Stolen Away (8 page)

What a weird thing to worry about actually happening.

I made my way toward the west end of the park. The pond glimmered, framed by the banks and sprinkled with wild lilies. A swan floated on the surface and ignored me completely. There were slight rolls and dips in the grass but nothing I’d call a proper hill without a great deal of wishful thinking. I kicked at the weeds, finding nothing but more weeds; no convenient magic door or wooden sign painted with
THIS WAY TO YE OLDE FAERY COURTS
.

There was, however, a tiny winged fairy lifting out of a hawthorn bush.

I might have thought it was a blue jay or a really big butterfly, something
normal
anyway. But then she turned her head and looked straight at me.

I slid right off my feet and onto my butt, choking on a scream.

It’s not that I hadn’t believed Eloise. I mean, the trick
with my computer had been pretty unfathomable, but this was something else entirely.

“You’re real!” I gaped.

She sniffed. “Of course, I am. You humans don’t get any less arrogant, do you?”

“Uh.”
Brilliant, Jo
, I thought. I swallowed, forced my brain not to skitter around like a bee at a windowpane. “Where did you come from?”

“I’ve always been here.” She hovered, letting the light breeze lift her up. Part of me was looking for invisible wires. “You must have been Touched, to see me now.”

I shook my head as if that would bring order to my thoughts. “Eloise didn’t say anything about you being so small. Is she being held captive by a moth-king or something?”

Her lips might have been the color of cotton candy, but they lifted off teeth that were sharp as needles, though still not as sharp as the disdain in her bluebell eyes. “Blast that dodgy old poet,” she muttered. “And the bloody Victorians with all their bloody stories.”

“The Victorians?”

“Idiots, the lot of them.” She paused, glared at me. “You’re not a writer, are you?”

“Uh …”

She sighed, disgusted. “I always get stuck with you nutters.”

I frowned. “Hey.” Her wings were so thin and translucent, I could see the glow of sunlight through them, like violet
petals. Her hair was a mass of tiny braids. “Um … what does this have to do with the Victorians?”

“I was tall and stately before them, wasn’t I?” She plucked at her petal skirt. “And I’d never have worn this ridiculous dress. I had proper armor and a sword with opals in the hilt. And then one cursed morning, over a hundred years ago now, I left the rath and some arse of a poet with the Sight saw me. He was so convinced, had believed for so bloody long that fairies were these wee pretty things, that the sheer force of his belief and that of his daft artist friends, eventually shrank me down.” She fanned her wings indignantly. “You try finding a sword small enough to be of any use to me.”

I was still sitting on the ground, dampness seeping into my skirt. I shivered. “Maybe it’s the flu,” I said suddenly.

“Don’t be stupid, we don’t get the flu.”

I rubbed at my face, nearly laughed. “Not you, me. Maybe I have a fever. That would explain everything.”

She sighed, drifted down to look at me. Even with her impressive wings she was only about a foot long. “This part is so tiresome,” she told me. “Could you catch up? I hate having to convince people that they’re not crazy. Maybe you are, it’s nothing to do with me. And I’m not buzzing about forcing you to convince me you’re real, am I?”

“Um, no?”

“Good. Here’s the usual list of rational explanations, none of which pertain here: some sort of drug, it was laudanum back when I got caught; illness; hallucination; trickery; or
else a vivid dream of some sort. I don’t think I’ve left anything out.”

I swallowed, strangely comforted. “Okay. Know anything about Antonia Hart and why one of your lot would have kidnapped my best friend?”

“Did you say Hart?” She paled, cockiness fading slightly. “Blast.”

She was gone before I could ask her anything else, but not before I’d seen the look of stark terror on her delicate face.

I don’t know how long I sat there, waiting. I’d slipped the pendant back under my collar after Jo’s voice faded away and that felt like it had been hours ago. The contact bolstered me a little, enough that I didn’t feel quite so hysterical. If I knew Jo, she was already researching. I hated that all I could do right now was wait.

I hated it more when the oak door creaked open and then the silver curlicue grate after that. A guard strolled in holding a small trunk, which he dropped on the rug with a thump. “Put this on, little morsel.”

I lifted the lid and pulled out a frilly white corset, frilly white petticoats, and a burgundy dress that looked both complicated and revealing. “I don’t think so.”

