I glanced up at his face and saw that he was serious, and that it wasn’t an attempt at flirtation. I frowned at him, having no idea why he wanted me to put my hand in his pocket. I hated having to be so suspicious of him, but it would be stupid of me not to think things through when I couldn’t be sure if the Erlking was influencing him.
“Hurry, before the others come back,” he urged.
Still, I hesitated, and even though Ethan understood my caution, there was a flash of annoyance in his eyes.
“I’m trying to give you back your brooch,” he said.
I gasped and reached for my own pocket, where I’d been keeping the Erlking’s brooch carefully hidden. The pocket was empty.
“The Erlking told me about it and made me take it from you before I tried to kidnap you,” Ethan explained. “I didn’t want to give it back to you while Kimber and Keane were around, because I knew you must be keeping it secret for a reason.”
There was no hint of accusation in his voice, and his casual acceptance of one more lie on my part almost brought me to tears. I couldn’t think of what to say—my reasons for keeping the brooch secret didn’t seem as good today as they had before—so I did as he asked and reached into his pocket. I tried not to think too much about just where I was putting my hand, but I couldn’t help but be aware of it as I felt around for the brooch, which of course was buried at the very bottom of the pocket.
Maybe if we’d been back in Avalon, alone and out of danger, I’d have found the courage to take advantage of our positions. Ethan was my boyfriend, after all, and though we could never go for the home run, we could certainly give the bases a try. It would be a dangerous game, because it was possible Ethan would let his hormones get the best of his common sense. I might not be the most experienced sixteen-year-old in the world, but I knew that boys’ brains sometimes resided in their pants. The only reason I was willing to risk even kissing him was that I trusted my own brain to stop us from going too far.
I was blushing again, but then my fingers found the brooch and I carefully pulled it out of Ethan’s pocket. I held it in the palm of my hand. It was a beautiful piece of jewelry, the metal gleaming silver that neither tarnished nor scratched, the stylized stag looking ready to leap off my hand at any moment.
“You don’t think the Erlking can track us through this, do you?” I asked. I had been so focused on the marks that I hadn’t even thought of that before, but the brooch was a rendering of the Erlking’s symbol.
“I don’t think so,” Ethan said. “Why would he need to track you through the brooch when he’d already put the mark on your shoulder?”
“Still,” I said, the words coming reluctantly, “maybe it would be best if I left it behind.”
“Don’t. If the Queen’s forces catch up with us, you need to be able to use the brooch to escape.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I am
“You’d damn well better!” he responded with some heat. “
I knew enough about Fae politics to be doubtful. No, Titania might not execute Ethan and Kimber, but she’d be happy to hand them over to Mab, the Unseelie Queen, who might well execute them as a gesture of goodwill or something stupid like that.
But Ethan was right about one thing: if Titantia’s forces caught me, I was dead. And if Henry had anything to do with it, I’d be dead even before I was brought back to the palace for the Queen’s pleasure. Maybe no one would believe me if I started pointing fingers, but why would he risk it? How hard would it be for Henry to bribe or bully the search party into taking me dead or alive, with the emphasis on dead? I suspected not hard at all.
With a sigh of resignation, I slipped the brooch back into my own pocket. I hoped I wouldn’t need to use it.
Kimber and Keane were gone long enough that I began to worry about them. If they’d been gone even five minutes longer, I probably would have gone out in search of them, no matter how dangerous it was for someone with my sense of direction to go wandering around in the woods alone.
I sighed with relief when I heard their voices approaching, but when they jumped down into the hollow with Ethan and me, I sensed trouble was about to start. Again.
There was a distinctive red mark on Kimber’s neck, and the tiny buttons on the bodice of her sundress were mis-buttoned. As if that weren’t bad enough, Keane was looking unbearably smug, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess what he and Kimber had been up to for all the time they were gone. Maybe he’d thought he was “comforting” her.
Once upon a time, Keane had made it obvious—without ever saying it out loud—that he was interested in me. I had made it just as obvious that I didn’t share his interest, though I’d been flattered by it, and I’d felt little tugs of irrational jealousy when he’d started paying attention to Kimber. I wanted to be happy for Kimber, I really did. It was just that I couldn’t help suspecting Keane’s motives. Ethan had stolen his girlfriend when they were in high school, and Keane made no secret that he held a major grudge. Was it a coincidence that Keane had shown interest in me and then shifted his attention to Ethan’s sister when I didn’t respond?
If he wanted to get a rise out of Ethan, Keane succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The moment Ethan caught sight of them and saw the hickey on Kimber’s neck, magic flooded our little hollow. I whirled on Ethan, rushing to cover his mouth before he could get a spell out.
I was too slow.
“Back!” Ethan yelled in the instant before my hand landed on his mouth.
Kimber then did something either very brave or very stupid. Maybe a little of both. She stepped between Ethan and Keane.
Ethan’s spell slammed into her, and Kimber screamed as she was lifted off her feet and propelled backward. She bounced off Keane, who tried to grab her but managed to catch an elbow in the face for his efforts, then crashed into the trunk of a large tree. Her back hit first, the impact hard enough to rattle the tree’s branches, and then the back of her head smacked the trunk and she fell limply to the ground.
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
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.
