by Perry, D. R.
Clipping the seatbelt around me felt like an automatic artifact of my old life on the meds. A thread of rage, sudden and hot as a solar flare, rose up within me. I’d bent and caved to the rules for as long as I could remember, and if I didn’t try to do things differently now, maybe I’d never get the chance. I closed my eyes and reached for the belt, defying Rhode Island law and damning the torpedoes by unbuckling it.
Someone knocked on the passenger side window.
I screamed, the screech absorbed by drab fabric upholstery. My head turned at an unnatural-for-humans angle, but the figure peering in the window didn’t startle or turn to run away. Of course not. He was a dragon. The middle finger of my left hand pressed a button, and the window lowered. The door stayed locked.
“What do you want, Blaine?”
“Um, I was hoping I could get a ride over to the memorial instead of the owl death stare?”
“What did you expect, anyway? And why in the world would you want to mourn Tony Gitano?” I tucked my chin, widening my eyes as I felt my hair tumble around my face. Stupid owl posturing instincts. I wasn’t used to subverting them like Jeannie, Kim, or Bobby because the meds used to take the screech out of my owl for me. “You always acted like you hated the guy.”
“Look, I was wrong, okay?” Blaine ducked his head but didn’t break eye contact with me. Silly dragon. He didn't know that staring contests are for owls.
“Would have been nice if you’d realized that last week.” I kept my gaze on him, unblinking, and waited. “Anyway, you’re a billionaire. Don’t you have a car you can call?”
“It’s full of everyone else.” Blaine looked down at his shoes and shuffled his feet. I’d expected him to roll his eyes instead of flopping like a deflated football. When he spoke next, his voice stayed low and even instead of reminding me of a pebble in a shoe. “I thought it was more important that they go than me.”
That did it. I pressed the button again, watching the window rise between me and the dragon shifter. After that, I flipped the switch to unlock the door, then looked straight ahead through the windshield until Blaine got in.
After that, I fastened my seatbelt like a good girl and pointed the nose of the silver SmartCar at Swan Point Cemetery.
Chapter Two
Olivia
The sky had no business being impeccably clear over Swan Point Cemetery, the stars twinkling too mirthfully for such a somber occasion. I stalked across the lawn toward the Hope Memorial Garden, stopping at the fringes of a group in front of the Fishman sculpture there. I stared up, blinking as the early moonlight emphasized the narrow space between two triangular monoliths that framed an old anchor. It was red-brown, nearly the same color as Tony’s unshifted eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d never see them again.
I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting to see what kind of ceremony the Gitano family could possibly have without a body to bury. Bianca Brighton turned around, then put a hand on my shoulder. I let her. She glanced past me once and nodded, then directed her attention back to me. She said nothing.
I didn’t blame her.
Bianca had spent most of the week between that damn explosion and this ridiculous service trying to convert me to her ideology of what had happened to Tony. She thought the Extramagus had tossed him into the Under before his ghost could detach from his body. That’d trapped him in there so he couldn’t tell us any secrets he knew. Ghosts from here couldn’t travel to and from the Faerie realm, and the queen had put a ban on any medium traveling in her side of the realm without her direct invitation and supervision. Bianca had neither of those things, so her theory remained unproven.
That was fine by me. I didn’t believe it anyway.
People in the pack knew only that Tony was a shifter of the housecat variety and the underwhelming son of an overbearing crime lord. I knew a bit more than they did. Tony Gitano was a liar and a thief and an escape artist. He also had a code and loyalty to his friends. I’d seen him get Josh Dennison out of his house only seconds ahead of a rival werewolf pack sent there to detain him. He’d dodged pure faeries and an Extramagus for twenty-three hours to keep Fred Redford safe. He’d played informant to detectives while convincing wise guys he wasn’t a rat to help Blaine in the spring and Lane over the summer. I’d fallen on a trampoline he’d managed to hide in plain sight on a side street in Olneyville. Alone.
So I believed in that surly neighborhood cat-man, and I couldn’t envision him doing anything but evading death. Most of the time I logicked things more than Mr. Spock, but not this. Not Tony being dead when his body had up and vanished in the middle of his autopsy without any alterations on the security camera.
