by Liz de Jager
Thorn’s arms go around his cousin and I have to look away as they hug. It feels too much. The memories of what that prophecy I recited did to Thorn are too raw – and now there’s this new information that pulls Dante into the mix. Thorn’s prophecy took away his chance to have a normal life, which hit him hard. I remember how I screamed at Dina when she came to me. How I called her a traitor because she forced her son to fulfil that prophecy. Mostly I remember what she told me before she left, when she closed my hand over the ring I now wear: that sometimes choices are taken from us and that fighting against them only leaves us bruised and battered.
I stand and leave the room, sensing Aiden doing the same, leaving the two Fae cousins to talk. Crow still looks out of it, as if he’s communing with spirits beyond our realm. He stands, a silent sentinel in the lounge, watching over the sons of Alba.
Chapter Thirty-Three
‘Aide,’ I say when he boosts himself onto the kitchen counter, swinging his legs like a child. ‘What are we doing?’
‘Keeping sane?’ he suggests and he looks so weary. ‘You need to put ice on your neck, Kit. Those bruises are going to look really bad in the morning.’
‘It’s already morning,’ I point out but touch the skin around my neck and wince. ‘Shit. That hurts.’
‘Let me help.’ He jumps down and puts together a wrap of ice in a well-folded dishcloth. ‘Even if you do it for a little while only, it should help keep the bruising down. Why don’t you go and let the leyline help you heal?’
I tilt my head back and hiss between my teeth when he presses the icepack to my skin. ‘Because I really don’t want to be outside at the moment. Not with bodies in your back garden.’
‘Oh yeah, that makes sense.’ He grimaces. ‘What do you think of the new prophecy?’
‘It sucks.’
He snorts at my eloquence. ‘Yes, it does. But do you think it’s real?’
‘Thorn seems to think it is.’
‘Yeah.’ His voice peters out and I glance at him. His face look drawn and I nudge him with my boot.
‘What’s going on with you? What did that thing do to you?’
In answer Aiden shrugs out of his shirt and I actually stop breathing for a moment. The tentacle had made a mess of him. There were cuts and bruises all over his chest and they covered his back too. He turns to show me.
‘Aide, these look really bad.’
‘They’re better than they were.’ He watches me with a wary expression as I smooth a careful thumb over what looks like a circular bruise the size of a shot glass. In the middle of the bruise is a deep cut. I lean closer and squint at it. ‘What are you doing?’ He exclaims.
‘Looking. This thing tore you up. Did it suck blood out of you or did it pump something into you?’
‘Both, I think. When it had its tentacles around me, I felt myself getting slower and heavier. It must use a toxin to paralyse its victims.’
I look up at him and his eyes are wide and a little wild.
‘Aide, do you need to shift to heal?’
‘Yeah, I think so. Will that be okay? I just need maybe an hour to get this out of my system.’
‘You idiot, of course it’s okay. Bloody hell. Come on, where do you want to do this?’
‘My room.’
I help him up the stairs and wince when he leans on me. He’s a big guy and after too little sleep, a handful of insane fights and a car crash, I’m not strong enough to bear his weight. We eventually get into his room and he shifts between one step and the next. There’s this weird sense of disorientation as I see my best friend change from human to wolf. He leaps onto the bed, circles a few times, lets out a sigh and curls up on himself. I sit next to him and sink my hands deep into his fur. He makes contented noises and I lean close and press a kiss between his eyes.
‘I’ll come for you in an hour. Sleep tight, wolf boy.’ I stay until his eyes drift shut.
I walk back downstairs into the kitchen and reclaim the melting icepack, pushing it against my neck in the places where it hurts the most.
Dante and Thorn are talking in the lounge; they both look up, but Dante’s eyes move past me, looking for Aiden.
‘He shifted. Whatever the sluagh did to him really screwed him over. I took him upstairs so he can get an hour’s rest.’
‘We could all do with some sleep,’ Dante points out and I nod in agreement, but it doesn’t seem likely at all.
