“What do you think of this, Your Majesty?” I addressed her directly, not certain of the decorum involved but deciding that it didn’t matter. I was already damned in the eyes of both Light and Dark, so my actions wouldn’t make a whit of difference.
Saílle blinked, looking surprised. She straightened, glancing over at Herne, whose focus was fixed on Farthing and me. Then she cleared her throat.
“I think this is a matter you must decide. No one can make your decision for you. I cannot imagine not agreeing to such a generous offer, but then again, I am biased.” She was choosing her words carefully, that much I could tell.
I frowned, surprised that she hadn’t instructed me to take the offer and run.
I glanced at the clock. Two minutes and my ultimatum would time out. There was no question, of course. I couldn’t believe that Farthing had even bothered. That he could think I’d even be interested was beyond me, but narcissistic people never could look beyond themselves. In fact, most narcissists believed the entire world revolved around them.
“Here’s my official, final, answer, Farthing. You can take your offer and shove it up your ass. I hope you and my other grandparents—on both sides—have painful, excruciating deaths. I wish for you an end as bloody as the judgment to which you sentenced my parents. If we weren’t in parley, I would do the job myself, with no regrets. So take your ritual and your money and title and fuck off back to TirNaNog. Know forever in your heart that your granddaughter takes pride in being a tralaeth, and that I will count the days until your death.”
I wanted my blade, I wanted to make him bleed. I wanted him to experience the same hurt and the terror that I had come home that day to find.
Herne must have seen the bloodlust in my eyes, because he slipped over to my side and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, moving me back a few steps. He then turned to Farthing.
“You have your answer. Leave now.”
Farthing looked stunned and I realized that he had somehow expected me to jump on the idea. Did he truly think I was so miserable that I would leap at the first chance to be accepted by the Court? Or that I was so money-hungry that a title and a fortune would win me over?
“I ask you one last time. Will you come with us? Will you become one of us?” He ignored Herne, focusing his question to me.
“But Farthing, I already am one of you. Like it or not, I am full-blooded Fae. Light or Dark, it makes no difference to me, because I really don’t see a lot of difference between the two Courts. The distinction is arbitrary. Fae against Fae, what does it all do?” I turned to Saílle. “What good does it do? The Dark and the Light have been fighting since the beginning of time, and why? What distinction can you make between the two?”
Saílle stood, rising up to her full height. She no longer looked fascinated, but a terrible expression crossed her face and I realized I had gone too far.
“I will not listen to a tralaeth disparage tradition. We were born at odds, and we die at odds. Our existences bring balance. We cannot help our natures. My people live in the shadows, we take our cues from the dark hues of the palette, from the clouds and the mist, the stars and the night and the frozen wastes. There will never be one Fae race. There can never be a blending that breeds true.”
She motioned to my grandfather. “You have received your answer. Come. No more of this nonsense. Her taint can never be cleansed.”
As Farthing left the room, Saílle paused, then turned back to me. “Even if you had accepted his offer, you’d never truly be one of us.”
“I didn’t ask to be. Just leave me alone, and others like me. Leave us to form our own community. You don’t have to like us, you don’t have to accept us, but stop hunting us down.” I wasn’t about to back down now. Herne and Ginty would protect me, at least here.
She gave me a considered look, then nodded. “I will admit one thing, Ember Kearney. You stick to your position. I had expected you to cave. You didn’t. That alone shows courage of heart. Even though such courage breeds foolish decisions.” As she swept toward the door, she called over her shoulder. “Contact us when you have any further information on the plague.”
“We will,” Herne said, frowning.
When Ginty was the only other one remaining in the room with us, Talia let out a long breath and dropped into a chair.
“I thought we were about to see bloodshed,” she said. “You kept your temper better than I could have.”
I stared at the door, trying to process everything that had happened. I wasn’t sure how I felt, but it sure wasn’t pleasant.
“Ember, are you okay?” Herne tilted my chin up.
