Shadowspell f-2 Read online

  I didn’t look at him, but I could hear him shrug. “You need to be motivated to fight hard, even when it’s only sparring. If you were a guy, I’d motivate you by hitting a lot harder. Would you like that better?”

  I turned to glare at him. “Have I ever told you you’re a total asshole?”

  He laughed. “I think you might have mentioned it a time or two.” His smile faded, his emerald green eyes losing their teasing twinkle. “I meant what I said. You’re doing great. I’ve been learning to fight almost from the time I could walk. You can’t expect to beat me. And if you could beat me, then you’d need a better teacher.”

  Every time I convinced myself to despise Keane for good, there’d be one of these unexpected flashes of humanity that made me think maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. And I had to admit, I liked the fact that he didn’t treat me like either a weirdo or a fragile flower because I was the first and only Faeriewalker born in the last hundred years or so. Nor did he want to use me to further some political agenda. That made him comparatively uncomplicated, and that was why I was willing—in theory at least—to ask for his help.

  I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, then turned to face him on the couch. “I have a favor to ask you,” I blurted before I could chicken out.

  He looked startled for a moment, then raised his eyebrows. “You’ve managed to take me by surprise for once.”

  I smacked his shoulder with the back of my hand. Luckily, he didn’t treat that like an attack and pounce on me. “Quit it. If you keep being a jerk, I’m not going to ask you.”

  “And I take it this would be a bad thing?”

  “Never mind.” I let out a grunt of frustration and started to get up. Keane grabbed my arm to stop me.

  “I’m just teasing you,” he said, and that stupid grin of his was back.

  My chin jutted out stubbornly, but I sat back down. “I’m sick and tired of your teasing. It isn’t funny.”

  “I think I’m hilarious. You just don’t have much of a sense of humor.”

  “Having people trying to kill me doesn’t really inspire me to yuck it up. What a shocker!”

  The expression on Keane’s face smoothed out, the glint of amusement fading from his eyes. “The danger isn’t going to go away,” he said. “You have to learn to live your life in spite of it.”

  I rolled my eyes. Keane was only two years older than me, which didn’t give him the right to go all wise on me. Never mind that he had a point. The moment I’d set foot in Avalon, I’d changed the course of my life forever. I was still trying to absorb the enormity of the consequences.

  I swallowed a wise-ass comment, figuring the longer I kept up the bickering, the more chance I’d talk myself out of asking Keane for help. I couldn’t help remembering the disappointment in Kimber’s voice when I’d called to tell her Dad wouldn’t let me go to the party. She’d tried her best to hide it, and I knew she understood, but still …

  “I guess you could say I need your help living my life in spite of my situation,” I said, hoping Keane would see it that way.

  “Good for you. Now what is it?”

  I clasped my hands in my lap and stared down at them. If Keane decided to tell anyone about this conversation, I would be in big, big trouble. Not the oh-my-God-I’m-gonna-die type of trouble I was trying to learn to live with, but the my-parents-are-gonna-kill-me type of trouble I’d once thought would be a nice dose of normalcy.

  “You know I’m friends with Kimber Leigh, right?” I asked. So far, Keane hadn’t come into contact with either Kimber or her brother Ethan, at least not while I was around, but I was pretty sure he knew who they were.

  “Your Unseelie friend,” he said, proving me right.

  I nodded. “Her seventeenth birthday party is on Friday,” I said.

  Keane smiled. “And let me guess: your father won’t let you go.”

  I scowled. “No. He says it’s too big a security risk now that the Wild Hunt is in town.” I crossed my arms over my chest and sank down lower in my seat. I was still furious with my dad. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been close enough to anyone for them to invite me to a birthday party. I wanted to go so badly I could taste it.

  Keane frowned. “Where’s it being held?”

  “At this nightclub called The Deep, down in the tunnel system.” Kimber said her dad had rented the whole place for the party. That was because he’d made Kimber invite the kids of every potential political supporter in Avalon, which made it even more important that I be there. Kimber deserved to have at least one real friend at her party.

