Wayfinder

and the impossible fell into place: “Merrick.”

The willpower necessary to cast an illusion of the depth Merrick had commanded staggered Lara. Almost literally: she had a hard time putting one foot in front of the other as Dafydd guided her through the streets toward Kelly’s apartment. It had begun—had to have begun—with Braith’s village in the valley. It hadn’t just been A glamour hiding the town that had triggered her headache. The town itself had been an illusion, and her truthseeking sense had tried desperately to correct what it knew to be wrong. But it was more than that: in the Catskill mountains Merrick had only built an illusion to fool Lara. Kelly had seen through it, rescuing Lara from her own folly. This one, like the spell Merrick had created to mastermind his own apparent murder, had fooled more than one person into believing the same story.

“The magic would be easier to control and maintain in the Barrow-lands,” Dafydd explained. “In your world, tricking a single person with an in-depth illusion might take all of Merrick’s talent. I fooled everyone with my glamour, but it’s so very minor that the effort necessary to maintain it is almost negligible. Making you, a truthseeker, believe I had rejoined you in your world … that requires—”

“It requires my willing acceptance and belief in the scenario. And I think it required the same thing in Annwn. Maybe the real village was a little farther down the same road, and he created the illusion on the path I saw in order to waylay us. And we just delivered him into the heart of the Seelie army, Dafydd. Your father could be dead because of us.”

“As you said, riding into their midst could well be his undoing. I wouldn’t think, though, that it’s Merrick or even Ioan they’ll be seeing. I’d think it would be—”

“You,” Aerin finished grimly. “The son and heir returned, perhaps with a tale of vanquished enemies. There is no one left in the Barrow-lands to protect the Unseelie city now, Dafydd.”

“I’m surprised you care,” Lara said with more honesty than wisdom.

Aerin’s human countenance did nothing to spoil the cool arrogance in her gaze. “I dislike being made a fool of, Truthseeker.”

“Hafgan remains,” Dafydd said with the air of a man trying hard to defuse a fight. “He might yet be the Unseelie peoples’ savior. What I want to know is how he worked the scrying spell.”

“He didn’t.” They stopped at a crosswalk, Lara so grateful to stop moving that she didn’t look to see if they could jaywalk the section. It was a Bostonian pastime, striking out into traffic with the air of one indestructible. The trick was never making eye contact with the enemy: it lent jaywalkers the moral right of way, obliging drivers to hit the brakes. It was infuriating, but everyone participated while on foot, even if they’d only minutes earlier been in a car, swearing violently at jaywalkers themselves.

Dafydd, obviously as familiar with the game as she was, did walk out into traffic, eliciting a gasp of horror from Aerin. As if reminded of the danger, he skipped back—scoring one for the vehicles, Lara supposed—and settled in place to hear Lara’s explanation while they waited for the light.

“The scrying spell is one of ice and water. Merrick doesn’t command those elements. He just created an illusion, and we probably made it easier by giving him that tiny jug of water instead of a pool or a basin like Ioan and Emyr use. He must have been being so careful.” Lara closed her eyes, trying to recall exactly the words and phrases “Ioan” had used. “A direct lie would have triggered my truth-sensing no matter how good his illusion was. He never said he was Ioan. He didn’t even say he’d use the scrying power. He said he had duties to attend to, and was thirsty. It was all true. It just wasn’t—”

“Connected,” Dafydd said. “In the same way you intimated we were from Pennsic. My adopted brother is canny,” he added in a mutter. “I always thought him more honest than that.”

“You were always more willing to forgive him his birth than the rest of us,” Aerin said. The light changed and she strode into the street, boldness an illusion Lara could see through.

Dafydd’s jaw tightened and he moved swiftly to keep up, leaving Lara a few steps behind. “Had the rest of you been more forgiving, perhaps we wouldn’t have come to this.”

“Would we not have? Would you have always been content to be the prince, Dafydd, and never the king?”

“Your ambitions were always greater than mine.” Dafydd fell back again abruptly, rejoining Lara in not so much a retreat as a strategic commentary. Aerin’s fists clenched, but she said nothing else, and let Dafydd and Lara take the lead again as they cut down another street toward Kelly’s apartment complex.

