“And what does that mean?” I was quite proud of myself for not rolling my eyes at the utter lack of definition that was going on.
“It means you would vow allegiance on behalf of your family to aid us if we go into battle, and in return, we would share our resources to protect you from harm from this same enemy. Are you willing to do so?”
Um, I don’t think so was my first thought, but I was already working to keep my thoughts hidden and avoiding eye contact with, well, any of the daoine síth. They could really mess with your head—way worse than Tom or Ehrwnmyr could—if you looked them in the eye. I didn’t know what else to say, though, and I felt like…pillows were in my brain, keeping me from thinking. Tom’s voice in my head “sounded” too far away to hear clearly anymore.
I glanced back at him, but only sensed him looking at me sidelong. Every muscle was tense, still, even in his tail, which bristled.
And I could feel how hard Lady Fana and Lord Cadmus were staring at me.
This was a very important answer for me to furnish, and it would have a whole lot of weight for both of us. I could feel that, too.
There was no way, no way at all, that I was ready to answer this kind of question.
I took a deep breath and did my best to buy time to talk to people more qualified to answer this—my parents. “Lady Fana, Lord Cadmus.” I made a respectful inclination to each as I said their name. “I’m honored that you’d ask me to strengthen the ties between my family and the faerie, but while I’ve been chosen to be the liaison, I’m still…underage by human standards. I need to consult with my parents on something this important for all of us. Would you permit me the time to do that?”
“Will Lord Calbraith await our answer any further?” asked a sour-voiced daoine síth, a male dressed in myrtle green and summer yellow. “Or will he simply act against us if we do not respond to his request for what he claims to be his entitled lands?”
Lord Cadmus sneered at him. “That would be a poorly played move on his part, to take action out of turn like that…” As much as I wasn’t fond of Lord Cadmus, I couldn’t help but mentally cheer his burn of the other daoine síth, who, for his part, withered just a little. “If he dares do so, we would be assured support from higher courts and,” he glanced at me, “likely our neighbors. Calbraith is Unseelie, hot-headed, and yes, very dangerous, but he is not stupid.”
Soft murmurs broke out among the other fae in the clearing. Lord Cadmus and Lady Fana allowed them to continue for a few moments.
After a glance at his wife, who nodded, Lord Cadmus looked at me and continued, “Go to your parents, tell them everything you’ve seen and heard here, and return to us with your family’s response by tomorrow sundown. Tom can lead you back to us.”
Lady Fana scanned the circle of faerie around us. “We will meet again tomorrow evening and make our decision. Until that time, go in peace to your respective clans, but be prepared if we must defend our lands.”
My heart was still hammering, trying to take in all this information, when I felt Tom take my hand. He nodded for me to follow him. When it was clear to Tom, who could hear better than I, that we were out of earshot, he said, “Well done. For anyone, not just for a human who supposedly finds subtle cues confusing.”
When I saw the smirk on his face, I couldn’t quite muster a glare at him, but I did take my hand away. “Explain something to me…”
“That depends what it is.” The smirk fell off his face, and he eyed me warily.
“I’m not gonna ask about that other cat, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He said nothing, but I saw relief creep over his face. I continued, “If they weren’t expecting I was going to come, why did it seem like they had been, there at the end? That they needed me to be there? I mean, they were including Ermie in their plans.”
Tom frowned. “I noticed that, too, but I haven’t an answer for you.” He sighed. “Had it been something else, I might consider they were trying to catch my interest by hiding things. But my job, my only job, for them is to be a contact for you.” He scowled. I picked up a hint of hurt in his voice and felt him become more guarded, even as he adjusted the topic. “So, I don’t know why they may or may not have wanted you there and what game they are playing with that. Obviously, they want you to swear allegiance so they can use the kelpie, which would be a formidable foe against an Unseelie daoine síth lord.”
I paused, considering. “If I hadn’t been there, would they have found a way to take Ermie and use him anyway?”
Tom thought a moment. “If there were a blatant attack, you’d be pushed into the conflict and not have time to think upon the parameters of joining forces with them.”
