by Perry, D. R.
“So, I’m like a Sidhe or something?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Gemma stared hard at Olivia’s hair. “It’s just a theory. I really don’t know.”
“I think so, too.” I paced slowly, remaining behind Olivia. “But Olivia getting favors hasn’t worked on me. This whole set of shenanigans might be a ploy to get her into debt on the Unseelie side.”
“I can’t believe you’re telling me all this.” Gemma grinned. “I mean, I owe Olivia a favor, and somehow, you’re both spilling your guts to me.”
“You’re the captain, Gemma.” Olivia chuckled. “Besides, I’m a stranger in a strange land here. So I’ll need all the help I can get. And I don’t expect anyone to give me a hand if they don’t even know what I’m doing in the first place.”
“I hope I’m wrong.” My tail flicked from side to side, no matter what I did to stop the traitor appendage from giving all of my feelings away. “You’re way too honest to be a faerie anything. Kiki knows everything about what you are but can’t say. I don’t think you’re a changeling. You don’t smell like one, for one thing.”
“Oh, and what does she smell like then, Tony?” Gemma waggled her eyebrows, her grin goofier than a vaudeville performer’s.
“Heaven.” I cleared my throat. Had I meant to say that? My face felt like it’d just been slapped by a giant-sized palm.
“Nice!” Gemma held one fist up. I sighed and rolled my eyes, but she didn’t put it down. I tapped it with mine.
“Hey!” Olivia rolled her eyes. “I’m right here with you guys, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” I stopped walking and stuck my tail out, blocking her path. I figured at that point, it was now or never. She had the king’s attention, but so far, he hadn’t asked anything of her but a Quest. Maybe I wouldn’t be too late if only I could say what needed saying now. “And it’s about time I told you—”
My voice was drowned in a wall of sound. A low, throbbing, howl besieged my ears, leaving behind a rubble of ringing when it stopped. That was why I saw the king before I heard his boots hit the planking on the dock we’d moored at. Instead of the ragged black tuxedo, he wore a softly draped cloak over a doublet and hose. Olivia blinked a few times, looking like she used to at high noon on all her meds. He’d dazzled her, of course. He was the king, after all.
“Where does he get off, anyway?” I grumbled. “Matching his clothes to your feathers is just tacky.”
“Actually, it’s technically the opposite, young Mr. Gitano.” The king inclined his head toward me. “I’m glad to see with my own eyes that you walk among the living again, and that you’ve decided to aid my champion. I will need to steal her away for the moment, however.”
And just like that, I had to let her go.
Chapter Twelve
Olivia
Ron stretched one of his hands out toward me, tenting his hand in the same way he had back at Swan Point Cemetery. Even with the familiar gesture, I could tell he was not strictly the same creature I’d met before. Here in the Under, the Goblin King would brook no insult, offer no indulgence. I adjusted my address accordingly.
“You didn’t tell me I was a champion, Your Majesty.” I held my hand under his since he seemed to expect it, and I wasn’t about to piss the king off in his own demesne, even if he’d called me here. My shoulders tightened, a symptom of my efforts not to turn my head around to look at Tony. My life was weirder than ever, walking with the king of all things Unseelie while pining over a cat straight out of Schrödinger’s theorem.
“You weren’t quite that at the time.” The king paced down the dock, and I went with him on my own feet this time. I’d gotten less clumsy on land since my wings had decided to put in an appearance. He seemed to realize that, too, knew it without having to be told. Instead of warm and fuzzy, the whole thing felt uncannily ticklish, like a spider walking on my neck. “You are now, however.”
“Okay, then. Champion it is.” I grinned and glanced up at him. His eyes looked soft and fond, alight with a sort of affection. It reminded me of the way some people look at their pets. “Hopefully, I made it here on time.”
“Yes.” The king’s eyes tilted down and behind me for a moment. When they returned to mine, he shook his head. “And I see you’ve found my Garters.”
