“This is not our responsibility,” he said.
“They’re faeries, Nooa, so they are our responsibility.”
“What if—” He shuddered and continued in a lowered voice. “What if they’re the once who murdered the pixie?”
“One more reason to go.”
Nooa heaved a sigh, dropping his hands to his side. “You are not a knight, Maeve,” he said. “And heading into situations you should stay away from will not make you one.”
“You’re being dramatic again,” Maeve said, shouldering her bow. “It’s just a bunch of Wild Fae that overstepped their boundaries.”
“That makes no sense!” Nooa ran a hand through his charcoal hair.
“Just admit that you’re afraid.”
Nooa froze, his hand still raised. “Do not dare talk to me like that,” he said. “I am trying to keep away from trouble. Something that you should try just one time.”
“Maybe another day.” Maeve pushed past him and stalked off. Nooa went after her, mumbling something like reckless and stubborn.
Once Nooa was out of sight, Kayla faced Fay and Dahlia. The faerie cat had a bag slung over her shoulder and was stuffing it with vials and a short silver dagger. Its gilded hilt was engraved with various symbols.
Fay pinched her lips into a grim line, her eyes fixed on the door through which Maeve and Nooa had disappeared downstairs. “We’d better go after them,” she said.
“I agree with your green-haired friend there,” Dahlia said. “You could be of help.”
“We will come with you then.”
“Come with her?” Kayla shrieked. “We can’t do that. I haven’t gotten any answers yet. My father…”
“I am afraid that has to wait,” Fay said. She lifted the hem of her dress, pulled a dagger from her thigh sheath, and held it out to Kayla. “Only use this if you have to.”
Kayla stumbled back a step. “I’m not taking your dagger.” She looked over to Dahlia, who was zipping up her bag. “And I’m not leaving before you help me find my father.”
“There’s no more I can do today,” Dahlia said. “You’re welcome to stay and wait for me to return. But I’ve got places to be.” She strode toward the door, then glanced back at Fay and Kayla. “It’s your choice.”
“If you stay,” Fay said, “I have to stay too. But…” She extended her hand holding the dagger toward Kayla. “I would rather help my people.” She held Kayla’s gaze without wavering.
Kayla glanced down at the two-edged blade, and after a moment of hesitation, she took the dagger into her hand. The dark hilt was made out of wood, possibly ebony, and Kayla traced her thumb over it. “I don’t know how to fight with a weapon.”
“That’s just for your protection. Keep it close.” Kayla nodded and Fay flashed a smile.
Outside Dahlia’s house, Nooa slouched on the curb and Maeve stood beside him, arms crossed in front of her chest. The setting sun cast a gloomy glow on the two faeries.
“We’re going with Dahlia,” Fay said. Maeve shot Nooa a look saying ‘I told you so’ and he rose to his feet without a word.
The streets of Chicago were much busier now. Aside from the usual rush hour traffic, the city was swarmed with people in Halloween costumes and children carrying buckets and bags. As the group squeezed into their train, Kayla had to sidle past a zombie, who grinned at her with a lopsided smile.
“Sick costume,” he said with a nod. “You from The Lord of the Rings movie or something?”
Kayla blushed, dropping her gaze to her shoes made from leaves. She leaned closer to Fay and asked in a whisper, “Couldn’t you have Glamored me as well?”
“It doesn’t work on humans,” Fay said. “Besides, it’s Halloween. No one will notice.”
Kayla spent the next few minutes avoiding the zombie’s curious gaze. When the group got off the train, he waved a goodbye at Kayla with his bandaged-up fingers. They hopped onto a bus, which was crowded with even more people. When Kayla found herself face-to-face with another zombie, she recalled the flyer Abby had given her at the start of the school year.
“This year’s Halloween will be epic!” Abby had said. “They’re even doing a haunted house filled with zombies.” Kayla wished she and Abby could be zombies tonight. Together.
The group got off the bus, and a cheering crowd in grotesque costumes welcomed them. Behind them, the lights of the Centennial Wheel sparkled like stars in the sky. In the growing darkness, everything became more frightening, the costumes and masks more real, as if for one night in the year all the undead had risen from their graves.
