by D. N. Hoxa
I hit the brakes so hard, Ezra fell from the backseat and Lynn almost hit her face on the dashboard. Good thing I put my arm in front of her chest in time.
The car behind me honked in complaint. My whole body froze for a second as my mind tried to come up with options. But there was only one that made sense.
“Remember the basement you hid in during the fairy attack after you came back from the fairy realm?” I said to Lynn, my eyes never moving from the back of the fairy’s head, who was now turning the corner.
“Yes?” Lynn whispered.
“Get Ezra and go there. Do not come out for any reason until I call you.”
“What’s going on?” Ezra asked, his voice hoarse from the three hour sleep in the backseat.
“I need you to go with Lynn for a few hours, okay? I have something I need to take care of first and it’s better if you stay hidden until then.”
“But I—”
“Ezra, we really don’t have time.” Another fairy on the other side of the street. Shit. I took out two of my guns and handed them to Lynn. They were going to need something to protect themselves with, and I doubted she had any weapons on her. I could do without the guns just fine. “Go, go, go!”
Lynn jumped out of the car and opened the backdoor. The cars behind me continued to honk. If they kept up, they were going to attract the fairy’s attention, and I had no idea if he could recognize Ezra, but I didn’t want to risk it.
“You’ll come get me soon, right?” he asked before climbing out.
“I promise,” I whispered, and I threw in a wink, hoping to make him feel better.
With a shy smile, he walked out on the street, took Lynn’s hand, and they disappeared in the crowd in three seconds.
Holding my breath, I hit the gas pedal again. The tires screeched. I was no longer hiding.
Seeing those fairies checking the perimeter two blocks away from my office could only mean one thing: a whole bunch of them were already there, waiting for me. Maybe all the planning hadn’t been necessary. Maybe I wouldn’t have to go through a portal disguised as my aunt.
Maybe these guys were going to take me to the fairy realm all by themselves. I was lucky like that.
I saw four more of them before I turned the corner and entered Geraldine Street. I’d lie if I said I wasn’t afraid, but I wasn’t going to attack them. I wasn’t going to fight. I was just going to let them take me to their master.
Too excited and scared to park the car properly, I just sort of left it there next to the sidewalk across from my office. Aware of my beads and the knives on my person, I reminded myself that I wasn’t going to fight. Just talk. That was all I was going to do.
That was before I saw her sitting behind my desk, the door to my office wide open.
My body froze in the middle of the street. A car missed me by less than an inch. I couldn’t even hear the curses thrown at me by the drivers, or the honks, because the look in her eyes consumed me completely.
I smiled, though this was definitely not a situation where I should have been smiling, but I’d been right. It was her. She really was Jane Dunham.
With a deep breath, I walked to my office. I didn’t need to look around to see that I was surrounded by fairies. Leaving Ezra with Lynn had been a good idea, after all.
When I stepped inside, my heart threatened to beat right out of my chest. Seeing her there, sitting behind my desk with a bright, evil smile on, tapping her fingers to the wood, was almost surreal. In the fairy event just the night before, she’d looked different. Smaller. Weaker.
Here, she looked exactly like the Hedge witch I’d fought and killed in Staten Island.
“Winter Wayne,” she said when I closed the door behind me. “You are really beginning to be a major pain in my ass.”
Scared shitless, I swallowed hard and dragged Ms. Riley’s chair to the desk. I was going to sit right in front of her, because I wanted to give her the impression that I was her equal. I wasn’t, of course—what the hell did I know about dark magic?—but the alternative was standing there, possibly shaking, and letting her scare me even further.
“You know, I was just thinking of ideas about how to find you. This really is a pleasant surprise, Jane.” If you heard me speak, you’d bet your life that I was perfectly comfortable being there.
“Oh, I haven’t gone by that name since my first life. It’s Raina, now,” she said, raising a blond brow, her perfectly straight hair shining as she played with some strings. I kept trying to find any weapons she might have had somewhere on her, but she had nothing. Just a beautiful white shirt and black pants starting from her waste. The outfit belonged in an office, but it did look perfect on her. It sucked that I knew I could never pull that off.
“Well, Raina, I do remember you calling me all sorts of names for being a fairy the first time we met. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you with the ears and the eyes.” Not that I gave a shit about what she’d called me, but establishing a talking mood was important because soon, I was going to ask her about Ezra.
“Oh, that was the old me, Winter. Words are just words,” she said, waving her hand. “I’ve matured since you killed me.”
“I did kill you,” I said, a dumbfounded smile on my face. “So how the hell are you still alive?”
Jane Dunham grinned as if that was the question she’d been waiting for me to ask. “Magic,” she whispered.
I rolled my eyes. “And why are you here, in my office? Just don’t say magic again.”
“But it is magic!” she said with a dry laugh. “Magic is what I do everything for.”
I put my elbows on the desk and leaned closer to her, despite every cell in my body screaming in protest. My instincts, too. They could smell the danger that was Jane Dunham, and they wanted me far away from it.
“Is magic why you want the boy, too?”
The smile froze on her lips. Bingo.
