The Faerie Prince (Creepy Hollow, #2) (33 page)

“We never told Rose or Zinnia. We carried on with our lives.” Dad takes another deep breath. “Rose was killed on one of her assignments. Reed had his terrible accident. Linden eventually decided to leave both the Guild and his family.” Ryn shifts in his chair, but says nothing. “With my partner gone, I volunteered for an undercover assignment looking into the activities of one of the Unseelie Princes.”

“Zell,” I mutter.

“Yes. At first I worked alone, but as it became clear the prince was planning something big and long-term, other guardians became part of the investigation. Do you remember your friend Cecy?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Her father and I managed to infiltrate Zell’s closest circle of friends. We learned a lot about him. His relationship with his mother has always been unstable; they’ve never seen eye to eye. He’s always felt he would make a better ruler, but, unfortunately for him, he’s last in line for the throne. And unfortunately for
us
, after several months of being on the inside, Zell found out we were actually guardians.

“We both got away from him, but, in retaliation, Zell went after our families. Cecy was almost killed, saved only by the fact that her babysitter that day was also a skilled guardian. Her parents made an immediate decision to leave the Guild and run. I considered doing the same thing, but I was too determined to bring Zell down to admit defeat. It seemed the only way I could do that
and
protect you was if he thought I was dead and no longer a threat to him.

“By that stage, I was reporting directly to the Queen herself. We planned my death together. I had thought we would make it look like my body had been destroyed, but she said that would be too suspicious a death. So she found a shapeshifter criminal and used him instead.” Dad leans forward and wraps his hands around the mug. “And, well, that’s really all there is to it. I’ve secretly been living at the palace ever since and continuing my investigation into Zell’s activities. I know he’s planning to try and take over the Unseelie Court, and possibly the Seelie Court and the Guilds. I know he’s collecting an army of faeries with special powers, although he isn’t able to control them all yet. And I also know he’s planning to get hold of all six griffin discs and unlock the chest to take Tharros’ power for himself. What I don’t know is
when
he’s planning his big move.”

“I suppose he’s waiting until he has all six discs,” I say. “He has four already—the four Angelica managed to collect before she locked herself up—so now he just needs to get hold of Linden’s and the sixth one you guys never found.”

“I’ll contact my father and tell him to make sure his is well hidden,” Ryn says.

Dad shakes his head. “He’ll want to know how you know about it. Rather say nothing. I trust he’s hidden it well.”

I place my empty mug on the table as something occurs to me. “Dad, how have you been continuing your investigation if Zell knows what you look like?”

“Just because we’re all faeries and can’t use glamours with one another doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to disguise ourselves.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me the way he did when I was little. “I’ve had to be quite inventive at times.”

“I wish I could have seen that,” I say with a laugh.

Ryn stands and sends the mugs back into the kitchen with a wave of his hand. “I should go now. You guys probably have some catching up to do that doesn’t involve me.”

“Yes,” I say before Dad can invite Ryn to stay longer. “I’ll, uh, see you around.”
After enough time has passed so that things are no longer epically weird between us.

When the doorway has vanished behind Ryn, I ask Dad a question I think I probably know the answer to. “Will you be able to visit here again?”

He hesitates before answering, which isn’t a good sign. “To be honest, it’ll be very difficult. But I promise I’ll try.”

“Okay. Will you be in trouble if the Queen finds out you came here?”

“Oh, she already knows. I told her what happened at the Seelie Court. She wasn’t too happy that we ran into each other, but since you and Ryn are now both guardians and not just little children, she believes you can be trusted. And it’s not like she really has a choice; she has to trust you now that you know.”

I fiddle with the edge of the cushion on my lap. “I don’t think I made the best first impression on her.”

Dad tilts his head to the side. “You obviously made
some
kind of impression. I believe her exact words to me were, ‘That daughter of yours has just as much spunk as her mother had.’”

“Spunk. Wow. That’s a compliment, right?”

Dad laughs. “I think so.” He spreads his hands open. “So, what else do you want to talk about before I have to leave?”

My birthday is tomorrow.

I’ve never been big on celebrating this annual event; it isn’t all that fun when you don’t have many friends or family to party with, and it’s just another day, really. Faeries have hundreds of birthdays—assuming our lives aren’t snuffed out early by some menacing magical creature—so why make a big deal of it every year? Despite having explained this to Tora a number of times, I know she’s planning something for tomorrow night. I wonder if she’s invited Ryn. I’m torn between wanting to be around him and not wanting to face the awkwardness between us.

Over the past two days I’ve spent most waking moments replaying the conversation Dad and I had the night he came over. I’m still amazed that he was right here in this house, sitting on our couch and drinking from one of our mugs like nothing has changed. I tried not to cry when he left; I almost succeeded.

The rest of my waking moments are spent trying
not
to replay The Kiss. That takes a lot of effort, which means there aren’t any waking moments left to figure out if I should accept the Guild’s job offer. I’m hoping my brain is figuring it out while I’m sleeping because I have to give Councilor Starkweather an answer tomorrow.

Because I have nothing else to do, I use the social networking spell Ryn taught me and check the random updates of the few people I seem to be ‘following’. It annoys me that I feel a weird kind of disappointment when I find there are no updates from Ryn. I consider writing something in the blank bubble at the bottom of my amber’s rectangular surface, but what would I write?

