The image of Sonny bleeding his life out onto the thirsty ground assaulted Kelley’s mind. Even if no one else believed her, Kelley knew. Sonny was in danger. “He needs my help,” she said quietly.
“Really.” Tyff stared at her, unblinking. “I’d say Sonny’s not your concern anymore. I have a feeling he’d agree with me if you asked him. After all, you made it pretty clear back in his apartment—”
“You know why I said those things!”
“No! I don’t, Kelley!” Tyff snapped. “Because whatever it is that has turned you into a raving lunatic, if it has anything to do with Sonny-boy, you made me make myself forget about it, remember?”
“I’m sorry—”
“Stop.” Tyff’s voice softened and she said, “You obviously have your reasons. Look . . . whatever Sonny’s deal is, it’s Sonny’s deal. You can’t choose someone else’s destiny for them, Kelley. And you shouldn’t let anyone choose yours. Believe me, it’s no fun.”
“What am I supposed to do, Tyff? You tell me.”
“Okay. For starters—if you want to be an actress? Be an actress.”
“How’m I supposed to do that with everything else that’s going on?” Kelley muttered miserably.
“Do what the humans do,” Tyff said. “Do what you used to do when you thought you were human. Multitask.”
“I wish it was that easy.”
“It is.” Tyff’s blue gaze bored into her. “Save the theater. Save Sonny—if that’s what he really needs. Save the world. Save yourself. It’s all just variations on a theme.”
“Tyff—”
“You gonna tell me to ‘shut it’ again, Kelley?”
“I . . . no. Of course not. I’m really sorry about that.”
“Seriously.” Tyff wasn’t letting Kelley off the hook that easily. “‘Shut it, Tyff’?”
“I only said that—”
“I turned a guy into a stoat once for a vastly lesser insult.”
“Can we talk about that for a minute?”
“Stoats?” Tyff tilted her head and smiled, thoroughly enjoying raking Kelley over the coals. “They’re like a kind of weasel—”
“No.” Kelley needed Tyff to be serious for a moment. “No. I mean . . . I know it’s kind of a taboo subject for you and all, but. Could we please talk about magick?”
“And the you-not-using-thereof?” Tyff shrugged. “Sure.”
“How about, and the you-teaching-me-how-to-use-it-properly?” Kelley pressed.
“Oh sure. A variation on the old Sorcerer’s Apprentice theme. That story never ends well, you know.”
“Tyff . . . please. I’m going to need all the help I can get in the next little while, and that includes being able to use whatever Faerie tricks I can pull out of my hat. Just think about it?”
“I don’t like thinking about things, Kelley. ‘Thinking makes it so.’” Tyff frowned. “Who was it who said that?”
“Shakespeare.”
“Ah. Right. The old rummy. Well, he certainly hung out with his share of Fae, so he should know. You want to learn how to use your magick, Kelley? Just listen to Shakespeare. Shakespeare knows best.” Her lips bent upward in a sardonic grin.
“You mean . . . ‘Thinking makes it so.’ That’s it.”
“That’s it. But I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Tyff—”
“Unh!” Tyff held up a hand. “That’s all you get out of me, kiddo. I’m sorry. Been there, done that. I’ve gotta go. I have a mani/pedi booked and if I’m late Tyrone takes it out on my cuticles.” Tyff grabbed her purse from off the hall table and reached for the doorknob. She paused for a second, turning back to Kelley. “Think about what I said, okay?”
“You just said you were anti-thinking,” Kelley grumbled.
Tyff shot her a look over her shoulder and then she was gone.
Kelley went into her bedroom and threw herself onto the bed. Staring up at the ceiling with unfocused eyes, she tried to concentrate on the wisdom of others. Fenn’s words of the day before prowled around in her head: You pick your battles, Princess. The trick is in picking the ones you know you can win. Tyff’s thoughts chased them at the heels, hectoring and contradictory: Save the theater. Save Sonny. Save the world. Save yourself.
Two pieces of advice. Pretty clearly irreconcilable. Or were they?
