by H A Titus
Josh shrugged, though his expression was pensive.
I side-eyed my friend. Josh gripped the steering wheel with one hand, while the other rested on the windowsill, his fingers tapping out various rhythms. I could practically see the gears in Josh's brain turning, but it was obviously about something else. That was weird. Had Josh seen something?
I dug painkillers from the center console, swallowed several of the pills, and leaned back in my seat with a sigh. I hated this feeling—the gnawing urge to do something, yet being completely helpless. I couldn't force Keelin to believe that the Lucht were real, any more than I'd been able to force my father to believe it.
What does it matter? It's not like I need him as an ally.
"You okay?" I asked Josh.
Josh shook his head. "You?"
"Don't worry about me." I tried to straighten up and winced. "So when we get back to Springfield, let's—"
"Don't lie to me."
I stared at him in shock. "What?"
"You're obviously not okay. Besides the broken ribs, you're the one who got his brain twisted around by that psychopath's glamour." Josh's hands tightened around the steering wheel. "Do you remember any of it?"
Another flash of Josh's face, bloodied and fearful. I flinched. It reminded me too much of the last time I'd seen my brother. "I know I beat you up, and I'm sorry. Josh, you can't—"
Josh abruptly pulled the car over on the wide shoulder of the road. He clenched his hands together at the top of the steering wheel and dropped his head onto them. "You tried to kill me."
The words felt like a punch in my gut, slamming me back to the choppy memories. I'd held a knife to Josh's throat. I swallowed hard as bile rose to the back of my throat.
"Eliaster, stad! Éreigh as!" Stop. Give up.
My own feeling of out-of-control panic and fear.
My hands trembled, and I balled them into tight fists. Fear? I'd feared Josh? The idea would almost be laughable if I didn't have a busted nose and cracked ribs to show for it. Josh had come a long way in five months, but he was far less formidable than Larae, or Llew, or even Ghurdan. I didn't fear Josh. That had to have been the glamour talking.
But the glamour would've needed something to latch onto. I tried to shove the thought away.
I am your railóir.
"Crap."
"What?" Josh snapped.
"The ogham, on the ring. Stiúir basically means rule, but its more precise definition is controlling influence."
Josh swore. "Tadhg told me it was guiding influence. Makes sense. He didn't take you over completely, because there were a couple of times I managed to get through to you. Even before I hit you. That's what snapped you out of it, right?"
"Maybe? I don't know. It's kind of a blur … I remember the glamour getting into my head, feeling the pain of that, and the next thing I remember clearly is being on the floor. You were beside me, and Shaughnessy had that gun pointed at your head." I thumped my head back against the seat.
How did he get into my mind?
Josh pushed his glasses up on his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose. His breath sounded shaky. "I should never have insisted on going after him."
I shrugged. "You had a valid point. If we'd waited, we easily could've lost him, and those other fae, and the relics. And then what would've happened? Keelin probably would've tried to blame us, and trust me, if he'd called in Highlord O'Breigh, you and I would be having a very different conversation right now."
"I know, I just—"
"You should've run," I told him. "Kicked me in the knees and run."
"Shaughnessy had a gun on me. Besides, that would've left you to face him alone. While he was mind-controlling you. What kind of friend would I be if I'd done that?" Josh sighed. "I was mad because I felt like I was being railroaded, between you, Banshee, and Tadhg insisting we had to go in the club after him. And after spooking him like that … I just didn't want to lose our only lead. So I pushed to go after Shaughnessy. Turns out I probably shouldn't do that."
Josh thought we'd forced him into that mission? I flinched. "I didn't think—"
"I know, Eliaster." Josh shook his head and accelerated, too sharply, out onto the road.
Why can't I ever just shut the hell up? I curled up in the seat and ran my fingers through my hair. As I thought back to earlier that night, I could see how Josh was right. He'd had objections and I hadn't listened. I winced again and tried to ease into a different position. I didn't want to think about this right now.
