Fairy Lies (21 page)

Irinia held up her hand in a shushing motion. “There’s no need.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to wear to the dance?” one of the fairies asked another.

“My pink petal dress, of course,” the fairy replied as they wandered off together.

Tamisin was about to try talking to Irinia again when Dasras hailed her.

“Where have you been?” he asked, scowling. “I went to your tree first thing this morning, but you weren’t there. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I got up early this morning and went for a walk,” said Tamisin.

“I saw Buttercup by the lake. She said she saw you returning from the other side of the briar hedge.”

Tamisin tried to think of an answer that wouldn’t give too much away. “I went to ask Narlayna to make me a dress for the dance,” she said, glancing at Irinia as she said it.

Irinia nodded and gave Tamisin a quick half smile.

“Ah,” Dasras said, appearing satisfied. “Then you’re going with me?”

“I guess I am.” Tamisin groaned under her breath. She’d talked herself into a corner; now she’d either have to go or leave the forest before the dance began.

Plucking a fat, red apple from the table, she tried to think of something to say to Dasras. She no longer felt as if she loved him; the little voice telling her that she did had died on the mermaid’s beach. There were a lot of things that she wanted to say to him, but none of them were pleasant, and she remembered Malcolm’s warning to be discreet. Telling him off would attract attention, as would starting an argument, so neither one would be a good idea now. Instead, she took a bite from the apple, delaying the
need to say anything, and looked up when a tiny messenger fairy arrived.

Instead of going to Dasras, the fairy came to her. She waited while he grew to full size. “Colonel Mountain Ash wants to see you,” said the messenger. “Go to the fairy king’s clearing. The colonel is waiting for you there.”

“Why would the colonel want to see me?” she asked Dasras as the messenger flew away.

He shrugged. “I have no idea, but you should hurry. If the colonel wants to see you, it must be important.”

Chapter 18

Jak expected to go directly to the colonel, but instead Ragweed led the way to the middle of a briar patch and told him to wait there. After Ragweed left, Jak tried to say a few words out loud, but it took some time before he could use his own voice. His memory was coming back, too. He remembered who he was, that he had given the fairies a false name, and that he had come to get Tamisin. When he remembered how she had rejected him, he almost wished his memory hadn’t come back so completely.

After a while Jak stood to stretch his legs and peeked out of the entrance to the briar patch. Ragweed was standing at the far end, peering back the way they had come. He stopped a passing fairy who gestured wildly, obviously agitated. Ragweed began to pace after the other fairy left, but it wasn’t until a tiny fairy flew up to Ragweed and hovered by his ear that the big fairy finally became
small and zipped away, leaving Jak in the briar patch unguarded.

Tamisin walked so fast that she was nearly running. Something had happened, she was sure of it. Could Titania have come for her? Could something have happened to Oberon? Maybe bad news had made its way from the human world and something had happened to her adoptive family. The thought that something bad might have befallen one of the people she loved made Tamisin’s breath catch in her throat.

The fog that had obscured the glade after Tamisin’s last visit was gone when she arrived, and she could see Mountain Ash waiting for her. “It seems you have a visitor,” the colonel said when she stood before him. “A cat-goblin boy has come to see you.”

Tamisin could see that Mountain Ash was watching to see her reaction. She took a deep breath, willing her heartbeat to slow and her cheeks to cool. “Who is it?” she asked.

“He says his name is Nihlo. Do you know someone by that name?”

Tamisin was disappointed and more than a little afraid. When she’d heard it was a cat goblin, she’d begun to hope for a moment that it was someone else, someone whose name she couldn’t remember.
Could the boy I can’t remember be a cat goblin?
she wondered, surprised at her own reaction.

She remembered Nihlo, though, and her lip curled in dislike. “I know him.”

Nihlo had wanted to kill her the last time she’d seen him. After leaving the land of the fey, she’d hoped that she’d never see him again. And now he was here. Tamisin was tempted to say that she didn’t want to see him, but with so many guards around she didn’t think he could hurt her. Besides, she was more than a little curious about why he would come so far.

A messenger fairy darted through the trees to hover beside the colonel. Mountain Ash held up one finger, motioning for the messenger to wait. “Tell me, what is Nihlo’s relationship to Titania?” he asked Tamisin. “Does he work for her?”

Tamisin shook her head. “No. As far as I know, Nihlo doesn’t work for anyone but Nihlo. He hates Titania and would hurt her if he could.”

Another messenger arrived, and another and another. They hovered in the air beside Mountain Ash, their twinkling lights quivering with the urgency of their messages.

