Stolen Away (19 page)

A young girl stared outside with rapt attention. “Doggy!”

“Sara, get down.” Her father tucked her under his coat. The rain slammed into the roof so hard it shivered.

“Jo!” Devin shoved me and I flew a few feet away from the door. “Now!”

The storm was so thick I couldn’t even see Eldric anymore. It was just dust and electricity and debris hitting the windows like bullets. We ran, covering our heads. Eloise and Lucas were crammed inside the coffee booth, behind the shelter of the counter. The nearest chairs already had people curled under them. Devin and I skidded across the polished floor, aiming ourselves for the back corner where at least there was no glass.

“In here!” Devin’s uncle shouted, crouched near the opening to the ticket booth.

Devin slid in on his side, as if he were playing baseball. He was still gripping my hand, pulling me along behind him. My skirt wrapped around the metal legs of a bench and wedged there. I jerked out of his grasp. Momentum pushed him into his uncle. I yanked as hard as I could but the fabric wouldn’t release.

I was stuck.

The windows shattered.

I curled into myself as time slowed down. Devin yelled my name. Glass flew in every direction. Jagged shards shot toward me. I tried to tuck my head under my elbows.

And then suddenly Eldric was there. He stretched over me, sheltering me from the rain of glass. He was using his body as a shield. His cheek was tucked next to mine, his eyes fierce. The bus station shook, belched more glass and broken chairs, and then was still.

The Host had passed, taking the storm with them.

I turned my face slightly, toward Eldric. “I thought the dog got you,” I gasped, hugging him tightly.

“He used to be my pet,” Eldric replied, smiling grimly. He reached down and ripped the hem of my skirt free. “When I was little.”

“You’re okay? Are you okay?” I sat up, searching his back and hair for glass, for bleeding gashes. His shirt was ripped, the back of his knee bled, but he looked mostly unharmed. “Thank you,” I said, kissing him hard. “You keep saving me.” I kissed him again. “Are you going to let me save you back?”

“Jo!” The others ran toward us before he could answer. Eloise slid to a stop, gaping at Eldric.

“You saved her,” she said, sounding shocked and teary. Lucas was beside her, expression impassive but sword in his hand.

“Eldric,” he said.

Eldric flicked him a glance. “Lucas.” He tipped my chin up. “I guess this is good-bye again.” He smiled at me once sadly and vanished.

I texted my mom as soon as we were able to climb out of the ruined bus station. I knew she was at work, worried. The tornado skipped her street altogether, and the apartment. I didn’t tell her I wasn’t there. I texted her again just as Lucas and I were leaving. We’d decided not to wait until dawn, knowing the Host were roaming so close. And Mom would get home from the bar at around three a.m. and tie me to my bed if I so much as twitched toward the door. It was best to get it over and done with.

Jo lent us her car and I followed Lucas’s directions. “I can’t believe we’re driving to Faeryland or whatever you call it,” I said. “That’s just weird.”

“There’s a doorway just out of town, by the woods. It’s the fastest way to get there,” he replied, slightly abashed.

The streets narrowed, giving way to brown gardens and then brown fields, the corn withered on the stalks.

I pulled the car over when Lucas pointed to a narrow field. I got out and coughed on a mouthful of dust kicked up by the tires. The tornado had done nothing to break the heat wave the way they usually did. The Host were to blame for that.

The woods were a little cooler, which only meant it would take a full five minutes to broil, instead of two. It was quiet except for the twigs and pinecones crunching under my feet. Lucas had the uncanny ability of avoiding them. The creek had narrowed to a faint trickle.

“Are you ready, Eloise?”

“No.” He looked concerned. I tried to smile. “But I’m not going to get any readier, if that’s even a word.”

He pulled out a wreath woven of ivy leaves, rowan berries, and red ribbons from his pack and set it carefully on my hair. “There.” He pointed to a clearing of wilting flowers. Bees hummed lazily. A circle of mushrooms dotted the brittle grass.

“I don’t see anything.”

“A fairy ring,” he explained, taking my hand, his fingers tangling with mine.

I dug in my heels. “Wait.”

“It won’t hurt a bit.” He was grinning, excited about going home.

“That’s what they all say.”

