“Not an Erlking, the Erlking,” the Erlking corrects impatiently.
“Stop it,” I interrupt their squabbling. I look at Ben. “Go across to the other side and bring the rest back over here.”
Ben hesitates, looking across to the other side. I can feel it in him, the uncertainty in the way he is standing.
It startles me. This should be the part where he excels, where he wants to show off. “Ben?” I ask.
Then he vanishes. I look across to the other side, where he reappears. Then he is back on my side with Kelsey, and then gone again.
“Selkie!” Kelsey flings herself on top of me, hugging me tightly. “We thought you were dead.” Her voice breaks, and I know that she really did think I was gone forever.
“I’m okay,” I assure her.
“What happened?” She straightens away from me, wiping some lingering tears away from my eyes.
“I don’t really know,” I confess. “Ben caught me, and then—”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Will interjects, and I realize Ben is done bringing everyone over to our side. “Is your mother here?”
“Yes,” answers Ben slowly.
“Have you asked her about the other three fays?”
“Not exactly,” replies Ben, still speaking slowly.
“What? Why not?” demands Will impatiently. “I’m glad that you’ve been having your sweet little family reunion here, but the clock is ticking.”
“11:22,” the Erlking confirms.
Ben opens his mouth then seems to think better of it. He waves in the air, conjuring up a piece of paper and a pencil, and he starts writing something on it, even as he says, “But they’re preparing a feast. You don’t want to miss the feast.”
“Benedict,” Will begins impatiently, accepting the piece of paper Ben hands him. “You have to—” Will cuts himself off, reading whatever Ben has written on the paper. “You have two friends who are most excited for the feast,” he finishes. “Five friends, actually.”
“Four friends and an Erlking,” corrects Ben.
Will has handed me the piece of paper. I read Ben’s hastily scrawled letters. I feel the Erlking read over my shoulder. Can’t speak freely—walls have ears. I pass the piece of paper on to Kelsey.
“Not an Erlking,” says the Erlking again. “The Erlking.”
Ben shrugs as Kelsey passes the piece of paper to Safford.
An awkward silence falls. None of us wants to say anything. Safford gives the paper back to Ben, who vanishes it into thin air. We stand around awkwardly.
The Erlking clears his throat eventually and holds out his hand to Will. “May I have my sword back?” he asks politely.
“Oh. Yes.” Will hastily hands it over. “Well, what about this feast?” he asks Ben. “Shouldn’t we go join it?”
“We have to wait for them to come to us,” Ben replies.
“What do you mean?” Will asks. “Isn’t that the castle right over there?”
“Yes. And you could walk until the day you are named, walk and walk and walk, and you would never reach that castle.”
Will regards the castle, which looks as if it could be reached in ten minutes. “Well, that’s inconvenient.” He looks at Ben, and it hangs in the air, the question he’s not asking. Can’t you break it?
Ben shakes his head a bit then says, “They’ll come for us soon.”
We wait. It feels a bit idiotic. I want to point out that Ben seemed to have no trouble getting me to the meadow part of the Unseelie Court, but who knows what the issue is preventing him from getting us to the castle. Enchantments follow their own complicated set of rules. And I feel like there is a great deal about this whole experience that Ben has not yet shared.
Eventually, a few things hop out of the castle doors toward us, bounding over the drawbridge. They look like…
“Are those enormous dogs?” Kelsey asks incredulously.
The dogs are barking enthusiastically now as they approach.
“Corgis,” Ben confirms.
“Corgis?” I repeat. I don’t know why, of all the things I’ve seen in the Otherworld, I should be so completely thrown by giant corgis.
“Royal faeries always ride corgis,” Ben tells me in his obviously tone of voice.
“Giant corgis?” I ask.
He looks a little irritated at that question. “Well, how would they fit on regular-sized corgis?”
“Fair point,” Kelsey allows.
“I’ve never seen Seelies riding corgis,” I point out.
“Seelies try not to go anywhere,” Ben replies.
The three corgis have reached us by now. They loom over us, tails wagging and tongues lolling out, their corgi grins firmly in place. And faeries leap easily to the ground beside the corgis. Ben’s mother I recognize. I don’t know the other two faeries. One is female and one is male, and they have the unmistakable Seelie look to them. The female one walks immediately up to the Erlking.
“Hello,” she says.
“Hello,” he says in reply.
Then she kisses him. Very hard.
“You hit me at our reunion,” Ben points out from behind me, as if that had not been the proper way to behave and it would have been better for me to just kiss him like that.
Which is annoying, because Benedict Le Fay, who left me standing on Boston Common after I’d asked him not to leave me because I loved him—not to leave because he loved me—doesn’t deserve to be greeted with a kiss. And certainly not one involving tongue.
“Yes,” I agree with his statement without looking back at him. “The Erlking must be better at seduction than you are.”
Will, Kelsey, and Safford all swing their heads away from the show the Erlking is currently engaged in to look at me and then Ben. I would like to see Ben’s reaction—I hope he is appropriately chastened by the comment—but I decide the comment’s impact will be greater if I do not allow myself the moment of triumph.
