His grip on my wrists loosened, and a faint smile lifted his lips. “Fair enough,” he said, then rolled off of me, lying on his back beside me just out of touching distance.
I immediately missed the warmth of his body. Of course, it had to be just a rebound thing. There was no way I was interested in this arrogant, obnoxious jerk. No matter how hot he might be.
Still, he hadn’t looked arrogant and obnoxious just now. “Can I ask you something?” I said, staring up at the ceiling so I didn’t have to be tempted by his hotness.
“Sure,” he responded, and he sounded much friendlier than he had since I’d first met him.
“Is all this attitude stuff just part of the lesson, or do you really have something against me?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. He sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees, not looking at me, the expression on his face thoughtful. I stayed where I was, somehow fearing any movement I made would turn him back into his usual self.
“It’s not you, exactly,” he finally said. “I just don’t like being told what to do.” He smiled sardonically. “One of the reasons Knight training didn’t work out for me.”
I frowned up at him. “I thought you chose not to enter Knight training.”
“No, I chose not to stay in Knight training.” He smiled wryly. “It was something of a mutual decision. I didn’t want to blindly follow orders, they didn’t want to deal with a troublemaker.”
“And what does this have to do with me?”
He blew out a breath. “Nothing, exactly.” He turned to face me, crossing his legs.
I was tired of looking up at him, so I pushed myself up into a sitting position. “I don’t get it.”
He met my gaze steadily. “Why do you think they chose an eighteen-year-old Knight reject to be your teacher?” he asked.
“Huh?” I asked intelligently.
“There are Fae out there who have centuries of experience with fighting and with teaching. I’m good, but I’m not that good. So why would your father, who could afford anyone he wanted to hire, choose me?”
“Because you’re Finn’s son?” I suggested.
“That made a convenient excuse. I bet my father was even the one to suggest it. But there’s more to it than that.”
“Go on. Spell it out for me.” There was a hard lump in my gut, and I clenched my teeth tightly.
He looked away. “Your father had a private word with me before he left for work yesterday. He didn’t come out and say it—he’s far too subtle for that—but he suggested I might want to ‘befriend’ you.” He made air quotes. “He said you’d made a couple of Unseelie friends, and he wanted to offer you a Seelie alternative.”
I lowered my head into my hands, fighting a sudden urge to hunt my dad down and personally show him all the neat tricks Keane had taught me.
“I didn’t much appreciate the suggestion,” Keane continued in a massive understatement. He sighed. “But it wasn’t fair of me to take it out on you. Sorry.” He managed another smile. “Don’t get me wrong—my teaching methods are never warm and fuzzy, and if you don’t feel like smashing my face in when we’re sparring, then I’ll feel like I’ve done something wrong.”
I gave a little snort of laughter. “Thanks for telling me. And I’m sorry my dad’”
“You don’t have to apologize for your father.” He pushed to his feet, and I could see the drill-sergeant mask drop back into place. “Now, enough resting. Let’s get back to work.”
I was sore, tired, and pissed off at my dad for his behind-the-scenes matchmaking, or whatever it was he’d thought he was doing. But despite everything, I couldn’t say I was completely unhappy to spend more time in Keane’s arms, even if it was just to fight.
———
I spent much of the afternoon debating whether I should confront my dad about pushing Keane at me. Based on the brutal honesty he’d already shown me, I knew he’d tell me the truth about what he’d done, and maybe even about why. The question was, did I want the truth?
When Dad came home that night, however, I decided his little manipulative tricks were the least of my worries. Because, you see, he’d had another meeting with Grace and Alistair, and the Big Three had come to an agreement as to where I would live, the “safe house” that would supposedly keep the bad guys from finding me.
I had a sneaking suspicion that Mom’s threats to take me out of Avalon without Dad’s approval had inspired the Big Three to come to an agreement faster than they might have otherwise. I also suspected that I’d have a much harder time escaping from the safe house than from my dad’s place. Dad told me they planned to have the place ready as soon as tomorrow, so whatever I was going to do, I’d have to do it fast.
I had two major problems to solve if I hoped to go home with Mom. First, I had to get out of the house. Second, I had to get out of Avalon. The first should be manageable, as long as I waited until Dad was asleep at night. I wasn’t getting by Finn no matter what, but Dad could hardly expect me to try to sneak out alone in the middle of the night. Naturally, he would assume I wasn’t that stupid. I tried not to think about the terrible things that could happen to me if the bad guys found me wandering the streets of Avalon alone at night.
The second problem was tougher to figure out. How could I get out of Avalon without a passport? Hell, even if I miraculously made it through the border and into England without my passport, I wouldn’t be able to get back into the United States without one. I was sure I could arrange to get a new one in London, but that would take time, and Mom and I had to get well and truly gone as fast as possible.
The inevitable conclusion was that I needed my passport. But if I asked my dad about it, that would put him on his guard, particularly when he knew Mom planned to “rescue” me from him.
I was completely stymied. Yeah, I could try searching the house for the passport, but I couldn’t guarantee it was here, and my chances of getting caught and putting Dad on high alert were too great. I supposed it was a good thing that passports are hard to forge, but I was finding it rather inconvenient at the moment.
