Sirensong

younger than me. What were the chances she could resist Arawn’s charms? He certainly had them, when he wanted to. Somehow, I was going to have to find a way to warn her of her danger.

But I was getting ahead of myself. I still had to prove she was a Faeriewalker. And once I did, Titania might turn her over to the Erlking anyway.

“This is a trick,” Henry said. “That is not truly a mortal weapon. It is merely an illusion, and Seamus has arranged this.”

I might have blurted an outraged response, except Titania’s laugh surprised me into silence. Henry’s cheeks reddened, and his eyes flashed with anger. And a hint of fear, I was sure of it.

“Seamus is a clever and subtle man,” Titania said, “but I’m sure he could have found a simpler way than this to strike at you if he wished.” She stalked closer to him, the coldness of her gaze now directed at him rather than me. “You seem strangely reluctant to see this test carried out, my son. Almost as though you already know this child is a Faeriewalker. Perhaps I begin to understand why you were so opposed to my decision to invite Seamus’s daughter to Court.”

Henry shook his head. “You cannot possibly think that of me! I am merely concerned that this is a trick.”

Titania’s smile was almost wry. “And that I am too weak-minded to see through such a trick?”

That shut him up, at least momentarily. His hand rubbed nervously over his hip, and I wondered if he had a weapon concealed somewhere in his doublet.

Titania turned to me and nodded. I took that as my cue to leave the room, so I made my way hastily to the door. I had to go around Henry to get there, and I didn’t like that one bit. He’d stopped rubbing his hip, and I saw no sign of a weapon in his hand, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

The only thing that kept me moving forward was the conviction that Henry didn’t dare kill me in front of all these people, especially when that would make him look guiltier than ever. I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding when I made it past him without incident and walked through the door out into the hall. I made a point of walking past where I’d stood when the watch disappeared, just to make it doubly obvious that the gun was still there.

“Now the child,” Titania said.

The Knight who’d dragged Elizabeth into the room cast a brief, worried look at Arawn before reaching for her again. Arawn stopped him with a forbidding glare.

“I will escort her,” Arawn said, and when Titania didn’t object, the Knight backed off.

Elizabeth still looked terrified, but Arawn bent and said something to her I couldn’t hear. She sniffled and nodded, then allowed him to help her to her feet.

“Just look at her!” Henry said, and now he sounded downright desperate. “Does she look like a half-breed? You can plainly see mortal blood in that one.” He gestured contemptuously at me. “But Elizabeth is entirely Fae. You may check for glamour if you’d like.”

“How kind of you to allow me such a privilege,” Titania said acidly. “Looks can be deceiving, and I will not rely on them to tell me whether the child is a Faeriewalker or not. Arawn, please take her out of the room.”

Arawn bowed, then put a hand lightly on Elizabeth’s back and guided her toward the door. She looked even tinier and more vulnerable next to him. She wiped tears from her face as she walked, but her cheeks were still blotchy and her eyes red and swollen. I had to fight another surge of guilt.

I forced my eyes away from Elizabeth’s pitiful figure and watched Titania instead. The Queen was facing away from the door, watching the gun. Henry was looking back and forth between her and the gun, no doubt trying to figure out how to salvage the situation.

When Titania suddenly whirled on Henry with a snarl, I knew the gun had disappeared. And then Henry did what any trapped animal would do: he attacked.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I’d been right all along. Henry did have a concealed weapon. He must have known the moment the Knights had come for Elizabeth that he was in deep trouble.

No one had time to react. By the time I saw the glint of metal in Henry’s hand and tried to shout a warning, the gun had already fired.

A giant fist punched me in the shoulder, the impact so brutal I fell backward onto the carpet of rose petals. Elizabeth screamed, and Arawn tried to shield her with his body, but even the Erlking wasn’t fast enough to intercept a bullet. The gun boomed again, and Elizabeth’s scream turned to a shriek as blood suddenly spotted the front of her dress. Her eyes went wide with shock, and she sank to her knees.

I touched my shaking hand to my shoulder, and it came away wet with blood.

“Nobody move!” Henry yelled.

My vision swam, and I felt like the room was bucking beneath me. Maybe that was just the footsteps of the Knights and trolls as they reacted to Henry’s surprise attack. Magic filled the air, making it hard to breathe.

“Anyone casts a spell, and she’s dead!” Henry barked. I had to blink a few times to clear my vision enough to see that he’d put the gun to Titania’s head. “And trust me, I can shoot faster than you can get the Faeriewalkers out of range.”

Oh, a dispassionate voice in my head murmured. That’s why he shot us. To keep us from running away and making the gun go poof. I wondered how many other mortal weapons he had smuggled into Faerie with Elizabeth’s help.

I forced myself up into a sitting position. I thought for a minute I was going to pass out. Blood ran hotly down my chest, and my right arm didn’t want to move. I was weak and nauseous, but it didn’t hurt much at all. I’d read enough books to figure that wasn’t a good sign, but I was thankful not to have to feel it.

Elizabeth was in worse shape than me. Henry’s shot had hit me in the shoulder, but he’d hit her in the chest. She was lying on her back, spatters of her blood making the white rose petals look red. Her chest was moving with her breaths, but she was unconscious, and far too pale. Maybe Henry had intended to kill her—he only needed one of us alive and in the vicinity to keep the gun operational—or maybe he’d been aiming for her shoulder, too, and had missed. He probably didn’t have much practice with mortal weapons. Either way, I knew she was in dire trouble.

The Knights and the trolls had frozen in place with the threat to their Queen. I’d have doubted Henry would shoot his own mother, except he’d obviously had no compunction about shooting his daughter.

Arawn spared a withering look for the Knights who had brought Elizabeth to Titania’s room. “You didn’t think to check him for mortal weapons before you brought him into the Queen’s presence with a suspected Faeriewalker at his side and a charge of treason looming over his head?” He shook his head in disgust, then turned to Henry.

“You are aware she is not my Queen,” Arawn said to Henry. He spoke in a normal tone of voice, as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

“And therefore this is none of your business,” Henry responded. “I’m sure you and my mother have some agreements you’d prefer not to lose, so you would prefer not to see the throne change hands. I suggest you stay out of the way.”

Arawn shrugged. “Very well. But you’ve gone through a great deal of trouble to make sure you have a Faeriewalker at your disposal. I assure you, your daughter would make a more tractable servant than Dana, so please allow me to heal the child’s injury before she expires.”

I crawled over to Elizabeth and took her hand in mine. I didn’t know if she could feel it, but after giving her up as I had, I had to give her whatever comfort I could. Her eyelashes fluttered briefly at my touch, but she didn’t open her eyes.

“You may heal her,” Henry said, “but make no attempt to move her or the other Faeriewalker.”

Arawn nodded, then moved slowly to Elizabeth’s other side, keeping a wary eye on Henry as he did so. Not that Henry’s gun could do him any damage, but perhaps he actually cared what happened to Titania. He had been in her bed, after all.

“Now, Mother,” Henry said, “we must put this unfortunate misunderstanding behind us. To that end, you will accept a geis not to harm me nor cause any other person to harm me. We will then peacefully go our separate