Darklight (13 page)

K
elley spat out a mouthful of turf and pushed herself slowly to her hands and knees. She was in Central Park—the one place she knew she should be actively avoiding. Every bone in her body ached and her vision was blurred. Which still didn’t explain why she could see the park only in narrow strips, through what looked almost like a Stonehenge-ish ring of tree trunks. She blinked and realized that they weren’t trees. They were legs. Kelley looked up slowly and saw that she was surrounded by a group of people, silhouettes in the moonlight, standing in a containing circle all around her.

“Bryan,” said one of the figures in a steely tone that was not made gentler by the music of its accent. “Do a perimeter check. Beni, go with him. Make sure nothing came else came through
this
time.”

Kelley heard the two Janus Guards moving swiftly off into the distance as she struggled wearily to her feet. A pale face loomed out of the darkness at her.

“Hello, Ghost,” she said.

Ghost was the only changeling in the Janus Guard who had been taken from the mortal realm by Queen Mabh. The experience hadn’t been particularly normalizing for the young man. Ghost gave Kelley the willies. His dark fathomless stare slid over her face.

“You look like your mother,” he said bluntly. “More and more every time I see you.”

“I really wish people would stop saying that,” Kelley muttered. She felt a bit ridiculous, standing there in that beautiful gown for no reason, but she tried not to show it, ignoring the chill in the air that raised gooseflesh on her bare arms.

Another face appeared beside Ghost’s, his copper-hued skin camouflaged by shadow and the orange glow of the park lamps. “Miss Winslow,” Aaneel greeted her, his normally warm tones stiff with formality.

“Gosh. I missed you, too.” The Janus must have deduced what had happened after she and Fennrys had left Maddox at the River, Kelley thought. Cait, she knew, could use her magicks like a forensics agent for the FBI. It seemed, however, news of their little adventure hadn’t gone over particularly well. “You guys make a lousy welcome-home committee, you know?”

Aaneel ignored the sarcasm. “Where is the Fennrys Wolf?”

“He stayed behind. In the Spring Court.”

Godwyn turned his head and spat into the bushes.

“I see,” said Aaneel.

“It was
his
idea,” Kelley said. “He said he’d come back soon. Aaneel—what is this all about? Why do I get the distinct feeling I’m in the Janus doghouse for something?”

“The portal you opened last night stayed open long after you were gone. Things came through that I don’t even have names for.”

“That’s impossible—I shut it. I know I did—”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You’re dangerous!” The Janus’s eyes blazed.

“I was in
trouble,
Aaneel! So was Fennrys,” Kelley snapped. “If I hadn’t gotten us through that rift, we’d probably both be dead right now!”

“And whose fault would that be, Kelley? Didn’t you learn anything from that first attack? If you hadn’t come back for a second night of playing around in the park, then maybe—”

“I
said
I was sorry.”

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“Well, no kidding!” Anger flared in Kelley’s chest, hot and hurting. “It’s not like this whole Faerie princess gig comes with some kind of instructional video, you know. And it’s not like
you
guys have offered any kind of real guidance or anything. The Janus Guard is really only occupied—like, what?—one night out of the year?”

“More than that these days, it would seem.”

“Right. And you’re so very busy-busy that nobody in your little club could possibly find the time to maybe show me some of the ropes? Help me avoid some of the pitfalls that create situations like this? Instead of pretending all this time that I was human, maybe you guys should have been trying to help me learn what it is to be Faerie.”

“You are not our responsibility. We are none of us Fair Folk.”

“Yeah—and for most of my life, I didn’t think
I
was, either! You at least know what it
means
to be one. You know more than most—more than me.”

“It’s not in the mandate of the Janus to teach you how to be what you are.”

“Sonny’s Janus. He would have helped me.”

“Sonny’s not here. Thanks to you. Now neither is Fennrys, and that is also thanks to you. I’m sorry, Kelley—I’m starting to think that I was wrong about you. Maybe you just don’t belong in this world after all.”

