The Fallen Stars (A Star Child Novel)

by Stephanie Keyes

  A pounding on the front door broke our reveries. My heart seemed to lodge itself in my throat. Maybe the time to run had passed us by. Had they already come for us?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CALI—DILLION

  The banging at the door had us running at full speed down the hall from the upstairs bedrooms, down the flight of stairs and to the front door. All three of us came to a halt at the end of the rug that lay in front of the door. No one made a move; I think we were all too afraid to.

  “Open up, its Dillion.” My heart hammered at the sound of the voice on the other side of the door. I wanted it to be Dillion so badly, but after the events of last night, could I trust that it was really him?

  Growing up, I’d never known about him. All of my father’s family, once they’d been trapped in Faerie, became our immortal enemies, and Brigid’s family had long since passed away. When Kellen and I were forced to travel to Faerie to save my father, Mother told me I could trust only one below ground: my uncle Dillion. He’d been the only relative who hadn’t turned when he’d been trapped in Faerie. He helped my father escape from the Children of Danu all those years ago when he himself had tried to save his brothers and sisters from Arawn.

  “Kellen, open the door.” Dillion’s exasperated voice sounded from the other side. My heart leapt. It had been so stressful being here, not knowing when and if we would be attacked. The presence of my uncle calmed me, even if he stood on the other side of the door.

  “How do I know it’s you?” Kellen asked.

  There was a sigh and some shuffling on the other side of the door. “Ask me something only I would know.”

  “Okay, what advice did you give me before my almost wedding day?” Kellen asked.

  There was a chuckle from outside. “Whatever you do, don’t make that one angry.”

  Kellen laughed as my cheeks burned bright red. Bastard. “Enough of this.” Unable to keep the scowl from my face, I marched over to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open. All traces of anger were gone once I faced Uncle Dillion, who stood across the bridge. He himself, one of the Children of Danu, needed permission to enter. “Come in, Uncle,” I said. Uncle Dillion ran across the bridge and into the house. He looked behind him as he entered.

  “Quickly, quickly, shut the door,” he said, seemingly to no one in particular. He shrugged out of his coat and hat, letting them drop to the floor. He didn’t need to dress for the cold, but he would have done such a thing to blend in, in case he came across any mortals. My breath hitched as I took in Dillion’s haggard appearance. He looked like he’d aged twenty years since the last time we’d come in contact. Though immortals age, the rate is roughly five hundred years for every mortal year.

  Kellen acknowledged his appearance first, the concern unmistakable in his voice. “Uncle Dillion, what happened to you?”

  “Ah…” Uncle Dillion waved off his question, walking further into the house. “How about a bit of breakfast for this old man, eh? I’ve been traveling for a while now. I should at least get a bite of meat or toast out of the bargain.” He rolled happily on the balls of his feet. I smiled. Dillion didn’t need to eat; he was probably just trying to make everyone more comfortable.

  “Sure, man. We’ve got lots of food here. Kellen makes a mean ham and cheese omelet, too.” Gabriel smiled, looking at Kellen. “I’ll take one too, K, if you’re cooking.” He winked.

  Kellen smiled and rolled up his sleeves. Looking at me, he asked “Anything for you?” I smiled and nodded. We walked into the cooking area and Kellen reached for the ingredients from the cooling machine. “Let’s get cooking and then Dillion can tell us what’s been going on.”

  ***

  Kellen was truly an excellent cook. The breakfast that he served seemed to melt in my mouth. He called it an om-lette and it seemed to be a combination of bits of egg and meat and various spices.

  “Dude, this is awesome.” Gabe pounded his fist against Kellen’s in appreciation after taking his first bite.

  “Thanks.” Kellen had come to the table with a pot of coffee and proceeded to pour everyone a cup. Once Kellen sat down, he immediately turned to Dillion. “What’s been happening?”

  “Our brothers and sisters escaped. Not only did they escape, but they found you almost immediately. This whole area has been locked down so tight that no one could get through. I had to use my connections as one of the Children of Danu to get past it.” Dillion made a face. I couldn’t imagine Dillion being happy about that.