Maybe the reason anger plagued my gut instead of grief was just part of my personal process. I glanced around, noticing the motley assembly of my Tinfoil Hat packmates. Blaine hadn’t been kidding about no room in his limousine, it brought his mate, Kim, Bobby and Lynn, Josh and Nox, Henry and Maddie, Jeannie and Ismail, Lane and Margot, and Bianca with her ghost companion Horace. I noticed Josh’s sister Beth Dennison turning her back on Ren Ichiro, the son of my boss who’d ended up with a Selkie pelt somehow. Everyone had thought Ren was dead, too, yet there he was, pissing his ex-fiancée off just by existing. The child prodigy, Psychic medium Ed Redford, was there, chaperoned by YouTube famous Empathy Psychic Irina Kazynski.
I stopped, not wanting to push past the larger-than-expected crowd, including the rest of the vampires in Lane’s band, Night Creatures. Even their rival at the Battle of the Bands, Jack Steele, stood off to one side with his newly vamped fiancée Della clinging to his arm. I turned my head, blinking as I realized just how many people cared about Tony. He wouldn’t see it that way, of course. He’d think all these people were just that fed up with the Extramagus, and his death was the last straw.
Off to the other side, I recognized a few more familiar faces. Gemma Tolland and her grandfather, both Unseelie trolls who’d rescued a few of my packmates, stood at a slight distance from the rest of the group. They chatted amiably with Neil Redford, a Redcap Duke in the Goblin King’s court. The dragon librarian, Taki Waban, stood stiff and formal alongside Headmistress Henrietta Thurston, whose eyes were puffy and rimmed with red.
A crunch of recently frosted-over grass underfoot announced a new set of arrivals. I wasn’t happy to see them. All the same, Gino Gitano gave me his best smile. I recognized it from the numerous press photos of him on courthouse steps after each of his dismissed cases. In those newsprint front-page portraits, he was never alone. The same held true here, though instead of lawyers in Brioni suits, he had bruisers in Belvedere with one exception.
Gino Gitano was a widower and didn’t keep female company as far as anyone could tell. Except on this, the night of his son’s funeral, there was a woman on his arm. She was young, maybe my age. Wavy, bobbed, black hair, so glossy it might have been a wig, framed an oval face with olive skin and glinting gray eyes that seemed to look past everything. Her bony hand rested on Mr. Gitano’s broad forearm like a sparrow might pause on a bare autumn branch. Her body looked less frail, her figure more filled out than I remembered it being the year before. She’d definitely put on weight.
“Cassandra,” whispered Bianca. I glanced at her and understood. Everyone on campus knew about Cassandra Spanos, the Psychic who’d created a weather app and distributed it for free last fall at Freshman orientation. Tony’s dad had a Precognitive Psychic working for him. Cassandra had freaked out about something, given Lynn a special version of her app, and then mysteriously vanished from PPC about a year ago. Well, inexplicably to us, anyway. I was sure she had plenty of her own reasons. At any rate, she didn’t look happy about escorting her employer. Or whatever he was to her.
And that’s when I saw the last thing I expected. Off to one side of the anchor sculpture, where the most moonlight fell, I watched three figures step forward, as though through a doorway of light made of thin air. One of these had a chalky, gray skin and sandy hair topped with a Pawtucket Red Sox
cap, Fred Redford, the newest Seelie knight at the Sidhe Queen’s court. To his left stood a figure taller even than his six foot two inches. Her hair was like the ruddy rays of dawn with noontime highlights, her skin clear as morning dew. Her features and stance held a chaste beauty that no one would think to ascribe to any being her age.
I blinked, puzzled by the presence of the Sidhe Queen. The ruler of the Under’s daylight realm and monarch of all things Seelie had nothing to do with Tony, but I realized that she wasn’t here because of him when I noticed who stood at her left. Richard Hopewell, the Extramagus. He looked directly at Cassandra Spanos and smiled.
I watched Gino caress her arm as she shuddered under Richard’s creepy grin, not realizing I’d done the same until I saw her get the response under control. I kept right on shaking though, this time with anger. A tear trickled down my left cheek. Here was another of my classmates, manipulated by Hopewell and worse off than the rest of us or it. Except Cassandra was alone and packless. She’d been singled out before the rest of us had any idea what was going on. No wonder Hopewell and the Gatto Gang always seemed one step ahead of us. They’d had a Psychic in their pockets all that time.
