chapter twenty-four
That night was one of the longest in my life. The hours of the early evening crept by like years, and then, once Dad and I said our good nights, they slowed down even more. I tried calling my mom about eight times to let her know I was coming, but she never answered. I hoped that didn’t mean something had happened to her. I also hoped that didn’t mean she was too drunk to answer the phone. Getting out of Avalon was going to be hard enough without alcohol entering the picture.
I heard Dad mount the stairs to his bedroom at around eleven. Then after that, nothing.
I decided I didn’t want to wait until the last minute to go downstairs. I wanted Dad to have plenty of time to fall asleep again if I inadvertently woke him as I crept down the steps. If he came to check on me, I’d tell him I was having trouble sleeping and was going to make some tea.
Before I left, I fished the cameo out of the trash—lucky for me, Dad didn’t have a maid service to empty the trash every day. I stared at the cameo for a long moment, then fastened it around my neck. I wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the Seelie Court, but the cameo was a gift from my dad. If my plan worked, I would probably never see him again, but at least I’d have something to remember him by.
There was no light under the door leading to Dad’s room when I passed by, and none of the stairs made any telltale creaky noises to wake him up. When I was in the living room, I did some more ear-straining to see if I could hear him moving around, but the house was silent.
I stood at the front window with the living room lights off, looking out into the distance. Or at least, trying to. A dense layer of fog blanketed the land at the mountain’s base, wisps of it drifting through the quiet streets. I couldn’t see the moon or stars, and even as I watched, the unseen clouds spat some drizzle to join the fog. I shivered in anticipation.
I knew better than to make my escape attempt carrying my luggage or my backpack. I hated to leave everything behind, particularly my computer, but all my instincts told me I might be running for my life tonight, and I couldn’t afford the extra burden.
I’d put on one of the thick woolen sweaters—or jumpers, as they called them here, which seemed like a silly name—that I’d bought on my shopping trip. I’d left my packages in the wreckage of the shop, but Kimber had collected them for me and had them delivered. My throat tightened as I added her to the list of people I would never see again if I escaped Avalon. This, I reminded myself, was why I tried so hard not to get too close to my friends: it hurt so much more to leave if you let yourself care too much.
I did my best to shake off my gloomy thoughts as I waited for Ethan to arrive. The streets were eerily deserted. A car passed by occasionally, and I saw a horse and rider once, but there were no pedestrians.
Which was why I spotted Ethan so easily, even though he was sticking to the shadows, avoiding the street lights. My heart fluttered in my chest when I caught sight of him, but I told myself that was just nerves, not any stupid lingering attachment.
My watch told me I had fifteen minutes until our scheduled rendezvous, but I didn’t see any pressing reason to wait now that Ethan was here. Taking a deep breath for courage, hoping I wasn’t making the worst decision in the history of mankind, I tiptoed down the spiral staircase into the garage. I’m sure it would have been okay for me to turn on the lights, but I was too deeply in sneak-and-hide mode to feel comfortable doing it.
Naturally, the garage was pitch-black, but Dad didn’t exactly keep it packed with stuff. I found his car by feel, then used its contours as a guide to get me around to the front door without falling flat on my face. The practice mats were still on the floor, ready for my next lesson with Keane; a lesson that would never come. I told myself I didn’t care. Keane was just eye candy with a bad attitude. Maybe I’d seen a hint of a more likeable guy under his surly exterior today, but getting involved with him would have been as bad a mistake as getting involved with Ethan had been.
Carefully, quietly, I unlocked each of the locks. I remembered Finn saying that opening the door would break Dad’s spells. I hoped breaking those spells wouldn’t set off any alarms.
I winced in anticipation as I pulled the door open, but no alarms broke the nighttime silence. I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm my shaky nerves. Then I slipped out of my father’s house and closed the door behind me.
“You’re early,” Ethan said, and it was all I could do not to jump and scream.
I whirled on him, covering my mouth to stifle my gasp of surprise. The last time I’d caught sight of him, he’d been loitering in an alley a little ways down the street. I’d assumed that was where he planned to wait for me.
Ethan grinned at me, the grin that made my stomach do flip-flops. He was dressed all in black tonight—appropriate for skulking around in darkened streets, I supposed—and he’d pulled his long hair back into a club at the base of his neck. Not exactly the Rambo look, but sinister enough to give me a superstitious chill.