  “That must have been tricky,” said Kellen. “I’m surprised Cana let you by after you attacked them in Ireland.” He sipped his coffee.

  Dillion smiled. “The local faeries don’t know me and they’re the ones in charge of watching this place. I do not think they have much experience with this sort of thing. I used that to my advantage.”

  “How did they find us so fast?” I asked.

  “I am not sure, but there is magick at work here, quite a bit of it,” Dillion said. “When I arrived, I picked up on its presence right away. It was not good.”

  “What do you mean by not good?” My coffee tasted wonderful, but it was too hot on my tongue and I’d burned myself as I took my first drink.

  “I only walked around the immediate area this morning, but there were traces of magick that was designed to tempt someone into reckless behavior, to confuse or waylay them.”

  Kellen met my eye, his fingers on my knee under the breakfast table.

  “Well, that certainly sounds like what happened to Kellen,” Gabriel said.

  Dillion picked up his coffee. “Oh?” He lifted the cup, sipped, and made a face; perhaps at the bitterness of the strong brew Kellen always made. I’d been getting used to it.

  “After dinner last night, I went outside. The next thing I knew, I started walking away from the house, even though I wanted to go back to it. I couldn’t control my own actions. I had no idea where I was. I ended up practically getting frostbitten,” Kellen said. “We experienced some strange things after we met William.” Kellen loosened his collar and took another sip of coffee.

  Dillion stared at him. “Who’s William?”

  Kellen slowly brought his cup down to the table. He, Gabriel, and I looked at one another. Our suspicions had proven correct. “You don’t know him?” Kellen asked. He gripped the cup in his hands so that his knuckles showed prominently through his skin. Otherwise he gave no signs of concern.

  “Should I know him?” Dillion asked, his face appearing confused. He took a sip of his coffee and cringed again, this time pushing it away from him to the center of the table.

  “He’s a warlock. He lives nearby.” My voice betrayed my dislike of William and thought again briefly of his kiss. I quickly blotted out the image.

  “What were you all doing keeping company with a warlock?” Dillion made it sound like an accusation.

  “We received a note telling us to trust him. We believed the note on the chalkboard was from you—” But as I gestured, I found the board empty of all messages. It looked like nothing had ever been written on the board. Mouth still hanging open, I turned to Dillion, who seemed just as surprised as I felt.

  Dillion stared at me for a moment before speaking. “My dear, this entire area is so heavily barricaded that I was fortunate to even get to you. There are barriers everywhere. Only my connection to the Children of Danu allowed me to pass, and that involved some creativity on my part.”

  “But the messages at the restaurant, and the one on the board,” I said.

  “You received messages where?” Dillion asked.

  “There were three napkins with your handwriting on them in the diner where we ate breakfast,” Gabriel said.

  “Child, none of them came from me,” Dillion said, finality to his tone that confirmed his words.

  Searching his face, I knew that he told the truth. Regardless, there was a part of me that had hoped he’d been mistaken. Touching my hands to my lips, I realized that part of me didn’t want Willia
m to be a liar. I’d felt that there had been good in him. I’d been hoping for another explanation, but there simply wasn’t one.

  Dillion hopped out of his seat with what appeared to be a measure of exertion, probably due to his height. As he reached the chalkboard, he waved a hand in front of it. The message from last night reappeared. Dillion gazed at it for a moment in silence. Eventually he said, “This isn’t my writing, but it is extremely close.” I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to see your own handwriting used in a fraudulent way, and I didn’t want to.

  “The S is different. You don’t have a curl on yours,” Kellen said. He stood and walked to Dillion, standing alongside him as they both regarded the board.

  Dillion looked at Kellen for a moment before a slight smile appeared on the old brownie’s face. “You are quite intelligent, for a mortal. You’re right.”

  “Gabriel also received some other messages,” I said. “Gabriel, do you have those napkins?”