Kelley felt as though she’d just been slapped. Hard. She looked around from face to face. Godwyn pretty obviously agreed with Aaneel, but he was coldhearted to begin with. However, Kelley was surprised to see that neither Selene nor Camina could meet her gaze. Camina’s twin brother Bellamy shrugged in helpless sympathy. And Perry offered her a half-smile, but no more than that. Cait’s brow creased in a troubled frown that Kelley could not decipher.

Ghost just stared up at the moon, utterly indifferent.

Maddox didn’t look at her either. But that was because his eyes were locked on Aaneel. And his stare was flinty and cold.

“Maddox”—Aaneel met his stare and matched it, steel for steel—“go with the twins and do a patrol round of the upper half of the park. Normally I’d send the Wolf, but it appears that he’s not available.”

Maddox glared at him for another long moment and then with a nod—not to Aaneel but to Kelley—he turned and headed north, picking up Camina and Bellamy in his wake.

“Miss Winslow.” The Janus leader turned from her, heading toward the Central Park Pinetum. “I trust you can find your way home on your own. I need all my people here. Good night.” He gestured to the other Janus, who melted into the shadows at his command—and Kelley was left standing there, an unsaid, acid retort burning on her tongue.

“Miss Winslow, I trust you can find your way home on your own . . .” Kelley muttered in a mocking simper. “Jerk!”

“Yeah.” Tyff stuck the tip of her tongue out the corner of her mouth as she carefully applied a second coat of color to her toenails. “I think I might have mentioned to you that those Janus guys are a bunch of self-righteous ass-hats, you know.”

“Like it’s all
my
fault or something that the Gate’s become all crackly! How am I even remotely responsible for that?”

“Hey, did you hang that dress up in my closet? I’m taking it as payment against all current and future wardrobe wreckage.”

“Yes, I hung it up in
your
closet.”

Tyff shot her an amused look at the tone of her voice.

Kelley jabbed mercilessly at the remote, silencing the TV. “I
totally
saved
everybody
on Samhain Eve! Hello? Has everyone suddenly forgotten about that?”

“Kelley, I wouldn’t get my panties in a bunch over what some Janus crybabies think if I were you,” Tyff said as she closed up the tiny bottle of pearlescent enamel and waved her hands over her dainty feet. “It’s not worth it.”

“Not all of them are crybabies,” Kelley said, feeling the need to defend the vocation if only on Sonny’s account.

“Look, Sonny’s okay—even I’ll admit that. But it strikes me that his okay-ness is sort of in spite of what he does, not because of it.” Tyff shrugged. “I mean—
most
of those guys? All they’ve really got going for them is that they’re Auberon’s goon squad, so they’re untouchable.” She thought about it for a moment. “Except for Maddox. And maybe that big, yummy blond one that you were dancing with at the River. Now—those boys are touchable.”

“Tyff!” Kelley spluttered. “Stop that!”

“What”—Tyff twitched an eyebrow at her—“you mean to tell me that you don’t find that Fennrys guy the least bit attractive?”

“No.”

“Not even a teensy bit?”

“No!”

Tyff blinked at Kelley, her expression suddenly unreadable. She shook her head a little as if she weren’t hearing things properly. “Oh my gods,” she said, all trace of playful teasing gone from her voice. “Kelley, did you just lie to me?”

“What? No!”

“There! You did it again!”

“Tyff—what are you talking about?”

Tyff was almost bouncing up and down on the couch with excitement. “Lie. Right now. Say something obviously, patently untrue! Tell me I’m ugly.”

Ookay
. . . Kelley decided the only thing to do was play along. “You’re hideously deformed.”

“Holy crap! It’s true!” Tyff leaped to her freshly pedicured feet and did a little dance.

“Not it’s
not,
Tyff!” Kelley gaped at her roommate. “I only said that because you told me to!”

“No!” Tyff argued gleefully. “I mean it’s
true
—you can
lie
!”

