The Earl's Childe

by T. J. Wooldridge

  Finally, he said, “You remember Jonathan, right?”

  “Yeah. Your good bodyguard. Who doesn’t hover.”

  “Didn’t hover.” Joe’s voice was a low growl. “Did you know he had a kid, a baby boy? He’d just turned three back in May. He told me, and sometimes he’d show me pictures of him. His name was Charlie. And he was planning on asking Charlie’s mum, Karen, to marry him this August, because they’d been dating for five years now, and he was in love with her.

  “You see, he’d tell me these things because he spent more time with me than anyone. It was his job. Jonathan saw me more than his own son, more than his girlfriend, and he would listen to me. There were things I could tell him that I never told my parents. Never even told you. And he listened to me, and even though it was his job, he cared.

  “It was his job to protect me. Me. Because I got born into my family, I get the…the privilege to…to have someone whose job it is to die so I don’t. T-to take a bullet if he had to, and die, before he ever got married, before he ever got to see his own son go to school. And he’s dead so that I wouldn’t be. That was all their jobs.” Joe slammed the palm of his hand not holding the compress—the injured one—to the window frame, then doubled over cussing in three different languages. He turned away from me as he still sniffled.

  I grabbed one of the fancy doilies. Who cared if Mary Queen of Scots blew her nose on them? They weren’t too good for Joe. I handed it to him. He didn’t even have a shirt to wipe his face on. “I’m sorry,” I said softly, because that’s all I could say.

  He took the doily from me and wiped at his eyes and nose. “Are your parents going to flip?” he asked, holding up the now-soiled doily.

  “Mum won’t notice. Dad might, but really, no big. Mrs. McInnis probably has some secret cleaning thing she does with lemons and lavender or something.”

  He sniffled again, then looked at me for a long time. “Thank you, Heather. Really.”

  “That’s what best mates are for, right? To annoy the crap out of you when you really need it?”

  “That’s exactly it.” He smiled now, then turned away, blinking again. “My mum and dad…they don’t get it. I mean, I know they feel bad and guilty, but…it just doesn’t seem like they feel like I do. And I want to hate them for it, because I think it’s awful. But…but if it were…them or Annie or Rich… I’d rather it be someone else instead of them…dying, too. And I think that makes me awful.”

  “I believe it makes you human, young prince.”

  Joe and I jumped at the deep voice, bumping into each other as each of us tried to get protectively in front of the other. Across the room, a man with deep olive skin (like Princess Maryan’s), glossy black hair, and a black, well-trimmed beard gazed at us with orange-brown eyes, which seemed to glow like coals on a campfire. He wore the same suit that the rest of the royal family bodyguards did. Were it not for his eyes—and something I couldn’t describe but that felt powerful—he’d look like any other human guard.

  “Tony.” Joe scowled again. “We could’ve used your help earlier. We were attacked by red caps and a crazy Unseelie daoine síth…”

  “But you’re all alive, which I could not guarantee would be true of your grandfather had I not been with him. You were specific that I do all I can to help those of your family most in need, and I was clear that I cannot be in two places at once.”

  My best friend tightened his lips, but said nothing. I got a sense this was an ongoing conversation.

  “So, uh…you’re the djinni?”

  Tony put one arm across his stomach and gave me a half-bow. “And I can only presume you are Heather. Joe speaks highly of you.”

  I felt heat rise to my cheeks. This was so not what I pictured a genie creature being. “Um, thanks.” I looked between him and Joe, who averted his gaze, blushing as well.

  “You seem surprised.” The djinni smirked. “Were you expecting a half-smoke being with blue or green skin, perhaps?”

  “Um. Maybe?” It wasn’t my fault that Disney’s version of Aladdin was the most common one out there, even for a kid whose mum read her Arabian Nights and who wrote articles about that sort of stuff.

  He chuckled. “We can change our appearance near-limitlessly. And our entrapment tends to be tedious, so a few of us get…creative. Prince Joseph, let me see your injury.”

  With a sigh, Joe walked over to Tony, who lifted up the compress. “My compliments to whoever made this salve. This will be easy for me to mend, if you will allow me.”

