Grace blinked a couple of times. I doubted she was used to having
anyone
talk back to her, much less teenage human girls. The smile faded from her lips, and an arctic chill entered her eyes.
“A girl no one’s ever heard of comes marching into Avalon claiming to be the half-blood daughter of one of the great Seelie lords, and we’re just supposed to accept you with no questions asked?” she said, her voice as frosty as her eyes. “Seamus had no idea he’d sired a child on your mother, and while he might have been quick to accept you into his bosom as one of his own, it was certainly conceivable that you were an imposter.”
One of the great Seelie lords? My mom had said Dad was a big-deal Fae, but this sounded like more of a big deal than I’d imagined.
“While you and I chatted, my staff searched your bag for your hairbrush. They were able to determine that you truly are who you say you are.”
The violation of my privacy pissed me off, but I was also puzzled. “You were able to do a DNA test in, like, fifteen minutes?” I asked incredulously.
Grace gave me another of those looks that said I was obviously a little simpleminded. “Not a DNA test, dear.”
Oh. Magic. I’d kind of forgotten about that. My face heated with another blush. Grace was really good at making me feel like an idiot, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t by accident. I didn’t know what she had against me, but it was obviously something. My brain felt all fuzzy around the edges, and once again I longed for that cozy bed to curl up in. Despite my stress—and annoyance—a yawn forced its way out of my mouth.
Grace’s expression softened into something concerned and almost sweet-looking. I didn’t believe it.
“You poor thing,” she said. “You must be exhausted after your long trip.” She stood up, the movement inexplicably graceful. “Come.” I wondered if she knew she said it like she was talking to her favorite pet. “We must get you settled in so you can get some rest.”
I stayed seated, not sure what she meant. “So I’m free to go now?”
“I will arrange for another officer to fill in for me for a couple of hours,” she said in another one of her non-answers. “I’ll take you home. If you’d like to stop and grab something to eat first, just let me know. There are a number of lovely cafés very near my house.”
My stomach gurgled, but I wasn’t sure it was from hunger. One thing I knew for sure was I didn’t want to go home with Grace.
“Can you just drop me off at my dad’s house?” I asked, already knowing the answer would be no.
Grace made a sad face. “I’m afraid not, dear. He isn’t home at the moment, and I don’t have a key. But have no fear—you need only stay with me a day or two. Then your father will be ready to take you in.”
It sounded like I wasn’t going to have a choice in the matter, so I tried to resign myself to the idea. “Okay,” I said, standing up and hoping I didn’t sound too pouty.
“Splendid!” she said with false cheer.
Splendid? Who says “splendid” in this day and age? Of course, since Aunt Grace was Fae, I supposed she could be a zillion years old, even though she looked like she was in her mid twenties.
I followed Grace through a dizzying set of mazelike corridors. I couldn’t help noticing the security cameras that spied on our every move.
She stopped by what I think was a break room, based on the microwave and vending machines. A small group of uniformed officers sat around a table. Grace barked some orders at them—arranging for someone to cover for her during her field trip—and then we were wending our way through the corridors again.
Eventually, we came to a key-carded door. Aunt Grace swiped her card, and the door opened onto the parking lot that I had spotted when I’d been standing in line. She guided me to an elegant black Mercedes. The car was so pristine she could have driven it off the lot five minutes ago. It had that lovely new car scent, somewhat spoiled by the tacky, rose-shaped car freshener that hung from the rearview mirror. At least it wasn’t one of those pine-tree taxi-cab specials.
“Your bag is in the trunk,” Aunt Grace told me before I had a chance to ask. Then she started the car and we were on our way.
The bridge over the moat was a narrow, two-lane affair, and the guard rails on the side looked kind of flimsy to me. Maybe that was just because the moat’s murky, nasty water gave me the creeps.
Trying to ignore the water, I glanced over my shoulder—a bit wistfully—at the gatehouse that marked the border between Avalon and the mortal world. A part of me was already wishing I’d never set foot out of my mom’s house. Yeah, it majorly sucked living with her, taking care of her, lying to all my friends about her. But at least she was the devil I knew.
