“I examined her again before I let her wake,” my father answered just as cryptically.
I leaned against the table for support. “What’s going on?”
Cool and assessing, Mai studied me for signs of…foaming at the mouth? Dilated pupils? I don’t know what she expected to see.
“The Morrigan rolled you.” Mai cocked her hip and crossed her arms over her chest. “When she one-upped your ‘gift’, she took the liberty of coating it with one hella nasty compulsion.” Fingers tapping her upper arms, she added, “All so you wouldn’t remove the pendant, wouldn’t want it removed, and would give whoever tried to force you holy hell for the attempt. She needed to make sure it stuck to you so you wouldn’t squeal on her closet renovations until she was ready for the big reveal.” She eased closer. “You were lucky, Tee. If Mac hadn’t been there to absorb the kickback when he broke the chain, you would be dead.”
“Is that…?” I wrapped my arms around my middle. “Is that why you’re angry with me?”
“She isn’t angry,” Mac said without turning. “This is the third time I have woken you.”
“The third time?” I rubbed my forehead. “The last thing I remember was…”
“It’s okay.” Mai stepped forward again. “Some of your memory is missing.”
I spluttered before my brain got traction. “How is that okay?”
“You lost four point three seconds,” Mac said. “You won’t miss them.”
“How did—?” I pointed at his back and asked Mai, “Did he—?” I swayed on my feet. “I think I need to sit down for a minute.” My knees buckled, and my butt hit the floor. “Was anyone hurt?” A gut-wrenching flash of Shaw’s pulped face in my mind kept me swallowing to keep my throat clear.
No Shaw. No body. There had been no body.
“Oh God, Shaw.” My nails scraped over the tile. “Where is he? What happened? Is he all right?”
Mac turned at last, and his color was ashen. “He was taken.”
“Taken,” I parroted.
“There was a fourth troll,” Mai said quietly. “He must have been the lookout on the opposite side of the portal. When the others didn’t return, he popped in, saw what happened and grabbed Shaw.” Her head dropped, chin bumping her chest. “I fought them. I tried—” Her voice broke. “I was too scared to shift back. I got stuck. Stuck. I couldn’t cry for help.” She sniffled. “I should have followed them.”
Numbness drifted into my thoughts, cloaking me like fog from the truth of it all.
Shaw was gone.
The trolls had taken him.
The Morrigan…she would demand a report, and they would use him as their scapegoat.
The weight of Mai’s stare pressed down on me until I forced out, “You did the right thing.”
“A kitsune is no match for a troll,” Mac soothed.
This shed new light on Mai’s anger. She wasn’t pissed at me over the compulsion. She was mad at herself for letting fear stop her from acting. Or worse, what she thought I would see as cowardice.
“He’s right.” I placed a hand over my heart to reassure myself it was still beating. “They would have…” I held my tongue. “Trolls don’t play nice. You did the right thing by keeping yourself safe.”
Mai’s lips pinched into a flat line, but she didn’t argue with me.
“The Morrigan won’t kill him,” Mac rumbled with certainty.
A sour grin puckered my mouth. “I notice you didn’t say she wouldn’t let him die.”
Enough pain made you long for death. Starvation was an ugly way to go.
Feet planted wide, he gave me what he could. “Shaw is too valuable as a hostage.”
As much as I hated the thought of Shaw being used as leverage, I had to believe Mac was right.
Lock it down. Stow away the fear. Strangle the panic. Shaw needed me at my best.
“Why today?” I lowered my hand when Mac noticed its placement. “What did they want?”
“The timing,” Mai said, “was too perfect. You aren’t at the office every day, and the Morrigan is smart enough not to leave a freaking portal into Faerie humming until you showed up. She knew the decision was being announced today. She knew she had to act. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Gut dropping, I said, “There’s a mole in the office.”
“Fifteen people knew the vote was coming,” Mac said.
