“Or else someone else is shielding her.” His idea was taking shape, pieces fitting together like shards of broken pottery.
“Who?”
“Have you looked inside the Castle?”
Holly’s eyes widened. “Why would she be there?”
“Because we know Belenos has connections there.”
“Who?” Holly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, as if she felt sick. “I sound like an owl, don’t I?”
“Just do it.” Reynard’s voice was harsh.
She swallowed. “I need something from the Castle.”
He crossed the room in two strides and picked up the white-handled knife that sat on her silvery cloth. It was poor etiquette to breach a witch’s circle, but that was just too bad. He sawed through a lock of his hair and handed the knife and a clump of brown strands back to her.
Holly took them, astonished.
“I was there for centuries. Part of my body should suffice.”
“Okay,” she said uncertainly. “Give me a minute.”
Her skin brushed his, warm and buzzing with magic. She was so like her sister, and so different. Reynard realized he would have given anything to reach out and grab Ashe’s hand. The images flickering in his imagination were enough to drive any man to need comfort.
Holly looked up from her spell to give Reynard a long, considering look. “I think you’re right. I think she’s there, but the trace is faint. Just like she’s being hidden.”
Now she had a hand-drawn map of Mac’s part of the Castle on the floor before her. The crystal was moving to the left of what she’d drawn, the point lifting away from the chain like a dog straining against its leash. It wobbled a little, as if uncertain, ranging over a small area of the uncharted paper as if trying to find its mark.
That meant Eden was weakened, or else someone with a lot of magic had her captive.
Reynard swallowed hard. The air around him lost its warmth. How much strength do I have left?
Realistically, they had made little progress in finding his urn. Its absence was telling on him. When he had returned to the Castle even just long enough to change clothes, it had drained him badly. If Reynard pushed himself too hard, he would simply perish.
For a moment, he closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the decision he had to make and knowing that there was only one possible outcome.
What choices did he have? Die slowly, taking what pleasure he could as his humanity came back in one last hurrah, or die quickly, and perhaps save Ashe’s daughter? Duty, dignity, death.
An aching lump worked its way up his throat, as if all the arguments for life scrambled for breath at once. He choked them down in one hard swallow.
At the last moment, he let his gaze linger on Holly’s baby, softly sleeping in the corner. As his last vision of the outside world, the innocent infant was a good one. She was a symbol of everything love could achieve. Life from death.
He couldn’t make life, but he could save it. He could do his duty.
“Will that crystal work outside the circle?” he demanded.
“Sure, the spell’s got an hour or two left on it.”
“Will it work for me?”
“Yeah—”
“Then give it to me.” He held out his hand. Reluctantly, Holly handed it over. Her elfin face was filled with questions.
Reynard took a deep, steadying breath, finding the discipline that had kept him strong for centuries. He pulled himself straight. “Tell Ashe that I know where her daughter is, and that Eden will be safely home by morning.”
“Wait a minute,” said Holly, her voice rising with tension. “What are you planning? You know you can’t go back into the Castle. It makes you sick.”
Reynard couldn’t help smiling. It was so nice that someone cared what became of him. He hadn’t always had that. “There’s no time to argue. I know the Castle. I can find Eden faster than anyone else.”
As he spoke, he pulled power from the air, grabbing the scraps of Holly’s magic and the wild anxiety of the searchers roaming the streets and calling Eden’s name. He spun it, letting it build fast and hard.
Holly grabbed a slender wand from where her tools were arranged, her knuckles turning white as she gripped it. “Reynard? Don’t go all cowboy on us.”
He shook his head. “The vampire is working with the dark fey. I’m sure of it. No one knows what fairies might do, much less their prince.” The fey take children, and Miru-kai has been in the thick of this from the start.
“Dark fey?” Holly demanded, the words cracking with fear. “What are you talking about? What’s happening to Eden?”