“Okay . . . okay.” Mindi put up a hand, semi-silencing the debate raging around the tables at the back of the Tastee Burger diner. “Enough gab. Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Tempest seem to be the front-runners. So what’s it gonna be, Q?”
A hush fell over the gathering of thespians. All eyes turned anxiously to the corner booth where Quentin St. John Smyth sat huddled in his black turtleneck. “‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on,’” Quentin murmured finally, chewing thoughtfully over Prospero’s most famous line. “It’s perfect. The Tempest it shall be. Perfect.”
The Mighty Q looked . . . fragile. His habitual black garb emphasized the sallowness of his complexion and the dark rings circling his eyes. But as he lifted his head, Kelley thought she might have seen a tiny flame kindle to life.
“What say you all?” Quentin cast his gaze from face to face. “The Tempest? Show of hands.”
Kelley glanced surreptitiously around as the company responded unanimously. It made sense. Romeo and Juliet was a complete nonstarter since the fire. Apart from crispy-fried sets and costumes, Quentin was now convinced that the play itself held some kind of curse, and he wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. He wasn’t the only one.
Theater folk, Kelley thought. As superstitious as they come.
And every last one of them was precious to her. She and Gentleman Jack had shared a wordless moment when she arrived. He’d smiled and squeezed her shoulder to let her know that they were okay. But it was too soon and too public a place to talk about the things that had transpired at the theater, and about the fact that Gentleman Jack Savage was now one of the few mortals alive privy to the existence of the Otherworld and its inhabitants.
As everybody had finally settled down onto the cracked vinyl benches, there had been a great deal of back-and-forth trying to decide which play to do for the fund-raiser, and then more back-and-forth on where to do it.
Eventually Barbara deWinter had delicately cleared her throat and spoken up. “The managing company at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park has graciously—oh, so graciously—thrown a rope to the drowning man.”
“What?” Quentin’s head swiveled in her direction. “Why?”
“One of the company principals owes me a favor. A big enough one that he’ll open the place up for us, starting this very afternoon for a first-read rehearsal.” Dame Babs beamed like the painted portrait of a benevolent saint. “If you want . . .”
Q eyed her with extreme suspicion. “‘Owes you a favor,’ hm? That translates roughly as ‘you have naked blackmail photos,’ doesn’t it?”
“Only in your world, you demented miscreant,” Babs said, sniffing. “No. I consort with civilized folk. Fair folk.”
Fair folk. Kelley contemplated what Barbara’s reaction would actually be if she were ever to have a run-in with one of the real Fair Folk—which was not beyond the realm of possibility if they were actually going to stage the play in the damn park.
A weighty silence at the table caused Kelley to snap out of her worried reverie, suddenly aware that all eyes were turned on her. Someone must have asked her a question.
“Pardon?” she asked, leaning forward.
Quentin was staring balefully at her. “I said, Miss Winslow, do you have anything meaningful to add to the discussion? What do you think of The Tempest as our savior show?”
“Well, uh, I know the play,” Kelley stammered. “I mean . . . I wrote a term paper on the character of Ariel in school, but . . .”
“Done. Fine. You’re cast.” Quentin tapped Mindi’s clipboard, indicating that she should record his imperious edict. “Ariel it is.”
“I didn’t mean—
,” Kelley tried to interrupt him.
“Under other circumstances,” he continued, “I would have given that part to our former Robin Goodfellow. Pity he’s quit the business or hit the rehab or wherever it is he’s sodded off to. . . .”
Kelley thought of Bob and what her mother had likely done to him, and inwardly shuddered.
“At any rate,” the Mighty Q continued, “Ariel is the secondary lead and an androgynous part that a woman can play just fine.”
Kelley sat there, stunned.
“You’re welcome,” he sniffed.
“Q—”
“No need to thank me. Just show up for a rehearsal or two, will you?” The mercurial director turned to Mindi, muttering, “Give me a short list of which other girls can play Miranda. We’ll pick the one least likely to embarrass the company on short notice, then divvy up the spirits and goddesses among the others. We’ll make Barbara one of the goddesses—the one with the most lines; that should keep her ladyship happy.”
