Darklight (3 page)

“Speaking of iron. . .” Sonny stood, suddenly uncomfortable with the subject of what was, essentially, his slavery. He fetched an arrow quiver that he’d left by the door of the forge with his satchel. “I’ll need another two dozen or so bolts for my crossbow.” He tossed the near-empty holder onto the table.

“That’s a lot of ammunition when there’s only three of the hunter Fae left out there.”

“These last few Hunters are getting more dangerous and more desperate.” Sonny pushed a hand through the tangled wave of his long, dark hair. “And I didn’t really appreciate having my arse kicked all over the Borderlands in this last fight. If I can incapacitate them from a distance first, so much the better.”

The burly smith laughed, taking two mugs and a brown earthen jug from a shelf by the door. Sitting back down at the table, Gofannon twisted the cork out of the jug and pushed one of the mugs toward Sonny’s freshly bandaged hand. “Speaking of arses. . .” he said, “if I may offer a carefully cultivated observation, Janus? You look like the hind end of hell.”

“You’re being generous,” Sonny said wryly. “Thank you.”

“When was the last time you slept, Sonny?” Gofannon asked, peering at him. “I mean
really
slept—the whole night through.”

“I don’t remember. A few days ago. Maybe three?”

“And what is it keeps you awake night after night? It can’t be just this hunting, surely.”

“You said it yourself—this kind of magick gets its hooks into you.”

“So does another kind of spell casting I know of. And it is even more dangerous.” The smith shook his head. “I know the look. You, young sir, are in love.”

Sonny did smile then. A pure and genuine smile. “I am,” he said softly.

“Ah. Well then. Love is the Great Discombobulator. Especially among us mortals. I should have sooner guessed.” Gofannon poured out two generous measures of golden liquid. “In that case, I will simply say this: joy and good hunting to you.”

Sonny laughed wearily. “Insofar as it seems I won’t be achieving the one without the other, I accept your toast.” He took a long sip of the cool, smooth drink. It was like biting into a fresh pear that had fallen into an ice-cold mountain stream.

Sonny gazed out the window toward a row of jagged hills that jutted above the nearby forest of snow-covered pines. The highest peak was topped with the spires and battlements of Auberon’s palace, like glittering stalagmites. “How are things up there?”

“Why do you need to ask?” Gofannon sounded surprised. “Aren’t you staying in the palace?”

Sonny shook his head. “There’s a cottage near the woods of the Autumn Borderlands where I’ve been staying. You know—for those scant few days when I’m not off hunting maniacs. No, Gof, I may still work for the Winter King, but that is all. I won’t shelter under his roof. He hasn’t mentioned that?” Sonny asked, the tone of his voice both surly and a little wounded. Auberon had been the only father he’d ever known.

“I haven’t seen his frosty lordship for a good long while,” Gofannon answered. “Not since Samhain, when you returned from the mortal world. Any work he’s had me do lately—and that has been very little—he’s sent the Goodfellow down with his orders. And
that
tricky beast and I don’t speak much in the way of civil discourse and the passing of time, these days.”

“Is there anyone left that Puck hasn’t managed to madden or make an enemy of, I wonder?”

The smith shrugged. “We used to be cordial. Friends even.”

“What happened?” Sonny asked.

“He’s a bloody thief is what happened.”

“A lousy one, to hear tell of it!” Sonny laughed.

“Lousy or not, he’ll steal the breeches off your backside if you’re looking the other way. Bah!” Gofannon turned and spat into the fire. “Don’t talk to me of the Goodfellow. He’ll come to ill one day for his thieving ways, and I’ll drink to it!”

Sonny was surprised to see the smith, usually so even-tempered, turn flushed with anger.

Gofannon moved away from Sonny, back to the glow of his forge. “I’ll send word when the arrows are done,” he said curtly, and picked up his hammer. Sparks flew as he began pounding at the white-hot ingot. The visit was at an end.

“Thank you, Gof,” Sonny said, and slung his leather satchel across his body. When the smith didn’t answer, he quietly opened the door of the forge and stepped out into the biting chill of a winter day.

N
o!
”

Kelley bolted upright in her bed, the blood-spattered images of her nightmare so vivid that they seemed to hang before her in the darkened air of her room. She took a deep breath, trying to slow the pounding of her heart, and pulled her knees up to her chest.