  “I don’t exactly want to be laid up, as we’re about to be caught in the middle of another big fight,” Joe answered.

  “Oh?” Tony placed a hand on the scratches and regarded the two of us warily.

  “Like I said, crazy daoine síth lord with his merry band of red caps. He wants to enslave Heather’s family and everyone else around here.”

  “Then perhaps we should leave.”

  “We’re not leaving Heather and her family!” Joe said.

  I bit my lip. Joe and his family had been through enough, but there was a really selfish part of me that knew my family needed all the help we could get.

  Tony frowned. “I suppose we could discuss that with your parents.”

  Joe crossed his arms. “Fine. We will speak with them.” Tony released his arm. Looking down at the unscarred skin that, ten minutes ago, had looked like a nightmare, he paused, then added, “Thank you.”

  I sucked in my breath. Were djinni like fey? Would this indebt Joe to Tony, or however that worked?

  Tony chuckled. I don’t think he was reading my mind, because I didn’t feel him in my head like I did when Ermie or Tom talked to me, or even when the daoine síth had tried to get into my head. He answered as if he did, though. “Prince Joseph gave me something no mortal, or other, has ever given me. For that, though I am free, I stand by him as a servant and protector. By my free will. As far as I am concerned, he may never be indebted to me.”

  Joe turned away, face reddening. After what he’d just told me about Jonathan, I could understand his discomfort. Heading back downstairs, he said, “Let’s go see what our parents are figuring out.”

  Our parents all looked up when we came back in. Relief touched Joe’s parents’ faces upon seeing Tony, as shock and suspicion touched my parents’ expressions.

  “Mr. and Mrs. MacArthur, this is Tony. He’s a djinni,” Joe formally introduced.

  “A…djinni?” Mum asked, eyes wide. She glanced at Princess Maryan. “Like, from a lamp?” She obviously had been too busy fighting off hungry red caps to have overheard Joe’s and my conversation in the fields. I couldn’t blame her; I was rather pleased she was fighting to keep us kids alive. Go parents wanting to save their kids!

  “Recently freed from a lamp,” Tony said with a bow.

  Princess Maryan met my mother’s eyes for a moment. “It’s been part of my family for generations.”

  Mum’s eyes grew wider, and she was speechless. An event even rarer than Lily being speechless.

  “But am I to understand you are about to be attacked by Unseelie?” Tony furrowed his brows.

  “Unless we agree to let them own us. After Her Grace, the queen, decides to hand us an earldom, of course.” My dad sounded rather resigned to getting attacked and, all things considered, I had to agree with him.

  Tony turned to Prince Christopher and Princess Maryan. “Then I advise we leave here in haste—”

  “I appreciate your advice.” Prince Christopher’s tone said otherwise from his words. “But we are not abandoning friends who stood beside us, armed with only knives, to ensure our safety under attack.”

  “Yes!” I heard Joe hiss beside me as he stared at his dad proudly.

  “But someone needs to get out of here,” Mum said, holding up her phone. “We’ve got nothing. We can’t call for support. We can’t even call anyone’s parents to get them…and even if we could, who is to say that the parents won’t get attacked coming on our property?”

&
nbsp; “Nothing?” Joe and I both asked, pulling our phones from our pockets. While the phones were “on” and had the time and date, they had no bars or even an Internet signal.

  “Everything’s dead,” Dad said. “They must have cut the wires on the access road. Or they can cast spells that mess with cell towers and technology or something.”

  Tony gave a nod that seemed to support Dad’s latter choice, making my poor dad turn an even more sickly shade.

  “Where are Rich and Annie?” Joe looked concerned.

  “Rich is upstairs on the library futon,” Mum said, then looked at me. “And I put Annie in your bed, Heather. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “You can share my bed.” Lily offered a weak smile. “You don’t snore too badly.”

  I rolled my eyes at her, but still returned the smile. “Of course I don’t mind.”

