by Jenna Black
“This must be your daughter, the Faeriewalker,” Prince Henry said.
Dad put his arm around my shoulders, which was a positively effusive gesture for him. “Yes, this is Dana,” he said, a hint of warning in his tone.
“What a great pleasure it is to make your acquaintance,” Prince Henry said, reaching out his hand as if to shake.
I didn’t want to touch him—he was giving me that bad a vibe—but there were about a million people watching us, and I didn’t want to be openly rude. Unfortunately, instead of shaking my hand like I’d thought, he raised my hand to his lips and planted a kiss on my knuckles. His lips were uncomfortably wet, and I had to resist an urge to yank my hand from his grip and wipe it on my dress.
He held on to my hand longer than necessary, looking at me expectantly. I suppose he was waiting for a polite response of some sort, but he’d creeped me out so badly that my throat had closed up and I couldn’t say a word.
There was a flare of satisfaction in the prince’s eyes when he finally let go of my hand, and I cursed myself for being such a wimp. There’d been a battle of wills going on, and I’d lost. I turned my hand slightly as I brought it back to my side, letting the back of it where he’d kissed me rub against my dress. I was trying to be subtle about it, but I can’t say I was overly upset when the slight narrowing of the prince’s eyes told me he’d seen it.
“There are many people more important than us eager to greet you,” my father said, his arm tightening around my shoulders. “Please, don’t let us monopolize your attention.”
What I heard—and, judging by his expression, what Henry heard—was “get out of my face.” For a moment, I thought the prince was going to lose his cool and say something openly rude, but he recovered.
“I have one more item of business to discuss with you,” he said through what I suspected were gritted teeth. He held his hand out to one of the Knights, who gave him something that looked very much like a scroll. “My mother, the Queen, is very anxious to meet this long-lost daughter of yours.” He handed the scroll to my father. “She invites you to bring your daughter to the Sunne Palace to be formally presented at Court.”
I felt my father’s jerk of surprise through his arm, and it was all I could do not to gape in shock myself.
“Is this a joke?” I found myself asking. “She wants to—” My dad’s hand tightened painfully on my shoulder, and I swallowed the rest of my sentence. I’d already said enough to win me some sharp looks of disapproval from our audience. But really, how else was I supposed to react to an invitation like that? The Seelie Queen wants to kill me, so I should leave the relative safety of Avalon and travel to her palace in Faerie to meet her in person? Either Titania was nuts, or she thought I was.
Prince Henry was staring at me again, his shoulders stiff and an expression almost like a snarl on his lips. “Rarely is an individual with mortal blood so graced by Her Majesty. She does you an unprecedented honor.” One Henry didn’t think I deserved, if the look on his face was any indicator. “You would do well to remember that and be appropriately grateful.”
Wow, my outburst must have seriously rubbed him the wrong way. I felt like I’d just been called to the front of the class and yelled at by the teacher while everyone watched. My face was hot, and I tried to keep my gaze focused on the prince so I didn’t have to see how many people were watching. I bet my dad was wishing he’d let me stay home after all.
Prince Henry turned to my dad. “It is past time you bring your daughter to receive the Queen’s blessing. One would not want to foster the impression that there is bad blood between your family and the Queen after your sister’s unfortunate actions.”
He was referring to my Aunt Grace, who’d concocted some crazy plan to use my powers to help her usurp the Seelie throne, but I didn’t see what that had to do with anything. Grace was dead, and it wasn’t like my dad and I had conspired with her.
My dad bowed his head respectfully. If he was pissed off by my outburst or Henry’s public reprimand, he hid it well. “We are, of course, greatly honored by the invitation. However, Queen Mab has shown rather less hospitality, and I fear it would not be safe for my daughter to travel into Faerie.”
I bit my tongue, hoping I didn’t look as indignant as I felt. I knew Mab wanted me dead, but I thought Titania’s murderous intent was more relevant at this point.
Prince Henry made a face that I think was supposed to express polite concern. “Of course, Her Majesty would never dream of endangering the dear child.” He smiled, raising his voice a little so that all the observers could hear his every word. “You will travel to the Sunne Palace with me as my honored guests. Rest assured that none of Mab’s people would dare to trouble my entourage. You will be quite safe. We leave in three days. Now, if you will excuse me…”
He didn’t wait for an answer, simply turned his back to us and approached one of the high-society types who’d been listening in. The prince’s Knights then stepped between us and the prince, just in case we didn’t get the hint that we were dismissed.
Chapter Two
It would have been nice if Dad and I could have slipped away from the dinner party now that Prince Henry had completely ruined it for both of us. Unfortunately, my dad wasn’t going to let a little thing like a summons from the Seelie Queen interfere with his political campaign, and he carried on as if nothing had happened. Me, I just fumed. Making polite conversation with self-important assholes was even harder now, and I didn’t exactly make a whole lot of friends. I kept expecting Dad to give me hell about it, but he seemed to understand.
The worst part was we couldn’t talk about what we were going to do until we were out of the public eye. I was under no illusion that saying no to the Queen’s invitation was going to be easy, and I wouldn’t have been particularly surprised if Prince Henry planned to kidnap me if I didn’t go voluntarily. He wouldn’t be the first who’d tried.