Kelley could only stare at her in bafflement.

“Kelley,” Tyff explained to her as if she were a slightly dim six-year-old, “Faerie can’t lie. It’s just a thing. But you can!”

“Oh.” Kelley deflated utterly.
So that’s what this is about.
“Don’t you lie all the time, though?”

“What? I do not!”

“Isn’t sarcasm lying?”

“No, Kelley. Sarcasm is sarcasm. That’s why it’s called sarcasm. But
real
honest-to-goodness lying? That is like the best party trick
ever
for a Fae!”

“Big whoop.”

“Is it the charm, do you think?” Tyff was way too excited about Kelley’s newly discovered talent.

“I dunno.” She glanced down at the little four-leaf clover, suddenly self-conscious in the face of her roomie’s scrutiny.

“Wow.” Tyff bent down to take a closer look at Kelley’s necklace. She put out a hand but stopped before her finger had quite touched the stones. “That is one seriously hardcore piece of magickal technology.” She glanced up at Kelley. “If you ever manage to take it off again—can I borrow it sometimes?”

“What? Why?”

Tyff regarded indulgently. “Hon, not being able to lie can sometimes be a serious impediment to relationships, you know.”

Kelley snorted. “That’s the most jaded thing I’ve ever heard. Even coming from you, Tyff.”

“Yeah? Wait till you’re seventeen
hundred
years old and some guy asks you your real age. See how far
your
second date goes.”

“Great.” Kelley sighed and sank back into the cushions on the couch, thoroughly depressed. “I guess this means I’m a weirdo. More of a weirdo. Even among Faerie. Super.”

“I guess this
also
means you really
do
find the Wolfman kinda hot. Now there’s something to think about, Little Miss Liar-Liar-Pants-on-Fire.”

Kelley shook her head and tried to change the subject before she actually started blushing. “You know, if I ever
do
manage to get the whammy off this stupid charm, you’re gonna have to show me how to actually use my power. I mean
really
use it. Then maybe I can avoid situations that inevitably end in tears and dry cleaning.”

Tyff didn’t answer back right away. Kelley looked at her and saw that the lovely Faerie’s expression had gone dead serious.

“What?”

“There’s something I don’t think anyone’s ever told you about Faerie magick, Kell,” Tyff said in a quiet voice. “Something I think you should know.”

“And that is?”

“That it’s all tied up with what’s inside of you. Head and heart, mind and soul. Who you are and what you want—that’s what fuels it. That’s what shapes it.” Her eyes darkened, clouding with memories. “That’s what makes it dangerous.”

“Is that why I hardly ever see you using magick?” Kelley asked, intrigued.

“You hardly ever see me using magick because magick sucks, Kelley. Seriously. And if you let it . . . it can destroy you.” Tyff’s laugh was brief and brittle. “Me? I just let it destroy everyone I loved. Once upon a time.”

D
on’t lie to me, little Janus.”

Sonny rubbed his shoulder along the side of his face where the invisible fist had hit him. Hard. “Why would I do that?” he asked with a profound lack of concern. Regardless of the fact that Mabh had been pummeling him enthusiastically with her magicks since he’d regained consciousness in her grim stone hall, he was silently far more worried about the fact that he could no longer feel his Janus medallion hanging about his neck. He must have lost it in the fight—and he felt its absence like a physical ache. All of the Unseelie magick that Auberon had gifted him was bound up in that talisman. Without it he would be forced to rely exclusively on his human abilities in a fight. But he wasn’t about to let Mabh know of his concerns. “Why would I lie?”

“Because you hate, fear, and generally distrust me,” answered the Faerie queen with a charming smile, kneading dainty knuckles, as if she’d actually been physically hitting him.

“So does half the populace of the Faerie realm, lady. That in no way makes me unique. Or particularly prone to lie to you.” Sonny struggled to heave himself back up onto his knees. It was a bit awkward, what with his hands being bound behind his back. “If I knew where Kelley was, and I did not wish to share that information, I wager I’d simply be inclined to tell you to sod off.”

