Sirensong (28 page)

I tried to keep my hand over Ethan’s mouth, afraid of what else he might do, but he broke my hold easily, despite his bonds, and surged to his feet.

“Kimber!” he cried as he stumbled and ran to her side.

Keane was there before him, his hand at Kimber’s throat, feeling for her pulse. Logically, I’m sure we all knew she wasn’t dead. The Sidhe are very hard to kill, and though the impact had been hard, it hadn’t been
that
hard. Ethan had meant to hurt Keane, not kill him. That didn’t make it any less terrifying to see Kimber lying there, not moving.

We all relaxed marginally when Keane said, “She’s alive.”

She proved he was right by groaning softly, although her eyes didn’t open.

“Untie my hands!” Ethan ordered. “I can heal her.”

I’d seen Ethan heal wounds before, and I knew that whatever damage he’d done to Kimber, he could most likely fix it. But either Keane didn’t know that, or he was too furious to care.

“Put a fucking gag on him!” he barked at me. “We apparently can’t move fast enough to block his magic after all.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Ethan snapped back. “Untie my hands so I can heal my sister. I’m not about to waste magic on you now.”

Despite Ethan’s considerable talent, using magic did drain him, and he had limits to what he could do. I doubted the spell he’d hit Kimber with had done much to drain his magical reserves, but he’d already had plenty of time to lob another spell at Keane if he wanted, and he hadn’t done it.

Keane, however, didn’t see it that way. “I can heal her myself,” he said, talking to me instead of Ethan. Practicality demanded that Fae fighters learn some healing magic, but my impression was that it was just rudimentary stuff. Maybe it was enough to heal Kimber, or maybe not. “For all we know, this whole thing has been a plot to get us to untie his hands. Now put a gag on him before I break his pretty face. Again.”

“Try it,” Ethan growled. “See how easy it is when I’m ready for you.”

Magic filled the air once again, coming to Ethan’s silent call at incredible speed.

I already knew I wasn’t getting a gag on Ethan, not unless he felt like letting me. He’d torn out of my grip a minute ago with ease, after all. But if he decided his anger with Keane was greater than his concern for Kimber, this could get even uglier than it already was.

I swallowed hard, knowing there was only one way I could keep Ethan from casting anything, but fearing he would never forgive me if I did it. He was ignoring me, all his attention focused on Keane. I wasn’t sure I could knock him out with one blow—my lessons with Keane had been focused on defense, not offense—but I had to try.

My moment of indecision was more than enough to let Ethan unleash whatever spell he planned, but he didn’t do it. Which made me hesitate even more.

Keane shook his head in disgust. “Go ahead. Hit me with your goddamn spell while your sister is lying here unconscious from your last one.”

“All right, I will,” Ethan said, and suddenly the strip of T-shirt that bound his hands together behind his back disappeared.

I ordered myself to hit him before he did something disastrous, but I just couldn’t do it. This was
Ethan,
and for better or for worse, I had to admit to myself that I was probably in love with him. I might have been able to hit him in self-defense, but not like this, not in cold blood.

The magic in the air grew thicker, no doubt the result of Keane raising his shield spells, but Ethan didn’t attack him. In fact, he seemed almost to forget that Keane was there, instead leaning over and putting his hands on Kimber’s shoulders.

“Kimber?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”

She groaned and her eyes fluttered open. “Unfortunately,” she said, her face twisted with pain. “I think you broke my ribs.”

Ethan winced, and his cheeks reddened with shame. “I’m so sorry. I’ll fix it, but it’s going to hurt.”

Tears of pain leaked from Kimber’s eyes, but she still managed a first-class glare at her brother. “You are so off my Christmas list this year.” She reached a hand out toward Keane, who still looked like he wanted to ignore everything and beat the crap out of Ethan.

“For God’s sake, hold her hand!” Ethan snapped. “I’m not a real healer, and I can’t do anything for the pain.”

Keane grumbled something under his breath, but he moved closer to Kimber and wrapped his fingers around hers. Their eyes met and locked, and for the first time, it looked to me like he genuinely cared about her, that he wasn’t showing off for Ethan’s benefit. I wanted to hold her other hand, but I was surely still in her doghouse so I didn’t think she’d appreciate it.

