Keane had to feel the gathering magic, too, and had to know what it meant. Keane was a great fighter, but I seriously doubted he had the chops to go up against Ethan in a battle of magic.
“Ethan,” I said in a warning tone, “you’d better not be thinking about casting any nasty magic.” Of course, I already knew he was more than thinking about it.
Keane raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think he’s about to cast something?”
Dammit! Keane didn’t know I could sense magic, and I couldn’t afford for that to change. I’d been so annoyed at the boys and their machofest that I’d forgotten to be cautious.
I shrugged, hoping my chagrin didn’t show on my face. “I know Ethan,” I said, giving Ethan my sternest look. “Don’t do it.”
He blinked and tried to look innocent. Considering the air still prickled with magic, it wasn’t a very convincing act.
“I’m not a bully,” he said. “I’d never pick on someone who couldn’t defend himself.”
Keane made a growling sound and stepped closer to us. The sensation of magic built even more, and I suspected Keane was responsible for at least some of it.
“Who the fuck says I can’t defend myself?” Keane asked, green eyes flashing.
Geez, could he take the bait any easier? I wondered if I’d get myself hurt if I stepped between the two of them. Neither one of them would hurt me on purpose, but I had a feeling if they started fighting, there’d be collateral damage.
Ethan’s grin widened. He was really getting a kick out of pushing Keane’s buttons. Not that Keane was making it hard for him.
“Far be it from me to insult your manhood,” Ethan said. “I’m sure you’d have no trouble whatsoever defending against my magic.”
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.
Chapter Seven
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