He released enough energy to make a portal. The charred scent blasted the room. A spinning dot appeared and spread like oil poured in a pan, growing to man height in a wash of bright orange, prickling energy.
“Talk to me, Reynard, or I’ll zap you,” Holly warned, raising the wand. “Don’t think I won’t!”
He would have rather told her all that he knew, explained his choices, but every second counted. Eden’s welfare trumped everything else. “Tell Ashe I’ll make everything right.”
The portal swallowed him with a pop.
Chapter 18
Miru-kai stared at the little girl, delight in his heart. A human child! Who would have thought such a prize would come to him here, in the dismal Castle?
She stared back, terrified but struggling not to cry. With the aid of Shadewing and the goblin guards, it had been a matter of moments to snatch her away from the vampires. As a feat of arms, it was barely a challenge. Miru-kai was a commander of armies and every bit Belenos’s equal in battle. After that, Miru- kai’s knowledge of the Castle had made it child’s play to lose them in the maze of corridors.
The vampire’s outraged howl had been a delight. Proud Belenos hadn’t anticipated anything but fawning admiration. From a prince of the fey! Idiot.
Just to add insult to injury, Miru-kai had sent Shadewing to tip off the Castle guards that there were unwelcome visitors afoot. An excellent way to win points with Mac and send Belenos on a merry chase. All in one fell swoop. Priceless.
Now Miru-kai was alone with the girl. Terrified, she sat curled into a ball, knees drawn up to her chin, eyes watching his every move. He’d sent the goblins away, hoping that would calm her. He was the first to admit their appearance took some getting used to.
It had worked. Now, for a very frightened child, she was remarkably loquacious.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
A fey prince had many names and titles, so he offered something a child could remember. “Kai.”
“Kai.”
“Yes.” Hearing the name tugged at something deep inside him. Only the closest of friends had ever used that name. Friends like Simeon.
The emotion doubled his desire to keep this human as his charge, safe and sound. No vampires would steal her from under his nose. The fey took better care of children than that.
She gave him a serious look from large, dark eyes. “You sort of look human, but you’re not, are you?” Her tone was all accusation.
“My grandfather was human,” Miru- kai replied, keeping his voice gentle. “But the rest of my ancestors were kings and queens of the fey.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s a prince doing in here?”
He allowed himself a slight smile. “My arrival was an inconvenient accident. I’ll be leaving shortly.”
“Uncle Mac is going to let you go?” She looked even more suspicious. Not a stupid girl, this one.
“Of course,” he said smoothly. Now that Miru- kai had the gem, Uncle Mac had little choice in the matter. “It’s time to join the modern era.”
But it wasn’t just himself he was thinking of. All of his people wanted freedom as much as he did, but whether the new human world and the dark fey were ready for each other was another story. How he approached integrating dark fairies into the twenty-first century would depend on what he discovered beyond the Castle door. He h
ad heard the hellhounds hadn’t found the outside world particularly welcoming, and they were as human-friendly as monsters got.
He had his work cut out for him.
“Captain Reynard and Mom will come get me, you know.”
The girl’s statement snapped Miru-kai’s mind back to the here and now. “How do you know the good captain?”
“He likes my mother.” The girl looked down, frowning at her hands.
Oh-ho, what have we here? “Does he?”
She tucked a curl behind her ear. “They kill things together. He’s okay.”
Reynard’s been gone how many days? The old fox works quickly!
She gave him another narrow look. “Are you one of those creepy guys who touches little kids?”
The prince shook his head. “I give you my word; I simply enjoy your company. No harm will come to you while you are with me.”
“Are you sure?” Her chin stuck out stubbornly. “The first bunch put a bag over my head when they stuffed me in their car. I think it was a potato sack. I smell like dirt.”
“I am not personally responsible for the sack. Those were vampires and their servants. Nasty things. And you do not smell like dirt. You smell like human.”
She looked faintly embarrassed. “What does that mean? Do I need a bath?”
