Helen pushed his plate out of the way and gave the rest of us a stern look, but she didn’t chide us over his snores. Someone had to keep the gate open and protect Aiden, and Helen had volunteered for—nay, insisted on—the job. She was as culpable as we were by her participation, but she made her dislike of the plan abundantly clear, even in her silence.
I didn’t appreciate Helen’s quiet condemnation, but I had to give the wizard credit for sticking around. Though Greg had offered me access to the Arcanum’s library, he had refused to cross into the Gray Lands, citing the high risk and his age. He and I both knew better than to ask for assistance from the Inner Council in a court matter. Helen was under no obligation to help, and I suspected that given his druthers, Greg would have kept her out of Faerie. But however much Helen disapproved of my existence, she wasn’t about to leave Aiden’s safety in my hands—which, all things considered, was a wise move. And while she seemed less reluctant to entrust our brother to Joey, he would be unavailable when the time came. “Georgie is willing to go,” he told us, “and I’ve got a halfway decent sword. We’re not going to do anyone any good if we stay on this side of the gate and supervise.”
As Aiden slept it off, the five of us who were still conscious discussed strategy over coffee, trying to find ways to maximize the limited power he was able to give us. Slim joined us in his frayed bathrobe, as did Vivi, who slipped in, helped herself to the remains of the bacon, and periodically offered suggestions. “A focus array would be useful,” Toula told her after her fourth idea had been shot down, “but only if we had time to plant and power it, and if I could get those two to learn some damn spellcraft,” she added, cocking her head to Val and me. “Arcanum tools aren’t going to be particularly helpful in this situation.”
“Excuse me,” someone drawled from the back of the dining room, and I turned to find Vivi’s boyfriend on the threshold, still wearing his Buccaneers T-shirt but somewhat worse for the night. “Uh…hey,” he said quietly, suddenly finding himself the center of attention. “Sorry. Don’t mean to interrupt, but, uh…the wizard guy, Stuart? He’s been chanting or something for the last two hours, and I don’t know what’s going on, and if someone could maybe give it to me in English around here, that would be really great.”
Vivi winced and sank lower in her chair, and I stood. “Chanting, Mr. Perryman?”
He seemed relieved to recognize words once more. “Yeah, chanting, sounds like. I mean, I’ve only heard it through the wall,” he added, “but we’re right next door, and he was doing this yodeling thing around dawn. You heard it, right, babe?” he asked, glancing around the table to find his girlfriend.
“Ululation,” she confirmed. “I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but given the quality of his Latin, I’m not surprised.” Slim snorted, and Toula muttered a quick translation for Val, who seemed pained at the news. “The Mid-Atlantic Circle goes all in for ritual,” Vivi continued, “so he’s probably trying to harness the power of the sun or some shit like that.”
“And since he’s a wizard…” said Hal, letting the thought hang.
I shook my head. “He’s a wizard in his own eyes and a nutbag with a crystal collection in everyone else’s. If it makes him feel better to do his thing…well, it’s keeping him out of trouble.”
Hal folded his arms and frowned at the room for a long moment, then sighed. “Okay, now, let me get this straight.” He started pointing at us in turn and muttered, “Faerie, faerie, witch-faerie-something, my girlfriend, who still has some explaining to do, the guy who keeps carding my players, witch, sleeping kid I don’t know, and dude with a dragon?”
“Witch-blood,” Toula corrected. “Sleeping kid is, too. And before she gets offended,” she added, cutting her eyes across the table to Helen, “‘wizard’ is the gender-neutral term. A witch is a mostly useless wizard, and calling someone like Helen a witch is, you know, like suggesting the valedictorian is in special ed.” Helen grinned at that, and Toula dipped her chin in recognition before turning back to the coach. “Of course, given the circumstances, I don’t think anyone’s going to be too offended if you get the details confused. Bagel?”
“Yeah, sure,” he mumbled, pulling up the empty chair beside Vivi as Toula floated a platter of breads to his end of the table. “I, uh…just checking, but this isn’t some convoluted dream, is it?”
