What was she implying? That he'd taken it without permission—or stolen it?
“The Erlking spent decades or centuries cut off from his own Court to keep that talisman from harming anyone,” I said. “You, on the other hand, kidnapped and manipulated me, so I’m less inclined to believe you wouldn’t turn the talisman against my Court, given the chance.”
“Are you quite certain?” she asked. “You remain loyal to the Erlking, even though you know nothing of who he really was, or what he did to your family?”
Damn her. She dangled answers like a carrot on a stick, and a traitorous part of me wanted to speak the truth just to see her confidence break, her eyes widen in disbelief that a mere human had tamed the talisman she’d been unable to claim.
Okay, that’s definitely the talisman talking. I don’t even want the bloody thing. She'd already laid out the price for information, and it wasn’t one I was willing to pay.
“I remain loyal to my family,” I said in clear tones. “To keep them safe, I choose to stand beside my belief in the Erlking.”
The wristband engraved with our family name, Lynn, tingled on my wrist beneath my chilled skin. A reminder that no matter how she tried to probe me for answers, my resolve would remain as unbreakable as iron.
Her eyes flared, the green glow brightening, but she didn't strike me. “How disappointing. Leave, then.”
I turned and left, a knot in my chest unravelling. I’d escaped unscathed this time. Darrow stood outside the doors, and I wondered how much he’d heard of our conversation.
“She dismissed me,” I told him. “Where’s the way out?”
“My sprite will take you back to Summer,” he said. “He dislikes crowds, so I believe he’s in my room.”
Guilt churned in the pit of my stomach, a reminder that the Erlking’s sprite remained at Lord Daival’s mercy. I'd really thought I'd find him in the Vale. Now I'd ended up delaying, and thanks to Etaina, I’d come close to compromising the Court’s security to boot.
“How generous of you,” I said. “Almost makes up for you telling Etaina every single word I spoke to you. I suppose you also shared every detail of the time we spent together when you were my mentor.”
All our training sessions, arguments, the time he’d accidentally blasted me with his glamour… even our hot make-out session at Lord Niall’s party. If he was bound to her, he’d have had to spill every detail, yet I couldn’t imagine him telling Etaina he’d pressed his body to mine and kissed me until my nerves ignited.
“Not everything,” he said, his voice quieter than usual. “I didn’t intend to deceive you, but I knew you’d put up a fight if I invited you here.”
“Damn right I would.” I folded my arms across my chest, shoving all memories of the party aside. “You screwed me over when you kidnapped me in the middle of an important mission. It better not have been longer than a day at home, otherwise shit is going down.”
From Mum, not the Sidhe. The Sidhe didn't value my life that highly. They'd be more likely to assume I'd deserted and hunt me down as a traitor.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He led the way down a corridor towards his own quarters, where he opened the door to a sitting room furnished in similar pale shades to Etaina’s office. Clusters of fireflies hovered beneath the ceiling, while the room contained little aside from a few wooden chairs and a cabinet. It had a musty, unused air, suggesting he hadn’t spent much time here recently. If he’d been trekking all over the Vale in search of the talisman, it was no wonder.
“Nice place you have here,” I commented. “Must be quiet, unless your neighbours are the type to have midnight revels.”
Darrow glanced at me. “The Aes Sidhe are not like the Sidhe who live in the Courts.”
“You mean to say they don’t throw parties?” I grinned. “Lord Niall would hate it here. So would most Summer Sidhe, considering there’s no windows or doors or any way to get close to nature.”
“We have everything we need.” His firm tone told me he’d seen through my half-hearted attempt to get him to let a clue slip about our location.
I smiled innocently back. “I bet you do. How many people does she have spying on the Courts on her behalf? Must be a fair few. And in the human realm, too. You’re half-human on both sides, right? How'd that happen?”
“Unless it is more different for humans than I've been led to believe, the usual way.”
My mouth parted in surprise at his comment, then I let a grin slide onto my lips. “So what was it, a wild night of passion or a drawn-out start-crossed-lovers kinda thing?”
