Wicked Lovely (19 page)

"Better." And it was. If he were what he pretended to be—kind and considerate—she might've felt bad that she was here on false pretenses.

But he wasn't. He wasn't real at all.

"Come on. Let's walk.
There's
always some interesting games here." He took her hand again, bringing her Sight back in full force.

Beside them, a woman stood in a child's wading pool calling, "Three darts for a prize."

A thick braid dangled like a rope past her knees. Her face was like one of those angels in old paintings, innocent with a spark of danger in her eyes. Aside from the goats' legs that peeked out of her long skirt, she was gorgeous, but no one approached her.

At the next tent a steady line of faeries and humans waited. Faces Aislinn had glimpsed around the city mingled with faeries she could never have imagined—wings and thorn-crusted skin and all manners of dress. It was too much to process.

Aislinn paused, overwhelmed by the sheer number and variety of faeries around her.

"The fortune-tellers here always put on a good show." Keenan pulled the flap of the tent back farther so she could look inside. There were three women with rheumy white eyes.
Behind them stood a row of statues—like gargoyles without wings.
They were freakishly muscular.
And alive.
Their gazes flitted around the tent, as if they were trying to find someone to answer unspoken questions.

The faeries all stepped aside, and Keenan led her to the front of the tent.

She stepped closer to one of the statues. It looked wide-eyed, almost afraid as she reached out her hand.

One of the women reached out and snatched Aislinn's still uplifted hand. "No."

The women spoke all at once, not to her or to Keenan, but softly—as if to
themselves—
in a sibilant whisper. "He's ours.
Fair exchange.
Not yours to interfere."

The one gripping her hand winked at Aislinn. "Well, then, sisters? What say we?"

Aislinn tugged backward; the woman held tight.

"So you're the young one's"—the fortune-teller looked at Keenan with her seemingly blind eyes—"new ladylove."

Behind them, faeries pushed closer, scuffling and chattering.

The old woman gave Keenan a searing look—her white eyes shining—and said, "She's different than the others, dear. Special."

"I already knew that, mothers." Keenan wrapped an arm around Aislinn's waist, half hugging her, like he had a right to pull her closer.

He doesn't.

Aislinn stepped away as far as she could with the woman holding her hand.

All three women sighed, simultaneously. "Fierce, isn't she?"

The one still holding Aislinn's hand asked Keenan, "Shall I tell you just how different she is? How special this one will be?"

Every faery there suddenly stopped talking. They were all watching openly, transfixed and gleeful, as if a horrible accident were happening in front of them.

"No." Aislinn pulled her hand free and grabbed Keenan's arm.

He didn't move.

"As special as I've dreamed?" Keenan asked the blind women, his voice carrying clearly to the faeries
who
pushed forward.

"There are none you will meet
so
rare as she." The three women all nodded, eerily in sync with one another, like three bodies with one mind.

Grinning, Keenan tossed a handful of unfamiliar bronze coins to the women, who unerringly snatched them out of the air, their hands moving in precisely the same arcs at exactly the same moment.

I
need out
of
here.
Now.

But she couldn't run. If not for the Sight, she wouldn't have reason to react so strongly: the women weren't any stranger than most carnies.

Don't expose yourself. Remember the rules.

She couldn't panic. Her heart still beat madly. Her chest felt tight, like she couldn't breathe.
Hold it together. Focus.
She needed to get out of there, get away from them, back to Seth. She shouldn't have come. It felt like she'd walked into a trap.

She stepped away from the women and pulled on Keenan's arm. "Let's get a drink. Come on."

He pulled her closer to him and went with her to the door, past the crowd of murmuring faeries.

"She
is
the one."

"Did you hear?"

"Send the message."

"Beira will be furious."

As the evening wore on, faeries he hadn't seen in years arrived at the carnival.
It's a good turnout
—
even with the hags here to spy for Beira.
Emissaries from the other fey courts came, some for the first time in centuries.
They know.

"Keenan?"
One of the guards from Donia's house came toward him and bowed.

Keenan shook his head. He spun Aislinn to him in a loose embrace, far from graceful, but effective nonetheless. She glimmered faintly in the dark, the sunlight of her changing body already filling her. Sometimes it was like that; the change came on so quickly that the mortal girls grew suspicious. It made sense that his queen—for surely she could be none other—would change even quicker.

Behind Aislinn's back, a rowan-man in a mortal glamour intercepted Donia's guard.

"What?" Aislinn started, staring up at Keenan, eyes wide, lips parted as if she waited for a kiss.

Too soon for that.
But he did move closer to her, holding her in his arms as if they were at a ball.
And we shall have
one,
show her the splendor of our court.
As soon as she ascends to the throne.

Glancing past Aislinn's shoulder to where the rowan-man had stopped Donia's guard, Keenan said, "I don't want anything to spoil tonight. Should the world end tonight, I wouldn't want to know."

And it was true. He had his queen in his arms; after centuries of searching, she was finally in his arms. The Eolas had all but said it.

He tilted her head up and whispered, "Dance with me."

She shook her head, something very close to fear in her eyes. "There's no room, no music."

He spun her, wishing she had on proper skirts, missing the sway of silk and rustle of petticoats. "Of course there is."

No one strayed into their path. No one jostled them. Instead the crowd moved around them, parting to clear a space so he could have his first dance with her, his queen.

