Wondrous Strange

collateral damage.”

“The Janus Guard will also be out that night,” he said, one hand reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. “Just as we have been and will be for every night of the Nine.”

“Good.”

“Speaking of which-Kelley…” Sonny seemed suddenly exhausted. He turned his face to the west, and she could see the fatigue etched into the lines and planes of his face. “It’s getting late. You need to leave the park. Please. Don’t argue with me this time. Just go. The sun will set soon, and I have to go to work.”

He squared his shoulders as though he expected her to put up a fight.

She did-a little-but only out of actual concern for him. “Shouldn’t you be taking it easy? I mean, you try to hide it with the whole tough-guy-swagger thing and all, but I saw the bandages. You’re really hurt. Aren’t you?”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Wow. You are a terrible liar.”

He frowned fiercely at her.

“You also look like you haven’t slept in a week.” She took a tentative step toward him and put a hand on his chest, looking up into his silver-gray eyes.

He put his hand over the top of hers, and she could feel the rhythm of his heart beating under her palm, through his shirt and the bandages.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

With his other hand, Sonny reached up and brushed a stray auburn curl out of her eyes. “I’m sure.”

He smiled down at her, and she felt her insides melt a little. His whole face changed when he smiled. It was like the sun coming out.

“But,” he continued, “I’ll be even better if you are safe at home and I don’t have to worry about you for tonight.”

“I can take care of myself, Sonny Flannery,” she bristled, halfheartedly.

“Please?” He turned up the wattage on his smile.

“I…okay.” She felt her own lips turn up in a shy, answering smile. “I’ll be good. This once.”

“That’s my girl.”

Kelley was silent. Those three words of Sonny’s had managed to render her utterly speechless.

XXIV

That night proved easy by Janus standards.

By the time Sonny saw Kelley out of the park at East Seventy-second, the shadows had grown long again, and he’d gone to work. He’d only had to draw his sword once and he’d even been able to actually talk a bevy of wood sprites into returning back through the rift whence they’d come without any of them so much as lobbing a pinecone at his head.

Maybe they’d felt sorry for him, he thought as he walked up Fifth Avenue after sunrise and passed his reflection in a shop window. He really did look terrible: bone-deep weary, his eyes circled with shadows like bruises.

He knew that sleep would be the best thing for him, but as the sky brightened over New York and the day began anew, Sonny headed instead in the direction of the address that he’d finally been able to pry out of a reluctant Maddox.

The fire-escape landing outside the fourth-floor apartment could be accessed by two windows. One, the bathroom window, showed Sonny a glimpse of reddish horsehair: a tail swishing back and forth through the gap between the wall and the shower curtain. He heard a gentle, regular rumbling-the kelpie was snoring in his sleep. Sonny briefly thought of doing…something…but the thing was safe for the moment. And he had begun to shy away from any thought of violence toward the creature, for Kelley’s sake.

Kelley…The other window was hers. The gap in the curtains showed her curled up in her bed, sleeping peacefully. When she shifted in her slumber, the silver-and-green amber pendant she wore slid along the chain around her neck, coming to rest in the graceful, hollowed contour above her collarbone. In the dim light of the room, the little charm seemed almost to glow.

Sonny closed his eyes and reached toward her with his inner senses. With Kelley asleep, it was easier for him to get a read on her…

There she was, like brilliant little sparks in the darkness, her explosive brightness kept in check, Sonny was sure, by the sputtering fuse of the charm around her throat. She was almost completely hidden.

Swinging himself off the iron stairs and down to the ground, Sonny decided that he wouldn’t be going back to his apartment to rest that morning.

The Avalon Grande proved easy to break and enter, but the fact that it left him even slightly out of breath gave Sonny pause. His Janus training should have made it effortless. His injuries had made it hard.

You’re only human, he thought. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. Especially now that he knew that Kelley wasn’t. Which one is really Kelley? he wondered. The apprentice actress at a tumbledown theater, or that incandescent creature in the alleyway-the one he’d glimpsed when the veil that kept her hidden had slipped?

Sonny was pretty sure that Kelley didn’t have the vaguest idea what she truly was-what she could be. What would happen, he wondered, when she discovered it for herself? Would she change? Become like those same Faerie he had worshipped as a child? He was not so sure that he would want Kelley to become like them.

It had been difficult for Sonny, living in the mortal realm for the past year. Everything seemed just slightly shabby to his Otherworld-accustomed eyes. Still, he found himself, more and more, entertaining the thought that perhaps the Faerie realm-in all its wild, magical splendor-was not exactly the glorious place his childhood memories made it.

He thought of Kelley drifting through the halls of her father’s shining palace. He pictured her as she might become: a perfect being, but distant. Cold. Aloof. Wanting for nothing but, by the same token, dreaming of nothing…

He pushed the thought away and hid himself in the darkened upper balcony, resting his arms on the worn wood of the pew in front of him and relaxing as the morning stage crew began to trickle in. Kelley hadn’t yet arrived-it was still too early-but Sonny was filled with a warmth of anticipation. Not that he was going to let her know that he was there; he was finally getting the sense that Kelley might not take entirely kindly to his watching out for her. Also, the man playing Oberon had been fairly explicit in his warning to stay away. Not that he posed any kind of threat to a Janus, but Sonny respected the man’s desire to defend Kelley. The shadowy balcony provided an ideal vantage point.

It was also dark and warm. When Sonny woke up hours later, it was only because Bob the boucca was poking him in the shoulder with a wooden prop sword. Sonny sat up with a start, but the ancient Fae put a shushing finger to his lips.

“Heigh-ho, Faerie killer,” Bob whispered, grinning wickedly. “Thought you might be up here.”

“Seven hells…” Sonny glanced around blearily and scrubbed a hand over his face. Some bodyguard he was! “Does she know I’m here?”

“No. But if you’d kept on snoring like that, she was bound to find out. Didn’t think you’d want that. She fancies herself all kinds of self-sufficient. You may have noticed.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s up against.”

“Do you?”

“I have theories, but…I could use your help.”

“I’m not known for giving it.”

Sonny chose his words carefully. “I think you’re the victim of-what do they call it?-bad press. I think you’re a great deal more helpful that you let on. I know why the leprechaun shut you in a jar, for one thing.” He nodded toward the backstage area, where he could sense that Kelley was in her dressing room. “The charm on Kelley’s necklace. The shamrock. It’s been hiding her, protecting her.”