A wave of nausea rolled over me, and my vision went momentarily blurry. I turned back around to face front.
“Is something wrong?” Grace asked.
I shook my head and swallowed past the nausea. “I’m just jet-lagged and stressed out and maybe even a little motion sick.” I wondered if she’d mind me barfing in her shiny new car. I bet the answer was yes.
“What did you mean when you said my father was ‘indisposed’?” I asked her as my stomach—luckily—settled down.
“He’s had a spot of … legal trouble, I suppose you’d call it.” The Mercedes began its smooth, effortless ascent of the steep two-lane road that spiraled up the mountain. “But don’t worry. Everything should be cleared up in a day or two. And I’ll take good care of you until he’s home.”
“Where is he?”
The corners of her mouth tightened, and she hesitated before answering. “Very well, if you
must
know,” she said, making it sound like I’d been badgering her about it for hours, “he’s in jail.”
I gasped. Steering with one negligent hand, she reached over and patted my knee. I had to resist an urge to jerk away.
“It is merely a misunderstanding,” she said in what was supposed to be a soothing tone. “He’ll be seen by the Council tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, and he’s certain to be released at that time.”
My father was in jail. Of all the problems I’d imagined facing in Avalon, this wasn’t one of them. My hand crept again to the cameo I wore, fingers nervously stroking the textured surface. Grace’s eyes tracked my gesture. Her lips thinned when she saw the cameo, but she didn’t say anything. I dropped my hand anyway.
I was bubbling over with more questions, but at that moment, Grace pulled into a tiny parking lot, big enough for maybe a half dozen cars at most. She was out of the car and popping the trunk before I’d managed to get a single one of my questions out. Again, I didn’t think it was by accident.
I was too tired to deal with this now. After I’d had a nap and didn’t feel so much like roadkill, I’d sit down with dear old Aunt Grace and have a long heart-to-heart in which she would explain what was going on with my dad. Like why he was in jail. And what was this Council he was going to be seen by? I belatedly wished I’d read up on the Avalon governmental system. All I could remember about it from civics class was that it was unlike any other government in the world, and the duties were shared equally between humans and Fae.
Grace opened the trunk for me, but she left it to me to do the heavy lifting. I sure was glad my bag had wheels. Without a word, she led me down one of the cobblestone side streets. The cobblestones weren’t exactly easy on the wheels, and I struggled to keep the bag upright. And to keep it out of the puddles that gathered in the low spots, and the horse crap that gave the street a distinctively barnlike smell.
I must have been making some kind of face, because Grace actually volunteered information for the first time I could remember.
“The internal combustion engine does not function in Faerie,” she explained. “Those who have reason to travel between Avalon and Faerie perforce do so on horseback, so you’ll see a great many more horses here than you might in most cities.”
This was probably fascinating information, and no doubt I should be gawking at my exotic surroundings. But the jet lag was too overwhelming, and I was struggling too hard with my stupid luggage to manage it.
I was relieved beyond words when we finally came to a stop in front of a picturesque stone row house. It was three stories high and rather narrow, but the old-fashioned, leaded-glass windows and the window boxes overflowing with white roses gave it a pleasant, homey look.
Aunt Grace muttered something under her breath, and the door made a series of clicking sounds before it swung open. No one had touched it.
Magic
, my mind mumbled. But I was too tired and grouchy to be properly impressed.
I didn’t get a good look at the interior, because Grace immediately led me upstairs to the third floor. And no, she didn’t offer to help me haul my bag up the two narrow wooden staircases.
“Here we are,” she said, opening the first door at the top of the stairs.
I hauled my luggage over the threshold, then dropped it gratefully. The room looked really nice, but all I really had eyes for was the huge, soft-looking four-poster bed. Never had a bed looked more inviting.
Grace smiled at my obvious yearning. “I’ll leave you to get some rest,” she said. “There’s an en suite bathroom right through there.” She pointed at a closed door at the other end of the room.
