by Karen Lynch
“Lorelle?”
She pretended to swoon. “You know what they say. Once you go Fae…”
Dad coughed, sending bits of doughnut across the table. Violet giggled and patted him on the back. “Alright there, Mr. J.?”
“Yes,” he wheezed.
She grinned at me over his head and went into the living room. I sat in front of the laptop while he polished off his doughnut and licked chocolate from his fingers. The television came on in the living room, and I could hear Violet’s voice as she talked to Finch. Aisla still didn’t speak, but she seemed to understand us well enough.
“Hey, Jess, did I tell you my agent got me an audition for another big sci-fi film?” Violet called as she flicked through TV channels.
“That’s great,” Dad said. “What’s it about?”
“I can’t say, but the director may or may not have done a certain franchise about robots that turn into cars.” She paused. “You didn’t hear that from me, though.”
“Hear what?” Dad and I said in unison and grinned at each other.
Violet snorted. “They’re holding auditions at the Ralston next week, so wish me luck.”
“Good luck, even though you won’t need it,” I called in a singsong voice. “Right, Dad?”
He didn’t respond. I slanted a look his way to find him staring off into space, his brow creased like he was deep in thought.
“Dad?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to space out on you.” He blinked and smiled at me, but I could see that he was preoccupied with something.
I lowered my voice. “Did you remember something?” The doctors had told us that being home in familiar surroundings could help him recover some of his memories.
“I don’t know.” He frowned. “I keep seeing the ballroom at the Ralston. It’s only flashes, so I can’t be sure.”
My pulse jumped. The Ralston was the last place he and Mom were seen the night they disappeared. And a maintenance man had found Mom’s broken bracelet in one of the ballrooms there the next day.
“It feels like there’s something I need to remember, but it’s blocked.” He rubbed his temple like it was hurting.
“It’s only your first day home. It’ll come to you.”
He looked at me, and his frustration was almost palpable. “Whatever it is, it’s important to all of us.”
It had to be the ke’tain. What else could be more important to everyone?
Fear snaked through me. Except for waylaying me to give me the queen’s message about her son, the Seelie guard had left me and my family alone. What would they do if they found out my father was getting his memories back?
* * *
“Jesse, do you know where the fey dust is?” Dad asked a week later as he did inventory of the supplies on the office shelves.
I made a face and paused writing up notes on last night’s job. “I might have used it all.”
“You used a whole bag of fey dust?” He turned to give me an incredulous look.
“Remember that bunnek I told you about?”
He frowned. “Fey dust doesn’t work on bunneks.”
“I know that now. It was a bulletin, and I didn’t exactly have time to come home and read Mom’s notes on bunneks.” I pointed at the monitor. “We need a mobile version we can put on our phones and sync with the main one.”
His grimace pulled a laugh from me. The computer was Mom’s domain, and he liked it that way. Lucky for us, I’d taken computer classes the last three years of school, and like Mom, I loved spreadsheets.
“I’ll do it.” I had been thinking about it since January, but there’d never been time. “I should have asked Maurice about his contact for the fey dust.”
“Don’t worry about it. You had enough on your plate.” Dad went back to sorting supplies. “We mainly use it for trolls and ogres. No one wants to fight those brutes.”
I fought back a groan as I realized how easy it would have been to rescue Romeo from the ogres with fey dust. Not to mention the troll jobs. No sprained shoulder or kolosh poisoning.
No Lukas kiss.
My skin heated when I remembered how I’d grabbed his shirt front, pulled him to me, and kissed him. And then I’d asked him if he would kiss me again.
“Jesse?”
I started and met Dad’s curious gaze. “Huh?”
“How did you do the troll jobs without the fey dust?” he asked.
Before I could answer, Gus made an awful retching sound in my bedroom. I ran to my room in time to see him vomit in the middle of my bed. Gagging from the horrible smell, I picked him up and carried him to the bathroom to clean him.