“Friends of my son’s,” said Gino. My attention snapped back to the man who’d brought us all here to mourn while he gloated. I knew he was more relieved than sad, happier to have a dead son than a prison sentence.
“Yeah, unlike you,” I murmured under my breath. Every shifter in my vicinity held theirs, and every vampire froze. I set my jaw, the comment not even remotely an accidental foot-in-mouth blurt. I’d meant every word, and then some.
Gino Gitano’s gaze met mine, our glares clashing like low- and high-pressure fronts. A storm brewed between us, but neither of us knew how much damage it’d do before it resolved. If it ever did. I had no way or means to stand up to someone as powerful or connected as the Gatto boss. Safe for now, he cleared his throat.
“Everyone here cared about my Tony. Some of you, I imagine, might even have loved him to death.” Gino didn’t blink. Neither did I, even though it rained on my face as it always did when I got angry. “I hope that this service helps all of us finally find peace, even though someone…special…is forever absent from our lives. This anchor behind me…” Gino waved one hand, gesturing at the sculpture. “This anchor is a symbol of hope, one which will—”
I felt a gust of chill air and almost heard a voice from off to my left tell me to cool it. So I tore my eyes away from Gino to look in that direction. I was just in time to see the last of the guests arrive.
Instead of light, this was a portal into darkness. One figure materialized from it, a long, black coat in silhouette. I blinked. Could it be Tony? The tears stopped, and my heart fluttered like some caged thing beating against bars, desperate to be free. I took a step forward, but a hand clamped down on my right wrist. A fanged visage framed by green hair invaded my field of vision.
“Hey, Olivia.” Lane Meyer tapped his nose with his free hand. “Sniff before you leap.”
“Oh.” My nostrils flared, catching the scent of something ancient and ragged like an old ballgown pulled from a steamer trunk unopened for centuries. As I turned to look again at the last guest, I understood. The coat wasn’t a black trench, but a long-tailed tux, silver frills foaming up at the figure’s neck like Arctic sea foam. It wasn’t Tony, late to his own memorial. I was looking at the Goblin King, the monarch of Unseelie faeries.
A face peeked out from behind the ragged hem of the king’s coat. They had bushy gray brows above twinkling eyes, and their smile displayed teeth made of seashells. Gee-Nome, Henry Baxter’s pure faerie pal, waggled those eyebrows at me like Groucho Marx. Gee dropped me a wink I couldn’t return. Instead, I rolled my eyes and looked at the Goblin King’s face.
The king’s expression seemed placid instead of somber, as I might have expected. It called to mind the stillness of an autumn dusk after a cold snap had silenced summer's insects. He actually caught my eye and tilted his head at me, a gesture of respect so unexpected that I almost turned to see if someone more esteemed, like Mr. Ichiro or Hertha Harcourt, stood behind me. I could only think of one reason I’d merit his notice. I’d put myself squarely in Mr. Hopewell’s crosshairs by helping to rescue Bianca.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised at the king’s display of respect. He’d intervened on behalf of our mismatched pack before. No one would say why, but I thought Richard, the Extramagus throwing in his lot with the Sidhe Queen, a likely reason. I glanced at her, unable to imagine how she’d ever been the king’s wife back in the days when the world was new. It made total sense to me that they’d broken up. Opposites attract, but they rarely maintain proximity for long.
“Please continue, Gino Gitano.” The Goblin King didn’t tilt his head at Tony’s dad. Didn’t even bother to look down his nose at him.
“I was talking about symbols of hope. My son was one.” The social slight wasn’t lost on Gino. I watched the pupils of his eyes elongate and go catlike, his anger palpable. Still, I had to give him credit for continuing his interrupted speech, mainly because he pitched the next part directly at me. “He saved lives, and even with his loss, that fact remains to this day. Symbols of hope are things that even when you don’t want to hold on, they cling to you. They pull you to destinations beyond anything you’d imagine or dare to desire for yourself.”