“I’d ask you why you were with him, but you probably have the same reasons I do,” she said, not so cheerful anymore.
Uh… “What reason is that?”
Tell me, tell me, tell me…
Her eyes, more colorless than violet, grew wide for a second. Her lips fell open and she smiled again. Ah, shit. “You don’t know.”
Damn it.
“I know just as much as you do.” Turning it around now was useless but I figured there was no harm in trying.
“No, no, no, no. You don’t know what the boy is, do you?”
“I know what he is.” He was a Bone witch. Right? “What I want to know is why you’re after him.”
Jane laughed, her cold voice making my bones vibrate. Goosebumps broke on my arms and I hid them under the desk before she could see.
“If you’d have known what he was, you wouldn’t have asked me that,” she said, showing me her perfect white teeth. “But it doesn’t matter now. You’re going to tell me where he is, and you’re going to stay out of my way.”
This time, it was my turn to laugh, though the sound coming from my lips wasn’t nearly as dangerous as hers. “I think we both know I’m not going to do that.”
Jane slammed her palms against my desk, and by some miracle, I managed not to blink at the noise. “Where is he?”
Looking around me, I shrugged. “Not with me, obviously.”
“You killed one of mine protecting him. I know you did, bitch,” she hissed.
“I had no idea you were into name calling, Jane.”
Just as soon as the words left my mouth, something grabbed me by the throat. Jane moved her lips as she chanted the spell. Raising my left arm up, I aligned my beads in front of her eyes. Even if she snapped my neck, they’d still get through her eye sockets, and even if she came back again, she was never going to forget that.
No, she didn’t want that, and until she let me go, I didn’t make a single sound that would even indicate I couldn’t breathe, just to spite her. When my throat opened again, I took in a mouthful of air as discreetly as I could a
nd ordered my beads to float right in between us for easy access. Jane didn’t want to hurt me, not until I told her where Ezra was, so for now, I would be safe.
“I’m not telling you where he is, but if you tell me why you’re after him, I can keep from exposing you in front of the fairy Kings and Queens, and you get another chance.” Yeah, right. Even she knew that was a lie.
“I won’t leave a single stone unturned until I find him. I’ll burn this whole place down if I have to,” she said, trying but failing to hide her anger.
“You already tried that once, remember? Through Galladar? Though he called you Sophia, right before I killed him,” I said, because there was no doubt in my mind that Galladar had called her out a second before he died. She was the one who’d given him the ability to absorb fairy magic. It was all her doing.
And Jane didn’t even try to hide it. “You have no idea what I can do, Winter Wayne. Sooner or later, I’m going to find the boy. Until then, I’ll let you come up with ideas on how to hide him, just for the heck of it.”
Before I could reply, there was a knock on the door. My knife was already in my hand when I jumped to my feet. But it was just a fairy, one of Jane’s fairies outside the glass door, and he nodded at her once before he disappeared again.
Jane stood up, too. “You know, I was rather curious when the King asked you who your father was. I made it a personal mission to find out,” she said. Her words were like a slap to my face, much worse than the suffocating spell she conjured on me just a minute ago.
“What?” I whispered, unable to keep the shock from my face this time. My father? What the hell was she talking about?
“Oh, yes, your little fairy daddy,” she said, smiling like a fucking snake. “And I’m happy to say that I found him, though not easily.”
My eyes squeezed shut against my will and my mother’s face appeared in front of me. She’d never spoken to me about my father. All she ever said was: “It was never meant to be. That’s all you need to hear.” And it had been—right until I’d performed the ritual to ignite my magic with her bones, and I’d turned into a fairy. When Amelia told me that he being a fairy was the reason why my mother had left her family and had decided to raise me by herself, I’d thought she was the cruelest person on the planet. With time, though, I’d learned to accept it. If there’s one thing you can’t choose, it’s your parents.
Besides, my father was as good as dead to me. Fairy or no fairy, he’d never tried to come see me, talk to me—or just tell me that he existed somewhere. I’d never had any desire to find out anything about him.
Until now.
When my eyes popped open, Jane was right in front of me. I was already too shocked to jump back so I stayed put.
“I’d tell you all about it, but I’m kind of in the mood to destroy your world altogether from the inside, out,” she said, her cold breath blowing in my face. “So, all I’ll tell you is this: ask Amelia Wayne where your father is.”
The door to my office opened again. Julian Walker was standing by the threshold.
When I turned to her again, I found my office empty. Jane Dunham was gone.
Twelve
Black dots blurred my vision and Julian’s face in front of mine. His hands were on my cheeks and he was asking me to talk to him. But how could I when Jane’s words kept spinning in my head, making me sick to my stomach? If I opened my mouth now, I was going to throw up all over him.
I needed to find Jane Dunham again.
No, I needed to go talk to my aunt.
But…I needed to find Lynn and Ezra first.
Julian dragged me by my arms and sat me down.
“Breathe,” he whispered against my lips, and that’s exactly what I did.
Soon, the view in front of me cleared but the tornado of thoughts making a mess of my brain didn’t stop.
