by Jenna Black
Ethan’s magic swelled, and he whispered something so softly I couldn’t hear it. Kimber’s back arched, and she gasped in pain, her knuckles going white as she clasped Keane’s hand with desperate strength. And then it was over.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. Kimber was sweaty and shaking, but the expression on her face no longer screamed of pain. Keane kept hold of her hand, his thumb stroking back and forth idly.
“So you could have untied yourself anytime,” he said to Ethan, who shrugged. We had all badly underestimated his power, and we were lucky he hadn’t made us pay for it.
“Yeah. If you hadn’t damaged the mark, it would have been bad.”
“And you’re not under the Erlking’s influence right now, but you didn’t tell us that we weren’t taking enough precautions.”
Ethan reached up to rub his face, then remembered the burn and thought better of it. “I didn’t want to be gagged, which I figured was the next logical step.” His shoulders drooped. “But if the mark heals any more than it already has, I guess I’ll have to live with it.”
“More than it already has?” Keane asked, sounding horrified.
Ethan nodded grimly. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it should, and I think that means it’s healing.”
We all looked closely at the burn on his face. It definitely looked less angry than it had when it was fresh. But I had no idea how fast a burn would heal naturally on one of the Sidhe, except that it was faster than it would heal on a human or a half-blood like me. Maybe this was normal. Or maybe there was magic that would keep the mark from being permanently damaged.
My heart sank at the thought, then sank even lower when I considered all the ramifications of the mark healing. If Ethan’s mark healed, then mine probably would, too. And even if we could make it safely to Avalon, the Erlking would still be able to track me there. Titania had officially set him on me, which meant that the geis that prevented the Erlking from hunting indiscriminately in Avalon wouldn’t be in effect. Which meant my only hope of escaping him was to leave Avalon for the mortal world and never return.
I was still trying to absorb that unpalatable reality when Keane’s head suddenly popped up, his eyes going wide. I was going to ask him what was wrong, but then I heard it, too. The sound of someone moving through the underbrush, coming in our direction.
I remembered Kimber’s startled scream when Ethan’s spell had hit her, and realized we had been anything but quiet. Maybe whoever was approaching was some stray Fae, someone who wouldn’t be inclined to detain us and report us to the authorities. Or even someone we could overpower, between Keane’s fighting abilities and Ethan’s magic.
But my luck had been lousy for so long I wasn’t exactly hopeful that it was going to change now.
Chapter Eighteen
“Use the brooch,” Ethan whispered to me urgently as once again magic filled the air.
Kimber and Keane both gave me quizzical looks, but now wasn’t the time to explain. I shook my head.
“Don’t argue!” Ethan said. “I’ll sit on you and stick you with it myself if I have to.”
“What are you talking about?” Keane asked.
I wanted to scream at them to run instead of sitting here and arguing, but the reality was that we would never make it. Even if Ethan cast his invisibility spell on us as he had the night we’d fled the palace, he couldn’t keep it up for very long. I doubted he’d have the time or the power to work the standing stones—assuming we were willing to risk trying them—and if we just ran off into the woods, we’d leave a trail any idiot could follow, with no storm to wipe it out and no Green Lady to draw the pursuit off.
Ethan put his hands on my shoulders and leaned into me, his eyes boring into me, deadly serious.
“If it’s the Queen’s forces, using the brooch is your only hope,” he said. He was squeezing my shoulders so tight he was probably leaving bruises. “Leave us. Get back to Avalon and be safe.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped my words with a searing kiss that took my breath away. I groaned with the pleasure of his kiss, even as a part of me knew something was wrong with this picture. Now was so not the time for a make-out session, but my hormones were in overdrive, and I couldn’t seem to make myself push Ethan away. Even when I felt his hand delving into my pocket and grabbing the brooch.
A part of me knew exactly what was happening, was aware of the magic prickling my skin. Ethan had used a milder version of this spell on me once before, but that time I’d been able to shake it off as soon as I realized my hormones were being magically manipulated. This time, I felt like my body wasn’t my own, and I kept kissing him, pressing against him, my hands buried in his hair, as he pulled the brooch out of my pocket.
Something sharp pricked my thigh, right through my pants, and suddenly the flood of arousal left me as Ethan sat back on his heels and blinked at me.
“You bastard!” I said, my eyes welling with tears. But Ethan couldn’t hear me, because the brooch wouldn’t let him. For the next thirty minutes, I would be completely undetectable.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” Keane growled, looking like he was about to forget everything and pound Ethan into the ground.
“The Erlking gave her a magic item that makes her temporarily invisible,” Ethan explained calmly. “No one can see or even hear her while the spell is active, so she’ll be able to get away even if we can’t.”
I felt rather like punching Ethan myself at the moment. Maybe using the brooch was the smart thing to do, but I’d vowed to myself that I wouldn’t abandon my friends. I already didn’t know how I was going to live with abandoning my dad and Finn.
Since no one could see me, I grabbed the brooch from where it had fallen on the ground and stuffed it back into my pocket. I quickly checked my watch so I’d know when the spell would wear off, then climbed to the top of the embankment so I could see who or what was coming.