  Gabriel left the room and returned almost immediately with the napkins from our breakfast of the previous day. He laid them out on the counter for Dillion to look over.

  Tugging at his beard, Dillion regarded them and looked to me then. “The last thing that I would have been able to do is send you a message. They could have deciphered it easily and that would have given me away. Did anything happen with this warlock?” Dillion asked.

  Gabriel’s phone beeped. “We’d just started to talk about it when you showed up. All of our suspicions about William are starting to look as though they’re not just theories,” Gabriel said, looking down at the phone in his hand.

  “Go on,” Dillion said.

  “Good timing. My mother just e-mailed me. Our caretaker isn’t named William. It’s still Thomas, and he’s been missing. The police showed up right before I called last night, which was why she didn’t answer the phone when I called her the first time. She doesn’t know anyone named William.”

  For a moment none of us spoke, perhaps processing what we’d heard. Though I’d believed all of this to be the case last night, receiving confirmation of the truth of my theories overwhelmed me for a moment.

  “One thing is in his favor though. He forced me to drink this gross drink and it didn’t kill me,” Kellen said. He sipped his coffee.

  “What do you mean, forced?” I asked, looking at him more closely.

  “I mean, forced the Thermos into my mouth and made me chug a bit. I didn’t swallow more than a couple of drops and it made me feel better immediately. He said it warded off hypothermia. It seemed legit, too. I read a book about some explorers surviving outdoors for long periods of time and many of those same ingredients were used in their drinks and cooking.”

  I stared at Kellen. The time had come. I needed to tell him about William. “There’s more,” I said, and all eyes were on me. My heartbeat blocked out all sounds around me, a rushing sound taking over. “Last night after you both went to sleep, I went out on the balcony and my brother Cabhan appeared below, asking me to let him in. I refused.”

  “Cabhan should have been able to pass the barrier without asking permission. That was a good choice,” Dillion said.

  “Thanks.” I continued, “Then I turned and found William there. He must have gotten in with his key.” Though at the time, I’d made this assumption only because I didn’t hear him break in. “He…he kissed me.” My gaze shot to Kellen’s, whose own eyes seemed to darken. I watched him for a moment, hoping he wouldn’t be angry with me. “I didn’t want him to, and I asked him to leave. I took his key back.”

  Kellen gave an almost imperceptible nod, a small sign that he wasn’t angry with me. There was no point in telling him how long it had gone on before I stopped it, or that William tried to get me to go away with him. Regardless, I’d made the right choice. I knew whom I wanted.

  “Freaky,” Gabriel said through a mouthful of food, looking between Kellen and myself.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Kellen said. I interpreted his sentence to mean Why didn’t you tell me sooner?

  “Because after I kicked him out, I heard you being attacked in your dream,” I said. At these words, Kellen seemed to relax a bit. Could he truly be that jealous of William?

  “You were attacked?” Dillion asked, incredulity in his expression.

  “They transported him,” I said to Dillion. He would know what I was talking about.

  “What?” Dillion said, practically jumping up and down on the floor.

  “Don’t I look a little worse for wear, Dillion?” Kellen asked. He spoke the truth. His face still appeared swollen, and I could tell by the way that he held himself that his ribs still hurt, though he’d never once complained.

  “That you do,” Dillion replied. “So you were transported outside of this house in your dreams. Where did they take you?”

  “The ocean,” Kellen said. He hadn’t told us anything about the dream and neither Gabriel nor I had pushed.

  “Well, it does not sound like this William could have been making you have your dream,” Dillion said. He spoke slowly as he appeared to think the situation through.

  “How do you know?” Kellen and Gabriel asked in unison.

  “Because it sounds like your dream and his experience with Calienta happened simultaneously. Manipulating dreams is powerful magick. He would have needed total concentration for that. “I think it was a warning. The Children of Danu are trying to tell us that they know where you are. It sounds like something Cana would have done,” Dillion said.

  He walked over to the board again and then looked back at us. “It is time that we made plans to move the two of you. I don’t know how we’re going to get you past the barrier but we have to. I’ll think of something.”