“Just come on.” He tugged until I followed. He was the first to step into the circle, and then I joined him, screwing my eyes tightly shut. I felt a moment of vertigo, a slap of hot wind in my face. I opened my eyes slowly: mushrooms in the grass, trees, pollen hazing the air.

“It didn’t work.” I was both relieved and disappointed.

Lucas laughed. “Of course it worked.” He drew in a deep breath. “The very air is sweet.”

It did smell nice, a combination of honey and apples, but it was hardly proof that we’d stepped between worlds. A rabbit darted past us, shaking the bushes. Lucas was still holding my hand. “Shh. Look.”

I followed his shining gaze, and my heart could have stopped entirely and I wouldn’t even have noticed. I’d walked into a poem or a painting, dripping impossible colors and pure light that made me feel nearly melancholy. The trees, even the dry dirt, were made somehow holy for being the canvas of such a moment.

They moved quietly between the birches and the cedars, women and men, pale as mist, dark as chestnut. They wore silks and lace and velvets, layered petticoats, jeweled cameos, tailored frock coats. Hair was braided, jeweled, dark as jet beads, pink as peonies. They wore piles of flowers, and their features were delicate and wounded, right out of some preRaphaelite painting. Red deer walked between them, silent and strong. A woman in a blue gown with silk ruffles rode on the back of a giant white stag, antlers hung with flowers.
Hounds trotted peacefully along with the deer, neither concerned with the other. The moon touched them with silver fingers.

I was following without even realizing it. A branch snapped under my foot. I froze. My breath felt like thunder crashing everywhere.

The parade stopped, each to a one turning to pin us with his or her otherworldly eyes. One of the dogs, easily large enough to bite my arm off at the shoulder, growled. One of the deer vanished, running swiftly between the trees. I felt Lucas coming up beside me.

“Come along,” he whispered. We were led through the forest, alongside the river. It was thin here as well, but not as thin as the one back home. I tried not to jerk when a deer sniffed me, hot breath on my neck. She nibbled at the collar of my T-shirt.

“Meg.” Lucas sighed.

The deer made a rather human-sounding snort before she shimmered and melted into a girl. I nearly swallowed my tongue. “So this is her,” she said, totally uncaring of the fact that she was naked. “Why’d you bring her?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Eloise is one of your folk.”

Meg shrugged. “You know how some of them feel about Antonia.”

Their conversation was doing nothing for my confidence. I pushed my shoulders back stubbornly.

“Just go on, Meg,” Lucas said, exasperated. It was the
same tone Jo used with her little brother. “I’ve enough to worry about.”

“I thought you weren’t worried,” I muttered at him.

“I lied.”

“Great.” I jumped when a black dog shoved his wet nose into my palm. I didn’t know if I should pet him—was he really a dog or a prince in black silk? What was the etiquette here?

“You too, Niall,” Lucas said fondly. He watched the dog bound away. “Now he’ll race Meg to see who will be the first to reach Mag Mell with the tale.”

“Who’s Mag Mell?” It seemed easier to focus on that than on the serenely graceful Fae all around us.

“Not who, but what,” he said, presenting it to me with a proud flourish. It was a mansion of gleaming black stone with silverwork in every gable, window, and balcony. It had towers and turrets and massive wild rosebushes all around it, like a moat.

“This is your
house
?” I gaped. I could only imagine what he thought of our secondhand couch, which sagged in the center, and the worn rugs, but he only shrugged, arrogantly unimpressed.

“Oh man,” I said as we entered the marble foyer, and the mirrors reflected my jeans and scuffed boots. “I’m not sure about this.” All of Bianca’s insults concerning my tacky poor taste and hillbilly fashion poked at me.

Lucas took me past beautiful rooms filled with carved
wooden furniture and crystal chandeliers to a cavernous hall not unlike Strahan’s. There weren’t any chains on these walls though, only portraits. But there was a door in the very back corner with iron bars.

“Lucas.” A tall woman with blond hair glided toward us. Her corset made her waist impossible. She was as elegant as a champagne flute. “You’ve returned.”

“Mother.” He greeted her with a kiss on each cheek. “Father. May I present Eloise Hart. Eloise, Ronan and Imogen Richelieu.”

His mother lifted her chin coolly. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

Lucas clapped forearms with a man I would have recognized as his father even without an introduction. They had the same moss-green eyes, the same chiseled chin.

