“It’s not Unseelie. It’s neutral. And we’re going because Cecelia will be there.”
“Who?”
Fiona’s blue eyes darkened. “The bitch that tried to hook up with Eiden.”
“Ok wait. You’re dragging me to this party because some girl hit on your boyfriend?” And probably scored.
She folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin, daring Jensen to say something against her. “Exactly.”
Jensen averted her gaze. Tinkerbell could be downright scary at times.
“Besides,” Fee said. “It’s a win-win situation if you ask me. I get to confront the whore and you get to follow-up that cryptic text message.”
“What text message?” She hadn’t gotten any texts, besides a few from a very worried Zoe. And boy did Jensen check. A lot.
“Whoops. Guess no one got around to mentioning that yet.”
“What text message?” Jensen repeated. If she had to ask again, she would scream. It was coming, already boiling up inside of her.
“Something about seeking the order of the high wizard.”
Jensen’s hand tightened around the mirror and her mouth settled into a tight line. “You’re telling me I got a message from Lauren and I’m just hearing about it now?”
“No, I’m saying you got a message from a restricted number which could’ve been sent by anybody.”
Jensen ran her hands through her hair. “So why are you telling me all this now?”
Fee shrugged. “Cecelia’s screwing someone from the order so if you learn how to glamour yourself, we can grill him at the party.”
A brilliant idea, if Jensen could manage to ignore the fact that she’d be surrounded by a bunch of crazy faeries, including the one standing in front of her.
Jensen heard a crack, then shattered mirror clanked together on the flowery gray duvet. Smince back in place, she tore her gaze from the reflective shards, and met Fee’s twinkling eyes.
“One more time nixie and that’s gonna be your ass.”
***
After another two hours of studying the various species of fae and an hour of shopping at the Rolling Hills Galleria, Jensen stood at the pier behind Fee’s house. She could already feel the ends of her hair frizzing against her back and the turquoise halter-dress she wore, clinging to her skin with the salty stickiness of sweat.
She glanced over at her partner-in-crime. Fee stood unmoving as she stared out into the murky water, her blonde hair pulled taut into a messy ballerina bun, with tiny diamonds twinkling from each swirl. Even in the darkness, her hair was beautiful, a golden beacon in the moonlight highlighted by the frilly yellow dress she wore. She met Jensen’s eyes and smiled, then reached into her sparkly cream clutch, pulling out two vibrant pink stones.
“What are those for?”
“Watch and learn my little nixie.” Fee shook the shiny rocks in her hand like dice and tossed them into the lake.
A circular ripple followed each splash, followed by another and another as the area spread outward. Within seconds, a crater of pink froth gave way to the glassiness of a fish bowl, or rather, a faerie bowl. Smiles and giggles clashed with looks of malice in powdery white faces. A slim pale hand reached out to capture a brown and black speckled claw. A flowing skirt of roses twirled about, exposing the red stained teeth hidden within a bloom. The whole scene, beautiful and horrendous at the same time. What the hell was Fee dragging her into?
Breathless, Jensen’s eyes rushed back to the faerie in question.
Fee stared at the scene with longing, as if it were everything she’d dreamed it would be. Was this really about confronting Cecelia or something more?
Jensen cleared her throat. “What now?”
Fee pulled the antique gold chain of her clutch to her shoulder and grabbed Jensen’s hand, linking their fingers. “Now, we jump.”
Chapter Nine
Taking the leap was nothing like Jensen expected. No sopping wet hair obstructing her sight, no see-through fabric molding to her skin or bunching up around her waist, and no killer fish swarming around her in a frenzy. The journey to the faerie ball was surprisingly water-free, like stepping out of the desert into an air conditioned paradise.
Rows of cherry, peach, and apple blossoms lined the walls, alternating with thin panels of etched glass that revealed the happenings of an underwater kingdom behind the ornate wings of a faerie.
Flickering green and gold will o’ wisps bounced about in the air above two wooden tables, overflowing with honey cakes and steaming buttermilk. Wooden plates of rosy-pink flowers mixed with some kind of cheese-wheel shaped fruit were accompanied by a large crystal plate filled with plum-size blackberries, a punch bowl of a chunky brownish liquid, and goblets of wine with violet blossoms sticking out like umbrellas.