“That makes sense, then.” I glared behind us.
“Who was the sweet little human who said faerie were too complicated for her to understand?”
I answered with the only appropriate response I could think of—I stuck my tongue out at the cat fey with a pththt.
He chuckled.
“What’s with them wanting to use Ermie, anyway? I mean, yeah, he’s big and scary, but he eats humans, not faerie, right? And what’s the big deal about this one Unseelie in the first place?”
“First, no Unseelie lord would travel alone. I’m sure he has a contingent with him who would fight. Second, Lord Cadmus is nervous, so he knows what we’re up against, and if he’s nervous, there’s probably good reason for us to be outright frightened. Lastly, a kelpie is a powerful ally against other faerie; they are immune to nearly all fey magick.”
“Ooooh!” That explained a lot. “Why can’t you answer all my questions that simply?”
Tom smirked again and mimicked my plththt. “I’m a cat.”
“You’re a big pain in the butt is what you are.” As we walked, the scenery around me seemed to be blurring, and the ground seemed less solid beneath my feet. I could smell Mum’s coffee and old books more strongly than the earth and trees.
Before the vision disappeared, I saw Tom nod, but I only heard him in my head. As I said, I am a cat.
I looked down in my lap as he stood and stretched his way to the floor, shaking each of his back paws. I picked Mum’s book up and brushed off the stray cat hair that had landed on it.
I’ll come by tomorrow, sundown, and we will move on from there. I felt his sigh more than I saw or heard it as he led me back upstairs. I suppose we’ll have to bring your parents. Hopefully your father can contain himself.
I glared at Tom. Don’t talk like that about my dad! He’s just worried for us, and obviously, after the meeting tonight, he’s got good reason to be!
The cat chuffed a hmph as he padded back to my window, tail swishing impatiently as he waited for me to open it.
Still glaring, because he was refusing to apologize—yes, I knew he was a cat, but still!—I opened the window and watched him balance along the sill until he reached an azalea bush that grew between my window and my parent’s window, where I saw the shaking of branches as he climbed down.
I shivered from the night air, so I closed my window quickly. Seeing the pile of salt I’d brushed aside, I bit my lip, but then re-spread it back along my sill, making sure there were no breaks in the line.
CHAPTER
4
Getting my parents, well, Dad, involved…and the disastrous aftereffects.
Of course, I overslept after a night like the one I’d had. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one. As I was leaving the kitchen, scone in hand and wiping a milk mustache from my face, I saw the blur of Mum leaving her office, juggling keys, her cell phone, and a travel mug of coffee.
I had a mission. The more I thought about it, the more I figured I probably, definitely, should have at least gotten Mum up last night to drag her on that astral projection trip. But I don’t think I could have done that without waking Dad, and bringing Dad would probably not have been the best idea. No matter how much I defended him to Tom.
“Mum, do you have a minute?” I asked.
Biting
her lip, Mum looked at me. “Is it something quick? I have to pick up Lily and hit the tack shop before heading out to Edinburgh to pick up David.” David Myers was one of the visiting coaches who’d be training us at this year’s horse camp. He had coached the U.S. Olympic Equestrian Team. Mum was just about star-struck that he’d decided to come all the way to Scotland for her camp, even though, over here, nothing else existed like her camp.
“Not really, but it’s important.”
Her lips compressed into a pained line. “Can it wait till I get—”
Her phone erupted into the theme song for The Professor, the show she was writing for when she met my dad. “Hello? Krissy, Hi! How are you?”
Coach Krissy was one of our usual trainers. She was coming up from London, where she worked in the Royal Mews. She’d actually been the one to introduce Princess Maryan to Mum.
Mum immediately mouthed a short line of cuss words, but didn’t lose her happy tone as she said, “Oh, no problem at all. I’m heading out to Edinburgh to pick up David today, anyway. Of course I can fit you in the car, too. Your luggage should fit fine with his.” (Silent cuss-cuss-cuss. Stuck watching her, I paid attention, as some words would surely end up being useful at school.) “Wonderful! I’ll see you in…say, give me an hour or so? Depending on traffic?” She walked by me, mouthing a “Sorry, one sec!” and headed to Ginny’s office down the hall. “Awesome. See you then!” She tapped the screen of her phone while making a face, and then knocked on Ginny’s doorframe.
