by Jenna Black
I grunted in exasperation. “How much of an honor can it possibly be when she’s blackmailing me into going?”
“Trust me. It’s an honor, no matter what inducements she felt it necessary to offer in order to be certain we come. The end result is that you will be presented at Court, and that is a very public show of favor.”
“Okay. I’ll take your word for it.” And try to remember that the Fae don’t think like normal people.
“Good. Now, what’s your next question?”
“How long will we be gone?”
“I can’t say with any great certainty, but count on it being at least three weeks.”
“Three weeks!” I’d been assuming—why, I don’t know—that it would take a couple of days.
Dad smiled at me. “Remember, this is Faerie we’re talking about. There are no cars or planes. The trip from Avalon to the Sunne Palace should take roughly four days on horseback, and you can be certain Titania will keep us waiting for at least a week before she finds it convenient to hold the ceremony. And afterward, we’ll be expected to stay awhile to fulfill our social obligations.”
Horseback? This just got better and better. I’d never ridden a horse in my life, and I’d have been just as happy to keep it that way. Though I supposed if the alternative was walking, horseback would have to do.
“It won’t be until after the presentation ceremony that we’ll be able to speak with Titania. However, I have had a chance to question several members of Henry’s entourage today, and I feel reasonably certain Titania did not send those Knights after you.”
I shook my head, not believing it for a moment. “Just because they say so?”
“No, because I know Titania. Getting her to change her mind at all takes something just short of a miracle. If she wanted you gone so recently, she would not have invited you to Court unless something catastrophic occurred, and it hasn’t.
“Of course, someone was behind the attack,” my dad continued. “Someone with enough clout to command a pair of Knights to carry out a personal errand.”
I shivered. “You mean someone like Prince Henry?”
Dad grimaced. “The thought has crossed my mind. Although hiring Knights to make threats and do bodily harm is not his style. Remember what I told you about the Fae love of subtlety. An overt attack like that would be considered gauche in the extreme.”
“Gee, I feel so much better knowing that him murdering me would be a social faux pas.”
“Princes can’t afford faux pas like that, so it’s more of a deterrent than you think.” He leaned forward a little and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t worry. I’ll be keeping a careful eye on him, just in case.”
“Do you think whoever was behind that attack would be happy to see me being presented at Court?”
His face wasn’t what I’d call expressive, but even the studied lack of expression was an expression in itself. “You will be well guarded. I’ll be with you, and so will Finn and Keane.”
Keane was Finn’s son and my self-defense instructor. I had what I think of as a like/hate relationship with him. When he’s beating the crap out of me on the practice mats, I really hate him. When we’re not sparring, he can be a pretty decent guy, though things were currently a little uncomfortable between us because I suspected he liked me a whole lot more than I liked him. Still, I would definitely feel safer with him by my side.
“What about Ethan and Kimber?” I asked, because I was sure Kimber would have already started bugging her dad and mine to let them come with me.
My dad managed to look disapproving without changing his facial expression, which was a neat trick. He didn’t insist I stay away from my Unseelie friends, but I knew he’d be a lot happier if I stuck to my “own kind.” If I ever start choosing my friends based on which Court they belong to, just shoot me.
“Alistair has suggested they come along,” he answered. “I hesitate to take the risk when they are both so young and untried.”
“Kimber’s a couple months older than me, and Ethan is the same age as Keane.”
“I know how you feel about Ethan,” he said with a little smile, “but … He and Keane may be physically the same age, but Keane is an adult while Ethan is still a boy.”
I knew what my dad meant, and when I’d first come to Avalon, I might even have agreed with him. But Ethan wasn’t quite the same since I’d rescued him from the Erlking’s clutches. He was still bound to the Erlking in ways I didn’t fully understand, and the ordeal had aged him. He was not the same carefree boy I’d first met.
“However,” my dad continued, “if Alistair is determined that they come along, I shall have to take them. I fear that if I refuse, he might send them after us anyway, and that would be far more dangerous for them.”