He laughed, something he hadn’t expected to do ever again. Not after Simeon. “It’s hard to put into words. Humans smell like their houses. Warm. Like food. Yours has a scent of magic. And you’ve been near a baby.”
Eden made a face. “Yeah, Robin stinks. She can’t help it.”
The girl looked away. Her cheeks held the bloom of health and sunshine, despite the circles of fatigue under her eyes. What is her story?
“My mom will get those vampires.”
“Your mother is a Carver witch?” Miru- kai already knew the answer. Belenos was after a witch who could mate with a vampire. There was only one such case in recent memory.
“Yeah, but she’s lost her magic.”
Miru-kai sucked in a breath, putting scraps of information together. Not the one who already has a vampire husband, but the monster-slaying sister. He’d heard tales about that one.
“Then your mother is Ashe, the elder daughter of Marian Carver.”
“How did you know that?”
“I try to know everything.”
“Even the first name of my grandma?”
“People still talk about your grandparents.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother killed them with a spell, of course.”
The child started where she sat, as if he’d pinched her. Her eyes flooded with dismay, then tears. “That’s a lie!”
Oh. Miru-kai cursed under his breath.
He’d blurted out the wrong thing. He was used to dealing with monsters, not the nursery. Wanting to comfort, he rested a hand on her thin shoulder, but she shrugged him off.
“I want to go home now,” she said in a small voice. “Leave me alone.”
Miru-kai straightened, folding his arms and contemplating the small, huddled form at his feet. Simeon would know what to do.
But Simeon was dead. Miru-kai was on his own with this weeping child. He tugged the ends of his mustaches, at a loss.
He might be a slippery, conniving thief, a warlord, a sorcerer, and an all-around bad sort of fellow, but he had softer instincts. He could well protect this child, at least until he was able to unravel the magic of the gem and make his escape. He might even keep her after that. He so wanted to have a human at his side again. . . .
There was much to ponder.
Ashe was heading back to the house, her cheeks stiff with dried tears. The crying came on and off, uncontrollable. Her nerves crackled as if she’d downed an oil tanker of coffee. Though her mind was clear, her body was manifesting all the fear she couldn’t acknowledge and stay sane. Breaking down wouldn’t help her daughter, but nobody’d told her shaking hands.
But she had found nothing.
No one had.
So far, there was no ransom, no demand. Whatever game the vampire was playing, she couldn’t figure it out. She really hoped Reynard had a clue what to do next, because her exhausted brain was full of nothing but panic.
Ashe stopped dead in her tracks. Holly was running out of the house with Robin in her arms, calling for help. Ashe sprinted across the street to join her, along with a crowd of other volunteers.
Alessandro, Holly’s vampire mate, reached her first. He was tall, with long, wheat blond curls and amber eyes. “What’s going on now?”
“I should have zapped his ass!” Tears streaked Holly’s face. Robin woke and started to fuss, making tiny, frustrated cries. Holly hushed her as they gathered around.
“Who are you zapping?” Ashe demanded. “And why?”
“Captain Broody, that’s who!” Holly hiccuped.
“Reynard?”
Alessandro put his arm around Holly, a gentle, affectionate gesture. “Hey, come on. Calm down.” Then he put his other arm around Ashe.
Ashe clutched her arms, feeling the night chill more than she should have. She was low on fuel. She hadn’t eaten. She couldn’t.
“Reynard thinks he knows where Eden is,” Holly blurted. “He went to the Castle to get her back.”
“Is she there?” Ashe made a confused sound. “Do you think he’s right?”
“He said something about dark fey working with Belenos.”
“Oh, Reynard,” Ashe choked out, her face growing cold with dread. “He’s going to fade if he goes in there. Why is he doing this?” But of course she knew why. Because of Eden. Because Reynard was who he was. Gratitude and anger collided. I can’t lose either of them!
“He said there was no time. He was afraid of what the fey would do.”
