Stolen Away (17 page)

When I gave them to her she grinned. “You might make up for that ijit poet, after all.” She dipped down behind the seats, and when she emerged, she looked more like the type of person she was: tough, confident, and arrogant. Then she did a somersault and ruined the image. “Well?” She hooked her sword on her belt. “Best get this over with.”

• • •

It didn’t go well.

Devin and I huddled behind one of his makeshift shields. Elf arrows bit into the wood with alarming frequency. Isadora hovered over my shoulder, muttering under her breath. An unwary sparrow caught a dart to the wing and tumbled sluggishly into the grass.

We were getting nowhere.

“I told you this wouldn’t work,” Isadora said as Devin lobbed rocks at the bushes where the furious flower Fae were hiding. One of them squeaked, tumbling heels over head. The volley paused, then resumed with increasing ferocity.

“This is daft.” I huddled closer to the shield. The sun was hot on my head, making me sweaty and cranky. “Don’t you lot have some sort of truce symbol? Like the white flag?” I fished a crumpled tissue out of my pocket hopefully.

“How is that disgusting thing supposed to help us? Honestly, humans.”

“Oh, shut up, Tinkerbell.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. I narrowed mine right back. “Do something,” I insisted.

She huffed out a breath, clearly put out at having to ask for anything, including help. “Fine,” she snapped. “For all the good it will do us.”

I’d have maybe had more sympathy for her if there weren’t poisoned arrows aimed at my head. “Just do it,” I hissed.

“This is embarrassing,” she muttered, digging in the grass. It was so long in spots, she disappeared altogether. Devin blinked sweat out of his eyes and lobbed another rock. Isadora finally emerged just as I was about to threaten to step on her. She was holding small white flowers, like daisies; and she was scowling.

“Bleedin’ poets and their pretty stories,” she was saying to herself before she called to the others in another language entirely and tossed the feathery stemmed flowers over
the top of the shield. “Chamomile,” she explained to us. “Meant to promote peace. We used to drink the tea during treaty negotiations, but that ijit poet was all about the pretty blossoms, wasn’t he?”

It took only a moment before the bows were lowered, albeit slowly and suspiciously. A Fae clad entirely in ivy hovered above the lilac bushes.

“We will hear your plea,” he said arrogantly.

“Sod off,” Isadora called out, perched on top of the shield and looking annoyed. “I’ve no intention of begging. And to think we were lovers once,” she added under her breath.

I took the chamomile, brown and wilted as it was, and waved it around before peeking over the plywood. Devin was tense beside me, pocket knife in his hand. “We have a proposition,” I offered.

The ivy-man sneered. “We don’t make deals with mortals. We know better than to trust such a thing.”

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t like us. I get it,” I said, standing slowly.

“Jo,” Devin said warningly. He angled himself to try and shield me.

I stumbled. “Quit shoving me.”

“I’m trying to help you,” he argued.

Isadora rolled her eyes. “You two mind?”

I faced the Fae who were perched on the branches like exotic flowers. I held Devin’s hand behind the shield for courage. There were a lot of needles glittering among them,
and I remembered the sluggish burn of that Fae drug in my blood. I wasn’t eager to experience it again. “We’re taking Strahan down.”

There was a pause and then disbelieving laughter. “You’re mad as a box of frogs.”

“We’re going to do it,” I insisted. “And Isadora is going to reclaim the rath.”

It was kind of eerie having that many candy-colored eyes staring at us. Isadora lifted her chin defiantly. “That’s right,” she said. “Now, would you rather pout like ill-tempered brats or are you ready to go home?”

He drifted closer. “What makes you think you can defeat him now, after all this time?”

“We’ve allies now,” she replied. “And Antonia’s niece on our side.”

He was joined by the rest, fairies clad in rose petals, violets, brambles, and clovers. They were armed to the teeth; angry, wary, but clearly interested.

“The Samhain ball is in less than two days. We’ve the tides on our side.” She motioned to the brittle grass, the wilting flowers. “The land herself would have us succeed. King of Summer, isn’t he? And summer is grand, but it’s only one of many seasons.”

I thought of the dried-up wells in the parched fields and the heat baking the streets and my grandparents worrying over bills and lost crops.