The news wasn’t good. There were at least three Knights creeping up toward the hollow where my friends sat arguing pointlessly. I suspected there were more Knights I couldn’t see, circling around and cutting off our escape routes. Certainly they would have sent someone to guard the standing stones, too.
Below, I heard Keane accuse Ethan of having somehow captured me for the Erlking with his magic. I suppose it did look kind of bad, and I wished I’d come out and told everyone about the brooch. I’m sure I would have, too, if my earlier bombshell hadn’t gone over so badly.
My friends wouldn’t hear anything I said to them, nor would they feel it if I touched them. I’d already realized that running wouldn’t do them any good, but I couldn’t stand to hear them arguing about me while grim-faced Knights armed with crossbows snuck up on their position.
I grabbed a stick and scrambled back down. The Erlking’s spell made it so that no one noticed the stick moving from the top of the embankment and then hanging in the air in front of them. I tried poking Keane with it, but he didn’t seem to feel it. Then I dropped it on his head.
Keane reached up and brushed the stick out of his hair, then glanced up, probably looking for the tree it had dropped from.
Encouraged that he’d actually felt the stick, I bent down and grabbed a few pebbles from the stream and began lobbing them at him one at a time. He looked so confused that I would have laughed in any other situation.
“It’s Dana, idiot,” Ethan said. “Trying to tell you she’s all right.”
“Um, guys?” Kimber said. “Maybe we should run now?”
Ethan shook his head. “Dana should run instead of hanging around here throwing pebbles. We should surrender to give her more time to get away. I don’t know if they have any spells that can sense her, but if they do, she needs to be well away before they start casting them.”
Keane made a low growling sound. “You surrender if you want. I’m not giving up without a fight. There’s more than one way to buy time.”
“Come out of there and keep your hands where we can see them,�
�� one of the Knights yelled.
Kimber peeked over the lip of the embankment, then quickly dropped back down. “Knights,” she said, her face pale with fright. “They’ve got crossbows.”
“We won’t last more than a minute or two in a fight,” Ethan said. His gaze darted quickly to Kimber and back, fast enough that she didn’t notice. But Keane did, and he got the message. Kimber might not be totally defenseless, but she was still way more vulnerable than either of them because she couldn’t even cast a shield spell. If the boys tried to fight the Knights, Kimber might very well get hurt, or worse.
Keane looked grim, but resolved. “All right,” he said, and he even managed not to look like the concession caused him dire pain. “If we got ourselves killed, Dana would never forgive us.”
Ethan gave a halfhearted bark of laughter, but quickly sobered. “Look, I’m sorry I tried to hit you with that spell. I guess I was being kind of childish.”
Keane sighed, reaching over to take Kimber’s hand. “No, you were just being her big brother.”
“Come out now!” the Knight shouted. “This is your last warning.”
I let out a scream of frustration, hating the helpless feeling of standing there watching and being unable to do anything.
“We’re surrendering,” Ethan yelled back. “Don’t shoot.”
Hands up, Ethan stepped slowly out of the hollow, Keane and Kimber close behind.
* * *
Maybe I should have just run away after that. After all, it wasn’t like I could do much of anything to help my friends all by myself, unless I were willing to unleash my mortality spell on a bunch of Knights who were just following orders. And who had every reason to believe we’d been behind the bombing. I didn’t believe the Knights would be able to sense me behind the Erlking’s magic, so all I had to do was hide until nightfall and then travel through the standing stones right under their noses.
Maybe if I ran back to Avalon, I’d be able to get help for my dad and my friends. And at least I’d be safe myself, as long as I got out of Avalon before the Erlking found me. Ethan and Kimber’s dad was as powerful and influential as my own, and he’d do everything in his considerable power to get them safely home.
But who would fight for Finn and Keane? And would my dad’s political rivals try to make sure he never returned to Avalon? The only person who cared about my dad and all my friends equally, who would fight for them all, was me. Which meant I couldn’t run to Avalon and hope someone else could and would save them for me.
My mind churning desperately, trying to come up with an idea that didn’t suck, I watched as the Knights bound my friends’ hands behind their backs and bullied them through the trees. I followed, unseen and unheard.
When I broke through the trees, I saw a narrow dirt road, much smaller than the main one. The handful of Knights who had rounded up my friends was only a portion of this search party, which consisted of about a dozen people, some Knights, some not. The air around them buzzed with magic, raising all the fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck.
A cold-faced Sidhe woman questioned Keane, trying to find out where I was. She completely ignored Ethan and Kimber, but I supposed that was a result of the rivalry between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. She no doubt thought Keane, as a member of her own Court, was more trustworthy.
Keane told her about Ethan’s attempt to capture me for the Erlking—which earned him a look of shock from Kimber, and scorn from Ethan. Ignoring their outrage, Keane went on to explain that I’d run off after Ethan’s attack, terrified that he was still tied to the Erlking and would try again.
I thought it was a pretty good story. Plausible, at least to someone who didn’t know me. And if the woman believed him, she’d send at least some of her men on a wild goose chase.
