“Geez, are we traveling with a freaking army?” I muttered to Dad. I’d known it wouldn’t be just my friends and Prince Henry, but I hadn’t realized his entourage would be this substantial.
Dad’s lips curled into a wry smile. “Henry goes nowhere without an army to serve and protect him. It would be beneath his dignity as a prince.”
Of course, not everyone down there was part of the prince’s entourage. I’d dragged my feet a bit about leaving my safe house, so we were among the last to arrive. At the near side of the bridge, waiting for us, were Ethan, Keane, Kimber … and my mom.
Keane and Ethan were standing about twenty yards apart and pointedly ignoring each other. Kimber and my mom stood between them, looking uncomfortable. I wondered if the boys had started fighting already.
I never returned any of Mom’s calls yesterday. I’d known I’d have to face her again before I left, so I wasn’t surprised to see her. But I was still too angry at her to force an apology I didn’t mean. Maybe if I rode off into Faerie without caving to her oh-poor-me eyes, she’d finally understand just how much this drinking thing meant to me.
I held up my head when I caught her eye, knowing the look on my face was pure stubbornness. She took a step toward me, her arms opening as if to give me a hug. I gave her a cold glare instead of the welcoming embrace I’m sure she was expecting, or at least hoping for.
Mom’s smile wilted, and hurt flashed in her eyes. A hint of guilt stabbed through me, but I ruthlessly shoved it away. If my mom couldn’t even stay off the booze for a few weeks, then I didn’t feel like protecting her delicate feelings.
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but I guess the look on my face was forbidding, because she didn’t get anything out. In my peripheral vision, I saw Ethan, Kimber, and Keane looking away, trying to give us an illusion of privacy. My dad wasn’t inclined to do us the same courtesy.
“Give your mother a hug, Dana,” he said, giving my shoulder a little push. “You don’t know how long it’s going to be before you see her again.”
I gave him a dirty look over my shoulder. “Thanks for the pep talk. I wasn’t freaked out enough by the whole idea of going into Faerie, so I’m glad you put it in perspective for me.”
“It’s all right, Seamus,” my mother said before my dad could tell me what he thought of my smart mouth. She smiled sadly at me. “Dana and I have to work this out between ourselves.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, just in case she wasn’t getting the hint that I wasn’t open to an affectionate, teary farewell. “Do you have any promises you’d like to make me before I go off into Faerie, potentially never to be seen again?”
She blanched, and I knew I was being unnecessarily cruel. But, dammit, I was the one who was plunging headfirst into danger. It wasn’t my responsibility to try to make her feel better about it.
My mom stood up a little straighter and tried to look stern. “My life is my business,” she told me firmly. “You don’t get to make the rules, and I’m not going to make promises I can’t keep.”
I ground my teeth. Couldn’t she hear herself? If she couldn’t keep a promise not to drink, didn’t that obviously make her the alcoholic she claimed she wasn’t?
“Well, I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t bother me,” I told her. “I’m through with that act.”
I’m sure this wasn’t the sentimental send-off she’d been hoping for. But if she thought we could fix this thing between us in the few minutes we had standing out here surrounded by all these people, she was nuts.
Mom reached out and touched my shoulder briefly. “I love you, Dana,” she said, her voice low enough I could barely hear it, her eyes now swimming with tears. “I hope you know that.”
There was a time in my life when the minute my mom turned on the waterworks, I gave up whatever fight we’d been having and tried to get her to stop crying. My mom had aced Emotional Manipulation 101 and was now on to graduate studies. But whatever else had happened to me since I’d come to Avalon, I seemed to have become immune to the magical effects of her tears.
I didn’t reassure her that I knew she loved me, nor did I reassure her that I loved her. Even though I did. No matter how angry I was, no matter how scared I was of what she would do to herself, she was still my mom, and her drinking wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I didn’t love her. But I didn’t tell her, despite the little voice in my head that said I should, just in case this was the last time we ever saw each other. I told that little voice that it was being morbid and should shut up.
Mom bowed her head, then nodded. Accepting reality, I guess. Now there’s a shock!
“Be safe, baby,” she said, and she let loose the tears she’d been trying—not very hard, I suspect—to suppress.
Moving faster than I could dodge, she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight. I could feel her body shaking as she cried, and I knew I’d have a damp patch on my shoulder before she let go.
With a sigh of resignation, I put my arms around her and gave her a brief squeeze before squirming out of her grasp. “I’ll see you soon,” I said, which was about as close as I was going to come to giving her the reassurance she’d wanted.
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” my dad said.
“I know,” she responded, then gave him a hug, too. He was taken by surprise, but he hugged her back with more enthusiasm than I had. They fought almost all the time, as far as I could tell—mostly about me—but I guess they had loved each other once upon a time, and they didn’t hate each other now.
“I’ll bring her back safe and sound,” my dad said, though I doubted phrasing his reassurance a different way was going to make my mom any more convinced.
She nodded, still clinging to him.
Mom held on to Dad for a moment, then let him go and took a couple of steps back. Her eyes were still shimmery, her cheeks wet with tears. I had a nasty suspicion that the first thing she would do when we were gone was find a liquor store. But there would have been nothing I could have done to stop her even if I weren’t running off to Faerie, into what was, as far as I was concerned, enemy territory.
