by AE McKenna
He pointed behind my shoulder. “That.”
Gripping my four-leaf clover, I turned around. A monstrous-sized eel looped itself around the sparkling road, diving in and out of the water. The road bucked and twisted with each loop. Its large fish head crested the waves, seaweed trailing from it like a mane of hair. It opened its mouth and the same whale call I’d heard earlier pierced my eardrums. I clamped my hands over my ears.
Mal took a few steps forward.
I yanked his hand. “Where are you going?”
“It’s calling me to it.” He shook his head and started for the pilings again. “We have to hurry. If we don’t get on these, the bucca-dhu will twist the road. At best, we’ll drown. We’re safer using the pilings.”
“But they’re feet apart! And slick. I won’t be able to keep my balance.”
“You will as smoke.” He met my stare, grim-faced. “Whatever happens, Lucy, get to land.”
“I can’t do this.” I broke out into a cold sweat. We were both going to die one way or another. “There has to be another way.”
The bucca-dhu contorted the road between its coils, like a boa constrictor squeezing its prey, and the solid path under my feet pitched me backward. Mal caught me in his arms, backtracking a few steps.
“Trust me, this is the only way,” he said. “You can do this.”
I clutched his arms. “It’s insane!”
The bucca-dhu moaned, the sound trembling in the pit of my stomach. Mal spun me around to face the pilings.
“I’ll be right behind you!” Then he pushed me.
I screamed, tripping over my feet, and began falling face-first into the water. I called my smoke and it wrapped me up in its not-quite-navy twists. The wind whistled as I surged forward and slipped on the post. With my heart lodging in my throat, I knew I couldn’t stand still, not if Mal was right behind me. Not if I wanted to stay on land.
On land. I laughed, the sound a little shrill and hysterical in my head, but I zipped forward.
The bucca-dhu dove beside me. Cresting the waves, then diving back in, snaking around a piling only too late, as I was already on the next. Each pause on the water-slick post was as long as a blink before I raced to the next. The sea monster wailed and roared, diving next to me like a friendly dolphin would on a whale-spotting cruise. Except my sea creature had teeth like daggers and it wanted to give me an unhealthy squeeze.
I hit something in my mad dash for shore and stumbled. The smoke broke away from me and I rolled along stone pavers. A moment later, tan and green smoke blew apart from my face and Mal crouched in front of me, water dripping down his high cheekbones, slinking around his delicious lips, and off his cleft chin.
I gaped at him. “We did it?”
“You’re so brave.” He helped me to my feet. “You were so fast!”
I turned around, searching the churning waters. The bucca-dhu wailed, sounding sorrowful, and part of me wanted to comfort it. Then it twisted around the road we just left, dove under, and broke the water beneath it. If we’d been on that, we would’ve died.
“That was insane.” I grabbed my sweatshirt, wringing the water from it. I shivered. At least that was the end of the water sports. “I need a shower, fluffy towels, and sweats.”
“I’ll get a nice hotel.” He smirked. “Though, without your mom here, I don’t know how we’ll afford it.”
“Psh. I’ve got her credit card. But seriously. I need dry clothes.”
“You look good.” His gaze roved over me, and I wasn’t cold any longer.
A stiff wind came off the channel, and my teeth chattered.
He cleared his throat and averted his face. “If you travel fast enough as smoke, you’ll dry up within five minutes.”
And to prove it, he set the pace for a six-minute 5K again. At least my clothes were drying.
My ears clogged as I pushed from the Lantern and into the Iron Realm… and immediately into a cake table. I tried to stop myself, I really did. But my shoes caught on tiles, my chucks squeaked in protest, and I face-planted into a three-tiered-almond wedding cake.
“Jaysus Chryst!” someone yelped. “Where the hell did you come from?”
“Oh my god!” I wiped Italian buttercream from my nostrils, swallowed the sour cherry filling, and bumped into a solid chest. “Oh my god.”