Thick knobby fingers scraped the base of a goblet toward the edge of the table, sloshing red liquid onto the floor before lowering the cup to a mouth overshadowed by a bulbous nose. A tiny blue-haired sprite fluttered around the dwarf’s green cap, plucking a violet petal away and popping it into her mouth, before scampering off.
“Where the hell am I?” Jensen whispered. Not even in her most fitful, sugar-induced dreams, had she imagined such a place existed.
“The Isle of Mermen,” Fee said, reverence spilling from her words. This explained the bright orange eyes glaring through the window. Fee pressed her hand to the glass as if she could reach through and caress the mermaid’s face, then pulled back, giving the creature the one-finger salute.
The spicy scent of saffron tickled Jensen’s nose as three little girls in golden dresses twirled around her, singing “Ring Around the Rosie.” As Jensen stared at their smiling faces, twinkling gold eyes blackened and thick blonde curls grayed, thinning to just a few coarse strands before shifting back to normal.
Jensen gasped, shoving their tiny hands apart and stepping from the circle. Who knew what would happen if she let them finish their song?
Pouting, the little monsters rushed off, surrounding a winged boy with blackberry juice all over his blue lips.
Fee tapped Jensen’s shoulder, her eyebrows raised as she held out a goblet. “Drink up; you’ll need it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means relax and have fun. And this my dear,” she said tapping the goblet, “is the stuff to get the ball rolling.”
Try to have fun in a place where nothing was what it seemed? Jensen sighed, taking the goblet with both hands. Maybe Fee was right. Maybe she should just enjoy herself tonight and worry about everything else tomorrow.
The first drop of wine twisted her tongue, almost like drinking balsamic vinegar, but the more Jensen gulped down, the sweeter the dark red liquid became. Soon, the base of the goblet pointed toward the ceiling as she reared back, gulping the wine down.
Fee giggled, tugging at the stem. “Whoa girl, I didn’t mean drink it all at once.”
Jensen shrugged, warmth swirling in her chest. “Am I sweating?”
Fee barked a laugh, dropping the goblet onto the table beside the others. “Come on chica, let’s dance.”
But before they could take more than two steps from the table, a deep familiar voice growled, “Fiona.”
Fee turned around, a tense smile plastered across her face. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Jensen stiffened, not sparing a glance to the Isle of Mermen’s newest arrival. She already knew who it was, could feel his sapphire eyes taking in her backside.
Liam stepped behind her, so close they were practically touching. “I can’t believe you would bring her here.”
So it wasn’t enough to just ignore her. Now he wanted to blame her for bringing Fee to the party too. Huffing to herself, Jensen reached for another goblet, only to have it moved out of reach.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Liam whispered.
That’s it! Jensen spun around, pressing a wobbling finger to the center of his chest. “Good thing you’re not paid to think or
we’d all be in trouble.”
Not waiting for a response, she grabbed a wide-eyed Fee, pulling her past a brownie bouncing around on a pogo stick and two banshees in Victorian dresses, braiding their long red hair on a pile of dirt.
Fee tugged her arm free. “Ok, not that I don’t appreciate being rescued back there, but where the hell are we going?”
“To dance.”
“Well, we should stop walking then.”
Jensen frowned. “Why?”
“Look around.”
Girls in swatches of gold and burgundy silks flicked their wrists as if screwing in light bulbs, while a leprechaun bounced from one mud covered foot to the other. A dark-elf wearing a saber-toothed necklace waved his hands through the air like a symphony conductor. A green-haired undine and two selkies clapped their hands in perfect synchronicity, while glowing salamanders hopped through flames of dripping candlesticks—their tails pulsating in bright orange welts. All of them, dancing to a satyr playing a vulture-bone flute and a pixie strumming wildly on a fiddle as he balanced himself atop a two-legged stool.