Mabh flicked her wrist, and the resulting blow almost sent Sonny reeling back into unconsciousness again. It would have been the third time in very recent memory. He lay on the stone floor for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, struggling to stay cogent. He could hear Mabh’s footsteps as she paced in a circle around him.

“I cannot find my daughter, fleshling,” she said. “My Storm Hags tell me that she is quite hidden from them. Almost as if she never existed. That has me worried. And I tend toward violence under worrying circumstances.”

“Perhaps you should get therapy, then, lady. You seem to worry an awful lot,” Sonny said through clenched teeth, tensing for the next blow. It never came. Instead, when he dared to open his eyes again, it was to see the queen crouched in front of him, peering at him with a frank and lively curiosity that seemed to override her anxieties for the moment. It made Sonny’s heart ache to have her staring at him with those flashing green eyes, so very like her daughter’s. He avoided looking at her directly, staring instead at the floor between them.

“You’re a brave little monkey.” Mabh shook her head, bemused. “But not, I was led to believe, monumentally stupid. Which is why I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it when we found you sleeping all alone on the edge of my lands like that.”

“I wasn’t sleeping—I was very unintentionally unconscious,” Sonny said. “And I wasn’t alone.”

“Well, I suppose that lump on the back of your head is almost big enough to be called a companion, true enough.”

“What happened to Fennrys, Mabh?” Sonny struggled back up to his knees.

“That lupine fellow of Gwynn’s that Auberon pressed into service? I haven’t the faintest idea. Nothing that
I’ve
done, certainly—
I’ve
never gotten close enough. Pity; he seems like my sort of creature, all brutish and bloodthirsty.” She ran the tip of her tongue delicately over her teeth and shivered deliciously. “Wasn’t he the one my darling Kelley had her arms all full of when I showed you the vision in the scrying pool?”

Sonny fought to remain impassive through a momentary wash of rage at her words. “He’s a fellow Janus. We were hunting together, tracking the last of your Wild Hunt abominations, when you found me.”

“You weren’t hunting anything when I found you.”

“Something hit me from behind. When I awoke, Fennrys was gone.”
And there was blood on the ground. No. A lot of blood . . . Stop.
He wouldn’t think of that. “Just . . . he was gone. So was my mount.”

“That twitchy little kelpie?”

“Yes.”

“Well,
that’s
hardly surprising.”

“Then everything went dark again and when I awoke—
again
—I was here.” Sonny no longer cared if he seemed properly respectful. “I hate to sound suspicious, lady, but—well, I’m suspicious.”

“Sweet creature.” The queen laughed—a throaty, disturbing sound. “Maybe your Janus playfellow simply tired of your utterly humorless posturing. Maybe he took your horsie and wandered off in search of a bit of fun.”

Or maybe he was dead.

Damn it,
Sonny thought. He never should have let Fenn take off like that. Sonny briefly imagined Kelley’s reaction when she found out the Janus had been killed. And that
he
had let it happen. . . .

“Speaking of fun,” Mabh was saying, “let’s continue along with
my
little game. I will ask you again—and, this time, you
will
answer—where is my daughter?”

“Why do you think I even know the answer to that question?”

Mabh raised her bejeweled fist high, the glow of her magick sparkling in the rings on her fingers.

Sonny’s head fell forward, more out of weariness than surrender. He was getting tired of the taste of his own blood in his mouth. “I know she went back. That is all.”

“Back where? From where? Speak sense.” The queen rose and began pacing once more in agitation.

“She was here, Mabh. In the Faerie realm.” Sonny blinked up at her, genuinely surprised. “Didn’t you know?”

“I . . . no.” Mabh frowned. “I did not know.”

She
should
have known, Sonny thought. If
he’d
still been able to sense Kelley’s signature, firecracker-fuse presence in his mind the second she’d come through the rift, then surely her own mother would have been able to sense that her daughter was in the Faerie realms.