He raised an eyebrow, the feather in his hair ruffling over
the black feathers carved into his armor. “Then Lord Strahan will see you naked at his dinner table.”

I knew I went pale as milk, then flushed to the color of ripe strawberries. He laughed. “Lord Strahan always gets his way.” He nudged me with the tip of his boot. “Want some help, lass?”

I drew back, lifted my chin.“I can manage.”

“Pity.”

I waited until he’d left and shut the heavy door behind him. I was pretty sure the reason the others were leaving me relatively alone wasn’t because they didn’t want to hurt me, but rather because Strahan wanted to hurt me more. I was starting to feel nauseous. I had to force myself to get up and sort through the clothes. The last thing I wanted was for them to march back in and find me only half-dressed and use that as an excuse to drag me out in my underwear. Or worse.

I was really grateful for all those long dull Victorian movies that Jo loved so much. It was the only reason I was able to vaguely recognize some of the lace and linen piled in a heap on the bed. The lacy pant-things went on first and then the corset—just in case I wasn’t already feeling dizzy and lightheaded enough. There was a lump that looked like it was stuffed with cotton batting and I assumed it was the bustle so I used the ribbons to tie it around my waist before pulling the dress over my head. The lace clung to the corset, then spilled over the edge into frothy cupcake ribbons and pleats at the
bottom. My bare shoulders poked out of peek-a-boo cuts in the fabric. The collar was ruffled with white lace, closed at the throat. There was just enough space to hide my necklace in my cleavage, thanks to the corset. I’d never actually had cleavage before; Jo had all the boobs, I had all the skinny. I thought I’d feel silly in the dress, but it made me stand a little taller.

The doors swung open, clanging against the wall. A guard jerked her head for me to follow her. I swallowed, frozen in place. She paused and turned her head. “Walk or be dragged.”

I walked. The hallway was lit with ornate beaded lamps of various sizes. There were crystal bowls filled with lilies everywhere. She wasn’t a crow-guard. There were no feathers in her hair, and her armor looked more like a beetle’s carapace, shiny black with streaks of green and blue. As she led me back to the main hall, the scent of lilies grew stronger and more cloying.

Exquisite crystal chandeliers glittered overhead, revealing Lord Strahan in a frock coat made entirely of black PVC. Devin’s Goth sister would have drooled over it. In fact, she would have loved this whole place, with its overdone glitter and edge. I just wanted our tiny apartment with the cracked Formica counters and radiator that clanked and groaned through the winter.

“Much better,” he said, giving me the once-over. “Can’t do much about the hair, I suppose, but it’s not so ghastly as all that.”

I just glared at him. I was so out of my depth it was ridiculous. He kept smiling, like a proud host. His harem of ghostly ladies floated behind him. “You’ve met my Grey Ladies. Now, do sit down.”

His genteel manners were getting to be as creepy as the rest of this nightmare. I sat in the chair he nodded to, mostly because the beetle-girl shoved me down into it. She stood behind me, straight and alert. I knew if I so much as moved a muscle away from the blue brocade cushions, I’d be feeling the tip of one of the daggers hanging from her belt.

“Please let me go,” I whispered.

Strahan waved that away as if I were being ridiculous. The Grey Ladies laughed, and it was the sound of ice cracking on a lake, swallowing an unprepared person entirely.

“We’ve a ball to look forward to,” he said. “It’s barely a week from Samhain and we must celebrate. Your aunt wouldn’t miss it. She’ll think to gain her crown back, won’t she?”

I’d seen my aunt in ripped jeans, torn T-shirts, and ropes of crystal beads, but never a crown.

“Bring the others in,” he said to a man in a starched cravat and holly leaves for hair. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat in my chair and tried not to scream. Maybe if I sat quietly enough I could find out what was going on, get some snippet of information that made sense. I wondered where Lucas was and if he knew I was here and why Strahan seemed so infuriated by the mere mention of the Richelieu family. That
alone made me want to find every Richelieu in the world and kiss them. With tongue.

The hall bustled with servants and courtiers, the latter lounging about eating sugar-frosted cakes and bowls of chocolate topped with pink whipped cream. There were tables piled with foods of all types: fragrant pastries; honey-painted breads; berries and custards; and crystal tureens boiling with hot chocolate, ginger tea, and that odd pink champagne. My stomach rumbled lightly. It didn’t care that I was terrified and held against my will, it only wanted to eat some of those éclairs. I looked away before I started to drool.