‘Dante has been telling us about the Glow and Antone’s involvement. I can’t believe Zane is behind this.’ Thorn moves up a little so I can sit next to him. I press close to him and he gives me a smile that makes my heart ache because that’s the smile I miss most when he’s not around. He laces his fingers with mine and I definitely don’t blush at the gesture either, or so I tell myself. ‘Everything that we’re facing both here and in the Otherwhere makes me wonder if it’s all linked. The Glow, the children not being sufficient to feed the goddess, the Veil tearing, the wolves being taken. It all feels like a strategy game.’
‘It does. But how do we even play the game, if we don’t know who all the players are?’
Dante looks at me in surprise. ‘We know who the players are. We know Zane is involved. We know about Merrick and the Jericho Gang.’
‘I think what Kit means,’ Crow says, and I startle because he’s been so quiet that I forgot he was even present, ‘is that as strong as Zane is, he doesn’t fit as the head of this sprawling plot. He has connections in both the Sun King and Suola’s Courts, as well as having access to the High King’s Court, but it’s not enough.’
‘Who then? The Sun King himself? Queen Suola?’ I stare at them. ‘Any of the other foreign Fae courts?’
‘How about your father?’ Dante says, jerking his chin in Thorn’s direction.
Thorn’s expression freezes and he looks grim. For a second I think he’s going to pull the ‘my father is the king, and you do not question the king’ line, but then he just nods and something inside me shifts.
‘You can’t be serious?’ I say. ‘You actually suspect your father could be behind this?’
‘It is not something I would put past him.’
‘He’s your father.’
‘Who does whatever he likes,’ Thorn says quietly, ‘and says it is for the good of Alba. And no one at his Court or in any of the other Courts thinks to move against him.’
I want to question him further but I see a flash of warning in Crow’s eyes and realize now isn’t perhaps the best time to do that. Something must have happened between Thorn and his father for him even to react this way and I’m hesitant to push the matter further.
‘So we have to find out who’s behind this. And tie it all together.’ Dante’s not oblivious to the undercurrents in the room, but as usual he brings our attention back to the matter at hand. ‘How do we do that?’
‘I go back with Crow,’ Thorn says. ‘I take the bodies of the fallen Sidhe to Court and tell the story of how a sluagh came to the Frontier and was set to attack the wolves and the Lady Blackhart. I make a scene and see who runs for cover.’ He smiles wryly. ‘I can do that now, you know. I am the guardian of the realms. People have to answer to me.’
‘Don’t go crazy with all that power,’ I joke back but it’s strained. ‘We don’t want anyone coming after you to shut you up.’
‘Let them come. I have a few tricks up my sleeve I’d like to show them.’
He stands and we all follow suit. His arm settles around my waist and the move is so natural that I don’t even notice it, until I see Dante’s pointed glance in my direction. I feel like pushing him into the wall, but Thorn tightens his grip slightly and he must think I’m trying to move away from him. So I ignore Dante and follow Crow as he leads us to the back door, stepping outside onto the small patio that overlooks the garden.
‘What about the –’ I jerk a thumb back towards the front door – ‘slab of wood that used to be their door?’
‘The spell will wear off in about an hour
,’ Crow says, as if it’s no big deal. ‘You can still leave through the basement, correct?’
‘It’s not the most convenient way, but it will do,’ Dante says, and Crow regards him with affection.
‘You’re doing remarkably well, boy. Your glamour holds even when you fight and that is truly impressive. I have seen older, trained Fae, unable to control themselves the way you do. I believe that Yukiko does not speak for all your family. I will do my utmost to speak to someone else – your grandmother, perhaps – and see if they sanction Yukiko’s behaviour. I very much doubt it. The kami are not devious. They are creatures and spirits of great compassion and beauty, but sometimes they are too naive for their own good.’
Dante doesn’t say anything. Instead he grips Crow’s arm and submits to being drawn into a hug. My hip buzzes and I pull my phone out, seeing Jamie’s name lit up on the screen. I ignore the call and turn in Thorn’s arms. I stand on tiptoes and brush my lips against his, placing a kiss on the corner of his mouth.