I stared into his eyes, not certain how to answer. On one hand, the final crack in my heart had broken when Farthing had confirmed my suspicions about my parents’ deaths. On the other, the entire incident had only increased my dislike of my own people. And yet a third factor crept in: the fear I had felt when Farthing had told me about the ritual. That part had actually bothered me most—that they had discovered a way to strip away a part of what made up the very bloodline, the very nature of a person.
“Did you know about the existence of the ritual he spoke of?” I asked Herne.
He shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it until now. I’m suspicious, though, as to whether it’s actually possible.”
“I hope not,” Ginty said. “If it can be done, then anybody could use it as a weapon.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Herne said. “I’m going to have a talk with my mother about it. Perhaps she can forbid the use of it among the Fae. We need to find out if this is a new form of magic, who created it, and exactly how it’s being used. I think we’ll have to bring the United Coalition in on it.”
I returned to the table. “I’m sorry I spouted off like that. I know we’re supposed to be diplomatic, but Farthing pushed me to the edge. And over.” I paused, then asked, “You guys think I made the right decision, don’t you?”
“Don’t doubt yourself,” Yutani said. “What he asked of you went beyond the pale. And how he could expect you to just fall in line after what he told you about your parents speaks volumes about his character.”
I nodded, slowly. “I have the nasty feeling this isn’t the end, regardless of what Saílle told Farthing. I feel targeted now.” And truth was, I did feel like I had a big red bull’s-eye on my back.
“We’ll watch out for you,” Herne whispered, brushing my hair back away from my face. “As to your decision, I would have been highly disappointed if you had made any other.”
“So what now? Where do we go from here?” I tried to shake off the past twenty minutes, to focus on what we had learned about the disease sweeping through the Fae Courts, but it was difficult. My grandfather’s words kept running through my mind, coloring all of my thoughts.
“Back to the office,” Herne said. “By the time we get there, maybe we’ll be over the shock of what just happened.” He turned to Ginty. “Thank you for holding the parley. I’ll contact you when we get back to the agency so you know we’ve arrived safely and you can note the end of the meeting.”
“My pleasure, Lord Herne, although I can’t say I expected quite so volatile an event.” Ginty showed us back through the hall, down the stairs, and to the front door.
As we headed out of the bar, Herne glanced at me. “Parley doesn’t officially end until both parties are back at home. We always go directly to our home base after such a session. When every party has checked in with Ginty, the parley is officially ended. That way if someone is waiting to ambush the other party, it counts as breaking parley.”
I slid into Herne’s car and fastened my seat belt. Talia patted my shoulder before she got into the back seat, following suit. All the way back to the agency, we said nothing, both of them allowing me to process my feelings in silence. But it would be a long time before I was able to process the fact that my grandfather had been willing to sacrifice my mother’s blood in me, in order to make me accepta
ble in his eyes.
ANGEL WAS WAITING as we entered the lobby. Viktor or Yutani must have called her because she immediately jumped up when she saw me, the look on her face telling me she knew all about what had happened.
“Meeting in fifteen minutes after we all get situated. Grab whatever snacks you can to hold you through till we’re done.” Herne headed into his office, after a quick glance at Angel and me.
Angel steered me into my office, handing me an iced mocha. “Four shots,” she said. “I thought you might need it.” She paused, then dove right in. “Yutani called to tell me what happened. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Don’t even try. If you think it’s hard to know what to say, how do you think I feel? My grandfather offered to strip me of my mother’s blood so I could be acceptable as his heiress. There’s nowhere to go with that. And in the same breath, he admitted to hiring the thugs who killed my parents, to conspiring with my mother’s parents on her death, and to planning to kill me—only I was late from school that day. I don’t know how to process all of this. I really don’t.”
“Yutani said you threatened to kill your grandfather?” She sat down beside me.
