Sirensong f-3

by Jenna Black

  “There are no other Faeriewalkers,” the Queen snapped, but I thought there might be a hint of doubt in her eyes.

  “There has to be at least one other,” I countered, “because I didn’t set that bomb. If the Erlking weren’t here, I could have walked right up to you and shot you in the head without you ever knowing I was here. I could have done the same to Elaine. Or I could have used a knife, so that no one would even guess a Faeriewalker was involved.”

  “If there were another Faeriewalker, I would know,” Titania said, but she definitely sounded less sure of herself.

  “Why would I want to hurt Elaine? I’d never even met her. And I’ve lived all my life in the mortal world. I don’t give a crap about Faerie politics.”

  “I understand you were only a tool,” she said, her voice going all soft and gentle. I didn’t believe it for a moment. “Your father must have thought that Henry would dine with you that night instead of Elaine.”

  My heart lurched at the mention of my dad. If Titania had believed all along that he was the mastermind behind the whole bombing scheme …

  “Seamus is alive,” the Erlking told me.

  I guess my train of thought had been showing on my face. I had to blink rapidly to keep from crying in relief. Maybe I was crazy, but I couldn’t help feeling grateful to Arawn for telling me. I don’t know if I’d have had the courage to ask. Titania flashed him a look of annoyance, perhaps not used to having her thunder stolen.

  “Even if my father thought that,” I said, “and even if he wanted to kill Henry, he wouldn’t have done it that way. He wouldn’t have used me. And there’s no way I would have let him use me like that.”

  The Queen was still looking at me with a gentle, pitying expression. “I’m sure it seems that way to you,” she said soothingly. “And I understand that it is hard for you to think ill of your father.”

  I had to roll my eyes at that one. I was pretty good at “thinking ill” of people. “It doesn’t matter what I think of my dad. I’m telling you: I had nothing to do with that bomb. There’s another Faeriewalker that no one knows about. Well, almost no one.”

  Magic began to gather again, and I jerked my arms up, realizing the barrel of the gun had been slowly dropping as we spoke. It wasn’t like the gun was heavy or anything, but my arms were getting tired.

  “No magic!” I reminded her. “I’m serious.”

  Titania shrugged as though it hardly mattered, but the magic dissipated. “I believe you would say anything to save your father from getting his just desserts,” she said. “You will not change my mind with brute force.”

  Too bad brute force was my only option. I knew if I lowered the gun, Titania’s magic would come back in a heartbeat, and though I didn’t know what that magic would do to me, I was sure it wasn’t anything good.

  “You would believe her if she could prove the existence of another Faeriewalker, would you not?” the Erlking asked.

  I might have thought he was trying to help me out—if I didn’t know him better. He just wanted to know the identity of the other Faeriewalker in hopes that she was easier to exploit than I was.

  I pictured Elizabeth in my mind’s eye, her head bowed and her shoulders hunched in the face of Henry’s disapproval. She had brought the bomb from Avalon and had planted it under Elaine’s chair, but she truly was the helpless tool Titania imagined me to be. If I gave her up, then Titania might well kill her. And if she didn’t, the Erlking would start circling her like the hungry shark he was.

  But if I didn’t give her up, my father and I were both going to die, and who knew what Titania would do to my friends.

  Titania cocked her head, looking curious. “Can you prove it?” she asked me.

  I hesitated, hating the thought of throwing Elizabeth to the wolves. My throat tightened, and I felt like a gutless wonder. She might not be a friend of mine, but Elizabeth was a child.

  “You have no choice, Dana,” the Erlking said. “This can only end in disaster for you if you refuse to unmask the real culprit.”

  He was right, and I knew it. It wasn’t like I had enough bullets to shoot my way out of here. And even if I summoned my magic and unleashed my deadly spell, there was a gauntlet of Knights and trolls I’d have to make my way through before I escaped the palace a second time.

