Loose Changeling: A Changeling Wars Novel

by A. G. Stewart

  I heard the brush of cloth against cloth as Kailen scooted over. He put a hand on my shoulder and I smelled honeysuckle again. Whatever magic he did, I didn't feel it. “Fatigue,” he said. “It happens to the Sidhe sometimes. Push yourself too far, and you're left drained.”

  “Can you heal it?” I asked.

  “No. It's like a hangover,” he said. “Just takes time.”

  “How long?”

  “Don't know. Depends on the Sidhe. Some recover in a day. Some push themselves so hard that they don't recover for a hundred years after.”

  I shrugged off his hand and leaned back into the couch. “Do you have to be like that? Can't you just tell me it's going to be okay? I don't have a hundred years.” Another emotion joined the fear. Panic.

  “Would it help if I said something else?” Owen asked, gray eyes troubled. “What if I talked about how you cared more about your work than our relationship?”

  “No,” I waved a dismissive hand. I sprang to my feet, suddenly afraid to be caught sitting, vulnerable. How long before the Guardians found Kailen's hiding spot? “I need to go. I need to get out of here.”

  “Nicole,” Kailen said, “you'll probably recover the use of your magic in a day or two. Best lay low.”

  Recover it for what? So I could face one of the Guardians and die? I headed back toward the bedroom, where my clothes lay in a heap next to Kailen's bed. “To hell with the Arena. I'm running.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I pulled on my clothes, my heart pounding, my mouth dry. I checked the clock—10:15 a.m. I hadn't bothered to call in sick to work. I guessed it didn't matter, since I couldn't stay in one place for too long. I'd have to quit.

  Owen and Kailen had dressed by the time I made it back into the living room. Kailen had a bag over his shoulder. Both stood, waiting for me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Owen stepped forward. “I'm coming with you.”

  “You're...what?”

  “I don't have a job; I've got nothing tying me down. And like I said, I care about you.”

  I leaned to the side to look at Kailen.

  “I'm coming too,” he said. “I told Maera and Faolan I'd protect you. I intend to keep my word.”

  No, no, no, no. I'd almost rather face my death in the Arena than travel with my estranged husband and the guy I had the hots for. “I'd rather be alone,” I said. I needed to clear my head, figure things out. “Can I use your phone? I need to call Lainey.” I'd lost my phone somewhere between the grushound and the stop at my parents' place. If I called my mom to tell her I'd decided to run, she'd just break down in tears, and if I called Dad, he'd just put Mom on the phone. Better go to Lainey and let her deal with Mom.

  Kailen nodded, pulled a phone out of his pocket, and tossed it to me. I caught it and headed toward the balcony. “Thanks.”

  The air outside was chilly and crisp. I hugged one of my arms around myself and dialed Lainey's number. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Hello?”

  As soon as I heard her voice, I knew something was wrong. It sounded choked, like she'd been crying. And Lainey never picked up on the first ring. “Lainey? Are you okay?”

  She broke down into sobs. “It's Tristan. I had him in the garden with me this morning. I wasn't watching him. The next thing I knew, he was gone. He's gone, Nicole.”

  My blood froze. Tristan, my two-year-old nephew. “Where are you?”

  “Walking up and down my street, asking if anyone's seen him. The police are already looking for him. But if no one took him, he couldn't have gone far. We have a six-foot fence. The gate was latched. I checked. I don't understand.”

  All thoughts of fleeing left my mind. “Stay there. I'm coming over. Did you call Mom and Dad yet?”

  “I did. They're out looking for him too. I tried your number, but you never picked up.”

  “I'll be there in fifteen.”

  “Thanks,” Lainey said. She hung up.

  I rushed back into the living room and tossed the phone to Kailen. “We have to go,” I said. “Now. My nephew disappeared this morning.”

  “Kidnapped?” Owen said, his face pale.

  “I think this has something to do with the Sidhe,” I said. As soon as the words left my mouth, something flared to life in my chest. How dare they go after my nephew? He was only a child and had nothing to do with the Fae.