And then I reminded myself where I was: Avalon. The Wild City, the Magic City. If I couldn’t forge a passport with technology, might magic do the trick? I remembered the dismal little room in the tunnels that Ethan had taken me to, the one no one would ever know was there because of the illusion spell Ethan had cast. If he could create a wall that wasn’t there, could he create a passport?
It was a crazy idea. Even if Ethan really could pull it off, I had to be out of my mind to even think about asking him. He was the enemy, after all. Well, maybe not the enemy exactly, but he was definitely a lying jerk who had his own—and his father’s—best interests at heart.
Then again, he had taken quite a risk approaching me at Starbucks the other day to tell me the truth about the Spriggan attack. Finn had been on a hair trigger, and he could easily have flattened Ethan. And Ethan could have just had his father warn my father. The fact that he’d talked to me personally instead told me he probably really did feel bad about what he’d done.
Bad enough to help me escape Avalon?
I gnawed my lip. Even if he wanted to help me, he might think the same way my dad did, that I was safer in Avalon than in the mortal world. I let the idea ping around in my brain the rest of the evening. Dad couldn’t help but notice my less-than-lovely mood, but though he tried to talk to me a few times, he didn’t push.
I watched TV with him for a bit, my arms crossed over my chest, my shoulders hunched. I hoped I wasn’t laying it on too thick. Probably not, because Dad looked relieved when I finally announced I wasn’t in the mood for TV and wanted to spend some time surfing the Net.
When I got upstairs, I closed my bedroom door, then booted up my computer. I’d bookmarked the Avalon phone directory when I’d been looking for my dad, so I had no trouble finding it again. I then held my breath as I entered Ethan’s name into the search field. I sighed in relief when his number popped up. Th
en I kind of laughed at myself, because it was way too early to feel anything even resembling relief. I didn’t know what the chances were that Ethan could help me, or that he would help me. But I was about to find out.
I surfed to an Internet radio station and turned the volume up on my computer. If Dad was spying on me and wanted to listen in on my call, all he had to do was pick up another receiver, but at least with the music blasting he wouldn’t be able to overhear me accidentally if he for some reason came to check on me.
I then went through a few repetitions of picking up the phone, starting to dial, then chickening out and hanging up, before I finally punched in Ethan’s number. I don’t know if I’d have had the courage to try again if Ethan hadn’t been home, but luckily he picked up before I chickened out yet again.
“Hello?” he said.
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I sat there like an idiot not saying anything. How could I possibly be asking help from a guy who (1) could have gotten me killed by arranging for me to be attacked, and (2) had used magic to try to seduce me for political reasons?
“Hello?” he repeated. “Anyone there?”
Then again, it wasn’t like I was just overflowing with options. I cleared my throat, and that loosened it up enough for me to talk. “Yeah. It’s me. Dana.” I rolled my eyes at myself. I’m sure he recognized my voice without me having to tell him my name.
There was a half-second hesitation before he answered. “Well, this is a surprise,” he said in a low mumble I’m not sure I was supposed to hear. “Is everything all right?”
“Um, yeah. Sort of. Umm…” Oh, please! Could I sound any more pathetic? “Well, not exactly.”
“Sorry. That was a stupid question. You wouldn’t be calling me if everything were all right. Are you somewhere safe? Do you need me to come get you?”
“I’m fine,” I said, feeling more confident. “I’m at my dad’s house.”
“Oh.”
“Look, you know what a mess I’m in. Your father has filled you in, hasn’t he?” Because I couldn’t believe Alistair wouldn’t have told Ethan about the Queens being after me, not when the two of them had already been coconspirators.
“Yeah, he told me. But I was coming to that conclusion myself. The more I thought about those Spriggans…” His voice trailed off, probably because he realized talking to me about the Spriggans wasn’t his wisest move.
“My dad says I have to stay in Avalon for my own safety. I bet your dad and Aunt Grace agree.”
“But you don’t.”
“I assume Kimber told you about what happened to Finn the other day?”
“Yeah.” I could almost hear the wince in his voice.
“If I stay here, I’ll have both Queens after me, and they’ll have a lot more weapons they can use against me. If I leave, the Seelie Queen will be satisfied, and the only people the Unseelie Queen can send after me are humans.”
“But you won’t have any sort of magical protection at all,” he reminded me.
“I won’t need it if I don’t have Fae attacking me.” I think I was trying to convince myself as much as him. I reminded myself that if we escaped Avalon, Mom had promised to go into rehab, and that was worth whatever crazy risks I was about to take.
He changed gears. “All right; let’s say I buy your reasoning. I know I’m not your favorite person right now, so I’m guessing I have a part to play in this great escape?”
I bit my lip. I’d probably told him enough already to get me in trouble if he blabbed to his dad, but even so, it was hard to make that final leap of faith and tell him what I had in mind.
“Did you ever actually like me, or was the whole thing an act?” I found myself asking, without having had any intention of bringing the subject up.
“Of course I liked you. Like you. How could I not? I wish I had half your courage.”
That startled me. “What are you talking about? I’ve been a mess since day one!”
