Sirensong (11 page)

Keane sneered. “Just like you’d have no trouble whatsoever defending yourself in a fair fight. Right?”

They both seemed to have practically forgotten I was there. They met each other’s eyes in furious alpha-male stares, and the magic was so thick in the air it was hard to breathe. I wanted to say something to them, to get them to back off, but so far nothing I’d said had made a dent in their animosity. In fact, my very presence was probably making things worse.

“Whoever throws the first punch, magical or otherwise, gets to deal with me,” Finn said, and we all jumped.

We’d all been so focused on the looming fight we hadn’t heard him coming. I checked over my shoulder and saw that my father and Kimber were only a few steps behind him.

Ethan and Keane both turned to Finn, the belligerence far from gone. And now there was a third person’s magic stealing the oxygen from the air. I hoped they’d all cut it out soon, or they’d start to wonder what was wrong with me as I did my gasping fish impression.

Keane opened his mouth as if to say something smart—or stupid, as the case may be—but he wasn’t a complete idiot. I’d seen him fight his father once before, when Finn was teaching him a lesson about the difference between a skilled teenaged self-defense instructor and a trained Knight of Faerie. It hadn’t been pretty.

Ethan didn’t back down quite as fast, though I’d seen signs before that he respected Finn’s power. Maybe he was too hopped up on testosterone to remember that at the moment. Finn grabbed hold of Keane’s arm and gave it a yank.

“Go tend to your horse,” he snapped, giving Keane a shove. Keane was practically trembling with rage now, but he knew when he was beat. He turned and stomped back into the crowd of Fae who bustled around our makeshift camp. Probably just as well that the rest of the caravan was ignoring us.

With Keane out of the picture, Ethan finally relaxed, shaking out his hands and letting the magic slip away. I didn’t think Finn had done Keane any favors by intervening. I could only imagine what kind of crap Ethan would give Keane for it whenever he had a chance.

“The last thing we need is the two of you acting like children,” Finn said to Ethan in his sternest voice. “You don’t like each other. Fine. I don’t give a damn. But you’re both supposedly here to help guard Dana, and getting into pissing matches with each other isn’t helpful.”

To my surprise, color rose to Ethan’s cheeks, Finn’s rebuke taking root. He wasn’t usually one to take criticism gracefully.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “You’re right. It won’t happen again. But you might want to give Keane the same reminder.”

Finn made a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Don’t worry, I will. Now why don’t you get yourself something to eat before we hit the road again?”

Ethan gave me a quick sidelong glance that said he’d rather stay here with me and pick up where we’d left off. But I was pretty annoyed at him and Keane both, so instead of speaking to him, I polished the apple Keane had given me and took a bite. Ethan took the hint and went off in search of food.

Getting back on Phaedra was even worse than I’d anticipated. I felt like an arthritic little old lady as I hauled myself into the saddle, my legs and butt screaming in protest. No one else seemed to be having as much trouble, not even Kimber, who I doubted had much more experience riding horses than I did. But then, she was a full-blooded Fae, and they had lots of physical advantages. I suppose being half Fae myself, I was better off than if I’d been a mere mortal, but that didn’t make the misery of the saddle any more fun.

As soon as we were all mounted up and on our way, magic prickled the air again, and the trees and bushes started moving back to their original positions. I bet by the time we’d been gone ten minutes, there would be no sign of the “clearing” we’d just spent the last hour in. Creepy!

We rode for the rest of the day, a steady, boring procession along the road. There was still nothing but forest, though when I asked, my dad assured me that there was more to Faerie than this. Occasionally, we’d run across some other Fae traveling the same road, but we saw only Sidhe—the most humanlike of the Fae.

We traveled for what felt like about twenty days, though my watch insisted it was about six more hours, before the caravan suddenly veered off the main road, following an even narrower dirt road that was so artfully camouflaged I probably wouldn’t have spotted it if the caravan hadn’t turned off. We followed the narrower road for maybe a mile or two until we came to a wall of greenery that was obviously man-made. Squinting at the wall, I could discern the trunks of individual trees, planted so closely together that their branches intertwined from ground level all the way to their flattened tops.