  I wanted to scream with anger and frustration, but I didn’t. Too many people’s lives depended on me, and I couldn’t afford to take a single false step.

  “It’s Elizabeth,” I said, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. “And I can prove it.”

  There was no sign of recognition on either of their faces. But then why should Titania or Arawn know the name of one insignificant servant in Henry’s entourage.

  “She’s one of Henry’s servants,” I explained. “And she’s just a kid,” I hastened to add. “He beats on her, and she’s so terrified of him she’d do anything he told her to.”

  I’d thought Titania’s eyes looked cold before. I’d had no idea what cold was until I saw the way she looked at me now.

  “You lie,” she said simply, but there was so much fury in her voice that I almost pulled the trigger in preemptive self-defense. It was no surprise that she didn’t like hearing her son might have been involved with the whole plot.

  “You said you can prove it,” Arawn said, sounding surprisingly cautious, like he was afraid Titania was about to explode or something.

  I nodded, too intimidated by Titania’s glare to force out any words.

  “I refuse to believe it,” Titania spat. “This is your father’s doing. He wishes to discredit my son, and—”

  “If she thinks she can prove it, then let her try,” Arawn interrupted. “If your son is innocent, then there is no harm done. You can punish Seamus to your heart’s content, and you can leave Dana to me, which I assure you she would find a more than adequate punishment.” He winked at me, like he thought this was all some kind of joke. It made me want to shoot him, though I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

  Titania speared me with her ice-pick eyes. “Very well. You have my leave to try to ‘prove’ my son was behind this. And woe unto you and everyone you care about if you fail.”

  Yeah, no pressure or anything.

  “Give your weapon to Arawn,” she ordered. “I will not be threatened in my own home.”

  Arawn took a couple of cautious steps toward me and held out his hand.

  I did not want to give him my gun. True, I knew it wasn’t enough of a threat to get me out of here with my skin, but it made a nice security blanket. Even though my arms were quivering with the strain of holding it up.

  Arawn sidled closer, though he made no attempt to take the gun from me by force. His voice dropped to a barely audible murmur.

  “Give me the gun. It is hardly your only weapon, and it isn’t even your most fearsome one.”

  I blinked at him in surprise. Just when I thought I had him all figured out, he’d go and surprise me like this. He was talking about my mortality spell, and instead of blurting it out and revealing my secret to the Queen, he was taking pains to keep it between us. I was sure it was for his own benefit somehow, rather than for mine, but I was grateful anyway. I also knew that once again, he was right. So I flicked the safety back on and forced my cramped fingers to release their stranglehold on the gun. Then I handed the gun to Arawn butt-first, and I was left with no defenses save the one I doubted I’d be willing to use.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As soon as the gun left my hand, I braced myself for an attack, feeling naked and helpless without it. Titania looked at me like I was a cockroach she wanted to stomp, but she didn’t try to call magic and she didn’t give the Erlking permission to take me. Either she was being honorable, or I had awakened a kernel of doubt in her with my accusations. I didn’t much care which.

  “Show me your proof,” she commanded.

  “First, we have to figure out how far away from a mortal object I have to be before it goes poof.”

  Ti
tania’s brows drew together ever so slightly, and I realized she might not be familiar with the mortal version of modern English.

  “Before it disappears,” I clarified.

  “This resembles more an escape plan than proof of my son’s guilt,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Yeah, because I came bursting into your bedroom in an attempt to escape. If I wanted to escape, I wouldn’t be here.” I could tell she didn’t appreciate my sarcasm, but I didn’t have it in me to apologize. Maybe this wasn’t an appropriate way to speak to the Queen of the Seelie Court, but I’d been through too much to stress about etiquette.

  “There are about ten thousand Knights and a couple of trolls outside your door,” I continued, since she didn’t look convinced by my reasonable argument, “and you’re worried I’m going to try to escape from under their noses?”

  “They did not stop you from entering.”

  Arawn held out his hand again. “Give me the brooch. If you don’t have that, I think we can all feel secure that you will not try to escape.”

