Casually Cursed (13 page)

Bryn winked at us in the rearview mirror and looked cute doing it.

“Kismet, I have to ask you a couple of things. Do you know anything about a magical amber relic that the government of witches is desperate to find?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“We heard a story about faeries and witches fighting over an amber years ago. Have you ever heard a story like that?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

I frowned. I’d really hoped she’d know something helpful—like where the amber artifact was hidden and what its magical power was.

“We ran into some werewolves in the Scottish woods.”

“Did you? I told you not to go to the Scotch woods.”

“Yes, I know. We didn’t have a choice, being kidnapped.”

“You ought not let yourself be kidnapped. I’ll teach you to fight so you can stop that from happening again.”

“I know how to fight. But the thing is, those wolves mistook me for you, I think. And they wanted something from you.”

She smiled. “My blood, no doubt.”

“An object,” I said.

She glanced away, shrugging.

“Can’t you tell me?” I whispered.

She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“This is important, Kis.”

“If something is important, I’ll attend to it. You needn’t worry.”

“I want to help. We’re in this together.”

She smiled and glanced at me. “If I find I need help, I may ask for it. But trouble should be more afraid of me than me of it,” she said with a wink.

So
confident. Hopefully not overly so.

I sighed. She was used to being completely on her own. I’d have to keep working on her to convince her she could trust us.

Bryn watched her in the rearview mirror, and he and I shared a look.

He looked so healthy and normal, the last thing I expected was for him to run us off the road two hours later.

I TOLD KISMET
stories about growing up in Duvall. She laughed and asked a lot of questions. Zach, who’d started out quiet, gradually warmed up. When I told the story of our stealing Barney the bulldog, mascot of our biggest football rival, Zach commented, “That was a move we’d live to regret.”

“Not a smooth abduction then?” Kis asked, laughing.

“That dog was fifty pounds of muscle and another fifty pounds of attitude. Still got the scars on my forearm where he tried to tear off a piece of me.”

“Let’s see,” she said, hopping up from her seat and leaning over his.

He flicked on the small light near him and extended his arm.

“Where? Oh, yes,” she said, running her finger over the faint marks. “Beauties. I’ve only two that haven’t faded completely. Iron scars last the longest—they can even become permanent if it’s just the right temperature when it breaks the skin. But the queen won’t let us keep our battle scars. She has the healer cut away the injured flesh so fresh skin will grow in. I had a tattoo on my foot done with a little iron in the ink to make it last. It was to mark my surviving a ten-vampire attack.” Kismet pulled her slipper shoe off and extended her leg. She was just like a ballerina, the way she could extend her foot so perfectly. “It’s fading,” she said. “But not so quickly as it would in the Never.” The green-and-gold vines were still a lovely color, but had obviously been more vibrant initially.

“Seelie skin is supposed to be perfect, yeah? So the queen considers it an insult to her kingdom if our bodies hold the marks of war. We’re to be pretty as part of our tribute.” Kismet bent to put her shoe on.

“But you tattooed your foot. She must not have liked that,” I said.

She looked up at me through her lashes, green eyes sparkling. “No, she didn’t.” A brief smile flashed.

“Did you get in trouble?”

“Aye, I did. But I’m in trouble most of the time these days. At least this was trouble I chose outright. Not trouble I backed into without meaning to.”

“What kind of trouble have you gotten into accidentally?”

She waved a hand. “It’s all in the past. Nothing to dredge up like the bottom of a ditch. Tell me more about your battles with the rival school. Did they retaliate against you for stealing their dog? And who kept this Barney?”

“Oh, we returned him after the game! We took good care of him, too, while we had him.”

“He dined on steak every night, like a canine kingpin. Ate better than we did and knew it. That dog didn’t want to go back. Had to drag him out of the truck,” Zach said.

I laughed. “It’s true. That dog,” I said, shaking my head. “First he didn’t want to come. Then he didn’t want to leave.”

“You fed him those sausage dog biscuits you made,” Zach said. “That’s what did it as much as the steak, I think.”

I pulled my jacket tighter around me and leaned closer to the vent blowing heat onto me.

“Are we to be greenhouse flowers?” Kismet said, dropping her sweater on her seat. “I know you’re used to hot weather, but this is—”

“Yeah, man. It’s gotta be eighty-five in here. Wanna turn the heat down?” Zach, who was down to his T-shirt, said.

Bryn didn’t answer.

“It doesn’t feel hot to me,” I argued. “I’m chilly.” I clasped my hands together and put them in my lap, closing my thighs against them to conserve warmth.

“Chilled?” Kismet asked, dropping to her knees in front of me and grabbing my face.

“Actually I feel a little strange. Like we’re drifting—”

“Lyons!” Zach yelled.

The tires rammed the curb, and we bounced off, swerving into the opposite lane and then running up onto the grass. The van listed to the right, but didn’t tip all the way over. We landed back on all four wheels with a thump and came to a stop.

