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  “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.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Rain fell steadily as I trudged miserably toward the bridge that would lead me into Faerie. Grace was so cheerful she was humming under her breath. I kept trying to figure out some way to escape her without getting my mom killed, but I couldn’t even come up with a crazy idea, much less a sane one.

  Because the only delaying tactic I could think of was talking, I decided to ask some more questions.

  “Dad said he didn’t think you wanted to go back to Faerie,” I said through chattering teeth.

  “Did he?”

  “Yeah. Something about Lachlan.” I watched her from under lowered lashes, but she showed no reaction to Lachlan’s name.

  “For all his ambition and delusions of grandeur, my brother is, I’m afraid, a rather unimaginative person,” Aunt Grace said. “If I were to go into Faerie and take up with Lachlan as things stand now, then I would be…” She frowned. “I’m afraid shunned is too mild a word to describe the reaction, but it’s the best I can do. But Seamus forgot that if I went back to Faerie, it would be with you at my side. I will be Queen, and you, my dear child, will be a terrifying enough threat to discourage the rest of the Sidhe from treating me with anything less than the utmost respect.”

  “So, what, you’re going to keep me at your side all the time, like a dog on a leash, in case you feel like shooting someone?”

  She smiled that mad smile of hers, her eyes glinting with an ugly humor. “I hadn’t thought of it before, but I think a leash would be a wonderful idea. That long white neck of yours would look so lovely with a jeweled collar around it.”

  I shut up, because I didn’t want to hear any more about what she had planned for me. We had reached the bridge now, and my last remaining hopes started dying one by one as we crossed toward the gatehouse.

  Grace pointed at a door on the far right end of the gatehouse. A small light at the top of the door cast a faint glow on a sign written in a language I didn’t know.

  “You see that door?” she asked, but apparently it was a rhetorical question, because she didn’t wait for my answer. “That door will lead us directly into Faerie without having to bother with any annoying human customs.

  “It’s beautifully simple and ingenious. In Avalon, there’s a long hallway, which leads directly to the border. On the mortal side of the border, there’s nothing but a reinforced concrete wall, so for mortals, it’s a dead end. But in Faerie, there is no barrier, so we shall be able to walk right on through. There are border patrol officers stationed in the hallway, of course, but you know better than to make any kind of scene.”

  Yes, I knew better. Even if Aunt Grace didn’t have my mom as a hostage, I couldn’t rely on the border patrol for help. After all, Aunt Grace was their captain. No, it seemed like there was nothing to stop her from whisking me off to Faerie. I hoped if nothing else that it would be warmer there, because my clothes were now thoroughly soaked through, and though I hugged myself for warmth, my teeth chattered more and more with every passing minute.

  The parking lot I remembered seeing when I first encountered the gatehouse was nearly empty tonight. There were three cars parked close together right near the ultra-secure official entrance. And there was one other car, a nondescript sedan, parked under a burned-out light near the door to Faerie.

  As Grace and I stepped into the parking lot, she seemed to notice the car for the first time, and her footsteps slowed. She grabbed my arm with her free hand, pulling me to her, magic prickling across my skin.

  At first, I didn’t know what she had seen that alarmed her, but moments later a man stepped from the shadows.

  He was tall and very thin, almost frail-looking. He looked like he’d been roused from bed, his long blond hair fastened in a frazzled braid, his clothes wrinkled and mismatched. Even in the dim light of the parking lot, I could tell that his shirt was navy and his pants were black, like he’d grabbed them in the dark and just thrown them on.

  I thought he was a total stranger to me, until he stepped into a pool of light and I got a look at his eyes. Fae, of course, but of an unusual shade of teal blue. Just like Ethan and Kimber’s. Grace confirmed my guess by speaking, even as she backed away, pulling me with her.

  “Why Alistair, what a lovely surprise,” she said.

  He rubbed his face, looking exhausted. I was almost surprised Grace didn’t just run right over him. He certainly didn’t look like much of a threat. But of course, I knew that looks could be deceiving, especially here.

  “Lovely is not a word I would use to describe it,” he said, and he sounded as tired as he looked. He took a step closer to us, and Grace continued to back up. Maybe Alistair would be able to chase us all the way over the bridge and back into the, er, safety of Avalon.

  “Don’t be difficult about this,” Grace said.

  Alistair shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to take the girl into Faerie.”

  “Why ever not?” she asked, and she sounded genuinely puzzled.

  Alistair gave a bark of laughter. “It’s too late in the night for games. If you try to go through me, I will stop you.”

  Aunt Grace looked … annoyed. Her hand tightened on my arm until I hissed in pain. She didn’t loosen her grip.

  “Perhaps you’d like to convince Alistair to step aside, dear,” she suggested to me, brandishing the phone.

  My throat tightened in terror, and I turned pleading eyes on Alistair.

  “Please,” I begged in my most respectful voice. “She has my mother. She’s going to have her friend kill my mom if you try to stop us.” I could hardly believe I was in a position of begging someone to let Grace kidnap me into Faerie, but I had no doubt she was spiteful enough to have my mother killed if this grand plan of hers failed.

