by AE McKenna
Teag tilted his head. “If you say so. I can’t believe I broke my bloomin’ kettle on a squid.”
Mal returned, looking a little harried. “They’re tracking us by scent. Teag, can you clean us?”
The brownie tugged on one of his curls. “I’m not a bannick. Just ’cause I enjoy cleaning doesn’t mean I give people magic baths.”
“Your bathroom then?” Mal said, his voice strained.
Grumbling, Teag opened a drawer and rummaged through it. “I think I have a couple charms for such an occasion.”
“A bath charm?” I asked.
“Bannicks are bath spirits,” Mal said. “Teag probably met a few in his life.”
“I have! Here.” He held out a packet that smelled like Irish Spring soap. “Just rip it open and it’ll clean ya up nice and dry.”
My teeth chattered. “Mine’s probably for floors.”
I tore open the packet and water slammed into me, pushing me onto my back. It was over in an instant. Teag roared with laughter, and Mal gave me a hand up. He was sparkling clean, the blood and smell washed off him. The gash near his eye welled with blood once more.
I, on the other hand, was sopping wet and smelled like lemon pledge.
Mal grinned and my heart skipped a beat. “You are a riot, Lucy Avalon.”
“Ha-ha, so funny.” I wiped hair from my face and scooted closer to the fire. “How come I’m not dry?”
Teag dipped his chin, studying his hands. “Well, you don’t need to do that for floors. Sorry, lassie, I thought I had two bath charms. I could’ve sworn I did.”
“Don’t mention it.” I didn’t dare explain my bad luck had done that—he might kick us out and my stomach took that moment to growl. “How much longer until we can leave?”
“Dawn isn’t for a couple of hours,” Mal said, settling next to me on the floor.
“That’s it. We’re having pizza.” I summoned my pizza stone and placed it on the rack to heat. “Not sure how we’ll slice it since I lost my pizza wheel, but we’ll manage.”
“You’re obsessed.” Mal smiled, his dimples flashing.
Teag frowned. “What’s pizza?”
I grinned as plastic-wrapped dough dropped into my palm. “It’s the best thing in the world.”
Teag loved pizza. I wasn’t surprised. I’d yet to meet a person who couldn’t be converted. We had two pizzas, and finally, dawn came, and the call to return to the summer lawn tolled. As we made our way out of the tunnels, Mal grabbed the rope he’d tied the monster up with and pulled it behind him. It was still alive, but it didn’t fight. I got the feeling it was afraid. Probably because I’d gouged its eyes out. My keys were still in it, so I snatched those up. Gross.
Before we entered the clearing, Mal gave me the end of the rope.
I took it, frowning at him. “What?”
“It’s your prize. You should bring it in.”
Teag snorted. “It’s a warning or a challenge, lassie. Mayhap you can win them over with your cheese flatbread.”
“Pizza, Teag. P-I-Z-Z-A.” I hooked the rope over my shoulder and pulled. For how big and scary squid-wasp was, it was strangely light.
The multicolored huntsman was missing an arm, and when he saw what I was towing, he blanched and backed away. The guests gasped, and a ripple of whispers flew through the assembly.
Cliodhna scowled, her perfect complexion turning blotchy. “I see you survived.”
Teag bowed at the waist. “Aye, milady, we are well.”
“You worked together? You hid in the tunnels?”
“Not against the rules.”
“But being a boggart is.”
Teag’s face turned red. “I am not a—”
“Yet everyone believes you are, and I’ve had to take other servants away from their duties to care for my guests. You can no longer hold our agreement. Since you survived The Taming, I now banish you from my territory.” Cliodhna sneered at us. “I underestimated you. Tell me, girl. What’s your magic?”
“Sarcasm.” I hadn’t meant to say that, but it popped right out, and I couldn’t take it back.
Cliodhna curled her lip. “Very well. A deal is a deal. You wanted a piece of the Blarney for your survival.” She motioned to a servant.
I met her eyes and something in them clicked. “You’re the Blarney!”
Mal blinked.
