The fairies attacked, focusing on Josephine. Amelia and Athena shielded her, but they didn’t return the attack, remaining on the defensive. “Should you help them—either side?” Michael whispered.
“You know, I’m kind of disgusted with all of them,” Sophie said. “And I’m dead tired.” Turning her back to the combatants, she stepped through the curtain of snow and winced as the sudden sounds of the city assaulted her. Michael was only steps behind her, along with Mrs. Smith.
“You’ve got the right idea, dear,” Mrs. Smith said with a nod. “Now, maybe you ought to fence them all in for a moment.”
“I’d rather not trap them, but I may be able to hold the magic inside,” Sophie said, mentally adding an additional shield to the ring of snow. If whoever set up the snow barrier dropped it, they could all leave, but in the meantime, no magic would spill out.
A cab pulled up, and Sophie gestured Mrs. Smith toward it, but the wise woman shook her head. “No, you go on. I’ll find you tomorrow, Detective.”
Sophie slid across the backseat, and Michael hesitated, watching Mrs. Smith, before giving up and getting in. “I was hoping to see where she went, but she’s already gone somehow.”
The cabbie asked their destination, and Sophie turned to Michael. “Do you mind if we go to your place? I don’t really want to deal with those two anytime soon. I’ll give them time to get home and in bed, and then maybe I’ll sneak in.”
He gave the cabbie his address, and she leaned back against the seat with a weary sigh. She slipped her feet out of her shoes, enjoying the momentary freedom. She seldom wore heels anymore, and standing for that long in them had been agony on feet already abused by dancing. When the cab pulled up in front of Michael and Emily’s building, she groaned at the thought of putting her shoes back on to walk to the door, but it was too cold and damp to make that walk in stocking feet.
Michael paid the fare before she remembered that he still had her bag with her purse in it. He got out, and she picked up her shoes, putting off the moment when she’d have to shove her feet back into them until the last possible second. He held up a hand to stop her and said, “Scoot over.” Too tired to argue, she slid over to the open door. She had to admit to a bit of a thrill when he scooped her up in his arms to carry her up the front steps.
As they went up the steps, she noticed that Emily’s light was on. She was just about to suggest they stop by to tell her what happened when the light switched off. Sophie figured she could fill her sister in on the night’s events in the morning.
“If you’ll get the door,” Michael said. She waved a hand, unlocking the front door and swinging it open for them. Another wave of the hand shut the door behind them. She expected him to put her down once they were inside, but he headed up the stairs.
“You don’t have to carry me all the way,” she protested halfheartedly.
“I believe we had a deal about me getting to carry you around when I was up to it. And it’s only one flight.”
She waved his apartment door open at the top of the stairs, and he didn’t set her down then, either. She magically shut the door and turned on the lights as he carried her across the living room and deposited her gently on the sofa. After setting her bag down, he said, “Now, how about some cocoa?”
“That sounds wonderful.” She started to get up, but he motioned for her to stay put.
“Remember, it’s my turn, and it’s my home.”
He slipped out of his coat, throwing it across the arm of the sofa on his way to the kitchen alcove. She shrugged out of her own coat and laid it beside his before swinging her legs around onto the sofa. He hummed bits of music from the ballet as he put a kettle on and got out mugs. “I hope you don’t mind if it’s from a mix,” he called out to her.
“Do you really think I’d be so rude as to criticize your hospitality?”
“Not out loud. But admit it, you’d judge.”
“Not you. Not tonight, under these circumstances. I think I might be willing to swallow the mix without adding hot water right now. Or drink the hot water straight.” Suddenly, she wondered what she’d been thinking, coming here. She could easily have made it back to Amelia and Athena’s apartment and been safely hidden away in her room by the time they got home, and they probably wouldn’t have been any more eager to talk to her than she’d been to talk to them.
Instead, she was alone with Michael, in his apartment, late at night. The setting was awfully cozy, and she wasn’t sure if she was more terrified that something would happen between them or that nothing would. She’d never been swept off her feet, quite literally, other than onstage, but she wouldn’t have thought that a man would carry a woman up to his home without having at least an interest in something other than conversation.
Then again, this was Michael, who’d once shared a bed with her without doing anything even remotely ungentlemanly. He was perceptive and kind, and maybe he’d simply noticed how tired she was and how badly her feet hurt, and he’d understood not wanting to go home to people who’d just betrayed her.
He cut off her train of thought by coming into the living room with two steaming mugs. He handed her one, then bent, lifted her feet, and sat, settling her legs across his lap. She leaned back against the sofa arm and tried to decide what was nicest, having her feet up or the close contact with him. She’d thought she’d pushed back her very juvenile crush on him, but it had merely mutated into something even more powerful. “I figured having your feet up would help,” he said.
To which she could only reply, “Mmmm.”
“Ouch, is that what dancing really does to your feet?” He stared in horror at the mangled lumps in his lap.
