Dangerously Charming

by Deborah Blake

  Children were so rarely born in the Otherworld these days. At least to her people, although some of the lesser races still reproduced at an irritatingly regular rate. Even the Queen, mighty as she was, hadn’t had a child in centuries.

  Zilya herself had never seen the point in the whole messy, uncomfortable process, but she had no compunction against benefiting from others going through it, especially when she could turn her once-a-generation Human child into additional influence and power on this side of the doorway. The fact that she always placed “her” children with faery families who would value them and treat them well was a small weakness, one she blamed on her fondness for a long-dead blacksmith.

  Zilya had been a potent force in her native Russia before most of the paranormal folks were forced to move to the other side of the doorways permanently. Once, bored with her usual forest haunts, she roamed farther afield than usual, entertaining herself by visiting her “cousins” in Britain. While there, she had been captivated by a handsome Human, a humble blacksmith with huge muscles and a gentle soul.

  Although he was intrigued and flattered by Zilya’s attentions, he eventually chose Rose over her. Zilya had been furious, and frustrated, and maybe even a little bit hurt.

  Although her ire had mostly died down over the years (mostly—faeries had long memories and held grudges longer than sequoias were tall), Zilya had grown to enjoy the benefits she derived from being able to sidestep the Queen’s rule against stealing mortal children and bringing them to the Otherworld. As far as she was concerned, she was doing these children a favor. Humans were, after all, inferior beings; their short lives and gullible natures made them either playthings or inconveniences, not equals. The babies she carried away to the Otherworld lived long, pampered lives—what could be wrong with that?

  If Zilya herself was able to parlay the gift of a baby into influence at court, to offset the disadvantage of not being allowed into the Queen’s precious inner circle, well, that was all to the better. And no annoying snippet of a Human girl was going to keep Zilya from what was rightfully hers.

  Nor, for that matter, was some damned interfering former Rider, or even the Queen herself. There was more than one way to skin a centaur, and Zilya wasn’t about to let a little thing like a royal command get in her way.

  After all, this was the Otherworld, and words had power—but one had to be quite certain one used the right words. The Queen had very clearly forbidden Zilya to go anywhere near Jenna and her unborn child. But she hadn’t said anything about Zilya sending others to do her work for her, had she?

  The stomping foot began to tap a gentle rhythm on the fern-carpeted floor of Zilya’s modest but elegant home. Anger wouldn’t get her anywhere. Planning, on the other hand, leavened with a dollop of underhanded scheming and a dash of ruthlessness, would ensure that she would end up with everything that was rightfully hers.

  It was a pity she wasn’t going to be able to see the look on Jenna’s face in person when the Human finally realized that there was no way to beat the curse and that history was destined to repeat itself—at least for all those in her line—until the Earth stopped spinning around the sun. Or whenever Zilya grew bored with the game, which was likely to be about the same time.

  * * *

  AFTER little Babs returned from school, she sat at the table with the other three, eating cookies by breaking them into four precisely equal pieces and dunking them into a bowl of milk. Since nobody else seemed to think it was strange, Jenna didn’t bother to mention it.

  “What are you all doing?” Babs asked after she finished off the last chunk and neatly drank the milk from the bowl. “Is it homework? I have homework, but I will do it after dinner.”

  “It is, in a way,” Barbara agreed, tapping some more keys on her laptop. “We are trying to find the answers to Jenna’s riddle.”

  “I like riddles,” Babs said. “Maybe I can help.”

  Jenna smiled at the little girl and pointed at the pile of notebooks taking up all the space on the table not currently being used by the laptop. “See that? It’s full of research. It has all the notebooks my grandmother kept, plus everything I could find in the fairy tales I devoured that might possibly be relevant. I’ve read about legends and myths and curses until I see the information in my sleep. But I’ve never found anything remotely useful. So now we’re looking on the Internet. But I’m afraid we’re not getting very far. It isn’t easy.”