His brow quirked. “Did you ask your parents how they conceived you?”
“No, but my dad left before I was old enough to ask,” I said. “It's not much fun being tied to Faerie if you’re human.”
“I suppose it isn’t.” He crossed to a wooden door at the back of the room and rapped on it with his knuckles. “Hummingbird?”
I blinked in confusion, then remembered his sprite’s name. “Maybe you’ll have to show me the exit after all. I know we’re near the Ley Line.”
He tilted his head. “What makes you say that?”
“No Lynn is allowed to wander too far from the Ley Line without suffering backlash, even non-Gatekeepers,” I said. “Given that I’m still standing, we must be close to the rest of Faerie.”
His brow furrowed. “Still standing?”
“If I walk too far away from the Ley Line, I get so dizzy I pass out cold, and if I were to, say, fly to another county, the vow would rip me in half,” I went on. “The Sidhe don't like to lose track of what they believe to be theirs. Still think my ancestor did this to his descendants on purpose?”
“Nobody knows the nature of the bargain Thomas Lynn struck,” he said. “You're tied to the Ley Line because it's the part of the mortal realm that's the closest to Faerie, correct?”
“You’ve got it,” I said. “Me, more than the others. Mum can leave, technically, but it's not like there's an abundance of jobs open to former Gatekeepers.”
Even my siblings had had trouble hanging onto ordinary jobs, since our Sight attracted any Faerie within a mile. The Ley Line started at the tip of Scotland and travelled through the middle of the country, which didn’t make it much easier to guess our current location, especially if we were in a liminal space between Faerie and Earth.
He turned the handle of the door and walked through. In a moment of curiosity, I strode after him and stuck my foot in the doorway before he could close it.
Behind the door lay a bedroom as plain as the living room, containing pale wooden furniture and few personal trappings. Weapons—knives mostly—were lined up on a wooden table, while a bookcase stood in one corner, filled with volumes in both faerie languages and Earth ones. Various outfits ranging from armour to finery hung on a rack against one wall, the only source of colour in the room.
“I guess Etaina’s trusted advisor doesn’t have time for hobbies,” I observed. “You might have used magic to brighten up the place a bit, though. Don’t you have glamour for that?”
Darrow snapped his fingers at the bookcase and his sprite rose into the air in a haze of dust, making me cough. In the spot where he’d been lying, I glimpsed an open volume of the complete works of Shakespeare marked with a postcard-shaped bookmark which depicted a bright field. Darrow slammed the book closed before I could snoop further.
“He fell asleep reading?” I stifled a laugh. “I should introduce him to my sister.”
The sprite flew around Darrow’s head, whispering in his ear. “He’ll take you home now.”
“Aww. Can’t I nose around and see if I can unearth your secret diary?” I jokingly reached for the shelf, and his hand snapped out, catching my wrist. “Whoa.”
My heart gave a stutter. His face was inches from mine, his eyes narrowed and startlingly bright with magic. Coldness and heat tingled in his fingertips, rippling up my arm.
“Ah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to touch your stuff.” I dropped my
gaze self-consciously, catching sight of the edge of the postcard with the field, poking out of the book. “I should head back to Summer. They’re expecting me.”
Darrow released my arm, something like an apology in his eyes, but he didn’t speak. Hummingbird flitted over to me with swift wingbeats like his namesake, and cold light engulfed us, sweeping us away to the Summer Court.
6
Darrow and I landed side by side on the path outside the ambassadors’ palace. Hummingbird fluttered around our heads, his pointed ears pricked and his beady eyes alert.
“Are you going to tell me how you transported the two of us out of the Vale without his help?” I asked Darrow.
“Etaina gave me a transportation spell, single-use only,” he answered. “Hummingbird, you can go now.”
The sprite gave a bow, then he disappeared in a puff of light.
“You're coming with me, then?” I asked Darrow. “The Sidhe won’t like that. They might put on their own interrogator hats and ask you who you're working for.”