  Keane shook his head. “I don’t see why that would be any riskier than anything else you do when you leave your safe house. He’s already making you add a second bodyguard when you leave, right?”

  I nodded. Any time I wanted to go out these days, it was this big production. I had a freaking retinue. Just in case there was a person left in Avalon who was under the mistaken impression that I was just a normal girl.

  “I think Dad’s using it as an excuse,” I said. “He thinks me showing up at Kimber’s party might be taken as some kind of political statement, like I’m somehow supporting Alistair.”

  Keane shrugged. “It’s Kimber’s party, not Alistair’s.”

  “Exactly! But Dad put his foot down.”

  “So what is this favor you want to ask?” The gleam in his eye told me he knew exactly what the favor was.

  “Call me crazy, but you strike me as the kind of guy who’s had plenty of experience sneaking out at night…”

  Chapter Four

  I hadn’t been wrong about Keane and his talent for sneaking out at night. Though actually, I’m not sure sneak is the right word for what we did.

  Finn had to think it was strange that Keane came over for a sparring session on a Friday night. Usually, we practiced in the morning, mainly because Keane wanted me fighting on an empty stomach. The one time I’d managed to snag a little breakfast before we started, I found out exactly why he preferred the empty stomach option. Let me tell you, that doughnut I’d sneaked didn’t taste nearly so good on its way back up.

  In hopes that Finn wouldn’t get too suspicious about Keane’s unexpected arrival on my doorstep, we told him we were having a lesson to help me keep my mind off the fact that I was missing Kimber’s party. I was sure he wouldn’t buy it, but Finn was more trusting than me.

  In typical, annoying Keane fashion, he’d refused to tell me what our plan of escape was. All he’d said was to pack my party clothes and be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

  We practiced in the guardroom this time, right under Finn’s nose. Keane said he wanted his father to watch because he might spot any bad habits that Keane couldn’t see because he was up close and personal.

  Finn was full of helpful pointers, and the more time Keane and I spent sparring, the more I thought that I was the dupe in this picture, that he’d never planned to help me but had said he would to keep me from trying anything on my own. I was sore, sweaty, and tired—and at the end of my limited patience—when Keane wrestled me to the mats with a spectacularly disorienting throw, then landed on top of me, his mouth near my ear.

  “Be ready to go any second now,” he whispered, then jumped nimbly to his feet and gave me one of his condescending smirks.

  I had no idea what he meant, and was about to give him a piece of my mind, when I finally realized what he was up to.

  My little underground fortress had two bathrooms, one off my bedroom, and one off the guardroom. Even the Fae have to answer the call of nature. In my peripheral vision, I saw Finn heading toward the bathroom, and knew this was the break Keane had been waiting for.

  As soon as the door closed behind Finn, I darted into my room and snagged the backpack I’d set right beside the door. My dress for the party was carefully packed inside, and I hoped it wasn’t getting all wrinkled. I slipped my arms through the straps and hurried back into the guardroom, where I found Keane quietly wedging a chair unde
r the bathroom doorknob.

  I had expected him to use some magical Fae ruse to get us out of here, not the tried-and-true chair-under-the-doorknob trick. I was actually kind of disappointed at the simplicity of it all.

  “Hurry,” Keane hissed as he jerked open the front door. “That won’t hold him long.”

  With a spike of adrenaline that was half excitement, half fear, I followed Keane out into Avalon’s massive tunnel system. We started down the tunnel at a brisk jog, Keane lighting our way with a flashlight. I hoped like hell he knew where he was going. I’d gotten lost in these tunnels once before, and it hadn’t been any fun.

  We turned a corner at the first intersection we came to. I heard a faint pounding sound in the distance that might have been Finn hammering on the door, and a little shiver ran down my spine. I’d never seen Finn mad before, but I had a feeling that was going to change before the night was out. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  We took another couple of turns, and I started to slow down, running out of gas. Keane grabbed my arm and pulled me along.