“Sorry to startle you,” Ethan said, though I suspected he’d done it on purpose. The jerk.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Yeah, what I’m doing tonight isn’t scary enough, so pulling juvenile pranks is a fabulous idea.”
He looked more genuinely sorry now, but he didn’t apologize again. “Come on, let’s get moving. Where are we going, anyway?”
“To the Hilton. Wherever that is.”
Ethan frowned. “A car would be nice,” he said. “That’s going to be a hike.”
Great. At least I had on comfortable shoes. “Uphill or down?” I asked, praying he’d give me the right answer.
“Down.”
“Phew.” I tried to tell myself that was a good sign, that it meant fate was with me. “Lead the way.”
The drizzle I’d noticed from Dad’s window picked up to a light rain as we started walking. Of course I hadn’t brought an umbrella, and neither had Ethan. The wool sweater was keeping my skin dry for now, but even so I was already cold. I curled my hands into fists, then pulled them up into the sleeves of the sweater for warmth.
“If this is summer,” I grumbled, “I’d hate to see your winters.”
To my shock, Ethan slung his arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him, sharing his warmth. I knew I shouldn’t be letting him touch me, not after everything I’d learned about him. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to keep his hands to himself. But he was so warm. And he wasn’t treating the gesture as some sort of a come-on. He didn’t even look at me, just kept walking as if putting his arm around me was so natural it didn’t occur to him that I might object.
If everything went well, I’d be out of Avalon by tomorrow, and I’d never see Ethan again. So what did it matter if I sent him mixed signals? What did it matter if I acted like I forgave him even when really I didn’t? His warmth fought off the chill, and I should take advantage of it while I had the chance. So I slipped my arm around his waist, making it easier for us to walk, and neither of us said anything about it.
For the record, walking in Avalon sucks. At least, it sucks when you’re trying to go up and down the mountainside, because the road spirals, which means even if your destination is only a hundred yards down from where you’re standing, you have to spiral all the way around the mountain to get there. Every once in a while, there was a stairway that allowed us to quickly cut from one level of the road to the next level down, but they were way too rare for my taste.
My knees and ankles told me that walking downhill for extended periods of time wasn’t really that much easier than walking uphill. It just caused a different sort of pain. And the steady light rain had soaked through my shoes and socks, so my feet had turned to ice.
The Hilton was located at the very bottom of the mountain, within view of the Southern Gate. It looked incongruously modern next to the stately brick and stone buildings that surrounded it. There was even a multilevel parking deck on one side. Ethan and I were no doubt looking pretty bedraggled by then, and I know I, at least, was exhausted.
I didn’t have the heart to make Ethan wait for me out in the rain, but I didn’t want to take him up to my mother’s room, either.
“She’s pretty touchy about the Fae,” I told him. “There’s likely to be enough drama already. I don’t want her going all hysterical because you’re there.”
Ethan didn’t like it—I think he was afraid I was going to try to ditch him—but since I refused to get into the elevator with him, he finally gave up and agreed to wait for me in the lobby.
“If you’re not down in fifteen minutes, I’m coming up to get you,” he said.
“Okay,” I agreed, just to get him off my back. It would be kinda hard for him to come get me when he didn’t actually know what room my mom was in, but whatever.
I wasn’t surprised when my mom didn’t immediately answer her door. It was, after all, the middle of the night. Plus she hadn’t answered any of my calls, so why should I assume she’d answer the door?
I knocked on the door a little louder, hoping I wasn’t waking everyone else on the hallway. “Mom?” I said, not quite shouting, but speaking loud enough to have a hope of being heard. If she was passed out drunk, getting her to wake up could be a serious challenge.
Still nothing, though I thought I heard some movement. I knocked yet again, and this time I was sure I heard someone move.
“Mom? It’s me.” Like she wouldn’t know. Who else would call her “Mom”?
She mumbled something incoherent. I breathed a sigh of relief, both that she was awake, and that the bad guys hadn’t gotten to her. I knocked one more time, just to make sure she didn’t decide she was dreaming and go back to sleep. She said something else—I think, maybe, “Coming!”—and I heard footsteps approaching the door.
At the same moment, my skin started to prickle and the cameo, tucked under the neck of my shirt, started to heat. Just as my mom’s door swung open, I realized what that meant. But it was too late.
