“This one was bad. She was injured. Didn’t you see the stitches?”
“My humble eyes had better things to occupy themselves with than her stitches.”
“Hey, guys?” I snapped. “I’m still here, you know. Stop talking about me in the third person.”
Kiyo walked over and touched my arm. “Eugenie, this is crazy. You need to go back to bed.”
“Today’s lesson will not require physical exertion,” said Dorian primly.
“There, you see?” I said. “I’ve got to keep going with our deal.”
Kiyo looked darkly from me to Dorian. “Your ‘deal’ doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of good. I thought it was going to keep your would-be rapists away.”
I had turned my back to them, opened the robe, and started pulling my jeans on. I froze, considering.
“The fachan wasn’t trying to rape me,” I said slowly. “He wanted to kill me.”
“Are you sure?”
“He tried to throw me through a windshield. That’s not very romantic.”
“A fachan?” asked Dorian.
I shed the robe and nightgown and pulled the shirt over my head before turning back around to face them. I gave Dorian the short version of what had happened.
He stood up from where he’d been leaning against my desk and strolled over to the window, hands clasped behind his back.
“A fachan,” he mused. “Here. Curious.”
“Not really. Not compared to anything else that’s happened to me,” I reminded him.
He pointed out the window. “You live in a desert. Fachans like bodies of water. You have a lot of enemies, my dear, but I doubt any fachan would hate you enough to show up here of his own volition.”
“What are you saying?” asked Kiyo.
“That someone went to considerable trouble to summon him here. Someone with either a lot of raw power or simply an affinity for water creatures.”
“Who could do that?” I asked.
“Any number of people. Maiwenn could.”
Kiyo took a few dangerous steps toward him. “Maiwenn didn’t do that.”
Dorian smiled, unfazed by Kiyo’s intimidating presence. They were the same height, but Dorian’s frame was lean and slim, Kiyo’s broader and more muscled.
“You’re probably right,” Dorian said after several tense moments of silence. “Particularly since she’s been so under the weather lately.” Kiyo’s face grew darker.
I glanced back and forth uneasily, uncertain as to what I was in the middle of. “Do you guys know each other?”
Dorian extended a hand to Kiyo, cool and collected. “I know of you, but I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. I am Dorian, king of the Oak Land.”
Kiyo grudgingly took his hand. “I know who you are.”
“This is Kiyo,” I said.
“Delightful to meet you. You’re a…kitsune.”
Dorian said the word in an odd tone. It wasn’t exactly disrespectful, but it clearly implied they were not equals.
I grabbed both their arms and steered them out. “No pissing contests. Come on. It’ll only take Tim about five minutes to whip up the food.”
Whatever antagonism existed between Kiyo and Dorian, it took a break as the gentry king entertained himself with the rest of my house. He was like a kid, unable to keep his hands off of everything. Well, everything that wasn’t made of plastic or an iron affiliate. My living room was a veritable wonderland, with everything conveniently piled up in junk heaps for him to explore.
“What’s the purpose of this?”
He held a fluorescent pink Slinky, tossing it from side to side so he didn’t have to touch the plastic extensively. My impression was gentry could touch the taboo substances in small doses with minor discomfort; prolonged exposure grew much more uncomfortable. Charge it up with power, and it could kill them.
“It doesn’t really have a purpose,” I decided. “You just sort of…play with it when you’re bored.”
He tossed it back and forth, watching it spring up in arches.
“Let me see it,” I said.
I held it, closing my eyes. My focus was back now with the excruciating pain vanquished. I concentrated on the Slinky, putting a small piece of my essence into it. I handed it back.
“Wrap it up and take it with you. It’ll be my anchor.”
He grinned. With so many other distractions, we eventually had to drag him to the kitchen table when the food was ready.
“Haven’t you ever been in the human world before?” I asked, once we all sat down.
“There you go again, assuming we all just traipse over here for no good reason.”
“So you haven’t.”
“Well, actually, I’ve vacationed here a number of times. Not in this desolate place, of course, but several other nice spots.”
I rolled my eyes and slapped butter on my toast. It was made of good, hearty bread, chock-full of whole wheat and about a billion other grains. You could use this stuff as sandpaper.
I doused my coffee with sugar and cream, gulping it to chase down some ibuprofen. I might not be dying anymore, but myriad aches and stiffness filled my body. I didn’t think I could handle regularly getting into high- magnitude fights every other night.
When the whole prophecy thing had surfaced, I had joked that I preferred attempts on my life to sexual advances. I didn’t really believe that anymore. At least when the bad guys wanted my clothes off, it bought me some time. That fachan, however, had had no intentions short of crushing me. And he’d done a pretty good job of doing that. I had never fought something so massive before. Most of my fights, before this all started, had been with spirits and elementals. I could take them out with barely any effort. The fachan had been in a different league. The spirit army from the other day had also been new.
Dorian’s words rang back to me. The fachan had been deliberately sent. But by whom? One of the many who had a grudge against Odile? Someone like Maiwenn who wanted the prophecy to fail? Maiwenn herself? This latter thought bothered me. She’d seemed more or less trustworthy, despite her bland personality. If she turned into an enemy, it was going to create some serious friction between Kiyo and me.
We finished breakfast, and Dorian declared we had to go outside for our lesson. I took one look at him and the scalding sunshine and saw imminent disaster for that perfect, alabaster skin. Figuring he wouldn’t want my prissy, vanilla sunscreen, I dug him out a wide-brimmed cotton hat of Tim’s that looked only mildly ridiculous.
“Are you going to be able to do this?” I asked, leading Dorian out to my back patio. Tim had left for drumming practice, but Kiyo followed us, still watchful. “Your magic’s weaker on this side.”
Dorian draped his elegant robes over a lawn chair. “Not me who needs to do the magic. And really, I doubt you will either. Not in the way you’re thinking of. Hmm…yes, this area may work better than I’d hoped.”
He surveyed the patio area and the small grassless yard surrounded by a stucco wall. Dragging up another chair, he set it near the center of the patio, facing the house, and beckoned me to it. I sat down.
“Now what? More meditation?”
He shook his head. “Now we need a bowl of water.”
“Kiyo? Can you grab us one? There’s a big ceramic bowl in the back of one of my cupboards.”
Kiyo silently complied, looking as though leaving us alone for even one minute would result in Dorian trying something. I found that protectiveness endearing, albeit a bit over the top.
And then Dorian did try something.
“What are those?” I exclaimed.
“Think of them as…learning aids.”
He had produced a handful of silken cords from the deep pockets of his robe, all in different colors.
“What are you-no. You are not serious.”
He had moved behind my chair and grasped my hands. I jerked away.
“You’re trying to tie me up?”