“Just a moment,” Mountain Ash told Tamisin, and glanced at the fairy who had arrived first. His expression grew grimmer as he listened to the messenger. When the fairy finished, Mountain Ash turned to Tamisin. “You’ll have to excuse me. Titania’s forces have reached our border and have already mounted an attack. We’ll talk more about your friend later.” In an instant, Mountain Ash was as small as the messenger fairies and flying off with them.

Tamisin didn’t know what to do. Her mother’s army
was attacking her father’s court? She’d heard of family squabbles, but nothing like this! Dasras had said that Titania loved her kingdom more than Tamisin or himself. However, if the fairy queen was deliberately starting a fight over her, Titania must love her more than the kingdom, or Oberon, or the fairies who were sure to get hurt in such a battle. Irinia and Narlayna had told Tamisin how fiercely Titania and Oberon could fight; the last thing Tamisin wanted was for anyone to get hurt because of her.

As much as she wanted to go home to the human world, she had to do something to keep Titania and Oberon from fighting. Would it help if she went to talk to them? But how would she get to her mother, and who knew where her father was now? Would they even listen to her if she could find them?

Jak was about to go in search of Tamisin when a small figure dressed all in brown appeared. “Come with me,” the brownie said, gesturing for him to follow.

“Why?” said Jak.

The little man set his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes. “Because I’m trying to help you, you big galumphing idiot! I heard the fairies. You were supposed to talk to Mountain Ash before he’d let you see the princess, but something came up and he had to go. The fairies were going to leave you here, twiddling your thumbs. Fine, if you don’t want my help, you can sit here and wait for your guard to come back. It’s too bad, though. The princess Tamisin
needs someone to help her, and I thought you might be the one.”

“I’m coming!” said Jak as he hurried to catch up with the brownie, who could move surprisingly fast for someone with such short legs. “Are you a friend of Tamisin’s?”

The brownie looked surprised at the question. After a moment’s thought, he flashed a quick smile at Jak and said, “Yes, I guess you could say that I am.”

They paused at the forest trail. When they didn’t see anyone, they crept along the path, moving silently. Jak’s heart leaped in his chest when he saw a solitary figure and realized that it was Tamisin. The brownie slipped away as Jak started running. “Tamisin!” he shouted. “I’m here!”

At the sound of the familiar voice, Tamisin’s heart lurched and she felt a rush of excitement as she turned around, only to see a face she didn’t recognize. The emotions that filled her as he approached were staggering, but she was so confused that she couldn’t speak at first. Part of her wanted to run to him and throw herself into his arms, but another part told her to be cautious, that this was a stranger she’d never seen before. True, he was a cat goblin, but not the one she was expecting.

“You’re not Nihlo,” she said, taking a step back. She hated Nihlo; although she felt conflicting emotions when she saw this boy, hatred wasn’t one of them.

Chapter 19

Jak stopped in his tracks, stunned. “What? Tam, it’s me! I came looking for you. Is something wrong?” he added when she retreated from him again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

Jak was horrified. Either the fairies had sent her to the Land of Forgetfulness and her memories hadn’t come back, or Oberon had used his magic on her and made her forget people. It couldn’t be all her memories, though; if she knew he wasn’t Nihlo, she must remember his cousin, at least. Jak decided that Oberon must be to blame if her memory loss was so selective.

“We met at Worthington Academy; don’t you remember?” he said. “We ran into each other in the hallway—literally!”

“I know the academy, but I never met you there,” Tamisin said, rubbing her forehead as if it hurt. “Listen, I don’t know why you’re here, but this isn’t a good time.
There’s a lot going on now and I have to talk to my father.”

Although Jak’s first instinct was to pull her into his arms, cover her face with kisses, and tell her that everything was going to be all right, he was afraid it would frighten her if she truly didn’t remember him. Instead he watched her walk away, hoping that she would stop to look back at him, and he felt a tightness in his chest when she didn’t. It was bad enough when she didn’t want to be with him, but even worse to see her not know him at all.

And what did Tamisin mean when she said that she was going to talk to her father? Tamisin had told Jak that her real father was human and had died years before. Could she have learned something new? Did she think that Oberon was her father? Maybe she was talking about someone else.

Jak began to follow Tamisin. He didn’t want her to see him trailing her, but he wasn’t about to let her get out of sight, so he waited until she’d turned a corner in the path before hurrying after her. Slipping into the trees, he followed far enough off the path that she wouldn’t see him if she did look back.