“The charm she wears,” he said cautiously.

“The one the Goodfellow used to hide her in the mortal world? What about it?”

“That must be it.” Sonny thought back on what he’d been told by Kelley. “The leprechaun—the one Puck originally stole it from—tracked Kelley down in Central Park and cast a binding spell on the charm. To keep her from using her Faerie gifts. Probably until he could reclaim his property.”

He told the Autumn Queen in a few words what he knew of Kelley’s recent encounters in the park, watching with growing alarm as the blood drained from Mabh’s face.

“That, then, is why my Cailleach can no longer sense her presence in the human world,” the queen murmured. “And why I couldn’t sense her here.” She turned and peered sharply at Sonny through narrowed eyes. “So tell me this. How could
you
?”

“I don’t know what you mean, lady.”

Mabh laughed harshly. “Just because the Fair Folk themselves cannot lie, little Janus, does not mean we cannot tell when others do. You knew she was here.”

“I knew because she came through a rift and almost landed on top of me.”

“But you have a connection with her still. A bond.”

I do,
Sonny thought. He wondered whether Kelley still wanted that. The memory of the harsh words that had passed between them in his cottage lashed at him.

“You can
sense
her, changeling,” Mabh said with growing frustration at his obvious distraction.

Sonny hesitated for a moment more and then nodded. “Aye. I can. But only when we’re in the same realm and only when she is close.”

“In spite of the charm?” Mabh knelt before him, scrutinizing him closely. “Even with the binding curse laid upon it?”

“Even then. She . . . sparkles. In my mind.”

From the corner of his eye, Sonny could see Mabh’s expression soften as she watched him. He schooled his features immediately, wondering what she had seen in his face.

“How extraordinary,” she murmured. “And could you find her now? If you were in the world of men?”

“I am not.”

She glared flatly at him.

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

For the first time, Sonny met the Queen’s gaze directly.

A very strange thing happened then. Mabh looked at him—really
looked
at him—for an uncomfortably long moment. As their gazes met and locked, Mabh’s eyes went wide, her hand flew to her open mouth, and she gasped as though she’d been struck across the face.

Wrenching her gaze from his, the Autumn Queen rose to her feet with a swiftness that made her dark robes swirl and blur around her like smoke. Backing away, she turned and—almost stumbling in her haste—fled to the far side of her gloomy stone hall.

“Lady?” Sonny asked, rocking himself to his feet and standing, his hands still bound firmly behind his back. “Are you all right?”

He didn’t know why he should be concerned. He also didn’t know why Mabh should react to him in such a way.

“Leave me.” Mabh did not turn to him. She flicked her wrist, and Sonny’s bonds crackled faintly with energy and vanished. He rubbed the blood back into his fingertips and took a step toward the queen. Even from that distance, he could see she was quivering with some unnamed emotion.

“Mabh—”

“Leave me!”
Her voice howled through the stone hall like a gale, making Sonny wince and clutch at his head.

LEAVE ME LEAVE ME LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE . . .
A maelstrom of the queen’s magicks, unleashed by the fury of that cry, pummeled at Sonny, almost driving back him down to his knees. When the furious tempest abated, as swiftly as it had risen, Sonny staggered back a pace in the sudden quietude.

Mabh still stood, leaning heavily upon her rough-hewn granite throne.

And a quiet voice broke the deathly silence: “Am I interrupting something?”

Bob the boucca had materialized out of the tense air between Sonny and the Queen of Autumn—an incongruous, shimmering-green presence. Over near the grim gray throne, Mabh composed herself, her back to Sonny and this new intruder. When she turned to face them, she was cold beauty—still, contained, radiating power.

“Yes,” she said. “You
are
interrupting something. So you had best have an excellent reason for the intrusion.”

