The Faerie Path

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by Frewin Jones


  “What were you waiting for?” she called to him. “A formal invitation?”

  She gave a tug, and he stumbled after her.

  A second later she found herself in that same dark office, but this time there was a warm hand in hers. She turned and looked at Edric. He was standing beside her, wide eyed and gasping for breath.

  …With her true love by her side, Honest hand in true love given.

  She smiled at him. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “It means you love me. And there’s no getting out of it.”

  He grinned. “As if I’d want to!”

  She opened her free hand. The black amber stones glittered darkly in her palm. “Oberon gave me two jewels,” she mused. “Do you think he knew all along that I’d want you to come with me?”

  “Maybe,” Edric said. “But I’m glad he did. Drake took back the stone that he gave me when he sent me here to find you.”

  “Well, this is a replacement,” Tania said, smiling. “And this time it’s given with love.”

  Smiling, Edric took the jewel.

  “Shall we go?” she asked. She led him to the door, turning the latch and pulling the door open. Together they stepped out into the courtyard. She closed the door behind them and took a deep breath of the cool dawning air.

  Holding his hand tightly in hers, she looked out across the open end of the courtyard to a wide expanse of tarmac bordered with lawns and trees. It ended in a high red-brick wall with black wrought-iron gates. Houses and trees lay beyond, shadowy against a grainy blue-gray sky. It was all achingly familiar to her—or at least, to the part of her that was Anita Palmer. She was back in twenty-first-century London.

  She looked at Edric. “Are you scared?”

  “A little,” he said. “That’s quite a task you’ve set us, finding the Queen of Faerie after five hundred years.”

  “We’ll find her,” Tania promised. “Trust me, Edric. I know she’s still alive.”

  Hand in hand, they headed toward the gates, and as they walked, the first rays of the rising sun lit up the sky at their backs and sent their shadows dancing down the pathway ahead of them.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Susannah Drazin for the recipe

  for Hopie’s medicine in Chapter VIII, and to Rob Rudderham

  for letting me use the first verse of his song “Far From Here”

  at the beginning of Chapter XV.

  About the Author

  Frewin Jones has always believed in the existence of “other worlds” that we could just step in and out of if only we knew the way. In the Mortal World, Frewin lives in southeast London with two mystical cats, Merle Oberon and Siouxsie Sioux.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Credits

  Cover art © 2007 by Ali Smith

  Cover design by R. Hult

  Copyright

  THE FAERIE PATH. Copyright © 2007 by Working Partners Limited. Series created by Working Partners Limited. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub © Edition DECEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061973918

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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