  Joe gave me a “thank you” smile of his own, as did his parents. What was I going to say, “No, the poor kid who’s been through an actual war zone with guns and violence can’t sleep in my bed?” What kind of person would do that? I’d sleep on the floor if I had to.

  “And you three ought to get some sleep.” Mum glanced above us, towards where the other kids were likely still sleeping, if no one had started getting them up yet. “Joe, there’s room with Rich on the futon…and Maryan, Christopher—” Mum was too tired for formalities, and I knew very well that she usually dropped their titles on visits anyway, “—there’s the third bedroom upstairs that’s empty. It’s not the master bedroom, but…”

  “Aimee, a comforter on a floor would be luxury right now,” Princess Maryan said. “Don’t even think of apologizing.”

  “But what are we going to do?” I insisted, stifling a yawn of my own. “I mean, Coach David and Coach Krissy will be down here shortly, and what about all the students? And, well, what about everything?”

  “You may tell the coaches we had an incident and detoured through here and require discretion,” Prince Christopher said, nodding at Mum. I guess they’d discussed that, too, while Joe and I were upstairs. “The lack of communication will support that there was such an incident. And we will let the students sleep as long as we can while we get some rest, because absolutely none of us are in any state to create a logical plan for anything.” He paused, and then looked at Tony. “However, as you are here with us now, you can help.”

  “Your Highness,” Tony’s voice carried an edge. “Before you incorporate me into your plan…you know I have certain limitations. We have discussed some of them already. However, this is another. I cannot get involved in fey affairs. It would put more things at risk than I can begin to tell you.”

  “Such as?” Joe pushed. “I thought djinn were supposed to be ridiculously powerful! And you keep telling us things you can’t do.”

  Tony offered him half a smile. “It would be that, in the hundreds of thousands of years I’ve been imprisoned, the one who would free me would also be the only mortal who would request me, in my freedom, to break the few rules I have never even had to address with anyone else.”

  “Seriously? No one has asked you to be in more than one place at once? And no one has asked you to help them deal with fey anything?” Joe frowned at him.

  “No.” The djinni shook his head. “Quite honestly, I can count the types of wishes I’ve granted on the fingers of my hand. Power. Money. Revenge. Love. Miscellaneous.” He looked at Joe. “You.” Then moved his eyes to Princess Maryan. “And you; especially you. And your father. And his before him. All of you have been the reason I even decided to consider ‘Miscellaneous’ a category. You are not normal humans.” He returned his gaze to Prince Christopher. “So long as you are not asking me to get involved with the fey of this land’s issues, what do you request of me, Highness?”

  “Take Richard and Annette to my mother, along with a note I will write, and return with her response. Tell her I need her response before tea. If she requires that long, return here and see how many of the children you can return to their families and…make it seem like something utterly normal has resulted in their appearance at home. Perhaps…”

  “Have everyone believe that I decided against having Horse Camp at all this year due to the murders and storm damage,” Mum said. “It’s only been two days. Lady Fana and Lord Cadmus adjusted Sarah Beth’s memory for even longer than that.”

  “I can do that,” Tony said, then opened his mouth to continue.

  “You’re going to erase their memories?!” Lily barely kept from shouting. “No! You can’t! That’s not fair!”

  “And being possibly tortured and killed due to a fight with beings that most of them don’t even believe in is?” Mum asked.

  Lily turned to Dad, gripping the table in front of her. “Dad! You aren’t going to let that happen, right? You’re not going to l-let them have their heads get messed with?! Th-they’ll be stuck with that mess all their lives!”

  “Lily,” my dad choked out, going over to her. I bit my lip, knowing Lily was still working through memory issues from her childhood with Dad’s Evil Ex.

  “They will have no recollection otherwise,” Tony assured my sister, not getting at all why she was freaking out. So much for reading minds. “I can construct perfect memories for them, down to sensory perceptions of what they smelled, touched, and ate—”

  “That’s awful! That they’ll remember things that never really happened and never know what really did happen? That’s horrible!” She looked at me accusingly. “I didn’t realize that you had to do that to poor Sarah Beth! My God!”

  “Lily.” Dad’s voice was firm and he pulled her to him.