I pulled a big sip of the mocha. “Not exactly. I told him that if we hadn’t been in parley I would gut him like a fish, though, so I guess that’s tantamount to the same thing. And if we hadn’t been under Ginty’s watchful eye and still under the terms of the parley, I would have done just that.” I shivered, thinking how easily he had tripped my temper. I didn’t like thinking of myself as a time bomb, but it was true.
“Is there any way you can turn this into a positive?” Angel had been studying the law of attraction for a while, and while it worked, there were times when even the biggest stretch couldn’t bridge the gap between totally fucked up and make lemonade out of lemons.
“Um, no. If he ever comes to our door, I’ll throw him headfirst into the basement. Or let Herne break him in half.”
I closed my eyes, the adrenaline suddenly washing out of my body as I thought about what had transpired. I began to shiver, then a knot formed in my throat and I burst into tears.
“Angel, Farthing killed my father. His own son. Sure, he hired someone to do it, but he killed my father and he got away with it. There’s nothing I can do.” I leaned forward, resting my head on my desk, all the fear and horror of finding my parents dead on the floor flooding back.
Angel put her hand on my shoulder, murmuring to me. “Cry, Ember. Let it out. You know now. At least you know.”
I heard Herne’s voice from the door behind me, then Angel saying, “She’ll be okay. Give us a few minutes?” Then she was back, her arms loosely draped around my shoulders as I shivered, feeling absolutely gutted.
“I wanted to kill him, Angel. I wanted to wipe that sneer off his face. I wanted to trample him, to scream, How the fuck do you think I’m going to accept your offer now that I know what you’re like? But I didn’t. I couldn’t. And still, he was so sure. So arrogantly positively certain that the lure of money would win out. How could he think I’d ever consider such a proposal?”
She waited for a moment, then said, “Sit up. Drink your mocha.”
Sniffling, I obeyed. “I feel devastated.”
“You confirmed what you already knew, but the shock of knowing for sure can do you in.” She paused, then said, “But tell me the truth. Did you really expect anything different?”
I thought about her question as I accepted the tissue she held out. Blowing my nose, I realized that there had been a part of me that had nurtured hope. The teenaged girl who had come home to discover her parents dead on the floor had wanted more.
“Logically, no, but there was a part of me that…hoped to find a grandfather who would miraculously open his arms and welcome me in. Who would say, ‘Come home, a dragon kept us apart but we’ve slain him and you’re free to come back home, into our hearts.’ ”
Angel tilted her head, smiling. “You wanted your family. But love, they aren’t your family. Blood means nothing if hatred is involved. I’m your family, though, and DJ. And we love you. And at the end of the day, I’m here beside you, and Herne, and Yutani and Viktor and Talia, and we are your family.”
I bit my lip, nodding. “I know,” I said after a moment. “I just… Cinderella dreams. Fairy tales and fairy godmothers and the prince rescuing the princess. Sometimes, all those lies people tell their children still infect my thoughts.”
“They’re not all lies,” Angel said, handing me a candy bar. “After all, you’ve found a prince, and I’m your stepsister, of a sorts, and we have a new home to call our own.”
As I cleared my throat and bit into the chocolate, welcoming the rush of sugar and fat, I realized she was right. I had found my fairy tale, even if it was a slightly lopsided one. And the villains of the world, well, it didn’t matter whether they were of my blood or not. In the end, they really didn’t matter at all.
“Come on, let’s head to the break room,” I said, licking my fingers. “And Angel? Thanks. Thanks for always having my back.”
“We have to stick together,” she said. “It’s a cold, brutal world out there.”
Nodding, I followed her out of my office, toward the break room.
Chapter 6
HERNE HAD CALLED the meeting to order by the time I splashed cold water on my eyes and joined the others. Angel was talking as I entered the room.