“What can I do for you, Aimee?” Ginny was Mum and Dad’s super-assistant. She was about the same age as my oldest sister, Rose, the daughter Dad adopted before he and Mum started dating.
“Ginny, can I please use your car? Krissy just called, and she had an appointment in Edinburgh and asked if it would be terribly inconvenient if she was here a day early.”
“And you told her that, of course, it wouldn’t?” teased Ginny. “And there’s no way you can fit them and their luggage in Michael’s wee thing, and your truck’s not exactly road legal in this country.” I heard the jingle of keys being thrown and caught.
“Have I told you how much I love you, Ginny?” My mum blew her a dramatic kiss. I would roll my eyes if I didn’t know how much of an organizational wreck my parents’ lives would be without Ginny. “I’ll bring her back with a full tank.”
“Oh, Aimee, would you like me to ring Shari and see if she can drop Lily off here before her shift, or if it’s okay that Lily stays at their house until you return?” I could hear Ginny barely concealing a little chuckle. Shari, mum of Jenna and Sarah Beth, lived in the village and was a nurse’s aide in the next village over at Eyemouth Day Hospital.
“Crap. Yes! Please. Thank you, Ginny!”
Mum stopped in front of me in the hallway, tucked her coffee mug in the crook of her elbow and shifted keys and phone to one hand, then put the other on my shoulder. “Is anyone going to die or get seriously hurt or anything like that in the time from when I will be gone to when I get back?”
“Not really, but…” For some reason, I couldn’t articulate that I needed to talk to her right now. No, it wasn’t urgent like she described, but I needed to tell someone now!
She bent and kissed my cheek. “Once I get back and get them settled in, I’m all yours. Promise.”
I stood there with an open mouth, throwing some of my recently acquired curse combinations at myself for not being able to tell her what was going on. I slumped on the wall as I heard her shut the door from the private part of the castle to the front courtyard. Rubbish!
I heard the swish of a kitchen door, heavy footsteps, and my dad’s voice, speaking quickly. And angrily.
“…are you at least going to come if we have it here? She is your granddaughter, you know, and she asked for you, thinking you’d be supportive…”
He was talking to his dad, a minister, who must have finally given him an answer—one he didn’t like—about the wedding of my eldest sister and her fiancee. Despite the hard lines in his face, Dad met my eyes with a soft look and gently ran his hand over my head as he passed me and headed into the office he shared with Mum.
“Aye, I do know. I know the church’s opinion is split, and it would be an unofficial ceremony with Scotland’s current legislation… I’ve done quite a bit of reading on this…”
He touched the edge of the door to close it behind him. Crap. He could be in there forever, and I needed to talk to someone. I jumped forward, stopped it before it closed, and followed him in. “Dad!”
“Hold on a second, Dad.” He spun around beside his desk and fixed a hard look on me. Just barging into the office was a big deal in the house. Well, barging in anywhere. Mum and Dad went out of their way to respect us kids’ privacy and demanded the same back. “Heather, can this wait, please?” It was barely a question.
Like last night, in the round pen, a huge well of anger surged inside me from I don’t know where, and it yanked me with it. “No, it can’t wait! I promised you and Mum that I’d tell you if anything important happened in regards to anything Faerie and I’m trying to now and she was in a rush and now you’re too busy, and I need you to listen to me!”
There was a pause. Then, he nodded. “Dad, Heather needs my help right now. Let me call you back… Yeah, I know. Love you, too.” He waited for the phone to show the call was really dismissed, then came over and hugged me. “I’m sorry, love. What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Are—”
“I’m not hurt. I’m fine.” I assured him, pulling away from the hug. “But there was a big meeting with a bunch of faerie last night and I sort of went with Tom—”
“You what?” He stepped away from me, eyes bright and narrow, face growing red.
