by Sarah Peters
I supposed the king of the summer court was nothing if not on brand.
“Did the Corn King name you Bountiful Harvest after his garden?” I wondered.
Bo glowered at me.
He parked the car with a screech, and we hopped out.
I shuffled around under my jacket and pulled the wand out from my sweatshirt.
To my immense pleasure, Bo yelped and leapt back when I flourished it.
“Where did you get that?!” he demanded, backing away further when I turned towards him. He crossed his arms over his body and stared at me in horror. “What are you?!”
A thief.
But that reminded me of Tobias, and I grimaced. My hand tightened on the wand as I recalled the way he’d dumped me.
“Je suis le muthafucking Compte de Monte-Cristo,” I growled. “Here for vengeance.” I slashed the wand through the air. “Let’s go kick some fairy butt.”
I strode towards the front door and Bo scrambled after me. “Excuse me!” he reached for me but drew away when I turned towards him with the wand. He gave it an affronted glare. “You are not here to kick butt, you’re here to convince my father to release Finn and let me return home, remember?”
“Your court,” I reminded him, “said they wanted to congratulate me for stopping the Court of the Winter Falls from getting their magic boost. Instead, they made me dance my feet bloody and raw for eight hours. Everyone laughed when I tried to get them to change Becca’s head back. Trust me, none of ya’ll are on my Good List right now.”
“We offered you treasure,” Bo retorted, apparently more stubborn than I’d given him credit for. “You could’ve had any of it. Don’t be pissy because you made the mistake of asking for some gross old ring.” Under his breath he added, “not everything you see is magical.”
But I wasn’t so sure I believed him. Tobias had acted like the ring was the holy grail. He’d thrown metaphorical rocks at me because of it.
“Regardless,” I said, “the most grievous offence is the kidnapping of Finn.” I pointed towards the door. “And I’m mad and need to diffuse my fury in a productive manner. Open the door and let me at ‘em, O’ Bountiful Harvest!”
He muttered something that sounded a lot like, “what in the world have I brought home,” but he unlocked the front door with a key he pulled out of his pocket, and eyed me with trepidation as I strode inside.
I didn’t hesitate, instead letting my bubbling anger back up to the forefront. I’d been poorly used by the fairies, and I was done with it and done with them.
And just let them try to stop me from getting Finn.
What the Wand Made Me Do
In all honesty, I had no idea what I was doing. Planning has never been my strong point.
I didn’t let that stop me as I burst into the Corn King’s home, magic wand in hand, my wrath at an 11 on a scale of one to ten.
“Yo!” I shouted. “Finn! Get up, nerd!”
“People are trying to sleep!” Bo hissed, as if I cared.
Ok, maybe I cared a little. The memory of those huge buffalo fairies acted as an effective damper.
I cleared my throat instead of hollering again and prodded the wand at the enormous atrium we now stood in. Two stories above us, a lit chandelier glittered. Everything had been decorated in soothing pastel earth tones, and all the art on the wall was vegetation themed.
“Take me to his room!” I commanded.
If I’d ordered any of my sisters around like that, they’d acquaint their foot with my butt, or else their fist with my boob.
Bo was either used to being ordered around by Strong Women, or else he was tired of me being annoying and wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. “This way,” he whispered. “Can’t you put that wand away?”
I’m not smart like Becca or cunning like Tobias, but I did all right for myself. It didn’t take a genius to realize that whatever this wand did, no one wanted me doing it.
“No,” I replied, waving the wand in his direction just to see him twitch. “Now lead on.”
Giving me a harried look, Bo crept down the hall and up the first staircase we came to. “Please be quiet,” he whispered, his eyes sweeping the open corridor. “No one likes being woken up this late. This isn’t our—I mean, night isn’t their time of power. If they’re not dancing, they’ll all be sleeping. We could get in serious trouble for disturbing them.”
I relented. I lowered the wand and stuck it back in my sweatshirt pocket. Close at hand, but out of sight.
Bo led me up a half staircase, and deep into one wing of the mansion. “My room’s this way,” he whispered. “Likely that’s where Finn is.” His eyes on the plush runner we walked on, he muttered, “the Corn King is many things, but considerate isn’t one of them. I suppose Finn and I are interchangeable in his eyes.”
Sympathy splashed me. I scowled, displeased that I felt any kind of empathy regarding Bo. “I’m sure he doesn’t think that,” I said anyway.
“Knowing him, he’ll like Finn better too,” Bo continued, tight lipped. “As you so kindly pointed out, one set of my parents already does.”