Ten were magistrates, so five pairs, one Seelie and one Unseelie, from each of the five conclave divisions across the United States. Shaw made eleven, Mai twelve, Mac thirteen, Mable fourteen and I was fifteen.
“Families going to ground, like mine,” Mai added, “are heeding rumors straight from Faerie.”
I nodded, understanding what she left unsaid. She had known, and she hadn’t told her skulk. She trusted that her father’s connections would get word out to her family without compromising herself.
“Each of us was summoned personally by Evander. For the Morrigan to know, someone reached out to her after he visited them.” Mac returned his attention to the table. “For the portal to have been active when you arrived, she needed time to prepare. That means one of the first informed her.”
“Or that he informed her first.” I considered the likelihood of a Seelie setting aside millennia of hatred for the Unseelie. Even if richly compensated, it was a tossup. “There’s also the possibility Kerwin snitched to the Morrigan while Evander’s back was turned.”
Mac was right. The trap had already been set, and we walked right into it. The only reason Mai was involved at all was because she came with Shaw to rescue me from Balamohan. Evander had no reason to tell her about the vote. I had done that, because I selfishly wanted to see her before we left.
Shaw and I were the last ones rounded up, and thanks to my folks’ spat, we arrived at the office well after the charm had been activated upstairs, promising the trolls and the portal plenty of privacy.
Speaking of the parental units… “Where is Mom?” Calm as Mac was, I knew she must be fine. “Did she make it to the office? She’s okay, right?”
Grimness settled into the lines around Mac’s mouth. “She is at home under Sven’s guardianship.”
Sour as his expression turned, I wasn’t about to ask how his declaration went. Instead I let it slide and tipped my head back. Sven was a good guy. He would protect her with his life. “What was the point of the attack?”
“The trolls came armed with never blades.”
Never heard of them. “What are those?”
“If the blade pierces your skin, you won’t stop bleeding without magical intervention.” Mac hesitated. “Sometimes even that isn’t enough.”
I glanced at my right hand where the cut had been but wasn’t now. “You healed me.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s beyond my abilities to heal. I stopped the bleeding, for now. The wound is concealed beneath a layer of glamour so that no one who doesn’t expect your injury will see it.”
I flexed my hand. “It doesn’t hurt.”
Had it hurt before? I couldn’t remember.
“It’s all part of the enchantment folded into the blades. Victims are slower to panic if they don’t feel pain. By the time most notice they’ve been cut, they’re weak and easy prey to what hunts them.”
I gulped hard. “Can it be cured?”
“Once we’re in Faerie,” Mac said solemnly, “I know a place we can go.”
Mai came closer, extending her arm down to where I sat, and I hesitated. I was right-handed, but I shied away from putting pressure on the binding and offered an awkward left-handed grip instead.
A grunt of effort later, she tugged me onto my feet beside her.
“I’m not that heavy,” I grumbled.
“It really is you.” She laughed. “I wasn’t sure.”
Still woozy, I leaned my hip against hers for balance. “How bad was it?”
“The Morrigan had her hooks in deep. She was talking through you. Screaming through you w
as more like it. Mac called it a suggestive echo from keeping the pendant against your skin for so long.”
Considering what had happened to Shaw, I felt selfish for asking, “What about my skins?”
“I retrieved them before I warded the portal.” Mac turned. “You can have them back when you master creating your own aer póca. Until that time, I’ll store them with my things. Sound fair?”
“I don’t sense I have much say in the matter, so sure.” I rolled a shoulder. “I’m guessing the aer thing is the pocket of air sidhe use to hide weapons? I saw the magistrates use them. Rook does too.”
Mac was right to want me able to protect what was mine without borrowing from higher powers.
I had learned my lesson the hard way today.
“By right of creation, I am sidhe and their powers are mine to use as I will.” He considered me a moment. “As my child, their magics are yours as well.”
Meaning their language, which had always fascinated me, was mine to learn as well.
Interesting.
But not interesting enough to distract me. “How common are never blades?”