The boucca swept low, intoning with courtly solemnity, “Auberon, Lord of Winter, King of the Unseelie Court of Faerie, sends his greetings to Mabh, Queen of—”

“Oh, great goddess!” she huffed. “Get on with it. What does he want?”

Bob straightened up slowly. “Help, lady.”

Sonny half expected Mabh to laugh until the tears rolled down her cheeks. And, indeed, a flash of perverse merriment flashed in her eyes at Bob’s words. But it was brief and in its wake flowed a calculated concern.

“From me,” Mabh said, a statement rather than a question.

Bob nodded.

“Why does he need help?”

“Perhaps it is best that you ask him.”

“And I shall just ride through the gates of the Winter Palace and do this?”

“I am to take you to him. Safe passage, lady. A truce.”

“All right then,” Mabh purred dangerously as she stalked forward. “Why does he need
my
help?”

Bob held his ground as Mabh walked right up to within an inch or two of where he stood. “For some reason—and forgive me for saying so, but I think you will recognize the truth of this—for reasons the rest of us can’t quite figure out, Auberon . . . well, he
trusts
you, lady.”

Mabh laughed gently. “Perhaps that’s why he’s king.”

“Let us hope for a good while longer.”

Sonny took a step toward them. “What’s happened? Is Auberon—”

“Worse off than he was. Much worse.” The boucca turned back to Mabh. “Lady, if you will? Haste, in this instance, would not be unseemly.”

“Annis.”

“Mabh.”

The two Fae nodded coldly to each other. Then Black Annis stepped aside, and Mabh swept past into the chamber and across the long floor to the bed where Auberon lay. Sonny and Bob followed at a respectful distance.

Auberon was definitely worse off than the last time Sonny had seen him. The king’s normal wintry pallor was gone. He looked flushed, the skin around his charcoal eyes almost purple, as if bruised from within. Sonny could see the veins in his neck pulsing.

As they approached the bed, Auberon’s eyes flicked back and forth between Mabh and Sonny—coming to rest, finally, on the queen’s face. A moment passed between the two monarchs that, upon reflection, Sonny could only characterize as awkward, but then Mabh waved it away.

“Do you know I found your little Janus Guard facedown on my lands?” she said. “You needn’t thank me for returning him unscathed.”

“That was kind of you.”

“Wasn’t it?” she said brightly.

“My thanks, lady. His loss would be a hardship indeed.” Auberon pressed a linen handkerchief to his lips.

Sonny thought guiltily about Fennrys and the hardship of
his
loss. He wondered whether anyone would care that the other Janus was gone.
Anyone other than Kelley . . .

Auberon fell into a rasping fit of coughing that, when it subsided, left him weak, lying limp upon the pillows like something washed ashore after a heavy sea storm. Mabh gathered her traveling cloak up and perched on the edge of the bed, reaching forward to lay her long white hands on either side of Auberon’s face.

“Fool,” she said, a hint of something that could almost be called tenderness in her voice. “You should have sent for me sooner.”

Auberon’s eyes remained closed, and his voice was a ghost shadow of his usual rich tones. “I sent for
her,
” he replied. “She would not come.”

“And you cannot possibly blame her for that.”

“No.”

“Her reaction is hardly surprising—she’s your daughter, after all. And the apple—”

“Does not fall far from the tree. Yes . . . I believe I told her that very thing myself once.” Auberon almost smiled at the memory. “She rather strenuously disagreed.”

“The girl is stubborn unto absurdity.”

“And in no way comes by that through
your
blood,” Auberon muttered sarcastically as Mabh moved her hands gently, fingertips dancing lightly across the landscape of his ravaged features.

“Certainly not. Hush now.” Mabh closed her eyes, and her face became very still as she moved her hands down his neck and across the king’s broad chest. Time seemed to pass slowly. Then, suddenly, the queen hissed in pain and withdrew her hands, her movements quick and sharp. She stood and, bending low, bestowed a light kiss upon the Faerie king’s fevered brow. “Rest you now. We’ll be back soon.”