The Earl's Childe (18 page)

CHAPTER

9

It's not like
my
family has a monopoly on weirdness. Weird stuff just happens to like visiting us for tea. Or Horse Camp
.

At breakfast, the big dining room table was covered with its fake top, and a buffet table was set up against the windowed wall looking onto the courtyard garden. When everyone had assembled, Mum stood at the head of the table and clinked her coffee cup for attention.

“Good morning! I hope at least some of you managed some sleep.” She paused, smirking at the collection of bleary eyes, only some of us awake enough to chuckle and snicker at such a thought. “For those of you who have been here before, including my own children,” she gave a stern look at each of us, “bear with me while I go over everything, because there are some changes and important announcements this year. For you who haven't been here before, well, I'm sure you've got an idea that this is going to be a little different than your regular schooling experience.”

The room responded with nods and affirmative grunts around food and drink. I looked around to see who the student was that had arrived last night. On a far corner of the table, not currently engaged in any conversation, was a boy who looked about the same age as Chris and Jared. He had dark brown hair and eyes of an odd shade of blue, which I couldn't see very well. He sat in his chair, focusing on his food, and keeping his elbows close, as if he didn't want to touch anyone.

Mum frowned, put down her coffee mug, and folded her arms. “Really? I know more than half of you have been here before.”

That half of us sat up straighter and responded with a “Yes, ma'am.” Usually Mum went easy on us during the first breakfast, but, all things considered, I could see why she was demanding our full attention right away.

“The first and entirely non-negotiable rule is that
Safety Comes First
. If you make a mistake, and you don't know better, you get one chance, and one chance only, for that mistake. Make that mistake again, and I contact your parents, and you leave. If I catch anyone deliberately putting any person or animal in harm's way, you will have twenty-four hours to leave these premises, or you will be escorted off. Are we clear on this?”

“Yes, ma'am!” Even New Guy was paying attention. Now that I could see his eyes better, they looked almost purple and fiercely intense, similar to how Joe's eyes can get, except Joe has green eyes. Then I remembered New Guy was the son of some earl, and I wondered if that kind of facial expression was just natural in royal and noble people or if they all just practiced at it really hard.

Mum's voice yanked my attention back to her. “Speaking of safety, we've received reports of some wild dogs that have been seen in the park nearby. Until I hear that these animals have been caught, we're suspending trail rides through the park, and if I catch anyone, and I mean
anyone
, leaving the castle property and going into the park, the consequences of deliberately putting yourself or someone in danger is immediate expulsion. Are we clear?”

The “Yes, ma'am” was definitely more subdued this time.

Lily, who sat across the table and a few seats down, gave me a questioning look.

“Later,” I mouthed.

She nodded.

I jumped at an unexpected poke.

Just behind me, not sitting at the table but carrying a plate with a scone, my younger brother, Rowan, scowled at me. Rowan has eyes like my dad's, which you can actually
feel
when he's angry. I squirmed in my chair. He'd actually helped me with faery stuff a few times. But Rowan was only eight years old, and he was autistic, so with Lily home, I wasn't including him so much; I thought he'd be safer that way. The look on his face let me know he was onto me and didn't like this change at all.

Mum had continued talking, and she had her eye on us. “I'll tell you more later, too,” I whispered without moving my lips. “Promise.”

With a growl, he stepped away and leaned on the wall, far away from the noise and the chance of getting touched by any of the other kids. While newer students looked at him oddly, the rest knew this was pretty “normal” Rowan behavior.

The rest of Mum's speech let us know, one more time, in case we forgot, there was
absolutely no traveling off the castle property or even, in fact, outside the stables, training rings, and nearest gardens under any circumstances, ever, or else!

The problem with her emphasis on staying by the castle was that the kids' murders a few weeks ago, by Ehrwnmyr (but pinned on a “changeling,” an unalive human body that the police had found by the loch), was a pretty big news item. I should know; the whole reason
I
was the one involved in faery politics, Ermie, and all that was because
I
had had the brilliant idea of going looking for the kids who, when we started, were just “missing.”

I could see Jared and Chris looking at each other with rebellious plans in their eyes. We'd always been able to roam freely, so they knew something was up. I glanced at Lily, who also frowned from the boys to me. She mouthed a big sigh and shook her head. We were going to have our hands full with this, but at least she was working with me. If nothing else, she could use her Super-Cute-Lily powers to distract them or something. Maybe she could even help Livy with her flirt powers; Livy would be all over any scheme to get Chris's attention.

Eventually, Mum finished talking, we all finished eating, and we headed outside to the stables.

I lingered behind with Rowan. When everyone was out of earshot, I started recounting about how I'd thought of sending Ermie to rescue Joe, and how that had made him angry because he could have gotten hurt.

“So, who will help Joe and Annie and Richard?” Small crinkles grew around his eyes and over his brow.

“Th-they've got royal guards and teams going after them, Hunter said.” I looked to the floor as we shuffled out behind the other students. “And we need to be safe here in case that Unseelie lord cousin-guy of Lord Cadmus's shows up and tries to attack us.

“Do you think he will?” There was a tremble in my brother's voice.

“So, what's with the wild dog story Mum's talking about?” Lily had circled back and now walked between Rowan and me, throwing an arm around me.