Mercutio yowled a complaint and then darted forward to look out the front window.

“What happened?” I asked, unbuckling my seat belt. I wobbled, feeling unsteady.

Zach stood next to Bryn’s seat. “He’s out cold,” Zach said, shaking his head.

I put a hand on Bryn’s forehead. “Feel his head. Does he seem hot?”

“As a stovetop burner on full. I can feel it from here,” Zach said.

Bryn’s breathing turned noisy.

“Hey,” I said, shaking his shoulders. My own throat ached. I swallowed and grimaced at the pain.

“She hit you both with her spell? That little cream puff! I’ll give her a pain in the throat when next our paths cross,” Kismet said.

“She did more damage than I thought,” I said in a raspy voice.

Kismet clutched her own throat, massaging it. “Why can’t I feel this sickness magic? Whenever you’re gravely injured I feel it when I try.”

“I don’t think she hit me with the spell. Bryn and I are linked magically. When one of us is the victim of injurious magic, the other is affected, too.”

“Let me help you,” she said, closing her eyes. She’d helped me heal in the past. Both she and Bryn had been able to at different times. It was the way I’d survived several very deadly and damaging attacks. Now, though, I didn’t feel better.

“Feel anything?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Me either,” she said.

“What happened?” Bryn croaked. His voice sounded like he was part frog.

“You passed out,” I said.

“And ran us off the road. Why the hell didn’t you say you felt dizzy?” Zach asked, hauling Bryn from the driver’s seat.

Bryn glared at Zach, but allowed himself to be helped to the back bench. “I didn’t feel dizzy. I felt cold and—”

“But you felt sick, right? You can’t tell when you’re gonna pass out?”

“Truthfully I . . .” Bryn swallowed with trouble, then continued in a faint rasp. “Can’t talk. Just . . . fuck off.”

At that, Zach grinned. “Hell, getting a lawyer to shut up? That girl’s magic is all right.”

Bryn’s middle finger popped up.

Zach laughed.

“Leave him alone,” I said, giving Zach a shove. “He doesn’t need you giving him a hard time when he’s sick.”

“He’s all right,” Zach said. “How ’bout you, darlin’?” he asked, turning to Kismet. “You’re from these parts. You any good at driving on the wrong side of the road?”

“I don’t drive at all. I have a horse, two legs, and a Tube pass.”

“Great,” Zach said, glancing out the window and looking around. He sat in the driver’s seat and fastened his belt. “Better buckle up.”

“Hey, Kis, where is your horse?” I asked, sitting next to Bryn.

“Left him on the path. There’s nothing for him in Dublin.”

“So he’ll wait for you, huh?”

“He wanders as he pleases, but though he’s a horse, he could be part hound. He finds me wherever I am.”

“That sounds like someone I know,” I said, glancing at Mercutio, who had come back to the bench seat and pawed Bryn’s neck.

“Benvolio chose me for his friend when I was but seven. Everyone wanted him, including a fae knight who keeps all the best horses. Benny was beautiful, but wild. Like me,” she said, flashing a smile. “I raced off Magnus Cliff to swim with the selkies, and Ben did too. From a colt he was fearless. And a bit reckless, aye? The queen said he should go to the knight, who’d train him to behave. But he was too wild for the straps they tied him with. He would’ve hurt himself.”

“You let him out?”

“Cut him loose, aye,” she said. “They tied him up again, but I taught him how to work the buckle to unhook it. By the time he was a year, none could catch him. And I was the only one he let ride him.”

“His full name? Benvolio?” Bryn asked in a strained voice.

“Yes. Why?” she asked.

Bryn smiled, shaking his head. “Half a supernatural world away . . . still connected.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Benvolio is a character’s name in one of the Bard’s plays. We don’t like that playwright as much as you do humanside, but we like him well enough,” Kismet said.

“Hmm.”

“Mercutio. Benvolio. Both Shakespeare characters,” Bryn murmured.

“Oh!” I said. “You rest now,” I told him, stroking a finger over his temple. He closed his eyes.

“I’ll help the cowboy navigate,” Kismet said, making me smile. That was what Edie called Zach.

“He’s not really a cowboy, you know,” I said.

Kismet grinned. “He’s like one. With his hat and boots, right? Just as they are in the movies and books.”

“Kind of,” I said as she moved to the front of the van.

Mercutio sat with Bryn and me. Whenever Bryn woke, I tried to get him to drink sips of cold water, but by the end he couldn’t swallow or talk.

“Will he be cured if we go to the Never? Aunt Mel said witch magic doesn’t work there.”

“That’s true. He might instantly be cured. Or he might die as he tries to cross over. During the transition, the path accelerates life and death for those few seconds. Then everything slows. Some people who are more dead than alive simply drop and fall off the path. How sick is he?” Kismet asked.