Maeve stepped forward, fingers tight on her bow but the arrows untouched. Her eyes scanned the crowd that now dispersed and wandered further onto the pier, mingling with the partygoers. “What was the call about, exactly?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet myself,” Dahlia said. “All my friend could tell me was that one of his people had noticed a dubious faerie walking around on the pier. Wherever she went, people acted off.”
“How so?” Fay asked.
Behind her, Nooa was still pouting. Kayla tried to coax a smile out of him by offering one herself, but his stern expression didn’t change.
Dahlia took a searching glance over her shoulder. “He said that one moment the humans were fine and the next they broke down and wept.”
Maeve snorted. “He was just drunk,” she said. “Weepy drunk. Humans are that way sometimes. They can’t handle liquor.”
Nooa glared at his friend. “Oh, and you know all about humans now.”
A shriek muffled Maeve’s response as a woman dressed as Supergirl broke away from her group and came staggering toward them. She collapsed beside a bush and picked leaves from it, tearing them apart with her hands.
Somebody laughed shrilly. Another one screamed, high and drawn-out.
The lights of the pier were still blinking away, the Ferris wheel still spinning, but the crowd had changed. Between the stands hung with cobwebs and orange lights, people were running around, laughing, or sinking to their knees, crying.
Fay drew her dagger and Maeve nocked an arrow. “What now?” Maeve asked.
“This way!” Dahlia bellowed.
Before Kayla could react, Fay had grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. Then they were running, and the wind whipped around Kayla’s face, sharp through her thin dress, but she wasn’t even cold. Their feet pounding the ground hard, Kayla and Fay dashed past wailing zombies and giggling vampires.
“Why are we heading straight into it?” Kayla called over the clamor.
“Because we might be the only ones who can break this enchantment,” Dahlia said, vanishing between two stands selling blood-red candy apples and fake vampire teeth.
Maeve went after her, while Fay and Kayla continued, Nooa on their heels. They all skidded to a halt beside two cackling women, who were trying to tear their costumes off each other’s bodies. A white-faced man stood beside them, staring with dull eyes, like he was only a hollow shell.
Kayla looked around her. “Who… Who’s doing this?”
Nooa beside her had grown pale, and the moonlight caught in his wide silver eyes. “T-They are,” he said.
Amid a group of howling people, Kayla saw them. Six sinister figures dressed in charcoal armor with horned helmets, their luminescent eyes glaring through slits. Swords and maces flashed at their sides, but they harmed none of the humans. At least not with their weapons.
One of the dark faeries was a woman with flaming red hair, and she was touching her hand to people’s cheeks, who collapsed to the ground, sobbing. The gesture was both beautiful and terrifying, and it drove a shiver down Kayla’s spine.
“Who—?” Kayla was shushed by Fay, who took hold of Kayla’s hand again and pulled her behind a stall.
The light of paper lanterns draped over the stall lit the planes of Fay’s face, revealing the frown between her brows. “We have to find Maeve and Dahlia,” she said.
Nooa crouched down beside Kayla. “T
hey are over there,” he said, pointing a finger.
The group of dark knights had gathered by the Ferris wheel, people forming a wide circle around them as they slogged along. A flash of green whirred through the air, so quick it was barely discernible, and an arrow bounced off one knight.
With a roar, two knights bolted forward. They were met by Dahlia, who outstretched her arms, open palms facing them as if in surrender. Before they could reach her, an invisible force flung them off their feet, and they knocked into a group of people.
“You stay here,” Fay said. She plunged into the crowd, her dagger at the ready.
When Kayla had lost sight of Fay weaving past people, she spun around to Nooa. “Who was she talking to?”
Nooa cowered on the ground, clasping his dagger with both hands. They were trembling on the hilt. “I think she meant the both of us,” he said. When Kayla decided to go after Fay, he held her back. “We are safe here.”
