A Kind of Magic (28 page)

“I’ll see what I can do.” Her own version of an evil smile slowly spread across her face. “And do they have to actually be her allies? Any fae would do, as long as they act like she’s a friend. I’m sure I can come up with plenty of those.”

“That wouldn’t be entirely honest, would it?”

 “It would be a representation of the truth when we can’t prove the truth. She is conspiring with fae. We’ll show her conspiring with fae. When do you want to pull this off?”

Sophie rubbed her temples. “You know, this is a really bad time for all this. I have to dance tonight, and the next few nights, with a matinee on Saturday. Sunday night, maybe?”

Nana nodded. “It may take me that long to persuade some fae to help. And it may lull her into complacency. In the meantime, watch yourself, and keep an eye on your friends.”

Sophie made a point of leaving the palace by walking through the throne room. Heads turned to watch her progress, but she pretended not to notice. Maeve, in her maid’s uniform, was serving drinks. Sophie sat on the arm of the sofa where she was serving and waited for her to reach the end before grabbing her elbow. “Hi there, let’s chat,” she said.

“Your majesty,” Maeve said, her voice flat while her eyes spewed venom.

“I think it’s technically ‘your highness’ these days, but let’s not stand on ceremony. Now, look, I know you’re up to something. You know we know you’re up to something. I’d have thought you learned your lesson the last time. People who are setting out to usurp the rightfully crowned queen can’t be trusted, and you’ll only end up being double-crossed again. No one is going to put you on the throne. So why bother getting yourself in even more trouble? And I can’t believe you’re allying with a human—an enchantress, at that.”

If she’d thought she’d rattle Maeve, she’d have been disappointed. The fairy showed no expression at all. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You know I can’t leave the palace.”

“All the better to sit at the center of your web, letting your flunkies come and go, while you plan to double-cross Josephine before she can get you. And if they get caught, it’s on them and doesn’t reflect on you.”

“Are you quite through telling fairy stories, your highness? I have drinks to serve.” For a moment, Maeve’s face showed a hint of emotion, and she smiled ever so slightly. “Or can I interest you in a drink?”

Sophie barely stopped herself from saying, “No thanks.” She wasn’t sure if that fell into the fairy prohibition on direct thanks, but she didn’t want to take any chances of implying that she was in any way obliged to Maeve. “Not right now,” she said with a smile. “But you know, if you get caught this time, you may find yourself in a cell rather than serving drinks.” She released her grip on Maeve’s arm and watched the fairy move through the throne room. She didn’t speak to those she served, and no one seemed to pay her much mind. They treated her like she was invisible. Was she really involved, or was she merely cheering on any opponent of the queen?

When Sophie left the Realm, she immediately got out her phone to call Michael. If Josephine and her allies were going after Sophie’s loved ones, surely he’d be on the list. Now she regretted their ploy of acting like they’d been on a date when they found the lost children. On the other hand, even without that, him carrying her out of the theater might have been a clue that they meant something to each other.

The call went into voice mail. Feeling awkward, she said, “Hi, it’s me. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. Nana thinks they tried to take Emily to get to me, and that might mean they could come after you. So, um, watch yourself, and let me know if there’s anything weird.” As soon as she ended the call, she groaned. It was rather obvious, now that she thought about it. He already knew to look out for odd things, and he knew there had to be danger. True, he might be more concerned about her than he was about himself, but he wasn’t an idiot. He could take care of himself.

But would he?

The Antique Shop

3:00 p.m.

Emily didn’t think Sophie would begrudge her going to study with the A sisters, no matter what had gone down between them the night before. In fact, she was pretty sure Sophie would encourage her to keep training. She just wished she had a better sense of what had happened. Michael and Sophie’s description had been frustratingly vague.

Whatever it was, it was bad enough that Sophie hadn’t gone straight home after the ballet, hadn’t gone home at all, and Emily knew if her sister was willing to do anything that looked even slightly improper, it had to have been pretty drastic. She figured her best bet was to play dumb and see what Amelia and Athena said.