I winced. Ok, I’d let my anger get the better of me back at his house. “Someone loves you, I’m sure,” I said. I realized, a bit too late, that it sounded way less reassuring than I’d meant it to be.
Oh well.
Bo stopped outside a white door. He exhaled and reached for the ornate brass handle. “This probably isn’t going to work,” he grumbled, glancing at me. “And I’m sure I’ll just get in trouble for it.”
Finn would relish the possibility of danger.
Bo, apparently, did not.
The room was dark, but Finn’s a light sleeper, and when light from the hallway slashed through the dark, I heard him grumble, “go ‘way, ‘m sleeping.”
“Get your butt out of bed, Finnbraham Lincoln, I’m here to rescue you.” I pushed past Bo and promptly collided with a desk that the light hadn’t illuminated.
“Cat?!” A light snapped on, revealing Finn in all his mothman glory, sitting up in a huge king-sized bed. He scrambled in the sheets, tangling his legs in his haste, but made it with only a few stumbles onto his feet. He grinned like an idiot and threw his arms around me. A second later he inhaled and shoved me away. “Wait a second. What are you doing here?!”
“I’m rescuing you, weren’t you listening?” I surveyed the room. As expected of Bo, it was utilitarian in décor and bleak in atmosphere. Finn had added to his own chaotic touch to it, I noted with pleasure. Piles of clothes adorned the floors, and something fuzzy and food-like seemed to be molding on the desk. I moved my gaze onto Finn. He was shirtless and wearing whitey-tighties. “Nice look,” I said.
“Cat,” Finn protested, his amber eyes moving across my face. “You really shouldn’t be here.” He turned to Bo, who still lurked in the doorway. “Why’d you bring her here?”
“She threatened me,” Bo grumbled.
Finn eyed me and I shrugged innocently.
I bent down and handed him the first pair of pants I came across.
Slacks.
Actually, as I looked further, all the pants were slacks.
Good gracious, what kind of prison was this?!
Finn was halfway through pulling on pants when the Corn King arrived.
He looked different under artificial lighting. Less humanoid, more alien. More fey, I supposed.
I wondered how old he was. Hadn’t I overheard fairies talking about a previous ruler? I wondered if he’d seen the fey realm, like the Queen of the Winter Falls had, or if he was too young.
Young being a relative term.
He looked old enough to be a mummy.
He stopped and glared at me. His corn silk hair hung in damp looking strands over his head, and his dark, almost black eyes, seemed determined to burn holes through my soul.
In a voice as warm as a muggy afternoon before a thunderstorm, he said, “what a surprise to see you here, Human Champion.”
My rage, to my alarm, had morphed not into bravery, but into idiocy. “Wazzup?” I said, nodding my chin at him. “I’m just here for a social call. Well, no. I’m here for Finn.”
“Uh, Cat,” Finn interrupted, squeezing in front of me, blocking the Corn King and myself, “please don’t do this.” He gave me a pleading look, his eyebrows bunched and his smile wavering. “Really, I’m fine here.”
I didn’t believe it for a second. All he had for bottoms were slacks. Not even sweatpants. His hair had been combed recently and he looked too pale, and I could tell just from looking at him that he hadn’t been able to listen to any of his indie bands in days.
Plus, he was my soulmate and I could read him the way Aragorn could read Hobbit tracks.
“BS,” I grumbled. “You’re coming with me, and you—” I turned to the Corn King, looming behind Finn, “—can take your precious Bountiful Harvest back. He’s the worst and I’m sick of him.”
“Excuse me!” Bo protested weakly.
But Finn’s lips twitched, and he had to look away from me before he grinned.
“This is my son,” the Corn King growled, apparently not noticing Finn’s repressed smile. He lifted a withered corn husk hand and grabbed Finn’s shoulder. “You presume to come in here, Human, and demand I give my son to you?”
I jerked my head towards Bo. “And what’s he then? The way I heard it, you gave up Finn when he was a baby, and you got to choose your own son. What right do you have over him now? He’s just a changeling, nothing important to you.”
“He is still part of my court,” the Corn King hissed. He blinked, and I realized his eyes were the color of the sky before a tornado. Greenish, eerie, wholly inhuman. “He belongs, like all my subjects, to me. They are mine.”
I’d been warned, by multiple fairies, that the Corn King was possessive.
That seemed a bit like a massive understatement.
“I can take both of them,” the Corn King mused, his eyes shifting from Finn to Bo. “Make the changeling wear his glamor. Twins are rare enough. She barely has any twins in her court.”
This was not a direction I wanted the conversation to go. I scrambled for something—any kind of solution.
Tobias.