It was the fourth time he’d thrown up in two days, and I was starting to worry that he might be sick. He usually did it when he’d tried to eat something too big to swallow, like my paperweight. That wasn’t the case now.
Dad stood in the doorway with my quilt bundled in his arms. “Is he okay?”
“I think he’s sick.” I gently cleaned the drakkan’s snout with a wet cloth. The fact that he didn’t nip at me confirmed my fears. “What should I do?”
“When faeries get sick, they go back to Faerie to heal. I hate to say it, but Gus might have to be sent home, too.”
I caressed the red gold scales on his head. “But he’s never been there. How will he know how to hunt and live in the wild?”
“They’ll introduce him to a flock, and he’ll adjust,” Dad said. “Drakkans are not solitary creatures. They need to be with their own kind.”
I swallowed around the unexpected tightness in my throat. Somehow, the cranky little guy had wormed his way into my heart, and I realized I would miss him if he had to go.
“I’m not taking him to the Plaza,” I said thickly. There was no way I’d allow him to sit in a strange holding cell until he was sent home. “Faris is planning to go home tomorrow. I’ll ask him if he can take Gus with him.”
Dad nodded. He hadn’t met any of my Fae friends yet, but he’d finally stopped giving me strange looks whenever I mentioned the royal guard. The only name that didn’t come up often was Lukas’s. It had been three weeks since I’d laid eyes on him, and I had a feeling this was how it would be from now on. If my father thought it was odd that I rarely spoke of Lukas, he didn’t say anything about it.
Dad made a little nest of towels on my bed and laid the subdued drakkan in it. I sat in the chair by the window and called Faris.
“Your father is right. Gus doesn’t belong in this realm,” Faris said after I explained the situation to him.
“Will the other drakkans accept him into their flock if he was hatched here?”
I could hear the smile in Faris’s voice when he answered. “I promise Gus will be very happy in Faerie. Do you want me to come to your apartment to get him?”
I looked at Gus, who was watching me warily from the bed, and I wondered if he could tell I was talking about him. “I think it might upset him less if I bring him to you. Will Kaia be okay with him there?”
“I’ll leave tonight instead of tomorrow,” Faris said kindly. “You can stay to see us off if you’d like.”
“I would.” I stood, knowing the longer I put off what had to be done, the harder it would be. “We’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
I hung up and avoided looking at Gus as I left my room. I closed the door behind me so he couldn’t take off if he suddenly got it into his head, and I went to the office to tell my father where I was going. Next, I had to go to the living room and break it to Finch and Aisla, who had also grown attached to the drakkan. Explaining to my tearful brother why Gus would not be coming back home would forever sit near the top of my list of things I never wanted to do again.
I couldn’t risk driving with an unrestrained drakkan, so I dug out the dog carrier I’d used for the trow job. I replaced the iron mesh in the bottom with some old towels and took it to my bedroom where Gus hadn’t moved from his spot on the bed. He growled when I picked him up and placed him in the carrier, but he soon
settled down, another indication of how unwell he was.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Dad asked when I walked out and set the carrier on the coffee table.
I almost said yes, until I saw Finch’s sad face as he reached through the wire door to pet Gus. He needed our father more than I did now. Dad followed my gaze, and no other words were needed between us.
“I’ll be home in a few hours,” I told Dad as I pulled on my coat.
“Take your time,” he said and added in a low voice. “Finch will be okay.”
I gave Finch and Aisla a few more minutes with Gus, and then I made myself pick up the carrier and leave. As I put it on the passenger seat of the Jeep and secured it with the seat belt, I told myself the tears at the back of my throat were for Finch, not for the grouchy drakkan who didn’t even like me on his good days.
Gus didn’t make a sound for the first ten minutes. When he began to growl and turn around in the carrier, I smiled, relieved to see him showing some energy again.
“You won’t have to stay in there long. Where you’re going, you’ll be able to fly all day with other drakkans. Won’t that be nice?”
