Wondrous Strange (15 page)

“What are you doing?” he whispered. “I’m a Janus—there’s no reason for me to hide from my king.”

“Oh, really?” Bob whispered back. “Somehow I get the feeling that your king would not approve of the company you keep. I stole his daughter, remember? Nor, I think, would he appreciate the fact that you’ve yet to tell him of your discovery.”

“I was going to!”

“When?”

“After Kelley’s had a chance to get used to the idea,” Sonny said, although he wasn’t entirely sure he believed his own assertions. Why
hadn’t
he told Auberon straightaway?

“Well, never mind that now,” Bob said, peering through the balcony rails. “I think she’s about to receive a little fatherly face time, whether she’s used to the idea or not.”

Down on the stage, all of the actors, the crew, and the director stood frozen like statues in a garden. Auberon stalked
among them like a predator, searching their faces. He cast a glance up toward the balconies.

Bob’s spell held. The king turned and kept walking, heading toward the dressing rooms and Kelley.

K
elley didn’t mind that she still had to help out backstage, even though she was now playing a lead. She was good with her hands and she hummed as she plugged in the glue gun and went to work peeling back the faux fur on the left ear of Bottom’s ass head. It kept drooping in front of her face in their scenes together.

The wave of arctic air hit her like a physical assault.

“Hello, Kelley.” The voice was sonorous with a faint crackling hiss. “I am Auberon, King of the Unseelie Court of the Realm of Faerie. I am also your father.”

Kelley felt a surge of fear tighten her stomach and willed her hands not to shake. She’d been half expecting this. She looked up from her work.

“My father was a doctor.”

The Faerie king chuckled. “A healer of the sick. How noble.
You
do not get sick. You have no need of such creatures. And
I
am your father. None other.”

“My
father
was a doctor,” she said again. Her hand went white-knuckled on the glue gun as she squeezed out a bead of melted adhesive along the base of the ear. “When I was four years old, he taught me how to properly bandage my knee when I skinned it. My mother showed me later how to take the dressing off without it hurting. What have you ever done for me?
They
were my parents and they loved me. How dare you tell me that they weren’t!”

Auberon took a step inside the room, over her threshold, and Kelley felt the clover charm at her throat spark and grow warm.

She glared balefully at the king. “Now that I’m, what, almost an adult? You suddenly appear in a puff of smoke and you want to assert some sort of parental claim on me? The Deadbeat Dad from Faerie Land? Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know you. I don’t need to. You might have been responsible for my creation, but you certainly had nothing to do with what I’ve become. I plan on keeping it that way.”

To her surprise, Auberon smiled. “I think that’s an excellent
idea,” he said. “And I’d like to help you with that—if you don’t mind.”

Kelley put the glue gun down and stared at the Faerie king. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yes, you would,” he said, a not quite subtle note of warning in his voice. “If you weren’t my daughter.”

Kelley blinked and dropped her gaze back down to the furry head in her lap. The hollow eyes seemed to stare back at her, full of caution.

“Kelley,” the king said, softening his tone, “you know that you are in a great deal of danger because of the simple fact that you are my daughter, do you not?”

“In danger from whom, exactly?”

Auberon spread his hands before him. “There are those who would use you—hurt you—because of what you are. When you were stolen from me, I mourned. I…raged. But eventually, I came to see the theft as a blessing in disguise. I have always tried to govern my folk with a just hand, but the Courts of the realm are fractious and fraught with danger. As long as you remain hidden in the mortal world, you are safe.”

“
You
found me.”

“I found you quite by accident. And only because Sonny Flannery found you first. But you are right. There are others who might prove as clever. And that puts you in grave danger, my child. You must remain hidden. For your own sake, if not mine.”

“And what if I decide to take my chances?” Kelley asked.
“Embrace my heritage—whatever that is?”

“Then you will most likely perish,” the Faerie king said quietly. “I offer you a bargain. I can see to it that you keep your life—the life that you have made for yourself. I can make you as good as mortal. If you let me.”

