by Z. J. Cannon
But I had limits. I would not reveal my nature to another human, not unless I had no choice. Lucien had already gotten himself killed for this plan. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for me to follow in his footsteps.
Delaney cast a quick look around, like she was hoping I would step out of hiding, even though I had already made my feelings clear on the subject. I stayed where I was. After a few seconds, she gave up with a barely-perceptible slump to her shoulders, and turned back to Carroll.
“Look around you,” said Delaney. “How do you think these plants are growing? Where is the water in that waterfall coming from? Human technology didn’t build this place.”
“Squawk! Filthy humans,” the parrot contributed from somewhere near the ceiling.
Carroll jumped at the parrot’s voice. He recovered quickly, adjusting the straps of his suspenders. “I’ve seen stranger things in rich people’s houses. I’m more interested in how you ended up here. Although to be honest, even that can wait. Right now, I’m just concerned about my old friend.” He held out a hand to her. “Come home with me. My wife is keeping dinner warm. You remember Marianne. We’ll eat, we’ll talk, and then we can work on getting you some real help.”
Delaney looked at his hand. Instead of taking it, she crossed her arms. “You asked the question yourself—how could Arkanica’s claims possibly be real? This is the answer. And if they have their way, they’ll use it to gain such tight control over the global economy that all the governments in the world will be nothing more than a useful fiction. That’s why I had to fake my death—because they’re targeting me. Both them and the Winter Court—rival fae who want to solve the climate-change problem by wiping out humanity. Someone is going to use this power, Ab. The only question is whether or not it will be the good guys.”
Carroll had started shaking his head somewhere around useful fiction. He didn’t stop. “Please, Lara. Get some help. Your career doesn’t have to end like this. You may not be able to go back into politics, but you can still come back and do plenty of good in the world—but only if you take care of yourself first.”
“So much for all your promises to trust me,” Delaney said bitterly.
Carroll kept his hand outstretched for another few seconds. Then, with a soft sigh, he let it fall back to his side. “I’m sorry, Lara. As soon as you’re ready to get help, I’ll be here. You know where to find me. But until then… I can’t listen to this anymore.” He turned away and started walking toward the door.
“Squawk! Human coward!” the parrot called after him.
Delaney’s arms dropped. A flash of real fear crossed her normally-stoic face. “If our friendship ever meant anything to you,” she called after him, her tone within a hair’s breadth of full-blown begging, “stay long enough to hear me out.”
“I’ve heard everything I need to hear,” Carroll said without turning around.
Delaney started to take a step after him. She stopped herself. Her hands clenched into fists. I knew she was picturing that list upstairs, just like I was. The list with only one name left on it—his.
“Ab, please. You know I wouldn’t come to you with something this crazy if there weren’t anything to it. You know me.” There was no almost about it anymore—she was begging. Fierce, unflappable Lara Delaney, who had endured whatever tortures Arkanica had inflicted on her in silence, and tried to sit me down for a strategy session only minutes after her escape.
Before I could think too hard about what I was doing, I stepped out from behind the tree. “If you won’t listen to your old friend,” I said quietly, “maybe you’ll listen to me.”
Chapter 3
At the sound of my voice, Carroll froze. “Who—” As he turned around, the rest of his words died in his throat. His eyes went as round as the oranges hanging off the tree in the corner. He cleaned his glasses on his shirt, peered through them at me, and cleaned them again.
Finally, he regained his voice. “That’s…” He clutched at the straps of his suspenders like they were the only things keeping him afloat. “That’s Kieran Thorne.”
He gave the name the weight normally reserved for celebrities or mass murderers. Of course, according to the human news, I was at least one of the above. And after what I had done in Hawthorne—the innocent people I had killed, when I had let my anger at humanity get the better of me—it wasn’t even a lie anymore. But I wasn’t ready to face that memory head-on just yet.
Carroll looked from me to Delaney. “But he… he killed…”
“You can already see he didn’t kill me,” said Delaney, as she stepped up to stand beside me. “I told you, the story is more complex than the news would have you believe.”
She shot a sideways questioning look at me. I faced forward and pretended I hadn’t seen. I was sure she wanted to know what I was doing, but I couldn’t give her an answer when I didn’t know the answer myself.
“I’m sure you both have a very interesting story to tell.” I could hear how hard Carroll was trying to keep his voice from shaking. It wasn’t working. “Let’s all sit down together and have a talk. Just give me a minute to get my bearings, all right?” He kept half an eye on me as he turned away. His inexpert attempts at shielding what he was doing from me weren’t enough to keep me from noticing him start to pull out his phone.
“Your security won’t answer,” I said.
He froze, his phone half out of his pocket. He looked at me like he thought I was about to take out a gun and shoot him dead right here and now in the middle of my own house. Well, Delaney’s house, really—I had given it to her, to the extent that it was mine to give.
I raised my eyebrows in invitation. “Go ahead, if it will make you feel better. But then we’re going to have that talk.”
His hand trembled as he pulled the phone free. He dialed a number, and jumped when one of the phones in my pocket rang.
Delaney jumped too. “Kieran?” she asked, her voice full of misgivings. “What did you do?”