“Wait! I didn’t leave the castle! I swear! Please, just listen! Please?” I held my hands out. He shifted his weight and folded his arms, lips tight. “It was a vision thing. I was right in here. I promise! I looked it up in Mum’s book. Anyway…” I gushed as much of the story as I could to my dad, as fast as I could, barely remembering to breathe.
When I was done, my lungs were sore, so I leaned on Mum’s desk and took a few deep breaths. My dad closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, undoubtedly struggling to process the huge info dump I’d laid on him.
“What, exactly, does vowing allegiance mean?” His eyes remained closed, but his fingers had moved to massaging both his temples, and he was tapping his heel.
“I don’t know. I thought Mum would.”
Dad took a deep breath and slowly let it out through pursed lips. Then, he quickly straightened up and looked at me with so much energy in his face I couldn’t help but flinch. “Would Tom know?”
“Probably, I guess.” I don’t know why, but I felt leery of saying even that to my dad.
As he zipped to Mum’s pile of books and slid the worn A Wicca Guide to Faerie off the top of her pile, where I’d left it last night, that wary instinct kicked me even harder in the gut. “What was the spell you and Rowan planned to use to summon him that time you ended up sneaking out to Faerie with Tom?”
“Um…” I felt paralyzed. There was still anger in his tone, but way more than that. So many feelings, I couldn’t even begin to pick them apart.
“Heather?” He looked from the book to me, and I felt pinned by his gaze. He handed me the book. “Show me.”
Swallowing the ill taste that was now creeping from my stomach to my throat, I turned to the spell and handed him the book.
In a blur of motion, he snatched a sticky-note from Mum’s desk, marked it, and held out the book to me again. “Now, show me the second spell he told you to use that night to prove his intentions.”
“Wh-what?” The sick feeling now was on the back of my tongue.
He spoke more slowly—almost at normal speed—but that didn’t tone down the sharpness of his voice or his posture or his every movement. “Turn to the spell that he showed you when he wanted to prove he could be trusted.”
Seeing my dad like th
is, being at the end of this level of intensity, gave a complete smackdown to my own emotions and energy. I almost felt like I was under a spell myself as I gingerly took the book, turned to the right page, and handed it back to him.
He marked that page as well, and then proceeded to read each spell. Neither was very long, but part of me almost expected the book to start smoking, as if he were holding it under a magnifying glass before the sun.
After he read through the second spell, he closed the book, tucking it under his arm. With a nod for me to follow him, he headed to the kitchen. I glanced to the folded blanket beside Dad’s desk, where Isis sometimes slept. The brindled greyhound pair, when they were a pair, had always been Dad’s dogs, and they’d usually stuck close to him when he had bad mood swings. But it was nice outside, and greyhounds need lots and lots of running, so Dad had probably sent her out in the gardens to play. I jealously wished she were here, even though I couldn’t imagine what she might do to help, besides whining or groaning pitifully at Dad.
Sighing, I followed him to the kitchen, where he was gathering spell components. It wasn’t until Dad got to the candles on the top shelf of the linen cabinet that I found my voice. “Tom doesn’t like the smell of lavender,” I choked out, remembering Tom telling Rowan and me this when we’d tried to summon him. I also remembered he hadn’t been all that pleased about us trying to summon him, but the look on my dad’s face kept me from mentioning that.
Dad nodded. “Unscented.” He held up a tapered candle briefly before adding it, and a candlestick, to the pile of stuff in his arms.
He paused at the kitchen doorway and quickly inventoried everything he carried, then turned his almost-painful-to-experience gaze back to me. “From where did Tom enter last night? I thought I’d covered every door and window with salt. Did it not work?”
“M-my room. I-I brushed the salt away, but I put it all right back when he left.”
Dad frowned at me, for what felt like a month, then turned and climbed the back stairs so quickly I pretty much had to run to keep up. He was already waiting outside my door, tapping his foot, when I reached the top of the curved stone stairs that came up by his and Mum’s room.
The Earl's Childe Page 5