Kelley’s tone was sharp. “You want to keep me from my birthright?” Almost everything she had learned about the Fair Folk over the last few days had served to scare the hell out of her—the Otherworld sounded like a place full of treachery and danger. But although she was loath to admit it, even among her fears there was a tiny part of her that remembered how truly awesome it had been to ride with the Faerie in Herne’s hunting party. To be clothed in silk and jewels, galloping through the skies with godlike beings so beautiful they seemed made of starlight, laughing…Kelley closed her eyes and banished the seductive thoughts. No. She was pretty sure that she didn’t ever want to become a princess of Faerie, but she wasn’t about to let Auberon know that. “You want to make me ‘normal’? How is that a good deal for me in any way? And in exchange for what? There is nothing you have that I want. Nothing.”

“Not even a certain member of my Janus Guard?”

“You leave Sonny out of this! He’s not yours to give.”

“Perhaps not…” Auberon sank gracefully into a crouch in front of her chair and looked up at her. “But tell me this. How does he look at you now?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Now that he knows? Knows
what
you are.”

Kelley swallowed to ease a sudden constricting of her throat.

“Oh, my dear girl,” Auberon murmured, the chill in his voice suddenly thawing. She could imagine that she heard actual concern in his words. “I raised Sonny. I’ve watched him ever since he was a child. I know what he thinks of me and of my people. He respects us—and, indeed, there is a small, secret part of him that would sacrifice almost anything for the chance to
become
one of us. But he is not capable of loving us.”

“Sonny’s not afraid of you.”

“No. He isn’t,” the king agreed. “In fact, he has spent most of his life learning to kill my kind.
Our
kind. He’s very good at it.”

“Well that’s a marvelous legacy you’ve left him, isn’t it?” Kelley refused to look away. She stared straight into his eyes, the fierceness of her emotions making her hands shake. “Way to raise up the kid you stole.”

Auberon stood, rich garments falling in regal folds all around him. “I do not wish to quarrel with you, Kelley. I merely tell you this to save you further hurt. It is not within Sonny Flannery to love a Faerie queen. He cannot rise above his upbringing; and if you remain as you are, he will begin to resent that which you are. It is inevitable. If you retain your birthright, my dear girl, you will lose him. Maybe not at first and not all at once, but you will. But I can make it so that you
need never see that coldness creep into his gaze.”

“Get out.”

“Consider my words.” Auberon turned to go, but hesitated. “You have your mother’s eyes, you know….”

“Get
out
,” Kelley said again through clenched teeth, closing her eyes as she turned away from him. When she opened them again, she was alone in her dressing room—shaking, a sticky mess of hot glue pooling on the counter in front of her.

“Kelley?” Sonny appeared at the door of her dressing room. “Are you all right? He didn’t…hurt you, did he?”

Sonny
…

She
had
seen how he’d reacted to her in the alleyway. In those brief moments when she’d felt…strange. She remembered the look in his eyes and she could not, in her imagination, convert that expression into one that could convey love. What if Auberon was right?

“Kelley?”

She thought suddenly about the rest of the cast and crew. If Auberon had been in the theater…“Is everyone okay?” She started for the door.

“They’re fine. Bob is out there right now making sure.”

“He’s one of them, isn’t he?” She felt for the charm around her neck, remembering Bob’s words to her yesterday. “Bob…”

“He used to be called Robin. Among other things.”

“Oh, God…,” Kelley whispered.

“He’s sort of the reason you’re in this world in the first place. Actually…we both are, it seems.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“I didn’t either, until he told me just now. Emma—your aunt—once went by another name. Emmaline Flannery.”

“Flannery? But…” Kelley understood then. “It was you. Em took me because Auberon took you.”

“Like I said”—Sonny smiled gently—“the Fates have an odd sense of humor.”

“You look like her,” she said. “Now that I know. I can see her in you. All that stubborn Irish crazy…”

There was a sheen to Sonny’s gray eyes. “I’d like to meet her.”

“You will.”

Sonny cast a glance in the direction of the high window. “It’s getting late.”

“It keeps doing that….” Kelley sighed. “You’re going to leave soon.”

Sonny nodded mutely and helped Kelley to her feet. He stood looking down at her and then took her face in his hands. Turning her head slightly, he ran his fingers through her hair, lifting back the loose auburn curls that fell around her cheeks. “You have his ears,” he said, running a fingertip over one subtle point.

Kelley shivered. “And my mother’s eyes, apparently.”

“Did he say who—”

“No. And I didn’t ask.”

Sonny lowered his hands and they stood there, inches apart, for an awkward moment. Suddenly he gathered her into his arms and held her in a tentative embrace. Kelley felt her heart swell. “I have to go now,” he murmured into her hair. “But…please be careful tonight. While I can’t be there to protect you. Be
careful
.”