I frowned. “Too sick to risk that. We’ll have to go to a hospital.” I pushed Bryn’s black hair back. Heat radiated from his skin. He’d been injured by dangerous magic too many times because of me. But being with me was his choice. And I’d never let bad magic take him. “Zach, you heard me, right? Find a hospital.”

“Yeah,” he said.

I fidgeted nervously. “Kismet, talk to me. I’m worried. Distract me.”

She tilted her head. “What should I talk about?”

“Tell me why the werewolves are after you.”

She smiled. “I embarrassed their leader. They think the woods are their territory, but I pass through them when I decide to, even though I’ve been warned not to. Also, I freed some prisoners and threatened the wolf lord. The pack leader can’t afford to be seen as weak. He’ll kill me, does he get the chance.”

“
If
he gets the chance.”

“Aye, if he gets the chance.” She snapped her fingers. “Sometimes the old way of talking English comes out. My foster da taught me the English way of talking, but he’d not been humanside in a few hundred years.”

“What prisoners did you free? Witches?”

“Nah. I don’t care much for witches. A pair of small forest fae. A pair of mixed-breeds—half brownie, half pixie.”

“Royal and Shakes?” I asked.

“You know them?” she asked, her brows shooting up.

“They thought I was you. They helped me escape the wolves.”

“Ah. Well, the wolves have cause to be angry with that pair, I guess. They’re free fae, those two, but all fae in the isles have to pay a tithe to the Seelie queen. The wolves have antique coins. And those two steal a few each year to pay their tithe. The wolves finally caught them. They had them in a glass case, pinned down with iron pins through the wings and wrists so they couldn’t use faery magic to disappear. To pierce a faery’s wrist with iron is bad enough, but a pixie’s wings are as delicate as spiderwebs. It’s a brutal punishment to poke anything through their wings.” She frowned. “They aren’t mine to protect. Not Seelie. Just minor creatures the queen wouldn’t pay for with even copper coin,” she said, shrugging. “But they’re fae just the same. And only small.” She tilted her head. “I’m not a knight, but sometimes I get a notion to protect creatures as can’t protect themselves. It’s a weakness. Like the heel of Achilles. You’ll know that story?”

I nodded. “I have that same Achilles’ heel, and there’s nothing wrong with us. It’s how folks should be. It’s the bullies who are in the wrong. You did right saving those little faeries.”

She smiled, a little shyly, then shrugged. “We used to be protectors way, way back. The Seelie were. But not anymore.” She shook her head. “None can be trusted in the Never. Not now.”

“That’s maybe true until we get there. But once we’re inside, it’ll be different. You can trust me. And Momma. Hopefully Caedrin, too. It’ll be all right.”

“Don’t pledge to her. That’s the one thing you must not do. You ken?”

I tilted my head. “Ken?”

“Sorry. Do you understand me? Don’t pledge your loyalty to the queen. If you do, she’ll never let you leave. And she could command you to betray anyone.”

My brows shot up. “I won’t betray my people for her or anybody. Not ever.”

Kismet nodded with a slowly spreading smile. “You’re softer than me on the outside. But inside, we’re just the same. Don’t let her know it. Not till it’s too late.”

“Too late?” I asked, but Kismet had turned back to face the road and was directing Zach into the Irish town of Killarney.

He found Kerry General Hospital, and we took Bryn to the accident-and-emergency unit. The lady doctor there said Bryn’s throat was so infected he needed to stay in the hospital in case he got an abscess that needed surgery. But he agreed only to take a shot of antibiotics, some fluids, and a shot for the swelling and inflammation. He could hardly talk, so he wrote a note saying he wouldn’t stay, but would come back if he wasn’t better by morning. She argued with him, and both Zach and I thought he should just stay overnight, but Bryn can be really stubborn.

“How come you won’t stay?” I said, frowning at him.

He just shook his head.

“Why not?” I demanded.

He wrote,
Don’t like hospitals.

“You don’t have to be scared. I’ll stay right with you,” I said.

That made him smile and put an arm around my shoulders. He gave me a squeeze, but shook his head.

I rolled my eyes at Zach. “He’s not staying.”

“If he stops breathing from that swollen throat, he’ll be sorry there’s no professional to make a neat hole in his neck,” Zach said. “’Cause if you and I have to do it, it’ll be a bloody mess.”

“Don’t talk like that!” I snapped. “He’s not going to need any holes in his neck.” I gave Bryn a sideways glance. He couldn’t even swallow his own spit at the moment. And when he breathed it caused a whistling sound that made the doctor’s hair stand up. My own throat felt tight, too, like something was caught in it. Like it was closing and by morning I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

I ran a hand through my hair nervously.

“You heard what that doctor said,” Zach said.

“Just hush. His throat doesn’t need to get ideas about closing up. He’s got medicine now.” I frowned at Bryn and whispered, “If your throat tries to choke you, and Zach has to use his pocketknife to save you, I’m gonna be really mad.”