I sweep over to Ben’s mother. I cannot tell if she heard my exchange with Ben, and I cannot tell if it would mean anything to her anyway. “Is this how we’re getting to the feast?” I inquire politely. “On the corgis?”
“Of course,” she says, and then she sends that cold Seelie anti-smile around to encompass all of us. “Welcome to the Unseelie Court.”
***
Riding on corgis is difficult, harder than it looks. It was a lot easier to ride the cave horses, even if at the time I didn’t think it was especially easy. The corgis do a lot of…gamboling. That’s the only word I can think of. The ride to the castle isn’t long, but they do a lot of bounding about on the way there, and I have my hands twisted into the corgi’s fur to keep from falling off. I could hold on to Ben, who I am sitting behind, but I feel like that might eliminate the impact of my last statement to him, which I’m honestly pretty proud of.
Our corgi leaps over the drawbridge leading to the castle, and then we are inside a courtyard, castle walls rising all around us. I slide off the corgi quickly and Ben does the same. Behind us, Kelsey and Safford are sliding off their corgi, and Will is sliding off of his. The three faeries who had ridden out to meet us had traveled back up to the courtyard, and the female one who wasn’t Ben’s mother had taken the Erlking along with her. The four of them are now waiting for us in the courtyard.
“What did you think of traveling by corgi?” Ben’s mother asks us, smile wide on her face.
“Er,” Will replies, looking dubiously at his corgi. “It was unique.”
“It’s the only way to travel. But maybe you have to be born to it. Come.” She turns grandly, with a commanding sort of sniff, and marches through two enormous double doors into a hallway.
Ben follows her. Will and Kelsey and Safford and I all look at each other.
“Ask her,” I hiss at Will.
“Shh,” W
ill says sharply, shakes his head, and then follows after Ben.
I sigh in frustration. I mean, it wasn’t like I asked her, but I still decide it’s easier to be miffed at Will for not picking up the slack.
It is very dim inside the castle. There is some feeble light along the hallway we’re walking down, but I can’t really figure out where it’s coming from, because there aren’t any torches or lamps or orbs or anything like that. But I know there’s light because Safford’s red hair gleams like a beacon in front of me, picking up every piece of light there is to gather.
Safford’s hair, frankly, makes me think of the sun. I decide I’m tired of being underground. I am never taking real, unenchanted sunlight for granted again.
“Here we are,” Ben’s mother announces, coming to an abrupt stop. She turns and smiles at us. I wish she would stop smiling; her smile is unsettling. “We are having a feast. Did Benedict tell you?”
“He mentioned it,” Will replies politely.
“Excellent. Surely you wish to freshen up before the feast. You’re looking a bit…” She casts her eyes over us. “Travel weary,” she finishes delicately.
Ben’s mother turns to her left and throws open a door I hadn’t noticed before. Then she turns to Will. “Mr. Blaxton,” she says to him and indicates the doorway.
Will does not move, and I realize that, while she hasn’t named him with intent, she nonetheless knows his name. Her smile grows more chilling. I didn’t realize that was possible.
“Thank you,” Will says eventually, after a moment of silence. He sounds smooth and unruffled, but I think it’s all an act. Will, after all, has been living among faeries a long time and can lie with the best of them. He walks briskly through the doorway and then closes the door behind him. Well. I hope he closes it. I hope it doesn’t swing shut of its own accord.
Ben’s mother moves down the hallway, flinging open more doors. “Safford,” she says. “And Kelsey.”
They both hesitate on the thresholds of their rooms. Kelsey looks back at me. I flicker a little smile at her, as if I know that this is all going to be okay, when coming to the Unseelie Court now seems to me to be the worst idea that I have ever had. And then Kelsey walks into her room and shuts the door, as does Safford.
Ben’s mother moves to the next door in the hallway. “And now, for the fay of the autumnal equinox,” she starts, hand on the iron ring that acts as a doorknob.
“She’ll stay with me,” Ben inserts and takes a step closer to me in the twilight of the hallway.
I look at him in surprise and annoyance, as his mother says, sounding amused, “I suspected you would insist upon as much.”
She starts walking again, and Ben places a hand on the small of my back to nudge me forward.
I resist. “I’d rather have my own room,” I announce loudly, because really, that seems a little arrogant of Ben, who I am still angry with and who isn’t acknowledging that I have every right to be angry.
His mother stops walking and turns back to us. She lifts her eyebrows at me. “Would you?” she muses speculatively. She walks slowly back to us and leans down, so that we are level. I look straight into her colorless eyes, and I suppress my shudder. “Would you really?”
What are we doing? I wonder suddenly. We need to get our information and leave. I blurt out, “We’re looking for the other fays.”
“It is the fate of so many to be looking so far and so long for so much,” responds Ben’s mother.
“Okay,” I say, even though I could not care less about whatever that was. “But the book of power said that you know where they are because you hid them.”
“Did I hide them?” says Ben’s mother. “It was so very long ago. So difficult to remember…”
I think of the Seelies, of their secret power of forgetting, and I wonder if Ben’s mom is suffering from it. “It was written in the book,” I say eagerly, hoping it will jog her memory.
Ben’s mother lifts her eyebrows at me. “You have a book?”