  I wanted to hand over the brooch even less than I’d wanted to hand over the gun, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of options. If Titania decided she didn’t want to hear what I had to say, she could condemn me in a heartbeat and there’d be nothing I could do to prevent it.

  To my shame, my hand was shaking when I laid the brooch in Arawn’s palm. One by one, Titania was stripping away my defenses, and I was letting her. But what choice did I have?

  “I believe you are telling the truth,” Arawn said as he took the brooch. “As long as you are telling the truth, you have nothing to fear.”

  I met his gaze for a moment, surprised by this hint of humanity. He was a stone-cold killer, a skilled manipulator, and if not exactly a liar, then at least a deceiver. But he was the closest thing I had to a friend right now, and wasn’t that a sorry state of affairs?

  I looked away quickly and started unfastening my watch. “So, um, I’m going to put this on the far side of the room.” I held up the watch for Titania to see. “Then I’m going to back away until whatever happens to mortal stuff when there’s no Faeriewalker around happens.”

  I waited for Titania’s approval before moving, because I suspected she had an itchy magical trigger finger. She pursed her lips like she wasn’t happy with this idea, but nodded curtly.

  “Proceed.”

  There was no furniture in the room except for the huge bed, and like in the hallway, there was a carpet of white rose petals. They looked for all the world like they were loose, fresh from the flower and scattered willy-nilly. And yet when I stepped, they didn’t move, nor did they look crushed. Maybe they were just a pretty illusion, although considering the rose-scented air, I thought they were probably real.

  Titania shadowed my movements, and I felt her eyes on me. The sensation made me shiver, and my skin prickled with goose bumps. Not the magic-induced kind, but the creeped-out kind. I set the watch carefully on the floor, then began backing away.

  I started to sweat when I was about halfway across the room. The watch was still there, and I couldn’t help worrying that something was going to go wrong. I knew I had to be “close” for my Faeriewalker magic to work, but I had no idea just how close “close” was. I suspected Titania wouldn’t have much patience with me, and I stared at my watch, willing it to hurry up and disappear.

  When my back bumped up against the door to the room, I felt sure that Titania would declare my time was up. The watch was still there, a brown, faux-croco stripe in the rose-petal carpet.

  “I guess I have to go outside the room,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so tentative.

  “Arawn will accompany you,” Titania replied, not looking away from the watch.

  Like she needed more security than she already had. Though come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind having Arawn nearby if I had to walk past those trolls. He, at least, was the devil I knew.

  He opened the door for me, then stepped out and said something I couldn’t hear to the Knights and trolls on guard. I hoped it was something like “Don’t attack the girl who’s about to come out the door.”

  Taking a deep breath for courage, I backed over the threshold. The guards had to be surprised to see me, considering they hadn’t seen me go in, but a quick glance to each side showed me they were paying no attention to me, no doubt thanks to Arawn’s warning.

  The door frame quickly blocked my view of the watch, but I could see Titania staring at it, so I knew it was still there. I was about three steps into the hallway when Titania jumped a little, then looked over her shoulder at me.

  “It is gone,” she said.

  Fighting an insane desire to flee down the hallway away from the dangerous Faerie Queen, I forced myself back into the bedroom, Arawn following close behind.

  “All right,” I said. “Now let’s bring Elizabeth here. I’ll put another item from the mortal world down, and then I’ll back away as she stays in the room. If she’s not a Faeriewalker, the item will disappear when I’m three steps out. If she is a Faeriewalker, it won’t go anywhere.”

  Titania nodded, then strode to the door. I guess she didn’t mind having her guards see her in her almost completely see-through wrap.

  “I will have the girl Elizabeth brought here,” she announced as she yanked open the door.

  “How sure are you that this Elizabeth is the Faeriewalker?” Arawn asked me in an undertone.