“Son of a . . .” Alessandro started swearing in a language she didn’t know.
Ashe vibrated with desperation, her stomach so knotted it hurt. “Goddess! I have to get there. I’m going to kill whoever has Eden! I’ve got to get him out of there!”
Alessandro Caravelli’s red T-bird was parked at the curb. Ashe took off, bolting across the lawn toward it. Alessandro beat her to it by seconds.
They got into the T-bird and took off with a scream of tires.
Once inside the Castle, Reynard followed the crystal’s direction. His boots echoed on the stone floor, every scuff rustling in the dark recesses of the corridors.
So far, he felt well enough to carry on with his mission—which wasn’t saying much. Like so many others from his time, he had marched under the scorching sun of India while dressed in a wool uniform suited to Britannia’s fog and rain. He was used to soldiering on through discomfort.
Still, he could tell the urn was far away—a different dimension counted more than miles. Strong as he was, there was a limit to his energy. It was draining like sand in an hourglass, each minute depleting a little piece of him.
He had anticipated this, so he paid attention to those occasions when the crystal took him near one of the patrolled areas. He meant to find a guardsman and send for help.
Unfortunately, no one was at their usual post. Had something happened to call them all away? His plan counted on reinforcements; if he couldn’t finish the search for Eden, someone else had to.
He walked on, his pace brisk. The corridors crisscrossed with mindless regularity, pools of torchlight just bright enough to give the shadows shape. The stone walls exhaled a clammy chill.
At the next post he reached, he called out. The echoes of his voice faded into the dark, drifting like dust. The dark halls were empty. No one was there to help.
Reynard paused for the barest fraction of a second and then pushed on, calculating the distance to the next post and how far he could go before he ran out of strength to generate a portal to safety.
And if no one was at the next post, either?
He had chosen this risk. He would see it through. Am I being an idiot?
Ah, well, he had d
ueled while drunk more than once. He had gambled and lost fortunes. He had bedded women who were as adept with poisons as pleasure, full well knowing that night’s death might be of the literal rather than the poetic kind. He was an idiot. Or at least he had been, before he came to the Castle. He didn’t take unnecessary chances anymore.
Now he knew the real face of danger. He had lost everything, all his choices.
Except this one. He chose to save the little girl who had given him hope. For her, he would gamble with the last scraps of his life.
For Ashe, who had given him back a taste of joy.
Reynard froze, listening. There was a scuffle of footsteps, soft soles on cold stone. Almost too soft to hear. Moving very, very fast.
Before he could draw into the shadows, a group of five vampires rounded the corner, moving smoothly as a school of sharp-toothed fish. Their pale faces floated in the dim light, eyes seeming lit from within. They came to an abrupt halt, staring at Reynard.
A tall red-haired male stood in the center of the group. The others surrounded him like an honor guard. All were armed and disheveled, as if they’d been in a fight. One had a gash in his temple, already scabbed over, a trickle of dried blood trailing down his cheek.
Well, that answered the question about who had drawn the guards away from their posts. They were forming search parties, looking for this group of intruders.
“Stand aside,” growled the red- haired one in the middle.
Belenos, I’ll wager. A cold smile spread over Reynard’s features.
Eden was silent as she walked with Miru-kai through the Castle’s grottoes and torchlit halls. Deep in thought, she barely seemed to notice her surroundings. Or perhaps she was too afraid to be curious about the dark, stony prison. She was probably thinking about her grandparents.
Sadly, fey magic didn’t include taking back words he had no business speaking. The prince cursed himself.
It wasn’t like a fey to wonder about a human’s thoughts, but Miru- kai had human blood. It made him ponder things no other fey would worry about. For instance, every child taken by the fey changed the future. Their threads dropped from the weave of human history. Deeds would be left undone, future children never born—the effect as absolute as if they had lost their lives. Did the fey have the right to cause such changes in the pattern?
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