“I heard that, you old windbag.” Babs grinned wolfishly. “Your eternal gratitude is what will keep me happy. Nothing short of.”
“But you are a goddess, darling!” Quentin turned on a dime and fussed over his new savior. “That’s all I meant. Truly.”
Kelley squeezed her eyes shut to keep from rolling them.
“Jack!” Quentin barked. The director was gaining momentum, slinging dictates around the table with something resembling his old spark. “You’ve lobbied me to play Prospero for years.”
“I have.”
“Knock thyself out.”
“I live to serve, Q.” Jack bent his head in a gracious nod.
“Mr. Oakland. I suppose you could manage to squeeze out a serviceable performance as Ferdinand, hm?”
“Golly, Quentin,” Alec said dryly, “I’ll see what I can do. . . .”
“Yes, well. It’ll mean making goggle-eyes at someone other than Miss Winslow for the duration, but soldier on, old boy. Soldier on. . . .”
Alec blushed crimson to the roots of his hair.
Kelley found an interesting coffee stain on the Formica tabletop to study minutely.
The rest of the company laughed for a very long time.
Chapter IX
When Sonny opened the front door and walked into his apartment, he felt a wave of emptiness—inside and out. It was as if Kelley’s brief presence there had made the place come alive, in exactly the same way she’d done for his heart. He could almost picture her curled up in the corner of the sofa, feet tucked under her, watching with a smile as he set the table and lit candles. . . . Sonny imagined what it would have been like to have invited Kelley over for an actual date. A real human date. It had been thoughts like that that had kept him going all those long months in the Otherworld. But now he was back, and the place echoed with hollowness.
Almost hollow . . .
The small hairs on the back of Sonny’s neck raised as he realized that his apartment wasn’t entirely unoccupied. He unslung his messenger bag and dug through its contents. He felt the familiar contours of his wood-sword but, without the Faerie magicks granted him by his missing Janus medallion, the bundle of twigs would stay just that. His crossbow wasn’t loaded. He went instead for the dagger he carried in a sheath on his belt at the small of his back. It wasn’t much, but it was sharp—and Sonny knew how to use it.
Moving silently in the direction of the terrace, Sonny could see, through the sheer curtains, a shadowed shape sitting motionless on a chaise, staring out at the skyline. He threw open the doors and had the sharp edge of the dagger at Maddox’s throat before he realized who it was. Sonny’s arm muscles snapped tight as he pulled the blow, stopping just short of severing the other Janus’s carotid artery.
Maddox felt the cold blade-edge and sprang to his feet.
“Sonny! Thank the goddess. . . .” Maddox’s face somehow managed to convey relief, anger, guilt, and reluctance all at the same time.
“What are you doing here, Maddox?” Sonny asked, lowering his arm.
“Waiting for you to come back.”
“Why?” Sonny turned and walked into the apartment, returning the knife to its sheath on his belt.
“I wanted to make sure you were . . . you know. All right.” The tall, lanky Janus followed him. “You’ve been gone days. . . .”
“Have I?”
“Erm . . . yeah.”
“How many?”
“Couple. I mean—not that long, sure. But I was wondering. Not worried—I mean, you can take care of yourself, sure . . . just . . . wondering.”
Sonny remained silent. Of course Maddox had been worried. He could hear it in his voice. Two days. It had only felt like hours down in the Lost cavern.
“So . . . uh . . . where’ve you been, old Sonn?” Maddox pressed.
“I’ve been around.” Sonny gazed at his apartment. The opulent kennel that Auberon had furnished to keep his prize Janus pup happy—that was probably what Carys would have called this place. Why was he thinking of her? And what did it even matter? But she would be right. He didn’t belong here any more than he belonged with the Lost. In fact, maybe less so.
“Where’s ‘around’?” Maddox asked.
“Just . . . around, Madd.” Sonny shrugged, and noticed, for the first time, the bright green grass stains on his T-shirt and jeans from the hurling match. He headed toward the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower. You can let yourself out, yeah?”