“Thanks,” I said, my tendency toward politeness rearing its ugly head. I took a couple of steps toward the bed. I probably should have fished my toiletries out of my luggage and at least brushed my teeth before collapsing, but the lure of sleep was overpowering.
“Sleep well, dear,” Grace said; then the door closed behind her and she was gone.
I had just reached out and put a hand on the bed to pull back the fluffy down comforter when I heard a distinctive click. I blinked.
Surely
I hadn’t heard what I thought I’d just heard.
Alarm overriding my fatigue for the moment, I went to the door. I could hear Grace’s footsteps retreating down the wooden stairs. I put my hand on the doorknob, hoping against hope I was wrong. But when I tried to turn the knob, it stayed stubbornly in place.
My dear Aunt Grace had just locked me in.
Of course, I had to try pounding on the door and yelling, but I can’t say I was really surprised when that didn’t work. The only other way out of the room was the window. I had to climb up on a chair to look out, and what I saw was discouraging. I was on the third floor, so climbing out the window didn’t seem like the best idea in the world—even if I could have gotten it open, which I couldn’t. There was no lock that I could see, and it didn’t look like it was painted shut, but repeated banging and prying got me nothing but a couple of broken nails.
Why, oh why, had I decided to leave home? I’d been dealing with my mom for my whole life; what would another couple of years have mattered? Hell, it wouldn’t even have been a full two years—just this summer, my senior year at school (I’d skipped a grade in middle school, so I was generally younger than everyone else in my class) and then the summer that followed. After that, I’d be away at college, and I had every intention of going to school as far away from home—wherever that happened to be at the time—as possible.
My eyes were gritty and my head ached, but I couldn’t imagine lying down and taking a nice little nap under the circumstances.
I found myself fidgeting with the cameo once again. Was my father really in jail? If so, what for? Mom had told me some terrible stories about him, but I was convinced at least half of them were lies.
But what if they weren’t? What if he was in jail because he
belonged
there?
I shook the thought off. Aunt Grace had intercepted me at the border, bullied me, and then locked me up. I sat down on the edge of the bed and considered my options. Too bad I didn’t seem to have any at the moment. About fifteen minutes later, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching. And voices.
One of them was Aunt Grace, and the other was a man—I hoped against hope that the man was my father. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, and when they got close enough for the words to be distinct, they shut up.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled for no reason I could name, and I backed away from the door. I heard the soft mumble of Grace’s voice, and the door unlocked and opened itself.
I’d said Aunt Grace was tall and imposing. She had to be at least five-nine, five-ten. But the man who stood behind her in the doorway was enormous. Well over six feet tall—probably more like seven—he’d have to bend over to fit through the door, and he was wide enough that I wondered how he’d made it up the narrow staircase. He looked like what you’d get if you crossed an NBA star with a non-green version of the Incredible Hulk.
Grace entered the room, and, thankfully, her giant friend stayed behind. Blocking the doorway, I suppose, in case I made a run for it. I crossed running for it off my list of options.
I had to fight down a shiver even as I tried to sound brave. “Where do you get off locking me in my room?” I demanded. At least, I
tried
to demand. I’m afraid “whimpered” might be a better description. Then I got a better look at her—and at the big bruise that bloomed on one side of her face. I gasped.
“What happened?” I asked, momentarily forgetting that she was the enemy.
She looked grim. “My brother was … unwise to bring you here.”
“Huh?”
“You are in danger. Our family is one of great power and consequence. Now that Seamus has claimed you as his daughter and brought you here, there are factions who might see you as a tool to be used to control him. Someone must have seen me bring you here. I was attacked while I was unlocking the front door. I was lucky I’d called Lachlan and asked him to meet me. He chased them off before they could do too much damage. But this proves I was right: you aren’t safe here.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t you let me go back to London? I can get a hotel room there and wait until my dad’s out of … er, until he’s available. That way I won’t be putting you through any trouble, and’”
She shook her head. “The men who attacked me were human. I don’t know who they were working for, but they could easily pursue you to London. No, we have to take you to a more secure location, at least until Seamus is free.”