The state dinner itself was torture, as expected. I’m sure the food was fantastic, but I was too anxious to have much of an appetite. And the speeches! Honestly, I don’t know how anyone managed to stay awake.
It was after midnight when we finally got away. Even then, we didn’t talk much. At first, it was because there were too many people around. Avalon didn’t have much of a night life, but some parts of the city were more lively than others, and the Consul’s mansion was in one of the hot spots.
Because I had such powerful enemies, I didn’t live in the city proper with my dad. Instead, I lived in a safe house, hidden deep inside the mountain on which Avalon is built. There’s an extensive tunnel system under the city, some of it populated and some of it not. My safe house was in a very definitely unpopulated section, although my dad had somehow arranged for me to have all the modern conveniences like electricity and water and Internet.
I had a kind of love/hate relationship with that safe house. On the one hand, I did feel pretty safe there, which was nice when people were constantly trying to kill me. On the other hand, I felt horribly isolated and longed for a normal house, one with windows I could look out of, or with a convenient little grocery store right around the corner.
It didn’t matter where in Avalon we were—getting to my safe house was always a hike. Tiresome at the best of times, but much worse when my high heels were killing my feet and my dad was ignoring the conversational elephant in the room.
I waited a while to see if he was going to say anything, but as far as I could tell, he was lost in his own thoughts. When we made our way into the unpopulated section of the tunnel system, and my dad switched on the flashlight he carried, I slipped off my shoes with a sigh of relief. The floor of the tunnel was cold and dusty, but I didn’t care as long as I didn’t have to wear the heels anymore.
“Okay, Dad,” I said, “it’s time you clue me in on what we’re going to do about this invitation.”
Dad shook his head, the corners of his mouth tight with displeasure. “There isn’t much we can do about it. As I’m sure
you figured out, it wasn’t so much an invitation as a summons.”
“So? I’m not a member of the Seelie Court.” Despite everyone’s assumption that because my dad was Seelie, I was Seelie. “And you’re a citizen of Avalon,” I reminded him, though I didn’t expect it to do much good. My dad was Seelie to the bone, and no amount of time living in Avalon was going to change that.
“You wouldn’t be in danger,” Dad said, ignoring my argument completely. “If you’re appearing in Court in answer to the Queen’s summons, you’d be protected by the laws of courtesy. It wouldn’t matter if you were her worst enemy—she’d make sure you were safe until you returned to Avalon.”
“Hold on,” I said, stopping in my tracks, because I really didn’t like the sound of that. “You’re not seriously considering going, are you?”
Dad looked at me grimly. “We’re going,” he told me, making no attempt to sugarcoat the truth that I had no say in the matter. “If Titania has chosen to honor you with a presentation at Court, you have to go.”
“But she wants to kill me!” She’d let me know that when she’d sent a couple of her Knights into Avalon to jump me, only it hadn’t been me who ended up getting hurt. To get her message across, the Knights had beaten my bodyguard, Finn, to within an inch of his life, and he hadn’t defended himself because they’d threatened to kill me if he did. They’d then pinned him to the floor by driving a knife through his shoulder and warned that I would be next if I didn’t get out of Avalon and stay out. The knife had had a white rose—the symbol of the Seelie Court—inlaid on its handle.
“I’m no longer so sure about that,” Dad said.
I shook my head. “Those Knights left that dagger behind for a reason,” I argued. “I think the message was loud and clear.”
“Yes, but there’s no guarantee they were sent by Titania. Certainly they meant to imply it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s true.”
None of this was making a whole lot of sense to me. “Let me get this straight: just a few hours ago, you were completely convinced Titania wanted me dead, and now a few words from Prince Henry has you convinced it was all a big misunderstanding?”
“Convinced? No. But I’m willing to entertain the possibility. And even if she was behind it, this summons suggests she’s changed her mind.”
“And you’re willing to risk my life based on what could be wishful thinking.” My dad was so overprotective I lived underground and had a bodyguard. It made no sense that he’d suddenly be okay with the idea of me waltzing into Faerie.
Dad put his hands on my shoulders, focusing his intense blue gaze on me. “I’m afraid you don’t understand, Dana. We don’t have a choice. Henry insinuated that we might have been involved in Grace’s plot and that he has orders to arrest us if we decline the invitation.”
I blinked in surprise. “Where was I when this happened?” I asked, although I’d been at Dad’s side all night.
“‘One would not want to foster the impression that there is bad blood between your family and the Queen after your sister’s unfortunate actions,’” Dad quoted in a fair imitation of Henry’s pompous tone.
I shook my head. “And that meant he was threatening to arrest us?”
“He went out of his way to bring it up, and he made sure to remind us she was a member of our family. It might not have been an overt threat, but he knew I’d understand exactly what he meant.”
Something told me that the Fae had no problem with “cruel and unusual” punishment, and that I didn’t want to find myself a prisoner in Faerie. “But he couldn’t really arrest us, could he? He doesn’t have any authority in Avalon.”
“Authority, no. But he has influence aplenty. If he requested extradition, I doubt the Council would find grounds to deny him.” He smiled gently at me. “It is not only the Fae who feel threatened by you.”