He growled louder, and I jumped when he started clawing frantically at the metal grate in the door.
“Gus, calm down.” Keeping my eyes on traffic, I reached over to pat the top of the carrier. I miscalculated, and my hand touched the door instead.
“Ow!” I yanked my hand back and sucked at the blood beading on one fingertip. “Gus, what the hell?”
I looked up as the car ahead of me stopped suddenly. I slammed on my brakes and barely avoided rear-ending them. Horns began to blow, and the screech of metal on metal came from somewhere behind me.
My gaze fell on the pedestrians on the sidewalk, who had stopped walking to stare up at the sky. Some people had their phones out and were recording or taking pictures.
I leaned forward to look up at the sky, and I felt a frisson of fear when I saw the lights and jagged bolts of electricity. Based on my location, I guessed they were over the Hudson, exactly where they’d been the day of the ferry accident. I shivered and prayed for the boats on the river.
Gus chose that moment to go into a full freak-out, tearing at the sides of the carrier. It wouldn’t hold him long like this, and I did not want to be trapped in here with him when he got free. Traffic resumed at a crawl, and I looked around for a place to pull over.
I saw someone leaving a spot up ahead, and I grabbed it, earning an angry honk from the vehicle behind me. Ignoring the rude gestures from the woman as she drove past, I pulled off my coat and threw it over the carrier. It helped a little, but what I really needed was to get the drakkan inside, preferably away from windows. I looked up to see what buildings were nearby and let out a breath when I saw the sign for Moore Books.
Angela was standing by the window with a customer, looking at the sky when I ran inside. The owner’s eyes lit with recognition and dropped to the carrier, which emitted angry growls and squawks.
She cautiously approached me. “You’re Tennin’s friend.”
I nodded and spoke in a rush. “I hate to impose, but can I use your office again. The storm is upsetting him, and you have no windows in there.”
“Sure,” she said with more than a hint of uncertainty. “Go on back.”
“Thanks!” I hurried to the office and shut the door. Setting the carrier on the floor, I knelt in front of it and crooned to Gus until he stopped trying to claw his way out.
Angela knocked on the door. “The lights are gone. Is he okay?”
All the tension left my body. “Yes. You can open the door.”
She cracked it a few inches and peeked in. “Can I ask what it is?”
“It’s a drakkan.”
Her eyes went impossibly wide. “For real?”
I smiled. “Tennin probably didn’t tell you I’m a bounty hunter. This little guy was injured, and I took care of him at home. Now I’m taking him to a friend, who will return him to Faerie.”
“Wow.” She opened the door further. “Can I see him?”
“Yes, but don’t be surprised if he growls at you. He doesn’t like people.” I lifted the carrier and set it on the desk with the door facing her. Angela crouched to peer in from a safe distance, and surprisingly, Gus didn’t make a sound.
“He’s so pretty,” she cooed. “Oh. I think he’s getting sick.”
I looked inside and sure enough, Gus was retching again. His whole body rocked forward over and over until he finally threw up whatever was left in his stomach. A few droplets of bile landed on the floor, but the rest landed in the bottom of the crate.
Angela gagged and clapped a hand over her mouth. “God, that smell.”
“I’m so sorry.” I covered my own mouth as my eyes watered. “I’ll need to clean him up. Do you have a bathroom?”
She backed out of the office and pointed at another door. “Right there. I’ll be up front.”
I took the carrier into the bathroom, which consisted of a toilet and a pedestal sink. There was barely enough room to turn around once I shut the door, and I had a hell of a time lifting Gus from the crate without getting the putrid green slime all over me. He didn’t put up a fight, even when I set him in the sink and gave him an impromptu bath under the faucet.
“Oh, Gus. I hate that you’re not feeling well,” I said as I dried him off with paper towels. I put him on the floor and set about removing the soiled towels from the carrier and stuffing them into the garbage. It reeked in here. Angela was going to have to use a can of air freshener to get this stink out.
