Chapter Twenty-Four

Keeping focused within the confines of a fairy reality was about as easy as being logical inside a dream. I knew I was here for a purpose, and Kellen’s future depended on me being sharp, but nothing felt real. It was hard to keep my eyes on the prize—so to speak—when all I wanted to do was stare at everything around us.

If New York was famous for being dazzling and marvelous—a sight to behold—then the fae world was the definition of awesome. Not in the overused, teenage-girl sense of the word, but in the literal sense of it striking awe into the beholder.

We followed Ghillie through the field and a thicket of trees until we found ourselves on a silver road, glittering brilliantly in the moonlight, like fresh fallen snow. On either side of the road were waving fields of flowers, their petals open wide to embrace the night. In the distance, like a dream or the backdrop of a Disney princess movie, was a pearl-white palace. It could have been plucked from a German mountain, with its spires and fortressed walls. But it looked like it had been dipped in sugar, dulling the violent edge of the old Gothic style.

The night felt young, and the darkness had no fleeting sensation to it, but the castle was a long way off, and I didn’t know if there was anywhere we’d be safe to hide if the moons vanished and the sun came out.

I didn’t know if Ghillie would help us in that situation, so I kept quiet and followed the tree guardian as he strolled casually ahead of us, his bare feet coated in the fine sparkling silt of the road.

“We trust this guy?” Holden whispered to me.

“We haven’t got much of a choice, do we?”

He huffed. “Come on, Dorothy. We don’t need the Scarecrow for this. You, me and the Cowardly Werewolf could take it alone from here.”

I stopped walking and stared at him. At least he’d been honest enough in his analogy to color himself in the role of the heartless Tin Man. “And if we come up on a swarm of pissed-off bugs? Or worse? Need I remind you about the bog fae?” My hand reflexively went to the back of my head, where a homicidal fae had once slipped its tongue beneath my skin. I shuddered. “You’re forgetting we’re not in Kansas anymore,” I grumbled. “We don’t know what’s out here, and I’d rather travel with him than do it alone.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to,” I reminded him.

“You know,” Ghillie interjected from farther up the road, “I can still hear you.”

I stared at Holden, waiting for him to decide what he wanted to do. “You can stay or you can come. But I need to get Kellen.”

The vampire frowned, his brown eyes dark and full of annoyance. “Secret…”

“Look. We’re going. You can hang on to that I told you so, and when the time is right, I won’t even argue with you for using it. But please, for now, can we do this my way?”

His lips thinned into a line, but he didn’t argue with me. Desmond, a ways back on the road with his arms wrapped around himself and his skin more sallow than before, piped in. “Cowardly Werewolf my ass.”

I sighed. I could take my boys out of the human world, but I couldn’t make them behave like grown adults no matter where I brought them. I swore if I dragged them into the fiery pits of hell, they’d still be bickering like little old ladies the whole way down.

“Fine,” Holden said.

Ghillie was still walking, having gained a significant amount of ground while we stood around and fought, but when he spoke again, it was evident he had been listening the whole time. “Marvelous, marvelous. Now we may continue.”

He was an odd guy.

I wasn’t sure what I had anticipated from a fae tree guardian. Really I wasn’t sure what I expected at all from this world. It was more sparkly than a Mormon vampire, and so bizarre it would make it difficult for me to find anything in the real world strange after we left.

Providing we did leave.

I didn’t love Ghillie’s announcement that bringing Kellen home would have its costs. It wasn’t so much I’d thought it would be easy to reclaim her, but I thought I’d be walking into a fight, not a barter. Fighting was something I understood. I wasn’t terribly good at wheeling and dealing. My credit card bills were a testament to that.

Briefly I wondered if I might be able to petition them to swap one Rain for another, give me Kellen back and take Lucas in her place. The idea of sending Lucas into an alternate reality to be a fairy’s bitch had some appeal to it.

Dealing with the pack fallout did not, however.

I sighed and placed one hand on each of Holden’s shoulders. “I need you to be with me on this. Tell me you’re here to help.”

Holden, back to his surly best, glared at me. “I’m here to help.” And he would be. If he’d stuck it out with me through the boggy backwoods of Louisiana, then by God he would stick this out with me too.

“Let’s go.”