“For now.” Kayla peered around the edge of the stall. In the distance, the wind rippled the surface of the water, which reflected a contorted version of the pier’s lights. The city seemed far away, all its noises drowned out by the screams and laughs of the people gone crazy. For the first time, their Halloween costumes had truly turned them into something else.
A series of cries tore from a group of girls. Some pointed fingers. Kayla whirled around in time to see a man transform in midair. He landed on four paws, his tail whipping as he disappeared in the crowd.
Kayla gasped. “Werewolves!”
Another wolf came chasing after the first, its gray fur looking silver in the moonlight. Their howls sliced through the air.
“Not quite,” Nooa said. “They are faoladhs.”
“What now?” Kayla looked at the spot where the wolf had transformed, then back at Nooa.
“Shapeshifters.” He lowered his dagger an inch. “They are on our side.”
Over at the Ferris wheel, the red-haired woman was battling Maeve in close combat while Dahlia and the wolves were taking on the men. Another dark faerie was approaching Fay. When he swung his sword, Fay threw up her arms and the tip of the blade scraped her skin.
“We need to help them,” Kayla said. “Now!”
She didn’t wait for Nooa to respond. With Fay’s dagger in her hand, Kayla shot from her hiding spot and raced toward the Centennial Wheel. Lights and faces blurred in her peripheral vision as she zigzagged through the mass. People were still caught in their enchantment, and some had stripped out of their clothes and were running around naked.
Kayla knocked into a woman with smeared makeup who was picking at a daisy, murmuring, “He loves me, he loves me not.” They both stumbled to the ground; the woman didn’t even stop counting. Kayla regained hold of her dagger that had slipped out of her grasp and got back up.
A second later, she collided with another person.
“Who would have thought that you’d run straight into our arms after all?” a voice sneered.
The dark knight wasn’t wearing a helmet. On one side of his head an ear as sharp as a knife poked through his black hair; on the other, a scar stretched from his eye to a chunk of scar tissue, where his ear had once been.
Heart pounding, Kayla backed away. She moved faster than he did as she ducked under his arm that grabbed for the empty air and spun, aiming her dagger at his leg.
He kicked the weapon out of her hand with one swift motion, hitting her knuckles hard with his boot. One hand clamped down on Kayla’s hair and he lifted her off the ground. A sharp sting in Kayla’s neck brought tears to her eyes, and the pain traveling down her back rendered her speechless. His face was so close that his hot breath brushed her face.
“It’s time to go home,” he said. “She’s awaiting you.” His other hand settled on her arm and he jerked hard, pulling her toward the Ferris wheel. But when he noticed three wolves darting between the dark knights, he changed direction.
As he spun Kayla around, she caught sight of Fay. Their eyes met for a second and then Fay disappeared again, behind the red-haired woman who was still fighting Maeve.
“Looks like none of your friends are coming to help you,” the knight said.
Forcing back tears, Kayla searched her mind for any self-defense tips she’d learned years ago at Taekwondo, but she discarded them all. She doubted that any of them would work on a magical faerie knight.
But there was one that worked on every man.
With all the strength she could muster, Kayla brought up her knee but missed his crotch. She connected with the sharp edges of his armor instead. A searing pain shot up her leg, and she stifled a cry.
“Stupid little girl,” he said. He half-dragged her across the ground, her injured leg no longer able to hold her up. Kayla couldn’t see where they were going, but she noticed that people were calming down. Some had already left, hopefully going as far away from the pier as possible.
As Kayla wriggled and writhed, the knight tightened his grasp, squeezing the air out of Kayla’s lungs. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
Then the knight groaned, his grip loosening, and Kayla collapsed to her knees. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fay jumping away from the knight, her blade slick with blood.
“You will not harm her,” she said, glowering at the knight on the ground. He was clutching his left leg, where Fay had cut into his skin. “Why have you come here?”
The knight answered with a moan.
“F-Fay…” Kayla’s voice cracked. She met Fay’s gaze for a second, and Fay reach out a hand.
Before Kayla could take it, the red-haired woman sprang from the crowd, shrieking. She kneeled beside her fallen companion and looked at Fay and Kayla with a malicious grin. “If it isn’t our lovely Seelie Princess.”