The doors at the other end were held open and guards marched in, taking their place, in two perfectly straight lines. The courtiers stopped chattering and a silence slid into every available space, like water, cold and soft and dangerous.

Creature after creature was led into the hall and chained to the wall. Iron touched fairy flesh and the smell of burning mingled with wilting lily. Some walked proudly, some were dragged, wailing. Some were beautiful, some were bizarre; all were bruised or cut or dead-eyed. I shivered, tried to look away, couldn’t. He was collecting them like wooden masks or silver beads.

There was a tall, thin woman with birch branches in her hair; a man bleeding what looked like sap; a woman who was half girl, half wren; a white dog with red ears on a choke chain; a mermaid with a peeling fish tail; and Winifreda with her torn wings.

Strahan clucked his tongue. “This won’t do,” he said blandly. “They’re tattered and hardly impressive enough to be enjoyed as entertainment at the ball. I’m known for my collection, after all. Heal them, clean them up, and for God’s sake, do something about that fish smell.”

Several of the guards nearest to us bowed in unison. A young man began to move through the crowd, setting the corseted courtiers to whispering. Strahan lifted his head like a hunter testing the air before the chase.

“Ah, Eldric,” he said, satisfied. “Home at last.”

Eldric was about my age, maybe a couple of years older, with a lean and handsome face. He looked human, but with a kind of fierce dignity that was something else entirely. His scuffed boots and ratty jeans didn’t fit in at all. In fact, Strahan sniffed once. “You stink of them.”

Eldric shrugged. “You were the one who sent me up there.” He saw me and stilled, except for the flaring of his eyes, like coal catching fire. “Who’s she, then?”

“Who do you think?” Strahan said with a hint of warning and something I couldn’t recognize. The Grey Ladies drifted over, stroked Eldric’s cheek, swooned and sighed. He ignored them. I had to bite my teeth down to keep them from chattering together. The Grey Ladies weren’t any less creepy when they were flirting.

I really didn’t recognize my life anymore and I’d been here less than a full day.

“She doesn’t look like much,” Eldric said. One of the
guards handed him a cup, which he drained and handed back. “Thank you, Malik.” When he leaned over me, I smelled honey and wine. There was something not quite tame about him, like a wild dog who might as easily eat from your hand as bite it right off.

“Back off.” It would have sounded more impressive if my voice hadn’t given out into a pathetic little croak. He smiled insolently. I wanted to punch him.

“She reminds me of that pet ferret I had.” He glanced at Strahan. “Before you drowned it.”

Strahan didn’t look particularly penitent, only nodded at the guards to start leading the captives out. Eldric watched dispassionately, though I did see his jaw clenching.

“Anything?” Strahan asked, so nonchalantly I knew it must be important.

Eldric shrugged again. Everyone else winced, stepped back a little as if they wanted to be unobtrusive. The air crackled. “They’re like cattle, huddling together. I’ll never understand it.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Eldric pushed his long hair off his face where it kept tangling, lifted by the Grey Ladies’ adoring breaths. “Nothing. This one”—he barely glanced at me—“hasn’t even been missed yet.”

“And Antonia?”

“No trail and none of our scouts have heard anything. Even the Seelie courts aren’t sure where she’s at.”

That made me feel better for my aunt even though white lines of suppressed fury tightened Strahan’s mouth. “So near Samhain. She should be here by now.”

That did
not
make me feel better.

“And the Richelieu?”

“Not talking. Do they ever?”

“Clearly, you’re not being persuasive enough.” He smoothed the lace at his cuffs. “You’ll be ready.” It wasn’t a question.

Eldric bowed, but it was all cockiness and condescension.

“Yes, Father.”

• • •

When I was taken back to my room, every available surface was covered in platters of food and jugs of cider, mead, and peach nectar. There was an entire roasted chicken, herb-encrusted olives, mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, warm bread, jars of blackberry jam, stewed apples, ice cream that didn’t melt, cherries floating in some kind of chocolate cream, rice-stuffed grape leaves, spinach pies, chocolate muffins, croissants, and every color of jelly bean imaginable.