There were days being a New Yorker paid off in the strangest ways. Walking all over hell’s half acre in the fae realm turned out to be one of them. Were I not accustomed to walking everywhere already, the long jaunt to the palace would have exhausted me.

As it was, my feet were starting to protest the distance. Was there something this trek was supposed to teach me? Or was Calliope trying to punish me for thinking she was a murderer by making me walk for miles instead of just dropping me at the front door?

The more I considered the latter option, the more it sounded like something I might do, but I wasn’t sure how Calliope would deal with her anger.

I had drifted free of the men, trying to give Desmond whatever space he might need and not wanting to make it appear like I was favoring Holden’s company. Jealousy or any kind of heightened emotion might be all it took to push Desmond over the edge, and I was hoping to keep him in his human form until we were able to leave the fae realm.

My lips parted to sigh, but before the sound had a chance to escape Ghillie came to an abrupt stop. “My lady, rest assured, we are very nearly there.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I protested.

“You needn’t speak to express your concerns. I can see your feelings all over your face.”

I wondered if he’d meant it literally. The fae would be just the kind of being to have a magic way to read thoughts and emotions off your skin. Or some such thing. Who the hell knew what the fae could do? They could hide inside human bodies, breathe water and feed on the auras of virginal teens. I wasn’t about to make assumptions.

“Stop reading my face, Ghillie.”

“Of course.” He ducked his chin low with a nod, the woven fabric of his garment stirring in the light wind. The scent of him was familiar and odd all at once. Like a good friend’s perfume being worn by a stranger. The moss and leaves of his wardrobe smelled earthy—rightly so—much like the way my wolves smelled close to the full moon. But there was a coldness to the smell that made me uneasy. A sharp fragrance that burned the inside of my nostrils the way a deep breath on a winter day might.

My inner wolf’s ruff went up, and the tingle of fangs itched inside my gums. Both of my monsters were warning me to be mindful of him, and my common sense was more than willing to listen. I didn’t think Ghillie wished us any ill will. He seemed genuine enough. But the fae rarely did anything without a selfish motive.

I wanted to know what Ghillie’s motives were.

“Did you know we were coming?” I asked him.

Holden held back on the road, and when we had come to a stop, Desmond crouched down low, keeping his head nestled between his forearms. Both of them were watching me and the wood fae now. The vampire didn’t move a muscle, and the wolf kept making short, harsh breathing sounds.

“There were whispers,” Ghillie said.

“Do I look like I want to play a game of Guess that Riddle? Let’s dispense with the talking in circles and poetry, can we?” Catching a familiar bitchy tone sneaking into my voice, I bit my lip to keep from saying anything I might regret and paused a beat before continuing. “Tell me why you’re helping us.”

“Graciousness.”

Holden snorted.

Ghillie’s gaze shifted from me to the vampire, and for the first time since our arrival I saw something unmistakably unfriendly in the fae’s countenance.

“Holden,” I said without looking at him, “can you give Ghillie and me some privacy?”

He didn’t have to say anything to project his unhappiness, I could practically feel the weight of his glare boring into the back of my head. Ignoring him, I kept my attention on Ghillie and knew the vampire had walked away when the fae finally turned his attention to me.

“The company you keep, miss…”

“My companions are my concern.”

“They may be everyone’s concern if you do not manage them better.”

“I will keep them under control. Now tell me what these whispers were.”

“I heard one of the court had a new keepsake. Very pretty. Very…spirited.” He was describing Kellen as if she were a thoroughbred pony. Fine breeding stock. I wondered briefly if the fae who’d taken her considered himself her owner.

If Ghillie thought my men belonged to me, I didn’t see how Kellen’s new keeper would think any differently of her.

Days like today made me long for a life where I worked at a desk job. If there really were infinite universes full of infinite possibilities, I wished there was a way for someone to transport me to that reality.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“We heard she wasn’t fair game. Heard she wasn’t meant to be taken. Too many messes.”

“Your whispers got something right.”

“We knew someone would come.”

“And here I am.”

“Here you are,” he repeated. “And it is my job to take anyone sent by the Lady Calliope and deliver them to His Majesty. You understand.”

The use of His Majesty made me think of Lucas, and my belly twisted unpleasantly. “I understand all too well.”