“They aren’t.” With his finger, Mac traced a design on the table by his hip. “The cost of kindling one is so great few can afford them. They require a sacrifice. A life for each blade awakened.” He let me think on that. “They aren’t carried by trolls for longer than it takes one to complete its mission. Then the blades are returned to their masters.”
Their mission was obvious, but saying it out loud gave me the willies. “They came for me.”
Mac faced me fully, grim lines aging his flawless skin to match the weary strain in his eyes.
“The Morrigan needs my blood to erase the threshold. If she has you—your blood—she may not barter with me until she knows if yours is as potent. Even knowing it might not work, even if it takes every drop…” his voice lowered to a thick rasp, “…the Morrigan won’t stop until you bleed for her.”
I stared at my glamour-encased hand. “It was a test.”
Quiet anger thrummed through him. “I think so, yes.”
“She had me cut, fixed it so the trolls used a blade that would short out my healing abilities and then told them to drag me bleeding through the portal.” I pieced it together. “The Morrigan planned to sit back and watch what happened. If I smudged the threshold on my way across or shorted it out…”
“It would prove your blood could erase the ward,” Mac finished.
I rocked back on my heels, glancing between them. “So where does this leave us?”
“The magistrates are tucked away in pairs in remote locations across the country.” Mai tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Mable, of course, will stay put at the marshal’s office. She’s monitoring the portal and relaying information as it develops between us, the marshals, the magistrates and their respective outposts.” Her attempt at a smile waned. “Basically just another day at the office for her.”
My throat tightened, and the room became veiled by unshed tears I blinked rapidly to dispel.
I would not lose someone else I loved to this war and my own foolishness.
Mac widened his stance. “She has options if the main floors have to be evacuated.”
I almost laughed. “How many options can a bean-tighe have with her house under attack?”
“More than you might think,” he answered. “Her kind is heartier than you know.”
“Fine.” I caved. “What about us?”
“We go to Faerie,” he said, “and we sever the tethers—”
“Just like that?” I had expected the answer, but it stuck in my craw. “We let the Morrigan win?”
“Shush.” Mai rested her hand on my arm. “Let the man talk.”
With a polite nod to Mai, Mac continued, “We will go to Faerie and sever the tethers, cutting off the Morrigan’s escape routes. When she can’t slide into the mortal realm through existing pathways, she will realize she has to forge her own, and she can’t without my blood to anchor a new tether.”
“Then we go after her,” I clarified.
“We won’t have to.” His smile showed teeth. “She will come after us.”
“Wait.” I rewound the conversation. “So the magistrates made the call? They voted yes?”
“Thierry,” Mai said, “if you don’t do this, there won’t be a conclave to come home to.”
“If we go vigilante now, who reins us in next time? Thinking we know what’s best, that our way is more valid than someone else’s, is a slippery slope. One good push and we’re all wallowing in the mud with hands just as dirty as the Morrigan’s.” I pegged Mac with a stare. “I’m ready to fight, but I want orders. I want to know what we’re about to do is viewed by our ruling body as the right thing.”
Hard to explain where the hesitance came from when it hadn’t been there earlier. Maybe it was a way to check myself, to know this course of action was honorable in the eyes of people I trusted and not a sliver of the Morrigan’s influence still corrupting me. And, if I were being honest with myself, I wanted permission to savor my revenge, an iron-clad absolution of guilt for my actions after I found Shaw, because once he was safe, I would show the Morrigan how much of a daddy’s girl I really was.
The internal scales I inherited from Mac were swaying like a seesaw inside my head. Knowing I had fallen under the Morrigan’s spell, I lost touch with the part of me always certain my actions were just. Until I shook off the bitterness, if I ever got that far, I would rely on others’ internal compasses.
As though he expected things to swing this way, Mac picked up a scroll from the table behind him. It unfurled, the weight of quality parchment and the thick, familiar wax seal drawing it downward. His arm extended, and from his shoulder height, where he held the top lip, it stretched down to his navel.