I’d wrecked someone’s wedding cake. Sure, the cake itself was over-baked, but it would’ve been nice. The filling made up for the dry crumb, but I ruined someone’s day.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry.” I picked up some cake off the table and tried to fill a Lucy-sized face hole. I didn’t have pizza prepped to make up for this; all I had was dough.
“Official business.” Mal sounded like a hard ass as he shoved a dish towel in my hands, gripped my arm, and pulled me away from the room. “Send our regrets to the couple.”
We ran down the halls. Laughter and music spilled from the two banquet rooms. We high-tailed it for the entrance lest someone see me covered in a somewhat decent cake. I mopped up my face with the towel. We spilled from the castle into amazing grounds that belonged in a botanical garden. Okay, it was a castle, but I’d never really seen one before.
“Taxi!” Mal sprinted toward a yellow car pulling away and caught it.
I trotted after him, the day catching up with me, and by the way the sky looked, I wouldn’t get any shut-eye soon. Was this what time-travelers felt like? I slid into the backseat with Mal just as he was giving the driver our destination.
Thirty minutes later, me half-dozing against his side, the car pulled to a stop.
“They closed, mate,” the cabbie said.
Mal passed money over. “It’s fine.” Then he shooed me out of the car.
The trailhead to the bridge was closed for restoration. There must’ve been a fire recently, as wood smoke lingered in the air. Mal walked us toward a trail leading to Devil’s Bridge along the three-tiered waterfall, blithely ignoring the signs that the trail had been destroyed.
As we carefully walked along a precarious, wood-burned path, Mal glanced at me over his shoulder. “You were amazing today. I mean, you’ve impressed me before plenty of times, but today was something else. I didn’t have to coax you into a lot of things.”
“I have to be flexible,” I muttered.
“Why?”
“Eh… Mom…” I sighed. “We ended our trip to Norway early because I picked the wrong bus, and we ended up way on the other side of the country from where we wanted to go.”
“So?”
“Neither of us can read Norwegian, and it was a big deal.”
“Ah.” He paused, waiting for me to come up beside him as we walked along a woodsy path filled with trees of bright reds, oranges, and yellows. “Why didn’t she double-check that? If you both don’t speak—”
“That’s what I asked!” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Anyway, we went to Australia, then I was mugged, and suddenly she’s showing up with that bracelet.”
“I remember her giving it to you.”
I glanced at him, noting the red slash across his cheeks. I wondered if he also remembered how flirty he’d been that night to cause him to blush so brightly now, but did it matter? Really? Not when I had a thief mom, and that was all he cared about.
“She promised she was done with that,” I whispered.
Mal placed a hand on my arm to stop me, facing me. “Luce, I’m sorry. I know this is a sensitive subject.”
“Why are you sorry?” I met the bridge of his nose instead of his gaze. “I got angry for no reason. I know what she’s like—what she expected from me. I shouldn’t get upset she found another way.”
“You have every right to be angry with her,” he said heatedly. “And I should know better than to be blunt.”
“I don’t want you walking on eggshells either, Mal. Mom is Mom. A charm-stealing djinni, and I need to accept that.”
He cupped my face, his thumb caressing my cheek. “You shouldn’t have to accept that, though
.”
“But I’m—”
“You’re nothing like your mother. You are your own person. You’re wonderful,” he murmured. “You’re just… wonderful. I’m sorry. I really am.”
I blinked at him, unsure of where this was going, but I placed my hands on his chest and shifted closer. “It’s… I’m not mad at you.”
“Good, ’cause I’d need a hint on how to make it up to you, Luce. I’d need… I don’t want us to be at odds.” His other arm looped around my waist. “I’ve missed you.”
I tilted my head back, searching his dark upturned eyes. “I missed you, too.”
He pulled me closer, his hand drifting from my cheek and sweeping to the back of my neck. My stomach growled. We laughed and stepped away, creating space between us.
“I’m hungry.” He slid me a provocative look. “You got anything tasty in that bottle of yours?”
“You bet your sweet ass I do. C’mon. There’s a little area right there. We can totally have a picnic.”
We headed for a tiny alcove and turned in to find a djinni standing over my dirt-covered mother, who clutched her leg.