I was glad to know I’d have plenty of company, but I hated the thought that Alistair would put his political ambitions above his children’s safety. As ambitious as my own dad was, he was practically fanatical about keeping me safe.
“I don’t believe you will be in danger,” Dad said, “especially not when you are so thoroughly guarded. However…”
I felt the faint prickle of magic, and suddenly there was a pink faux-leather case, about six inches long, in his hand. He extended the case toward me, and I took it. I hadn’t a clue what was in it, and Dad ignored my inquiring look.
With a shrug, I lifted the lid, then almost dropped the case when I saw what was inside, nestled in a bed of red velvet: a gun. The logo on the underside of the lid said “Lady Derringer.”
“It’s only for emergencies,” Dad said. “I’ll teach you how to use it, but I certainly don’t expect you to need it. I just think we’ll both feel better if you have a mortal weapon available.”
Swallowing hard, I touched the ivory-colored grip, which had a picture of a white rose on it. Despite my dad’s reassurances, I didn’t think taking a gun with me into Faerie was going to make me feel safe at all.
* * *
The next morning was one of my regularly scheduled lessons with Keane, which meant I had to get up indecently early and couldn’t have any breakfast until afterward. Not unless I wanted to risk it coming back up while we sparred. If my teacher were anyone but Keane, I’d have expected him to give me the day off on the day before I left for Faerie, but I knew better.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, examining the new high-backed tank top I’d ordered from an athletic catalog. In the catalog, it had looked like the top might give me enough coverage to hide the Erlking’s mark on the back of my shoulder. It covered part of the mark, but not all of it. I sighed regretfully, then headed to the bedroom to pull a T-shirt on over the tank. It was easier to fight without the loose, comfortable T-shirt giving Keane something to grab on to, but I didn’t have a choice.
I opened my bedroom door to find that Keane had already arrived. He’d pushed the furniture in my sitting room to the walls and was rolling out the practice mats. I admired the view for a moment, because even if I didn’t like him that way, there was no denying he was a treat to look at. He had a typically beautiful Fae face, but his hair—dyed jet black, with a lock perpetually hanging in his eyes—along with the earrings in his left ear, the Celtic armband tattoo, and a wardrobe that seemed to consist entirely of black, gave him a bad-boy edge. What could be sexier than a Fae bad boy?
“You’re late,” he said to me without looking up.
“Good morning to you, too,” I responded, approaching him warily. Keane didn’t believe in giving me a warning before he attacked—he said my enemies wouldn’t do it, so he wouldn’t do it—and that meant my lesson could start at any moment, even when it looked like he was thoroughly engaged in something else. I watched his body language carefully, searching for any sign that he was about to leap into motion.
“We’ve had this discussion before,” he said as he finished arranging the mats. “I expect you to show up on time every time.”
I rolled my eyes at the rebuke. And, of course, that was w
hen he attacked.
Despite his high-handed, annoying, and often painful training techniques, Keane was a great teacher. Not that I’d ever admit it to his face. Even though I’d let my guard down, I reacted fast enough not to take his punch in the face. My arm jerked upward like it had a will of its own, blocking the punch.
In a real fight, that block might have saved my life, because a blow that hard to my head might knock me out and would certainly at least knock me down. And in a real fight, I’d be thanking my lucky stars right now as I ran like hell to get away from whoever had attacked me.
But this wasn’t a real fight, so my reaction—very mature, I know—was to yell “Ow!” loud enough to burst a few eardrums. I knew in theory that Keane pulled his punches when we sparred, but it still hurt like hell when he made contact, even when I managed to block.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Keane said, even as he kicked out in an attempt to knock my legs out from under me.
This was the reason I hated him so much when we were sparring.
I jumped backward, avoiding Keane’s kick, and after that there was no time for complaining. Even if I’d had enough air in my lungs to make a complaint.