“I
only need to know two things,” the Fennrys Wolf growled, stalking back and forth in front of the other Janus. “Where do you want me, and how do I kill whatever needs killing?”

“Well, that’s just it, Fenn,” Sonny tried to explain. “The answers to your questions are: We don’t know, and we don’t know.”

The Wolf rolled his eyes at that and retreated to perch on the back of a bench. The thirteen Janus had gathered after daybreak and a successful night’s hunting at Sonny’s request in a tucked-away bit of the park that offered enough seclusion
for the Guard to assemble without the police thinking they were some sort of gang.

“By now, all of you have been made aware of the possibility that someone is trying to wake the Wild Hunt, right?” Sonny looked from face to face. “The likeliest suspect, of course, is Queen Mabh, although a visit I had from one of her Storm Hags seemed to indicate that it may have been a
mistake
on Mabh’s part to release the kelpie into this realm. Or maybe she’s had a change of heart.”

“Mabh doesn’t have a heart,” Ghost said quietly.

“Good point,” Aaneel agreed. “I can’t help but think that she’d just laugh and kick her feet with glee if such a thing were to come to pass.”

“Well…whatever game she’s playing,” Sonny said, “we’ve got more pieces on the board to worry about than just the Queen of Air and Darkness.”

Maddox snorted. “I’ll say. Tell ’em whom we stumbled across, Old Sonn.”

Sonny took a deep breath and said, “The stolen child.”

The circle of changelings stared blankly at him, as if he’d suddenly spoken in an incomprehensible language.

“Auberon’s daughter?” Sonny prompted. “The lost princess. The reason the Gates were shut. The reason for
us
. I know where she is.”

“Who is she?” Aaneel asked.

“She’s…seventeen,” Sonny said. “An actress. Sweet. Happy. And up until—well, up until I told her—she had
absolutely no idea of what she is. Let alone who.”

“How is that even possible?” Bellamy glanced back and forth between Sonny and Maddox. Beside him, his sister’s brow was creased in a frown.

“She’s been kept well hidden with the help of a powerful talisman,” Sonny explained.

“Does Auberon know?” Beni asked.

“I didn’t tell him—”

“Don’t.” The interjection came from Cait.

“Why the hell not?” the Fennrys Wolf snapped, his pale eyes fierce.

Cait ignored him. “The poor girl! If Auberon finds out about her, he’ll want her back. The Unseelie Court is such a cold and joyless place.”

“Cait’s right, Sonny,” Camina agreed, the frown still shadowing her brow. Her eyes were troubled. “Don’t tell him.”

“Have you two gone insane?” the Wolf asked, pulling out a thin-bladed dagger from his boot and testing the sharpness of the edge against his thumb. “It’s the king’s bloody kid. Unless you’ve all forgotten, we serve at the pleasure of the king.”

“We’ve never had much choice in the matter,” Cait said, her cheeks coloring with emotion.

The Wolf scoffed at that. “We might not like it much, but that’s the way it is. Serve or die. I say let the bastard take her. Maybe it will end the nonsense of guarding this damnable Gate. And then
we
can all go home.”

“Home, Fenn?” Maddox suddenly rounded on him. “What
is
that exactly? Where is it? And when? We’ve none of us homes now but
this
. This here and this now. We had our homes taken from us.” He turned to face the rest of the Guard. “I’ve seen this girl, and she belongs in this realm. Would you have the Faerie king take her away from everything she has ever known?” He turned back to the Fennrys Wolf. “Would you honestly wish
our
fate upon her?”

There was a murmur among the circle of Janus, and Fennrys spun the knife in his hand and returned it to his boot. “All right, all right,” he said. “It wasn’t a serious suggestion. Bunch of whining—”

“Shut up, Fenn,” Godwyn said, fixing the muttering Janus with a warning stare.

“But what about the king?” Selene asked. “He’ll
take
his daughter back to the Otherworld, whether she wills it or no.”

“He hasn’t yet,” Maddox said. “Auberon knows about her—he already went to the theater where she works and spoke to her—but she’s still here.”

“Why?” Bellamy asked.

“Because he probably wants to make her think it’s her own idea when she does finally go,” Aaneel said.