“Hey, is anyone here?” she called out as she entered the shop. The door had been unlocked, but the shop seemed to be empty.

It was a full minute before Athena’s voice called out from the back, “Just a second.” With a shrug, Emily sat at the table in the corner and settled down to wait.

When she finally came bustling into the shop and saw Emily, Athena gave a startled reaction worthy of a cartoon character. “Oh! Emily! It’s you! You’re here!” she blurted.

“Yeah, I thought I ought to keep the training going, even if I’m not making much progress.” Emily made sure her face gave nothing away. “So, where’s the next binder?”

“Binders! Oh, yes, right.” Athena scurried away to the back room, and Emily had to bite her lip to keep from giggling. Athena returned a moment later and plunked a few binders on the table. “There you go. Let me know if you have any questions.”

Emily tried her best to focus on the lessons, but she couldn’t resist covertly watching Athena. The enchantress was also darting furtive glances at Emily. It took longer than Emily expected before Athena finally said, “Have you talked to Sophie?”

Emily wondered how dumb she should play it now. Should she admit that she knew Sophie hadn’t gone home the night before or pretend that she didn’t know there had been any conflict with the enchantresses? She figured that Sophie would want to use her as cover to avoid looking like she’d spent the night with Michael, so she said, “Yeah, she was at my place last night and went straight to class this morning.” She’d learned from her sister how to phrase something to be totally true while still hiding information. Technically, Sophie
had
been at her place last night, even if she hadn’t slept there.

Athena ran a feather duster over a display she’d already dusted twice. “I bet she had a lot to say about what happened at the ballet.”

“Not much. We were a little sidetracked by my adventure.”

Athena’s feather duster froze. “Your adventure?”

“I passed out all my fairy repellent bundles to my castmates, so I ended up in that dreamland with some fairy guy I didn’t know, and he tried to kidnap me while I was there. But Eamon, Michael, and Sophie came to the rescue, so it was all okay.”

“Do you know who he was working for?” Athena asked warily, like she was afraid of the answer.

“No idea. I just figure someone wanted to use me as a hostage or bait.
Again
. I’m getting tired of that, believe me.” She paused a moment, then added casually, “So, what did happen last night? Sophie seemed upset.”

Athena went back to dusting with a fury, the duster moving so fast it became a blur. “Well, Josephine—at least, we think it was Josephine—created a snow monster that attacked during Sophie’s scene, and Sophie managed to fight it off without doing anything that obviously revealed her as fae, which Josephine was not happy about, and then she confronted us on the plaza outside, but there were some fae there, I think on orders from your grandmother, protecting Sophie.”

“Wow. Sounds like I missed some excitement.”

The duster moved even faster. At the rate Athena was going, she’d rub the paint off the china teapot she was assaulting. “And, well, the oath we take as enchantresses says we have to defend each other from fae attack, so we had no choice but to step in.”

Ah, so
that’s
why Sophie was too angry to go home. If Amelia and Athena had sided with the woman trying to destroy Sophie, Sophie would not have taken it well at all. In fact, Emily was a little surprised that Athena was still breathing. Then again, Amelia was nowhere in sight.

“But if she’s framing the fae for her crimes and doing stuff that hurts the Realm, shouldn’t she have to answer for that?” Emily asked, trying to project ignorant innocence. “Doesn’t your oath allow for dealing with wrongdoing in your ranks?”

“We deal with that internally. We’d never turn it over to the fae. What I can’t believe is that Sophie left us to deal with the fae.”

“She did?” It didn’t sound like Sophie to leave a fight.

“When we didn’t side with her, she and Michael just left. Walked away. I wasn’t sure what would happen to us, but the fae left soon after Sophie did, and Josephine didn’t seem to want to fight them when they weren’t attacking her.”