I knew I was getting better, knew that if I was fighting someone who wasn’t any good, I’d probably be able to get away, but I would never, ever come close to Keane’s skill level. Being the son of a Knight, he’d been taught how to fight from an early age. He’d even started to go through training to be a Knight himself, but he wasn’t Knight material. Not because he couldn’t fight well enough—I’m sure if he’d had the whole training, he’d be ridiculously good—but because he was too much of a rebel to accept the lifestyle.
The upshot of all this is that I almost never succeed in landing a blow, and despite knowing all the right moves, I could rarely escape one of his holds unless he let me. Frustration and I have become good friends. And like any friend who’s a bad influence, frustration sometimes made me do things that were, in retrospect, stupid.
Like trying to tackle my self-defense instructor.
There isn’t a single instance I can think of in which tackling your attacker is a good self-defense move. If you have enough distance to try to tackle your attacker, you have enough distance to run like hell and maybe get away. But since doing the “correct” moves never seemed to work, every once in a while I couldn’t stop myself from trying to catch Keane by surprise.
The problem is, even if I catch him by surprise, he’s bigger, quicker, stronger, and far more experienced than I am.
My tackle surprised him enough to take him down. Unfortunately, he twisted like a cat in midair, and somehow I ended up on the bottom when we landed. The landing knocked all the wind out of me, and while I was lying there trying to breathe, he landed a light blow to my face, demonstrating just how bad a position I’d gotten myself into. Not that I didn’t already know.
Escaping one of Keane’s holds when we were both on our feet was hard enough, but escaping him when we were on the floor with him on top was impossible unless he purposely gave me an opening. As soon as I managed to drag in a full breath, he gave me one of those openings, and I went for it.
Just because he left me an opening didn’t mean he was making things easy for me, so I had to work like crazy to get free. At the last moment, just as I was trying to triumphantly jump to my feet after slipping his hold, his hand closed on the back of my T-shirt.
I mentioned that the loose T-shirts gave Keane convenient handholds. He’d certainly taken advantage of it before. But I don’t know if the T-shirt was just getting threadbare from having been worn and washed too often, or if one of us was pulling harder than usual, or if it was just the angle of the pull. Whatever it was, there was an ominous ripping sound, and I lurched forward, caught off balance and by surprise.
Keane, with his Fae reflexes, managed to grab me before I hit the floor with my face, but I could feel the cool sweep of air over the skin of my back and shoulder where my T-shirt had torn. Right where the Erlking’s mark lay.
“What the fuck?” Keane asked in a horrified whisper.
chapter four
This was officially Not Good.
I tried to twist away from Keane, to pull the torn T-shirt back over the mark, but he turned me with rough hands, pulling aside the strap of the tank top so he could get a better look.
“Let go of me!” I snapped while trying to introduce his face to my elbow. I missed, of course, but Keane let go and took a couple of hasty steps away from me, like I had a contagious disease or something.
“What the fuck?” he said again, his face ashen. “Dana, what did you do?”
I considered my options. I was a pretty good liar—years of trying to cover up for my mom had given me plenty of practice—but I wasn’t sure I was creative enough to come up with a plausible explanation for the Erlking’s mark. Other than the truth, that is, and there was no way Keane was getting that out of me. Which left stonewalling as my only option.
“It’s none of your business,” I told Keane, rearranging the strap of my tank top so the mark was mostly covered despite the rip in my shirt. It came out harsher than I meant it to, and Keane actually flinched at my tone.
I let out a heavy sigh, trying to let the tension ease out of my body while I did. It didn’t work too well.
“Look,” I said, “if I wanted to talk about it, I wouldn’t be keeping it hidden like this. It’s between me and the Erlking, it’s complicated, and it doesn’t affect anyone but me. That’s all you need to know.”
Keane shook his head, the horror in his eyes slowly mixing with anger. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
I jutted my chin out stubbornly. “You’re not the boss of me, and that’s all you’re going to get.”
“Fine,” he said, eyes boring into me. “I guess I’ll just have to ask your father.”
