“Told you he wasn’t over it,” Sonny muttered. “So much for Faerie prescience . . .”
Don’t be smug, Flannery, Bob’s voice hissed inside his head. It’s unbecoming.
“Pour you a drink?” Bob said out loud, and Sonny heard the clinking of glassware. “The service in this place appears to have gone downhill rather badly.”
And whatever you do, boyo—whatever happens to me—you stay hidden.
Every instinct in Sonny cried out against that imperative. But he knew Bob was right. He did as he was asked—for the moment.
“What are you doing here, you miserable pook?” Gofannon asked angrily. There was a clanging sound, as if he’d thrown something heavy and metal to the ground.
“The Tavern used to serve a lovely brisket,” Bob said blandly. “I had a hankering. But from the look of things around here, I suspect the kitchen’s closed. And so, I’ll be on my way. Nice shovel. Lovely to see you again.”
“No. Puck.”
“Beg pardon?”
“We’ve a score to settle with you, the Wee Green Man and me,” Gofannon growled.
Sonny felt his jaw clench involuntarily at the mention. The leprechaun. Gofannon was in league with him and his sister. Or had been, at least, before Jenii Greenteeth was killed. Sonny thought of the glaistig’s lifeless body lying out in the Tavern hall and wondered fleetingly who had managed that feat.
“I won’t have you pulling another one of your disappearing acts,” the blacksmith said to Bob.
“And how will you stop me, mortal man?”
There was an echo of power that thrummed through the ancient Fae’s voice. Sonny could hear it from where he hid. But he also heard the sound of something else—a slithering, metallic sound. The sound of an iron chain uncoiling.
Bob shouted something in an arcane language and there was a flash of light and a shock wave that boomed out over Sonny’s earthen pit. But the chain was already singing through the air, and Bob’s imprecation turned to screaming as—Sonny feared—the cold metal bit into his Faerie flesh.
That’s it, Sonny thought. He couldn’t stay hidden any longer.
Yes. You. Can. Bob’s voice in his head was thick with pain, but insistent. You must.
Sonny clenched his fists in frustration. Bob—
Trust me, Sonny Flannery.
Sonny felt a surge of anguish rush through him, accompanied by a distracting noise inside his head. A thrumming sound pulsed in his mind, but it was wrapped in a kind of crackling static made up of broken bits of music. All around him, torn roots protruded from the dark earth—all that was left behind of the Old Shrub—oozing bright green sap onto Sonny’s arms and legs. Wherever it fell, Sonny felt a charge like an electric current dance across his skin, invigorating, vitalizing. But with each spark, the music in his head swelled, distracting him and dampening the growing fire in his blood.
It was maddening. Familiar.
A lullaby.
A lullaby that he hadn’t heard and hadn’t been able to even remember . . . not since Chloe the Siren had kissed him and stolen it from deep within his mind. Sonny concentrated on that, and—suddenly—the melody became crystal clear. The Irish lyrics, sung to him when he was a tiny baby, echoed through his mind in a clear and lovely voice. His mother’s voice. Sonny didn’t know the meaning of the words, but he knew intimately the sound of every syllable . . . and now he knew exactly what the song itself meant. It was meant to keep him safe. It was meant to keep him hidden.
And it was there because Kelley had made Chloe put it back.
Oh my dear, sweet Firecracker, Sonny thought, staring up at the circle of sky above him, when all this is said and done, you and I are going to have to have a little talk.
That all depended, of course, on Sonny staying hidden. He winced as he heard another wail of pain. Bob was suffering greatly.
It’s not the first time, boyo, said Bob’s voice in his head. The words were weak now, but they were still clear. With any luck it won’t be the last. Make it count.
The chain rattled. Gofannon laughed. One final cry tore from Bob’s throat. Sonny heard a thud and the sound of something being dragged across the floor and away down the hall. . . . Then all was silence.
“I know what she did.”
After Gofannon had taken Bob away, Sonny had climbed out of the hole and headed back to the reservoir cavern at a dead run. Now he stood, panting for breath, in front of Maddox—who stared at him, openmouthed. Sonny knew he must have presented something of a sight, all muddied and covered in bits of leaf. And alone.
