“Yeah, I still would rather not go there.”
Before they could step across the border, a shout from nearby made both of them whirl to see what was happening. They were just in time to see a white horse tearing down the path behind them, a woman on its back, clinging to its mane and calling out, “Help me!”
“Kelpie?” Michael asked.
“Most likely.”
“And it’s heading toward the Turtle Pond. That’s nasty even if she doesn’t drown.”
Michael was already chasing after the horse before Sophie had a chance to tell him not to, and his hand was reaching for his weapon. “No, don’t!” she shouted after him.
Hoping no one was watching her, she sent a wave of fae magic at the horse, shattering its glamour. A moment later, a naked man with a woman sitting on his shoulders tumbled to the ground. Michael didn’t miss a beat in grabbing the woman and getting her away from the scene. Sophie focused on the man.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she asked as she strode toward him. “I’ll have none of that in my world.”
He turned to look at her, startled. He looked more or less human, but there were still some horse-like qualities to his face, with a long, rounded nose and large teeth. His hair grew like a mane, looking something like a long, untidy Mohawk. He didn’t have a chance to react before she grabbed him by the earlobe. “Now it’s back home with you.”
He was much taller than she was, so he had to bend over to walk with his ear in her grip. She could feel him attempting to change forms, but she exerted her will on him, forcing him to stay in his somewhat human form. She hoped he was freezing. That might teach him a lesson or two.
Michael had returned alone to the spot by the lamppost where the barrier was still down. “I took a statement—that I doubt I’ll be turning in—and sent her home. She’d already convinced herself that it never was a horse, just a strange man. And how is he a man?”
“They can take either form. But this one should be staying out of our world for the foreseeable future, won’t you?”
The kelpie made a choking sound that resembled a whinny, and she gave him a good shove, sending him through the open barrier into the Realm. On the other side, he immediately resumed his horse form and galloped away.
“Now, to make sure this doesn’t happen again, at least not in this spot,” she murmured, more to herself than to Michael. Her first impression that the barrier hadn’t been of fae origin proved correct as she found the frayed edges using her magical senses. She didn’t know the precise spell that had been used, but it had all the flavor of enchantress magic. It wasn’t too difficult to repair the hole, but she had to use some fae magic to complete it because she was still such a novice as enchantress. The resulting patch was a mesh of enchantress and fae magic, which should make it more difficult for either side to break down.
When she opened her eyes, the bubble of summer was gone. “So, things are all sealed off?” Michael said, breaking the silence that had ensued when the wild music was stifled by the barrier.
“At this spot. Goodness knows how many other breaches there might be.”
“It’s kind of a pity. It looked a lot warmer there.”
“They’re lucky, then, that it seems to have been a one-way passage. They’d have been invaded if just anyone here could have wandered through, and who could resist a lovely summer evening on a day like today?”
“Who broke down the wall? Josephine? Is she that powerful?”
“I’m not sure tearing it down requires power so much as will. No enchantress would want to take down the barriers because they make our lives much easier.”
“Unless someone wanted to make herself look more important by creating a crisis to react to.”
As much as she wanted to vilify Josephine on general principles, Sophie couldn’t bring herself to come to a firm conclusion yet. “It seems rather extreme to create a situation like this just so she can make a power play.”
“Could it have happened accidentally?”
“Not likely.”
“Then someone had to do it, and she’s the one who’s been making noise.”
She couldn’t resist smiling archly at him. “Is this how you conduct police investigations—pick a suspect and then look for evidence to support your suspicion?”
“No, but I do take a good, hard look at anyone who reports finding a body, especially if they go about seeking attention for it.”
“Let’s keep an open mind, shall we, Detective? In the meantime, I need to see if there are any other breaches.”
It was fully dark and Sophie’s feet were killing her by the time she’d found and closed several more breaches of varying size. She was sure there were still more, but all she really wanted at the moment was to get home and get warm. She’d dressed for a short walk to burn off some frustration, not for a lengthy sojourn outdoors, and she still hadn’t acclimated to the climate. In Louisiana, it was still barely sweater weather. “Ready to call it a day?” she asked lightly, hoping he’d be the one to suggest heading home.
Instead of answering, he suddenly gripped her upper arm, holding her back. She resisted the urge to whip her head around to see whatever it was he’d noticed. Instead, she asked softly, “What is it?”
“I believe I’ve found actual evidence implicating my prime suspect. Now I’m sure I’m not just on a witch hunt—no offense.”
“I’m an enchantress, not a witch.” She looked up at him to see where he was looking, then followed his gaze to see two figures meeting under a lamppost—the same lamppost where all this had started. One of them was undeniably Josephine, fur coat and all. The other Sophie was fairly certain was fae, and while there was some agitation on both sides, the meeting didn’t look adversarial.
Both women were waving their hands, gesturing toward where the breach had been with an air of great consternation. Abruptly, they broke off the conversation and headed in opposite directions, the fairy moving off into the underbrush and Josephine heading up the path toward Sophie and Michael.