“Afraid not, but we hope to have you home safely in the near future,” she replied, giving him a surprisingly reassuring smile. “In the meantime, try to relax—you’re not going to be battling warlocks or anything. Think of this as an early Thanksgiving break, huh?”
Hal split a bagel and reached for the jam. “We’ve got a game Saturday week,” he said morosely. “There’s a championship thing Thanksgiving weekend. The boys need practice—”
“Championship?” I exclaimed, leaning past Toula to see his face. “I thought Rigby wasn’t going to the playoffs! Have you won at all this season?”
“Once, and there’s a game for the two bottom teams so no one feels left out…” He paused, shook his head, and leaned around the others to better see me. “And how the hell would you know how we’ve played?”
“I suffered through most of your games because until she decided to run off to the damn Gray Lands and sic monsters on your town, my daughter was cheering for the high school.”
His eyes widened, and he dropped the jam spoon to the tablecloth. “Who?”
“Olive Horn? Blonde?”
“She’s yours?”
“Genetically,” I muttered, leaving Vivi to fill in the gaps at her discretion. “Joey, remind me to check on Eunice and Paul,” I said, and he raised a thumb as he continued to shovel eggs down his throat. “Helen, let’s get Aiden to bed, and then I’d appreciate it if you could see what Greg might be holding back—if he’s got anything in his storerooms that can amplify magic, now would be the time to share. The easier we can make this on Aiden, the better,” I added, and she nodded emphatically. “And Toula—”
That was as far as I got before a gate ripped open and Oberon stormed through, dragging Meggy by the arm. “Have you misplaced something?” he asked, tossing her toward the table, then noticed the spread and helped himself to a muffin. “Really, Coileán, you must take better care of your pets.”
Val was on his feet, but I had eyes only for Meggy, who had landed against the edge of the table and was covering the left side of her face. “Let me see,” I said, crouching beside her, but she kept her eye covered and pushed me away. Once I’d moved out of striking distance, she revealed a small gash across her eyebrow, and her fingertips came away bloody.
Taking advantage of the opening, Toula gave me a glare that demanded compliance and slipped between us. “Look here,” she soothed, taking hold of Meggy’s chin, “you’re leaking. Let me fix it, hmm?”
Meggy silently acquiesced, and while Toula was busy, I rose to face Oberon, who was watching with obvious pleasure as he ate. “Is there some reason you couldn’t have just sent her on her way?” I asked, feeling my arms begin to tighten.
He rolled his eyes and took another bite. “Annoyed me all evening,” he said, spewing bran crumbs. “Wouldn’t go away. Also took up real estate at the bar and didn’t buy anything.”
“As if that matters to you,” I snapped, exasperated.
Oberon shrugged. “Sets a bad example for the actual customers,” he replied, then wiped his mouth and dropped the wrapper onto the tablecloth. “Anyway, as I told her repeatedly”—he glowered at the top of Meggy’s head, but received only Toula’s snarl for his trouble—“this isn’t my problem. I offered you wise counsel a week ago, and you ignored me. This mess is your own creation, Coileán, not mine.”
It’s difficult on the best of days to take any man wearing board shorts and flip-flops seriously, but I heard the impatience in Oberon’s voice and opted not to provoke him. “All right, understood,” I said, holding up my hands. “Meggy’s had a rough week. She won’t trouble you further.”
&nbs
p; The look Meggy gave me should have been lethal, but Oberon seemed mollified. “See that she doesn’t,” he said, producing for himself a Bloody Mary as he sprawled across an open chair. “So, storming the ramparts, are we, or have you found a little sense by now?” He sipped, looked around the table, and smirked. “What’s the term, ‘cannon fodder’? The witch I understand,” he added, tilting his drink toward Helen, “but what’s the rest of the riffraff doing here?”
I prayed to whatever might have been listening that Vivi kept her mouth shut. “Acquaintances of mine,” I said as neutrally as possible. “Didn’t want to see them get eaten when the rampage started.”
