I swallowed. “Um.”
He handed me a cup filled with sweet-smelling purple juice. “Is something the matter?”
I balanced the plate on my knee and poked the contents with a fork. “This is safe to eat, right?”
“Of course.” Rook crossed his arms. “It’s only—”
“Nope.” I waved my fork around. “I don’t want to know.”
Mac smiled between bites, showing me the food wouldn’t hurt me without saying it outright. He seemed to tolerate Rook better now that the guy was cooking and cleaning for him. If Rook couldn’t go home, he might have a future in domestic work. Strap an apron on him, and let the bidding begin.
A guy who cooked, cleaned and looked good while doing it? Cha-ching.
Unaware of my musings, Rook cleared his throat, half-daring me to try some of his eggs.
Hungry as I was, as little as I had fed, I didn’t hesitate again before shoveling down the meal. Summer was on the docket for today, and I doubted very much they would be happy to see either Mac or me.
Reclaiming his chair from last night, Rook smiled. “Where are you two heading so early?”
I smiled right back. “Touring Faerie one season at a time.”
His lips pinched. “You can tell me the truth.”
“You speak it so rarely, I doubt you know how it sounds,” Mac said.
Red splotched Rook’s cheeks. “I am not a spy.”
I bit into a crisp strip of...not going to ask. “No one said you were.”
“I sensed the privacy charm you used last night.” He accused, “You don’t trust me.”
“No, I don’t.” I leveled a glare at him. “You haven’t given me a single reason why I should.”
“I saved your life,” he said in a quiet voice.
“You endangered it in the first place,” Mac growled, slamming down his plate. “You have done nothing but lie since the moment you entered her life. Nothing but cause her pain. It is what I expect from ones such as you, but Thierry was an innocent. You dragged her into this world.” His jaw bulged. “You wed my only daughter against her will, allowed her to run in the hunt in my stead to further your and your mother’s ambitions. Why should she trust you? She is too smart to play the fool for you.”
Blinking at Mac, I swore he was more pissed about the marriage than the near-death experience.
“You’re right.” Rook hunched over his plate and began picking at his meal.
A twinge of pity rose in me, evaporated by the reminder he was here and Shaw was not.
I glanced at Mac’s cracked plate and the fork on the floor. “I’m ready to go when you are.”
His decisive nod sliced through Rook’s protest.
We rose, and Mac took my dishes with him into the kitchen. Alone with Rook, I tried to be nice.
“Mac has unspoiled books in his office,” I said. “I can bring some out to you before we leave.”
He pushed food around on his plate. “I could help you.”
“As Mai would say, puppy eyes don’t work on me. You don’t know what I’m doing.”
He glanced up at me. “Then tell me.”
“Were you listening just now?” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “That whole speech?”
His gaze slid behind me. “I’m tired of being stuck here while you two pop all over Faerie.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I hadn’t told him about the Hall of Many Doors, and I doubted Mac had, but Rook wasn’t stupid. Me limping in dripping mud and feeling sweary didn’t lend itself to supporting the theory we were holed up in Mac’s office all day.
“You have no idea what we’re doing.” I tapped the end of his nose. “Let’s keep it that way.”
He caught my wrist, his eyes going sharp. “You need my help.”
“Not yet I don’t.” Come time to infiltrate his home, sure. “Sit tight a little longer.”
“I’m tired of sitting tight,” he grumbled.
I broke his grip with a quick upward tug that shot past his thumb. “Then try standing.”
Expression churlish, Rook settled into his chair as Mac rejoined us and raised a questioning brow.
I wiggled my fingers at Rook. “Tootles.”
His lip curled. Bet he would be thrilled with an annulment right about now too.
Boots thumping on the floor, I headed for the Hall of Many Doors and zapped the doorknob with a pulse of magic. I held it open for Mac, earning me a wry grin as he slid past me, heading for a door we had yet to use. He let me do the honors, and we stepped out of cool darkness into the hot Summer sun atop a grassy knoll overlooking a round pond rimmed by cattails with thorns the length of my pinky finger.