‘Don’t be a stranger, Thorn.’ I step back and away from the hand that reaches for me and I immediately feel a bit lost. But then he smiles and blushes slightly, and I feel a giddy rush of pleasure knowing that it’s for me.
‘Don’t get into more trouble without me, Kit Blackhart,’ he replies softly, before turning towards Dante to hug his cousin. ‘Be careful, all of you. I’ll be in touch as soon as we know more about everything, including the prophecy.’
Dante and I watch Crow and Thorn drag the three Sidhe bodies and the charred remains of the sluagh to the side. There’s a dizzying sense of Crow and Thorn’s magic as they open a gateway and then they’re both stepping sideways, and the garden returns to normal.
‘Our lives are far too exciting,’ Dante says heavily and I nod, unable to deny it. ‘But, you know, I think we have some good people watching our backs.’
I grin. ‘I need more coffee and must call my uncle Jamie – to tell him how we fought a monster in the Garretts’ garden and survived.’
‘Yes, let’s not forget that part. Will you mention your boyfriend to him?’
I open my mouth to deny that Thorn’s my boyfriend, but then Dante holds up a finger and I close my mouth with a snap.
‘You realize Thorn possibly bent time and space to get to you as fast as he did? He sensed you were dying, Kit, and he came to save you.’ Dante’s gaze is intense as he stares at me. ‘Saving me and Aiden was just an added bonus.’
I wrinkle my nose. Dammit, he was right. Thorn did in fact save my life. I’m not sure how I feel about that, as I’m used to fighting my own battles, but somewhere inside me something warm and fuzzy grows a little bit warmer and fuzzier.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Jamie, will you just stop shouting for a minute?’
I try to hold the phone far enough away from my ear so I’m not assaulted by Jamie’s parade-ground voice, which alternates between swearing in Russian, possibly French and Italian, and definitely English. To say that my uncle is angry is to put it mildly. That he’s angry with me is a given. I grimace in apology to Dante, who looks more and more alarmed the longer Jamie’s speakerphone tirade lasts.
‘He’ll run out of steam in a second,’ I tell Dante, putting my hand over the speaker. ‘I think we’ve gone through most of the swearwords he knows now.’
Dante’s look is pained but he keeps quiet until Jamie’s voice peters out – more because he has to take a breath than because he’s finished with me.
‘Jamie?’
‘You’ve been irresponsible. You’ve been stupid and reckless.’ Jamie’s voice echoes through the room again and I stare at the wooden slab that is the front door. ‘Everything I’ve taught you, Kit. Everything, and you just … you ignore it all because … I don’t even know why. What were you thinking?’
‘Dante’s a good guy, Jamie.’
‘He is Fae, Kit. And he was abandoned by his family in the human world. Do you have any idea how that can fu—screw someone up? Someone who obviously has a lot of magic potential? I knew something was going on when you called me the other month, asking me about changelings. God, I have been so stupid. You’ve put our family in jeopardy. Do you realize that you’ve compromised our standing with the Courts by hiding this kid? Everything we’ve done since can be called into question. We do not take sides, Kit. We work for the Courts and keep the balance on their behalf. Hiding this changeling could be our undoing. And to make things worse, he’s the son of a traitor.’ Jamie snorts and I can practically hear him scrub at his face, the way he does when he’s had enough of me and the trouble I get myself into. ‘Andrew is going to be so pissed off.’
‘You think keeping a kid no older than Marc and Megan alive is a bad idea, Jamie?’ I counter. ‘You’ve not even met Dante. How can you stand there and judge him? He is a good guy. He’s saved my life a number of times and I’ve saved his. It’s what friends do, Jamie. It’s what family does, right? Isn’t that what you’ve taught me since I became a Blackhart?’
‘You never became a Blackhart, Kit. You were a Blackhart since the day you were born.’
