an invitation that was half command. “Drink. You are welcome here as Neerya’s guest. You are free to come and go as you wish. I grant it so in the name of this sanctuary and its maker.”
Sonny hesitated. But, again, where would he go? He walked over and crouched on his haunches on the ground and picked up the soda, popping the tab. “I thank you for this hospitality,” he said. If he’d been able to feel anything in that moment, it would probably have felt . . . nice.
In some respects, the cavern was much like some of the places that existed in the Otherworld. It had the same kind of wild, whimsical beauty to it—a melding of natural grace and stunning artifice. Sonny looked up and saw that the cavern was supported by an interlaced network of thousands of tree roots, large and small. The design in places emulated Gothic architecture, making the place seem like a kind of natural cathedral. He could hear the distant rumbling of the subway trains. It provided a counterpoint to the delicate, musical trickling of the underground streams.
As he and Carys sat in almost companionable silence, Sonny began to hear other things. Footsteps. Bits of speech. The Lost Ones were slowly returning to the sanctuary after his sudden initial appearance had spooked them away. All manner of Fair Folk began to gather at the periphery of the wide mossy sward, standing about in twos and threes as though waiting for something to happen. Carys turned to Sonny, a grin on her face that he wasn’t sure was entirely benign.
“Tell me something, Sonny Flannery,” she said. “Have you ever played at the game of hurling?”
“A little,” he said, and was surprised to feel himself grinning back. “A long time ago . . .”
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“Well. Seeing as how we have welcomed you here to our little world-away-from-the-Otherworld, perhaps you might be inclined to return the favor and provide us with some entertainment.” She gestured to the gathering Fae. “It has been a long, long time since we had a mortal among us worthy to play at the game. I trust your skills aren’t so rusty that you won’t, at least, provide a bit of diversion?”
Sonny thought about that for a moment. He remembered telling Kelley stories about the hurling contests he had won in his youth, holding her close in the darkness of her theater as they’d waited for the coming morn. Then morning had come . . . and Kelley had said those words: I don’t love Sonny Flannery. In light of that, a game he’d once reveled in seemed like a pointless waste of time. But, on the other hand, Sonny thought—in light of that—did he really have anything else to do with his time? Anywhere else to go?
He stood. “I will endeavor not to bore you, Lady Carys.”
“Do better than that, changeling.” She stood swiftly, and a murmur of excitement rippled through the air of the cavern. “Defeat me . . . if you can.”
Chapter VI
Circling around the south end of Central Park may have taken them more than twice as long, but at least Kelley arrived at her building on the Upper East Side without incident.
“You might be going about this all the wrong way, you know,” Fennrys said as Kelley fished around in her shoulder bag for her key ring. He had insisted on walking her all the way to her apartment door.
“What?” Kelley paused before putting the key in the lock. “What do you mean?”
“You,” Fennrys said. “Sonny. Maybe you should take it as an example to follow, you know. Sonny’s busting out all crazy-powerful like that.”
Fennrys was staring at her again, and Kelley was finding it increasingly difficult to hold his gaze for any length of time. She focused her eyes, instead, directly in front of her. Not that it really helped—because she then found herself staring at Fenn’s chest, just above where his shirt buttoned.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” Kelley said, blinking rapidly and trying to focus on the conversation.
“I mean,” he explained, “that you might benefit from being true to your nature once in a while, Kelley.” He was standing very close to her. He reached out a hand and tugged gently on the charm hanging around her neck. “Why do you still hide behind this? Now that you know what you really are, I mean. Why fight it?”
“Why do you?” she countered in a voice that was almost a whisper.
Kelley held very still as Fennrys leaned in closer and murmured, “I don’t.”
His breath was warm on her cheek and she closed her eyes, swallowing against the sudden tightness in her throat. When she opened them again, Fenn had backed off a step.
“I don’t fight against my true nature,” he said again, the hint of a smile curling one corner of his lips. “I just know how to use it to best advantage.”
“Is that so?” Kelley struggled to keep a tremor from her voice. “I thought you didn’t like being a Janus. But you still are one, aren’t you?”
The grin faded from his face. “You pick your battles, Princess. The trick is in picking the ones you know you can win.”
Behind Kelley, the front door to her apartment opened abruptly, and she turned to see her roommate. Tyff opened her mouth as if to speak, but then she saw Fennrys behind Kelley in the hall. Without a word, the Summer Fae turned on her heel and stalked back into the apartment, closing her bedroom door behind her with a loud bang.
“Think about what I said, Kelley,” Fenn said quietly, and brushed a stray wisp of hair from her face. Then he nodded and walked down the hall—leaving Kelley standing there, one hand pressed to her cheek, where it felt as though his fingers had left a blazing trail.
As he disappeared down the stairs at the far end of the hall, something that had been needling Kelley on a subconscious level finally broke through the surface. Her fingers went to the necklace hanging about her throat, and she realized suddenly that the Fennrys Wolf’s own charm—the iron medallion that marked him as a Janus Guard—had been notably absent.
“You are still a Janus Guard, aren’t you, Fenn?” she asked the empty hallway.