“Nothing more than we agreed on,” I assured her. This time, I didn’t add.
A look of bewilderment broke through Carroll’s fear. “You’re on a first name basis with this…” Words failed him. He waved a hand in my direction.
“I haven’t done any of the things the news has accused me of,” I assured him. “I never hurt those children. I was never involved in those wars. And I certainly never murdered Lara Delaney.” I thought it prudent not to mention just how close I had come to turning that last one into a reality. “All those stories are of Arkanica’s making. Payback for what I did to their headquarters. I set their operations back by a lot—but they’re still out there, and rebuilding more every day. Right now, Delaney’s plan is the only viable alternative to what they’re offering. But seeing as she’s supposed to be dead, she needs someone with connections in the human world if she’s going to pull it off. And you’re her last option.” I took a step toward him. “Which is why I can’t let you leave just yet.”
“Kieran, what are you doing?” From the corner of my eye, I saw Delaney start to reach out a hand to pull me back. She stopped before she could touch me, the old fear crossing her face.
I knew better than to reveal myself to a human—and not just any human, but one who had national influence. Now he knew where he wanted criminal Kieran Thorne was hiding out—and soon enough he would know more than that. As if I weren’t already enough danger every time I stepped out the front door.
But this man was Delaney’s last chance. And Lucien’s, if he was still alive.
And mine.
I couldn’t continue my fight against Arkanica until Delaney had the resources to move forward with her and Lucien’s plan. She had the information I needed if I was going to track down the heads of Arkanica and put an end to them once and for all. But she was holding that information hostage until she no longer needed me. Which, to be fair, I hardly had room to complain about—I owed her a lot more than that.
But without that information, all I had was a s
ingle name—a name whose owner I had been trying to track down for months, with no success. I had asked Delaney about him, but she didn’t know anything either; Lucien had gotten his name from one of her sources in the Summer Court. Even Skye hadn’t been able to find any records of this Engstrom, and if Skye couldn’t find someone, he didn’t exist.
I had chosen to stay here and finish my fight against Arkanica, instead of crossing into Faerie to find my son. Even though it had nearly killed me to do it. I wouldn’t let that sacrifice be for nothing. Which meant I needed this meeting to succeed. Carroll wasn’t walking out that door until he gave Delaney a yes.
From the nervous look on Delaney’s face, I could already tell she had figured out I was willing to do anything to make that happen. But she hadn’t known me long enough to understand that for me, it always came down to self-sacrifice.
“Something I’m sure I’ll come to regret,” I answered Delaney. I hoped neither of them could see that my own hand was shaking nearly as much as Carroll’s as I pushed my hair back from my ear.
“Kieran?” Delaney said my name for the third time. This time, she didn’t sound afraid. Only confused—and under that, the slightest bit hopeful. “Are you sure about this?”
No, I wasn’t. Not in the least. But it was too late to change my mind now. I turned so Carroll could get a better look at the pointed tip of my ear.
Carroll started to clean his glasses again. He stopped himself halfway through. He took half a step forward—still hanging back like he thought I was about to erupt in violence—and reached a hand up toward my ear.
I wanted to draw back, but forced myself to stay still as his fingers brushed against my skin. Just a touch, I reminded myself as my breathing roughened. No panic-fueled hatred twisting his face. No weapon in his hand. It was only a touch.
For now.
I could see the war going on behind his eyes. Was I a dangerous criminal, or an impossible mythological creature? Had his old friend lost her mind, or was the rational world he had believed in all his life a lie?
Was he going to have to give up that rational world… or give up on this new, miraculous chance to accomplish the goals he had been working toward fruitlessly for his entire career?
He let his hand drop. “Fake,” he pronounced. “A stage trick. This man is lying to you. It’s another one of his schemes, like that trick he pulled with the Lebanese crime syndicate. He’s just gotten more creative about his criminal activities, that’s all.” But his voice wobbled as he said it, and he couldn’t stop staring at my ears.
I didn’t bother answering him. Instead, I unclasped my watch. Delaney drew in her breath sharply when she saw what I was doing. I didn’t blame her. The last time I had taken off my watch, she had nearly died.
This had the potential to be a much worse decision than showing my ears to Carroll. At worst, revealing myself would get me killed. Once I let my magic loose, though, it was anyone’s guess what would happen. I had inherited the potent magic of my father, the king of the Summer Court. It was an older form of magic than the watered-down elemental magic most of the fae carried in their veins. Older, and more powerful, and far more versatile. What I didn’t have was the control to go with it. I had my mother’s human genes, and the iron in my blood that came with them, to thank for that.
What that meant in practice was that my magic had a mind of its own. Once the steel watch broke contact with my skin, and the iron in the metal was no longer holding my power in check, maybe it would give Carroll a light show that would convince him to do whatever Delaney wanted. Or maybe it would burn the whole place down around our ears, and neither Delaney nor Carroll would make it out alive. I was counting on being able to clasp the watch back around my wrist as soon as I felt my magic start to slip out of control. But there was always that slim chance that I wouldn’t be fast enough.