“I found Toby and his brother and cousin a hotel room after they left urgent care. I have to say that Toby is a good egg. He’s tried so hard to take care of the others. I’m worried about them, though. They’re all malnourished, and his cousin is sick with a serious respiratory infection. It only affects savines, and it can be deadly. The doctors said he needs to be in bed for at least three weeks, but none of them will agree to go to a hospital because of the costs.”
Herne frowned. “Unfortunately, in this economic climate, most hospitals probably wouldn’t admit him without some way to cover the bill. You said you found them a hotel room?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Tell them to eat what they want and not worry about the cost or how long they’ll be staying. Meanwhile, I’ll put in a few calls and attempt to find them a host family who will look after them.” He scribbled a note on a pad of paper. “I think we have some Water Fae around that might take care of them. If worse comes to worst, maybe we can get the Foam Born Encampment to take them on. They’re hippocampi, but they’re Water Fae and they might be willing to look after the boys for a while.”
“Will do.” Angel paused, then added, “Thanks, Herne.”
He flashed her a smile and it hit me that Herne spent a lot of his time looking out for the underdogs of society, so much that he should probably add “social worker” to his resume. He truly cared, which was more than most people did.
“All right, Angel, I assume you’ve been filled in on matters?”
She shrugged. “I heard about Ember’s grandfather.”
Herne arched his eyebrows. “Yes, well, for now, let’s focus on the disease that’s sweeping through the Courts. I want to organize our notes. Talia, can you start researching the catering company? Angel, if you would, please collate all our field notes and start a file. This isn’t exactly a typical case, but we’ll just have to approach it like any other. We have forty-three dead bodies, almost three dozen more sick, and the possibility that somebody introduced this illness as a weapon. I suppose we just go from there.”
After that, we began compiling our notes, and spent the rest of the afternoon tying up loose ends on some of our other cases.
I WAS IN the forest, trying to figure out how I got there. All around me tall timber rose into the heavens, dark sentinels against the night sky. Overhead, I could see the glittering stars of Caer Arianrhod, and I kept wondering if I was in Cernunnos’s forest, in Annwn. I pushed through the undergrowth, trying to keep the waist-high ferns from slapping me with their fronds. Every
where I looked, more shrubs and bushes sprang up, and I would think I managed to make it through one clearing when another patch of vegetation appeared to block my path.
I heard a rustle in the bushes behind me. As I turned, I saw a white fox dart past, then vanish into the foliage. Overhead, a flurry of crows winged past in the dark, as though they had been startled awake and scared out of their nesting trees.
My heart was racing as I tried to figure out why I was here. I couldn’t remember what I had been doing, and I kept looking this way and that, trying to find Angel or Herne, or anybody familiar. But I was alone. I pushed through yet another thicket of bushes and suddenly found myself on a mountaintop, staring over a sweeping valley below. The night gave way without warning, and the sun rose into the sky, brilliant and blood red as though behind a thick layer of smog. It rose fast—so fast that I sank to my knees, dizzy.
As it approached its zenith, I realized I was staring straight at it and wondered that I hadn’t gone blind. But there was something mesmerizing about the blazing globe that lit the sky ablaze. It arced over the sky, from east to west, as the valley below spread out in a panorama of bluish ice, glacial sheets that spread across the horizon. The mountain was steep, but there were more mountains in the distance, and they, too, were covered with glaciers, the ancient ice holding sway against the warming planet. They were silent, rising like monoliths, keeping guard over the world around me.
I managed to stumble to my feet, and was about to head down into the valley when the sun reached the west.
I can’t have been sitting here all day. It’s only been…
But it hit me that I had no clue how much time had passed. I might have been sitting there on my knees for an hour, or a month.
Once again, the night began to approach, the sunset blushing against the snowbound mountains. But this time, I was exposed, out of the forest, and my heart began to race. There was nowhere to hide. In fact, I couldn’t find the forest. I was standing atop the mountain, and all around me, the ice sheets were melting, their waters racing in a mad dash to expose a quarry—a wide swath of rocks and stones sweeping through the valley.