* * *
When Sonny reemerged—showered, shaved, dressed in a fresh shirt and jeans, and feeling almost human again—Maddox was, predictably, doggedly, still there. He sat on the leather settee, fidgeting nervously with something he held in his hands. Sonny saw that it was a single reddish-brown feather.
“What’s that?”
Maddox raised his gaze to meet Sonny’s. “Uh . . . it’s Kelley’s.” He held the feather out hesitantly. “A bit of Kelley, I mean. She . . . uh . . . she turned herself into a falcon just after you disappeared.”
A falcon!
Now that was something Sonny would have liked to have seen—
No. No, it wasn’t. Because it meant that Kelley was becoming something else. Something . . . more. The Kelley Sonny knew had been hard-pressed to keep her fake, sparkly gauze-and-wire wings on straight during rehearsal. She barely knew how to fly. Before she’d met him, she hadn’t even known that she could. She certainly didn’t know how to transform herself into a bird. . . .
Sonny suddenly felt like he’d been asleep for a hundred years. Everything was different. Everything. Chest aching fiercely, he ground his teeth together and clenched his fists to keep from reaching out and taking the feather from Maddox’s fingers. “That must have been impressive,” he said flatly. The feather gleamed with the very same auburn tint as Kelley’s hair. . . .
Before Maddox could reply, Sonny spun abruptly on his heel and went to the front-hall closet. He pulled a small duffel bag off the shelf and strode to the kitchen, filling the bag with an assortment of packaged food: granola bars and canned fruit and Oreos. Anything he thought Neerya might appreciate. He hadn’t been sure, when he’d first gotten home, that he would ever go back to the reservoir. But he was sure now.
He couldn’t stay in a place he’d once wanted to share with Kelley.
Maddox followed him into the kitchen and leaned against the island, watching, his arms crossed over his chest. “Yeah. Well,” he said, continuing determinedly on with the thread of the awkward conversation. “Yeah—I mean, it’s not the sort of thing you see every day. But, y’know, she is a Faerie princess and all that and, uh . . . aw, hell.” He threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Look, Sonny. I don’t know what’s going on with you two. Kelley wouldn’t tell me anything and . . . well . . . I just think maybe that’s something you should keep in mind.”
“What is?” Sonny asked, opening the fridge and adding a six-pack of soda to the bag.
“The whole ‘Faerie princess’ thing. I mean—she’s ni
ce and all, don’t get me wrong, I like her—but . . . she’s one of them, Sonny.”
That did stop Sonny—briefly. He shot Maddox a pointed glance. “This, from someone who has, on more than one occasion, expressed a powerful yearning for a Siren.”
“I’m not exactly holding myself up as a shining example.” Maddox shrugged but held Sonny’s stare with his own. “And there’s a difference. Chloe’s Fair Folk—but she’s regular Fair Folk. She’s not High-Bloody-Fae Royalty. She’s not like Mabh or Titania. Mabh is Kelley’s mother, for crying out loud, Sonn. How on earth is the girl supposed to fight something like that?”
“Why are you saying all this to me, Maddox?”
“Because . . .” Maddox ran a hand through his sandy hair, visibly ill at ease with the conversation. “Because I think it might be best for you—easiest, I mean—if you were to just . . . forget about her. Cut her out of your heart.”
“I don’t have to. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“What?”
“Kelley doesn’t love me.”
“She said that? Actually said it?”
“Yes. She actually said that.” Sonny was distantly surprised at the even tone of his voice.
“Because it really didn’t seem—”
“It’s over, Madd.”
Maddox frowned. “But . . . when you disappeared . . . Kelley was really upset and—”
“Can we not talk about this?” Sonny zipped the duffel bag shut with sharp, jerky motions. He snatched up his leather messenger bag and was suddenly reminded, by the heft, of what it contained: Kelley’s old script—the sheaf of rumpled pages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Sonny had gotten used to thinking of as his good luck charm. He hesitated a moment and almost left the bag where it lay. But his weapons were in there, too. He slung the satchel across his torso, resisting the urge to open it, dig out the script, and leave it behind on the table—that would just give Maddox further heart-to-heart-chat fodder. Instead, he moved to the front door.
“Where are you going?” Maddox asked.