Some movements, a graceful unwinding of triple jointed limbs. Others, staccato and brusque like a series of karate chops. And none of it what Jensen considered dancing. Spazzing, maybe. But dancing, no.
Still, she kicked off her sandals and dove into the fold, determined to lose herself in the crush of inhuman bodies. Her fingers splayed toward the sky. Her weight shifted to pointed toes. And then she was spinning, a prima ballerina twirling around and around with the rest of her company. She could dance forever, would dance forever, she decided. And then she laughed, cackling so hard that her stomach ached and tears formed in her eyes.
That is, until hands gripped her shoulders, yanking her from the dance floor. “What do you think you’re doing?” a haggard old man growled at her.
“What does it look like dirty old man?” She tried to wiggle free, but the man continued holding her, forcing her to remain still when all she wanted to do was rejoin the dance.
“Where is your mother?” he asked.
“Where is your mother?” she mimicked, giggling.
The man grabbed her cheeks, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Jensen Ava Reilly, I command you to wake!”
The words clawed at her skull, scratching their way past her urgent need to return to the dance. In an instant, her vision cleared, the remaining slivers of fuzziness sweeping to the outermost edges of her mind. Eyes no longer clouded, she glanced around and her breath caught in her throat.
The fiddle playing pixie lay sprawled across a table, his throat gaping wide while thick green blood spilled into a bronze basin held to his neck by a boggart. The elf with the strange necklace stood beside him, clutching his stomach in a fit of laughter. Teeth no longer dangled from his neck, but the bones of human fingers tied to a twisted and bloodied string.
Across the room, Fee argued with a dryad, most likely Cecelia, while a frustrated Liam and an amused Eiden fought to keep the two apart. And all around them, the Unseelie unfurled from the cover of shadows, hateful satisfaction evident in their smiles.
It was going to be a bloodbath. Jensen backed up, stepping on the man’s foot. “Who are you?”
“That’s not important. You have to come with me now Jensen.”
“Why, so you can kill me in private? And how the hell do you know my name?”
For a moment he looked taken aback, but he quickly recovered, lowering his glamour and allowing her to see the man hidden underneath. A human with black hair and aquamarine eyes that just a week before, were a deep, almost chocolate brown.
Jensen gasped. “Mr. Tanner, what are you doing here?”
“We don’t have time for catching up Jensen. This is about to get bad. We need to leave before it’s too late.”
Jensen shook her head, stepping away. She didn’t know what was going on and couldn’t afford to trust anyone in a room full of tricksters. “Not without my friends.”
“I’m afraid you’ve chosen the wrong time to be a hero little girl.”
Oh God, I need a way out of this, Jensen thought. Her stomach burned and her skin prickled as the world spun around her in grays and pinks. And almost in unison, the ocean churned out billows of soapy foam, thrashing against the faerie glass. “Look, I’m not going anywhere without my friends.”
Tanner looked over her shoulder and frowned. “Then be quick about it and make sure all of you are touching. No matter what, no one must let go.”
Jensen could only nod, her throat too dry to speak.
He reached up as if to touch her hair, but stopped himself, letting his hand fall away. “Go on now.”
Chapter Ten
All Jensen needed to do was make it past the dozens of fae wanting to get close and personal with her internal organs. That didn’t sound too hard. After all, she had already managed to make it across the corridor once without having any of her blood spilled on the dark brown soil. So why was her heart thudding in her chest, palms slick with sweat, and head throbbing? And why did each step feel as though she was trudging through quicksand?
She took a deep breath, letting the air seep through her dry, parted lips. Then sucked in another and another, forcing those to pass in that same painful slowness. She felt too alert, too conscious and her skin buzzed with fear. Yet, she forced her back to straighten and her face to blank as she walked past two hobgoblins, a pooka, and a group of fae who looked like they had been pieced together from the bodies of various animals. Ten down; about two dozen or so more to go.
She slid behind three trolls just as one caught a sprite, clapping his humongous hands together as if the tiny red faerie was nothing more than a fly. Jensen gulped, averting her gaze.
A handsome boy with twisted seaweed for hair stood beside Cecelia, begging her to follow him. With hooded eyes, she took his hand.
