by Mindy Klasky
Catching Jonathan’s sleeve, I redirected him, guiding us both across the outer barrier. Now, both Jonathan and I could see Abigail upon her bier. Her appearance hadn’t changed over the past three weeks; she still seemed to sleep easily, her lips curved in the slightest of smiles. Her hair remained unbound around her face, perfect in its gentle waves. Her chest rose and fell with the most shallow of breaths. Oberon’s magic had kept her in perfect stasis, untouched by lack of food or exercise..
Here, inside the fae circle, that same magic made the tiny hairs on my arm stand on end. My body knew Oberon’s energy; I’d been bonded to it when I was only a child.
On the one hand, the touch of the Unseelie Prince felt right. I recognized the whisper of wind in distant oak trees. I heard water tumbling through familiar channels. I smelled fresh-trampled grass in a well-known clearing, and every fiber of my body relaxed.
At the same time, my mind recoiled. Oberon had no right to use his magic here, in the heart of the Eastern Empire. He and I had been bonded as children; we’d had no say in our fates. I had grown beyond the customs of my people; I wanted a life lived on my own hard-won terms.
Ignoring Jonathan completely, Oberon favored me with his dark smile. He was cloaked in a cold beauty, a brutal strength that set my legs to trembling. “Come, my queen,” he said, extending one perfect hand. His voice rolled over the formal words of our people, the high speech of the fae. “Take hands with me and rock the ground whereupon this sleeper be. Now thou and I are new in amity.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m going back to the Thousand-Oak Grove with you!”
“What ho!” Oberon said, his eyebrows arching perfectly. “Then you really want to play out the limits of this farce? You’ll force me to slay your vampire lapdog? I see he fancies himself a gargoyle this e’en.”
So much for gaining a moment of surprise. Jonathan advanced a single unleashed step. “Free my daughter now, and I’ll let you live, worm.”
Oberon unclasped his cloak with a flourish, sweeping the midnight garment across the grass. His sword hung at his waist, the ancient weapon that was his due as the heir of the Unseelie Court. His fingers settled over the grip with perfect familiarity as he enunciated his response. “It is time for you to die.”
With frozen disdain, he took two strides toward Abigail’s bier. For the first time, I noticed that all was not exactly as it had been the first time we had come to this circle on the Mall. The inner crystal dome was gone. Abigail was no longer isolated within the fae circle.
And another thing: A silver goblet rested on the edge of the bier. Its perfect bowl caught the light of the full moon and flung it back as a challenge.
“My lord,” Oberon said, inclining his head in a noble gesture that challenged Jonathan to clasp the drinking cup. This was the vessel the combatants had agreed to drink from before their final battle—not the mead of the Thousand-Oak Grove, but the Coca-Cola I carried in my bag.
Of course the Unseelie Prince had chosen silver for the drinking vessel. As a vampire, Jonathan would be confronted with an impossible choice. He could scorch his palm immediately before a sword duel to the death. Or he could admit his weakness and beg for some sort of replacement.
Jonathan swept the goblet from his daughter’s prison, clutching the stem tightly. Tonight, he was not solely a vampire. Tonight he was graced with a gargoyle’s mien, and he was safe from silver’s bite.
He turned to me smoothly, the jade blaze of his eyes thanking me for the power of my glamour, for the strength I had given him. “My lady,” he said, nodding toward my charmed reticule. He was eager to start the duel.
Yes, I’d made him a gargoyle. I’d freed him from the few weaknesses of his vampire flesh. He could no longer be burned by silver. He had the strength of stone, the endurance of a boulder.
And yet, in my heart of hearts, I knew he needed more.
I knew Oberon. I knew the Unseelie Prince would never fight fair. He’d have his hounds at the ready, or he’d poison his blade. He’d tie Abigail’s fate to his own, glamouring her to reflect any wound he took, thereby unmanning Jonathan. He’d lie or cheat or steal, whatever he had to do to win, for he was the fae prince of the Unseelie Court.