He’d said (and hopefully he hadn’t been lying) that fairies liked making deals with humans. Especially deals they were certain they could win.
But idiocy still gripped me, and when I’m on a roll, I sure as heck roll with it.
“What if we make a deal?” I asked.
I ignored Bo’s alarmed look and Finn as he slapped a hand over his face.
But I had him, I realized. The Corn King.
If Tobias hadn’t lied about fairies liking to make deals with humans they could exploit, I could only hope he’d been lying about the rest of the crap that’d he’d said. Especially about kissing me.
I clenched my eyes shut for a second. No. I couldn’t get distracted. I could mope about that later when I was hugging my dragon pillow and Meg was nearby to offer unhelpful advice on boys.
I had to get Finn first.
The Corn King’s eyes gleamed. He let go of Finn’s shoulder and he opened his mouth, revealing teeth as hard and desiccated as old flint corn. “You presume to make a deal with me, Human?”
I tucked my hands into my sweatshirt and gripped the wand. The stupid grassy bit on top tickled the side of my palm. I nodded at the Corn King. “If you win, you can keep Finn. If I win, he’s free to leave with me.”
“And there is a challenge associated with this deal?” the Corn King had moved closer, pushing aside Finn until he loomed over me like the scarecrow he resembled, haggard and frightening.
My idiocy morphed into full out insanity.
And it was darn good that unlike with Tobias, I could straight-up lie to the Corn King’s face.
“This is a test we humans give to adolescents,” I fabricated. “It is a rite of passage, something used to weed out the weak from the strong.” I nodded along to my words, ignoring Finn’s skeptical look from over the Corn King’s shoulder. “A simple test. We will look into each other’s eyes, and the first one to blink loses and forfeits their right to Finn.” I took my left hand out of my pocket and pressed it against my chest. “It’s how Jake Wildern knew I was strong. I’ve won against countless, weaker, humans.” That much at least was true enough. I’d spent hours in the car having staring contests with my sisters on road-trips to our grandparents’. Demurely, I added, “in the name of honesty I have to add that Finn’s beat me before.” I glanced at him, pretending to be humble. “Perhaps fairies are better at keeping their eyes open than humans.”
“Undoubtedly,” the Corn King snorted. He did not look impressed by my suggestion, and for a second I worried that the King of the Golden Sun was above a staring contest with a weirdo human.
But the prospect of winning and keeping Finn overruled any embarrassment.
“It is a deal,” he said, grinning his horrible, toothy grin again. Without giving me a chance to prepare, like a sprinkler spitting water over an already drenched lawn he hissed, “we begin now.”
Crap.
I widened my eyes and stared at the Corn King. He stared back.
Within his eyes, swirls of clouds formed and shifted, mesmerizing and uncanny. The corners of his eyes were goopy like tar melted from a hot sun, black and dripping.
I didn’t have any time to waste.
Sure, I was stubborn enough to win a staring contest on pure nerve alone, but I didn’t want to risk it, not with Finn’s freedom on the line.
And especially because I didn’t trust the Corn King not to cheat.
So I just had to cheat first.
Keeping my eyes open and unblinking, I snatched the wand out of my pocket. I whipped it in front of the Corn King’s face and his attention immediately snapped to it.
I whacked it against his forehead and he involuntarily blinked.
Once—twice—three times I smacked his forehead.
I hadn’t meant to—honestly, I’d only meant to force him to blink from the surprise of something about to hit him—but the wand had a mind of its own.
Three taps it was.
With a blarp and a puff of thick green smog, the Corn King disappeared.
I coughed and stumbled away, knocking into Finn, who steadied me.
“Cat, what did you do?!”
The smog lifted as quickly as it had formed, and the answer to his question became evident enough.
Laying where the Corn King had loomed seconds before, was a dried-up ear of corn, missing some kernels and with a brown, soggy husk.
“Oops,” I provided.
The Corn-King-Turned-Corncob didn’t so much as quiver.
I pocketed the wand and grabbed Finn’s hand.
“Just to put it out there,” I said into the awkward silence as Finn and Bo stared at the cob, “he blinked before he transformed. Technically, I won the bet.”
Finn turned his eyes to me. He shook his head but couldn’t quite hide his mirth. “You’re just asking for it now, my friend,” he said, and he had to cover his mouth to hold back his laughter. “You—you turned the Corn King into a cash crop!” he burst out laughing and covered his face with both hands as his shoulders shook. “OMG Cat, you are screwed!”
I pulled him out of the bedroom, pushing past Bo, who seemed rooted to the spot, still staring in horror at his adoptive dad.