My thigh muscles quivered, primed to run, and I fell back a step before forcing myself to hold steady.
“The Halls of Summer?” I squeaked. “The tether is out here?”
“No.” Mac started walking. “It’s in there.”
I snagged his forearm, nails scratching his armor. “The Seelie aren’t just going to let us stroll in.”
“We aren’t taking the front door.” He angled away from the Halls and lengthened his strides. “It won’t take the Seelie long to sense us, assuming the Morrigan’s spies don’t trip the alarm first.” He glanced behind me, where a copse of sapling maples swayed, despite the absence of wind. “Aves.”
Sure enough, black dots marred the newly green treetops like cancer, bowing the graceful trunks under the sentries’ weight. Excited chirrups drifted to us, muted by the distance, but none took flight.
“Great.” I had a bad feeling about this. “I guess there’s no door number three?”
“This is it.” Mac turned his back on them and walked on. “The others are too well guarded.”
I fell into step with him, curious about the back door. The front entrance to the Halls of Summer led visitors through the pond into a round foyer with halls extending outward like spokes on a wheel.
Focused as I was on the Aves and tracking our location, I bumped into Mac when he stopped.
He caught my arm to balance me. “Here we are.”
“I don’t see—wait.” I kicked a tuft of grass aside. “That’s a hole.”
“No.” He reached over his head. “That is a tunnel.”
I inhaled deeply and pulled the scent of fur and rabbit urine into my lungs. “Púcas?”
“Yes.” He spread his fingers, and his hand vanished into an air pocket from the wrist down.
Summoning a rabbit skin, no doubt. “Those boogers get around, don’t they?”
He hummed, distracted, and I used my magical sight to locate my own pocket. Once I got my hand inside, I thought about Rook dropping the poor, dead bunny at my feet and telling me to skin it, and its silky weight hit my palm. I withdrew it carefully, exhaling with relief that it was undamaged. The pelt was a faded baby pink shade like no natural bunny I had ever seen. I found it morbidly beautiful.
Mac examined the black pelt in his hand. “Do you know how to speak while wearing a skin?”
“Yes.” I exhaled my jitters. “The púcas taught me.”
His eyebrows climbed. “That’s good. They’re experts at it.”
“Well, I’m not.” I shrugged. “I managed it before, but I’m out of practice.”
“Practice makes perfect.” He placed the skin on top of his head, snugging it down until his eyes lined up with the dried slits where the rabbit’s eyes once were. Black as the fur was, his might have been an actual púca pelt. My bunny skin was native Faerie stock, but not a sentient fae like a púca.
“Mac?” Aware I might never get another chance as good as this one to ask him, I rushed before the magic transformed him into a sleek rabbit. “Does it bother you wearing the skin of another fae?”
When I wore Raven’s pelt, though he had been a hound when I killed him, I sensed him, like an echo in the back of my mind. It was damn creepy sharing that connection with him. I much preferred the bunny’s residual thoughts on the flavor profile of dandelions v
ersus ryegrass to Raven’s seething hatred of his brother—and of me—but final thoughts seemed burned the deepest into any skin.
Seconds passed before he answered. “Skins are tools. You don’t hate a knife for slicing open a throat. You don’t refuse to use magic even when it might cost a life. Skins are like that too. You see them as the remains of the previous owner, but they aren’t. They’re nothing but flesh and fur, nothing but a means of doing our jobs. The memories... Those serve a purpose too. They never let us forget the cost of taking a life. Wearing them is meant to be uncomfortable so you remember who you are and never forget to remove it when the job is done, to put that tool away when you’re finished.”
Another sliver of guilt fell to the side. “I never thought of it like that—like any of that.”
Placing the slinky skin on my head, I shoved out the thoughts bogging me down and narrowed my focus to a single goal. Be the bunny. All I needed was my concentration to lapse inside the tunnel. I would explode to Thierry-size while crawling through a tube six inches wide underground.
That would pretty much suck, and would be hell for Mac to explain to my mother.
Our daughter exploded in a tunnel in Faerie, but here’s her spleen...