Ethan’s magic swelled, and he whispered something so softly I couldn’t hear it. Kimber’s back arched, and she gasped in pain, her knuckles going white as she clasped Keane’s hand with desperate strength. And then it was over.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. Kimber was sweaty and shaking, but the expression on her face no longer screamed of pain. Keane kept hold of her hand, his thumb stroking back and forth idly.

“So you could have untied yourself anytime,” he said to Ethan, who shrugged. We had all badly underestimated his power, and we were lucky he hadn’t made us pay for it.

“Yeah. If you hadn’t damaged the mark, it would have been bad.”

“And you’re not under the Erlking’s influence right now, but you didn’t tell us that we weren’t taking enough precautions.”

Ethan reached up to rub his face, then remembered the burn and thought better of it. “I didn’t want to be gagged, which I figured was the next logical step.” His shoulders drooped. “But if the mark heals any more than it already has, I guess I’ll have to live with it.”

“More than it already has?” Keane asked, sounding horrified.

Ethan nodded grimly. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it should, and I think that means it’s healing.”

We all looked closely at the burn on his face. It definitely looked less angry than it had when it was fresh. But I had no idea how fast a burn would heal naturally on one of the Sidhe, except that it was faster than it would heal on a human or a half-blood like me. Maybe this was normal. Or maybe there was magic that would keep the mark from being permanently damaged.

My heart sank at the thought, then sank even lower when I considered all the ramifications of the mark healing. If Ethan’s mark healed, then mine probably would, too. And even if we could make it safely to Avalon, the Erlking would still be able to track me there. Titania had officially set him on me, which meant that the geis that prevented the Erlking from hunting indiscriminately in Avalon wouldn’t be in effect. Which meant my only hope of escaping him was to leave Avalon for the mortal world and never return.

I was still trying to absorb that unpalatable reality when Keane’s head suddenly popped up, his eyes going wide. I was going to ask him what was wrong, but then I heard it, too. The sound of someone moving through the underbrush, coming in our direction.

I remembered Kimber’s startled scream when Ethan’s spell had hit her, and realized we had been anything but quiet. Maybe whoever was approaching was some stray Fae, someone who wouldn’t be inclined to detain us and report us to the authorities. Or even someone we could overpower, between Keane’s fighting abilities and Ethan’s magic.

But my luck had been lousy for so long I wasn’t exactly hopeful that it was going to change now.

“Use the brooch,” Ethan whispered to me urgently as once again magic filled the air.

Kimber and Keane both gave me quizzical looks, but now wasn’t the time to explain. I shook my head.

“Don’t argue!” Ethan said. “I’ll sit on you and stick you with it myself if I have to.”

“What are you talking about?” Keane asked.

I wanted to scream at them to run instead of sitting here and arguing, but the reality was that we would never make it. Even if Ethan cast his invisibility spell on us as he had the night we’d fled the palace, he couldn’t keep it up for very long. I doubted he’d have the time or the power to work the standing stones—assuming we were willing to risk trying them—and if we just ran off into the woods, we’d leave a trail any idiot could follow, with no storm to wipe it out and no Green Lady to draw the pursuit off.

Ethan put his hands on my shoulders and leaned into me, his eyes boring into me, deadly serious.

“If it’s the Queen’s forces, using the brooch is your only hope,” he said. He was squeezing my shoulders so tight he was probably leaving bruises. “Leave us. Get back to Avalon and be safe.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped my words with a searing kiss that took my breath away. I groaned with the pleasure of his kiss, even as a part of me knew something was wrong with this picture. Now was
so
not the time for a make-out session, but my hormones were in overdrive, and I couldn’t seem to make myself push Ethan away. Even when I felt his hand delving into my pocket and grabbing the brooch.

A part of me knew exactly what was happening, was aware of the magic prickling my skin. Ethan had used a milder version of this spell on me once before, but that time I’d been able to shake it off as soon as I realized my hormones were being magically manipulated. This time, I felt like my body wasn’t my own, and I kept kissing him, pressing against him, my hands buried in his hair, as he pulled the brooch out of my pocket.