Dad put an arm around my shoulder and steered me toward the bridge. My friends fell in behind us. I looked over my shoulder once and saw my mom waving forlornly. I thought about waving back, but didn’t.
When we reached the parking lot, one of the prince’s men was waiting for us with an expression of impatience on his face. He looked like he was about to say something about us being late, but my dad gave him an icy look, and he thought better of it. Instead, he motioned to some guy dressed like Robin Hood, who led a bunch of horses our way.
By “led,” I don’t mean he held on to their halters and guided them toward us; I mean he beckoned to them with a wave, and they perked up their ears and followed. I tried to tell myself that meant the horses were easygoing and well-behaved, and I would have no trouble trying to ride one.
“These are the mounts your Knight chose for the children,” Robin said, and my dad was the only one who didn’t stiffen up at the word children. Yes, I know, to thousand-year-old Fae, we were infants, but still …
Robin Hood introduced each of us to our horses by name as if they were people. I half-expected them to offer to shake hands. My horse was an enormous white mare named Phaedra. Being a Fae horse, she was a thing of beauty, with sleek lines, intelligent brown eyes, and a mane and tail so white they practically sparkled. She was also about half-again as tall as I was. My palms began to sweat.
“Is this a good time to mention that I don’t know how to ride?” I asked my dad as Robin Hood, or whatever his name was, left us to our own devices. Was it my imagination, or was Phaedra giving me the stink eye?
Dad smiled at me and stroked Phaedra’s nose. She seemed to like that. “You’ll do fine,” he said. “She knows where we’re going better than you do. All you have to do is sit in the saddle, and she’ll take care of the rest.”
I eyed one of the wagons that was curr
ently being loaded with crates and boxes. “Couldn’t I ride in one of the wagons?”
Phaedra snorted and tossed her head, like she’d understood me and was insulted. Maybe she had, but more likely it was just my imagination running away with me.
“Riding in wagons is for the lower classes, or for the injured and infirm,” Dad informed me. “I’m sure Henry would be happy to have you ride in a wagon so he and his courtiers could snicker at you behind your back. They’d see it as a sign of weakness. As I’m sure you understand, we can’t afford signs of weakness.”
Guess I was going to have to learn to ride after all. How hard can it be? I asked myself, then wished I hadn’t as good as jinxed myself. Dad guided me to Phaedra’s side.
“Put your left foot in the stirrup and hop up,” he instructed me.
“Here goes nothing,” I said. The stupid stirrup was about eighty feet from the ground, and I had to pull on the saddle to haul myself up. When I got settled, the ground was disturbingly far away. I most definitely did not want to fall off. “You sure I don’t need an oxygen tank up here?” I asked, and Dad laughed while handing me the reins.
“Take good care of my daughter, Phaedra,” he said, patting the horse’s shoulder, and then he turned away from us.
Finn emerged from the crowd riding a dappled gray horse, a riderless black horse following on his heels. Dad headed toward them. The black horse’s ears flicked forward, and it made a happy-sounding noise, like it was glad to see my dad. From the way my dad smiled and rubbed its nose, I guessed he was glad to see it, too. He looked completely at ease as he climbed gracefully into the saddle. I, on the other hand, found myself squirming to find a comfortable position. Phaedra snorted and stomped her foot, which I interpreted to mean “stop fidgeting.” I put one hand on the saddle to steady myself and did my best to hold still.
We must have been among the last to arrive. No sooner had we all mounted up than the caravan started forward, a pair of Knights leading the way to an oversized doorway in the gatehouse. A handful of uniformed border patrolmen guarded the doorway, but they were more concerned with not letting any unauthorized creatures of Faerie come into Avalon than with paying attention to who went out. (Which was how the Knights who’d attacked Finn a few weeks ago had managed to escape without the slightest repercussions or even an investigation.)
I took a deep breath as Phaedra danced impatiently beneath me, waiting for her turn to join the procession.
It took a while. The prince apparently had to be in the absolute center of everything, so there were a handful of Knights telling everyone when they could and couldn’t move. I couldn’t help noticing that even though we were supposed to be under the prince’s protection, we were directed almost to the very back of the procession, with only one Knight and a baggage wagon behind us.
I saw from the tightening around my dad’s mouth that it was exactly the insult I thought it was, though he didn’t protest. I remembered him saying that the prince’s men were going to be more focused on defending Henry than on defending me, and I was glad that I had both Keane and Ethan with me.
Finally, it was our turn to move. Ethan rode up beside me, giving me a jaunty salute, while Keane and Kimber slipped in front and my dad and Finn took up the rear. I was well protected. But that didn’t stop my hands from sweating as Phaedra bore me ever closer to the door that gaped open.
“Be sure you focus on Faerie when we get to the end of the passageway,” my father called to me from behind.