Cliodhna gave me an appraising once-over. “You are clever, aren’t you? Few figure that out before I give them locks of hair. Or in your case, a fingernail. Tell me, what would it take for you to serve me?”
“No way!” I shivered, coldness seeping into my breastbone. I opted for more bluntness. “I’m sorry, but you scare the shit out of me.” The chill evaporated.
Cliodhna laughed. “Wise indeed, child of Iron and Gold.” She trimmed her pinky and held the clipping out. “Claim your prize.”
My breath hitched, and my heart knocked against my ribs. I wanted that fingernail clipping like I wanted another pizza. I nudged Mal. “I can’t touch that. Not right now.”
Mal stepped forward and the fae placed her fingernail in his palm. They exchanged something in their lyrical language.
She winked at me. “I hope our paths cross again, but not too soon. Your novelty is already fading.”
She raised her hand, twirled her wrist in a circle, and a portal into the fairy glade on Blarney Castle grounds appeared.
“I appreciate it,” I said.
Mal took my hand and we walked through. Teag scampered across at the last second and took a big breath when the portal closed. My ears stuffed terribly, and I groaned.
“Well, lassie, I’d be lying if I say I hope to see you again, but I wouldn’t be sore about it. Now me? I’m gonna find meself a nice, superstitious Irish family.” He toddled off, waving farewell.
Mal grinned at me, then jerked his head. “Why don’t you get in your bottle and heal your ankle? I’ll carry you back to Devil’s Bridge.”
I wanted to ask him about the kiss but felt suddenly shy. It probably was only a friend kiss. Or maybe he was letting me decide what it was. Either way, he made a brilliant suggestion, so I pulled my bottle out of my bag, handed that to him, and entered.
I blinked. She’d redecorated. My fridge and shoe collection sat apart in white space in front of purple-painted glass. Twinkling lights wound around the pole, and the sun cast a golden glow upon green grass. There was a hammock tied between two large trees, and I could hear Mom and Dad’s faint laughter on the wind. I pressed trembling fingers to my lips. She had recreated part of the picture that I had stored inside her for safekeeping.
“I like it, Diane.”
Diane gave me cheese and an ice pack.
Chapter 16
I lifted myself up onto the ledge and tapped the walkie-talkie on my harness. “I’m at the top.”
“Do you see the cake knife?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah.” It laid on the ground next to the rock my rope was attached to when I had first rappelled down the cliff. I eased to my feet and approached it. Yet when my fingers wrapped around the handle, a sense of wrongness oozed from the key. I tried to pick it up, but it felt sealed to the cave floor.
I sighed. I’d hope that since I’d been allowed to help Lucy that the favor would include me, but it hadn’t. “I can’t pick it up. You’re going to have to climb.”
“Okay. This’s kinda fun, and I’ve got your nut tool for your gear.”
It’d surprised me she thought to offer to help me by removing the nuts and cams from the rock wall. “If one fights you, just leave it.”
My phone dinged with a picture of Lucy’s knots and ascenders’ set-up. I gave her the go ahead. Moments later, the rope began shifting in my hands as she climbed up.
I hated this, and I hadn’t liked the way Devil’s Bridge looked beneath the angry slate-colored clouds. The three-tiered waterfall roared, and thunder rolled in the distance. If it rained, it rained. It wouldn’t change the climbing conditions since the waterfall’s mist coated the
rock wall behind it. Certainly didn’t change that Ray had been compelled to store a skeleton key to the Fall Court up here.
I’d kissed her last night. A spur-of-the-moment reaction that’d felt right. I didn’t regret it, but I was also letting her call the shots, set the pace for if we ever took that step past friends.
I didn’t want ifs.
I wasn’t used to waiting—not that women threw themselves at me, because they didn’t. The first move had always fallen to me. And now a woman finally saw me without me having to grab her attention. She’d flummoxed me at first. I thought I had a type: athletic, blonde, and uncomplicated—all things she was not. Yet I hadn’t been able to get Lucy Avalon out of my system since the djinni silk bond between us unraveled. She ticked all the important boxes: smart, kind, brave, funny, considerate, and djinni. I didn’t have to worry about being hidden around her; I could just be myself.