The only certain path to victory lay through Willow.
As the men squared off, I reached into my sack, taking care to brush my fingers across the red-lined compartment. The bottle of Coca-Cola was icy cold. For just a moment, I hesitated. I could take the brown-wrapped bottle instead. I could let Jonathan fight on his own terms, without the drug.
But Oberon would play any Game he could to win this fight. And so I had no choice but to play my own.
I lifted the bottle from its crimson bed.
I barely had time to glance at Oberon, to think a little prayer in the high-flown words of our people:
What thou seest, when thou dost wake,
Do it for they true-love take;
Love and languish for his sake;
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.
I thought the words, scrambling them together in the heartbeat before I cracked open the glamoured white seal. The bottle hissed, charged by its jostling in my reticule. I took the silver cup from Jonathan and raised it above my head, pouring carefully to fill the metal bowl. Moonlight turned the fizzing drink to silver.
Oberon had the honor of drinking first; he was the man who’d been challenged. He bowed as he took the cup from me, arching one eyebrow with infuriating precision. “The first of many cups you’ll pour for me, my lady,” he said, taking care to brush my fingers with his own.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed—one symbolic sip, followed by a gulp, another, a third. We fae were greedy creatures, and the drink’s sweet syrup was nearly too much for Oberon to resist. He gave no sign that he tasted a grain of bitter Willow.
He stopped himself from draining the bowl. Barely.
I took the cup and turned to Jonathan. I’m sorry, I wanted to say. This was the only way. I had no choice. I love you.
Unaware of my betrayal, Jonathan drained the rest of the cup before he tossed it to the ground. Confident that order and regulation would control the manly duel, he strode to the limits of the fae circle.
“Get ready to die, you wretched woodland pig!” His sword rattled from his scabbard.
Oberon stood at the foot of Abigail’s bier. He blinked, as if he’d just awakened from a month-long slumber. His sword-hand clutched the air before him, fingers opening and closing like a baby experimenting with the concept of a fist.
He raised stunned eyes toward Jonathan. “What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” he asked, his voice hushed with awe.
“Draw your sword!” Jonathan ordered, not yet understanding my treachery.
Oberon fell to his knees, offering up clasped hands to Jonathan. “I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again! Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note. So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape, and thy fair virtue’s face perforce doth move me, on the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.”
I love thee.
Oberon wailed those last words.
And Jonathan glared at me. He understood now. He knew I’d used the Willow. I could hear his voice, not two hours before. We have a code. That’s what keeps us men instead of monsters.
But Oberon was the monster. He’d never fought fair a day in his life.
I had to be sure Jonathan would win. I had to save the man I loved, save his daughter, save the entire Eastern Empire from whatever an unchecked Oberon might do.
Now that monster, the Unseelie Prince, crawled across the grass, leaving a trampled trail in his wake. “Bid me, master,” he begged Jonathan. “Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.”
Jonathan nudged him with a booted foot. “Get up and fight.”
“Fight? But I do love thee!”
Jonathan flashed me a look filled with hatred. His voice shook as he said, “Oberon Blackthorne, prince of the Unseelie
Court, rise up and defend thy name.”
“Go with me,” Oberon said in response, clutching at Jonathan’s leg. “I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee, and they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, and sing while thou on presséd flowers dost sleep. And I will purge thy mortal grossness so, that thou shalt like an airy spirit go.”
As Jonathan pulled back in disgust, Oberon wailed in frustration. He looked about the fae circle, frantic, desperate. “Titania,” he cried, holding out a hand to me. “Tell him all that I can do! Make him understand the gifts of the Unseelie Prince. Please, I beg you, just one word in my favor!”
“Hold!” Jonathan shouted, as Oberon’s voice reached registers his own hounds could never hear. “There is one thing that you can do for me.”
“Anything, love. Acquaint me with thy desire.”
“Free Abigail.” He pointed to his sleeping daughter. “Wake her now.”