Something sharp pricked my thigh, right through my pants, and suddenly the flood of arousal left me as Ethan sat back on his heels and blinked at me.

“You bastard!” I said, my eyes welling with tears. But Ethan couldn’t hear me, because the brooch wouldn’t let him. For the next thirty minutes, I would be completely undetectable.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” Keane growled, looking like he was about to forget everything and pound Ethan into the ground.

“The Erlking gave her a magic item that makes her temporarily invisible,” Ethan explained calmly. “No one can see or even hear her while the spell is active, so she’ll be able to get away even if we can’t.”

I felt rather like punching Ethan myself at the moment. Maybe using the brooch was the smart thing to do, but I’d vowed to myself that I wouldn’t abandon my friends. I already didn’t know how I was going to live with abandoning my dad and Finn.

Since no one could see me, I grabbed the brooch from where it had fallen on the ground and stuffed it back into my pocket. I quickly checked my watch so I’d know when the spell would wear off, then climbed to the top of the embankment so I could see who or what was coming.

The news wasn’t good. There were at least three Knights creeping up toward the hollow where my friends sat arguing pointlessly. I suspected there were more Knights I couldn’t see, circling around and cutting off our escape routes. Certainly they would have sent someone to guard the standing stones, too.

Below, I heard Keane accuse Ethan of having somehow captured me for the Erlking with his magic. I suppose it did look kind of bad, and I wished I’d come out and told everyone about the brooch. I’m sure I would have, too, if my earlier bombshell hadn’t gone over so badly.

My friends wouldn’t hear anything I said to them, nor would they feel it if I touched them. I’d already realized that running wouldn’t do them any good, but I couldn’t stand to hear them arguing about me while grim-faced Knights armed with crossbows snuck up on their position.

I grabbed a stick and scrambled back down. The Erlking’s spell made it so that no one noticed the stick moving from the top of the embankment and then hanging in the air in front of them. I tried poking Keane with it, but he didn’t seem to feel it. Then I dropped it on his head.

Keane reached up and brushed the stick out of his hair, then glanced up, probably looking for the tree it had dropped from.

Encouraged that he’d actually felt the stick, I bent down and grabbed a few pebbles from the stream and began lobbing them at him one at a time. He looked so confused that I would have laughed in any other situation.

“It’s Dana, idiot,” Ethan said. “Trying to tell you she’s all right.”

“Um, guys?” Kimber said. “Maybe we should run now?”

Ethan shook his head. “
Dana
should run instead of hanging around here throwing pebbles.
We
should surrender to give her more time to get away. I don’t know if they have any spells that can sense her, but if they do, she needs to be well away before they start casting them.”

Keane made a low growling sound. “You surrender if you want. I’m not giving up without a fight. There’s more than one way to buy time.”

“Come out of there and keep your hands where we can see them,” one of the Knights yelled.

Kimber peeked over the lip of the embankment, then quickly dropped back down. “Knights,” she said, her face pale with fright. “They’ve got crossbows.”

“We won’t last more than a minute or two in a fight,” Ethan said. His gaze darted quickly to Kimber and back, fast enough that she didn’t notice. But Keane did, and he got the message. Kimber might not be totally defenseless, but she was still way more vulnerable than either of them because she couldn’t even cast a shield spell. If the boys tried to fight the Knights, Kimber might very well get hurt, or worse.

Keane looked grim, but resolved. “All right,” he said, and he even managed not to look like the concession caused him dire pain. “If we got ourselves killed, Dana would never forgive us.”

Ethan gave a halfhearted bark of laughter, but quickly sobered. “Look, I’m sorry I tried to hit you with that spell. I guess I was being kind of childish.”

Keane sighed, reaching over to take Kimber’s hand. “No, you were just being her big brother.”

“Come out
now
!” the Knight shouted. “This is your last warning.”

I let out a scream of frustration, hating the helpless feeling of standing there watching and being unable to do anything.