How did Shaughnessy get into my head? Glamour like that had to latch onto something. It couldn't just create an intense fear like that where nothing existed beforehand. But I wasn't scared of Josh. Protective, yes. But—
I felt sick. Protective. Just like I'd been protective of Iain. My older brother had been more book-smart than street-smart, the one who had always preferred to sweet-talk his way out of situations when I charged in swinging. Larae's little minion, David, had been right earlier this year. I'm treating Josh like a replacement for Iain. And that scared me.
CHAPTER 17
JOSH
Eliaster had finally kicked me out of the driver's seat—thirty minutes away from Springfield—because he'd claimed I'd nearly fallen asleep. But even once I'd slumped into the passenger seat of his car, I still couldn't fall asleep, despite the fact that it was almost one in the morning. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those glowing glamour vines wrapping up my arm. Shaughnessy's fingers tight on my wrist. Or Eliaster holding his knife to my throat.
He'd been scared of me. At some point, I'd realized that, while Eliaster had been under the ring's influence. But I still didn't understand why.
As we unloaded our stuff from the car and headed into the rath, Eliaster paused, holding out his hand in front of me. I stopped walking and clenched one hand. Eliaster winced and stepped back, showing me his palms. I breathed, relaxed a little.
Eliaster rubbed at his chest before dropping his hands to his sides. "Sorry. I'll have to be careful from now on, won't I?" When I didn't answer, he shuffled his feet in the gravel. "I'm—look, Josh, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
I nodded, the knot in my stomach tightening. "I believe you."
Not that it was all his fault. If I hadn't insisted on going after Shaughnessy …
After a few seconds, he turned and walked into the rath. I followed. We found Cormac and Roe in the library, cups of coffee in hand.
Roe looked up, spotted us in the doorway. Her eyes widened. "What happened?"
"Any leads on your break-in?" Eliaster dropped his bag in the corner and headed straight for the coffee maker.
"No, not yet," Roe said.
I flopped onto the couch and ground the heels of my hands into my eyes.
Roe leaned forward and clasped my arm. "Are you all right?"
"I … I stopped Shaughnessy from using his glamour."
The reactions I easily predicted were instantaneous: Cormac choked on his sip of coffee, nearly spilling the remainder of the mug down the front of his shirt. Eliaster's eyes locked on me, spikes of panicky mud-green flaring through his irises. Roe frowned, forming a little worry-wrinkle on the bridge of her nose.
"What?" Eliaster said. "What're you talking about? You didn't tell me that yet!"
"You didn't think it was weird," I said, "that the glamour he used went toward you, and not me? You didn't hear him talking about how he couldn't get a grasp on my mind?"
"Not really. It was kind of hard to think with the feeling of hot needles jabbing into my head and all," Eliaster snapped.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes again. I ached from a dozen different scrapes and bruises and felt bone-tired on top of it.
"Josh?" Cormac's voice nudged me out of my own head.
Right, they were waiting on my response. "Shaughnessy used glamour on Eliaster," I said, looking back up at Roe. "He had a ring that allowed him to dig into Eliaster's mind and control him with suggestions and commands."
Out o
f the corner of my gaze, I saw that Cormac's hand went to his son's shoulder, worry flicking through his eyes. Eliaster dropped his gaze to the floor, leaning slightly toward Cormac.
"When he tried to do the same to me, I could see the glamour. It looked like a vine, and it tried to wrap up my arm, but almost as soon as it touched me, it died."
"When did that happen?" Eliaster asked.
"When I tackled him outside of the factory."
Roe rubbed her knuckles against her lips as she thought. I could see the dark color of worry in her eyes. She glanced over at Eliaster. "You weren't able to use your glamour to pull away from Shaughnessy's control?"
He shook his head. "You know how it is. I don't have that much control in the first place, and …" His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I panicked. Couldn't think straight as soon as I felt the glamour invade my mind. And—he was strong, Roe. Really strong." Eliaster toyed with the chain of his necklace, his shoulders hunched.
I felt bad for him. Just the brush I'd had with the enslavement glamour had been enough to creep me out. I couldn't imagine how violated Eliaster must be feeling.