  Babs stared at her with round owl eyes. “Barbara says that most things worth doing are not easy. But that does not make them not worth doing.”

  Jenna nodded. “That’s very true. And Barbara is the one who figured out the line about ‘The sun’s bright ray where none is slanted.’ She is very smart, isn’t she?”

  Babs nodded. “What are some of the other lines?”

  Mick gave her an affectionate smile. “Well, there’s one that goes, ‘A rose’s cry at rock enchanted.’”

  “That is silly,” Babs said. “Roses do not cry.”

  “I know,” Jenna agreed ruefully. “Not that I didn’t look up every kind of rose on the planet in case there was one with a funky tear-related name. But I never found anything close.”

  “What about ‘rock enchanted’?” muttered Barbara, typing the words into a search engine.

  “Do you have any idea how many magical rocks there are?” Jenna said. She slumped over onto her pillowed arms, equal parts tired and discouraged.

  “There’s the Baetylus, a sacred stone endowed with life, from Greek mythology. The Hindus and Buddhists had Cintamani, which was supposed to fulfill wishes. Sir Gawain won the Stone of Giramphiel from a guy named Fimbeus and used it to protect himself from dragons.” She sat up straight and held out three fingers, then a fourth.

  “Then we have Singasteinn; Loki used that one. Vaidurya was worn by the goddess Lakshmi and was supposed to be the most beautiful of all stones.” She put up another couple of fingers. “Plus, of course, there are the big ones, like Stonehenge, and the Stone of Scone on the hill of Tara, where the kings of Ireland were crowned. Or the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, sought by alchemists for its ability to turn lead into gold.” She bit her lip. “Shall I go on?”

  Mick blinked, looking slightly stunned by her list. “I guess you have been doing your research, haven’t you?”

  Jenna sighed. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg, the ones I could remember off the top of my head. Believe me, I’ve got much more extensive lists if you want to look at them. The problem is there is no hint in the curse as to which magical stone it refers to, and of course, most of them are simply legends, so I don’t know how I’d find it even if I could figure out which one the rhyme is talking about.”

  “Mmm, I see your point,” Barbara said, typing some more. Something caught her interest as she scanned through a page. Then she surprised them all by looking up with a grin.

  “I think maybe you’re being too literal,” she said. “Or possibly not literal enough.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Mick asked.

  Jenna felt her heart skip a beat.

  “Not hell,” Barbara said. “Texas.” She thought for a moment. “Although some would argue they are one and the same, at least in the summer.”

  CHAPTER 8

  THE look on Jenna’s face was almost worth the inconvenience of having been dragged into the midst of her crazy mess at a time when all Day wanted was to be left alone.

  “Texas?” she repeated, sounding incredulous. “There’s a magical stone in Texas?”

  Day cocked an eyebrow at Barbara, waiting for her to explain. This should be interesting.

  “Not a magical stone,” Barbara said. “An enchanted rock. Or rather, the Enchanted Rock. It’s in a state park of the same name in Fredericksburg, Texas. According to Wikipedia, it is an enormous pink granite pluton batholith, whatever the heck that is when it’s at home.
”

  Day watched Jenna’s excitement slide away like a wave into the tide. “That doesn’t sound very enchanted to me,” she said. “Besides, my family was living in Europe when Zilya cursed my many-great-grandmother; wouldn’t the enchanted rock have to be located there?”

  Mikhail swiveled around in his seat so he was facing her, not sure how to explain the intricacies of how true magic worked. “I can see how you would think that, but it isn’t that simple. Like we said, curses don’t necessarily take a form that the person casting them has complete control over. Magic is more complicated than that.”

  Jenna shook her head. “You’re not making any sense. Zilya wanted to punish my family and she set up the curse so that each generation would have to give up a firstborn child. It’s spelled out in those first couple of stanzas.”

  “Right,” he said. “She could set up with curse exactly as she wanted. But once your ancestor insisted that Zilya follow the rules and provide a way out, the power of tradition and myth took over and that part of the rhyme was out of Zilya’s hands. Zilya herself may not even know the solution to the curse.”