“I suppose you want them back.” I clapped my free hand over my mouth. Not only did I sound like Captain Obvious, but I’d also engaged in banter. Bantering with faerie royalty hadn’t been my intention. If the queen was anything like the king, I had no idea how Richard Hopewell handled being near her. A healthy dose of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, maybe. It’d take something like that to feel more than halfway significant beside a Faerie monarch. And I’d just sassed off to one by some error of instinct. “Um. Sorry to presume.”
“No need to apologize. You suppose correctly.” He sighed. “But I can’t have them now. The Garters choose who wields them, for good or ill. I’ve had my day. You’re the one this time around. And you’ll need them, for your Quest and perhaps beyond.”
“You said you’d give me the particulars on that.” In the silence that followed my statement, I heard Tony mutter something behind us. The fire returned to my belly. He’d been about to tell me something important. It wasn’t as bad as wondering whether he was dead, but I swallowed my anger over Tony walking behind me, fuming. He followed at a distance which respected the king’s wishes but made it clear that he wasn’t happy about it.
“You and your party must be adequately equipped for the coming chase.” He turned his head, gazing up at a chalet on the cliff overlooking the sea. The king’s brow creased, and for a scant span of seconds, he looked elderly. When he turned back to face me, the smile he wore would have looked at home on the face of an elementary-schooler. He snapped his fingers. “Done.”
“What to the who now?” A gale came in over the water, but only my shoulders felt cold. Tony let out a low whistle. I looked down.
Instead of a tattered old beach dress, a skirt of feathers matching my wings covered me from the waist down. A sleeveless doublet of blue leather covered my torso, molded perfectly to my form. It left my arms free for drawing a bow and loosing arrows.
Instead of flip-flops, moccasin-style boots covered my feet and calves. The right one sported a sheath with a boot dagger. I tugged at the hilt and it came free, revealing a silver blade with copper edging.
“That’s sick!” Tony strode forward to peer at my new weapon. “Sick and twisted. What did he say we’re fighting?”
“He didn’t, yet.” I looked back up at the king, hoping whatever expectant expression my face wore wouldn’t offend him.
“He’ll tell you soon.” The Goblin King smirked, reminding me of the time he’d popped in at Josh’s to give Ismail an unexpected promotion. He seemed ageless and all ages at the same time, mercurial. I wondered how much of a headache that gave him.
“Will His Majesty give me some swag, too?” Tony raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m helping your champion, after all.”
“How…hmm, appropriate.” The king’s smirk vanished, his flinty eyes losing any warmth they’d held. “It’s been nearly a century since one of your kind walked the Under, and ages since one allied with a creature like my current champion.”
“Enough with the cryptic statements, Majesty.” Tony’s mouth puckered around the honorific as though it were a lime. “If you’re in the mood to hand out gear, make with the gifting already. Payment’s part of even your flexible rules.”
Tony
I stood facing the king, tapping my foot in time with my flicking tail. I didn’t give two shakes that he was a Faerie monarch. If he needed help so badly, he’d have to pay somehow. I didn’t owe him jack or squat, and I wasn’t about to let him imply that I did.
“Ah,” said the king. “I would, but it seems that you are already reasonably prepared.”
“But I ain’t a Boy Scout, and everybody knows it, so don’t mock me, Your Majesty.” I kn
ew my way around faerie everything. All the same, Olivia blinked at me like I’d just made a faux pas instead of using a sound negotiating tactic. “I ain’t prepared for a magical owl shifter’s Quest. You want her to have the best chance at success, you want to make sure her help has similar odds.”
“You talk sense, young Mister Gitano.” The king snapped his fingers. “There.” He waved a hand at my shoulders. They itched a little.
“Huh.” I reached up with both hands, not sure what to expect. Two buttons now hung from my epaulets, one silver, and the other copper. The storm flap on my coat felt heavy. I reached under it to find it reinforced with chain mail. I patted my rain guard, which had the same upgrade. The itching got worse somehow, and deeper. It felt like the muscles between my shoulders had itching powder all over them, but I couldn’t call the king out for a prank at that point. I also couldn’t complain about only getting some armor and a couple of lousy buttons. “Thanks, Your Majesty.”