Isadora and the others were speaking in their own
language, shaking their heads and shouting but eventually gripping forearms the way warriors always do in medieval movies. She turned toward me, nodded once. “It’s done.”

The Fae from her clan drifted away on their hornet-steeds and Devin and I sprawled in the grass, catching our breath. Tiny, angry Fae were exhausting.

Isadora hopped from grass tip to grass tip. “It’s not time for sleep yet, you two. Lazy sods, come on. We’ve blood to spill!” She waved her sword around.

“Just give me a minute,” I said sleepily, watching the clouds drift overhead. They were dark around the edges. Eldric had promised a storm. Was that really only this morning? No wonder I was so exhausted. For once the heat felt pleasant, like a soft blanket. Devin started to snore beside me. Isadora was put out. She had a sword again and she clearly wanted to use it. She hacked at the weeds, grinning manically.

“Eldric,” I whispered. I pushed up on my elbows, waiting. “Eldric.”

Nothing happened. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, that he’d come striding out of trees or appear next to me in the grass. He’d said good-bye. I sighed. “Isadora?”

“Aye?”

“If I called your name and you were inside the rath, could you hear me?”

“Only if you used my
true
name.”

“Which is?”

“None of your business,” she scowled. “Fae don’t give out their true names, not to anyone.”

“Oh.” Come to think of it, I’d read that somewhere. And that meant even though I finally knew Eldric’s name, I didn’t know his
true
name. And he’d broken up with me before we’d even had a chance to figure out if we wanted to be together in the first place.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I just felt tired and despondent. I got up and wandered toward the birch grove on the edges of the field, letting Devin sleep and Isadora practice her swordplay.

The shadows were dark and welcoming, but the birch trees glowed like candlesticks in the shafts of sunlight filtering through the leaves. It was peaceful and quiet here. I could barely hear the sound of birds or Devin snoring. The white branches swayed in a wind, which didn’t touch the grass or the pond’s surface. It smelled green. It made me smile, made a musical hum build in the back of my throat. I turned in a circle, arms out, letting the sun dapple my face.

“Jo!” I thought Isadora might be saying my name, but it was so quiet I could barely hear her. The trees danced around me.

“Jo!” Her little voice was annoying, like a fly buzzing around my head. I swatted it away, hummed louder. Birch was so slender and pretty. I’d never noticed before.

“Jo!”
I squinted. For some reason I could barely see on the other side of the trees. The sun was too bright in the field
and painfully hot. It was nicer in the grove. I turned away from Devin and Isadora and their frantic waving.

“Josephine Alice Blackwell.”

It was Devin that time. The use of my full name made me start. I could see him a little clearer.

He didn’t look happy.

He was trying to get inside the grove, but the wind was tossing the trees too violently. He was avoiding the branches like they were elf arrows. His voice was muffled. I frowned. “What?”

“Don’t let them touch you!” he yelled.

I looked back because Isadora was now trying to stab the nearest birch with her sword. It was like the use of my full name had woken me up. Jo was apparently just my speaking-name. And if Devin hadn’t known my middle name I would still be trying to dance with the birch trees.

Because they weren’t birch trees.

They were tall, skeletal old women with ragged white dresses and ragged white hair. Their eyes were too black, arms too long, fingers extended.

“Don’t let them touch you!” Devin repeated.

Easier said than done.

I was in the heart of the grove and they slapped at me with their long arms, branches dragging this way and that, trying to catch in my hair, trying to claw at my chest. The hot wind seared my nostrils. I jumped as if we were playing double-Dutch jump rope. I ducked and weaved and sweated through my shirt. My throat burned, my legs muscles ached.

I wished fervently for Granddad’s handsaw.

The birch women kept swatting at me and my dance became frantic. I didn’t know how long I could keep it up. I somersaulted to avoid getting poked in the eye.

“Keep going!” Devin yelled, trying to reach my hand. “You’re so close.”

It didn’t look close, and it sure as hell didn’t feel close.