I knew a threat when I heard one. I turned, intending to walk back across the cemetery to my car, regardless of Luck. Something cold and clawed had me by the ankle. I looked down to find that seashell smile.
“Hello, Gee.” I shook my head, then sighed. “And goodbye. I’ve gotta go.”
“No, not yet.” The Gnome’s eyes moved slowly to the left and then to the right. “You want to know why.”
“Not enough to flat-out ask you, Gee.” I tried to lift my leg to take the next step away from the sans-body mockery of a funeral, but the Gnome had too firm a grip. “Hoo, boy. Let go already.”
“Aww, you’re no fun.” Gee clinging to my ankle like that reminded me of Gino’s ominous anchor analogy. “But stay a while. His Majesty wants words with you.”
“Wait, what?” I blinked, then let out a groan of frustration as I realized I’d asked the Gnome a question. Two more, and I’d be on the hook to him for a favor. That was how it was with any faerie creature except the shifters.
“Yes, little…hmm. Owl. Yes, that’s what you appear to be. The Goblin King attended in the hope you’d be here.” Gee jerked their chin at Gino, twinkling eyes rolling.
“And of course, you’re waiting for me to ask why.” I felt my mouth curl into a smirk despite my foul mood. The steady drone of Gino Gitano’s overthought and underplayed funerary act fell to the wayside of my consciousness.
“Of course,” mimicked the Gnome. They winked. That simple gesture by the vertically challenged faerie creature lifted my spirits like an updraft. I did the most natural thing in the world, as instinctive as the impulse to sleep during the day.
I laughed.
Everyone and everything around me went silent. Even the crickets stopped chirping. I looked up, ignoring Gino’s inevitable glare as I scanned the crowd for any hint of support or even sympathy. Nothing.
The silence broke and voices carried, mostly murmurs questioning either my empathy or my coping skills. A few doubted my sanity because, of course, mated shifters commonly denied the death of their other halves. But I hadn’t been Tony’s mate, and if I was crazy, it was for believing he still lived. I looked down again to find Gee smiling up at me. That smile made of seashells was creepy but more reassuring than the ocean of doubt around me. The Gnome glanced at someone, so I followed his gaze.
“Miss Adler.” The Goblin King stood half an arm’s length from me, his hand extended in my specific direction. “Please allow me to escort you to your vehicle.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” I gave him the best curtsy I could manage with a Gnome hanging from my right calf. Then, I held my hand out towar
d his palm up.
The king didn’t grasp my hand. Instead, he lowered his until just the tips of our fingers touched. I felt a twinge of magic and furrowed my brow until my legs started moving on their own. They matched his steps out of the crowd and away from the memorial sculpture in perfect synchrony. Magical procession march. Interesting. I felt more than one glare glance across my back and realized I’d just made an enemy besides Gino Gitano. The Sidhe Queen. None of my friends could say I did things by small measures after that.
“Your Majesty is too kind, ushering me away from the scene of my own bad manners.” The indignant fire in my belly flared again, this time with a desire to know what business a Faerie monarch could have with little old me.
“You bear a striking resemblance to your mother, did you know that?” The king smiled down at me.
All the hair on the nape of my neck stood on end. At first, I thought, why should I freak out? It’s no secret that I’m adopted. But then I wondered. Had the Goblin King known my birth mom? I’d be willing to owe him the world if only he’d tell me about her.
“Um, Your Majes—”
“Please, call me Ron.”
“Wow, that’s an unexpected honor. Thank you.” I wrestled my jaw closed. “Ron. I’d never have guessed that was your given name.”
“It’s just one I go by on occasion.” A smile played at the corners of the king’s lips, as ragged as the hem of his tuxedo. I got the impression he didn’t get to use that expression as much as he’d like. “I understand you’re petitioning the mortal courts on behalf of the Summoner Pavlo Brodsky. Is this correct?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I want you to stop.”
“Um, I’m not sure I can.” I sighed. “It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. The trial will go on without one intern.”
“It’s not the trial I’m concerned with, but your freedom from participation in it. I’ve got a situation in the Under, in my demesne. There’s a creature who is there without my permission. That cannot be. Your attention to that matter is of greater importance than this mortal court’s trial.”