Oberon scrambled to the bier, frantic to do his master’s bidding. He settled his hand on Abigail’s brow, long fingers barely touching her flesh. I saw his lips move, but I could not make out the words he spoke, whether they were a glamour or a lure or some strange magic that was known only by the Unseelie Court.
But Abigail heard. Abigail responded. Her eyelids fluttered, like a baby drifting up from sleep. Her fingers curled into helpless fists. She pulled her arms in close to her sides, tightened her body, rolling forward until she sat straight upon the bier. Her eyes shot open.
“What visions I have seen!” she exclaimed. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she slapped her hand over her lips, as if frogs had tumbled from her lips. She cast a worried look at Oberon, who loomed close, twisting his hands and looking up at Jonathan for approval.
Jonathan nodded once, surveying his daughter from head to toe. He offered her a hand, helping her to stand from the raised platform. She swayed for a moment, finding her balance, and he lunged to catch her, but she recovered on her own.
Only then did Jonathan deign to look at Oberon. “Go,” he said, pointing toward the nearby Smithsonian Castle.
“You’ll join me?” the Unseelie Prince begged, longing stark in every line of his body.
“Find the darkest shadow,” Jonathan responded, refusing to give an answer.
“And then you’ll come to me?”
“Sleep until sunset tomorrow,” Jonathan said. “And then if you want me, I’m yours. But hurry now. Hide yourself from mundane eyes.”
Oberon scrambled into the deepest recess of the castle’s arched portico, humming one of the fae’s most ancient lays of love. Jonathan turned away before the Unseelie Prince had disappeared in the shadows.
“Abigail,” he said, extending his hand to his dazed daughter.
She blinked and said, “Excuse me. Have we met before?”
I could read his sorrow in the stony lines of his gargoyle face. “I’m one of many who’ve been worried about you.”
She looked down at her body, shrugging as she studied her jeans and plaid shirt. “Worried?”
“You were lost for nearly three weeks,” Jonathan said. I heard his professional training in his voice, the tone of a doctor explaining medical facts to a confused patient. “You’re back now, though. And a lot of people will want to ask you questions.”
“I’m not sure… I don’t know… I can’t remember anything.”
“That’s fine,” he said, his voice full of reassurance. “You’re safe now. That’s all you need to know.”
“That man…” she said, pointing to the darkness where Oberon had disappeared.
“Forget about him,” Jonathan said. “In fact, why don’t you sit on that bench over there. Take some deep breaths. Look at the sky. I’ll take you home in just a few minutes.”
Trustingly, like a little child, she made her way to the bench he’d indicated, beneath an arching elm. She sat, just like he’d told her to. She tilted her head back and stared up through the tree’s branches.
Jonathan was wrong. His forfeiting the vampire code of honor hadn’t made him a monster. He’d been kind to Oberon, as kind as any mortal enemy could be. He’d reassured Abigail, giving her clear instructions her awakening human brain could handle.
“Titania,” he said levelly, his voice still rumbling in the gargoyle’s lower registers.
“Jonathan,” I countered.
“You promised. No more Games.”
“That wasn’t a Game!”
“Don’t lie.”
“I only worked a switch—”
“Stop talking.”
“I wanted to help—”
“You promised!” His roar echoed off the sandstone castle, ricocheting into the night. For one horrible moment, I thought he was going to strike me. But that wasn’t Jonathan’s way. He’d never raised a hand to me, not once, and he wasn’t monster enough to start now.
Instead, he swept Oberon’s midnight cloak from the grass. He approached me in two swift strides, before I could raise my arms, before I could think to defend myself. The cloth settled on my shoulders; he pulled it tight across my chest. Folds of luxurious velvet overlapped, simultaneously soft and binding.
“Wh—what are you doing?” I asked.
His face wavered and for a heartbeat, I thought I might be crying. My vision wasn’t clouded by tears, though.
The gargoyle glamour was fading. Jonathan’s vampire face was showing through his façade—his familiar eyes, the well-known line of his lips.
“You said you wouldn’t Game. I said I wouldn’t take control. Turns out we’re both liars.”