“On your left!” Isadora shouted. I jerked out of the way. The leaves rattled like a hiss. Sweat and dirt ground into the pinpricks left by the arrows. I inched forward, using the most foul language I could come up with. When I reached the edge of the grove, it was like crawling out of a trench. Devin grabbed my shoulders and pulled me the last of the way out. I was panting, my lungs screaming, sweat soaking my hair and stinging my eyes

“What the hell just happened?” I croaked. Devin opened a water bottle and thrust it at me. I guzzled it so greedily and so quickly that I gave myself the hiccups.

Isadora snapped a curse at the birch trees and they shook their branches at her menacingly and then subsided.

“Seriously, what the hell, woman?” I said.

“Those aren’t regular birch trees.”

I rolled over to glare at her. “You think?”

“It’s the One with the White Hand,” she explained, hovering well out of reach. “They are usually solitary. Groves like these are rare.”

“Don’t I feel special.”

“And as Samhain approaches, everyone stirs.”

“Great. Why couldn’t I let them touch me?” I groaned, trying to sit up. My legs felt like marmalade.

“If they touch your head, you go mad.”

I blinked, horrified.

“And if they touch your heart, you die.”

I shivered, crawling farther away from the woods and into the field.

I’d never look at a birch tree the same way again.

Lucas and I wandered through the park while he told me about his home, about people that turned into birds and deer and otters, and tunnels of silver under the ground.

“So, if I’m part of the Deer clan, does that mean I’m Fae too?” I frowned. “Because I don’t feel particularly deerlike.”

The sun gilded his profile. “Your Fae blood is very diluted,” he said. “It’s a curiosity more than a strength. We value history and bloodlines. That’s why Antonia was chosen. Strahan likely thought she had just enough of a connection that the courts would follow her. It’s tricky with mortals. We need them, but we don’t
want
to need them.”

“You need them? Why?”

“To vary the bloodlines, to have children. Some Fae think of humans only as animals, and it galls them to be dependent on them in any way.”

“What about you?” I asked quietly. “What do you think about humans?” I was almost afraid of his answer. He wanted Strahan deposed. I could be a means to an end, whatever Jo might say about how he looked at me.

He was looking at me like that now. It made me warm all over. “I’m pledged to you, Eloise.”

“Oh.” I tried not to sound disappointed.

“But even if I weren’t,” he said, “I would still be at your side.” He took my hand. “I want to show you something.”

I let him pull me along. His fingers entwined in mine, grounded me when I was so tired I felt like I could drift away. I might as well be pollen. He found a secluded stretch of lawn and winked at me.

Just before he leaped up into the air, transforming into a hawk.

His chest was white, with brown wing feathers darkening at the tips. His eyes were green, even from a distance. His talons looked as deadly as the sword he wielded in human form. He soared above me and I watched him spellbound as he drifted on invisible pockets of air. He was beautiful, magical. And the splendor of it washed away some of the fear and fatigue clinging to me like mud.

He let out a shrill, piercing cry that shivered over the treetops. He widened his circles until he was right on the edge of the woods, a brown speck in the distance. He dropped, gave another cry, and flew back my way.

When he landed in the grass, shimmering back into the
brown-haired boy I knew, he wasn’t alone. He grinned, taking my hand again and turning me in a slow circle as if he were waltzing. Birds filled the sky, settling on branches and benches. There were cardinals, like the ones that had watched my mom and me on the roof. Blue jays perched next to sparrows and yellow finches. Hummingbirds darted; pigeons cooed. A heron glided past on his way to the pond, gray-blue feathers the color of water.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I whispered. A chickadee landed on my arm and watched me with curious eyes. I laughed. “Are they all Fae?” I asked, astounded.

“No, but I can speak to them. Otherwise, they’d never share the sky with a hawk.”

“Why not?” The chickadee hopped down my arm to my wrist.

“They might think I was hungry.”

“You’d
eat
them?” The chickadee flew off, insulted.

Lucas laughed. “I prefer hamburgers,” he said.

“Does it hurt? When you change, I mean.”

He shook his head. “No.”

At some silent, secret signal, the birds all lifted into the air and flew away. Feathers drifted to the grass like multicolored snow.

I beamed at Lucas. “Thank you.”

He bowed. “Simple joys can arm you for battle better than any weapon can.” He glanced at the sun, sinking behind the town. “We should go,” he said.