Maybe Luce was more my type than I’d realized.
“Man, your nuts are hard to get out,” she said.
“My nuts are in order, and I used the right sized nut for the job,” I replied. “Just leave them.”
She snickered. “‘The right sized nuts,’ huh?”
“Perv.”
“That shouldn’t surprise you,” she said, her voice crackling over the walkie-talkie.
It hadn’t. I knew firsthand how dirty her mind could get.
Lucy continued to ascend. Even though she collected the gear I’d left behind the first time we climbed, she was moving quicker than before.
“I can see the ledge,” she called without using the walkie-talkie.
“Take your time, speed racer.”
As soon as I saw the top of her helmet, I reached down and grabbed her wrist, pulling her up. We held on to one another longer than necessary, and when she pulled away, she smiled a little. My eyes snagged on her lips.
“Where’s the cake knife?” she asked.
“Right over here.”
Lucy picked it up without issue. A portal swirled out of the knife and into the cave.
A voice I didn’t recognize boomed, “Do not open a portal near bloody iron!”
And the portal slammed shut.
“Shit!” Lucy dropped the cake knife and shook out her hand. “It got too hot to hold.”
I groaned and rubbed my eyes. “We’re too close to the iron bridge. All right. I’ll lower you down then rappel after you.”
“Are you sure we can’t rappel together?” She grinned as she gingerly picked up the cake knife and tucked it in her messenger bag.
I shook my head and made a Swiss chair for her, looking over the carabiners, nuts, and cams she’d clipped in her harness. “Looks like you had to leave a decent amount of my gear behind. I’ll need to make sure to come back for it later.”
“Can I come with you?” she asked.
“Sure. We can discuss those pies you owe me.”
“I recall cherry is your favorite.”
I nodded. “And Pops loves strawberry rhubarb.”
We stepped to the edge and Luce’s smile tightened my chest.
She raised her brows. “So, you’re using your lifetime supply of pies for your Pops, too? Can’t say I disapprove.”
“I’d hope not. You insisted on competing in The Taming for him.”
“I don’t regret it.”
I wanted to pull her close, kiss her, tell her how much that’d meant to me. Dammit, I wanted her. She’d given me more than enough time to figure out my head. Now I had to give it to her. I tied into the anchor I’d set up the first time we climbed this cliff. After I was confident her Swiss chair was safe, I raised my fist and she bumped hers against mine. Then I eased her over the ledge.
I felt every shift her weight put on the anchor. The rope easily gliding through my hands and everything was holding well. Lucy chatted about fruit filling, cream, and custard, which then led to dessert pizza.
Cracks fanned around the holes I’d drilled for the self-expanding anchor bolts, and the anchor gave out. The rope yanked me against the boulder. Too fast. I reached for the walkie-talkie. The second anchor sprang free. Ice formed in my veins as I grappled for her rope. I tried to spin, but my ropes kept me pinned to the boulder. Her rope slipped through my hands. Lucy’s scream faded faster than my speeding heart. I never had a chance to warn her.
“Lucy!” I unclipped a knife and cut my ropes from the anchors. Once free, I turned, staring down the sixty-foot drop. Is that blue smoke, or am I imagining it?
“Lucy!”
I shifted to smoke and dove.
I crashed into the rushing water. The current tore my smoke away and battered my body. The river raced me along the riverbank, dunking my head underwater. I broke the surface, sucking in air as I searched for signs of her—or a rope, or anything—only for the current to tug me below water again and again. I spat water and my insides froze. Ahead, there was another drop to the waterfall. Oh god, oh god, please let her be okay. I’d never prayed to a human god before; I never felt I needed to. Please let her be safe.
I caught sight of rope the same color as mine wrapped around detritus of a large rock and wood debris beside it. I grabbed onto it as I rushed by and hauled myself up onto the rock. Sucking in breaths, I crawled to the edge of the rock, afraid to look over, yet needing to know if I’d lost her.
Luce dangled over the edge and another hundred-foot drop.
My heart was elated and filled with dread at the same time. “Lucy!”