The king only smiled. I didn’t mind that much until he turned the expression toward Olivia and it widened. I almost didn’t blame him, she had that same effect on me. But she was the only person who made me feel like smiling more. The Goblin King could find some other bird to coax onto his perch. He leaned over and whispered something in her ear.
I should have overheard the whole thing but only managed to catch a bit. After the king put his arm around her shoulders, the only sound was my blood pounding with jealousy. The itching on my back gave me an idea of what it must be like to have rabies. I was on the verge of pitching some mad fit, my ears flattening against my head. Before I could hiss, he stepped off, leaving Olivia’s face a tangle of eyebrows and chewed lower lip.
“Now that you’ve had your briefing, get to the summit and begin tracking the interloper. My hunting party will follow at a distance. I expect great things from both of you.” The king put his right hand over his head like he wanted someone to give him five. He clapped his own left hand against it and vanished.
“Great.” I stared at the cliff ahead of us, stumped by the path snaking up its side. At least that blasted itching had finally stopped. “Maybe you should go without me, after all.” My tail twitched even though I’d tried to stop it. I hated how everyone could tell when I was angry or scared because of the stupid tail. And from where I stood, His Royal Majesty was friendlier with Olivia than I liked. Then again, it didn’t matter what I liked. Someone else’s opinion on the matter was more important, of course. I held my tongue, waiting for her to weigh in. “Maybe the king doesn’t want me around.”
“I don’t care what he thinks. I need you.” Her big amber eyes scanned the trees near the top of the path, stopping at a shadowy spot on the farther side. “Come on, Tony. Let’s go.”
“There’s no way we’ll climb that anytime soon.” I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest. My coat felt too tight.
“Um, Tony?” Olivia stretched her wings and shook them a little. “With a pair of these, you can get just about anywhere.” She flapped her wings once, then looked at me. No, her gaze was fixed over my shoulder again.
I tried to look at whatever she saw without turning around, but I couldn’t because I wasn’t an owl shifter with a neck right out of The Exorcist. The itching and the tightness in my trench coat gave me some of the craziest suspicions. I moved my arms, about to shrug off my coat and leave myself vulnerable.
“Wait.” Olivia walked behind me. Her presence there made me burn with the most inappropriate sense of anticipation. I just knew she was about to touch me, and waiting for that had me twitchier than being in a room full of rocking chairs. I wasn’t exactly happy about it, either. There’s no time for romance or even flat-out lust when you’ve got to track quarry ahead of an Unseelie Hunt.
I felt a gust of air as Olivia unbuttoned the tab holding my coat’s back vent closed, then she tugged on the belt. I shook like a skyscraper in an earthquake, couldn’t help it. When her fingertips brushed what strained against the heavy fabric, I noticed that she trembled, too. I closed my eyes, the back of my eyelids replaying that afternoon when she’d kissed me in the shadow of the Dennisons’ wall. I’d felt like I could fly that day, until the reality of how I’d put Olivia in danger if I claimed her as mine crashed my hopes worse than Icarus. A breeze blew down the hillside, twinging my whiskers and ruffling my feathers.
“Feathers?”
“Yes, Tony.” I opened my eyes to see Olivia standing in front of me. “The king gave you wings. I adjusted your coat to let them out. Try them.” A smile tugged the corners of her mouth. I flexed the muscles in my back, kicking up a gust behind me. “Hoo, boy.”
“Hoo, girl.” My own face twisted as I tried not to laugh.
She did, and I lost it.
That laughter was like the time I went to a cathartic screaming therapy session, only a million times better. Our faces stretched and streaked with tears. When she dabbed her eyes and I screwed my fists under mine, we were ready to discuss the important stuff.
“I don’t know how to fly.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll be fun. The king said it’d come naturally to you because of what you are.” I could have launched into a list of questions about that, but we had just as much time for that as declarations of affection or whatever.
“So this Quest is gonna be a piece of cake, huh?” I winked. “Lead on.”
“Cake in a cup.” Olivia pointed up the headache-inducing path. “Come on, then. Let’s fly!” She held out her arm like some old-timey lady going on a stroll.