Kayla stared at the faerie woman. Beside her, Fay gripped her weapon tighter.
“What, did the queen forget to teach you how to speak?” the faerie woman said. Fay moved forward with her dagger, but the woman slapped her across the face in one blindingly fast gesture.
Fay gritted her teeth, her cheek flaring red. “What do you want here?”
“We can do whatever we want. This is a free country.”
“These lands are free to the mortals, not to you. You belong to the Fair Folk and we do not harm humans. What you did is a disgrace to the deity Dôn and will be punished by Queen Ophira.”
The faerie woman tilted her head to one side, her eyes like needle points. “She can’t punish what she can’t find.” As she approached, Fay stepped in front of Kayla, weapon poised.
“I have a message for your little friend there,” the faerie woman said. “We have something you want.”
Kayla scrambled to her feet, ignoring the pain in her leg, but Fay held her back with her free arm. “You cannot fool us,” Fay said.
The faerie woman crept closer. “I wouldn’t dare. I am simply speaking the truth. Our queen has what your heart desires most.” She brushed back the knotted strands of her dark red hair, baring her collarbone, and approached Kayla with an outstretched arm. “If you come with me—”
“She’s not going anywhere!”
Kayla’s eyes searched the face of the red-haired faerie. And then Kayla noticed the mark on the faerie’s collarbone and froze. The same mark that had been imprinted on the message. Hot rage crawled up Kayla’s spine. “They have my father!” she cried.
The woman smirked. Her hand was only a foot away, offering to take Kayla’s, to lead her to her father. But Fay held Kayla tight, hissing as her hand wound around Kayla’s wrist wearing the watch.
“Don’t listen to her, Kayla,” Fay whispered in her ear. “She’s only trying to lure you in. You cannot trust—”
Another dark faerie burst from the crowd. “We must leave immediately!” Behind him, two of his kind were fighting off several faoladhs.
The faerie woman glanced between him and the two girls. “It is her,” she told her companion. “We must take her.”
“There is no time,” he said. “We’ve attracted more than enough attention already.”
The faerie woman’s charcoal eyes bored into Kayla. “Perhaps you shouldn’t trust them.” She heaved up her fallen friend, and they vanished between the stands.
The moment they were out of sight, Fay spun Kayla around. “Are you hurt?”
“Why did you let them go? We have to go after them!” Kayla cried. She noticed a few tears trickling down her cheeks.
Fay grabbed both of Kayla’s hands before she could move, wincing at the pain the cold iron caused. “No, it’s a trap. We’d hand ourselves over to them.”
Kayla stopped struggling for a second and glared at Fay. “Didn’t you see the mark on that woman? It was the same one!”
“Yes, I saw it, okay? But you can’t trust them. Do you hear me?”
Fay shook Kayla so hard that she felt momentarily nauseous. Her eyes blurred with tears. “But… but… I don’t understand.”
“We need to take care of your wounds first. Are you badly hurt?”
Kayla lowered her gaze to her knee and saw she had in fact cut her skin on the knight’s armor. The wound was no longer bleeding, leaving behind a trail of dried blood down her shin.
“We can fix that,” Fay said. A hint of a bruise was forming along her jawline. She placed her hand over Kayla’s, squeezing it. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Most people left the pier once the dark knights had vanished and only a few of the more confused ones were still scattered between the stalls. They didn’t pay much attention to Kayla and Fay trudging across the pier.
They found Maeve and Nooa back at the Ferris wheel. Bruises and cuts covered Maeve’s face and arms, and her hair had come loose from her braid. But she was visibly buzzing with energy, prowling back and forth.
Nooa, on the other hand, looked as if he was about to throw up. He was still holding on to the dagger Maeve had given him, and Kayla had the sudden urge to give him a hug.
When Kayla and Fay approached them, Nooa lifted his head, his brow wrinkled in concern. “Everything all right?”
Seelie Princess (The Crown of Tír na nÓg Book 1) Page 11