So much for being alluring, she thought, covering her smile by taking a sip of cocoa. “You’d think that just one performance wouldn’t be so bad, considering how much time I spend dancing on a typical day, but the intensity is different. And then there’s the hour of standing in heels afterward. Most other nights won’t be quite so bad.” Still, her feet, which were never pretty, were red and swollen, with purple toenails and a few bandages. With those in his lap, she had a feeling she wouldn’t have to worry about him being driven mad by her proximity.
“I did like the ballet, especially the snow monster,” he said with a grin.
“I bet the effects guys are going to drive themselves crazy trying to figure out how that happened and how to do it again. You’re sure everyone saw it?”
“Mari noticed it, so unless she’s got abilities I haven’t noticed before, it was out there.”
She groaned. “Great. Just great. I guess Josephine thought she’d force me to use fae magic where her friends could see, and then anything I said about her would be discredited.”
“But you didn’t fall for it.”
“Just barely. It was a real challenge, let me tell you. I wish I knew what she was after.” She rotated her ankles and flexed her feet, trying to keep them loose.
“What did you make of the afterparty?”
“I don’t know. Did it seem to you like she expected most of those fairies to answer to her?”
“Yeah, she seemed surprised when they didn’t obey. Then again, so did you.”
“But I’m a queen. Why would they listen to her?”
“She must have thought she made a really good deal with someone.” He took a long sip while his brows knit in deep thought. After a long pause, he said, “I saw something weird in her aura.”
“Weird how? I saw her aura when she snapped, and that’s odd because I don’t usually see them in people who aren’t touched by the fae in some way.”
“Well, just seeing it was weird. I do sometimes see something in the other enchantresses, and in you, but there was something else I thought I saw for a second. I’m not sure what it was or what it meant, but it wasn’t the same as what I see in Amelia and Athena.” He chuckled and added, “It’s too bad Mrs. Smith doesn’t have binders like the ones Emily told me Athena made. She’s not doing much about training
me to be whatever it is I’m supposed to be. I don’t even know if she has any powers.”
“She sure acted like it tonight.” She drank her cocoa, draining her mug, then took a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly, forcing the tension out of her body. “I’d be tempted to just let them all fight it out if it weren’t for the fact that this stands to affect everyone. This is beyond your typical power struggle.”
“The moment innocent people get killed, we lose the option of staying on the sidelines,” he said somberly.
She wanted to squeeze his hand but was glad he was holding onto his mug so she couldn’t. It was when he said such things that she knew she loved him, and exactly why. This was definitely more than the crush she’d been telling herself she had. “I know,” she said with a sigh. “I just don’t know what to do about it right now, short of finding a way to get her away from other enchantresses and letting the fae take her for Nana to deal with.”
“That’s not such a bad idea.”
“It’s a terrible idea. It would kick off a fae versus enchantress war.”
“Only if you get caught, if the other enchantresses know what you did.”
She pondered that, letting herself relax against the sofa and trying not to think too much about her proximity to Michael. Would Amelia and Athena have made it home by now? Maybe she should call a cab. He had to work the next day, so she should let him get to bed. The problem was that she didn’t want to move from where she was.
A distant sound intruded on her comfort. “Is that Beau barking?” she asked.
He frowned, listening. “Sounds like it.”
“Does he do that often?”
“Almost never, not when Emily’s home. I should probably go check on him.”
“Maybe she went out and he’s mad about being left at home.”
“Maybe.”
She lifted her feet so he could get up. While he went downstairs, she dug a pair of canvas ballet slippers out of her bag and put them on as a compromise between going barefoot and wearing shoes. He was back a moment later, looking worried. “The door’s locked, even the interior deadbolt, so she has to be in there, but she isn’t responding. Do you think it’s time to use your trick with locks?”
Her sore feet forgotten, she was already up and heading for the door. Beau barked even louder as they approached, sounding like he was standing right behind the door. Michael said soothingly, “It’s okay, buddy, I’ll be inside in a moment. We’ll take care of it.” If Sophie hadn’t been so worried about Emily, she might have had a minor meltdown at how adorable he was, talking to a dog. She could hear Beau’s whining from inside.
She didn’t even break stride as she unlocked the door magically and burst in. Belatedly, it occurred to her that Emily might have been otherwise occupied inside, but then surely she’d have been distracted by the dog barking and whining and Michael pounding on the door.
But when Sophie got a good look at the apartment she forgot about any other concerns. “What is that?” Michael said as he came in behind her, echoing her thoughts at the sight of the glowing mirror over the daybed, reflecting something other than the opposite wall.
“Secret passage to fairyland?” she guessed.
“But how? And why? This isn’t like the gateways you make.”
“No, it’s not. But it could explain all our injured dancers.”
Someone seemed to be in the bed. The covers were pulled up over a form that looked a lot more human than the shape of pillows Emily used to make under the covers when sneaking out of the house as a teenager, but when Sophie pulled the covers back, it was clearly not Emily.
“It looks like a ghost,” Michael said.
Yes, that’s what it looked like—an insubstantial spirit version of Emily lying there as a placeholder. “I suspect that if we were normal people, we’d just see her lying there.”
“But does that mean her body went through the passage?”