I tipped the carrier to wipe it out, and something fell out and rolled around the sink. I looked down at the small object coated in slime. Was this the reason he was sick?
“What the heck did you eat this time?” I turned on the faucet and rinsed the mysterious object. As the slime washed away, it revealed a round, iridescent blue stone that was warm to the touch and seemed to glow from within.
My stomach did a full summersault. It couldn’t be. I dried the stone off with shaking hands and held it up.
It was the ke’tain.
Chapter 19
I LEANED HEAVILY against the sink. I’d found it. Or Gus had found it. I stared down at the drakkan preening himself on the floor. How had this happened? How had a stolen Fae artifact, sought after by Faerie, the Agency, and half the bounty hunters in the world, ended up in the stomach of my drakkan?
I needed to sit down.
Picking up Gus, I opened the door and went back to the office. The visitor chair was full of books, so I took the chair behind the desk. I looked at the ke’tain again, and not knowing what else to do with it, I tucked it into the front pocket of my jeans.
Once the initial shock passed, I was able to think a bit clearer and put the pieces together. I’d known all along Gus had to be the drakkan that escaped from Lewis Tate’s house during the raid. With Gus’s propensity for eating anything that could fit into his mouth, it made sense that he would have swallowed the small stone. Whether that had happened the night of the raid or before, I’d never know. What I did know was that the ke’tain had been under my nose this whole time.
And now it was in my pocket.
My scalp prickled with unease. I had an object in my possession that people would kill for. My parents had almost died because of it, and the longer I held onto it, the longer my family was in danger.
I got up and pulled on my coat. I had to call Lukas. He would come get the ke’tain, and everything would be okay.
I had just taken my phone from my pocket when a large shape filled the office doorway. Already on edge, I let out a small scream and dropped the phone, which clattered across the floor. I could only stare as he bent and picked it up.
“Conlan, what are you doing here?” I asked in a voice that was an octave higher than normal. “You scared the hell out of me.”
He handed the phone to me. “You ran in here, and when you didn’t come out, I worried something had
happened to you.”
My shock gave way to confusion. “How did you see me run in here, and why were you waiting for me to come out?”
“We’ve been watching you and your father since he came home,” he said matter-of-factly. “Lukas was worried the Seelie guard or Davian might come after you if they thought your father remembered something.”
“You’ve been following me for a week, and no one bothered to tell me?” Never mind that I’d had the same fear ever since my father remembered the Ralston ballroom.
Conlan smiled unapologetically. “Telling you wouldn’t have changed anything.” He looked around the office and settled his gaze on Gus. “Faris said you were bringing him a sick drakkan. Why did you stop at a bookstore?”
My indignation over him following me vanished. All that mattered was the stone sitting in my jeans pocket. I pulled Conlan all the way into the office and went around him to shut the door. Turning, I saw him staring at me in amused bewilderment.
“I found it,” I whispered urgently.
“Found what?”
I took the stone from my pocket and held it out on my palm. For a few seconds, there was no reaction from Conlan. Then he surprised me by falling to one knee with his head bowed, and his hands crossed over his heart. He murmured something in Fae that sounded like a prayer, before he lifted his head to look at me.
“You are indeed blessed by Aedhna,” he said reverently. “How did you find it?”
I closed my hand around the stone and motioned for him to stand. “I’ll tell you once we get it somewhere safe.”
In the blink of an eye, the charming Conlan I knew was gone, and in his place was one of the legendary royal guard. He even looked bigger, if that was possible. “You’re right. I’ll take you to Lukas.”
My heart gave a little flutter at the thought of seeing Lukas again, but I grabbed Conlan’s arm when he reached for the door. “You should take the ke’tain.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “You planning to ditch me when we get outside?”
Leave it to him to joke at a time like this. “No. I think it will be safer with you.” I held the stone out to him, but he backed away.