“Considerate, I suppose.” He finished the rest of his cocktail in one long slurp, then destroyed the evidence and stood. “Well, this has been entertaining as always, but I really must—”
The door across the room cracked open, and one of my aides poked her head in. “My lord?” she murmured. “Lord Doran has returned.”
Oberon chuckled and shook his head, and I fought for serenity. “Alone?”
“Yes, my lord.” She hesitated, catching sight of my company, then added, “He says he brings a message.”
I looked at Val and Toula, who gave me identical tight-lipped glances, then back at the aide. “Show him to the throne room. I’ll be along shortly.”
Doran, as usual, erred on the side of opulence in his dress. The robe he sported that morning must have weighed ten pounds, a fur-trimmed cloth-of-gold number with a train, all studded with miniscule diamonds that glittered in the sunlight. He had set a golden circlet on his brow, the gaudier cousin to Stuart’s headwear, and the theme continued into his suit and even his shoes, soft leather pumps with short, gold-plated heels. Doran seemed calculatingly unaware of the fact that he cast dancing diamonds of light on every wall he passed, but Liberace would have drooled.
I had opted for a white Oxford with jeans and loafers, if for no other reason than to make him twitch.
“Doran,” I sighed, taking the throne, “I’d been wondering when you’d crawl out of your hole. To what do I owe the singular pleasure of seeing your face again?”
He held himself in check—whether because he had noticed Val beside me and Toula in the gallery with Helen and Meggy or because Oberon was leaning against the wall, smirking through a cloud of reflected diamonds, I couldn’t tell. “I bring a message from Lord Geheret,” he said stiffly. “Will you hear it?”
“Lord Geheret, is it?” I replied, crossing my legs. “What, you’re his errand boy now? You decided that taking orders from some punk in the Gray Lands was preferable to living under my rule?”
“Will you hear it, yes or no?”
“Oh, I’ll hear it,” I said, glancing at the door as Joey led Aiden, who was half-sleepwalking, to a back bench. “I just question your choices. Proceed.”
Doran straightened to his full height and produced a paper from his pocket. “My lord says that the creatures he released into that hamlet you so fancy were only a taste of his power. Also, he has the girl, and his patience is wearing thin.”
“Oh, really?” I said, keeping my tone level. “And here I thought they were madly in love.”
My brother’s lip rose into a brief sneer. “Lord Geheret has suffered her presence long enough.”
“Then he should return her and go about his business, shouldn’t he?”
“Much simpler to kill her.”
I watched Toula clamp down on Meggy’s shoulder before Meggy could leap from her seat. “Perhaps,” I said, examining my knuckles. “By your presence here, I assume he’d consider a trade.”
“I bring his terms.”
Across the room, Oberon crossed his arms and muttered, “Oh, this should be good.”
Doran ignored him. “My lord’s terms are as follows: you will abdicate. You will leave this realm, and you will allow yourself to be bound. If these terms are met, Moyna will be returned to you.”
I let him stand there and stew while I looked at Meggy, who was nodding, then at Aiden, who was shaking his head. “Tell me, Doran,” I said quietly, “do you take me for a fool?”
“These are the terms I was giv—”
“The terms are no terms at all. If I abdicate—Oberon, is that even possible?”
“I suppose,” he called back, shrugging his bare shoulders. “Never given it serious consideration. The realm wouldn’t like it.”
“Tell me something new.” The little voice in my head hadn’t shut up about Helen and Slim’s presence, and it wasn’t coy about its displeasure with Doran. There was a stink about him, I realized, recognizing the odor of dark magic. The snakes had escaped to the Gray Lands after all, and against all good sense. “Well, then,” I said, turning back to Doran, “let’s assume that the realm allows me to step down. That puts Moyna on the throne.”
“She would resign and be bound as well,” he replied, sounding bored.
“Mm. Assuming she wasn’t killed the moment I couldn’t do anything about it, yes? And, for that matter, if I were to agree to Geheret’s terms, what would stop him from, oh, killing me in my sleep?”