“So this is the girl.” He appraised me with a cheerful smile. I couldn’t help but like him, even with the broadsword at his shoulder and the wicked scar on his chin. His velvet coat was the color of milk chocolate, or hawk feathers.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr… . uh … Lord and Lady Richelieu?” It came out as a question. Miss Manners so never covered this. If he turned into a hawk, I would be at a total loss.

“As pretty as your aunt.” He raised an eyebrow. “And as fiery?”

“She protected me from Strahan,” Lucas told them, explaining my trick with the chain. My shoulder still twinged at the memory.

“We’ve come about my aunt,” I said quietly.

“Of course you have.” His smiled dimmed, but he offered
his arm very graciously. I took it, feeling only a little foolish. “But first, some refreshment.”

We sat at a mahogany table so long it was lit by four separate crystal chandeliers. Bowls of dandelion greens and pomegranate seeds and fresh breads and cheeses were brought on a silver tray.

“Aren’t you eating?” Imogen asked.

No way in hell was I going to make that mistake again. Finding a polite way of saying that would take some doing. And the way she looked at me, she knew it too. It was a test of sorts, to see how well I could navigate their customs. If I couldn’t resist freshly baked bread, how was I going to bring down Strahan? And that bread did smell good.

“Um … I brought you delicacies from my world,” I said, putting out ginger cookies and a jar of almond butter. “I’d be honored to share them with you.”

Lucas nodded proudly. I stifled a sigh of relief as he bit into the first cookie. Imogen inclined her head. I felt some of the tension leave my shoulders.

“I need your help,” I said after a moment. “That is, I think we can help each other.”

“And how do you propose to help us, little girl?” Ronan asked, amused.

“Strahan has captured my aunt.”

“We know.”

“She gave herself up to rescue Eloise and myself,” Lucas said quietly. “I owe her a life-debt.”

Imogen closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them
again, they were hard. “I remember your aunt at your age. She was trouble then and is trouble now.”

I scowled. “Hey, from what I’ve heard, she’s been keeping Strahan controlled half the year without help from any of you. Don’t you blame her for your weird politics.”

“Eloise,” Lucas whispered.

“Yeah, okay.” I knew it was stupid to lose my temper, especially after years of carefully controlling it. “Look, I’m going to free my aunt and take out Strahan. I’d like your help.”

Ronan watched me so intently I wanted to squirm.

Lucas broke the stare. “I mean to help her.”

“Lucas, no.”

“Mother, I have to. I owe it to her and to Antonia.”

“What do you want from us?” Ronan asked.

“Information, warriors, weapons, anyone you think might be on our side. Anything at all, really.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Samhain is near.”

“Which is why your help would be so appreciated.”

“Very well.” He nodded. “Since our son owes you a life-debt. And I’d rather like to stick a sword in Strahan’s eye myself.”

“Oh, Ronan.” Imogen sighed.

• • •

Meg was the one who came to get me. I was in the courtyard, sweating. The sun baked the stones and the roses were scorched around the edges. Her long brown hair hung in
four braids, bumping against her hips. Her dress was faintly medieval in style and looked way more comfortable than the bustles and stays of Strahan’s court.

“Where’s Lucas?” I asked her.

“With his mam,” she answered, dropping down on the bench beside me. She smelled like pine needles.

“Oh. She doesn’t like me.”

“You’ve the right of it there.”

At least she wasn’t heaping on false flattery or watching me carefully as if I were poisonous, the way Imogen did. In fact, Meg was swinging her bare feet, like she didn’t have a care in the world. I couldn’t help but remember her shifting from a deer to a girl. She turned her face to the sun. “I’ll be glad for summer’s end,” she said.

“Are you going to fight too?”

She shrugged, not opening her eyes. “Of course. This is my home and I’ll not sit idly and let Strahan have it, not now that we might have a chance to finally best him. It’s bad enough his selfishness is cooking the fields and forests.”

“You don’t sound scared,” I remarked enviously.

She shrugged again, but this time opened her eyes. “Are you?” I nodded. “Well, only a fool wouldn’t be frightened.” She grinned. I couldn’t tell if she was calling herself a fool. I felt better though; her calm was more comforting than Lucas’s swearing valiantly to protect me. I didn’t want him to die for me.

“We’d best be off,” Meg declared, leaping to her feet
with a grace that was all deer bounding through twilight forests.