“I know what Kelley did,” he gasped. “What she made Chloe do.”
“Where’s the boucca?” Maddox asked. “What the hell happened to you?”
“In a minute. First—tell me something.” Sonny brushed aside Madd’s astonishment. “Kelley made Chloe give me back the song she stole, didn’t she?”
Maddox glanced back and forth between Sonny and Fennrys, who’d come to find out what was going on.
“Didn’t she, Maddox?” Sonny pressed.
“Tell him,” the Wolf said.
Maddox frowned. “Well, yeah. Uh—at least I think so. . . . I wasn’t really clear on the whole thing—”
“I need her to steal it back.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Maddox spluttered.
“No—but it has to be. It’s a charm, Madd. There’s a charm stuck in my head.” Sonny knew, now, that this was what had been done to him. This . . . this lullaby. This was the thing that had hidden him—even from himself—for all those years. “I can’t explain it right now. But I need to get this thing out of my brain if I’m going to be of any use at all. Chloe’s the only one who can help me. Where is she?”
Maddox nodded at the chain of pools in the corner of the cavern. “Some of the Water Folk escaped through those during the fight. Who knows where they come out. She’s probably somewhere out in the East River by now.”
“We’ve got to find her, Madd.”
“I’ll go,” said a small voice at Sonny’s elbow.
“Neerya.” He knelt down and looked her in the face. “Can you find her? Do you think so?”
The little naiad shrugged. “I know all the tunnels where the Sirens swim. Some of them come up in the storm sewers where I shop for my feast food. I like to play hide-and-seek there sometimes.”
“Can you find Chloe and bring her back to me?”
Neerya glanced around the cavern. “She won’t come back here. Not after what happened. Sirens are silly scaredy things, I told you.”
“She’s right.” Maddox frowned. “She’s not the hardiest of souls—wait. . . .”
Sonny turned and looked at him.
“I know where Chloe will feel safe,” he said. “She felt safe in your apartment.”
“All right. Then that’s where we’ll go.” Sonny turned back to Neerya. “Bug? Can you bring Chloe somewhere if I give you directions?”
She gave him a look and said, “I don’t need directions. All I need’s an address.”
Sonny flashed her a brief, grateful smile, remembering how she’d found him on the subway. She probably knew the city better than he did. He gave Neerya the address and watched as she flitted off through the air and dived sharply into the pool, leaving barely a ripple behind on the surface of the water. Then he rose and turned to face the others.
“What exactly are we doing?” Fennrys asked.
“I’ve got a plan.”
“You do?” Maddox raised an eyebrow.
Sonny shrugged. “No. But I will. Get Cait. Let’s go.”
Chapter XX
“So. Valkyrie, huh?” Kelley said to Olrun. The silence between them had begun to make her uncomfortable, although Olrun didn’t seemed to mind. They’d gone outside—ostensibly to check on Belrix, but mostly to give Emma and Herne a moment alone. The great white horse turned and nuzzled Kelley’s shoulder. “That a good gig?”
“Used to be.” Olrun ran a hand over Belrix’s flank. “U
ntil I bent one too many of the All-Father’s rules and he exiled me to the mortal realm.” She laughed a little and patted the horse. “We used to convey the souls of heroes across the Rainbow Bridge to the golden halls of Valhalla. Now we ferry tourists in a circle around a park. Take my advice, missy. Don’t ever try to bend the rules too far.”
Kelley smiled in sympathy. Sage advice . . . she wished Olrun had been there to give it to her before she’d bent certain Faerie rules past their breaking point. Maybe she wouldn’t be in this mess now.
“Kelley?”
She turned to see her aunt beckoning her from the doorway.
“He wants to see you,” Emma said. “But only briefly, dear. He’s very weak.”
Kelley went back inside the house and down the hall with Emma to the guest room. Olrun had stayed out in the yard, but through the window Kelley could see her where she stood by the carriage, her glacier-blue gaze fixed unblinking on the house.
