Sounding every bit as grudging as I felt, Christopher said, “We hadn’t either. I…” He paused, panting, and glowered down at his arm. “I need to get back to Millie. Now. Kenna-lass, we could use her sword if she’s giving it.”
He would, I thought wearily, have to go and leave this to me. Not that I could argue, since he was right. We were both hurt, and in case the nogitsune came back, we were in no shape to fight Three-Tails off. “Fine,” I relented. “If you’ll watch our backs on the way to my place, we’d appreciate the help.”
“My sword is yours. But one thing, if I may…” Melisanda gave Christopher a long, confused look. She was studying him as if she’d never seen the like of him before, which made no sense at all. “Mister MacSimidh, are you not a Warder of Seattle, bound by its air and earth?”
Christopher’s brows went up. “Bound by breath, blood and bone,” he answered. His accent was thickening; that, even more than the stain of red along his jacket sleeve or the wobble in his channel of power into the ground, gave away his fraying strength. “For two months now, if you’re counting.”
“Then why, if you walk the Wards of Seattle, have you set foot in Lake Forest Park?”
Chapter Eight
“You’re daft, woman,” Christopher proclaimed, staring in bafflement and more than a little distrust at the Seelie warrior who’d joined us. “I may be new to my calling, but I know my own damn earth when I’m standing on it!”
“No, wait, look.” It was probably the fault of my exhaustion, but for a few moments neither Melisanda’s assertion nor Christopher’s automatic denial made much sense to me. My pulse was still rampaging, and it took every scrap of will I could cobble together to keep from falling over on the trail right then and there—and the weight of Christopher’s frame leaning into me wasn’t helping that very much. But I made myself stand steady, and after casting a long look north and west, I nudged my Newfoundlander intently. “Christopher, she’s right.”
She was, too. Several feet north of us, far enough away that my pre-fey vision wouldn’t have noticed but close enough now to be quite clear, I could spot a street sign reading “NE 151st Street.” This wouldn’t have meant anything to anybody who hadn’t grown up in Seattle; hell, for that matter, it wouldn’t have meant much to most Seattleites who weren’t familiar with the northern parts of the city. But I had grown up here. And I’d just spent two months walking all over every square inch of the place in the company of both of its Warders.
So I knew that 145th was the official border between Seattle and the much smaller community of Lake Forest Park.
Under normal circumstances, Christopher should certainly have known it too. Millie had drilled the city’s size and shape and borders into his head often enough. Comprehension finally sparked in his eyes as he followed my pointing hand, though it didn’t dispel his confusion. “That’s impossible,” he rasped. “I shouldn’t have been… it… feels like my city.”
I stared up at him, just as confused as he was. Truth be told, there wasn’t much difference in terrain or general urban layout between the north and south sides of the dividing line, especially when viewed from the Burke-Gilman Trail. And I wasn’t exactly an inexperienced observer. But neither was I a Warder. Was there something I’d missed in the heat of battle? Was there something Christopher had missed?
Melisanda stood watching us, more or less impassively, yet with a glint to her eyes that I was sure meant a far more avid interest than she was willing to let on. Not quite ready to go into this in front of her, I hedged, “Right then, sounds like another reason to get back to Millie—” Then I caught myself. “Either of you see what happened to the little girl?”
“She vanished,” Melisanda said. I started to protest that yes, I knew that and that was why I was asking, but she held up a hand to forestall me. “Magically. Did you not sense what she was?”
Frowning, conscious of how my shoulders were beginning to tremble with the effort of supporting Christopher and yet unable to find the energy to get us moving, I admitted, “I caught something, but I barely touched the kid.”
I was almost afraid to ask for more. And oddly enough, the Seelie woman blew out a long breath, making her seem almost as nervous about imparting the information as I was about requesting it. “I suppose you would not have had reason to learn,” she murmured. Then she, too, caught herself and added, “Miss Thompson, that child was a dragon.”