The road continued on through an arched opening in the wall. When Phaedra and I passed through the opening, I felt the distinctive prickle of magic against my skin. I suspected it was some kind of barrier spell that the prince had overridden. I hoped that meant we were nearing our stopping point for the night, and my hopes were confirmed when the forest widened into a massive clearing. In the middle of the clearing towered a building that at first glance looked like a humongous dirt hill, until I noticed the evenly spaced rectangular windows. I blinked, and then I made out a number of outbuildings dotting the edges of the clearing. Artfully placed greenery made the buildings practically disappear into the surrounding forest.

A handful of plainly dressed Fae hurried out of one of those outbuildings, one of them sprinting for the main house while the others converged on the pair of Knights at the front of our procession. I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying, but I could tell from the body language that (a) we weren’t expected, (b) Prince Henry didn’t care, and (c) saying no to royalty came under the heading of Things Not Done in Faerie.

People began dismounting, and Henry started barking orders as servants bustled around, hauling crates out of some of the baggage wagons and unharnessing horses.

The servant who’d run for the main house soon emerged, a harried-looking couple hard on his heels. They were both much better dressed than the servants, and they carried themselves with the self-important dignity of the wealthy and powerful despite their obvious dismay at finding the prince with several dozen of his closest friends parked in their front yard.

I hadn’t noticed my father dismounting, but he came up beside me and patted Phaedra’s neck.

“I know you’d rather spend the night on Phaedra’s back,” he said to me with a hint of a smile, “but you might as well get down. It appears Henry has other plans for us.”

I was more than happy to get down, though every movement of my body caused shooting pains in my legs and butt. I held on tightly to the saddle as I slid off and had to suppress a groan of mingled misery and relief.

“The people who live here don’t seem happy to see us,” I murmured as I swayed on my feet, tempted to just curl up on the ground and go to sleep because that would save me the trouble of having to walk. The couple who’d come out of the house to greet Henry were both smiling, but there was a hint of a manic gleam in their eyes that made the smiles false.

Dad made a sound that was half snort, half laugh. “They’ll be expected to feed and house everyone in our party, whether they’re prepared for us or not. It’s considered an honor to host the prince and his entourage, but it’s a damned expensive nuisance, too.”

“And they’re not allowed to say no, right?”

“Right,” Dad confirmed as servants came to commandeer our horses and lead them toward one of the outbuildings, which was apparently a stable.

The prince’s servants were all frantically busy, and the Knights were still visibly on duty, keeping a careful eye on their liege. A couple of the servants were directing the more aristocratic of Henry’s entourage toward the main house, where I gathered they would be given lodgings. By the time one of those servants reached us, Ethan, Keane, and Kimber had joined us. In the distance, I saw Finn leading his horse toward the barn, and it burned me that he was considered to be of lower class than people like my father. I know humans have a class system, too, but the Fae take it to a whole different level.

The servant bowed slightly before addressing my father. “You and your daughter will be in the main house,” he said. He turned to Keane. “You and your companions”—his gaze flicked briefly to Ethan and Kimber—“will be in the servants’ quarters.”

I felt an instant surge of indignation on my friends’ behalf, and despite my best intentions to abide by the local customs in Faerie, there was no way I was letting that one go. I opened my mouth to protest, but to my surprise, my dad beat me to it.

“That is not acceptable,” he said, sounding every bit as snooty as the prince at that moment. “These young people are my daughter’s companions, and they are under my care. They will be lodging with us.”

I never would have expected my dad to stand up for the son of a Knight and a pair of Unseelie kids who were de facto second-class citizens in Seelie territory, but there was no hint of give in his voice.

The servant looked alarmed and distinctly uncomfortable. “I beg your pardon, sir, but our hosts—”

“We will need three rooms,” my dad said over him. “One for me, one for the boys, and one for the girls.”