Kelley looked at the man in the bed. Even groggy and as full of as many homemade pain concoctions as Emma had managed to pour down the Hunter’s throat, his eyes still lit up at the sight of Kelley’s aunt. That was what would heal him, if anything could.
Emma left the two of them alone, saying she was going to make more tea.
“Hey,” Kelley said in a quiet voice as she crossed the room. “How are you doing?”
“Better than if you had not found me, lady.” Herne’s voice, normally so rich and warm, was barely above a whisper. “Thank you,” he said. “For my life . . . for bringing me here. . . .”
“Please call me Kelley.”
Herne nodded his head, and even that small exertion seemed to drain strength from him. Kelley moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Tell me,” Herne said.
Kelley had to strain to hear the request.
“Tell me what happened in my Tavern.”
Kelley told him about what she had seen, about the dead Fae and the hole in the ground where the Greenman tree had been. She watched as a hazy alarm grew in the Hunter’s pain-clouded gaze. Then she told him about Jenii. By then, Emma was back in the room, and her hand was on Kelley’s shoulder, squeezing gently in reassurance. Emma, who Kelley had thought would be horrified and disappointed in her at her act of violence.
“You did the right thing, my girl,” Em said, her voice quiet but firm as she went to raise Herne’s head up so that he could sip from the herbal tea she had made for him. “Don’t go tearing yourself up inside over it. If it had been me, I would have done the exact same thing, wiped the knife, and called it a task well done. That was plain evil you killed and none other. Used to drown children, she did, that one. Back in the day, around near where I grew up. Plain evil.”
“Maddox once told me a glaistig killed Sonny’s predecessor in the Janus Guard. Might have even been Jenii. . . .”
“And she’d have killed Sonny and you and whoever else she pleased, given the chance,” Emma said, her blue-gray eyes gone hard as stone, the set of her mouth unforgiving. She made the Hunter drink again and set the cup on the nightstand. “She’d have killed Herne if it hadn’t been for you,” Emma said, smoothing an imaginary crease from the comforter he lay beneath.
The Hunter had been silent for some time, and Kelley thought that maybe he had slipped into unconsciousness again. But then she saw the shadow of a frown on his brow and she knew that he was still listening.
Herne beckoned her closer and asked Emma to fetch him a small embroidered pouch that hung from his broad leather belt. She and Olrun had taken the belt from around his waist and laid it on a chair along with his bloodstained clothing when they’d gone to work on his wounds. Herne opened the pouch and withdrew a black silk cord, tied to a glittering onyx jewel—a talisman in the shape of a stag’s head. Kelley held out her hand and took the charm. It was cold in her hand.
“In case,” Herne said, quietly. “In case I do not . . .”
“Herne—”
“Give it to Sonny when you see him again. To remember me by.” Herne closed his long, elegant fingers around hers and squeezed with what was probably most of his remaining strength. It wasn’t much. He was very pale. “Tell him I’m sorry.”
“Tell him yourself,” Kelley said gently. “When I bring him back home.”
She stuffed the jewel into the pocket of her jeans, unwilling to think of any alternative to that scenario. Herne’s eyes slid half-open again, and his gaze went to Kelley’s throat.
“Where is your charm, Kelley?” he asked. “The clover charm you wear?”
Kelley put a hand to her neck. “Oh . . .” She fished in the other pocket of her jeans. “Here it is. In all the excitement, I forgot to put it back on.” It seemed that she had been far too tired and preoccupied to notice that her Faerie power had been unfettered for the last few hours. Or maybe she was just getting better at controlling it. Whatever the case, she slid the chain around her neck and fastened the catch, just to be sure.
“Keep it safe, Princess,” the Hunter murmured. “Keep yourself safe. Whosoever seeks to steal the Green Magick from Sonny will need that charm to do it. They will not rest until they find it. Until they find you.”
At that, Emma looked up at Kelley, her expression deeply worried. “Can’t you hide it somewhere, Kelley? Get rid of it?”
Kelley gave Em’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I’m not getting rid of it,” she said emphatically. “And I’m not giving it up either. Don’t fret, Em. Nobody knows where I am, and so long as I actually wear the charm, none of the Fair Folk can find me.”