* * *
He couldn’t remember how long Luciriel had imprisoned him; he’d lost track. Not that the flow of time ever meant much in the Unseelie Court. The eternal cycle of hours and days held true in Faerie just as it did in the mortal realm, but all it took to bend it was a little magic, properly applied. As the Queen of Air and Darkness, Luciriel had magic to spare.
Elessir was certain, though, that he hadn’t truly slept since before the Queen had confined him. Nor had he slept properly now, with shards of nightmare still periodically slicing across his mind. But this time he woke with a hazy, gritty feeling in his head that suggested he’d just gotten, at least in bits and pieces, something within shouting distance of rest.
Not enough—stars, he was still so exhausted that he could scarcely stand the thought of opening his eyes. The killing cold was beginning to fade from his flesh, but the memory of it still lodged behind his breastbone. He couldn’t even muster relief that it was gone; too much of him, deep in his blood and bones, was shrieking at its absence.
It felt as if he’d lost Melorite all over again.
Never had her, Elessir ruthlessly reminded himself. Not even in the long-ago days when they’d both been young and Melorite as close as she’d ever been to innocence. Memory whirled, without his conscious control, back to how it’d felt to have her arms twined around his neck, to the triumph of learning from her how to release the power of his singing. But those recollections only aggravated the echo of frost that still haunted his every nerve.
Need surged up through him, strong enough to blind him to all else. He writhed where he lay, conscious of little more than a tangle of blankets and sheets around his limbs and a pillow beneath his head. He couldn’t scream. Wouldn’t scream, not when to do so would be to accept that the workings of his Queen had reduced him to craving the instrument of his own doom. Elessir rolled, burying his face against the pillow’s softness. He’d muffle it at least, he thought, if he had to scream after all.
Only then did the scent of it reach him. He remembered Miss Thompson’s presence now, her voice grudging, yet comforting all the same, and in dazed shock he realized that the smell of her was all around him.
Elessir snapped his eyes open, half certain he had to be dreaming—but no. A simple mortal bedroom presented itself to his sight, smelling of changeling, lavender and roses, and the fainter traces of brownies and cat. While the blinds on the nearby window were drawn, faint slivers of sunlight peeked through their edges. More distinct to his senses than the light, magic suffused the air. It was homelier stuff than he was used to wielding; some was brownie work, but far more was unmistakably Warder.
He was in Seattle, in Miss Thompson’s house. In her bed.
That should have been a relief. But with the absence of cold still gnawing hungrily at his bones, all he could think was to wonder why Melorite was gone, what Miss Thompson and her Warder allies must have done. Surely they wouldn’t have known how to kill an alokhiu. For that matter, he was stunned that they had not in fact killed him.
Elessir fought to focus and marshal enough strength to get to his feet. Somewhere beyond the bedroom’s walls distant voices were arguing, which told him the mortals were alive and near and not in danger, not yet.
But if Melorite had gotten free of him, they soon would be.
* * *
“Hellfire and damnation! Are you children trying to give me heart failure?”
Millicent’s rifle wasn’t her only weapon—her temper had been forged in Texas, and when it ran high, her vocabulary became a furious hail of verbal bul
lets. When Christopher and I staggered in through my front door half an hour later, she launched into us with all the fury of a miniature hurricane. There was little either of us could do but let her vent. Behind us, edging into the house as if not at all sure of her welcome (quite correctly, since I’d only grudgingly invited her in), Melisanda took refuge in a wise and diplomatic silence.
“What the hop-skittering hell were you two thinking? Were you thinking at all? Did you even remember that fancy cell phone you’ve been carrying around for the express purpose of letting me know when something happens, or were you just trusting I’d figure it out from here? Jesus Jehoshaphat Christ! Three nogitsune! Three goddamned nogitsune and a dragon child running loose in my city and I’m the last goddamned person to hear about—”
“That isn’t everything,” I squeaked, still wincing at her volume, and then again as she stomped to a halt before me and fixed me with a gimlet stare. Christopher had taken one end of the couch, while a tense-eyed Jake, wielding antibiotic and a bandage, worked on his arm. He and Carson had come home from their tech jobs to help, and both of them were wisely keeping their mouths shut. I had the couch’s other end and was about ready to join my cat in hiding underneath it if that was what it took to avoid Millicent’s wrath too.