  Alistair’s gaze darted over my shoulder and then back, so quickly I might almost have missed it if I hadn’t been staring at him so intently. I think it was an involuntary moment of distraction on his part, not a cue for me to look over my shoulder. But I couldn’t help looking anyway.

  And there was Ethan, standing about ten feet behind us, trapping us between himself and his father. Now I understood why Alistair had “just happened” to be waiting for us. Ethan must have either seen Aunt Grace enter the hotel, or had at least seen her leave with me, and he’d called in reinforcements. But neither he nor Alistair could do anything to help my mother.

  “I’m very sorry,” Alistair said to me. “I would not lightly put your mother at risk. But I cannot allow Grace to take you into Faerie.”

  “Why not?” Grace asked. “Why should you care? You have never called Faerie home. You owe no allegiance to anyone there, not even your Queen. Why sacrifice this girl’s mother to stop me when what happens in Faerie is no concern of yours?”

  The cameo warmed in a way that was becoming sickeningly familiar. For reasons I
didn’t understand, I felt sure that magical electricity, or whatever it was, was coming from Grace, not Ethan or Alistair. Maybe just because she was so much closer to me. I saw her lips begin to curl in a smile, and I knew it meant no good.

  “She’s going to cast something!” I screamed, sure whatever spell she was casting would not be pleasant.

  I felt, rather than saw, the magic swelling around us then bursting forward, rushing toward Alistair. But I think my shout warned Alistair just in time, because he dove to the side.

  My ears popped, and Alistair’s car, directly behind him in the line of fire … imploded. That’s the only way I can describe what happened. It looked like semi trucks had smashed into it from all sides at once. I didn’t even want to think about what Alistair would have looked like if the spell had hit him.

  Grace looked down at me in such a fury I thought the force of her anger should strike me dead. I was sure she was about to hit me again. Instead, she did something much, much worse.

  “Kill her!” she yelled into her cell phone.

  “No!” I screamed, but Grace shut the phone with a snarl and hurled it over the side of the railing into the waters of the moat below.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alistair get up, shaking off the effects of the near miss, but all I could think about was Grace giving the fatal order. I didn’t even try to stop the tears this time.

  “That was not the wisest move,” I heard Alistair say, his voice calm and unruffled. I wanted to kill him for that calm when my mother had just been murdered because he wouldn’t let us go. “Even you can’t withstand a murder charge,” he continued. “Not with three witnesses.”

  “You have always underestimated me, Alistair. Just like my brother has.”

  At that point, I was so overwhelmed with grief and horror that I honestly didn’t care what else Grace had up her sleeve. Until I found out what it was, of course.

  The Fae, even slender, willowy females like Aunt Grace, are way stronger than mortals. Which is why Grace had no trouble grabbing me, lifting me off my feet, and flinging me over the side of the railing to follow the path of her phone.

  I was too shocked to scream, though both Alistair and Ethan cried out. I flailed around in the air, trying to control my entry into the water, but when I hit, I was flat on my back. I tried to dissipate some of the force by slapping my arms down, just as Keane had showed me, but it didn’t help much.

  It wasn’t a horribly long fall from the bridge into the moat—not the kind of fall you’d expect to die from, at least—but it wasn’t just a little hop, either. The water slammed into my back like a slab of concrete, forcing all the air from my lungs and momentarily stunning me.

  That moment was long enough for the murky, muddy water to close over my head and begin to suck me down.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I’m not the world’s best swimmer, but I can generally dog-paddle with the best of them. When I recovered from that initial stunned, breathless moment, I started kicking and flailing, trying to get to the surface. I was scared, but not exactly in a panic. Not yet. It was just water, after all.

  But for all my flailing, I didn’t seem to be finding the surface. My heavy wool sweater seemed to weigh about ten tons, and my feet couldn’t seem to move much water in my good walking sneakers. Lungs burning, I pried the shoes off with my feet and was able to kick more effectively.

  With another couple of kicks, I probably would have made the surface and been fine. Except one of those kicks connected with something. Something soft and yielding, like flesh. Something that wrapped around my foot and held me.

  I broke the hold easily enough, but the terror of being grabbed by something under the water, combined with my increasingly critical lack of oxygen, caused me to try to gasp. I sucked some water into my lungs. And that was when I started to panic.

  I had to cough the water out of my lungs, but you can’t cough if you don’t have any air. I clapped a hand over my mouth and pinched my nose shut to keep myself from taking another reflexive breath of water, but the need to cough was overwhelming. I couldn’t fight it, even though a small corner of my mind knew that if I tried to breathe, I would die.

  The reflex became too much, and I let go of my nose and mouth to gasp in another breath of water.

  I was dimly aware of the sensation of hands grabbing my arms, but I was far too panicked to feel any relief or to try to cooperate with my would-be rescuer. I was half-convinced it was a near-death hallucination anyway.