“I don’t, but—”
Ben’s mother reaches out and lays a finger against my lips. Her finger is ice-cold and I stop talking out of sheer shock. “You have not learned the lesson yet, little fay.”
“Don’t,” Ben starts, but his mother flicks a glance up at him and says, “Shh, shh, shh.”
“What lesson?” I manage around her finger. I try to jerk my head back but her finger follows, contact with my lips not lessening.
“You shouldn’t ask questions before dinner. It’s rude.” She leans closer to me, and I am suddenly abruptly grateful for the warm barrier of Ben behind me, because it reminds me that I’m not alone. “Must I teach you this lesson? Shall we begin right now?” Her finger moves off my lips, trails over my cheekbone, tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear.
“Stop,” I manage finally, harshly, and jerk out of her grasp.
She smiles an anti-smile at me. “Good. I thought you’d be a quick learner.” She turns and walks away, calling over her shoulder, “You should wear the coat I got for you, Benedict. It’s a special occasion.”
“We’ll see,” Ben answers noncommittally and then grabs my hand. He pulls me into a room with him before I can react, still thrown by the phantom recall of his mother’s finger on me.
“She’s awful,” I say, shaking.
“Yes, turns out she’s not the most charming of faeries. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I answer vaguely, preoccupied by studying the room we’re in.
It’s perfectly round, with a bed and a desk and a chair and a round window in the wall. The ceiling is high above us, crossed over with wooden beams, and there are a few wrought-iron chandeliers hanging from it. The floor appears to be dirt, which suits the rough furnishings of the room, and the view out the window looks like the sunny meadow where we had been earlier that day, when I had first met Ben’s mother.
I shake my hand out of Ben’s and walk over to the window. It doesn’t have any glass over it—Unseelies must share the glass aversion trait with Seelies—so I stick my head through it and look at the meadow.
“It’s an enchantment,” Ben says behind me.
“I figured,” I say and pull my head back through the window.
Ben is on the bed, on his back, staring up at the ceiling. It’s a little bit strange, because I have, technically, slept with Ben, curled close into him, but there has never been a bed involved before, so I stand awkwardly by his window. Plus, there’s the fact that I’m angry with him. It’s only been a few days since I last saw him, I think, if I’m keeping time correctly, but it feels as if it’s been years, or it’s been a few minutes. I’m so confused by the battering I feel like my emotions are taking from seeing him again. It was easier to hate him so much when he wasn’t right in front of me, so familiar, and I wasn’t calling up the memory of several different lifetimes’ worth of longing for him. But it was also easier to forgive him when he wasn’t right in front of me being so unapologetic about the whole thing.
I open my mouth to tell him to leave.
“She’s very nostalgic,” Ben says finally, breaking the silence.
“Who is?”
“My mother. This is the room I grew up in.”
So I guess I can’t tell him to leave then. I blink in surprise and look around the room with new eyes. “This is?”
“Well, I mean, not really, that room doesn’t exist anymore. She’s enchanted it this way. She’s very nostalgic, like I say.”
I look at him. “She enchanted it this way for you?”
He shakes his head briefly. “She didn’t do it for me.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.” He turns his head to finally look at me. His eyes are very green in this room, green like the meadow outside. “Go on,” he says.
“Go on with what?” I ask, confused.
“With questions. You must have a million questions. You always have a million questions. You never stop asking questions. So go on.”
I bristle. “I’m sorry if my questions irritate you.”
“I never said they irritate me.”
“What is going on here, Ben?”
Ben considers then shakes his head. “You need to start with a simpler question than that.”
“Have you asked your mother where the other fays are?”
“Yes. I get in response the sort of thing you just saw. She won’t answer any questions. Which isn’t exactly unusual for a faerie.”
I’m frustrated. “So she doesn’t want to help us? Why did she hide the fays if she wasn’t going to help us?”
Ben is silent for a moment. “I don’t think she’s…right. She spent time in Tir na nOg. It does things to you. Faeries are terrible at plans to begin with, and then she…I don’t think she…”
“So did she really forget? We can ask Will what he did with the book. Maybe it will jog her memory?”
“I don’t know if she wants it anymore,” Ben admits. “I think she did, once, want the overthrow of the Seelie Court. But she likes it here. She’s told me more than once. Actually she tells me constantly: how much I’m going to like it here.”
And so Ben got what he wanted, I think. Reunited with his mother. Happy ending to the story. And forget about the rest of us trying to fulfill our prophecy; he’s just going to let it go, wait it out here in the Unseelie Court.
“Do you think if you stay here with her, you won’t succumb to the prophecy and die?” I demand.
Ben looks at me in confusion.
“Benedict Le Fay will betray you,” I remind him, “and then he will die.”
Ben shakes his head. “That’s not the prophecy. That’s a false prophecy. That was your mother, getting into our heads. No one else has ever said anything like that about the prophecy, not even a pig’s whisper. I wish you’d stop worrying about that.”
I am frustrated that I’m the only one who seems to be taking the threat seriously. I march over to the door and try to open it. It’s locked.
“Where are you going?” Ben asks.
The Boy with the Hidden Name: Otherworld Book Two Page 8