I didn’t have to see the fine print to recognize the signatures scrawled along the bottom edge.
“The vote wasn’t formalized before the Morrigan attacked,” he said. “We held a special session in a conference room at the airport to gather signatures before the magistrates were sent into hiding.”
A burden fell from my shoulders. “Okay.” I glanced between them. “Let’s do this.”
Mai worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “First you’ll need to change.”
Bending low, Mai retrieved a long box from under the table where I woke and pressed it into my arms. It had already been opened. When I lifted the lid, I recognized the outfit. Black leather armor like Mac wore. My fingers traced deep furrows in one wristlet. Teeth marks. This was the exact suit Rook had given me. The one he had tricked me into wearing as part of his elaborate scheme to claim me as his wife. I hadn’t wanted to wear his gift then, and I sure didn’t want to now, but it seemed I had no choice.
Again.
“I hope you had it dry-cleaned,” I muttered.
I hauled out the topmost piece, the wristlet, and froze. Rubbing a thumb across the oval-shaped enamel emblem, I studied it. Instead of the inverted House Unseelie coat of arms I expected, this was an emerald shield inlayed with a black stylized hound clamping a single rose between its sharp teeth.
I held up the emblem. “What’s this?”
“Shaw commissioned the design.” Mai looked everywhere but at me. “He was having the armor restored for next year, just in case, but there was no time to finish the job. He asked me to hide it for him until tonight.” She gulped air then pushed out the rest. “The design is called Queen of Thorns.”
The breath I took rattled in my chest, a sob stuck between my gut and throat.
I locked the pain down before a single whimper escaped.
“It’s beautiful.” The words were torn from my soul.
Mac took a step forward, like he was afraid I would shatter and wanted to catch the pieces.
“I should change.” There. That sounded normal. “Where should I…?”
Mac gestured behind me, and it hit me then his armor carried no crest. I shouldn’t have
expected to see one. He couldn’t be loyal to himself and to me. No one’s interests dovetailed every time, even if he and I were of a like mind on this occasion. Shaw’s crest was the final nail in my coffin, a visual representation of how far I had fallen. Mac was a true neutral, and I...was not.
Chapter 7
I ended up changing clothes in a nearby supply closet. Quarters were tight, but I made it work. I wriggled into the underclothes and leather suit then tightened the scuffed armor pads. Mai had brought my favorite pair of boots from our apartment. Black to match the outfit. Even better, they molded to my feet after months of wear. No blisters for this girl.
This kind of forethought was what defined a best friend.
Banging my elbows on the metal racks filled with tear-inducing disinfectant and individually wrapped toilet paper rolls, I finger combed my hair and French braided the unwieldy mass without mangling it too badly. Maybe. I had no mirror to check, but all I needed was the flyaways pulled back from my eyes.
Patting my hair as though appearance mattered, I let the absurdity of caring catch up to me, and I choked on the sob that had been lodged in my throat since learning Shaw had been taken. Palms up in supplication, I surrendered to grief, let it swamp me, thick and fast and so heavy I sagged under the weight of my loss. Tears burned my eyes and scalded trails down my cheeks. I sank to my knees when they quivered and planted my hands on the floor to keep from collapsing as loss hollowed me out. Once I was empty, I slapped a lid on all that pain and sealed it tight. Face hot and itchy from saltwater tracks drying on my skin, I sniffled once then got back on my feet.
Hiding in a closet didn’t get me one step closer to finding Shaw. Crying accomplished nothing. I had given in to my guilt, to my fear, and I had purged. Time to woman up and bring him home.
After a deep breath, I stepped out and bounced off a hulking man’s rock-solid chest.
Power surged into my palm a split second before I recognized him. “Oh. Hey. Officer Littlejohn, right?”
His startled expression soured in a blink upon noticing my no-doubt-splotchy face. Whatever he read in my red-rimmed eyes persuaded him against asking me what was wrong.
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