“Exactly what else have you not told me, girlie?”
I swallowed. “Christopher crossed into Lake Forest Park.”
Whatever Millie might have been expecting me to say, this clearly wasn’t it. She started. She blinked. Then she squinted hard, first at me, then at Christopher, and back to me again, before proclaiming at last, “Either I’m going deaf as well as nearsighted, or I just heard you say the boy set foot in Lake Forest Park.”
“She did,” Christopher said. “I did.”
Silence spread across the room, from the Seelie warrior by my front door to the stunned figure of Carson, who was taking a turn at standing watch at the end of the hall—and on the bedroom beyond. Even Fortissimo seemed surprised, for he poked his head out from under the couch and regarded us all with astonished tawny eyes.
“Don’t pull an old lady’s leg, son,” Millie barked. “It ain’t funny.” At that, she paused. Nobody needed to point out that Christopher wasn’t laughing. If anything, he looked tired, stressed, and in pain, the same as I felt. Concern flared in her dark eyes, and with it, speculation. She stomped over to the younger Warder, scowling, only slightly less vehemently than before. One hand shot out to Christopher’s shoulder. At the contact, I felt her magic flare. “You don’t feel any different. How far did you get?”
“How much does it matter, Millie?” Jake asked. Now that he’d finished with Christopher he moved over to me. Without protest I let him inspect the various scratches and contusions I’d sustained in the fight, and though his customary efficiency never faltered, unmistakable strain almost palpably vibrated along his frame. Nor was it difficult to guess why. He’d started frowning the minute we walked bleeding in through the door, but a thundercloud had fallen across his features when I’d mentioned the nogitsune and the child they’d been chasing.
Me, I still had my eye on Melisanda.
Nor had her presence been forgotten by anyone else. The Seelie might as well have been a sculpture of sunlit marble for all the reaction she showed us. But all my nerves still prickled at the sight of her, and everyone else in the room avoided meeting her gaze so studiously that it was clear I wasn’t the only one discomfited. Only Millicent, still caught up in her bluster, was willing to whirl and face the warrior female directly. “Before I answer him,” she demanded while tossing a nod towards Jake, “are you going to be a problem? Or am I going to have to kick you out of my city all over again?”
Color bloomed high on Melisanda’s cheeks, yet she gave the Warder woman a small bow and shook her head. “I’m charged to make amends to Miss Thompson,” she said, “and I’ll uphold the Pact. As I offered to Miss Thompson, so I shall offer to you: my sword is yours.”
“Humph,” said Millie. She cast a narrow-eyed look up and down the Sidhe, and then pivoted back to Christopher. As she did, some small fraction of the tension in the room subsided. As approval went, it wasn’t much. By Millicent Merriweather’s standards, though, it was tantamount to a motherly embrace. “Good, ’cause I ain’t got time to deal with you on top of nogitsune, a dragon hatchling, my Warder Second going all haywire on me, and God only knows what that came out of the bard.”
At that exact instant, Carson moved. “Kendis,” he called out sharply, for I was nearest to him—and to the figure that came shuffling, on bare feet and wrapped in the incongruous protection of my fire-colored quilt, out of my bedroom.
Elessir.
“I trust,” he said in a ghost of his former drawl, “that if I’m one of the topics under discussion, you won’t object if I join your council of war?”
Right then and there you could have called us all shell-shocked, but you’d have been putting it mildly. Frankly, I’d almost managed to forget about my unwelcome houseguest in the wake of the fight Christopher and I had just been in, and in Millicent’s reaction to the news that the northernmost Wards on Seattle were apparently a little more fluid for Christopher than they should have been. From the looks on the faces of everyone except Millicent, Elessir had apparently slipped all their minds as well.