‘Lucky me,’ I shoot back. ‘Lucky me to be dumped in this world where practically every day I have to fight for my life against monsters that no one else can see. Lucky me that I’ve been left to my own devices by uncles and cousins who are moving on with their lives, leaving me to deal with all of this by myself.’
Dante opens his mouth to say something, but I give him a short sharp shake of the head and he just leans back against the chair, spinning his empty mug between his fingers.
‘Kit, you know that’s not true. We’re all here for you if you need us.’
‘Really? And where are you now, Jamie? Hawaii? India?’
‘The Philippines, actually.’
‘So not a five-minute journey away, then. Jamie, I am doing my best here with what I’ve been taught. By you and Uncle Andrew. And if I tell you guys that Dante is a good guy and that we have to help him and that we have to stand with him against whatever trouble’s coming our way, you need to agree with me.’
‘You have had a sluagh sent against you. Assassins tried to kill you when you went jogging, Kit. For God’s sake. He is the son of a traitor to the High King of Alba. That is huge. If Aelfric finds out we’ve been harbouring someone who has the potential to try to overthrow him, the Blackharts could be brought in on charges of treason and conspiracy to commit regicide against Alba’s crown.’
‘Hi, excuse me.’ Dante clears his throat and it sounds like it hurts. ‘For the record, that’s definitely not something I want to do, okay? I don’t want to be a prince or a king or, uh, anything like that. I just want to know who my family is so I can meet them. And have someone tell me what I am. And to train me how to use whatever powers I have.’ He looks so tense I worry he’s going to just explode. ‘And I want to continue working as a Spook. I belong here, in the human world. It’s what I’ve known all my life and I’d like to keep working with Kit. She’s been my partner on the Child Thief case and we work well together. I am not going to steal Aelfric’s crown or become the ruler of a bunch of nature spirits or whatever my family’s supposed to be. I just want a normal life.’
The silence from Jamie is heavy and I close my eyes, waiting for the blast of angry words, but they don’t come. Then Jamie speaks up again.
‘I need to talk to Andrew. We’ve got to sort this out. I need to make calls about Connor and Shaun. We’re helping the wolves, so I need you and Aiden to be ready to go when I call you with any information.’ He hesitates. ‘Is that clear?’
‘Yes.’ I look at Dante. ‘All three of us will be ready.’
‘Kit …’ his warning tone makes me flinch.
‘Either Dante does this with us, or I sit it out with him.’
I close my eyes against the sound of something smashing into the wall in the background at the other end of the line, followed by some startled yelling. ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Jamie says, and his tone is clipped
as he ends the call. And if anyone can end a mobile phone call aggressively, then Jamie manages to do it.
I turn to look at Dante but it’s Aiden who catches my eyes. He pushes away from the door behind us and walks into the lounge looking rumpled but far better than he did just under an hour ago.
‘That went about as well as I expected it to go,’ he says, and he looks at both Dante and me with frustrated affection. ‘You guys are impossible together. What did you think would happen?’
‘That Jamie would listen to reason, maybe,’ I say, and grin at him as I take a seat.
‘Yeah, that was never gonna happen, Blackhart – you know that.’
I shrug and spin my phone on the table. ‘Kyle sent me a text before I rang Jamie. The tracker on the Jericho Gang guys stopped working, so we don’t know where they’ve gone either.’
‘Did Kyle say why the tracker stopped?’
‘The signal disappeared. So they either found the tracker in the jewellery box or the thing just stopped working. I’m surprised it worked as long as it did. Electronics and magic just don’t mix very well. And listen, let’s not ever mention that Kyle actually knows about Dante being Fae. He’s scared his dad’s going to have a fit about it. Only you, me and Kyle know about Dante being, you know, a sexy siren Fae in training.’
Dante snorts at my description and shoves Aiden when he gives the older boy a knowing glance in response.
‘I don’t think getting sexy is part of the training, though, right?’ Aiden opines and I start laughing because his flirting is awful and it makes me happy.