  She balled her fists and punched against his chest. “You’re letting them do that! You know better!”

  “Lily.” He pulled her closer, murmuring into her hair and rubbing her back. I was close enough to hear. “None of them will be hurt. Nothing bad has happened. They all feel happy, so it’s not like an attack or anything is getting buried in their head that will break out later. We’re keeping them safe so they don’t have to suffer any attack. So they don’t get hurt. You understand that, don’t you, love?”

  “But you’re still messing with their heads,” she cried into him.

  Joe gave me a questioning look. I shook my head and mouthed “later.” He nodded. He knew a little about when Lily was kidnapped, but he didn’t know she still woke up with nightmares and was still working with her therapist because she hated not knowing what had happened to her.

  Rocking Lily back and forth in his hug, Dad looked at Prince Christopher. “Go with your plan,” he said softly, bracing as my sister tried to struggle from his grip for a moment, then, after a half-hearted punch, just sobbed against him. “And rather than even tell David or Krissy, you may want to just send them back as well. With their horses.”

  Taking a deep breath, Tony bowed to Prince Christopher. “I can do this.” Then he paused. “You wish me to take only Richard and Annette of your children?”

  I felt Joe tense beside me, grinding his teeth. His dad met his eyes. “Yes, just Richard and Annette. I don’t believe Joseph would forgive me if I made him leave.”

  Joe sighed, giving his dad a smile.

  Prince Christopher nodded at him and then returned his attention to Tony. “Start with the coaches. Annie and Rich are asleep. May as well let them for as long as we can.” He shared a look with his wife. “And I have a letter to write before you see my mother.” He looked at my mum. “Aimee, I’m sure you have paper and a pen handy somewhere?”

  CHAPTER

  15

  Friends are a liability. Even when they want to save your life. Especially then. But I’m glad I have them.

  I don’t think we slept long, but I don’t think we could have, either. Well, I couldn’t. When I rolled out of bed and away from Lily, she grabbed my half of the covers and pulled them over her head with a few incoherent grunts.

  My bed was empty, and I was half-tempted to reclaim it. Only half. Even if I wasn’t alread
y thinking about the little time we had left to deal with Calbraith’s ultimatum, I was seriously gross. I could hardly believe Miss Perfect had let me in her bed. I looked over at Lily and felt an immediate pang of guilt; she’d been a wreck last night. She had been still crying when Dad brought us up to bed, and we’d both let him actually tuck us in. Lily had even snuggled her back up to mine, and I remembered feeling her still shaking before I’d finally fallen asleep.

  I wondered what my parents’ plan would be in regards to her therapist. Dad hadn’t told his doctor about all things fey, and I had a feeling they would come to a roadblock with his meds and therapy if he didn’t. But, hey, I was eleven and totally not a psych doctor of any sort. What did I know? I sighed and ran my hand over my scalp and down my braids. I probably needed to wash my hair, but I really had no desire to take an hour in the shower. I just wanted to get clean enough so I didn’t feel gross.

  Both the upstairs water closets were free, and the house was eerily quiet. I wondered how many kids Tony had taken home already. I was congratulating myself on how calm I was feeling with everything when I sat on the toilet…and let out several good cusses because, really, I totally needed this on top of everything else.

  On the other hand, now I had a logical explanation for why my stomach had been so sore, and why I’d been snapping at everyone at random times for no reason whatsoever.

  But really, Mother Nature and God, really? I had to get my freaking period for the first time now, when just about everything else that could go wrong in my whole life and my family’s life was going wrong?

  I blew out a few more choice words, and then wiped the stupid tears off my face. I rinsed my things in cold water because my you-should-know-these-womanly-things-when-you-are-five mum had reviewed them plenty enough. I then raided my sister’s supplies after I’d taken my shower and cleaned up.

  Seriously? Annoying!

  But I had more important stuff to deal with. I got dressed and headed downstairs.

  I didn’t get more than a few steps from the stairwell that came down in the hall between the private side of the house and the entry between the kitchen and dining room when I was accosted by Jared, Chris, Livy, and Sara-Not-Beth.