  “Keep moving,” he urged me. “If my dad guesses right and stays on our tail, he’ll catch up to us in no time.”

  I didn’t have the breath to argue, so I forced my legs to keep moving. Our footsteps sounded frighteningly loud as we ran, but the stone walls of the tunnels bounced the sound around so much I knew it would be hard to judge which direction it came from.

  My safe house is pretty deep in the mountain, far off the beaten path—the better to defend it, naturally. I wasn’t sure how we managed to get electricity and running water down there—the tunnels themselves weren’t lighted this deep in the mountain—but I’d never wondered enough to ask. Well-defended it might be, but it also made it quite a hike to get to the surface.

  The Deep is relatively close to the surface, in an underground commercial district that was usually packed on a Friday night. The presence of the Wild Hunt had inspired a lot of people to stay home behind locked doors. You could definitely tell there was a pall on the city, and the news was full of reports about tourists cutting their visits short and fleeing to the relative safety of England.

  Keane and I slowed to a casual walk as soon as we stepped into the first lighted tunnel. As usual, he looked fresh and ready to run some wind sprints, while I was gasping for breath and dripping with sweat, my muscles burning with the exertion. I really hoped Kimber would appreciate the effort it took for me to show up tonight.

  We stopped briefly at a little tea shop, where I ducked into the restroom to change into my dress and wash the sweat from my face. I’d never heard of a teen’s birthday party where you had to wear a dress, but Kimber had been adamant: her party, her rules. (Never mind that her dad had kinda usurped her party by inviting bunches of people she didn’t know.)

  The dress I wore was one Kimber and I had picked out together. It was a gorgeous deep blue silk that brought out the color of my eyes, and I instantly felt older and more sophisticated when I pulled it on over my head. The neckline was low enough to be sexy on a girl who actually had anything up top. On me, it looked a little more like wishful thinking.

  I finished the outfit off with dangly earrings and thick, rhinestone-studded flip-flops. I’d let Kimber talk me into wearing a dress for this thing, but no way was I wearing heels!

  I felt surprisingly self-conscious and shy when I stepped out of the bathroom. Keane had never seen me dressed in anything but workout clothes, and though it had never occurred to me that I’d care what he thought, I found myself holding my breath as he turned away from sniffing a cannister of loose tea and caught sight of me.

  His eyes widened just a bit, and I watched him give me the once-over. Then he nodded at me. “You clean up nice.”

  I remembered to breathe and resisted the urge to wipe my sweaty palms on my fancy silk dress. I guessed that was as much of a compliment as I was going to get out of Keane. I was unpleasantly surprised to find I wanted more. Could I be any more pathetically in search of approval?

  “That makes one of us,” I muttered, and Keane laughed. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his sparring clothes, but since he didn’t exactly have to work up a sweat to beat me, he was at least presentable.

  Okay, he was more than presentable. Those emerald green eyes of his could take the breath right out of my lungs no matter how he was dressed, especially with that one lock of jet-black hair that curled right over his eyebrow. And let’s not even talk about his body, which he liked to show off beneath tight jeans and even tighter T-shirts. I doubted very much that Kimber would mind his failure to dress up.

  Keane held out his elbow to me. “Ready?”

  I raised my eyebrows. What, was he going to escort me in like some matron at a wedding? The gesture seemed quaintly old-fashioned, especially on a self-proclaimed bad boy like Keane.

  I found myself snaking my hand through the crook of his elbow without having consciously decided to do so. Blood warmed my cheeks as he led me out of the tea shop toward the stairway that led down into The Deep.

  Despite my dad’s fear that the party would represent a “security risk,” Keane and I were stopped by a couple of bouncers demanding to see my invitation before we even got to the doorway at the club. I was glad I’d brought it with me, but even when I produced it—for Dana Hathaway “and guest”—the bouncers wouldn’t let us through because I wasn’t on “the list.”

  I let out a little groan of frustration. I guess when I’d told Kimber I wouldn’t be able to make it, my name had gotten crossed off the list. Luckily, the bouncers weren’t total assholes. One of them stayed out in the hall with Keane and me, while the other ducked into the club with my invitation in hand to check with Kimber.