Doran’s mouth barely twitched. “That is beyond the scope of the agreement.”
I leaned forward and steepled my fingers. “I see. But let me be quite sure I understand your lord’s proposal: I’m bound, Moyna is bound, Meggy…”
He followed my stare back to Meggy, who was straining against Toula’s arm to rise. “She’s of no concern.”
“All right. So you’re saying that we’ll be left to our own devices in the mortal realm? That I’m to simply trust that Geheret won’t send someone to pay us a visit?”
Finally, Doran allowed himself to smile. “Trust is an integral part of any deal, brother. But my lord is being more than generous,” he said, sweeping his arm toward Meggy. “Isn’t that what you want? You and your whore and the brat, a perfect little family. Isn’t that worth more to you than mere power?”
“Perhaps it would be if your scenario didn’t have more holes than a rusting sieve,” I retorted. “The instant I can’t hold Moyna, she’ll be gone. And knowing her, she’ll find a way back into Faerie, the bind will break…”
“And Lord Geheret would kill her for reneging on the agreement,” he concluded. “But he could do what you did to her before—give her a new name, a new set of memories. Take any trace of Mother out of her mind. You could be her darling father, just like you wanted.”
“Except for the tiny matter of my age. Without magic, without glamour, a twenty-something raising a teenager? Not remotely likely.”
“There are ways around that,” said Doran, his voice soft and low. “A little something extra worked into the bind to age you.”
“And eventually kill me, I suppose?”
“A small price to pay for your family, wouldn’t you say?”
I looked out once more at the room, picking at the holes in the tapestry Doran was weaving. The largest was the most evident: no matter what sort of happy story he told, he and I both knew that Geheret would kill me as soon as it was convenient. I’d probably never see Moyna again, and Meggy…well, if I was gone, she was as good as dead. Her father would never protect her, and she wasn’t yet a force to be reckoned with in terms of magical talent. Val might be all right, and Toula would always have her Arcanum connections…
But then there was Aiden.
The Arcanum would never protect him against a court onslaught—not a witch-blood, not even with his gifts—and without them, he would be helpless.
I met his weary eyes across the throne room and saw the fear there—but fear for himself or for Moyna or me, I could not tell.
Before I could glance at his thoughts, Meggy broke free of Toula’s grip and jumped onto the bench. “Take the deal!” she cried as Toula latched on to her leg. “Colin, you have to, they’re going to kill her! Please!” Her voice rose with her panic. “Don’t let them kill her! Don’t let them kill my baby!”
Meggy’s face was terrible, red and wet with
frantic tears, her curls wild from the night on the beach. And in that moment, the truth sounded like a trumpet in my mind: it was up to me to save her and her baby.
When I glanced at Doran again, his smile spoke of victory. “Well?” he said. “My lord is not a patient man. What should I tell—”
That was as far as he made it before the double gunshots echoed around the ceiling arches. Hal dropped immediately, pulling Vivi under him, and even Oberon fell back against the wall—but then I saw Joey calmly walking up the aisle with a pistol in his right hand, his left locked about his wrist to steady his aim. Doran fell to his knees and fumbled at his tunic, which was beginning to turn reddish-black around his heart. He stared up at me, his dark eyes flickering between pain and confusion, and when he tried to speak, blood dripped onto his chin.
Vaguely, I realized that Val had moved into a defensive stance beside me, but Joey paused beside my bleeding brother and kicked him onto his back. “Special ammunition,” he murmured in his weirdly accented Fae, pinning Doran with his foot and the barrel of the gun. “Little something whipped up for me. The rounds in this baby are mostly steel.” He bent closer as Doran began to gasp. “And since my aim is pretty true, I’m guessing they’re lodged somewhere in your chest right now.” Doran’s face contorted, but Joey pressed the muzzle of the gun against his cheek until he screamed with the burn. “You try anything, and I’ll make it hurt worse.”
When Joey pulled the gun away, Doran’s face was blistered and smoking. “Who…you…” he tried, coughing up bright blood with every word. “Who…you think…”
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