  “Are you serious?” Jenna cried, throwing her hands up in the air. “This stuff is crazy!”

  Barbara shrugged. “I don’t know. Compared to daytime television, it seems quite sane to me. Either way, the answer to the curse could have been here in America all along, waiting for your people to move here and find it.”

  Jenna gave her a funny look. Then stared at Day.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That would mean that Barbara was right, and I’m supposed to be the one who solves it,” she said in a shaky voice. “Because I’ve met you.”

  “Maybe,” he said flatly. “Anyway, back to this Enchanted Rock in Texas. Barbara, I’m assuming you have reasons besides the name that make it seem as though it might be what Jenna’s been looking for, as unlikely as that might seem.”

  Barbara pushed her cloud of dark hair back and shifted the laptop slightly so they could see what she was pointing to. “Here, it says that the local native tribes thought the rock had mystical and spiritual attributes, which is how it got its name. There are many legends associated with it through the years. The natives believed that the mound was a portal to another world, and once when a Spanish soldier fled to the rock when he was being chased by natives, he disappeared. When he reappeared later, he swore that he had fallen into a cavern and been swallowed up, after which he met many spirits and then was returned to where he came.”

  “That sounds almost like the stories they tell in Europe of people who accidentally found their way into a faery mound and then wandered into the land of Faerie itself. I mean, the Otherworld.” Jenna looked intrigued. “Could there be a doorway to the Otherworld in Fredericksburg, Texas? Surely someone would have noticed by now.”

  Mikhail shrugged. “You would be amazed at the things that exist right under people’s noses. If it was a portal, it should have been sealed shut when the paranormal folks retreated to the Otherworld. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t get through.”

  “What, you have some kind of magic key or something?” Jenna asked, sounding impressed.

  He snorted. “I am a magic key, Jenna. I can come and go through any entrance to the Otherworld. I suspect that’s part of why this damned riddle includes me. The solution may lie on the other side of the doorway. Remember the third stanza: ‘This curse unbroken now shall be, down into eternity. Unless you find the pathway through and solve the riddle with this clue.’”

  “But I was just there,” Jenna said. She scrubbed her hands over her face as if the conversation was making her head hurt. “Why couldn’t I just do whatever I needed to do while I was already through the door?”

  “I don’t know,” Mikhail admitted. “Maybe so the Queen isn’t involved in any way? Or because there is something else that has to happen while you’re there? Maybe there is something else in the part of the riddle we haven’t figured out yet.”

  “How can you be so sure we’ve figured out this part?” Jenna asked, chewing on a fingernail. “Just because the name is right and there are stories that make it sound like it might possibly be associated with the Otherworld doesn’t mean it is the right rock.”

  Mikhail grinned, not able to hold it in. He just loved unraveling riddles. It was like following a scavenger hunt to the treasure at the end. Alexei always used to tease him, saying it was childish, but Mikhail didn’t care. He couldn’t help it; finding the answers to the twisting puzzles made him happy. Even now, under these bizarre circumstances.

  “Look,” he said, aiming his finger at one particular note in the list of facts about the rock. He suspected it was the bit that had caught Barbara’s eye too. “Do you see what that says?”

  Jenna moved closer to peer at the screen and Mikhail had to suppress a shiver as a lock of her hair brushed over the back of his hand.

  “A Spanish soldier named Don Jesús Navarro rescued the daughter of Chief Tehuan after she was kidnapped by Comanches who intended to sacrifice her on the rock.” Jenna wrinkled her nose. “That’s nice, of course, but what does it prove?”

  “Look at the name of the girl the soldier saved,” Mikhail said.

  Jenna reread the paragraph more closely and gave out a gasp. “‘The native maiden Rosa,’” she read aloud. “A rose’s cry at rock enchanted. Oh my God, it was never a crying rose, it was a woman named Rosa crying.” A single tear slid down her own face at the realization that they’d found the answer to a second line.