It was true. Kelley recalled her desperate attempts to attract the attention of her mother’s Storm Hags when the charm had been magickally bound around her throat. She’d been all but invisible to them.
“Still . . . ,” the Hunter murmured thickly. Emma’s pain concoction must have been taking effect. “Better to be safe. Stay away from the Gate. Stay away from the park. That’s where they will be looking. The charm ties you to the Green Magick. The Green Magick is tied to the Gate. It will always pull you back.”
“I’m not going back, Herne. Not until this is over. I’m not about to take that risk.” Even though it hurt Kelley to say it, she knew it had to be that way. She thought about the theater company with a sharp pang of regret. The Avalon Players would just have to find a new Ariel—
Oh no . . . Kelley felt her heart flutter in sudden panic. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was just past ten o’clock. Rehearsal that night had been scheduled to go to eleven. Tyff . . .
Tyff who, at that very moment, was wandering around in exactly the one place Kelley shouldn’t be . . . looking exactly like Kelley! She had to warn her. In spite of what she’d just told Emma, she had to go back. . . . She kept the thought to herself. If Emma had the slightest inkling of what she was about to do, she’d never let her out of the house again. So instead, Kelley turned a small smile on her aunt and told the Hunter to get some rest. The last thing either of them needed to do was worry about her.
Kelley went into her old room and closed the door behind her, locking it tight. She called the cell number of every company member that she could remember. Which wasn’t a great many—she’d had them all programmed into her long-lost phone. She called Tyff. No one answered. Of course they weren’t answering. They were in the middle of a rehearsal—and anyone who left their cell phone on during one of Quentin’s rehearsals faced notoriously dire consequences.
Although maybe not so dire as having a vengeful leprechaun hunting you down so he can kill you with one of his damned possessed trees . . .
Kelley had to get back to the city. She had to warn Tyff.
Before she left, Kelley made another attempt to get hold of Queen Mabh. She was disturbed by the fact that her meddlesome mother had seemingly dropped out of existence. She’d vaguely expected that Mabh would appear in a plume of smoke to gloat over Herne’s injuries . . . but the queen had stayed conspicuous by her absence.
Kelley sat in
front of the mirror of her antique vanity table and dropped her clover pendant into the little porcelain dish where she used to keep her regular old non-magickal jewelry. She raised her hand and put it against the cold, reflective glass. And waited.
“Well now,” Mabh said from the shadows, her voice a pale-sounding imitation of its usual mocking musicality. “I am impressed, Daughter.”
Kelley frowned and tried to peer through the hazy gloom that shrouded the vision in the mirror. She couldn’t quite see her mother clearly. The flickering fog was like bad reception on a television, and Kelley wondered if she was doing something wrong.
“You’re learning,” Mabh said. “You wouldn’t have been able to cast a half-decent scrying spell even so little as a month ago.”
“And it really burns your cheese to see that I can now, doesn’t it?” Kelley snapped. Even when Kelley wanted to be civil, Mabh just had a way of needling her. Kelley’d always heard of those kinds of stereotypical mother-daughter relationships, but she had never thought she’d find herself in one. She didn’t know what to think of it. On the one hand, she had a mother. On the other hand . . .
“Where have you been?” Kelley asked, straining silently to clear up the Otherworldly interference in her scrying. “You haven’t bugged me in days.”
Mabh clicked her tongue impatiently against her teeth.
“Like this,” the queen said brusquely, and put her hand on her side of the mirror. Kelley let the pull of Mabh’s magicks sweep her own fingers across the surface of the glass, drawing after them sparkling trails that cleared away the obscuring, misty veil.
The view cleared, Kelley was shocked by her mother’s appearance. Mabh’s shoulders sagged, and she staggered back a step or two as if she would collapse. The Queen of Air and Darkness was so pale she was almost translucent. Her hair was pulled back from her face and hidden beneath a dark mantle, but the stray locks that had escaped hung in wisps about the queen’s hollowed cheeks. Her eyes were ringed with shadow, and her lips were bloodless and pressed together in a tight line.
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