Forget him ever hearing the L word from her. She would be hurling F and U instead.
The heavy scent of damp earth seeped into me and sparked a tiny flame of panic. An hour ago, I had asked Mac if we were there yet. His tail hadn’t even twitched. Hop-crawling through utter darkness, I bumped into him as he stopped to gnaw a root that had grown through the tunnel since its last use.
“My nose is cramping,” I whined.
The reflexive wiggling reflected my state of agitation—like wearing a mood ring on my face.
“I see light ahead.” Mac panted through a narrowing of the walls. “We’re almost there.”
Paws flying, I hustled through the tight spot and gasped when brilliant sunlight blasted me in the face. I shuffled forward, and the ground vanished beneath me. Tumbling tail over teakettle, I landed on a soft spot with a sharp oomph. Blinded, I tested it with my paw. Oops. The grunt hadn’t been mine after all. “Sorry.”
Mac slid out from under me while I blinked away the last of the darkness.
“Are you all right?” He sounded winded.
My furry cheeks heated. I wasn’t that heavy.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Where are we?”
“Near the kitchen.” Mac hopped several feet toward an arched doorway. “Stay close.”
I fumbled my first hop-step. “We’re not shifting back?”
“We’re less likely to be noticed this way.” I heard a smile in his voice. He reached the threshold and peered around the corner, scanning the hall left to right. “We also retain the element of surprise.”
Flattening my ears against my head, I sank deeper into the pelt, hoping its muscle memory would let me keep up with Mac, who moved as if born to his skin.
Unlike the crystalline rooms surrounded by flowing water and filled with sunlight I remembered from my first visit to the Halls, this area had solid white walls with blue-and-white-checkered floors. The ceiling was translucent. Sunlight glinted off the polished surface, making me squint as I slipped on soft paws.
Ahead of me, Mac tensed as low voices echoed down the hall.
“Prince Tiberius should be made aware of the situation,” a feminine voice cautioned.
“Aves are the Morrigan’s creatures, Unseelie,” a man scoffed. “They are no threat to us.”
The click-clack of heels and steady cadence of soft-soled boots brought the pair closer.
Nose wiggling a hundred miles per hour, I shuffled close to Mac, ready to spring where he led.
The woman sighed. “You don’t find it odd how they’re skulking in the grove?”
He snorted. “Not when the Morrigan is rallying to become the next ruler of Faerie.”
“She killed her own son for the throne,” the woman mused.
“Rook was a half-blood,” the man countered. “No better than the half-blood pup the consuls had chosen as queen.” He managed to make my once-future title sound like pond scum. “There has never been a Faerie queen, and the old gods willing, there never will be. Let alone that feral Unseelie cur.”
“Prince Tiberius would be wise to take the Morrigan in hand sooner rather than later,” she responded.
“Aye, there is that.” He blew out a long breath. “The longer he waits, the harder it will be.”
Their shared concerns faded, along with the sound of their shoes, and I slumped against Mac.
“That was close,” I whispered.
But he wasn’t listening. His eyes were narrowed in the direction they had gone, and a quiet fury had taken root in his expression. I bumped my hip against his once—then again when he ignored me.
“They have no right to speak of you that way.” The words slipped out, hard and cold.
“Faerie is one big competition. You’re either Seelie or Unseelie, and that’s that.” I thought about it. “The only overlap is the half-bloods. Both sides seem to revile them equally. Instead of increasing the mixed population, you’d think fae would learn to keep their bits tucked into their britches, huh?”
Mac faced me, ears upright and round eyes serious. “You are my daughter, not a half-blood or a cur.” His fuzzy rabbit lip twitched. “My child.” He retracted his nails and lowered his head. “My father was right. War will come to our land and our folk. It is the fruit of hatred, and they have eaten of it.”
“Mac...”
