Kitty Steals the Show

It wasn’t enough.

I stopped, and Ben and Cormac stopped with me, turning to look.

“Cormac,” I said. “We have a fairy wish to use.”

Ben chuckled. “You think that’s for real?”

Cormac ignored him. “You sure you want to use it on this? We might be able to find Tyler without it.”

“Alive?” I said, and Cormac didn’t answer. “Yes. I can’t think of anything better to use it on.”

“You’re both talking like this is actually going to work,” Ben said. “There’s magic and then there’s…” He paused, a sour taste puckering his mouth.

“And then there’s fairies. Yup,” I said.

Chapter 21

CORMAC SUGGESTED moving into the open, to make it easier for the Fae to hear us. We deferred to his wisdom. Hyde Park was a few blocks down the main road from the hotel. I kept touching my phone, checking for calls that I might have missed, but hadn’t. No one had called to say that they’d found Tyler and everything was okay. The sun was sinking, the shadows growing longer, twilight threatening. The vampires would be awake soon, and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The park was as gorgeous as ever, a startling oasis in the middle of the city. Joggers were out, along with people walking home after work, and others playing with dogs who looked at us askance, ears flattened, knowing something was off about us. One, a bristly German shepherd, barked until his owner pulled him away, giving us a muddled apology, Bruce wasn’t normally so rude, and so on. We avoided the dogs as best we could.

Cormac led us to an out-of-the-way glade, near a stand of trees, and—a statue of Peter Pan, depicted as a slender, elfin child playing a pipe. He might have brought us to the spot on purpose.

Cormac pulled the scarf out of a jacket pocket and handed it over. It tingled in my hand. Was it just the shimmering texture of the fabric, or something more?

“What do I do now?”

“It’s the Fae. Make a wish,” he said.

“Just like that?” Ben said.

Coiling the scarf around my hands, I closed my eyes and thought about finding Tyler. Wished I could find him, right now, nearby, whole and unharmed. I drew a breath, smelled the grass, trees, the contained nature of the park hemmed in by the odor of city. Heard traffic, footsteps, a barking dog. Ben and Cormac standing still, breathing softly. It all felt so incongruously calm.

Something hit me from behind, like someone shoving in a crowd. I jumped and looked.

The young women from the conference and the restaurant, the ones who’d started the whole thing, stood arm in arm, looking at me, grinning wide, their big eyes shining. Daisy and Rose.

“Where’d they come from?” Ben hissed, looking around in a panic.

“You wouldn’t understand,” said a newcomer, who also seemed to have appeared from thin air, but might have walked from behind the stand of trees, except that I hadn’t heard or smelled her coming. And I’d been listening.

Wearing a beaded skirt, a shapeless blouse, a shawl that seemed to be made of flower petals, and an annoyed expression creasing her elfin face, she was the regal woman from the other night. Now, at dusk instead of full dark, she reminded me of sunshine and distant meadows. Her clothing seemed old-fashioned but new at the same time. Her hair appeared to have flowers woven in it, but I couldn’t tell what kind. They were tiny, and shimmered.

“I need help,” I said starkly, holding her scarf out to her.

“You mean you’re not going to ask for a castle or a bag of gold? Hmm.”

“Would we have waited to ask if we were?”

“Yes, of course. You’re the clever kind. At least, you are,” she said to Cormac, who remained standing quietly with his hands in his pockets. “You and the one inside your head.”

He narrowed his gaze and pursed his lips.

“Can you help?” I asked.

“Help with what?”

Focus, had to focus. It wasn’t easy. “A friend is missing. Joseph Tyler, he’s a werewolf, he’s been kidnapped. A lot of people are looking for him, but he could be anywhere. Can you get him back?”

“And that’s your wish? To get him back?”

“Yes. Rescue him. Alive, safely, in one piece, and sane.” I blinked earnestly, hoping I’d covered all the bases.

She smirked. Clearly, I was pushing.

“Your wish is to retrieve one soul in this whole wide city,” she stated, making it sound like a done deal. I glanced at Cormac, hoping for confirmation that this was good, that I was doing it right. He hadn’t said anything, so I had to be reassured that I wasn’t inadvertently selling my soul. I could see how it would be easy to do. She seemed so nice.

“Hand it over,” she said, holding out her hand, shaking it. I laid the scarf across her palm.

She flourished the fabric and tossed it into a pocket—or somewhere. At any rate, it was gone. Clapping her hands, she called, “Girls. Call the troops. Werewolf in trouble. Go!”

The two—henchwomen? Sidekicks?—ran, but I couldn’t have described exactly where they went. The woman smiled as if pleased. I hesitated to ask any other questions.

“Shall we look at the stars?” She settled onto the grass, lying prone, looking up. The sky had darkened to a royal blue, but I couldn’t see any stars past the glow of the surrounding city.

We hesitated, but she pointed to the ground insistently, and how could we refuse?

We must have looked ridiculous, the three of us looking on, awkward and uncertain, with this odd woman lying in the grass, her clothing splayed around her.

“Is this really going to work?” Ben leaned toward me to whisper.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Cormac?”

“Hard to say. Anything can happen.”

I took out my phone; still no calls. I had to resist calling Nick and Caleb yet again; it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes since the last time I called. They wouldn’t have found anything new.

“Look, there! The evening star!” The fairy queen pointed off at a forty-five-degree angle.

I wouldn’t have thought any stars would be visible in the middle of the city, but she’d found one, a single point of light, twinkling. Like a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“Actually, I think it’s an airplane,” Ben whispered.

“Oh, fie.” She pouted.

I lasted about five seconds before I started tapping my feet. I cleared my throat a little. “Do you have any idea how long—”

“Everyone’s looking,” she said. “It’s hard in the city, with all its iron. We cope—it’s better than the alternative, after all. But these things take time. You know, it isn’t that we’re particularly good at granting wishes, or finding things or, well, anything. Playing tricks, maybe. But we pay attention. We find the loose thread that everyone else misses and tug. It makes us look so very clever.”

We three humans clumped together and waited.

“Amelia’s loving this,” Cormac said.

“At least someone is,” I muttered.

The sound of laughter filtered from … somewhere … and the two giggling women tumbled onto the grass next to their mistress. Again, I couldn’t have said where they came from, just that they arrived.

The queen sat up and put her hands on her hips. “Well? Where is he?”

One of them scrunched up her face, almost tearful. “It’s full of iron, we can’t get any closer!”