The man summoned a gun and leveled it on us. “Stay back or I’ll blow gold into you so fast you won’t be able to summon your bottles.”
Chapter 9
Mal and I froze. I stared down the barrel of a gun, and not for the first time in my life. I swallowed heavily. I hated guns. Especially since I’d been shot. I tried to swallow again, but my mouth was too dry. Does he really have gold bullets? The gun had me entranced. Even while I stared at it, I swore the shadows in the small alcove darkened, seeping out into the dim sunlight. Faint citrus-scented magic clung to those shadows.
“Ray?” Mal gripped my arm.
The gun swerved from me to him. I closed my eyes briefly, relieved that it no longer pointed at me. The back of my tongue tasted bitter, though, because now he aimed the gun at Mal.
“Tanaka?” the djinni asked incredulously. The light in the alcove brightened some, but nowhere near as easy to see as before, and the citrus scent intensified.
Mal pulled me back as he stepped in front of me. The heady scent of sunshine and warm sand wafted from him. Why was he hiding me from Ray?
Mal lifted his hands to show they were empty. “I heard you went MIA while I was undercover.”
“I heard you became a master,” Ray shot back.
I bristled and peeked around Mal’s shoulder to get a look at the djinni. He had long, unkempt pale hair, and wore brown riding pants with a dark green vest. Then I squinted at Mom, who glared at us. Dirt and scrapes covered her face and hands, and she held one of her legs stiffly. But the relief I thought I’d feel that she was okay never came. Something was wrong. I glanced around, searching for Mags, but she wasn’t there. My stomach sank as I worried something awful had happened to her.
“Eh.” Mal shrugged. “Briefly. I wished freewill for the djinni.”
Ray wavered, the gun lowering some. “You did that?”
“Yeah, he’s a real prince,” Mom muttered.
“The CADD finally caught up to you.” Ray eyed Mom, his lips pursing, then returned his attention to Mal. “You must be here for Avalon.”
“In a sense,” Mal replied. “The director will be glad to know you weren’t abducted by the djinni mafia. That’s what we all thought.”
“The director.” Ray sneered and lifted the gun again. “I’m never going back to the bureau. Not after what they did.”
I gripped the back of Mal’s shirt, my heart slamming frantically against my ribcage. I needed to get to Mom; I needed this crazy djinni to leave.
“What did they do?” Mal asked.
“He bottled Hunter! I told you that’s what happened to agents who fucked up.” He leveled the gun on Mom, thumbing off the safety. “It’s all her fault.”
Mom sighed heavily, rested her head against the stone wall, and stared ahead. “I told you once, and I’ll tell you a thousand times more: Hunter wasn’t there when the accident happened.”
“Who’s Hunter?” I blurted.
Mal stiffened and Ray blinked at me like I’d just popped into the cave.
Then he glared at Mal. “Stop hiding people, Tanaka. Who else is here?”
Mal stepped aside but he kept his arm in front of me like a shield. “It’s just us.”
“Who are you?” Ray asked.
“I’m—”
“She’s a family friend.” Mom’s hands flexed around her calf. “One of Maggie’s garden club friends.” She finally met my gaze. “You were supposed to find Gunner, honeybee.”
I understood why she’d interrupted me. No one could know I was her daughter. I clenched my teeth. Trying not to refer to her as “Mom” was difficult. “Huh?” I tilted my head to the side, trying to remember who Gunner even was. His name sounded familiar. “What does it matter?”
“I told you it wasn’t safe at the house,” Mom snapped. “Who did I tell you to go to when it isn’t safe? Gunner. For the love of crystals, honeybee, couldn’t you have done something right?”
I recoiled as if she’d slapped me.
“That’s enough.” The muscle in Mal’s cheek flexed, and he glared darkly at Mom. “We’re here now, so you’ll just have to deal with it.”
Ray’s expression turned suspicious and he waved the gun between us. “I thought you two weren’t close.”
Mom’s brows slammed together as she examined her leg. “It’s a nickname everyone uses for her.”
“I definitely don’t call her that,” Mal muttered.