Oh, Sonny,
she thought bleakly,
not another one . . .

The late April breeze sifting through the cracked-open window bared sharp, chilly teeth, but in spite of that, Kelley’s sheets were soaked with sweat, and she felt almost feverish. According to the blue glow of the clock at her bedside, she’d been asleep for less than an hour, but it seemed that she’d dropped straight into the ravening maw of her dreams. Again. But these dreams were different.

Kelley still preferred to think of it as dreaming. It
wasn’t,
of course—not in the conventional sense. When they had first started happening, Kelley had written them off as garden-variety nightmares. Vivid ones, sure—but just nightmares. Now, however, she knew the visions that tormented her from time to time were glimpses of actual events. She knew, for instance, that Sonny had managed to hunt down yet another of the dwindling numbers of the Wild Hunt. Hunt him down and . . . kill him.

Kelley knew it was real—she had seen the bright blood splashed across the hunter’s cheek as he gasped for breath, and she had forced herself to wake before the terrible moment when she knew she would have to witness the light fading from his beautiful eyes.

She had her mother to thank for the disturbing visions, but that was hardly surprising. Her mother had a lot to answer for.

Kelley reached for the glass of water on her bedside table and knocked a stack of playscripts to the floor. With a sigh she bent to pick them up. In among the scattered pages was a postcard from her aunt Emma that she’d been using for a bookmark; it was from Ireland. Kelley turned it over and gazed at the glossy image of green, rolling hills. Kelley still found it hard to believe that the “aunt” who’d raised her was actually Sonny’s mother—and that she’d stolen Kelley as an infant, taken her from her cradle in the Unseelie court in the Otherworld before tumbling through time and space to wind up in New York City, more than a century and an ocean away from where she’d begun her perilous quest. Though Kelley still hadn’t quite gotten used to these revelations, she had been happy that Em had decided to return to spend a few months in the country of her birth. From the sound of things, the trip had been good for her.

Kelley tucked the postcard back into its place and gathered up the rest of the fallen scripts. Sandwiched between copies of Shakespeare’s
The Tempest
and a collection of Greek tragedies, she found a single folded sheet of paper. Her fingers trembling slightly, she unfolded it—page 26 from her old script for
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. She had told Sonny to keep the script as a good-luck charm, and he had sent that one page back to her on opening night with the words
I love thee
circled in gold ink.

Kelley swallowed the tiny sob that was building in her throat and, folding the page gently, pressed it to her heart for a moment, hugging herself in the darkness.

Shivering in the chill draft that seeped through cracks around the edges of the bathroom window, Kelley ran the tap and splashed water over her face and neck. She really didn’t feel like going back to sleep.

When she looked up into the mirror, the green eyes that stared back at her from her own face seemed to smile sadly.

“So you saw, then.”

Of course she had. Mabh sent her the visions like clockwork—every time Sonny was successful in one of his deadly pursuits. It was like supernatural spam, straight into Kelley’s mental inbox.

“Another one down. Now only three of the Hunt are left . . .” As Kelley’s reflection spoke, the features began to alter subtly to become those of a woman with Kelley’s same eyes, but older. How much older was impossible to tell. She was ageless, effortlessly beautiful, and more dangerous than anyone Kelley had ever known. Mabh. Her mother. The Faerie Queen of the Autumn Court sighed mournfully and continued as if Kelley weren’t glaring daggers at her. “He’ll be coming after
me
soon enough, I daresay. . . .” She somehow managed to infuse an artful tremor of fear into the music of her voice. “They’ll cage me again like an animal.”

“You assume I care,” Kelley said flatly as she pushed the damp hair from her forehead and turned her back on the mirror.

“Kelley!” The silky voice turned petulant as a pouty child’s. “I’m your mother.”

Wearily Kelley plucked a bath towel from the rack by the tub and hung it over the mirror.

“I’ll wager you didn’t know your boyfriend was such a bloodthirsty little thing when you promised your heart and soul to him,” Queen Mabh continued, her voice only slightly muffled by the thick terrycloth. “How’s that working for you, darling? Has he broken your heart yet? Men will do that, you know.”

“Stow it,
Mom
.” Kelley felt her jaw tightening.