“Does it work that way?” Lara wondered aloud. “I thought maybe there was no real inheritance, not when you all live so long. Heirs in name only, for all intents and purposes.”

“For all intents,” Dafydd agreed. “Even royalty dies, as my mother did, but Emyr was never likely to set aside his crown from grief, even if Ioan and I hadn’t been children by our standards. Even almost by human standards,” he added. “We were very young. Ioan was only nine or ten when I was born and he and Merrick were exchanged as hostages to good behavior.”

“I thought you didn’t have very many children. I’d think two children in ten years would be unheard of.”

“It was. And perhaps Rhiannon paid the price for breeding at such a mortal rate, as I was only a child myself when she died.”

“I’m sorry. Oh, good, here we are.” Lara ran forward, suddenly eager to get out of the street as she buzzed Kelly’s apartment. Aerin scowled at the sharp sound, hand tightening on her “purse” again, and Lara shot her a sympathetic smile. “It’ll be quieter insi—Hello? Hi, Kelly? It’s Lara!”

Momentary silence followed Kelly’s initial “hello?,” which had been half-drowned under Lara’s reassurance to Aerin. Then Kelly gave a short incredulous laugh. “Oh my God. Come on up, I’m buzzing you in.”

She met them in the hallway outside her apartment, eyes wide above a cheek swollen with medical staples. Lara made a dismayed sound, but Kelly charged forward to grab her in an astonished, breathless hug. “When you said ‘see you later’ I thought you meant in about ten years. Oh my God, Lara, you’re home already? You’re okay? What’s going on? And David!” She nearly yelled his name, releasing Lara to haul the slender Seelie man into a hug. “You’re not dead! And—oooh.” Her voice dropped as she took in Aerin, then put a hand out to shake. “I didn’t get your name, but you’re obviously the other wom—Uh, I mean, you’re Dafydd’s frie—I mean, aw, shit, I mean, hi, I’m Kelly.”

Aerin looked dubiously at Kelly’s hand, then carefully took it in her own. “I am Aerin.” She glanced at Dafydd, curiosity raising her white eyebrows. “Her injury appears profound. Why has she not healed it?”

Kelly shot Lara a look of bewilderment and Lara groaned. “She only speaks Seelie and my magic’s not enough to make you understand her. Or her understand you. This is Aerin. She wanted to know why you haven’t healed your cheek yet.”

“Are you kidding? The best doctors in Boston say it’s healing up really well. I won’t even need plastic surgery, probably, to hide the scar, it should be that unnoticeable.” Kelly grabbed Lara’s shoulders. “Speaking of plastic surgery—”

“I saw the newspaper story. Have you—?”

“I’ve been trying for two days to get in to see him. There are mooks in black suits and Ray-Bans lurking around the hospital. I can’t believe they haven’t taken him out of Boston yet.”

“How bad is he?”

“His brains are leaking out the back of his head,” Kelly said with an unfortunate degree of truthfulness. “I’ve got a girlfriend on the nursing staff, but even she can’t get me in to see him. All she can tell me is he hasn’t woken up and half of the medical community on the Eastern seaboard has come in to look at him. The papers are sticking with the extreme surgery story, but people are talking about alien invasions.” She herded everyone into her apartment as she spoke, Dafydd translating her tumble of words for Aerin.

Four days was enough to have turned Kelly’s apartment from relatively tidy into a minor disaster area. She darted around the living room, scooping up empty pint cartons of ice cream and blankets and socks and dumping them into trash cans and closets. Lara counted seven ice cream cartons before they were swept away, and caught Kelly’s hand to stop her whirlwind cleaning.

There was no diamond on her ring finger. Lara said “Oh, no, Kel,” and Kelly went still, eyes cast downward.

“He’s been at the hospital all week,” she mumbled. “Sitting by Reg’s bedside when he can, sleeping in the lobby when he’s not allowed to. The only time he’s left, pretty much, was to come see me in the ER when I came in bleeding like a stuck pig. He made sure I was more or less okay, and then he broke up with me. Said he didn’t know