Sophie must have been seriously outraged if she’d left them to it, though it sounded like she’d read the situation properly and knew that her leaving would calm things down. Emily wasn’t sure she could see a way out of the situation. The sun would cool down before Sophie did if she thought she’d been betrayed. Emily had a feeling this was all exactly what Josephine wanted, isolating Sophie from her allies. She went back to her studying, actually focusing this time. If Sophie couldn’t count on the other enchantresses having her back, then she’d need all the help she could get. Emily didn’t have high hopes of what she could contribute, but anything would be better than nothing.

That evening, she arrived at the theater at the same time as Charles, her Mr. Knightley. He looked so bad that she didn’t manage to hide her reaction. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you even up to going on?”

He straightened shoulders that had been stooped a moment before. “What makes you think there’s anything wrong?”

“Well, the deep, dark circles under your eyes, for one thing. And have you lost weight?”

“Have you looked in the mirror? You obviously had a rough night. And for your information, I’m doing paleo. I may have lost some fat, but what’s left is all lean muscle mass.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she whispered to herself as he stalked away, already stooping again. She wondered if she should alert the stage manager to have the understudy prepped. Charles looked like he’d keel over midway through the first song.

When she saw him again in the wings right before curtain, she was surprised to see that he looked a lot livelier. The makeup people must have worked miracles, or else it was part of the magic that all the weakness and exhaustion were gone while he was doing his art. As soon as he was onstage, he came fully to life. If anything, he was better that night than he’d been yesterday.

 By the end of the show, she had to admit she’d fallen a little in love with him, herself. He was absolutely magnetic. In their romantic duets, she felt like they were alone in the world, in a little bubble that shut out the rest of the cast, the crew, and the audience, and they meant what they were singing to each other.

During their final bow, when the two of them stepped forward together, he held her hand, as he always did, but then he turned to her, bowed slightly, and lifted her hand to his lips. The audience loved that and roared even louder. Emily couldn’t help but wonder if curing him was the best idea. She liked him so much better this way.

But when she headed for the theater exit alongside him, she knew she had to do something. He didn’t look like he’d last the week at this rate. But what could she do? If she gave him a fairy repellent, she couldn’t be sure it was near his bed unless she put it there herself, and even then she didn’t know if it would work on a leanan sidhe. Otherwise there was finding a new victim, which was out of the question, or waiting until the barriers were restored, which might not affect a creature who was already here and might be too late for him anyway.

Or there was her other idea of confusing him about which redhead was in his thoughts, and they seemed to be halfway there. More than halfway, she thought when he grabbed her hand just before they went through the stage door exit. “I don’t know what you’re doing to me, but I can’t get you out of my mind,” he said, pulling her against him and kissing her.

Her instinct to pull away faded in about a millisecond. She had to admit, the kiss was pretty hot, more intense than the G-rated chaste kiss they shared on stage near the end of the show. “I need you,” he whispered in her ear before trailing kisses down her neck.

Oh, hell,
she thought as she tried not to whimper out loud. She could kill two birds with one stone if she successfully distracted him enough to detach him from the leanan sidhe, and she might be able to distract herself from Eamon. He
was
hot, and she’d be the envy of many a woman. It was a dirty job, but she supposed someone would have to do it.

Emily and Michael’s Building

Friday, 8:15 a.m.

Michael had gotten more sleep the night before—at least, he thought he had—but he was still in a fog as he left for work. He had vague recollections of vivid dreams about a beautiful redhead, but he wasn’t sure which one he’d been dreaming about. Was he still thinking about the wife he’d lost to the Realm, or was he thinking about Sophie?

“Michael?” The voice startled him enough that he nearly lost his balance on the bottom step. It sounded like Sophie, but was that real or in his head? He blinked a few times, then saw her, in casual workout clothes, her hair in a ponytail, and no makeup. He also smelled bacon, he thought.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Now he was sure she was really there.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I should have had coffee before I left for work, I guess.” He gestured toward the takeout bag she carried. “Breakfast delivery for Em?”

“She’s letting me stay with her, so I thought it was only fair.”

“Still not speaking to the sisters?”

She gave a rueful smile. “Very mature of me, I know.”