  “If we leave the condo, we leave the protections placed upon it,” Kailen said, his hand still upraised, cradling the phone.

  “To hell with protections,” I snarled. My magic stirred hot within me. I strode to the table and picked up the coaster. In my next breath, it had expanded into a shield, a white griffon painted on its surface. “I'm ready. We go now.”

  IT TOOK ONLY FIFTEEN MINUTES, on the dot, to get to Lainey's place. I'd transformed the shield back into a coaster, the bent sword back into a twig. Both sat heavy in my pocket. Lainey and Mark's house lay southwest of downtown, twenty minutes down the I-5. The house was small but on a large piece of land. Kailen parked in the street. His car had taken a beating over the past day. Claw marks marred both the trunk and the passenger door.

  Lainey sat on the concrete front step, her knees to her chest, arms around her knees. Her blond hair hung limp around her face, her rosy cheeks blotched with red. I went to her first, knelt on the step, and held her. She was my baby sister, and she was hurting. “This is my fault. We'll find him, Lainey. I know we will.”

  “If anyone hurts him, I'll kill them,” she said, her voice muffled by her jeans. “I swear I will.”

  I rubbed her back and brushed the hair back from her face. “I'm going to take a look at the backyard, okay? Where's Mark?”

  Lainey sniffed. “He's with the baby, inside. Go on through. It’s unlocked.”

  I got to my feet and went inside, Kailen and Owen on my heels. I found Mark in a chair by the back door, holding my six-month-old niece, Justine. He looked lost, dark eyes staring forward, lips pursed beneath his trim brown beard. Justine turned in his arms to look at us, one hand grasping at his T-shirt.

  “Hey, Mark,” I said. “We’re going to check out the backyard, okay? See if we can find anything.”

  He stared at us, as if seeing us for the first time. “There’s nothing to see. He just disappeared.”

  “Do you want me to watch Justine for a bit?” Owen asked. “You can check the neighborhood with Lainey again.”

  Mark blinked. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great.” He rose and handed Justine to Owen.

  “Hey, little one,” Owen said. “It’s Uncle Owen. Remember me?”

  Justine smiled and drooled a bit onto his shirt.

  “Come on,” I said to Kailen. I opened the sliding glass door and stepped into the backyard. Mark was an engineer and made more than enough to support the family, so Lainey had quit her job soon after Tristan was born. She’d turned all her spare energy into the backyard garden. Vegetable beds lined in wood that came up to my knees covered a full third of the lawn. They were half-empty now, a few holdovers from fall peeking out the tops. Toys, in wood and plastic, lay scattered amongst the yellowing grass. A neat hedge ran along the perimeter of the yard, next to the fence, reaching six feet in height by the gate. A doorway had been trimmed into the foliage.

  There were no holes dug beneath the fence. The gate was still latched, the latch level with my eyes—far too high for a toddler to reach. As both Lainey and Mark had remarked, there was simply nowhere for Tristan to have gone. He’d disappeared.

  “Something doesn’t feel right,” Kailen said. He sniffed the air. “You feel it?”

  He was right. Beneath the green of the garden and the brown smell of moist dirt, I smelled sandalwood and something else. I sniffed the air again. The Void. It didn’t have a definable smell, but I inhaled, and my breath brought with it the memories of the place between the mortal world and the Fae world. “Yes,” I said.

  I moved through the yard, following the scent and the memories.
I stopped near the gate. Kailen tried to slip past me, but I grabbed his wrist. My fingers connected with the cool metal of his watch.

  I felt as if I were falling through the Void all over again, my vision black, my legs and arms numb. In the next moment, my vision returned. I gasped for breath. Kailen had his hands on either side of my face. “Nicole?” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “You stopped moving and breathing for a second.”

  I shivered. Maybe I was just tired. “Your watch, where’d you get it from?”

  He let me go and drifted a step to the side. “A family member. Crafting is one of her Talents. She gave it to me just before I left the Fae world for the last time.”

  Again I had the impression that he didn’t tell me everything. Which family member?