Mom mumbled something I couldn’t make out, but I knew it was mean. I crossed my arms and bit the inside of my cheek. I wouldn’t let her know how badly her words stung. I wouldn’t let any of them know. I gestured at Ray. “Who’s Hunter?”
He snapped his gaping mouth shut and thumbed the safety back on. “My wife.”
Mal cursed and I gasped.
“When did you get married?” Mal asked. “Why didn’t you inform anyone—”
“We’ve only been married a couple of years, and she was afraid if the bureau knew, they’d separate us.”
“Why did they bottle your wife?” I asked.
“Because she was the agent in charge of capturing Frankie and Penny Avalon alive.” His face turned red, a citrus scent seeped from him, and the light in the cave dimmed again. “But they ran, and Frankie was killed. And they punished my wife for it. I followed the trail of fae the director gave her bottle to, tracked down the last one who has possession of her, and offered my services as a dapifer. I’m this”—he pinched his fingers together—“close to getting her bottle back.”
“Oh my god.” I took an involuntary step forward. “I’m so sorry. It’s not fair they can do that.”
“The director is fae, Lucy,” Mom murmured. “He can do whatever the hell he wants.”
“What?” I looked between Mal and Mom.
Mal nodded.
“Why would the bureau have a fae as a director when their agents are all djinnis?”
“Because we djinni are the knights who protect them.” Ray laughed sourly. “Where the hell have you been living? Under a rock?”
“My parents were dicks and lied to me my entire life about my true nature.” I smirked a little. “I’m playing one helluva catch-up game right now.”
“They probably did it to protect you,” Mom snapped. “You shouldn’t be ungrateful.”
“Ungrateful?” I squawked, anger and rage burning in my gut. I couldn’t believe we were doing this in front of Mal. In front of a stranger.
“Will you two smoking shut up?” Ray yelled. “None of this matters. What matters is that Penny Avalon double-crossed me again. And now neither of us will get our spouses back.”
Mom shook her head. Maybe she thought she was being subtle, but I was staring directly at her.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Mom waved a hand. “He’s being dramatic.”
“I wasn’t asking you.�
� I flipped my braid over my shoulder. “What does that mean, Ray?”
Mal shifted closer and placed a hand on my arm.
“Avalon was hired to steal the Blarney Stone, which she did.” Ray’s lip curled. “Then she hid it. And when our employer initiated repercussions, my liege gained a promise from Avalon to hand over the charm. But I found out she’s going to take it elsewhere!”
My world broke apart. I’d defended her. I hadn’t believed for a hot second she’d stolen the stone, not when Mal explained how he and his bureau buddies concluded she was the thief. Not even when I thought about her thieving lifestyle. I felt like she’d broken a promise to me, but now… I wasn’t even sure if that was the promise she’d made. It’d definitely been the one I wanted.
“What’s wrong with your leg, Avalon?” Mal asked.
Mom scowled. “Jackass McGee here pushed me off the bridge and I broke it.”
Mal grew still. “Why haven’t you retreated to your bottle?”
“Because my liege took her bottle until Avalon returns with the Blarney Stone,” Ray said. “Yet she won’t tell me where it is. I searched her houses. It’s nowhere. And neither of us have a safe place to go until my liege gets her stone.”
My head spun. Mom had more than one house? She… I didn’t know who she was.
“She placed the Blight Lord in the Avalons’ house,” Mal said, his voice hushed with realization.
“Who’s your liege?” Were liege and master the same? I frowned at Ray, searching for gold shackles, but he wasn’t wearing any.
“Sythradiafol of the Fall Court.”
Mal sighed.
I rounded on Mom and planted my hands on my hips. “So let me get this straight: you agreed to steal the Blarney Stone for these people, then hid it from them, told them you’d get it for them again, and decided to use it for your own… What were you going to use it for?”
Mom shook her head, refusing to meet my gaze. Fine. I’d deal with her later.
“And what were you thinking?” I arched a brow at Ray. “How is she supposed to retrieve this for you with a broken leg? And you knew she didn’t have her bottle!”