Sophie froze, feeling utterly trapped. Them being in the park at this time, in these conditions, was just as suspicious as Josephine and her crony being there, and it was even more suspicious that they were right where a breach in the barrier had been mended with an odd blend of fae and enchantress magic. But at the same time, anything she could do magically to hide them was certain to be detected by an experienced enchantress.
She was still stewing over what the best of all the bad options might be when Michael abruptly grabbed her, pushed her back against a nearby tree, and began kissing her rather thoroughly.
For a moment, she forgot entirely where she was and what she’d been doing. It had been a very, very long time since she’d been kissed, and the kisses before that had been rare. She’d nearly forgotten the sensation, but she had a feeling she would have worked harder to increase the frequency if they’d been anything like this. She completely forgot how cold she’d been as a warmth built up inside her and then spread to all her extremities. Meanwhile, even as her lips felt like they might scorch, they also tingled and were simultaneously soothed by the touch of his lips.
She had to fight not to whimper and cling to him when he pulled away, and she was glad he was holding on to her because her legs had turned entirely to jelly. She wasn’t sure they’d support her body. “Sorry about that,” he murmured. “It always seems to work in the movies, so I thought it was worth a shot. People tend to avert their eyes from blatant public displays of affection, so I don’t think she looked at us enough to recognize us.”
“It’s good that you were more on the ball than I was. I was trying to think of a veiling spell she wouldn’t detect.” She was glad it was so dark because she knew her face had to be flaming. The only thing that kept her from being mortified by her wanton response was the fact that his breath also seemed to have quickened, and he still hadn’t let go of her.
“But what was she doing meeting with a fairy? Isn’t she
supposed to be against them?”
“There is something serious going on here, I’m afraid, and it might be more than an enchantress power struggle. Come on.”
“Where?”
“I want to follow that fairy.”
Only then did he seem to realize that he was still holding her against the tree. “Yeah, okay,” he said, releasing her and taking a step back.
Her legs were still a little wobbly, but she quickly shoved the incident to the back of her mind as she focused on following the trail before it went cold. It took Michael a couple of seconds to catch up. “She has a bit of a head start,” he said.
“Yes, but now that I’ve closed all the breaches in this area, there are only a few gateways, and I know where all of them are.”
By making a beeline toward the nearest gateway, they quickly caught up with the fleeing fairy, who didn’t yet seem to realize she was being pursued. As soon as she went through the gateway, Sophie grabbed Michael’s hand, and together they went in after her.
Eighteen
The Theater
5:10 p.m.
Although she usually got a high from performing, Emily was glad when the curtain finally hit the stage for good after the Sunday matinee. She was tired and had other things to do now that her “weekend” had begun. She wouldn’t have to be back at the theater again until Tuesday night. Therefore, when Olivia caught her on the way off the stage and said, “Dinner at Fay’s?” she wanted to decline.
But in the Sunday performance, only Olivia and Will had acted like they had any energy. The rest had been dragging. It could have been nothing more than a late-weekend slump, but Emily didn’t think she could afford to take the chance. It would be the perfect opportunity to pass out the anti-fairy charms, now that she knew it had worked for Will. So she said, “Sure. Meet you at the stage door?”
Once she’d removed her stage makeup and changed into street clothes, she threw all the herbal bundles into her bag, hoping she’d have enough for everyone who showed up. It looked like Olivia had gathered a good crowd—most of the chorus. She seemed particularly excited, almost nervous. Olivia wasn’t the fidgety sort, but she was twitching, and her voice was slightly higher in pitch, like someone was fast-forwarding her.
Emily found out why when they reached the diner and the Lion King guy was there waiting for them. “Hi, everyone, you remember Damian, don’t you? He’s in The Lion King,” Olivia said, practically bubbling, before greeting him with a kiss that definitely wasn’t the way she’d kiss a friend but that was still reasonably chaste, the way you’d kiss a boyfriend in front of your parents. Will caught Emily’s eye and raised an eyebrow. Emily smiled in response.
“That explains it all,” he whispered to Emily as they followed the rest of the crowd to a table. “She’s getting some, and it shows.”
“She’s happy,” Emily countered, realizing belatedly just how much like Sophie she sounded.
“Well, yeah, regular sex tends to do that to a person.”
“Behave,” Emily hissed, channeling her sister again. Geez, Sophie had been in New York for a couple of days, and she was already getting into Emily’s head. If she moved here, what would happen? Emily would find herself wearing hats and gloves and going out for tea. No, that wasn’t fair. But she might be spending all her waking hours perfecting her craft and never so much as looking at a man, which wasn’t much better.
The dinner wasn’t particularly lively, as they were all spent after a rough weekend. That was normal, considering they did four performances in about forty-eight hours, but Emily thought that most of them looked sleepy tired, not just exertion tired. She couldn’t tell if any of them might be dancing with fairies, but just in case, she decided to carry out her plan.