My power as a Faeriewalker meant that when I looked out over the border of Avalon, I could see what was known as the Glimmerglass, a blurry double image of the mortal world and Faerie, superimposed upon each other. If I focused my gaze on the mortal world, then when we reached the end of the passageway through the gatehouse, I would see nothing but a brick wall, which I wouldn’t be able to pass through. I’d have to make sure not to let my fear blind me to Faerie.
When we entered the passageway, my hands were not only sweating, they were shaking. I was about to leave everything that was normal and familiar behind, and enter a world where magic reigned supreme. A world where at least one Faerie Queen wanted me dead, and where creatures who haunted mortals’ nightmares lived. I wanted to turn around and gallop the other way.
Okay, so maybe if I went through with this and made friendly with Titania, I would no longer be in any danger from the Seelie Court. That would be great, but it was only a maybe. And I still had to get there, which didn’t seem like any sure thing to me.
Staring ahead, I saw the wall that marked the border between Avalon and the mortal world. It was slightly indistinct, but I couldn’t make out the image of Faerie that I knew was there, too. With another deep breath, I tried to relax and let my eyes lose focus, searching for the second image in the Glimmerglass.
For a moment, I feared my nerves were going to get the best of me and my subconscious was going to refuse to let me see anything past the mortal world. But then my stomach gave a familiar sickening lurch as my vision blurred and things seemed to move within the bricks. I swallowed hard, hoping I wasn’t going to puke, and tried to focus my gaze on the movement behind the bricks as Phaedra carried me ever closer. I wondered what would happen if I couldn’t get my gaze focused on Faerie in time. Would Phaedra go through the wall? And would I then find myself dumped to the floor, trapped on this side?
The added worries about humiliating myself didn’t help. Blood clamored in my ears, and I had to remind myself to breathe every once in a while. I kept my gaze as unfocused as possible, letting the images blur until I could make out vague shapes behind the bricks, rather than just movement. The shapes resolved themselves into figures, the members of the caravan who had already passed over the border and into Faerie. I picked out one figure, a Knight on an imposing black horse, and stared at him until I could see him clearly, the brick wall now nothing but a faint afterimage making him look almost like he had scales.
I managed it in the nick of time. The moment I was finally able to focus on something that was purely Faerie, Phaedra stepped through where the wall in the mortal world had been.
chapter six
There was a part of me that expected the transition from Avalon to Faerie to be dramatic and flashy, that thought it should be like going through the looking glass into a world that was completely foreign and unfamiliar. This despite the fact that with my Faeriewalker’s vision, I’d had numerous glimpses into Faerie already and knew it wasn’t a world of giant toadstools and beanstalks. When I’d dared the disorientation of looking through the Glimmerglass, I’d seen what looked like untold miles of forest. Trees, trees, and more trees. Which, if you think about it, really isn’t that unusual a sight, unless you’d never been outside a city before.
I held my breath as Phaedra crossed the border into Faerie, waiting for the thunderclap, or whatever, and I was almost disappointed when nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened. There was a broad dirt road leading away from the gate, but it curved out of sight within a hundred yards or so. The prince and his entourage were already making their way down that road.
I forced myself to start breathing again, looking all around me in search of something to give me the immediate evidence that we weren’t in Kansas anymore, but there was no yellow brick road, no lollipop trees, no monsters from out of my nightmares. The trees were a little odd in that I could identify almost none of them. Not that I’m a naturalist or anything, but I could usually recognize your basic pines, maples, and oaks. I spied a couple of oak trees, but aside from that, they were all mystery trees, which made the forest suddenly look a lot more foreign. Still, if I didn’t look too closely, I could almost fool myself into believing we were riding down a nature trail somewhere back in the U.S.
“You were expecting more fanfare?” Ethan asked, grinning at me. He looked like he was having fun, although there was still that hint of sadness in his eyes that reminded me how much he had changed. As if the Erlking’s mark on his face wasn’t reminder
enough.
I shrugged a bit sheepishly. “I don’t know what I was expecting,” I admitted.
“Something more exotic, I presume. I know that’s what I was expecting the first time I came to Faerie. But it’s really a fairly normal place—except where it’s not.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Yeah, normal. I’m sure.” Never mind that I hadn’t seen anything outlandish yet. I was sure that would come.
“Fairly normal,” he said. “And the exceptions can be a bit unsettling.”
“Fantastic.” Phaedra snorted and tossed her head, the movement startling me enough that I almost fell off. I patted the side of her neck uneasily. “Take it easy,” I said. “I didn’t mean to insult your homeland.”
She snorted again, as if to say, Yeah, right. Ethan smothered a smile, and I felt the heat rising in my face. We’d been in Faerie two whole minutes, and I was having a conversation with my horse. Not cool.
“Phaedra hates me,” I told Ethan in what I hoped was a haughty voice. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt to kiss ass a little in hopes that she won’t dump me on my head.”
Ethan laughed again. I noticed he seemed to have no trouble with his own horse. He rode with a kind of easy confidence I would have envied, if I’d had any desire to become a better horsewoman. He looked fantastic astride that white horse, with his blond hair loose around his shoulders, his comfortably worn jeans clinging to the muscles of his thighs. For the thousandth time, I wondered how I’d managed to catch the eye of someone like him, who could have any girl he wanted.