Someone shoved me from behind, sending me flying through the door and into my mother’s room. I slammed into Mom, and we both fell to the floor. By the time I managed to roll off of her and get to my feet, someone had closed the door and turned on the light.
Dread clenching in my gut, I turned to see who had just ambushed me.
Aunt Grace lounged in the doorway, looking terribly proud of herself. By her side, a disembodied arm floated in the air, holding a gun pointed at my mom. On the floor under the arm—about where you’d expect a person’s feet to be—were a pair of shoes. I gaped. Grace laughed and reached into the seemingly empty air. A moment later, the arm and the shoes were attached to a smallish, human-looking guy wearing a hooded black cloak. A cloak just like the one Aunt Grace was wearing.
“The cloaks only work when the hoods are up,” Aunt Grace explained, like we were having a friendly conversation. “And they only hide what’s behind the fabric, so one needs to keep one’s limbs tucked under to be completely unseen. They cost me a small fortune, but they were worth it.”
I couldn’t think of anything clever and witty to say, so I just stood there staring at the gun, hoping Grace’s friend didn’t have an itchy trigger finger. I swallowed hard, wishing I’d let Ethan come up to the room with me after all. Then again, I doubted Ethan was a match for Grace, and he certainly wasn’t a match for that gun.
“What do you want?” I asked, and I was surprised that I sounded almost calm. My pulse was galloping, and I’d broken out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature.
She arched one graceful brow. “Don’t you know, dear?”
“You want your very own pet Faeriewalker. Well, let me tell you, your methods of winning me over aren’t lighting my fire.” Gee, that sounded kinda brave. Now, if my hands would only stop shaking, Aunt Grace might actually believe I was as brave as I sounded.
She gave me a marrow-freezing glare. “Obviously your mother didn’t teach you any manners.”
I crossed my arms over my chest—more to hide the shaking hands than to be defiant. “Apparently yours didn’t either. Or do you consider kidnapping your own niece polite?”
Grace moved so fast I couldn’t have stopped her if I’d tried. Her hand flew at my face and landed a bell-ringing slap on my cheek. I gasped, and tears misted over my eyes. My face felt like it had just had a run-in with a truck.
I swallowed the tears as best I could, gritting my teeth and ordering myself not to cry over one little slap. I thought about what kind of pain Finn must have gone through during his encounter with the Knights. If he could endure that without complaint, then I could force myself not to give Grace the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
“I’ve been wanting to do that almost from the first moment you opened your mouth,” she growled at me. “And I would be happy to do it again if you have any more cutting remarks you’d like to make.”
I managed to hold off the tears, and I didn’t put my hand against my aching, burning cheek. But I wasn’t anxious for a repeat performance, so I kept quiet.
“Kirk,” Aunt Grace said to her henchman, motioning him toward my mom, who was just starting to come to.
“Keep away from her!” I cried as he bent down toward her, but he ignored me, and with that gun in his hand, I didn’t dare make a move to stop him. All Keane’s fancy moves were useless when the enemy had a weapon—and a hostage.
Kirk grabbed my mom and shoved her onto the bed. She made a puzzled little “Huh?” sound, but she was still really out of it. Kirk tucked his gun in his belt and flipped my mom onto her stomach, then tied her hands behind her back. When he was done, he took the gun out again and put the muzzle against her head.
“You and I are going to take a walk, dear,” Aunt Grace said to me, taking hold of my arm. “Behave yourself, and your mother will come to no harm.” With her other hand, she pulled a cell phone out of the handbag that was slung diagonally across her body. With one hand, she dialed a number.
“Cathy Hathaway’s room, please,” she said pleasantly when someone answered.
The room phone rang, and Kirk picked up the receiver and laid it on the nightstand.
“Can you hear me all right?” Grace asked, and we could all hear her voice buzzing from the room phone. “Perfect!”
She pushed me toward the door, brandishing her cell phone. “If I give the order, or if this connection is cut, Kirk will shoot your mother in the head. Don’t have any illusions that he won’t do as he’s told—he’s a professional. So you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to do at all times. Understand?”
I looked at my mother, lying trussed up and facedown on the bed with a gun to her head. She was absolutely helpless, and this time, I couldn’t blame it on the alcohol. Had she been stone cold sober, she’d still be in the same mess. And it would still be my fault.