His arms rippled, shrinking from gargoyle to vampire inside his full black sleeves. He snarled, though, forestalling the change. Before I could speak, before I could thrust back Oberon’s cloak, before I could do anything at all, he turned to the iron chains, suspended along their orderly line of metal posts.
Keep Off the Grass.
With the last of his gargoyle strength, he ripped the iron links free. The chain snapped like a whip, curling in the midnight air. He flung it around me, wrapping three times, capturing my arms, my waist, my thighs. He cinched the ends tight, choking a gasp from my lungs.
The iron didn’t burn me, not through the cloak. But I fought to breathe. I could not walk. I lost every vestige of control.
“Jonathan!” I shouted as his body wavered again. This time, the glamour broke. The gargoyle was gone, and only the vampire remained. He did not look my way.
“Jonathan!” I cried again as he walked to Abigail. He helped her to her feet with all the care of a surgeon. He slipped an arm around her waist and led her down the gravel path, away from the castle where Oberon slept, away from my staggering form.
“Jonathan,” I whispered, staring down at my shackles.
I felt filthy. Defiled. He’d treated me like an object, a thing, barely worth a thought as he stripped away all the independence that made me fae.
I understood, as I shivered inside Oberon’s cloak. I’d made him a monster by playing my Game. He’d stripped me to nothingness, applying his control.
The fact that he’d wrapped me in velvet, that he’d spared me from burns, only made everything worse. He’d acted with cold calculation. He’d known precisely what he was doing as he wound every link of the chain.
I wasn’t trapped. Not forever. I still had my full-moon powers, barely touched by the night’s working. I gathered a form in my mind, tested it, twisted it. I forced a glamour over my own body.
My gnome-head poked through the middle of Oberon’s cape. My gnome-shoulders shrugged off the garment, only fighting a little to step clear of the velvet and chains. My gnome-hands gathered the cloak, tossing it across Oberon’s fae circle for him to attend to when he woke, hungover, in the morning.
My gnome-feet scraped through the dusty gravel, starting the long walk toward the Vampire Ward and the bed I knew I’d never share with Jonathan again.
20
The story was all over the news. Abigail Reece Weaver had been found on h
er front lawn, dazed and tired, but physically unharmed. Although the thirty-two-year-old local celebrity appeared to be in good health, she was taken to a local hospital for observation. She said she had no clear memory of the past three weeks. She never mentioned Oberon. The humiliated Unseelie Prince had disappeared without a trace.
A host of doctors commented on Abigail’s case, even though they’d never met her personally. In times of great emotional stress, they opined, individuals could enter a fugue state. They could forget who they were and what they were doing. Ms. Weaver clearly was feeling the pressure of her upcoming marriage to Matthew Drake.
Maybe that’s what had happened to me. Faced with a duel that would cost me everything, I’d entered a fugue state. I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions. I couldn’t explain where I’d been or what I’d seen. Everything I’d done.
Except, unlike Abigail Weaver, I had a perfect memory.
I could remember every single night I’d spent with Jonathan. I could remember every conversation we’d ever had. I could remember everything about him, even the tiny mole on the inside of his left wrist, the one that had almost faded into the pallor of his skin.
But none of that mattered now.
I’d played my Game, and it didn’t matter that I’d hoped to see Abigail free, that I’d wanted to keep Jonathan safe, that I’d only tried to make the Eastern Empire safe from the rogue fae prince I’d inadvertently brought to its shores. I’d broken my promise.
Of course, Jonathan had broken his promise too. He’d kept the iron chains from burning my flesh, but he hadn’t spared my heart from his brutal control.
In a moment when we should have worked together, we’d done our best to destroy each other.
I couldn’t go back to the Thousand-Oak Grove, not after annihilating the alliance my parents had worked so hard to build. Not that it mattered much anyway. The Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court had never kept their peace for longer than a year. Even if Oberon and I had actually married each other on Mabon Eve, our people would have started feuding by Samhain.