“She’s not going anywhere!” Sonny snarled, surprising himself by the vehemence of his reaction. The one place Sonny did not want Kelley, he realized, was the Otherworld. He did not want her living her life among the Fair Folk, constantly exposed to their casual cruelty, their capriciousness and selfish nature. Sonny did not want Kelley to learn what
it was to be like them, to become one of them. Especially not if
he
was still stuck in the mortal realm. Because, no matter what Fennrys might think, Sonny was not so convinced that Auberon would reopen the Gates and allow free passage between the realms if Kelley were to return with him—he too much enjoyed the tight control he had wielded ever since their closure.

Sonny took a deep breath. “Look, Auberon’s in for a surprise if he thinks this girl will meekly put her head down and fall into step.”

Beside him, Maddox chuckled. “I’ll say.”

“Even if he thinks what he’s doing is for her own good,” Sonny murmured, almost to himself.

“And why would it be that?” asked Aaneel.

Sonny hesitated; it was just a theory he had been mulling, but—as he’d told Kelley—he didn’t believe in coincidences. “I don’t think it’s just happenstance that the Wild Hunt is stirring at the same time as the king’s daughter makes a sudden reappearance. Queen Mabh has her spies in this realm. And she holds a pretty serious grudge against Auberon. What if she caught wind somehow that Kelley was alive—that she’s living in New York, but Mabh doesn’t know exactly where. Well, what’s the easiest way to eliminate one person in a crowd?”

“Eliminate the crowd,” Beni said grimly. “That’s harsh.”

“Not to mention messy,” Bryan agreed.

“Mabh likes a good bloodbath every now and then. She
hasn’t had much opportunity to wreak havoc since Auberon locked her away. Now here is a perfect opportunity for a little fun and a lot of revenge.”

“It’s certainly not beyond the realm of possibility,” Godwyn said.

“Seems your little actress is in a world of trouble, Irish boy,” Fennrys laughed.

“Maybe we could stand a guard around her,” Percival suggested.

“We’re going to have our hands full as it is,” the Wolf protested. “Especially if this threat of the Wild Hunt comes to pass.”

“But we’re supposed to be watching out for people,” Percival said, bristling. “Keeping them safe. And none of this is her fault.”

“Perry’s right,” Aaneel said, rubbing at his chin. Then he turned back to the rest of the changelings. His next words were as good as orders. “We are a poor excuse for guardians if we sacrifice the few for the sake of the many in the course of our duties. The girl is blameless. She should be kept safe, if at all possible.” He turned to Sonny. “Hide her again, Sonny. And hide her well.”

“Where?” Sonny asked. “How?”

Aaneel thought about it for a long moment. The rest of the Janus stood by patiently and waited until he spoke. “Take her to the Green. She’ll be safe there. She can hide out until the threat of the Hunt has passed, and then it will be up to her
to decide if she wants to go with Auberon. And if she doesn’t, then we’ll at least have the time to figure out a way to keep her hidden permanently.”

Sonny frowned but nodded. Aaneel was right. “I’ll need passage.”

“I can set you up,” Cait volunteered immediately. She flipped open the top flap on her leather messenger bag and began rummaging in its depths. “I have enough payment for two safe passages. I was going to go there myself for my next birthday but, really? The last time I went, I didn’t have such a very good time.”

“Why not?” Maddox asked. “I’ve never been, but I heard it’s something else.”

Beside Cait, Selene laughed. “One of the waiters there is an overfriendly garden gnome. Wouldn’t leave her alone.”

“The little fiend,” Cait muttered, and blushed crimson.

“He kept trying to look up her skirt and lick her ankles!”

“So
anyway
…” Cait glared at Selene as she handed over a red suede pouch jingling with coins. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, Cait,” Sonny said.

“Don’t mention it.” She smiled. “But do me a favor: If you see a gnome in a floppy orange hat carrying a tray of drinks about while you’re there?…Trip him.”

“Just for you.”

Back at his apartment, Sonny grabbed several hours of restless sleep, forcing himself to stay in bed long enough to
recharge his weary muscles.

When he got up, he took a long, hot shower, only to find a surprise awaiting him. He saw, written in steam on his bathroom mirror, a time and place—instructions from Mabh on when and where he would have to deliver Lucky to her minions, the Storm Hags. Wiping the mirror clear, he shaved and changed his shirt three times, trying to decide on something that—if he was honest with himself—he thought Kelley would like. Then he set out to find his wayward Faerie princess.