  I chewed my lip. I’d felt pretty sure until he’d asked. But really, I was basing my theory on little more than a guess. There had been a lot of servants in that dining room when the bomb went off, and it was possible one of the others had been in Henry’s entourage and hadn’t stuck out in my mind. Elizabeth looked like a full-blooded Fae, beautiful and perfect, but genetics are sometimes fickle.

  “Sure enough to stake my life on it, I guess,” I answered, my voice a little quavery.

  He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “You are probably right. The Faeriewalker must have a very powerful Fae parent, and I can’t help noticing the link between the names Henry and Elizabeth.”

  I didn’t at first know what he was talking about, but it didn’t take me a long time to figure it out, not when I was so aware of how much the Fae lived in the past. The first Queen Elizabeth had been the daughter of Henry VIII. Come to think of it, she’d been famous for being a redhead as well.

  “So you think Elizabeth is Prince Henry’s daughter,” I said.

  “Likely. Assuming she is the Faeriewalker.”

  Damn. I thought I had it bad with my parental issues, but I couldn’t imagine having Henry as a father. He treated her badly even for a servant, much less for a daughter. And here I was, turning her over to save my own hide.

  I shoved the guilt aside as best I could. I wasn’t doing this just for myself. I was doing it for my dad, and Ethan, and Kimber, and Keane, and Finn. I still hated it, still wished I could have thought of another way to prove my innocence, but there didn’t seem to be one.

  Titania came back into the room, bringing with her the arctic chill of her displeasure. I wished she’d put some clothes on, but perhaps the Fae didn’t have the same modesty issues as humans. She seemed quite unconscious of her state of undress. The Erlking, I noticed from his occasional appreciative glances, was much more aware of it than she was.

  Soon, there was a commotion out in the hall, and I tensed up, my imagination telling me it was the Queen’s guards coming to seize me. I stared at the door with what I felt sure were scared eyes, and when someone knocked, I was so tense I jumped.

  “Enter,” the Queen beckoned. I hadn’t seen her move, but somehow she had changed out of the gauzy wrap and into an elaborate white and gold kimono-like gown, and her hair was gathered in a loose but elegant chignon at the back of her head.

  The door opened, and Henry burst in, dressed in his usual flashy doublet and leggings. Behind him, a Knight entered, dragging Elizabeth by the arm. She had obviously been in bed when th
e Knights had come for her. Her hair was disheveled from sleep, and it looked like she’d dressed in a frantic rush, her skirts dragging on the floor behind her because she’d skipped the bustle. I supposed she was lucky the Knights had allowed her time to dress at all. Tears streaked her face, and guilt hammered at me harder than ever.

  Henry came to an abrupt halt when he saw me standing there beside the Erlking. I thought I saw a hint of fear in his eyes, but maybe that was just what I wanted to see.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded of his mother. “Why have my quarters been raided and my servant dragged from her bed?”

  If Henry had nothing to hide, I doubted he would have been able to muster much outrage over the seizure of one of his servants. It wasn’t like he had a warm and caring relationship with them.

  “Forgive the intrusion, my son,” Titania said in a voice that clearly conveyed she didn’t like his tone. “I had no intention of disrupting your evening and want only to question this child.”

  She gestured at Elizabeth, who looked like she was about to faint from terror. The girl gave me a pleading look, but though I’d helped her against the Green Lady, I couldn’t help her against this. I prayed that Titania would take pity on her and realize that her son was the one to blame.

  Henry dialed down the outrage. I guess he saw that Titania didn’t appreciate it. When he spoke again, he managed to sound calm and only mildly curious.

  “Why should you need to question a servant girl? She is no one.”

  My dad had told me that Henry lacked the wit and subtlety he needed to be a star player in Court politics, and it seemed he was right. His protests, even when so toned down, were as good as him screaming, “I have something to hide!” Of course, he did have something to hide, so he probably felt pretty trapped.

  Titania arched one brow. “If she is, as you say, no one, then this will take but a moment.” She turned to me. “Put your mortal item in its place.”