"Shaughnessy thought I was a curator," I said. "But curators aren't immune to glamour, are they?"
Roe shook her head. "The best they can do is resist it, using the focus and thought control techniques they're taught as children, but even someone like Simon would be broken eventually. That's why they primarily focus on research nowadays—they're too afraid of being wiped out, or overtaken."
I brushed my hand through my hair. "And I'm not a curator, anyway."
A rap on the door made us all start. Lukas leaned into the room. "Sir, you're needed on the phone."
Cormac nodded and left the room.
I rubbed my thumb along my bracelet. I was starting to worry at it the same way Eliaster always played with his cross necklace. Aileen. I needed to talk to Aileen. She'd been the one to tell me to put the bracelet back on. Because she'd known it would protect me from glamour? Just how much did she know?
Roe watched me for a moment, then raised an eyebrow. "Any theories?"
I smiled. How could she always tell? "When we faced Shaughnessy, I was wearing the bracelet. Could it have anything to do with being able to resist the glamour?"
"What would make you think that?"
I told her about how I'd seen Aileen use glamour in the coffee shop, but how, when Eliaster and Lord Keelin had faced off, I'd only been able to sense the glamour, not feel it.
Roe frowned, but she seemed deep in thought. "I … I don't know. It came from Blake's side of the family. And he was adopted. Authorities found him abandoned in a store parking lot when he was a baby, just barely walking, and the bracelet was tucked into his pocket. We've always just assumed it was a strange heirloom. I've examined it countless times, and there are no ogham, nothing that would indicate it was some kind of relic. But if that's the only difference, there must be some kind of link."
"I thought ogham were always present on relics," Eliaster said.
"As far as I'm aware," Roe said. "But I suppose there could be relics out there that do not have them. They'd have to be quite old, though. Some of the first ever made. The ogham are a human invention, not sidhé, so I'm assuming that relics first made in Tir Ni-all wouldn't have had the markings."
I rubbed my thumb along the slick curve of the bracelet. Great. I could be wearing a literal piece of fae history.
Roe's eyes sparkled with curiosity. "Now, what's this about a dream?"
I swallowed nervously. "It's been the same nightmare twice now. I wake up with a full moon shining on me, and the bracelet starts to constrict, cutting into my arm, and then glamoured vines burst from the floor and start to choke me."
Eliaster turned and went to the coffee cabinet. Even across the room, I could see the tension in his neck and shoulders.
"And you had this dream even the night you didn't wear the bracelet?" Roe asked.
I nodded.
Roe pressed the edges of her fingers to her lips and sighed. "Well, it sounds like I have several more things to put on my research list."
"Sorry."
"Don't be. An unmarked relic is something entirely new to me. And I don't believe I've ever heard of even a fae who had complete, extreme resistance to glamour."
"It's only happened once," I said. "Maybe it was a fluke."
"Flukes in glamour usually end up with someone being dead," Eliaster commented, walking back and holding out a cup of coffee to me.
"Thanks, sunshine." I glared at him as I accepted the mug.
Eliaster tried to smirk, but the expression lacked its usual lightness. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red book and handed it over to Roe. "Maybe this'll help. I found it at Shaughnessy's apartment."
I raised my eyebrows, trying to push down my irritation. "If Keelin finds out you kept that …"
"Banshee didn't see me take it. There's no way he could know," Eliaster said as he walked back to the cabinet.
Roe took it and flipped it open, slowly paging through it.
"And while we're on that …" Eliaster cleared his throat. "Banshee and I ran into a cat-sidhé at Shaughnessy's apartment. He was one of the goblin slavers—he said Shaughnessy had told him to clear the apartment out."
"So we did scare him off, then," I said quietly.
Eliaster nodded. "Banshee interrogated him." His voice hitched just a little. "The goblin said that a couple of months ago, Shaughnessy had been talking to a woman about some kind of important relic, and based on his description, I think that woman was Larae."
I groaned. Because of course it would be.
Roe looked up. "You're certain?"
"He described her perfectly."