Rowan's expression morphed into one of those “if looks could kill” glares at Lily, and he growled in his throat.

She twitched her lips at him. “Cool it, kiddo. We need to know these things if we're going to keep everyone safe!”

He sniffed hard, every muscle in his body tensing.

“You cool it, Lily. I'm bringing Rowan up to speed. And I don't think
we,”
I gestured to the three of us, “have much of a chance keeping people safe on our own. We couldn't even handle Ermie by ourselves.” Lily rolled her eyes, but before she could speak, I quickly continued,
“Anyway
, Rowan, Ermie said he will help us, and he gave Mum and me some ideas on how to negotiate and maybe get Lady Fana and Lord Cadmus to help us rather than us helping them, or something like that.” Granted, he didn't exactly tell us how to contact the two daoine síth, but A) I didn't want to freak Rowan out any more than I knew he was, and B) Ermie
did
sort-of, kind-of suggest that if Calbraith attacked, Lord Cadmus and Lady Fana might seek us out, if we could make ourselves look like valuable assets. “And Mum's comment about the dogs is 'cos Ermie said he could smell red caps near our land.”

“Red
caps?”
My younger brother all but squealed.

“How do you even
know
what a red cap is?” Lily asked.

Rowan turned his wide eyes to her, emotions of terror over the news and anger at Lily warring for control of his face.

“Do
you
even know?” I spat back at her. I don't know why, but I felt like I needed to side with Rowan.

“Evil, nasty, wicked…fairy things that, um, wear bloody clothes.” Lily was trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about.

“They sharpen their teeth on the bones of the people they eat and they dye their hats red with the blood of the people they kill and are next to impossible to hurt and they're very strong and can break bones with their hands. They eat you alive!” My brother had stopped, frozen and shaking.

“But they're not
on
our property, and they can't cross any of the salt lines Dad put around the castle proper,” I assured him. “And Ehrwnmyr
can
fight them. And he promised he will. He knows his job is to protect all of us.”

Rowan started taking in deep breaths, and I saw him mouthing numbers as he counted to calm himself down.

“How do
you
know this?” Lily folded her arms, raising her eyebrow at our brother.

Once again, anger and annoyance started to overtake my brother's expression. “I read. I know how to read. I was reading before Heather even met the kelpie 'cos I wanted to know about goblins. They were in a book.”

“Whatever,” my sister said. “It's not like you're going to be dealing with the red caps—”

“Whatever, you!” Face twisted even more, Rowan stormed by us and out the door.

“Really, Lily? Did you have to go and do that? He's going to be a mess all day now! You know how he gets—”

Lily cut me off. “Yeah, he'll spend the day cheesed at me as opposed to scared crapless about more human-eating faery monsters. You should be thanking me.” She picked up her pace as we got closer to the stables. “C'mon. I don't want Jared or Chris or anyone getting some dumb ideas to go looking for trouble.
You
saw them this morning.”

I nodded and pushed myself to jog to where everyone was filing into the main stable. The last thing we needed was for more of us to try and be heroes.

Of course, my saving-people-from-being-heroes plan got sidetracked within two minutes of entering the barn. Everybody was expected to groom and tack up their own horses.

And I no longer had a horse. Not a normal one, anyway.

Mum had set Sarah Beth, supervised by Rowan of all people, on my pony, Clint Eastwood. Of course, I'd promised Sarah Beth that she could use East whenever she wanted. Strangely enough, Rowan seemed pleased with his new job and was explaining, very patiently, how to pick up each hoof to clean it. I was happy for her, but missing my pony hurt more than I'd thought.

Mum noticed me standing in the middle of the aisle and bit her lip. “Heather, here, use Chixie.” She handed me the lead rope to Dad's chestnut thoroughbred.

“Thanks,” I said, though, of all the horses in the barn, I disliked Chixie the most. And I'm quite sure she hated me, and that was before I tried riding her down to challenge Ermie at the loch, and she threw me three ways to Thursday. If I had any doubt about her sentiments, she curled her lips and blew her nose on me the second I approached. Then she stomped her foot less than a centimeter from mine.

“Stop it!” Mum smacked her leg and looked at me. “Don't let her give you attitude, hon. Okay?”

“Yeah. No attitude. Got it.” I frowned and sighed.

“You've worked with worse attitudes before.” She winked and I couldn't help but smile. “Right?”

I could do this.

Mum had each of us do a quick test for her and the coaches so she could place us in appropriate groups. After a fight that lasted about two seconds, Chixie actually listened to me and ran a perfect dressage pattern! No problems!

That accomplished, I—and all of the other teens, almost-teens, Mum, and the adult coaches—got caught up with someone else and his problems.

New Guy had been struggling just to hold his horse, a jet-black monster that reminded me of Ermie, except it was just a horse. Its eyes bugged out, and it was being down right aggressive, stomping, kicking, and whipping its head around, teeth bared. Mum was already frowning, arms folded.

Shaking her head, she stalked over to New Guy as he put his foot in the stirrup and his horse bounced up. Yanking on the reins, he managed to mount with a jump. Several of the other students, catching my mum's eye, backed away from him as she approached.