Jensen’s heart stuttered in her chest, but there was no time to worry about the dryad with Liam and Fee in danger. She eased by a bloated spriggan holding an ax to the neck of a white-faced leprechaun hurriedly removing all the gold from his pudgy fingers. Just a few more steps and –
“Where do you think you’re going nixie?” said a dark-elf. His long white hair parted down the center into two thick braids, as bright red beads dangled on one side.
Jensen cleared her throat. “To play with the Seelie of course; where else would I be going?”
A siren stepped in front of Jensen, her arms crossed over her chest and her blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. “And what makes you think you get to be the first?”
Jensen put her hand on her hip. “I don’t know; maybe the fact that I’m the one who brought them.”
The girl arched an eyebrow and continued her interrogation. “That’s funny. I’ve never seen you around before; how did you come to know of the ball?”
Jensen shrugged, glancing at her nails. “The siren Brennen told me.”
The girl scowled, her eyes glowing violet with outrage. “Brennen would never do such a thing!”
Jensen’s eyebrow shot up. “Are you calling me a liar?”
The girl’s face fell flat. “Of course not. Everyone knows a faerie cannot speak an untruth.”
“Well then, get out of my way.”
“First,” the dark-elf gripped her arm, “how did you convince them to follow you?”
“Easy,” Jensen said. “The girl tires of the human world and would much rather be in the company of her own kind. All I had to do was mention the ball and she begged to come along. Of course, the boys followed to see to her safety.”
“And what a fine job they’ve done,” a banshee said, the beautiful misery of her voice causing everyone to flinch away.
The dark-elf cleared his throat, clearly feeling the effects of the banshee’s voice. “Clever girl. Tell me nixie; what are you called?”
“N-nessa.”
“Well Nanessa.” He reached into his leather waistband, pulling out a strange looking dagger with a hilt that ended i
n two disks shaped like human ears.
For a second, Jensen thought she’d said something wrong, done something to give away her true intentions.
But the dark-elf switched the blade around, handing her the hilt. “Do save some for the rest of us.”
***
With a smile, Jensen accepted the dark-elf’s offering, tightening her grip on the hilt of the dagger until her knuckles turned white. She had gotten what she wanted, a semi safe path to her friends and a weapon to boot. So why did everything up to that point feel like paint by numbers compared to what she had to do now?
Swallowing all thoughts of running away, she forced herself to turn around. And yep, there it was written all over Liam’s face and etched into the hard lines of his body. Seething. Violent. Hatred. In trying to convince the Unseelie that she was one of them, she had managed to make him believe it as well. Stupid, since she now needed his trust more than ever.
Lifting her chin, she put one foot in front of the other until she stood just outside the range of his blade. She wanted to beg him to believe that she was good, tell him that none of this was her idea, but all she could allow herself to say was “Do you trust me?”
He snorted. “Not on your life.” Yep, he hated her all right.
Though she had expected far worse, she couldn’t help but feel like she had just been kicked in the gut. Still, she found herself speaking again, this time with much more confidence. “What about on hers?” She pointed the tip of the dagger toward Fee.
“I can’t believe I ever thought we were friends,” Fee said, her voice low, shaky.
Jensen winced, but managed to stand her ground. Don’t whimp out now. “Lower your blade or I’ll use her pretty head as a Jack-o’-lantern.” There, she’d said it. Now the ball was in his court.
A whimper escaped Fee’s quivering lips. And right before her very eyes, Liam’s hatred morphed into full, unbridled rage. His knuckles blanched as he lifted the blade higher.
Jensen gulped, having to stop herself from stepping back.
He wanted to kill her and for a second, she thought he would try. But very slowly, he bent his knees, lowering the blade to the ground between them. “Happy now?” he bit out through clenched teeth as he straightened.
Jensen kicked out her foot, dragging the blade close enough for her to stand on it. “Ecstatic. Now be good little elves and join hands. We’re all going to play ‘Ring Around the Rosie.’ ”
Shimmerspell: The Shimmer Trilogy, #1 Page 5