Christopher’s face went as cold as it ever got, with a darkening of his eyes and a tight set to his mouth. Jake shot the Unseelie a look that strongly suggested that if he were in his myobu form, he’d be showing fang. Carson threw a brawny arm right across Elessir’s path, while Melisanda jolted, gritted her teeth, and went for the hilt of her sheathed sword. Millie froze where she stood, stock-still, and I was pretty damned sure the only reason she hadn’t pulled her shotgun was the simple fact she wasn’t armed.
The tension that had vanished from the room ratcheted right back up again, this time with an even more hostile bite to it than Melisanda had provoked—for this time, the Seelie was not only part of the reaction, she was its furious heart. She surged forward from her place by the front door, past both of the Warders and Jake, and only my outthrust hand kept her from going for Elessir’s naked throat. “I pledged to obey my Queen,” she snarled, “and make amends for my trespasses. But that does not include consorting with this treacherous worm!”
Something close to Elessir’s devilish grin slid across his mouth, but there was no mirth in it, and it didn’t reach his eyes. “Ah’m jes’ thrilled to death to see you again too, darlin’,” he rasped. After many hours of sleep he was no longer the deathly white shade he’d been before, but this wasn’t saying much. His voice was weak, and he was still haggard, disheveled, and looking far too pitiful for my comfort.
Which, no doubt, was why I clocked him across the jaw.
Millicent guffawed and one of the boys whooped with startled satisfaction, though I didn’t pay enough attention to notice who. I was too busy whirling to Melisanda, catching her mid-lunge before she could finish what I’d started and tackle Elessir to the floor.
“Don’t even think it!” I shouted. “Both of you tried to kill me, so there’s not much difference between the Unseelie and the Seelie as far as I’m concerned. Right now the number of damns I give about whatever history you’ve got is less than zero. You”—and I jabbed a finger at the Seelie—“are here only because I’m big enough to take an apology, and if you pull a weapon under my roof again without me or Millicent or Christopher telling you, you are gone. You—”
With that, I turned back to Elessir. Carson had caught him before he could fall over. He shrugged off my housemate’s hands and straightened before me, his stance stiff with pain, but proud. “Why am I here, Miss Thompson?”
Damned good question, wasn’t it?
I eyed him, suspicious, unnerved and unutterably tired, and finally sighed. “You’re here because you helped Christopher and me, and because you’re in trouble. Happy?”
Surely he must have noted the temper in my voice; he was too percep
tive not to. He gave no sign of it, though, and instead just stared back at me, his brows drawing in low over eyes gone nearly as dark as his hair. “Depleted,” he countered. Elessir hesitated, something I had never seen him do. His jaw worked a moment, and then he added with gruff reluctance, “And grateful for your care. I will give you no trouble.”
This, I thought, was the worst kind of dirty pool. What was I supposed to do with an Unseelie who could barely stand, much less snark at me, ensnare me with his music or power, or do anything else to put me and mine in peril? I could think of only one thing: feed him, along with the others all gathered in my house. Not to mention myself. I desperately needed fuel, and gathering lunch makings for all of us would give me something to do with my hands as well as my overloaded brain.
“Good,” I said. There wasn’t much grace in it, but when it came to Elessir a’Natharion, that was progress. “Go sit down somewhere else, then, you’re pretty much transparent.” I slid a look over to Melisanda to include her, and from her I glanced out to the whole room. “All of you. Please. Just… get out of my hair for a little bit. I need to make food. Christopher? Millie? We should talk.”
On top of everything else, every nerve in my body screamed at the presence of the two Sidhe. Never mind that they’d both been in on my uncle Malandor’s plot against me; never mind all the baggage that apparently came with being in either the Seelie or Unseelie Courts, all the politics and history and grudges I was barely beginning to grasp. Never mind even the uncomfortable memory of my uncle, Elessir, and especially Queen Luciriel all being able to liquefy my will just by exerting a little magic, a trick against which I still wasn’t sure I could properly defend. No, this was purely physical. Without looking at either of them, I was acutely aware of their proximity. I could smell them, and that was all it took.
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