Wondrous Strange

Sonny found himself oddly affected by the lovers’ plight.

The “play” ended with a prolonged, purposefully hilarious death scene from Bottom, who flopped around on the stage like a landed fish, a wobbly rubber prop sword protruding out from under one arm. Then all of the actors froze in place.

For a brief moment, Sonny thought the tableau was just part of the performance, then he heard Bob whisper beside him.

“Oh…shit.”

The temperature suddenly plummeted to freezing. The theater echoed with rolling booms like a glacier breaking apart. The double loading doors at the back of the stage flung wide, and a cold, baleful light poured over the threshold. Puck made a sign in the air with the fingers of one hand and clutched the back of Sonny’s neck with the other. Sonny knew that Bob had cast a powerful veil-powerful enough to shield them from the awareness of the Unseelie king.

“What are you doing?” he whispered. “I’m a Janus-there’s no reason for me to hide from my king.”

“Oh, really?” Bob whispered back. “Somehow I get the feeling that your king would not approve of the company you keep. I stole his daughter, remember? Nor, I think, would he appreciate the fact that you’ve yet to tell him of your discovery.”

“I was going to!”

“When?”

“After Kelley’s had a chance to get used to the idea,” Sonny said, although he wasn’t entirely sure he believed his own assertions. Why hadn’t he told Auberon straightaway?

“Well, never mind that now,” Bob said, peering through the balcony rails. “I think she’s about to receive a little fatherly face time, whether she’s used to the idea or not.”

Down on the stage, all of the actors, the crew, and the director stood frozen like statues in a garden. Auberon stalked among them like a predator, searching their faces. He cast a glance up toward the balconies.

Bob’s spell held. The king turned and kept walking, heading toward the dressing rooms and Kelley.

XXV

Kelley didn’t mind that she still had to help out backstage, even though she was now playing a lead. She was good with her hands and she hummed as she plugged in the glue gun and went to work peeling back the faux fur on the left ear of Bottom’s ass head. It kept drooping in front of her face in their scenes together.

The wave of arctic air hit her like a physical assault.

“Hello, Kelley.” The voice was sonorous with a faint crackling hiss. “I am Auberon, King of the Unseelie Court of the Realm of Faerie. I am also your father.”

Kelley felt a surge of fear tighten her stomach and willed her hands not to shake. She’d been half expecting this. She looked up from her work.

“My father was a doctor.”

The Faerie king chuckled. “A healer of the sick. How noble. You do not get sick. You have no need of such creatures. And I am your father. None other.”

“My father was a doctor,” she said again. Her hand went white-knuckled on the glue gun as she squeezed out a bead of melted adhesive along the base of the ear. “When I was four years old, he taught me how to properly bandage my knee when I skinned it. My mother showed me later how to take the dressing off without it hurting. What have you ever done for me? They were my parents and they loved me. How dare you tell me that they weren’t!”

Auberon took a step inside the room, over her threshold, and Kelley felt the clover charm at her throat spark and grow warm.

She glared balefully at the king. “Now that I’m, what, almost an adult? You suddenly appear in a puff of smoke and you want to assert some sort of parental claim on me? The Deadbeat Dad from Faerie Land? Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know you. I don’t need to. You might have been responsible for my creation, but you certainly had nothing to do with what I’ve become. I plan on keeping it that way.”

To her surprise, Auberon smiled. “I think that’s an excellent idea,” he said. “And I’d like to help you with that-if you don’t mind.”

Kelley put the glue gun down and stared at the Faerie king. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yes, you would,” he said, a not quite subtle note of warning in his voice. “If you weren’t my daughter.”

Kelley blinked and dropped her gaze back down to the furry head in her lap. The hollow eyes seemed to stare back at her, full of caution.

“Kelley,” the king said, softening his tone, “you know that you are in a great deal of danger because of the simple fact that you are my daughter, do you not?”

“In danger from whom, exactly?”

Auberon spread his hands before him. “There are those who would use you-hurt you-because of what you are. When you were stolen from me, I mourned. I…raged. But eventually, I came to see the theft as a blessing in disguise. I have always tried to govern my folk with a just hand, but the Courts of the realm are fractious and fraught with danger. As long as you remain hidden in the mortal world, you are safe.”

“You found me.”

“I found you quite by accident. And only because Sonny Flannery found you first. But you are right. There are others who might prove as clever. And that puts you in grave danger, my child. You must remain hidden. For your own sake, if not mine.”

“And what if I decide to take my chances?” Kelley asked. “Embrace my heritage-whatever that is?”

“Then you will most likely perish,” the Faerie king said quietly. “I offer you a bargain. I can see to it that you keep your life-the life that you have made for yourself. I can make you as good as mortal. If you let me.”

Kelley’s tone was sharp. “You want to keep me from my birthright?” Almost everything she had learned about the Fair Folk over the last few days had served to scare the hell out of her-the Otherworld sounded like a place full of treachery and danger. But although she was loath to admit it, even among her fears there was a tiny part of her that remembered how truly awesome it had been to ride with the Faerie in Herne’s hunting party. To be clothed in silk and jewels, galloping through the skies with godlike beings so beautiful they seemed made of starlight, laughing…Kelley closed her eyes and banished the seductive thoughts. No. She was pretty sure that she didn’t ever want to become a princess of Faerie, but she wasn’t about to let Auberon know that. “You want to make me ‘normal’? How is that a good deal for me in any way? And in exchange for what? There is nothing you have that I want. Nothing.”

“Not even a certain member of my Janus Guard?”

“You leave Sonny out of this! He’s not yours to give.”

“Perhaps not…” Auberon sank gracefully into a crouch in front of her chair and looked up at her. “But tell me this. How does he look at you now?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Now that he knows? Knows what you are.”

Kelley swallowed to ease a sudden constricting of her throat.

“Oh, my dear girl,” Auberon murmured, the chill in his voice suddenly thawing. She could imagine that she heard actual concern in his words. “I raised Sonny. I’ve watched him ever since he was a child. I know what he thinks of me and of my people. He respects us-and, indeed, there is a small, secret part of him that would sacrifice almost anything for the chance to become one of us. But he is not capable of loving us.”

“Sonny’s not afraid of you.”

“No. He isn’t,” the king agreed. “In fact, he has spent most of his life learning to kill my kind. Our kind. He’s very good at it.”

“Well that’s a marvelous legacy you’ve left him, isn’t it?” Kelley refused to look away. She stared straight into his eyes, the fierceness of her emotions making her hands shake. “Way to raise up the kid you stole.”