“I grow tired, Thierry. I can no longer prevent this. It is done. Faerie must bleed to be cleansed.” His ears swiveled toward me. “The reign of the Black Dog has ended.” He shook his head. “Saying it out loud... I shouldn’t feel relieved.” His emerald eyes, so like mine, pierced me. “I ought to feel—”
“You’ve been fighting this a long time. You aren’t giving up. You’re giving Faerie the chance to choose what’s right for herself, even if she bloodies her nose in the process. You can still play a role in shaping the new political landscape, but maybe not by working within the High Court.” I wrinkled my nose. “Don’t take on so much by yourself. If you crave true peace and true freedom, don’t force them.”
He butted my shoulder with his head. “Should a child be wiser than their father?”
“Ask your dad sometime.” I winked. “He’s the one who explained it to me.”
The Huntsman struck me as wise for a guy covered in mud with sticks in his beard.
Mac chuckled, scooted forward and let me catch my balance, then began hopping down the hall. He padded to a stop when the floor under our paws turned crystal clear. Water rushed beneath us in a dizzying swirl of colors and sound. Mac skirted the glasslike floor, leaping over a single six-inch tile to land on an opaque square in another bland hallway. Flexing my whiskers, I bunched up and leapt.
Lucky rabbit’s feet don’t fail me now.
I made the jump, botched the landing and skidded nose-first into the opposite wall. “Oww.”
A paw landed on my shoulder. “Thierry?”
“Nailed it.” Never mind the glittery carrots drifting in and out of my vision.
Nudging me with his shoulder, he got all four of my feet under me. Once I shook the veggies from my eyes, we set off again. Mac scouted ahead, leaving me to coordinate my legs well enough to keep up with him. With a wiggle of his tail, Mac leapt into a low, arched entryway and glanced back at me.
Rich and delicious scents rolled over me, and my stomach rumbled. “The kitchen?”
He nodded and lifted his head, inhaling in fast rabbit-nose twitches, ears swiveling. “This way.”
We had covered the distance of four tiles when I heard a humming sound and froze.
My whiskers flexed. “Mac?”
A slapping noise grew louder then stopped abruptly. “What is that sssmell?”
Padding quietly, Mac eased under a low shelf built into a butcher block table on heavy cast
ers. I followed, settling against his side so we both faced out and could see the person entering the room.
The scents of hot sand and scales hit my nose, and it stopped twitching altogether.
“Sssomeone has been in my kitchen.” The fae hissed, “Thisss isss not to be borne.”
Low as we were, I saw the cook’s feet first. Veined and flat, they reminded me of scuba fins and smacked like flip-flops against the tile when he walked. The cuff of rolled-up white pants started at his ankles, and peering up at him, I took in the traditional chef-style top and the knobby green arms sticking out of the sleeves. He flicked his forked tongue between his lips, tasting us on the air, and my borrowed fur stood on end.
Bony knuckles covered in red spots dug into his narrow hips as the cook glared around the room through his round blue eyes. Like a birthday streamer blown too hard, his tongue whipped between his lips.
Hunched as he walked past, I startled when a drawer slammed over our heads. Dull thumping on metal rang out. Stirring the pots simmering on the stove? He grunted as he hefted a thick log onto the fire. It burned in a four-by-six-foot oval chamber built into the wall five feet above the floor with a tiled backsplash. Flames rose and magic siphoned the heat into the oven and stovetop without raising the temperature in the room. Mac used the same convection spell in his den.
A loud slurp and then a murmured, “The sssoup will do.”
No one else was here except us bunnies. Lizard Lips enjoyed hearing himself talk...a lot.
Feet flapping on tile, he left in a snit, muttering about speaking with someone, which meant we had to speed this up before more company arrived. Giving Lizard Lips time to get out of range, Mac cocked his head, rotating his ears. A thump of his rear leg was all the warning I had before he bolted.
Clumsy as ever, I followed. He squeezed through a narrow gap left where someone had propped open a door leading outside. Into a garden maybe? Yep. After wriggling through, I popped out into a room with walls of glass overlooking the fields Mac and I had crossed to get here. Sun beamed down onto us through the transparent ceiling. My paws sank into rich, damp soil mounded in neat rows and spiked with growing things. This was every gardener’s dream greenhouse. Even I was jealous of it.
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