  But those hands had a firm hold, and a moment later, I burst through the surface of the water into the beautiful, wonderful, life-sustaining air. Unfortunately, I’d sucked so much water into my lungs that even with the air so tantalizingly near, I couldn’t breathe.

  The hands that held my arms moved until they were wrapped around my waist, one arm squeezing brutally hard and upward. It hurt, but it also caused a gout of water to come flying out of my mouth and nose. Eww, gross!

  I managed a sip of air, but then the coughing seized me. More water left my lungs, burning my throat fiercely on the way up. I got a little more air in, so I was almost able to scream when something once again wrapped around my ankle.

  “Damn it!” my rescuer cried, and I realized it was Ethan.

  I felt him kick whatever had grabbed me, and the grip loosened.

  “We have to get out of the water, Dana!” Ethan yelled at me.

  I was so with him!

  I was still coughing and choking too much to swim on my own, so Ethan towed me. I blinked water and tears from my eyes and saw that Ethan was taking me under the bridge.

  Whatever was in the moat made another grab, and I felt a hair-raising pulse as Ethan threw some kind of magic at it.

  “Kick with me!” he commanded, and I did the best I could despite my continued struggle to breathe.

  It was an agonizingly slow, terrifying swim. I sensed the moat monster lurking below us in the depths of the muddy water. Waiting for us to show a sign of weakness. Or maybe just waiting for Ethan’s magical attack to wear off.

  I’d recovered enough of my mental faculties to see that we were heading for the base of the bridge, but what I saw there didn’t exactly give me warm fuzzies. There was a narrow concrete ledge that jutted out of the water, but it would take a pretty big reach to grab on to it, and I knew that even if I grabbed it, I wouldn’t have the strength to haul myself out of the water.

  “Almost there,” Ethan said, but though he was trying to comfort me, he sounded scared himself, which was not comforting at all.

  A few more frantic kicks, and we butted up against the concrete.

  “I’m going to give you a boost,” Ethan said, panting with the effort of swimming for both of us—and fighting off unseen monsters to boot. “Grab hold of the edge.”

  I still didn’t think grabbing hold of the edge would do me much good, but I wasn’t about to argue. Ethan shifted his grip once again, and in any other situation, I’d have objected to where his hands ended up. But somehow, I didn’t think he was trying to cop a feel at the moment.

  Ethan pushed me up out of the water, and I reached my hands above my head. They connected with the ledge, but I was still in the water from the butt down. It meant I didn’t have to support my full weight as I hung there, but it wasn’t enough to give me the strength to pull myself up. If I survived this, I was going to have to spend some time in the gym building up some upper body strength.

  Beside me, Ethan lunged up out of the water, his hands grabbing the ledge without any helpful boost. Unless the monster was helping, which seemed unlikely.

  “Hold on,” he ordered me, then easily pulled himself up and onto the ledge.

  His hands had just closed around my wrists when the monster grabbed me again.

  “Ethan!” I screamed, kicking wildly.

  “I’ve got you!” he assured me, and started to pull.

  The monster had let go with little encouragement the last couple of times, but maybe it saw that its
prey was getting away and decided to make a last stand. Whatever the reason, it didn’t let go when Ethan started pulling.

  I couldn’t help glancing down at the water, trying to see the creature that was trying so hard to pull me back in. The water was so murky, and the area under the bridge so dark, that I couldn’t see anything under the surface.

  Something wrapped around my other leg, and I screamed again. Ethan cursed, but held firmly to my wrists as the two played tug-of-war for me.

  A ghastly, dead-fish-white face rose from the water near my legs. Hair like sticky gray spiderwebs flowed all around its colorless head, moving this way and that, not—at least as far as I could tell—affected by any kind of current or wind. My stomach cramped as I realized it was the hair that was wrapped around my legs.

  The creature’s eyes were as white as its skin, giving the impression that it was blind. But I didn’t think it was, because it sure seemed like it was gazing balefully up at Ethan.

  “Mine!” the creature said in an awful gurgle of a voice. When it spoke, I saw the double row of needlelike teeth in its mouth.

  “Ethan,” I whimpered. I would rather have drowned than let this creature have me.

  “No, she’s mine, ” Ethan told the creature in a fierce, throaty, snarl that sounded barely human. Of course, Ethan wasn’t human.

  The creature hissed, its weirdly grabby hair wrapping more and more tendrils around me.

  Ethan’s eyes practically glowed in the darkness, and his grip on my arms hadn’t wavered, though I was beginning to feel like I was being stretched on a rack. My shoulders were screaming in agony, and I was afraid any moment now, muscles would start tearing.

  Ethan said something in a language I didn’t know. I guessed it was either Gaelic, or some kind of weird Faerie language. With his words came a soft pulse of power that traveled down my body toward the creature.

  The creature hissed again, baring its teeth at Ethan.

  “You do not wish to make an enemy of me or my house,” Ethan told it through gritted teeth, and the look on his face would have scared anyone—or anything—that had two brain cells to rub together.