“It does seem that way. I’m going to check it out. Hang on to me, please, in case it tries to suck me in.” She was concerned and astonished enough that she barely had a passing thought about the feel of his arm wrapping around her waist as she moved up to the daybed. This magic was certainly fae, there was no doubt about it, but it wasn’t like anything she’d felt before. It was like the Realm, but not, both physical and psychic.
“There’s something familiar about this,” Michael said. “I just can’t quite put my finger on it. The more I try to think about it, the farther away it gets. It’s like it goes away the moment I look straight at it.”
“Like something in a dream,” she said, as much to herself as to him.
“That’s it exactly!” he said loudly enough that it startled her. “I feel like I’ve seen this in a dream.”
“Maybe that’s what it is,” she mused, turning her head so she could look at the mirror out of the corner of her eye. “It’s a gateway to the dream world.”
“So when we dream we’re really entering the fairy world?”
“Not exactly, and not always, I don’t think. But those dreams that seem almost more vivid than real life, the ones that leave you a little dissatisfied with normal life all day, well, maybe that’s because there was something real about them. I’d have thought that the fact that I really did visit with fairies and enter the Realm would have kept it from working on me, but maybe not.”
“What do we do about it?”
She stared at the mirror for a while longer. “Well, this kind of thing must happen all the time, and people are returned none the wiser, usually with no harm done other than being particularly tired the next day. She should come back with no harm done. No one even would have known what had happened if Beau hadn’t sounded the alarm.”
“On the other hand, how often do you get the chance to see something like this when you’re conscious?”
She turned back to face him, unable to fight back a grin. “My thoughts exactly.”
“I’ll get Beau. I think we’ll want him with us.”
“Definitely.” She climbed up on to the bed, and Michael picked up Beau before joining her. She put her hand on his arm as they stepped through the mirror together.
Thirty-one
The Ballroom
A Little Earlier
“Who are you?” Emily asked, knowing how rude she sounded, but not caring..
Her dance partner blinked, batting impossibly long eyelashes in what she recognized as feigned innocence. “Were you expecting someone else? I am not the man of your dreams?”
He was good looking—she’d yet to meet an ugly fairy, at least, not in the face they presented to the world—possibly even better looking than Eamon from a purely aesthetic perspective. His black hair had shimmering blue highlights that matched his eyes, and his face could have been generated by a computer as an example of perfect symmetry. But she was still disappointed. “Yeah, usually it’s someone different,” she said.
He pulled her closer and whispered into her ear, “Perhaps I can become someone you dream about, if you let me.”
He was a good dancer, moving fluidly in perfect rhythm so that the two of them were like one body. After one turn around the floor, he spun her before pulling her close again. “How am I doing?” he asked, his voice soft and husky.
In the back of her mind, she had the sense that she shouldn’t be doing this. Dancing all night when she had a show to do the next evening was ill-advised. She hadn’t asked for this, hadn’t thought she was leaving open any dream invitations, so she wasn’t sure she was actually here due to any will of her own. Did that mean she was being kidnapped? She tried pulling away from him. “This has been lovely, but I really can’t stay. Maybe some other time?”
His grip on her tightened. “You can’t leave so soon,” he whispered. While holding her tight with one hand, his other hand caressed her body in a way that made her shiver all over. His touch was a promise that there would be more to come, if she was willing. “We don’t have to dance.”
Unable to stop herself from sighing, she had to wonder what would be so wrong. Eamon would be risky because she did have feelings for him and might get attached in a way that was bound to lead to heartache, but this would be nothing more than a one-night stand that was partially imaginary. If she’d been anyone else, this would have all seemed like nothing more than a really nice dream. How many women had dreams like this without it ruining their lives? Why shouldn’t she enjoy herself? Would it really ruin her for mortal men if it happened this way? And then she might have a better sense of what her feelings for Eamon actually were.
Instead of pulling away, she leaned closer to him and ran her hand along his shoulder. It was eerie how insubstantial he felt. She liked some muscle on a man, rather than feeling that she could snap him like a twig. But that was going to be a problem with all fae, whose physical forms were the least important parts of them. As slight as he was, she could tell he had a wiry strength, and that would be bolstered by magic.
She had a vague sense of noise in the distance that disrupted the mood. For a moment, the ballroom faded into blankness and she felt drawn toward a glowing portal. The sound solidified into something that she finally recognized as a dog barking. It was Beau, and he sounded very unhappy, practically frantic, and that was wildly unusual for a dog who could happily sleep through a raging thunderstorm. “I think I need to go,” she said.
He held her tighter. “You can’t leave me.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he silenced her with a fierce kiss. It was the kind of kiss they wrote about in trashy romance novels, turning her inner core into molten lava while setting off fireworks, and all that. She returned the kiss, desperately hungry for more.
There had been something she needed to do, hadn’t there? Some problem, someone who needed help, maybe? She forgot all about it as she kissed him. His lips left hers, and she whimpered until he trailed more kisses down her neck to her collarbone. She was wondering if he’d go lower than that when he stopped abruptly and pulled away from her, his odd blue eyes wide with alarm and fear.
A Kind of Magic Page 19