He snorted. “You saved Jason’s life when those Spriggans attacked. If you hadn’t slowed the Spriggan down, I’d have been too late to save him. Not to mention that you had the courage to come all the way to Avalon by yourself.”
“That wasn’t courage. That was stupidity.”
He laughed, but it sounded bitter. “I know you had to defy your mother to come here, and you’re planning to defy your father to leave. I have never once successfully defied my father. So that’s courage in my book.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Now tell me why you’re calling. What do you want me to do?”
I considered the ramifications of what he’d just said, and my heart sank a bit. “I was basically going to ask you to defy your father and help me get out of Avalon.”
“Tell me what you need, and I’ll help as best I can. Defying him behind his back might be slightly easier than doing it to his face.” Again, I heard a hint of bitterness in his voice. I hoped that meant his conscience was bothering him over what he’d done to me.
“So you don’t think I’m completely crazy for wanting to leave?”
“It’s a risk. But then, so is staying in Avalon. As you’ve already seen.”
I believed him. Of course, I’d believed him before and been wrong, so my judgment might be questionable. But he was the only hope I had, so I pushed forward.
“Right now, I can’t get out of Avalon because either Grace or my father has my passport. I don’t see myself getting it back, no matter who has it. So somehow, I need a fake one that will do the trick. Is that something your magic can do?”
For a long, tense moment, he didn’t say anything. I could practically hear him thinking. Now, if only I knew what he was thinking!
“I suppose you know this,” he said, “but that’s a hell of a lot more complicated than creating an illusionary wall.”
“Yeah, I figured. But is it possible?”
Another long pause for thought. “It’s certainly possible. I’m just not sure I can do it. I’m good, but that’s a tall order. There are a lot of pages in a passport, and they’re detailed. Plus, I’d need an American passport to model it on, because I wouldn’t know what one looks like off the top of my head.”
“I can get you an American passport,” I told him. “My mom came to Avalon looking for me, so we can borrow hers. The question is, can you make the counterfeit one?”
“I don’t know.”
“But’”
“The only way I’ll know is if I try. I can guarantee I’ll try my hardest, but I can’t guarantee it will work. When can you get me the model passport?”
That was going to be a bit tricky. (Yeah, like everything else was going to be so simple.) The easiest way to get Ethan my mom’s passport would be to send him to her hotel. But would my mom actually hand her passport over to some Fae she didn’t know? I sincerely doubted it.
Maybe if I called her and told her he was coming?
A chill snaked down my spine. I was currently trapped here in Avalon because Grace had absconded with my passport. I was willing to take the risk that Ethan might betray me, but could I also risk my mom like that? Could I have her hand over her passport to a guy I wasn’t sure I could trust?
The answer was no. I was going to have to get the passport myself, and I wasn’t going to let it out of my sight while Ethan tried to replicate it.
“I’m going to have to sneak out of the house somehow to get it,” I said.
“Not a good idea, Dana.”
I bit back a snappish response and went for dry sarcasm instead. “You expect me to get out of Avalon without leaving my dad’s house?”
He sighed. “Right. Good point. But I’m not letting you wander around the streets of Avalon undefended. Tell me when you intend to perform your great escape. I’ll come meet you. I’m not as powerful as Finn, but I’m better than nothing.”
More lip-gnawing was in order. If I was wrong about this, if Ethan backstabbed me, then I was delivering myself straight into Alistair’s arms.
I wondered if he would change his mind about whatever agreement he now had with Grace and my dad if I were in his custody.
But despite my doubts, I had already made my decision before I’d even picked up the phone.
“I’m going to wait until late, when I’m sure my dad is asleep. Maybe one a.m.?”
“That’s good. There will be fewer people in the streets then. Less chance of being seen. I’ll be waiting for you. Call if there’s any change of plans, okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Oh my God, I was really going to do this. Was I nuts? “I’ll see you then.”
“Okay. Hang in there. If things go well, we’ll have you out of Avalon before the sun rises tomorrow.”
I clung to that hopeful idea as I hung up the phone and tried not to think about just how many things could go horribly wrong.
chapter twenty-four
That night was one of the longest in my life. The hours of the early evening crept by like years, and then, once Dad and I said our good nights, they slowed down even more. I tried calling my mom about eight times to let her know I was coming, but she never answered. I hoped that didn’t mean something had happened to her. I also hoped that didn’t mean she was too drunk to answer the phone. Getting out of Avalon was going to be hard enough without alcohol entering the picture.
I heard Dad mount the stairs to his bedroom at around eleven. Then after that, nothing.
I decided I didn’t want to wait until the last minute to go downstairs. I wanted Dad to have plenty of time to fall asleep again if I inadvertently woke him as I crept down the steps. If he came to check on me, I’d tell him I was having trouble sleeping and was going to make some tea.
Before I left, I fished the cameo out of the trash—lucky for me, Dad didn’t have a maid service to empty the trash every day. I stared at the cameo for a long moment, then fastened it around my neck. I wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the Seelie Court, but the cameo was a gift from my dad. If my plan worked, I would probably never see him again, but at least I’d have something to remember him by.