At the very edge of the river, he saw his summer faeries—
our faeries now
—fade from view, shed their glamours, and join the dance. Soon, with Aislinn beside him, he'd be able to protect them, take care of them as a true King of Summer should.

"Can you truly not hear the music?" He led her past a crowd of bog faeries, who hadn't bothered to shed their glamours, but were dancing all the same. Their luminous brown skin sparkled with light that lay trapped just under the surface, looking like long-lost cousins to the selchies. Several of the Summer Girls had begun to swirl in place, waif-thin dervishes of blurring vine and skirt and hair.

With one hand on the small of Aislinn's back and the other holding her tiny hand, he led her through the swirling crowds of invisible fey.
Mouth against her ear, he singsonged, "Laughter, the roll of the water, the soft whir of traffic, the hum of insects.
Can't you hear it, Aislinn? Just listen."

"I need to leave." Her hair flung across his face as he spun her away and back, closer still this time. She sounded terrified when she said, "Let go."

He stopped. "Dance with me, Aislinn. I hear enough music for both of us."

"Why?" She was still and stiff in his arms, looking around them, staring into faces hidden under mortal masks. "Tell me why. What do you want?"

"You.
I've spent my life waiting for you." He paused, looking at the joy on the faces of the summer creatures, those who'd suffered under Beira's reign for so long. "Give me this dance, this night. If it's in my power, I'll give you whatever you ask in return."

 "Whatever I ask?" she repeated incredulously. After all the worries, the research, the panic, he offered her an out in exchange for a simple dance.

Could it be that easy?
One dance and she could
leave,
get out of here, away from all of them. But if there was truth in any of the stories, faeries only offered exchanges that would benefit them.

"Give me your vow." She stepped several paces back so she could look him in the eye—an impossible task from up close.

He smiled that earthshaking smile, and her words caught in her throat.

She shivered, but she didn't back down.

"Swear it in front of all these witnesses." She gestured at the waiting crowd. They were mostly faeries, but a few humans stood by watching, not knowing what the spectacle was about, but watching all the same.

The faeries—those invisible and those wearing glamours—gasped and murmured.

"She's a clever one …"

"…getting a king's vow without knowing what he is,
who
he is."

"Will he?"

"She'll make a wonderful queen."

Then Keenan raised his voice so everyone could hear him, "In front of all before us, I give you my vow of honor, Aislinn: anything you ask of me that I can offer is yours." He dropped to one knee and added, "And from this day forward, your wishes shall be as my own as often as I am able."

The faeries' murmurs rose, tumbling together, like discordant songs, "What if she's not the one? How could he be so foolish…? But the Eolas said …"

Still kneeling, Keenan bowed his head to her, hand outstretched. His eyes twinkled dangerously as he looked up and asked, "Will you dance with me now? Just take my hand, Aislinn."

All she had to do was dance with him—join the faery revelry for this one night—and she could ask him to leave her alone. It was a small price for such a reward. He'd never even have to know she knew what he was, never know about the Sight.

"I will." She slipped her hand into his, almost giddy with relief. Soon it would all be over.

The throng cheered and laughed, raising such a din that she laughed too. Maybe they weren't cheering for the same reason, but it didn't matter: they echoed her rejoicing.

One of the smiling girls with vines around her arms held out plastic cups filled with the sweet golden drink that most everyone seemed to be drinking.
"A drink to celebrate."

Aislinn took one and sipped. It was amazing, a heady mix of things that shouldn't have a flavor—bottled sunlight and spun sugar, lazy afternoons and melting sunsets, hot breezes and dangerous promises. She downed it all.

Keenan took the cup from her hand. "May I have my dance?"

She licked the last taste from her lips—
like warm candy
—and smiled. She was strangely unsteady on her feet.
"With pleasure."

Then he led her through the crowd, spinning her in dances old and new, from a stylized waltz to modern moves without any choreography at all.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that something was wrong, but as he twirled her through the dance, she couldn't remember what. They laughed, and drank, and danced until Aislinn no longer cared why she'd been worried.

Finally she put her hand on Keenan's wrist and gasped, "Enough. I need to stop."

He scooped her up in his arms and—holding her aloft— he sat back on a tall chair carved with sunbursts and vines. "Never stop. Only pause."

Where did the chair come from?
All around them, faeries danced and laughed.

I
should go.
The humans had all gone home. Even the bone girls—
Scrimshaw Sisters
—danced. Groups of Summer Girls spun by, swirling far too fast to ever be mistaken for humans.

"I need another drink." Sitting on his lap, Aislinn leaned her head on Keenan's shoulder, breathing hard. The more she tried to make sense of her flashes of unease, the less clear they were.

"More summer wine!" Keenan called, laughing as several young lion-boys tumbled over themselves to bring tall goblets to them as she sat in his lap. "My lady wants wine, and wine she shall have."

She took hold of one of the etched goblets, spinning it in her hand. Delicate scrollwork traced the surface, surrounding an image of a dancing couple under a bright sun. The colors in the wine spiraled and shifted like a tiny sunrise burned inside the cup. "Where'd the plastic cups go?"

He kissed her hair and laughed.
"Beautiful things for a beautiful lady."

"Whatever." She shrugged and took another long drink.

With an arm securely around her waist and a hand between her shoulder blades, Keenan dipped her backward.
"Once more around the faire?"

Her hair fell onto the dew-damp grass as she looked up at him—the faery king who held her in his arms—and wondered that she was having so much fun.