  I chewed my lip while we waited. There was no way Finn wouldn’t guess where we were headed, which meant it wouldn’t be long before he showed up here himself. If we were inside the club, he might have a bit of a hassle getting through the bouncers, and then he’d actually have to find us before he could drag us back. But if we were just standing around in the hall like this …

  “Are you going to get in trouble with your dad because of this?” I asked Keane while I tried not to fidget.

  “I’m an adult,” he said with a cocky grin. “It’s not like he can send me to my room without my supper.”

  He had a point, at least technically. Though I’d never been there, I knew Keane had his own apartment—or flat, as they called them here—and he actually supported himself as a self-defense instructor. But despite all that, and despite his attempts to make me respect him as a teacher, I often found myself thinking of him as a slightly older kid rather than as an adult.

  Just as I was beginning to think there was no chance we were getting into the party before Finn intercepted us, the door to the club burst open and Kimber practically danced out into the hallway.

  “Dana!” she cried, her face lighting up with pleasure. “I’m so glad you could come!”

  She shocked me by throwing her arms around me and giving me an exuberant hug. The Fae were known for their quiet reserve, but obviously Kimber didn’t care to conform to the stereotype. I wasn’t the most touchy-feely person myself, but I hugged her back.

  “This is such a nice surprise,” she said as she pulled away. “I thought you couldn’t come.”

  I dropped my voice, not sure if the bouncers would kick me out if they heard me. “Yeah, well, we sort of snuck out.”

  Kimber blinked and seemed to notice Keane for the first time. “Oh!” She had a very expressive face, and I could tell immediately that she liked what she saw. “You must be Keane,” she said. “Dana’s told me a lot about you.”

  Her eyes twinkled with mischief as I gave her a dirty look. Most of the times I’d talked to her about Keane, it was to complain about him and his annoying—and often painful—training techniques. I was probably blushing, but the hallway wasn’t brightly lit, so I hoped no one could tell.

  “Look, can we go inside now?” I said. “Befo
re Finn catches up with us?”

  “Of course! Come on, follow me.”

  I noticed several things at once as Kimber led Keane and me into the club. First was that the music was so loud I felt like my eardrums might explode. Second was that it was absolutely packed with people, not all that many of whom looked like teens. Third was that the place positively reeked of roses.

  To the Fae, the red rose indicates an affiliation with the Unseelie Court, and the white rose indicates an affiliation with the Seelie Court. Apparently, this was an integrated party, because red and white roses were arranged everywhere. There were huge centerpieces on the tables. There were garlands. There were potted roses lined up against each wall. There were even streamers of them hanging down from the ceiling.

  I shot a questioning look at Kimber. She shrugged and looked unhappy.

  “Three guesses who chose the decorations,” she shouted over the music.

  But of course, one guess was plenty. It made me mad that Alistair was ruining Kimber’s party by making it into a political statement. It also made me realize that my dad might have been right to believe my appearance here could have political implications.

  God, I hated politics! I wanted nothing whatsoever to do with all the crap that went on as the Fae candidates jockeyed for position, but being the daughter of one of those candidates dragged me into the thick of things anyway.

  “Come on,” Kimber yelled, taking me by the hand and towing me through the crowd. “Let’s get you guys something to drink.”

  I checked over my shoulder to make sure Keane was following. He was, but the look on his face said he already didn’t like this party. He wasn’t quite sneering, but it was close. Looking around at the partiers, I could see why.

  Almost everyone was dressed in their semiformal best, and even in my quick glance around, I could tell this was a highbrow party. There were way more adults than you’d expect at a teen’s party, and most of them carried themselves with the snobby arrogance of the filthy rich. The teens in the crowd looked just as snooty, like they’d fit right in at some exclusive British boarding school. I knew Ethan and Kimber were far from poor, but neither of them put out the kind of “I’m too good for you” vibe most of these people did.