“Don’t,” I thought I heard Delaney whisper. Or maybe it was my own inner voice. I wasn’t sure which of the two trusted me less, after what had happened in Hawthorne. Ever since that day, my watch had stayed firmly on my wrist, except for the time I had been forced to remove it to rescue Delaney from Arkanica. I hadn’t even found an isolated place to take it off for a few hours to prevent the iron from doing permanent damage to the muscle and nerves underneath. Every day, when I woke up with it aching, I told myself I would drive out to one of the nearby hiking trails and do it. But every day, I managed to find another excuse to wait.
The watch, a light and thin band that had belonged to Delaney’s husband, slid off my wrist more easily than the one I had lost in Hawthorne. I caught it in trembling fingers. I held my breath and forced my hand to unclench. The watch fell to the floor.
At first, nothing happened. Carroll looked down at the watch, his brow creased in confusion. A sudden absence of sound from beside me told me Delaney was holding her breath. She wasn’t the only one. I didn’t know which I was most afraid of—what would happen if my magic was a no-show and Carroll wrote me off as a con man, or what would happen if it burst out in all its destructive glory.
No, scratch that. I knew perfectly well what I was afraid of. The thought of not being able to prove myself to Carroll was nothing compared to the image in my mind—the memory—of Delaney hanging suspended in the air, the wind tearing at her body viciously enough to draw blood.
The memory was strong enough, even months later, that I almost thought I could feel the wind in my face, sweeping my hair back from my ears. It wasn’t until I brought a hand reflexively up to hide my ears that I realized it wasn’t my imagination. It shook the leaves on their branches, whispering ominous songs through the trees, sending ripe oranges and mangoes plopping to the floor.
No. Not this. Not again.
My magic could take any form it chose. It could manifest as liquid fire, as a roaring river, as a storm of invisible knives whirling through the air. With a universe of possibilities to choose from, why had it come back to this, the form it had taken on the day I had killed buildings full of innocent people, just because they happened to be too close to me in the moments after I had watched Arkanica torture my son?
But I knew why. My magic might have felt like something separate from me at times—especially when it refused to do what I wanted—but it came from within me. It was me, the deepest and truest part of myself. And that day in Hawthorne, what I had done… that was a part of who I was. No matter how much I might want to forget, my magic wasn’t going to let me.
The wind picked up speed. It blew the sweetness of burst fruit into my face, along with a spray of water from the waterfall. Carroll brought up a hand to shield his face. Delaney didn’t do anything to protect herself from the sudden shower. She stood with her hands pressed to her sides, frozen.
As the palm tree swayed wildly, the parrot fluttered down from the bench and glared at me. “Filthy humans, filthy humans!” it yelled in outrage, its golden eye fixed on mine.
Stone scraped against stone. The walls themselves swayed with the same rhythm as the trees. Much more of this and I really would bring the place down around our ears. I picked the watch up and slipped it back over my wrist. As soon as the steel made contact with my skin, the air abruptly went still. A few more leaves drifted to the ground, then nothing. The parrot flew back up to its perch in the palm, still staring down at me distrustfully.
I didn’t realize, until I exhaled in a sharp burst and sucked in a lungful of air gratefully, that I had been holding my breath all that time.
I tried to meet Delaney’s eyes, wanting to find some way to apologize to her without raising any awkward questions in front of Carroll. She wouldn’t look at me.
“You might have found a way to fake that,” said Carroll, not even bothering to try to pretend he wasn’t shaken. “You can do anything with technology these days.”
“Not quite anything.” For someone who hadn’t already known, it would have been impossible to tell from Delaney’s voice just how much that little display had gotten to her. “We can’t
fix the environment, for one. So tell me—if there’s the smallest chance this is real, are you really willing to walk away and go back to listening to my former colleagues make you hollow promises and buying them overpriced steak?”
“Crazy,” Carroll muttered. He picked up a fallen leaf and stared at it. “Now I’m crazy too. You’re a bad influence, Lara. You always have been.”
“Come on, old friend.” Delaney’s voice was soft, cajoling. “I can’t do this without you.”
“Fairies and magic. Making deals with war criminals. What next, space aliens?” Carroll shook his head. He let the leaf drift slowly to the floor, and met Delaney’s eyes. “If I agreed to this, what would you need from me? I’m not saying I’ll do it, mind you. I just want to know what exactly I’d be signing up for.”
Delaney couldn’t quite suppress the hope on her face as she spoke. But her voice was all business. “The first thing we need is funds,” she said, holding up a finger. “Which means finding people we can trust, people with deep pockets, and bringing them in on this with us. Before too long, of course, we’ll need access to the president, and a plan for how to approach him. As much as I wish I could handle this entire deal myself, a former congresswoman who happens to be legally dead doesn’t have the authority to sign an agreement on behalf of the American government. I have a list of my former colleagues in Congress it might be worth approaching—although that list is shorter than I’d like—but I want a solid plan in place before I do that. Speaking of which, we’ll need a legal team to draw up a formal agreement. The fae are incapable of telling a lie or breaking a contract, but the downside there is that no one is better than them at spotting and exploiting loopholes.”