Kelley heard a rumbling murmur of sound from behind Tyff’s closed bedroom door and knew that Harvicc must still be there. Tyff had said that she would work up a veiling spell to hide the secret of Sonny’s true nature from anyone who went looking for it in the minds of either Tyff herself or Harvicc.
Kelley felt a stab of guilt. She knew how much her roommate hated using the magick she possessed and she knew that this procedure would wound Tyff and Harvicc at some deep level. Just as it had wounded Sonny. But she simply didn’t know how else to keep Sonny’s secret safe.
On the other hand, here she’d been standing in the hallway with Fennrys—who also knew Sonny’s secret. He’d watched his fellow Janus sling magick around the Avalon Grande like water pouring from a fire hose. Even if he didn’t know exactly what had happened to Sonny, he knew that it was something significant. And Kelley had left him alone.
That’s different, she told herself. You left Gentleman Jack alone, too.
She couldn’t bring herself to inflict that kind of enchantment on Jack, her actor friend, when he had nothing to do with the situation. As for Fenn, it wasn’t as if he would ever let her alter his mind—he’d made that pretty clear when he chastised her for altering Sonny’s. Also, neither Jack nor Fennrys had much if anything to do with the Fae. Fenn avoided them wherever possible—unless he was busily killing them defending the Gate, and that didn’t leave much time for mind probing. Kelley would have to hope for the best.
But Tyff and Harvicc were a different matter. Both subjects of Titania, they were at her beck and call. If the queen summoned them, say, to attend upon her at her nightclub, the River, they had to go. If that happened, then Sonny’s secret—left unveiled in Tyff’s and Harvicc’s minds—would be open to discovery.
It was getting very late, and Kelley was exhausted. She went to brush her teeth before heading to bed. She’d forgotten that Tyff had replaced the mirror she’d broken—otherwise, she might’ve been inclined to use the sink in the kitchen. Because, just as she was turning off the taps . . .
“Daughter.”
Kelley looked up. “Oh. Hi.”
“You are well?”
“No, Mom. I’m really not.” Kelley tried to keep the startled expression off her face. She really hadn’t meant to refer to Mabh in that fashion. She kind of hoped that it had sounded sarcastic. But judging from the look on her mother’s face, it had sounded anything but—and Mabh was just as surprised as she was.
Kelley scrambled to find something to say. “Uh. How is . . . the king? Auberon, I mean.”
“I know who you mean, child.”
“Right. How is he?”
“He is also unwell,” Mabh said. “Gravely so.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I do not know.” Mabh shrugged. “There is a shadow growing inside of him—like a . . . like a poison, I suppose. Something works in his blood, sapping his strength. That much I know for certain. What I do not understand is that there is also a kind of light, cold and unforgiving, blindingly bright like his Unseelie power, that also claws at him from inside. Almost as if his own magic has turned against him. I told the young Janus this—it is as if Auberon has poisoned himself.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Dear child.” Mabh’s chuckle was low and lacking in real amusement. “He wouldn’t. Auberon is many, many things but, above all, he is a self-preservationist of the highest order. You of all people should know that.”
“Yeah. I know.” Do I ever.
Kelley was painfully aware of that side of her father’s personality—had been ever since he had forced her to bargain away her power in order to avert the catastrophe of the Wild Hunt wreaking havoc on New York. In return for his assistance, scant
as it had been, Kelley’d had to agree to give up her own stake in the power of the Unseelie throne. She could still recall in minute detail how it had felt to have that silver, scintillating magick ripped from her soul. By her father. She could remember with startling clarity the taste of her own silent, bitter curses—sitting like burning embers on her tongue—as he had done so.
And now, it seemed, he was dying. Do I care? Should I?
Mabh was staring at her with the kind of expression that told Kelley she’d been silent for a long time. Kelley cleared her throat and turned away, straightening the hand towels that hung on the rack.
“This is all connected somehow, isn’t it?” she said. “The Wild Hunt, Auberon’s illness, that damned leprechaun suddenly appearing out of nowhere, looking for my charm . . .”
“I daresay it might be, yes,” Mabh agreed. “Certainly, I think someone is trying to destabilize the Courts as a prelude to a power grab. And while I certainly didn’t appreciate having all that suspicion thrown my way on the Nine Night, I have to give whoever’s responsible credit. It was masterfully done.”
“Whoever’s responsible . . . ,” Kelley echoed. “Tell me something . . . what happened to your war horn after the Wild Hunt was thrown down the first time?”
“It disappeared.” Mabh shrugged. “I assumed that either Auberon or Titania had taken it or destroyed it. Obviously it wasn’t destroyed.”
“And if it wasn’t Auberon . . . then could it have been Titania who reawakened them?”
Mabh laughed at the suggestion. “Don’t be absurd,” she said. “My birdbrained fellow queen doesn’t have that kind of initiative. She’s perfectly happy throwing her parties and canoodling with the Winter King—when he’s in the mood. Anything else is just too much effort for her.”
“But it makes sense,” Kelley argued. “Titania tried to take the binding spell off my charm. Maybe she wanted it for herself—”