“Has he called? Written? Sent a bouquet of ro—”

Behind the towel the glass shattered under the hammer of Kelley’s fist, mercifully silencing the sound of her mother’s voice in a rain of tinkling shards falling into the sink.

“Right. That’s it.”

Kelley jumped, startled. She turned to see her roommate, Lady Tyffanwy of the Mere—better known in the mortal realm as Tyff Meyers, model and party-girl supreme—lounging against the doorframe.

“Winslow,” she declared, “you need to have some fun.”

“Tyff, I—”

“Unh!” Tyff put up a hand. “We’re going out.”

“But—”

“Kell . . . no offense”—Tyff sighed—“but honestly? Ever since Smiley hit the road back to the Otherworld, you’ve become a royal pain in the ass to live with.”

“His name is Sonny. And I have not!” Kelley yelped in indignation.

“Have.”

“I—”

“Look. Sure. You’ve been cheerful and chipper and patient and diligent and polite and on time for everything.” Tyff turned on her heel and marched to her own room as she spoke, Kelley reluctantly following. “All of which tells me that you’re wound tighter than a factory-fresh yo-yo string. Well—also the fact that you just broke our bathroom mirror with punching.”

“Sorry abou—”

“Not the issue.” Tyff threw open the doors to her vast wardrobe and began chucking bits of designer clubwear over her shoulders at Kelley. “In fact,
that
was the most interesting thing you’ve done in months. Now get dressed.”

The River was an upscale boutique hotel in midtown, but most of the lower floors and lobby space were occupied by club-style lounges and an exotic-cuisine restaurant with, Tyff pointed out, a months-long waiting list. From the outside, it sure didn’t look like much, Kelley thought. Inside the hotel, it was a whole different story.

The escalator was the only feature in an otherwise blank white lobby. Kelley stepped aboard the narrow moving stairs in the wake of her roommate, and together they were carried upward through a corridor lit by chartreuse fluorescent lights and into a hall that served as a reception area. It was vast and airy, dark with rich wood on all the walls. The ceiling seemed to disappear into leafy shadows overhead. A long concierge desk, carved with the shape of a twisted tree, was illuminated only by the flickering electric flames of an elaborate crystal chandelier that was festooned with hundreds of holographic images—like photographs, only they shifted and shimmered. As she passed, Kelley thought she saw a face in one of the portraits wink at her. But when she blinked and looked again, the grotesque face just seemed to be leering in general. She quickened her pace to catch up with Tyff, who was checking her jacket at a cloakroom off to one side of the hall. An impossibly thin, white-haired young girl staffed the desk—standing under a stuffed mountain-goat head that Kelley
also
could have sworn winked at her as she handed over her jacket.

Tyff grinned at the look on Kelley’s face. “Come on!” she said, and tugged Kelley by the elbow down a long passageway lit, intermittently, at ankle level.

Kelley cast a nervous eye around at the River’s patrons and extracted her elbow from Tyff’s long-fingered grip. “I don’t know about this. . . .”

“Stuff the nerves, Winslow. You said you’d come dancing tonight, and you are
not
backing out. I already told the big guy at the concierge desk not to let you leave without me. And he’s really an ogre.”

“You mean—”

“I mean a
real
ogre, yeah. He owes me a favor, and he’s fairly enthusiastic about wanting to repay it. So he might accidentally break you if you try to go.” She shrugged. “Ogres tend to have a little problem with fine motor skills.”

“Nice.”

“You said you wanted to have fun tonight.”

“
You
said I wanted to have fun tonight! That is not the same thing!”

“I’m doing this for both our sakes.”

“You’re doing this because
you
like dancing. And tormenting me, apparently.”

Tyff ignored Kelley’s protests and shoved her gently up a shallow staircase toward the main lounge. The level of illumination in that area was almost blinding by comparison to the entrance—also a bit dizzying. The floor was composed of illuminated square panels. From the corners garish green, gold, and purple spotlights swept the room, alternately obscuring and revealing an intricate mural on the ceiling—a swirl of leaves and flowers and snaking vines, surrounding a curled abstract female form at the center.

Mismatched furniture gave an eclectic air to the place; white leather settees and high-tech clear Lucite chairs molded into antique shapes stood scattered among several enormous felled tree trunks that lay diagonally across the floor and served as bench seating. Here and there the gilded walls shimmered with waterfall fountains.