I felt bad for the servant, who was obviously getting stuck in the middle of this mess, and sorry for our beleaguered host and hostess, whoever they were. I considered suggesting we all stay in the servants’ quarters, but knew there was no way that would fly with my dad. Maybe being relegated to the servants’ quarters was one of those “signs of weakness” my dad had told me we couldn’t afford. I bit my tongue on a number of comments that would probably have been unwise under the circumstances.

Another servant, this time a smiling woman I was pretty sure worked for our hosts rather than for Henry, hurried over to us. “Of course, sir,” she said, shooting Henry’s servant a disparaging look, “we will be happy to accommodate you and the children. There has obviously been a misunderstanding. Please, follow me.”

Gee, it felt so good to be called “the children” again. Made me feel real grown up and respected. I suspected it bothered the boys, who were both eighteen, even more than it did me. I glanced at their faces, and realized they were too busy giving each other dirty looks to notice. Putting the two of them in a room together might be dangerous. I hoped the house would still be standing by the time we hit the road again tomorrow.

My first day in Faerie ended with me sharing a large feather bed with Kimber in a room made almost entirely of dirt. Not that you could tell it was dirt unless you looked at it real closely. The floor and ceiling were of packed red clay so smooth it looked like tile, and the walls were an intricate pattern of earth tones from ivory to nearly black, giving the impression of a series of mosaics. I tried touching a finger to the designs in the wall, and though the texture felt rough and grainy—you know, like dirt—it was packed in so solidly that even when I scratched it with my fingernail, nothing came loose.

“What happens when it rains?” I wondered aloud, trying not to imagine all that dirt turning to mud and collapsing on my head while I slept.

“Remember, we’re in Faerie,” Kimber reminded me, yawning behind her hand. “This house is held together by magic. I’m sure it could weather a storm.”

Her yawn was contagious, and I eyed the bed longingly. I’d never shared a bed before, and if I were any less tired, I might have worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep. As it was, that wasn’t an issue. The only issue was forcing myself to clean up before collapsing into bed, but I was tired of smelling like horse. With a minimum of exploring, Kimber and I found a bathroom, which had a soaking tub and a steaming waterfall that served as a shower. Claiming excess modesty once more, I insisted Kimber and I take turns, even though we probably could have fit a half dozen people under that waterfall. It delayed getting to bed even longer, but it once again allowed me to keep the Erlking’s mark hidden.

I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow. About sixty seconds later, there was someone sitting on the side of my bed, shaking my shoulder. I made an incoherent sound of protest and tried to swat the hand away, my eyes firmly closed. The hand just shook me harder, and Keane’s voice hissed in my ear.

“Wake up, lazy,” he said. “It’s Thursday morning.”

This time, the sound I made was more like a snarl, and I sat up in bed, jerking away from the touch of his hand. Pink-tinged light streamed in from the windows. I rubbed my eyes, but the light was still there. Guess I’d gotten more than sixty seconds of sleep after all. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was six AM. I’d slept for eight hours, and I was more than willing to collapse back into bed and sleep eight more.

“What are you doing here?” I growled at Keane, who was already fully dressed and showered, looking wide awake and completely impatient.

“Thursday morning,” he reminded me. “I know we don’t usually practice this early, but I’m not sure what time we’re going to hit the road this morning.”

Thursday morning. Practice. I groaned. “You have
got
to be kidding me. We are
not
having a lesson today!”

He crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows. “Says who?”

Beside me, Kimber stirred and mumbled, “Turn the radio off.”

“I see no reason to skip practice just because we’re on the road,” Keane replied, ignoring Kimber’s sleepy protest. “Now get your ass out of bed, get dressed, and meet me in front of the stables in thirty minutes or less.”

Kimber seemed to realize now that the noises disturbing her didn’t come from a radio after all. She raised her head and squinted at Keane. Her hair was a frizzy, tangled mess, and there were pillow lines on her face, but I saw Keane’s eyes stray to her and widen. Even with bedhead, she was disgustingly gorgeous, especially in the royal blue silk nightgown she was wearing. Me, I’d gone with a ratty T-shirt and flannel boxer shorts, and I suspected I looked about as appetizing as roadkill.