If it’d been anyone but her, I’d have turned tail and headed anywhere else, but I couldn’t let her go alone. It’s dangerous to do that. Anyway, I might as well have stayed dead if I wasn’t going to help Olivia. I didn’t take her arm, though. It would have been lame for her, linking arms with me after touching freaking royalty. I closed my eyes, trying not to remember how her lips had felt during that one brief shining moment they’d been pressed to mine six months earlier. How could I burn with fiery green jealousy over a woman I didn’t deserve? Bah humbug.
“Fine,” I said. The lie left a flat and sour taste in my mouth.
“Copy me like I’m Lynn Frampton and this is a science exam.” She walked ahead of me, her shoulders tilted further down than I’d seen them since the moment before she’d turned around to see I was really alive back in the Gnomehill. She had to feel pretty low for me to notice that with her wings open.
I went back to the patented Tony Gitano pastime of kicking myself. Right before the king showed up, I’d been about to tell Olivia in no uncertain terms how important she was to me even if those damn torpedoes weren’t love, exactly. Now I wasn’t so sure a declaration from one lame cat shifter would matter. After all, every time my feelings had mattered before, they’d gotten me into trouble.
Tilting my wings forward, I raced in Olivia’s wake. The air she’d displaced played with my new feathers. She reminded me less of a celestial being now, although that idea had never strayed far when she was around. If she was like an angel, then I was a soul condemned to Hell, and my own father was my jailer.
Dad had always tried to suss me out, discover whether I cared about things, and then turn them on me like daggers. It was a strange kind of torture, designed to get something other than information out of me. My emotions were his ammo the handful of times we got into a moral shootout. I wasn’t innocent either because it's hard not to copy the person who's supposed to know better. Feelings were landmines on the Gitano Family battlefield. Stepping on the wrong one proved deadly.
The air and our speed lifted us. I floundered, pulled more than I expected by the wind’s currents. As we took to the half-lit skies, I spied the king’s hunting lodge off to my right. The lower light gave everything a black, white, and ruddy cast.
It turned out that flying was easy. Olivia swayed before me, flapping to gain more altitude. I mirrored her movements, my wings carrying me without the strain I expected. Soon, I paced her. I set my mind free to wander.
A month earlier, I’d stood in Josh Dennison’s basement, breaking stuff and making noise about how Dick Hopewell the Extramagus could just bring it. I’d been so focused on the big bad, I’d forgotten about the near and constant threat of dear old Dad in my life. That had given him the opportunity to kill me.
“Why did you bother bringing me along, anyway?” I shut my trap too late. Flying wasn’t an autopilot proposition, after all. At least, I thought, she wouldn’t be able to hear me in all the wind. But the king had fixed it so she could, somehow.
Olivia
“What kind of question is that, Tony?”
“The lame kind, I guess.” He snorted. “Shouldn’t have asked it.”
“There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”
“Of course, you quote Watkins at a time like this.”
“That’s not Watkins, it’s you.” My wings fluttered, which wasn’t ideal with the downdrafts. “Watch out up here—turbulence. My bad.”
“Okay.” Tony’s tail twisted out behind him, probably helping him navigate the gusty mess I’d made. “And I don’t remember saying anything like that.”
“You don’t remember the first day we met?”
“Yeah, I remember.” He clammed up after that. My throat tightened with the idea that he’d forgotten it all.
There was no way I’d ever forget that early autumn day, the sun too bright even for my medicated eyes. Tony had looked like an oasis of black, absorbing the light. I was drawn to him like some kind of reverse moth to a dark flame. I’d tugged his sleeve without thinking. The way he’d flinched struck my heart like an arrow to the chest. So I’d stopped breathing, thought my heart stopped, too.
I only wanted to ask directions, hadn’t intended to look into his face. And there I found a portrait of terror like he’d been expecting someone else. And then he’d smiled. All that fear melted away, leaving behind an obstinate allure. I gasped, realizing that here was a man who’d never give up. And then I yawned like an idiot. He laughed, not at me but with me. More like we were in on some secret joke together.