  Another hideout? We’d only been on the run for two days, but already I didn’t want to think about moving again. There was nowhere that we belonged, no safe haven.

  Kellen ran his hand through his hair. “We do need to get out of here.”

  Gabriel sat up straighter, a piece of pink fruit poised on the end of his fork. “We have a place down South.” He had a big smile on his face and I could see him mentally considering it.

  “Gabriel…” Dillion smiled at him, patting his hand. “Don’t you have someplace you’re supposed to be now?”

  It came to me then that Gabriel had been studying at a school. Kellen told me all about his acceptance to law school and how Gabriel had just started a month and a half before Kellen called him. He’d put his education on hold to help us.

  “Yes, he’s supposed to be in law school.” Kellen’s voice was a reprimand and he looked at Gabriel, who then looked away.

  “It’s no big deal, K. I was gonna call them tomorrow and tell them I needed to take some personal time.” Gabriel pushed a large spoonful of eggs into his mouth.

  Kellen leaned across the table, forcing Gabriel to make eye contact with him. “Harvard Law doesn’t give personal time, Gabe, and you know it. You could lose your spot in an instant.”

  “This is where I need to be right now.” Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest. Sitting back in his chair, he appeared to use his breakfast as a barrier between himself and Kellen. “It’s my fault that they found us. I’m the one who made a mistake here.”

  “Well I made a vital mistake with Dillion’s handwriting,” Kellen said.

  “But it’s not your job—” said Gabriel.

  “It’s my job to protect her.” Kellen looked at me then, his eyes meeting mine.

  “I made a promise to Lugh. I won’t leave your side,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. “I led you into danger by picking the wrong place. I have to fix it. I need to make things right.”

  One of the things that I liked about Gabriel was his sense of loyalty, particularly to Kellen. He seemed to think of himself as Kellen’s personal protector, a bodyguard of sorts. This seemed different though. This went beyond.

  “Gabriel, you mustn’t be upset with yourself. No one is angry with you,” Dillion s
aid.

  Even though Gabriel had never expressed this fear, it seemed obvious that he felt it, based upon his reaction. “I’m angry with me. I am, okay?” Gabriel exclaimed. Dillion didn’t say anything, but instead stood there, watching. “It was my job to protect them. Kellen almost drowned in his sleep last night and we’ve already run into a dangerous warlock. I’ve…failed.”

  Failed. What an odd choice of words. He made it sound like Kellen was an assignment or something.

  A memory badgered me in the back of my mind, an annoying piece of information that wouldn’t quite come to the surface, though I’d toyed with it repeatedly. Too many things that I couldn’t remember…

  Dillion touched Gabriel’s arm. “Gabriel, you did not fail. Kellen and my dear Calienta are alive. Somehow you’ve all been found out. There is another force at work here that I didn’t count on. There is no way that you could have known, or I for that matter.” Dillion stood on top of the chair, putting himself nose to nose with Gabriel, who still sat. “No, Gabriel, I think the best thing for you to do is to go back to school.”

  Gabriel stood, an uncharacteristic outburst breaking forth from his lips. “But they’re my friends. Don’t you understand? I swore to protect them. I don’t care about school. I care about my friends. Education matters, but friendship matters more. They need me.”

  “But you’re mortal!” Kellen said, stepping forward so that he faced Gabriel.

  “And so are you! You turned down immortality, remember?” Gabriel said. “So don’t go pretending that you’re not exactly like I am!”

  Kellen watched Gabriel for a moment. When he finally spoke, I had to strain to hear him. “Gabe, you’re right. Cali and I are mortal, but we’ve dealt with some messed up stuff. The things that I’ve seen…I’ll never be the same. I don’t want that for you.”

  Gabriel looked at Kellen, perhaps considering his words or possibly planning a debate. I couldn’t tell.

  “Please go, man,” Kellen said. “You’re my friend. It’s bad enough my fiancée is going to be in the middle of it…”