"Great," I muttered. "Well, I'd been wondering if there was a connection—I guess we know now."
"An important relic," Roe said. "You think Shaughnessy knew something about a pathstone, and sold Larae that information?"
Eliaster shrugged, pulling a mug from the cabinet. "Maybe I'm wrong."
"No, I don't think you would be," I said. "It makes sense." I scratched my hands through my hair. "Did the goblin tell you where Shaughnessy was getting his relics?"
"No."
"Okay, so our first step would be finding out that. Where does he get his relics? And we need to figure out if he was involved in selling them, or if he just happened to know the right people." I reached out, grabbed a notepad, and started scribbling down notes as I talked.
"I'd say that based on the fact that you found relics at the house where the goblins were keeping the kidnapped humans, Shaughnessy was at least minorly involved in moving and selling relics," Roe said.
I noted that. "Okay, so how are he and Larae connected? How did she hear about him? Pathstones are big, so something like that isn't going to be trusted to a small-timer like Shaughnessy. It'd go to someone big, someone at the top of the food chain. So we need to find people who are big into black market relics, figure out who's connected to Shaughnessy, who he was moving relics for." I tapped my pen on my leg, mind spinning. "Might have to try to talk to the curators, or maybe Banshee. Maybe Keelin would be willing to share anything they learn from Shaughnessy. Or maybe we can bribe it out of him. And I bet—"
"Okay, okay, whoa, slow down." Eliaster held his hands up. "I get it, this is a new puzzle for you to solve. But I at least need some sleep."
I glanced up at the clock on the mantel. Two AM. The long days and broken sleep of the last couple of nights settled like a weight on my shoulders. I tilted my glasses up on my forehead and rubbed my eyes. "Maybe in a few minutes," I said, glancing over my scribbled notes.
I barely heard Eliaster's sigh as he got up and walked from the room, taking his coffee with him. I tipped my head back against the back of the couch and stared at the wood-paneled ceiling, mind spinning with so many thoughts I had a difficult time grasping all of them.
One stood out in my head—the bracelet. Aileen had known about the bracelet. I pull
ed my phone from my pocket and opened my texts.
Hey. When can we meet? I have lots of questions.
My eyes felt full of sand, and I blinked slowly a couple of times, then closed them, trying to relieve the feeling.
I vaguely felt the phone slip from my hand as I fell asleep.
# # #
Over the next couple of days, I managed to get computers set up at the rath. Then I started working on wifi, which Cormac had insisted he wanted. Yeah, that was basically a joke with a bunch of fae running around. I let it stew in the back of my head for a while as I began helping Roe organize and catalogue all her research on the relics.
Aileen never texted me back about meeting up, even though I checked my phone multiple times a day. Probably more times than was healthy, if I was totally honest.
I didn't really know what Eliaster was up to—he was in and out. I was pretty sure he was giving me space deliberately, which I appreciated. In the little time that I didn't keep myself occupied, I'd find myself turning those moments—Eliaster with his knife at my throat, Shaughnessy telling him to kill me—over in my head until a hot, sickening knot burned in my chest.
If I hadn't pushed for going after Shaughnessy …
"No, Kylie, I'm telling you—"
Roe's frustrated tone snapped me out of my gloomy thoughts. I glanced over at her. She paced in front of the fire, one hand on her hip as she spoke on the phone. I caught her eye and raised my eyebrows.
She rolled her eyes, pressed the phone against her shoulders, and mouthed, "Curators."
Oh, so she was still trying to get hold of someone who would listen. Roe waved at a basket of books sitting on the side table, then pointed up at a blank space at the top of one of the bookshelves flanking the fireplace.
I sighed and got up from my computer desk, grabbing the basket.
"Yes, I work for the Tyrones. That doesn't—" Roe sighed. "That should be water under the bridge. It was proven it wasn't—No, listen. It wasn't his fault, and you know that."
I paused at the foot of the ladder leaning against the bookshelves, frowning. This sounded like how most of the other conversations had gone, even if it was lasting longer.