Birthdays are boring.

I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life now that I’ve graduated.

My father faked his own death and is actually alive.

Nope. None of those seem like good options. So, once again, I end the spell without having written anything. I go to the cupboard in the study and pull out a box of Card Eaters. I haven’t played in years, but seeing Ryn and Calla playing recently reminded me that it can be kind of fun in its own simple way.

“Filigree,” I call as I head back out to the sitting room. He comes slinking down the stairs in the form of a panther. “Want to play cards?” I hold the box up. He sits down beside the low table and curls his tail around his legs. He blinks expectantly. “Great,” I say. I sit on the floor on the other side of the table and deal the cards out between us. Filigree nudges his pile of cards with one of his paws. “Yeah, okay, you know that’s not going to work, right? You need to shift to something else.” Filigree flicks an ear, then melts into an orange, furry form that turns out to be an orangutan. He picks his cards up. “Okay, you go first,” I tell him.

An hour later, Filigree is beating me. I know it’s partly down to luck and the fact that he obviously got stronger cards than I did, but it’s still embarrassing. I look down at the four cards left in my hand. I’ve got moss—the second weakest card in the whole game—a pixie, a boulder, and an ogre, which is the only card I can play right now. I look at Filigree’s hairy hands; he has only two cards left, and they’re probably both stronger than anything I’ve got. He’s almost sure to win. I’m about to place my ogre card on top of his troll card, when I hear a knock against the tree.

Could it be Dad?

No. The sun has only just begun to set. I’m sure he’d wait for darkness before visiting again. But as I walk toward the wall, I can’t help the nervous energy coursing through me. It might be him. After all, it is my birthday tomorrow.

I wipe my hand across the wall and . . . it’s Ryn.

Great.

“My, uh, long-lost relative isn’t here tonight, so unless you’re here to visit Filigree, there isn’t anyone else in this home who wants to see you.”

He tilts his head to the side. “Why are you nervous?”

I place my hands on my hips. “Is there no way you can turn that off? Because I really don’t appreciate you knowing exactly what I’m feeling.”

“Nope. Trust me, if there were a way to turn it off, I would have found it by now.”

He appears to be holding something behind his back, which makes suspicious. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“Are you going to invite me in?”

I make no move to stand aside.

“Fine,” he says. “It’s your birthday tomorrow. I’d like to give you something.”

“You already gave me something,” I remind him. “New amber and an expensive charm.”

“Okay, well, now I have something else to give you. And,” he adds, “it’s rude to refuse a gift.”

“And yet we both know being rude has never been a problem when it comes to the two of us.”

He looks down at his feet, then up again. “Please?” he says softly.

Damn. He sure knows how to do the sexy-smoldering-eyes thing; he could probably light a freaking fire with the look he’s currently giving me. And he knows it, dammit, because I bet he can
feel
my insides melting. I clear my throat. “Um, okay, come in.”

“Actually, I don’t want to give it to you here. I’d like you to come somewhere with me.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Is this something to do with the party Tora and Raven are planning? Because I thought that was tomorrow.”

“It is. And since you don’t like surprises, I’ll tell you exactly what time it is and who’s coming if you’ll just follow me now.”

“You’re being weird.”

“And I’ll be even weirder and get down on my knees and beg, if I have to. I’ve done it before, remember?”

I do remember, and I really don’t need him to go that far this time. “Okay, okay, I’ll go with you. Just let me get my boots.”

“And a jacket,” Ryn calls after me. “You might get cold.”

I grab my things and apologize to Filigree on the way back down the stairs. “We can finish later,” I tell him, hoping he’ll have forgotten about the game by then.

I seal up my tree. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” Ryn catches my hand as we walk through the doorway he opened. We aren’t in the darkness for long, but all I can think about is what happened the last time we were stuck in complete darkness with each other. When light materializes ahead of us, I drop his hand. We walk out into the leafy haven of our ancient gargan tree. It’s beautiful here with the reds, golds and oranges of the setting sun peeping through the branches.

“Do you remember that poem by Mil Crowthorn about the riches of nature?” I say as I stare up at the sky.

“‘
Give me the setting sun, and I’ll be a richer man than most. For never have I seen gold like that which glows above the earth. Give me the night sky, and I’ll be the richest man for sure. For never have I seen diamonds like those that dance beside the moon.
’”

“Yes. That’s how I feel,” I murmur. “I don’t need anything more for my birthday than that sky.”

“Maybe just this,” Ryn says, presenting me with a small silk-wrapped package.

I untie the silver string and hold the bundle in my hand as the silk layers fall away. Lying in the center are the colorful ribbons I found in my mother’s hiding place, but instead of a messy bunch, they’ve been fashioned into a proper bracelet. The ribbons lie neatly in line, held together on either end with a silver bead. The loose ends that will hang down my arm when the bracelet is on each have a small crystal attached to the end.

“The ribbons looked so pretty on your arm,” Ryn says. “So I took them to Raven and asked her to make them into a bracelet.” He takes it from my hand and fastens it around my wrist. The crystals sparkle where the light catches them.