“There you are,” said Julian and gave me half a smile. I was tempted to return it. I just didn’t know how.
“What are you doing here?” My voice was weak and scratchy, but I considered having not thrown up yet a success.
“I came to find you,” Julian said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t follow you last night. My father is a…difficult man and our relationship is already hanging by a thread. Arguing with him back home seemed like a better idea than doing it here.”
I bit my lip. Father. Why was that word suddenly so hard to hear? Why did it press against my chest and make it hard to breathe?
“Did…did you see her?” I asked Julian.
“Who?”
I flinched. “So you didn’t.” That snake of a witch was good. Very good.
“Are you talking about Raina?”
I was tempted to smile. He knew her name. Well, the name she was using now. “She was just here. Her fairies must have seen you come because they warned her. She disappeared before you could see her here.”
“I didn’t see any fairies,” Julian said, and to me, it sounded like he was calling me a liar.
“Well, I did. I saw her, too. She’s not Raina or a fairy. Her name is Jane Dunham and she’s a Hedge witch.”
Jumping to my feet, I almost knocked him on the ground. I really didn’t have time for this.
Running to my room, I dragged my bag from under the couch. Lynn and Ezra were alone and if she got to them before I did…
I was taking everything with me.
“Winter, I believe you,” Julian said.
“No, you don’t.” Why would he when even Bender hadn’t? And the guy had seen Jane’s face with his own eyes before I killed her.
“Of course I do,” he said, and before I’d even put all my knives in my hip belt, he grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. “Look at me.”
I did. His face managed to catch me off guard as if I’d never seen him before. His violet eyes sparkled as he searched mine. Where the hell was the anger? I’d waited for him for three weeks, and I’d grown angrier and angrier every day that ended with him in the fairy realm, and now?
Now, he was here, and all the waiting, all the anger no longer mattered. Damn it, I hated him for that.
“I do believe you. It’s why I’m here,” Julian whispered, his fingers touching my cheek lightly. I wanted to laugh, and before I did that, I put my forehead against his chest. A heartbeat later, his arm wrapped tightly around me, and Julian was all I could hear, see and feel.
It was like taking a break from myself, from my thoughts and my problems. A long sigh escaped my lips as I listened to his heartbeat, my ear pressed to his chest. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.
“You get to call me anything you like,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I’m late again. I’m sorry.”
“Asshole,” I muttered. Not very creative, but you try and come up with something better when in his arms.
“This whole time thing with the fairy realm really does suck,” he said, chuckling. “I’m still getting used to it.”
“Hush,” I whispered against his shirt. I didn’t need explanations. Right now, all I needed was for him to hold me and calm me down so that I could think straight again.
I felt his smile when he kissed my hair but he said nothing else for a few minutes and let me soak in all his warmth. I didn’t get how it was possible to miss someone as much as I missed him, when I knew him so little. He made the whole world feel better by just being there.
When I felt like I was ready to face my troubles again, I slowly moved away from him. It was painful, but once I was standing on my own again, I was able to think much clearer.
“Can I talk now?” Julian asked.
I smiled. “Go ahead.”
But he didn’t talk. He kissed me.
I was wrong, his hugs had nothing at all on his kisses. With one hand on the back of my neck and the other on my cheek, he held me to him, as if afraid I’d move back. Yeah, right. I held onto his arms and kissed him with everything I had. His soft lips coaxed mine open and said everything we never had. His kisses were made to de
scribe the things for which words weren’t invented.
When he let go of me, a new wave of energy washed over my chest and everything felt more intense, like color had returned to the world. We were both breathing heavily, as if we’d been running, and it took all I had not to push him on the couch and climb on top of him, do everything I’d imagined doing to him all those nights I was alone.
“That wasn’t talk,” I whispered, breathing in deeply to calm my racing heart.
“I couldn’t help myself,” he said with a grin, then looked down at my lips again.
Goddamn it. “Don’t,” I warned him. “If you kiss me again…” I wasn’t going to be able to control myself and that could not happen. Yet.
“Raina can wait,” he whispered, his voice deep and so full suddenly. He took a step closer to me, and I hit the wall trying to back away. Putting my hands on his chest, I pushed him away, but all strength had left me.
“Lynn and Ezra can’t,” I said reluctantly.
Julian stopped moving. “Ezra?”
I sighed, and before he could spell me with his eyes again, I walked around him and to my wardrobe. I needed something to sell to buy some Pretters.
“It’s a long story but I don’t have time to explain. I have to go.” I grabbed a golden watch and a pair of diamond earrings. They would get me ten Pretters, at least.
“I’m coming with you, so you can tell me on the way,” Julian said. I turned to face him, somewhat surprised.
“Aren’t you going to leave or something?”
Julian cringed. “That was harsh,” he mumbled. “But I guess I deserved it.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that. You just have stuff to do back home. I get that.” I did get it, but that didn’t mean that I had to like it.
“No, I’m not going back home. My father kind of kicked me out, so I’m stuck here with you.” He grinned.
My jaw fell all the way to the floor. “Your father kicked you out?”