“That won’t be an issue,” he said, with absolute confidence. Right… his glamour. While I’d never seen him use his ability to its full extent except for that one time he’d blasted me during training, the reason he’d got the job of training me was because he’d used glamour to talk his way into Summer without anyone asking questions about his real Court. Really, it was no wonder I’d suspected him of murdering the Erlking.
“Have it your way, then.” I headed through the oak doors into the palace, spotting Lady Aiten waiting beside the door to the tapestried room. “Hey, Lady Aiten. You can close the doorway now. Darrow brought me back.”
I hoped she’d ask how—as a half-Sidhe, he shouldn’t have the ability to cross between the Vale and the rest of Faerie—but she simply frowned at me. “Am I to take it that you successfully found Lord Daival? I don’t see him with you.”
“I searched, but I was told he hadn’t been seen in the Vale since before his arrest,” I explained. “Perhaps he did the same as Lord Veren and hid among the Sidhe here in the Summer Court.”
Her eyes flared with green light. “If there’s the slightest possibility he is here in the Court, then you are to track him down yourself, Hazel. Darrow, since you’re here, I will give you permission to question any Sidhe you might want to, and if either of you sees anything suspect, you will report it to me.”
“Of course,” said Darrow.
What the bloody hell was he playing at? He couldn’t possibly think the Erlking’s talisman was here in Summer, could he? “What’s to stop the other Sidhe from turning me into a lawn ornament if they feel I’m accusing them of being traitors?”
“I’m sure if you apply your mind to the task, you’ll think of something, Gatekeeper.” She waved a hand in dismissal. “Find that friend of yours. She’s in the garden. I will close the doorway to the Vale.”
I hope a death-stealer got out of the Vale and chewed all your tapestries. She knew perfectly well the Sidhe were as likely to confide their secrets in me as a troll was to develop a sense of personal hygiene. Then again, if having Darrow at my side meant he wasn’t probing my family on Etaina’s command, I’d take it.
“Which friend?” said Darrow.
“I’d guess Coral,” I said. “I’m not subjecting her to the wrath of angry Sidhe either, come to that. You’re welcome to deal with that part yourself.”
I wouldn't get any peace until I delivered Lord Daival to Lady Aiten, dead or alive, so I might as well start somewhere. Besides, I did want to check in on Coral, after I’d been forced to leave her behind at the jail.
“How much glamour did you use on her, anyway?” I said to Darrow out of the corner of my mouth. “She gave you the job without even asking what you’ve been doing for the last few days.”
Darrow didn’t answer. Come to think of it, he could probably ask any Sidhe to spill their secrets and they’d trip over themselves to do so. If he had one fraction of Etaina’s skills, the guy had been holding back most of the time I’d known him.
Fucking glamour.
I found Coral in the back garden, sitting on a bench to watch sparring matches between some of the other half-Sidhe. With my promotion to Gatekeeper, there’d no longer be any need for them to live in the underground training grounds, so I’d convinced Lord Raivan to let them move into the palace. There was no shortage of spare rooms, since nobody else lived in here, and it was the safest place for mortals here in the Summer Court. After all the half-Sidhe had done to keep me alive during my Trials, the least I could do was ensure they had a roof over their heads.
I waved at Coral. “Everything okay here?”
“There you are.” She sprang to her feet. “Did Lady Aiten really send you into the Vale? Alone?”
“I ran into an old friend.” I indicated Darrow, who dipped his head in acknowledgement.
“Our task is to find the escaped criminal Lord Daival,” said Darrow. “Lady Aiten believes he may be hiding here in the Summer Court.”
“We haven’t seen any signs of him,” Coral said. “Willow and some of the other half-Sidhe searched the whole house during the party last night. They found a group of piskies partying in the attic and a troll who got stuck in a painting, but no Lord Daival.”
Hmm. “Everyone at the party was glamoured halfway to hell, which doesn’t help. You should have come, Darrow.”
“Yeah, why weren’t you there?” asked Coral. “Uh… not that it’s any of my business.”