  I frowned and turned my attention back to the hedge. I’d find my nephew first, and question Kailen more later. “It’s here,” I said. I waved my arm at the space where the doorway had been trimmed into the hedge. “There’s a doorway here. It’s closed now, but it was open before. Tristan must have fallen through.”

  I looked to Kailen and found him clutching his watch, his eyes wide. “Open it,” he whispered to me. “Open the doorway.”

  I reached forward and did as I’d done during the fight with Dorian. It felt like tearing through a veil with clawed hands. The air in front of us wavered.

  “Sun and stars,” Kailen said. “It’s her realm. Close it, quick!”

  “Whose realm?”

  “Grian’s.”

  I’d never claimed to be even-tempered. I clenched my fists, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. “She has my nephew.”

  “I don’t doubt that she does,” Kailen said. “But this isn’t the time to be rash. She’s one of the most powerful Sidhe in the world.”

  His words barely registered. I drew the stick and the coaster from my pocket. Before Kailen could stop me, I walked into the doorway.

  My passage into the Fae world went more quickly this time. I barely paid the Void any attention, my mind focused on getting Tristan back. I ended my stride in a summer meadow, green grass and yellow flowers beneath my feet.

  So this was Grian’s realm. The meadow stretched across the land in a gentle slope. A slight breeze ruffled my hair; the sun shone on my face. Mountains lay ahead of me, black stone and snow-covered peaks. At their base, carved into the rock, was a palace. I didn’t see anyone guarding the doors at this distance. The towers rose above the walls, mirroring the peaks.

  I transformed both the stick and the coaster into a sword and shield. This was me, salesperson extraordinaire, storming the empty field of a Fae Queen's realm with medieval weapons. Though Kailen had sounded urgent when he’d asked me to close the doorway, I didn’t see a sign of anyone else around—only the flowers, the wind, and the smell of green grass. But Kailen knew much more about the Fae world than I did. Better to be prepared than to be caught unarmed.

  The grass brushed beneath my feet as I advanced toward the mountains. I passed into a ring of yellow flowers. As soon as I took a second step into it, the ground burst into life.

  “Mortals used to know about fairy rings,” shrilled out a high voice. The grass parted, but so quickly I couldn't catch what had caused the disturbance.

  “This isn't a mortal,” said another voice.

  “She smells mortal. Grian said we could do whatever we wanted with mortals.”

  “She didn't let us do what we wanted with the boy.”

  I grasped onto this. “The boy!” I said to the ground. “Tell me where he is.”

  From my left, “It makes demands.”

  “As though it has any power over our realm, over our circle.” This voice, from my right.

  “We should make it amuse us. Life is boring without mortals.” The voice came from between my feet. I took a step backward and ran into a wall.

  “Can't run, mortal. You stepped into our ring.”

  “Perhaps we should make it dance?”

  My feet twitched of their own volition. One kicked out, and then I dropped both sword and shield. My hands stretched out. I danced, my arms and legs no longer at my command. When I looked down again, I caught a glimpse of small green bodies, the size of robins, with wide faces and tangled hair. My feet twitched in some approximation of an Irish jig. Indignation curled in my chest. Smelled mortal, did I? For the first time, I felt a touch of pride at my unusual heritage. “I'm not mortal,” I called out to the fairies beneath me.

  “It says it's not mortal.”

  “What else would it be, popping through a doorway into Grian's realm?”

  “The Sidhe know better than to arrive without knocking.”

  “If it is not mortal, why does the fairy ring hold sway over her limbs?”

  “Perhaps it is something else.”

  My legs and arms began to burn, and still they danced. I had to put a stop to this. Kailen had told me the greater Sidhe were powerful. Why was I allowing these little creatures to make me do as they wished?

  It was as though someone had hacked the pathways between my brain and my extremities. I closed my eyes and tried to pinpoint the loss of control. My neck I could still move of my own accord. I clenched my stomach muscles—those, too, were still mine. But once I hit my shoulders and my thighs, the control was gone. Four of these little Fae were controlling me. One for each limb. No wonder they got such amusement from it; it was like playing in a band, with the separate parts combining for a more complicated output.