Like I said, I’m a pretty good liar, but my poker face failed me just then. My dad was the absolute last person I wanted to know about the Erlking’s mark. If he found out about the mark, he wouldn’t rest until he’d wrested every single detail out of me about how I’d gotten it. And if he learned I’d snuck out of my safe house, I’d be grounded for the rest of my life. Maybe even longer.
Not that I felt bad about keeping secrets from him, mind you. He was still keeping what he thought was a whopping secret from me. He was bound by his ties to the Seelie Court not to tell me what would happen if I gave the Erlking my virginity. Thanks to the agreement the Erlking had made with Titania, there was a geis—a magical restriction—that prevented my dad from even talking about the Erlking’s secret.
But when my aunt Grace had tried to kill me, she’d been so determined to hurt me before I died that she’d severed her ties with the Seelie Court just so she could tell me the horrifying truth of what I’d agreed to. That was when I realized that as much as my dad loved me—and he did love me, I knew that—he was a Seelie Fae, too deeply devoted to his Court to consider leaving it, even to protect me.
He had to know what I’d promised the Erlking in order to free Ethan. And yet he hadn’t been willing to renounce the Seelie Court so he could warn me. If he was going to keep a secret like that from me, then I didn’t feel bad about hiding the Erlking’s mark.
“Shall I go talk to your father right now?” Keane prompted. “Or are you going to explain why you have something that looks suspiciously like the Erlking’s mark on your shoulder?”
I considered calling his bluff. He wasn’t generally what I’d think of as a tattletale kind of guy. But like just about everyone else in my life, he’d do any crappy thing you could name if he thought it was for my own good.
“You’re blackmailing me?” I asked, stalling as I tried to make up a half-truth that would get him off my back.
Keane shrugged, but the gesture was tight and tense. “Call it what you want. But if you’re the Erlking’s creature, then I think I have a right to know it before I travel into Faerie with you.”
“I am
not the Erlking’s creature!”
“No? Then why do you have his mark, like a brand, on your skin?”
“You mind if I go change before we have this conversation? I don’t like standing around in a torn shirt.” I plucked at the shredded shoulder for emphasis.
Keane took a step closer to me, his jaw set. “Yes, I mind if you take a little extra time to work out the details of whatever lie you’re about to tell me.” There was a hint of a growl in his voice, and I wondered if he was mad enough to hit me in anger. I didn’t think so, despite the clenched fists and the smoke coming out of his ears, but I couldn’t help my primal instinct to take a step back.
Keane blinked, like he was surprised. Then he seemed to realize just how aggressive his body language was, and he visibly relaxed. His fists uncurled, and his shoulders lowered, but I could still see the metaphorical smoke. He wasn’t any less pissed. And he wasn’t going to give me time to think things through before I spoke.
“Start talking!” he commanded.
I wished I could squirm my way out of talking, but I couldn’t, so I tried to keep my explanation as simple as possible. “The Erlking put a spell on me when I was trying to get him to free Ethan.” I left out just how he’d put the spell on me, because there was no way I was telling anyone about the Erkling’s brooch. I’d used it three times to make myself invisible, and the third use had activated the mark. I hadn’t used the brooch since—despite the Erlking’s promise that it contained no other secondary spells—but I didn’t want to risk having it taken away.
I resisted the urge to reach up and touch the mark. It didn’t hurt or anything, but somehow I was always very conscious of it on my skin, knowing exactly where it was even when I couldn’t see it.
“It’s like a tracking device. He claims it’s for my own good,” I said, “because he wants me alive so I can take him into the mortal world.”
I hadn’t thought it was possible for Keane to look any more horrified, but I was wrong. Most of the people around me had accepted that the Erlking, despite being one scary dude, wanted me alive. They didn’t know that he wanted me alive so much he’d saved my life, but it was pretty obvious a dead Faeriewalker wasn’t going to do him much good. From the way Keane was looking at me, I felt sure he wasn’t as convinced as the rest.
