her teeth as I revealed the truth to her son.
“My…brother?” He looked bewildered, his eyes like a lost puppy’s.
Beezle shifted around on my shoulder so that he faced Nathaniel.
“I guess we know who you are now,” he said to Nathaniel in a low voice. “Should I start calling you faerie child?”
“Nathaniel’s a faerie now?” Chloe asked. She looked almost as confused as Bendith.
“Puck is no faerie,” Nathaniel said. “You should know this, gargoyle. You can see the true nature of things.”
Beezle muttered something so quietly that I could barely hear him, and he was perched right next to my ear.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I said, I can’t get a clear reading on Puck.” Beezle sounded disgruntled. “He’s too changeable.”
“That’s interesting,” I said.
I wondered how Puck was able to disguise himself so thoroughly. He had managed to live under Titania’s nose for hundreds of years without her detection. And I still had yet to figure out why. He was playing a very long and deep game in the faerie court, and I hadn’t yet determined how it benefited Puck to pretend to be Titania’s subordinate.
“Are you saying that Puck is my father, and yours?” Bendith searched Nathaniel’s face.
“You know the truth of this in your heart,” Nathaniel said gently. “You have only chosen to believe otherwise.”
Bendith closed his eyes, those orbs of brilliant blue that were exactly like Puck’s. When he opened them, his face was relaxed.
“Yes,” he said. “I have always known this to be true.”
“Does that mean that you’ll stop trying to kill me for diminishing Oberon?” I asked.
Bendith hardly seemed to notice me. He had eyes only for Nathaniel, starving eyes, the eyes of a child who has finally been given some longed-for desire. “I have always wished for a brother.”
“Wish granted,” Beezle said. “Now, can we get on with the quest so we can get out of here? I don’t want to spend any more time in this forest than I have to.”
“Would you aid us, Bendith?” Nathaniel asked.
He seemed so gentle in that moment. I was reminded of Gabriel and Samiel’s first meeting, when they had discovered they were siblings. From the look on Samiel’s face he was remembering, too. I turned my head to one side, taking a few deep breaths so that I would not weep. Sometimes it was hard for me to remember that I wasn’t the only one who’d lost something when Gabriel had died.
“I will help you, but not because I am interested in your quest, or your quarrel with my mother,” Bendith said. “I will help my brother. Because my mother betrayed the man I thought was my father, the father I have loved my whole life.”
“Thank you,” Nathaniel said.
Bendith nodded. “Follow me.”
Nathaniel fell in beside him. I don’t know whether Nathaniel wanted to spend some time with his brother or he wanted to be close enough to punch him if Bendith was tricking us, which was still a possibility.
He turned us off the main path through the woods. The foliage was thicker here, and it was harder to walk. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not tripping over anything.
Everyone was silent, lost in their own thoughts, except for Bendith and Nathaniel. The two of them spoke quietly, a conversation for their ears alone. I think Chloe, especially, had been disturbed by the prospect of torturing Bendith. She kept glancing warily at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.
I was finding that I didn’t much care about Chloe’s opinion, or Beezle’s, or Samiel’s. I didn’t see why our enemies got to do whatever they wanted but we had to follow some nebulous set of rules designed to appease human ideas of morality. As everyone was constantly reminding me, the creatures we dealt with were not human.
We walked for quite a while, long enough that I was starting to question whether or not Bendith was leading us into a trap. Then we emerged into another clearing, and J.B. was there.
He was lying upon a wide, flat stone, his eyes closed. I started toward him, but Nathaniel put his hand on my shoulder to hold me back.
“Is there a spell around the stone?” Nathaniel asked Bendith.
Titania’s son shook his head. “No. It is safe for you to approach.”
I pushed past Nathaniel so I could go to J.B., kneeling at his side. My merry band of misfits crowded around us.
“Gods above and below,” I said.
J.B.’s face was covered in blood. His right cheekbone looked like it was broken. His chest was bare and covered in fist-sized bruises. His eyes were closed and his breathing shallow.
“J.B.?” I whispered. “J.B., can you hear me?”
“He’s in too much pain to wake,” Nathaniel said. “I can heal him.”
He exchanged a look with Jude, and Jude nodded. The wolf took up the place at my back, and I realized they were worried about Bendith striking when I wasn’t paying attention. Apparently Nathaniel didn’t trust his brother completely.
It was a good thing I had them looking out for me, because Bendith could have stabbed me at that moment and I’d never have noticed. All I cared about was J.B., and that he had suffered this because of me.
Nathaniel gripped J.B.’s shoulders and closed his eyes. The air filled with magic, and I felt that pulsing awareness of Nathaniel again, like his power was seeking mine. I put my hands over Nathaniel’s, and pushed through him and into J.B.
There was a lot of damage. Broken bones, torn muscles, and, most terrifyingly, I sensed a blood clot forming from the trauma. I carefully picked the clot apart cell by cell while Nathaniel healed J.B.’s other injuries.
After a while we had done all we could do, and I released Nathaniel’s hands. He let go of J.B. and we looked at each other. J.B. still had not opened his eyes.
“He will likely need to rest for some time,” Nathaniel said. “But he will be well now.”
I touched J.B.’s cheek. “Where are his glasses?” I asked.
“I suspect they were broken,” Nathaniel said.
“How will he see without his glasses?” I said. I felt tears forming in my throat and I swallowed them ruthlessly. It was a stupid thing to worry about, really. At least he was alive. I just hoped his brain was still intact when he woke up, that he was still J.B.
“Samiel?” I asked.
Samiel reached for J.B. and slung him over one shoulder.
“Now we have to get out of here,” I said. “Bendith, you’d better get back to the castle before Titania finds out what you’ve been up to.”
“I would like to stay with you,” Bendith said to Nathaniel.
“No,” I said, before Nathaniel could agree. “I’m grateful to you for your help, but you need to go home. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s life.”
“If I go home, when will I see you again?” Bendith asked Nathaniel.
“We will meet again,” Nathaniel said.
“How are we going to get back home without Puck?” Chloe said.
“We need to get outside the borders of the kingdom. That’s where we landed the last time we arrived here. Once we get there I’ll try to contact Lucifer,” I said.
“And what if Lucifer decides to leave us stranded here?” Chloe said. “Or you can’t reach him?”
“One problem at a time,” I said.
“If you return to the path through the woods, you will find what you seek,” Bendith said. He seemed reluctant to leave.
“Until we meet again, brother,” Nathaniel said.
“Until we meet again,” Bendith repeated.