She craned her neck. “Mal!” Her dented helmet sat askew on her head, blood smeared her cheek from a gash on her jaw, and her body lurched with every hyperventilated breath she took, but she was alive.
“Hang on, tiger! I’ll pull you up.” I dropped to my knees, checking how the ropes were caught up in the rock. There was enough slack that I could pull her up without cutting them.
“Mal!”
“I’m right here.”
“I want to kiss you.”
“I want that, too.” I tugged on the rope, but the sharp edge of the rock frayed the threads.
“And I wanna call you my boyfriend.”
My insides became jumbled and my throat constricted. “Yes.”
“Then take couples’ rock-climbing classes!”
“I think these are all great ideas!” Despite the danger we were still facing, a broad smile stretched my cheeks. I flattened to my stomach.
“Really? All of them?”
“Yes, really.” I stretched for her shoulder harness but couldn’t reach it. “Give me your hand!”
In a puff of blue smoke, Lucy’s phone appeared in her hands and she activated Siri. “Take a selfie!”
“What’re you doing?”
Her camera took a picture. Guess I’d soon be inducted into her crazy Instagram account. I was flattered, but she still dangled over a waterfall. A precarious position.
“Hey, Siri,” she yelled over the roaring waterfall. “Set an anniversary date.”
“For the love of—put your phone away and help me rescue you!” I yelled.
“‘For the love of put your phone away and help me rescue you’ anniversary date set,” Siri replied.
Lucy’s bottle sucked her phone from her and she raised her hand. I gripped it and heaved her up. Clutching her trembling body, I fell back. Or maybe I was the one shaking.
She wrapped her arms around me. “Oh, god. Jesus. I thought I was gonna die.”
“Let’s get on solid ground.” I pointed to a fallen tree trunk that nearly reached from the rock to the riverbank. “I’m gonna stretch and grab onto that. You’ll climb over me.”
“Okay!”
I stretched and she scampered over me to the riverbank.
Lucy spun, dropped to her stomach, and held out her hand. “Gimme your hand!”
This wasn't the first time she’d offered me help when I didn’t need it, and I wouldn’t deny her this time either. I grabbed her hand, hustled across the trunk, and we fell to the wet grass.
&n
bsp; I gathered her close, lowered my head, and our helmets bumped. Laughing nervously, we sat up and removed our helmets. The laceration on her jaw was longer than I’d thought, and it bled freely.
I summoned djinni glue and cleaned the cut with a towel. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“Me too.”
I leaned in and brushed my mouth against hers, uncertain she meant it, unsure of taking this step further but afraid not to. She inched closer, her hand resting on my chest. My heart thrummed as her soft and considerate kisses matched my own, her gentle wildflower scent left me lightheaded and the rest of my body light.
I don’t know where you end and I begin. The words I’d said while we had a djinni silk bond blasted through my mind. I can’t separate my own feelings from yours.
I pulled back, resting my forehead against hers. “I feel high.”
“Huh?”
“I’m a little dizzy, and all I can think about is the next kiss.” I rubbed my fingers across her cheek, careful of the gash on her jaw. “I’m saying this so you know that I know how I feel—especially about you.”
“So, you’re saying you like me more than a friend?” Humor laced her words.
“Yes.”
She kissed me. I wrapped my arms around her, swaying her into me. Her fingers brushed the nape of my neck and an arrow of heat pierced me. I’d thought I was high before. Now it was like touching a live wire. I cupped the back of her head, fitting my fingers into the folds of her braid and kissed her deeper. She flicked her tongue across my lips. I tasted her, drank her in, listened to her ragged breathing. I lost myself. She pushed her fingers into my hair and I groaned. I gripped her hips and dragged her sideways across my lap, not getting enough of her. I nearly forgot to breathe. I could have stayed there in the grass, the rain falling in a steady stream while thunder and lightning echoed in the sky.
We broke apart and she gazed at me with glassy, heavy-lidded eyes. I kissed her again, soft and slow, trying to catch my breath while she stole it from me.
“I wish we could stay here,” she murmured, “but Mags has a deadline.”
“I know. We’ll have more time once this is over and everyone’s safe.”