“I understand,” I told Aunt Grace through gritted teeth, because I didn’t think a silent nod would satisfy her. There was an almost crazy light in her eyes. I wondered if she was certifiably nuts, or if the power was just going to her head. Either way, it scared the crap out of me.
After one last look at Mom, I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Whatever Grace wanted, I was going to have to do it. And hope and pray that she’d let my mom go.
But why should she? an evil little voice whispered in my head. Once she’s got me where she wants me, why wouldn’t she just eliminate the witness? I believed Aunt Grace was crazy enough—or evil enough—to do it. But how could I stop her?
I thought about it frantically as we waited for the elevator, neither of us saying a word. I couldn’t even bear to look at her, much less speak to her.
The worst part was that Ethan was waiting for me in the lobby. I might have hoped he could play my knight in shining armor, but he wouldn’t know my mom was in danger. If he did something heroic to try to save me from Grace, he might very well get my mom killed.
I was shaking and, I’m sure, corpse-white when we stepped off the elevator into the lobby. But though I glanced surreptitiously around for Ethan, hoping to give him some kind of warning to back off, I didn’t see him.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, it meant no heroics that would get my mom killed. On the other hand … it meant no heroics that would get me away from Aunt Grace.
The doorman gave me a puzzled look as I left the hotel with Aunt Grace. I’m sure he remembered opening the door for Ethan and me, and he probably thought there was something strange about me leaving with someone different—and looking absolutely terrified—but Grace gave him a look, and he suddenly lost interest in us. The cameo hadn’t heated, so maybe it had been straight intimidation.
“To the right,” Aunt Grace ordered, and I obeyed.
“So where are we going?” I finally found the courage to ask.
Grace flashed me a sly little smile. “To Faerie.”
I was so startled and horrified that I stopped in my tracks. “You have to be kidding me!”
She stared down at me with her icy blue eyes. “Do I look like I’m kidding? Now start walking, or I’ll give Kirk the go-ahead to have some fun with your mother while you listen.”
My head swam, and for a moment, I was afraid I was going to pass out. I forced myself not to think about what Grace had just threatened, instead putting one foot in front of the other.
“Why are we going to Faerie?” I asked in a choked whisper, though I already had an idea. An awful, terrifying, unbelievable idea.
“Seamus told us—Alistair and me—about what happened to your Knight. And Alistair told me what happened with the Spriggans. They are both fools, thinking we can keep you safe and eventually exploit your powers for our own purposes.” She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “As if even the three of us together could foil both the Queens of Faerie.”
I slowed my pace a bit, trying to postpone the inevitable, but Grace gave me a little push to hurry me along.
“If the Queens wish you dead, then you will die,” she said. “Faeriewalkers aren’t born every day, and it would be a shame not to get any use out of your unique powers while you are still among the living.”
By now I was sure I knew where she was going with this, incredible as it sounded. But I had to hear her say it to believe it, so I kept pressing.
“So why are we going into Faerie?”
Holding the phone precariously with one hand, Grace reached into her purse and opened it just wide enough to show me the gun concealed inside. I know absolutely nothing about guns, but even I could tell this one was a nasty piece of work, so big it barely fit even in that large bag.
“The Fae are hard to kill,” she said. “Especially in Faerie, where cold iron doesn’t exist.”
Yep, she was as crazy as I thought.
“This little baby,” she said, patting her purse, “would not work in Faerie, even though it is not cold iron. But, if it is in the hands of a Faeriewalker—or in the hands of someone who is within the Faeriewalker’s aura—it will fire. And even a Fae Queen can be killed by a mortal bullet to the head.”
“You want to assassinate one of the Queens,” I said, and it was only half a question.
“I might try for both,” she mused. “I have the power to hold Titania’s throne if I take it. Perhaps my first official act as Seelie Queen will be to eliminate Mab. I’m not arrogant enough to think I can hold both thrones, but with Mab dead, whoever inherited the Unseelie throne would be less powerful and easier to work with.” Grace gave me an evil grin. “And with you at my side, no one would ever dare threaten me. I will be Queen forever!”
Nope, she wasn’t a bit arrogant. I honestly had no idea whether the world would be a better place if she succeeded or if she failed. All I knew was that I was running out of time to come up with a brilliant escape plan. Because we only had another hundred yards or so until we’d be on the bridge and crossing the moat to the Southern Gate.