While she and Darrow might both be half-Sidhe from other Courts working in Summer, he’d never been particularly friendly with the others and held himself at a deliberate distance from them the same way he did everyone else. He’d claimed it was due to his glamour being harder to hide the closer he grew to people—and to be fair, he had a point. Look how I’d managed to crash into his orderly life and unwittingly became the first person in the Courts to learn the truth of the Aes Sidhe in centuries.
“I had business elsewhere,” he responded. “I’ve offered to accompany Hazel to question the Sidhe.”
“Meaning, I’m not going to question them directly, because I don’t have a death wish,” I interjected. “If I wanted to hear the latest gossip about the Sidhe, who'd be likely to talk?”
“Piskies,” she said. “They’re not the best choice if you don't want word of your mission to spread across half the Court, though.”
“No thanks,” I said. “Tell you what… do the other half-faeries have orders?”
“We’re waiting for them.” Coral dropped her voice. “Between you and me, the others… well, they don’t really have anywhere else to go. They’re either estranged from their Sidhe families or not considered a high enough priority to be invited to permanently stay in the Court.”
“Oh.” Coral herself was the heir to the Sea Court, so I’d forgotten how rare it was for a half-faerie to have a stable station in Summer or Winter. “If they want to carry on working as my bodyguards, then they’re welcome to stay here in the palace. Is it okay if I put you in charge of them? Don’t let anyone risk their safety, but if they can find anyone willing to spy for us, it would be welcome. Maybe ask some hobs or sprites who work in close proximity to the Sidhe who can see if any of them might working with the outcasts?”
“Of course.” Coral smiled. “They’ll be grateful you let them stay.”
I didn’t even know I had the authority to make that decision. The Sidhe had eased up on their attitude towards their half-human offspring in the last year, allowing those who had relations in Faerie to come to the Courts. However, the half-bloods’ safety depended on the generosity of their fae relations, and they weren’t allowed to own property as the Sidhe were. If I had to guess, these particular half-Sidhe had applied to work for the Gatekeeper because they had no relations in Faerie, or at least none who would give the time of day to a mortal. Good old-fashioned Sidhe prejudice.
“No problem,” I said. “Can you get daily updates from everyone, like you did when they w
ere my bodyguards?”
“Sure,” she said. “What about you?”
I turned to Darrow. “Am I supposed to give you orders, too? Or do you want to resume your old role as mentor, minus the bond?”
“We can create another one if you like.” From his tone, I couldn’t tell whether he was being serious or not.
“No, thanks.” A binding spell that told him where I was at any given time was the last thing I needed. “You volunteered for this job, so I assume you have no shortage of ideas as to how to track down our escapee. What do you want to do, lift rocks to see if Lord Daival is hiding underneath them?”
I was starting to regret telling him I’d been searching for Lord Daival in the Vale to begin with, though Darrow’s ability to see through glamour would be an asset if he’d concealed himself here in the Court. Short of knocking on everyone’s door and ordering Darrow to ask some pointed questions, though, I couldn’t think of a more efficient method to find the Sidhe’s wayward criminal.
“I think your plan has merit,” said Darrow. “Do you believe his goal is to free the Seelie Queen?”
“Yes, I do.” Before or after he’d killed the heir, I didn’t know. Not that I’d be mentioning that detail to Darrow, with Etaina implicitly listening to every word I said to him. “I already questioned the guards at the jail and searched the Erlking’s territory, and he wasn’t there.”
I didn’t need to bring up the sprite. Lord Daival’s interest in the Erlking’s ex-wife was enough of an explanation for him to show an interest in that area of Faerie, after all.
“The Erlking’s territory,” he repeated. “Do you think he means to reclaim the Seelie Queen’s home?”
I shrugged. “If he doesn’t decide to set up a new Court for her in the Vale, it’s as good a guess as any. If I were him, I’d run as far away from Faerie as possible, but he does whatever the Seelie Queen tells him to do even when she’s behind bars. Kinda sad, really.”
His jaw locked. “In the Courts, most have little choice but to obey the person who has the most power, especially if one has little of their own.”
The Gatekeeper's Trials: The Complete Trilogy Page 28