  My will against theirs. I wouldn't be able to cut the control of all four of them at once, but if I focused on one and broke their circle, I might lessen their power. I took in a breath, trying to ignore the growing fatigue, and turned all my attention to my left leg. There was a barrier there—light, like cobwebs, but far less yielding.

  Emotion. This was the driving force for the magic. I gathered my anger, my indignation, and shoved it against the barrier.

  It broke and I stumbled. Before any of the lesser Fae could react, I kicked my left foot out and crushed one of the flowers forming the circle. All control of my body returned to me. I staggered to the side, resting my hands on my knees.

  “It is Fae,” said a tiny voice.

  “Not mortal, just smells like it.”

  “Changeling,” whispered one.

  The others took up the cry, and “Changeling” brushed past my ears like a breeze through a forest. I stood up straight. Fifteen of the little fairies stood at the outskirts of the ring of flowers. No wonder I'd barely seen them. Their bodies were light green, with dark green stripes, like a tiger. If I hadn't been looking for them, they would have faded into the surrounding grass, invisible. Though they were humanoid in shape, none of them wore any clothes. They didn’t look frightened or angry. “I’m here to take back what’s mine,” I said to them. “The Queen took something that does not belong to her.”

  “It speaks against Grian.”

  “And in her own realm.”

  “It should be careful not to blunder into things it does not understand.”

  “And it understands so little.”

  And with that, they disappeared into the grass. I rested for a moment longer before picking my sword and shield back up. I checked the doorway. Still there—a shimmer in the air. Kailen hadn’t come through to help me. I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or disappointed.

  I continued on toward the palace, careful to avoid any circles of yellow flowers. My palm was slick with sweat, the hilt of the sword slipping as I tightened my hand around it. What had they meant, about blundering into things I didn’t understand? Clearly, I’d made a mistake with the fairy circle. What else lay between me and Tristan?

  The palace grew closer, the land surrounding me empty. Was this the way the Fae realm always looked—devoid of life until you stepped into the wrong place? Two black doors stood at the front of the palace, carved in swirling patterns of the same black stone as the rest of the palace. They stood twice as tall as the
door in my house and twice as wide. I could see no one in the windows. When I reached the doors, I tucked the sword beneath my arm and lifted a hand to knock, a lifetime of habit shining through.

  No. Despite what the fairies had said, I wanted to take Grian unawares. Since no knob or handle appeared in the surface, I leaned my shoulder into one of the doors. To my surprise, it creaked open.

  The entrance hall of the palace was lined with crystal chandeliers that seemed to glow of their own accord. A rich blue rug lay on the floor, stopping just short of the walls. Black pillars lined the walls. I held my sword in front of me and shifted the shield on my arm. Still not a soul in sight. A set of broad steps ascended to a place unseen in front of me. I went for them, my footsteps echoing off the stone as I climbed.

  When I reached the top of the steps—three flights, at least, at least—I saw Grian. She sat in a great black throne, lit from all sides by the glowing crystal chandeliers. Her skin was pale and smooth, like newly unwrapped soap; hair the color of corn silk pillowed at her shoulders. She wore a dress of dark blue, the same color as the rug on the first floor.

  At her feet, playing with a golden ball, was Tristan.

  “To catch a wild beast, one must choose the correct item to bait the trap with,” the Queen said. She regarded me with frigid blue eyes, a smile curving her rose-colored lips.

  “My nephew,” I growled, “is not bait.”

  “On the contrary,” Grian said, “bait is anything that gets the job done. I notice you do not disagree with the comparison of you to a wild beast.”

  “Give him back.” I lifted both sword and shield.

  “No. He fell through a doorway, has eaten of my food, and drunk of my water. According to the old laws, he now belongs to me. There is always an exchange with Changelings. A mortal for one of the Fae. The Aranhods neglected this bit, so I have rectified things.”

  Bitch. My sister was at home, crying her heart out. Tristan belonged with his family. He wasn’t anyone’s property. “What do you want? My death? That won’t close the doorways.”