Tyff grabbed them a couple of drinks from the long oak bar and led Kelley through a maze of bodies swaying to music. The club was packed, but in the corner Kelley saw a high-backed gilt chair sitting empty, as though reserved and waiting for some Hollywood starlet or New York celebutante. She followed Tyff through a set of soaring double doors that led out to a central courtyard overflowing with plants and flowers. April was early for such a profusion of blooms, but the River didn’t seem bound by that particular law of nature. The whole place was like one giant, fantastical garden, and Kelley felt a bit like Alice down the rabbit hole—a rabbit hole full of Lost Fae.

Tyff led the way into the center of the courtyard, Kelley following in her wake, trying not to stare too much. The courtyard was lit only by dozens and dozens of candles scattered about in glass holders. The night air wrapped around them like a cashmere sweater—warm, soft, perfumed by flowers. Dancers swayed to the music that came from a band on a raised stage in the corner. A dark-haired Fae with an ethereally beautiful voice sang in a language that Kelley couldn’t understand, her soaring tones somehow melding with an operatic score and an urban backbeat.

“I thought Herne’s Tavern was where the Lost Fae went to party,” Kelley said.

“The Tavern is where the Lost go if they want to get
away
from humanity. The River,” Tyff waved a hand at the fantastical surroundings, “is where the Lost come if they want to get up close and personal with humanity!”

Kelley glanced about the place and realized that, in fact, the capacity crowd was equal measures of Fair Folk mixed in with unsuspecting New Yorkers looking to hang out in a hot clubbing spot with the beautiful people. Really beautiful people.

“C’mon!” Tyff shouted in her ear over the clamor. “Let’s go see if we can find Titania—you gotta meet the queen!”

Kelley shook her head vigorously. “I really don’t think I—I’m not—I’m not dressed to meet royalty, Tyff. . . .”

“You
are
royalty, Winslow.”

“I’m still undecided on that point.”

“It’s not really optional, you know. You just are. And you look fine—obviously—you’re wearing my stuff.”

It was true. Even though Kelley felt bad from the last time she had borrowed from Tyff’s huge wardrobe (they’d had to throw the Galliano dress in the trash, and Kelley still shuddered to think of it) she had to admit that the designer jeans and deep purple top that Tyff had thrust at her back in the apartment suited both her figure and her coloring, and the strappy sandals gave her some extra height that almost made her feel willowy.

“Anyway,” Tyff continued, craning her neck to see over the crowd, “Titania’s not like the other monarchs.”

“What—scary and pathological?”

“You’ll
like
her, Kell. She’s really cool. Nice, even. And I’ve already told her all about you.”

“She’s not
here
here, is she? It’s like the mirror thing my mother does, isn’t it?” Kelley crossed her arms, determined to be obstinate. “Because I find that horribly creepy. It’s like talking to a television set. And having it talk back.”

“No, Kelley.” Tyff sighed and blew a strand of shining, wheat-gold hair out of her ridiculously blue eyes. With her perfect skin, her hair and her eyes—not to mention the body—Tyff tended to stand out. Even in Manhattan. “She actually comes here. She owns this place.”

“She owns the nightclub?”

“The whole hotel, actually. I think she won the land in a card game and then she built a women’s residence on it in the 1920s—mostly that was a facade; it was really a sanctuary, a place to stay for all the Seelie girls who’d gotten caught in the mortal realm when your bad-ass dad, King Auberon, shut the Gate.”

Kelley frowned. “So Titania still comes and goes as she pleases—even though Faerie like you were stuck here?”

“Yup.” Tyff shrugged a sculpted shoulder. “The kings and queens of Faerie aren’t exactly bound by closed doors.”

“But Mabh was bound—”

“Only
after
she’d already poured most of her power into transforming Herne and his buddies into the unstoppable monstrosity that was the Wild Hunt. Even then it still took the two strongest monarchs to bind one lesser queen and—well, as we all discovered last fall, much to the detriment of a particularly expensive item of my wardrobe—even
that
wasn’t anything close to permanent.” Tyff’s eyes restlessly scanned the crowd. “There she is!” she exclaimed suddenly, and, clamping a hand on Kelley’s wrist, dragged her back into the main lounge and over to the thronelike chair that was now occupied by the most stunning creature Kelley had ever laid eyes on.