“I know it’s early and not yet Thanksgiving, but I have holiday gifts,” she said. When a couple of her friends looked dismayed, she hurried to add, “It’s not much, just a little decoration thingy I made. That little old lady I sometimes work for is crafty and taught me to make these, and I thought it would be fun to make some as gifts.” She pulled the herbal bundles out of her bag and passed them around. “Supposedly, there’s folklore behind each of the herbs, but I don’t remember it all,” she said. “They’re good luck for the winter months when the nights are long and dark.”
“Oh, this is so cute!” Olivia exclaimed when she got hers. “Thanks, Em!”
There were just enough to go around, since Emily hadn’t been expecting Damian and since she had to give a second one to Will, who didn’t know about the one she’d hidden in his dance bag. That meant giving up her own, but she could always make another. And she had to admit that she was kind of glad to have an excuse not to have one. She wanted to see Eamon, and it looked like the only way that would happen was in a dream.
Nineteen
The Realm
Next
Michael had seen Sophie angry before, but her anger didn’t usually look so angry. She tended to smile and become saccharine-sweet. She was the type who thought showing anger was unladylike. “Tacky” was a word she might use for it. But now, she was visibly furious. Even before they stepped out of the gateway into the Realm, she was muttering under her breath, her mismatched eyes flashing.
“I cannot believe she was playing us all along, not like that. Not only framing the fae, but working with them. And she was going to make me look bad?” she fumed.
She didn’t even seem to have noticed that they were now in the Realm. At least, she hadn’t let go of Michael’s hand. Not that he was complaining. They both wore gloves, but he still enjoyed the contact. Maybe a little too much. The kiss had worked as a scheme to hide from Josephine, but he still wasn’t sure it had been the best idea ever. He hadn’t expected it to affect him quite that way. Sure, he thought Sophie was very attractive and he liked her, and he’d have been lying if he said he hadn’t had a few less-than-pure thoughts about what she could do with her tight little body, and he could still remember the times when she’d held him and comforted him. And where was he going with this? He’d been trying to convince himself that it didn’t mean anything, but now that he thought about it, maybe it was something he’d wanted to do for a while.
At any rate, she was the first woman other than his former wife whom he’d kissed in at least a decade, and there had been precious few kisses from his wife in the past seven years. Even if he hadn’t been intrigued by Sophie, how did he expect a kiss—any kiss—not to affect him?
One good thing about Sophie’s ongoing angry rant was that it prevented any awkwardness between them in the aftermath of the kiss. She was barely conscious of his presence, let alone stirred by his proximity, so he continued holding her hand while she muttered under her breath.
He assumed she knew where she was going and wasn’t just stalking off blindly. He couldn’t see their quarry, but maybe she sensed the fleeing fairy. He tried extending his enhanced senses, and then he saw the fairy ahead, seemingly unaware that she was being followed. Now that he knew they weren’t just wandering around, he started paying attention to their surroundings. The Realm had a way of constantly reshaping itself, but these mountains looked familiar, and he spotted the spires of a castle not too far away.
“Oh no, not this place again,” he said when he recognized it.
“Fiontan and Niamh. I should have known.”
“How?”
“They’re about the only major remaining court that hasn’t tried to take over the throne yet. It’s their turn to be up to something.”
“But I thought they were the ones who hated humans. Why would they conspire with an enchantress?”
“They’re planning to double-cross her? They’d certainly enjoy having the barriers down so they could ride out into the human world again. They’re the ones in most of the old legends about trooping fairies.”
“So, is every court in the Realm going to make a bid for the throne?”
“Looks like it. Unless we stomp it out decisively this time around. Again.”
The fairy they were pursuing entered the castle, and Sophie went in right after her. Michael assumed she’d done something to alter their auras so they wouldn’t be detected.
On their previous visit, there’d been a massive ball in full swing, as Fiontan and Niamh tried to recruit new members to their court. This looked more like business as usual in a fae court, which meant there was music, dancing, and feasting, but on a smaller scale. The court’s rulers sat on thrones at the head of the room, with a few courtiers surrounding them.
“We’re not going to have to dance again this time, are we?” Michael asked when he saw the revelry.
“You did just fine,” she said, which he noticed didn’t directly answer his question.
“Says the professional.”
“Exactly. If I say you did fine, you did fine. In my professional opinion. Now, do you see our conspirator? You’re probably better than I am at seeing through glamours.”
“I didn’t get that good a look at her to begin with,” he said as he released Sophie’s hand—finally and somewhat reluctantly—to take off his gloves and get his clover keychain out of his pocket. The close contact with the four-leaf clover, combined with whatever had been done to his system when he’d been elf-shot and cured on his first trip into the Realm, changed the way he saw the court. The people weren’t quite so beautiful, and they were clearly inhuman. He still saw their glamours, but as a transparent layer on top of the real appearance. Sophie, he noted, looked almost exactly the same. There was only an extra touch of unworldliness about her, a faint glow.
But he wasn’t here to look at Sophie. He was looking for the woman they’d been following, and he spotted her across the room. “There,” he said, gesturing slightly with his head and letting Sophie follow his gaze until she nodded in acknowledgment. Their quarry was talking to someone else, not the rulers. That person soon slipped out the front door, moving right past Michael and Sophie.
A Kind of Magic Page 11