I couldn’t tell by her face whether she was buying Keane’s story, but she didn’t seem inclined to do a full-out interrogation, at least not in the middle of the road. She picked out five of her men and ordered them to carry my friends back to the Sunne Palace, where I had no doubt they would be deposited in some nasty dungeon-type place. Then she directed the rest of her men to continue searching for me.
Once again, I was helpless as my friends were hoisted up onto the backs of horses and then tied to the saddles. The rest of the search party fanned out into the woods again, one man staying behind to guard the remaining horses, while my friends and their captors took off down the road at a gallop.
I thought about trying to steal a horse, but gave up on that idea immediately. How could I get the horse to do what I wanted if it could neither see, feel, nor hear me? And even if I could, being invisible wouldn’t do me much good if I was riding a horse down the road. Maybe no one would be able to see me, but they would know something was wrong with that picture.
Instead, I checked my watch to remind myself how much longer the spell would be working, then forced my weary legs into a pathetic imitation of a jog, following the road toward the Sunne Palace. What I was going to do when and if I actually got there was anyone’s guess.
Chapter Nineteen
I don’t know how I kept putting one foot in front of the other. My entire body ached with fatigue, and if I stood still for a rest, I found myself swaying on my feet, my head swimming. Not trusting myself to think straight, I set the alarm on my watch to go off three minutes before the brooch’s spell would expire and forced myself to keep going. When the alarm went off, scaring the crap out of me because I’d been in such a daze I was practically delirious, I poked myself with the brooch again and kept going down the road. I couldn’t manage a jog, or even a brisk walk, so I settled for a slow and steady plod. I had a nasty moment when the narrow road I was on met with the main road, but I was pretty sure I’d chosen the right direction.
There was plenty of traffic on the road, mostly people riding horses, but a few driving wagons and some pedestrians as well. Most were heading the same way I was, reinforcing my assumption that I’d turn the right direction. No one saw me, and I silently thanked the Erlking for giving me the brooch, even though he was the enemy. I was even able to snatch some food and water from one of the passersby without anyone noticing me.
I stuffed my face as I kept walking, trying not to eat or drink too fast. A hunk of bread and an apple had never tasted so good, even though the apple had peach-colored flesh and tasted more like some kind of melon. As long as it was edible, I didn’t care, and as my body began to process the food and rehydrate, my brain started working better, too.
The Erlking’s brooch was one hell of a secret weapon. I’d been able to steal the food right out from under a Fae’s nose, and he’d had no idea I was there, even when I accidentally brushed against him.
If I had come to the Sunne Palace for the sole purpose of assassinating Princess Elaine—God only knows what my motive was supposed to be—then I sure as hell could have done it without having to resort to using a bomb. I could have just used the Erlking’s brooch to make me invisible, followed the princess around until I was sure she was alone, and then killed her with a Fae weapon. If I’d done that, there would have been no evidence pointing to me as the culprit, and no one would have had any reason to suspect me. What kind of moron would I have be to use a bomb, something that—at least in theory—only I could have been responsible for?
I stumbled to a stop as I tried to find flaws in my argument. But no matter how I sliced it, as long as I had the Erlking’s brooch, there were about a million easier ways for me to assassinate someone than to set a freaking bomb. And that, I realized, was my defense.
The realization gave me a taste of hope, and that hope gave me a rush of energy. My pace picked up, and my body felt less achy and awful. Maybe it was possible for me to prove my innocence. Based on my dad’s reaction on the night of the bombing, I didn’t think I would get anything like a fair trial if I turned myself in, and without a fair trial, I might never be able to present my side of the argument. But thanks to the brooch, I could march right through t
he doors of the palace and grant myself an audience with the Queen. And thanks to the gun my dad had given me, I could be sure she’d listen—and see how much more easily I could have killed Elaine if I actually wanted to.
The plan felt almost surreal, like something out of a cheesy action movie. Who was I, a sixteen-year-old half-blood girl, to storm the Faerie Queen’s palace and threaten her with a gun? But if I didn’t prove my innocence, my father and my friends might very well die. If the Queen hadn’t killed my father already, but I tried to shut that thought out.
Crazy as my plan sounded, I had to try it. Besides, it sounded better than my previous plan, which was to somehow use the brooch to help free my father and my friends, and then somehow get us the hell out of Dodge. I wasn’t any closer to figuring out either of those “somehows” now than I had been when I’d first turned back toward the palace. So Plan B it was.
* * *
For a while, knowing I had a plan gave me a burst of energy, but it could only last so long. I stole food and water a second time, but even after I’d eaten my fill, my legs were quivering with exhaustion, and I realized that if I didn’t stop and rest, I was going to run myself into the ground. Reluctantly, I left the road and slipped back into the woods, looking for a place where I could hide while I rested.
I was too tired to be picky, and I ended up curled up between a couple of gnarled tree roots way too close to the road for comfort. I considered letting my watch keep waking me up every twenty-seven minutes so I could stay invisible, but I decided I needed the rest too desperately. Holding the gun in my hand and using my backpack for a pillow, I closed my eyes and was instantly sucked down into sleep.