  She threw her arms around Mikhail and hugged him hard. “Thank you, Mick. Thank you. I can’t believe you did it.”

  Part of him wanted to pull away. Part of him wanted to point out that Barbara had found the answer, and he’d just brought Jenna to her. Part of him wanted to wrap his arms around Jenna and hug her back, feel her warmth and softness under his hands. In an instant, he was confused and happy and angry and turned on, all at once. He didn’t know which one of those feelings was worse, but he did know that the next time he and fate came face-to-face, he was going to kick its damned ass.

  Babs clapped her hands, breaking the spell of the moment. “This is excellent! Now can we start making dinner?” Three faces gazed at her with varying degrees of concern and no notable interest in the topic of food.

  “What is the matter?” she asked, a little plaintively. “Barbara and Day helped our new friend Jenna to solve part of her riddle. That is a good thing, is it not? Why is no one happy? Why does Jenna cry? Will the nasty faery still get to steal her baby?”

  Barbara gave Day a wry look and mouthed the word insecure over the top of the little girl’s pixie-edged hair before patting Babs lightly on the hand.

  Day wasn’t really surprised. Babs was usually so bright-eyed and perky, you tended to forget that she’d been kidnapped by a Rusalka who had killed her parents and forced to live with a madwoman in the Otherworld, hidden away from all normal company. Until Liam and Barbara had rescued and adopted her, Babs hadn’t had anything resembling a normal life. It made sense that anything that threatened to rock the equanimity of her current world would make the girl uneasy. Especially since they were talking about a faery stealing someone’s baby.

  “Maybe we should continue this conversation at another time,” he said, raising an eyebrow in Babs’s direction.

  “And what time would be more convenient for Babs to learn that the world can be a complicated and difficult place?” Barbara asked softly. She gave Day’s hand a tap, a slightly less gentle version of her gesture of comfort to the child. “Do we ever get old enough or live long enough for that lesson not to carry a sting in its tail?”

  No, Day thought. We never do. “Fine,” he said briskly. “Then let’s look at the first problem: Jenna has to go back to the Otherworld.”

  Jenna bit her lip. “I did okay there the first time. I’ll be fine. Right?” She didn’t sound
all that sure, though, and Day didn’t blame her.

  “The first time you went through an official doorway and were given a magical talisman by the guardian there, right?” Barbara asked. Day found it somewhat alarming that even the usually unflappable Baba Yaga had the tiniest hint of a worry line creasing her high forehead.

  “That’s right,” Jenna said. “Mick said it would keep me safe from the weird way that the Otherworld can affect time, so I wouldn’t pull a Rip Van Winkle.”

  “A who?” Barbara shook her head. “Never mind. Yes, that’s a concern. I can come and go without it affecting me, as can anyone with me. Day used to be the same way, but no one really knows for sure these days if his ability still carries over to others. If you go in through an unauthorized entrance, like the one we think might be hidden within the Enchanted Rock, there is no guarantee if you will return to find that two weeks have passed, or two months, or two decades.”

  “Oh,” Jenna said, and then shrugged. “Well, it isn’t as though I have any close friends or family these days. Or a job I have to worry about being late to. If going back into the Otherworld and solving the rest of the riddle is the only way to save my baby, I’ll just have to take the chance.”

  She lifted her chin and gazed defiantly at Day, as though daring him to argue. He wanted to applaud instead, not that he’d tell her that. He thought she was one of the bravest women he had ever known, and he’d known quite a few. The contrast between them was rather ironic; he, known for being a hero, couldn’t even muster the nerve to talk to his own brothers. Jenna, on the other hand, was willing to risk everything—even fight a ruthless faery in a strange and magical land—just for the possibility to give her unborn child a normal life. He was impressed despite himself, although that didn’t mean he thought she had a chance in hell of succeeding.

  “What about you, Mikhail?” Barbara asked. “Are you willing to risk it too?”