That was a reminder I could have done without.
“You see now why we have to accept,” my dad said. “Our choices are to go as honored guests or reviled prisoners. I prefer the former, don’t you?”
“I still think going is a bad idea,” I said, though with considerably less conviction than before.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” he said, then urged me to start walking again.
* * *
I barely slept that night, my mind spinning as I tried to figure out how to convince my dad to see things my way—without having us both dragged off to Faerie in chains. There was a part of me that wanted to go to Faerie, to see the world that no other human being could ever see. That part of me said that maybe my dad was right, and maybe a trip to the heart of the Seelie Court would be perfectly safe and lead to getting my enemies off my back. But living with my mom and her alcoholism had given me a heavy streak of realism—or pessimism, depending on your point of view—and I felt little hope that things would go that well.
I finally fell asleep at some ungodly hour and was awakened the next morning by the ringing of my phone. Barely conscious, I reached for the phone and hit a few buttons until I got the right one.
“Hello?” I said in my lovely, too-early-in-the-morning croak.
“I heard the news!” Kimber said in a voice that was just short of a squeal.
Kimber is my best friend, and really the closest friend I’ve ever had. When I was growing up, my mom kept us constantly moving, because she didn’t want my dad to find us. (Not that Dad could have come into the mortal world, but if he’d known I was out there, I don’t doubt he’d have sent humans to track me down.) Moving so often made it hard enough to make friends, but when you add in my mom’s alcoholism and my desperate need to keep it hidden, you have a dedicated loner on your hands. In a lot of ways, Kimber was the best thing that had happened to me since I’d come to Avalon. Ethan, her older brother and my sort-of boyfriend, might object to me saying that, but my relationship with him was a whole lot more complicated.
“Heard what news?” I yawned and wished I could get a coffee IV. A glance at the clock showed me it wasn’t all that early, but I’d been deeply asleep and my body wanted to get back to it.
“You’re going to be presented at Court!”
The memory woke me up in a hurry. Too bad I couldn’t have at least a few minutes of sleep-addled amnesia before I had to think about going to Faerie. “Why do you sound so excited about it?” I asked. She sounded like she was going to start jumping up and down and clapping with glee at any moment.
Kimber hesitated, like she wasn’t expecting my surly response. “Um, well, it’s a big honor. You get to go to Faerie and meet the Queen and you’ll be a guest in the palace.”
I guess it did sound rather exciting, if you left out the part about potentially getting killed in the process—or the part about being arrested on some trumped-up charge if you didn’t go. I didn’t suppose Kimber knew about that, and I didn’t see any reason to rain on her parade with the grim truth.
“But the best part,” Kimber continued enthusiastically, “is you get to wear a court dress!”
I stifled a groan. Kimber is an incredible girly-girl when it comes to clothes. She loves to dress up, and the fancier and frillier the outfit, the more she likes it. Me, I’m more a jeans-and-hoodie sort of girl.
“I don’t know what a court dress is,” I said, “but if you’re this excited about it, I bet I’m going to hate it.”
She sighed happily. “You’re going to be absolutely stunning! But if you’re leaving in two days, we need to get you in with the dressmaker, like, now.”
“Dressmaker?” That sounded worse than I’d imagined.
“Of course, silly. You don’t wear something off the rack to be presented at Court. As if you could even find a court dress off the rack. Has your dad set up an appointment yet?”
“How should I know? I didn’t even know I was going to need some fancy dress for this thing.” I instantly regretted being so snappish about it. “Sorry. I’m not exactly down with this whole plan, but I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
> “It’ll be all right,” Kimber assured me. “No one would dare attack you when you’re a guest of the Queen. They take matters of etiquette very seriously in Faerie. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Yeah, that’s what my dad said. I just have a bad feeling about the whole thing.”
“You always have a bad feeling about something, so you should be used to it by now.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.”
“Well, someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!”
I snorted. “No, someone hasn’t gotten out of bed at all yet. And some other people should know better than to call at oh-dark-thirty in the morning.”
Kimber laughed. “I don’t think ten o’clock counts as oh-dark-thirty. Besides, you have to get your butt in gear. You’ve got a lot to do before you leave. Now get out of bed and go see if your dad’s set up an appointment for you.”
“Let me guess, you want to come with me.”
“Well, you need someone with at least some fashion sense to help you out.”
“I think I’ve just been insulted,” I said, though her teasing had put a reluctant smile on my face. “I need some coffee in my system first.”
“Call me back when you know the when and where. This is going to be so much fun!”
I suspected that in this instance, Kimber’s idea of fun and mine weren’t going to be quite the same.
* * *
It wasn’t until I met Kimber outside the dressmaker’s shop—with Finn trailing in my wake, because I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without a bodyguard hanging over my shoulder—that I realized the potential problem. You see, there was this mark on the back of my shoulder … A stylized blue stag that looked like a tattoo, but wasn’t. It was the Erlking’s mark, and he tricked me into triggering a spell that put it on me. The mark allowed the Erlking to find me wherever I was—kind of like one of those microchips you put in your pet dog.