“Knock
what
off?” he asked. “All I’m doing is keeping her warm, since you didn’t bother giving her anything thicker than a T-shirt.”
Kimber grumbled something I didn’t quite catch, but it didn’t sound complimentary. I wondered if she even
owned
anything thicker than a T-shirt, since it sure seemed that the Fae didn’t mind the cold at all. And the warmth that radiated from Ethan’s body was considerable, making me wonder what their normal body temperature was.
Maybe he
was
just trying to keep me warm. But I still couldn’t relax, and it was a minor miracle that the two of us didn’t hit the dirt in a pile of tangled limbs as our sides bumped in haphazard rhythm.
Walking got easier when we reached the main road. I was not a big fan of the cobblestone streets. Sure, they were nice to look at, but they were a twisted ankle waiting to happen. I bet high heels weren’t a real popular fashion choice in Avalon.
There wasn’t much on the far side of the road, just a strip of well-manicured grass and a super-strong-looking guardrail right at the edge of the cliff. Just the thought of being in a car accident on this road was enough to make my stomach shrivel. Maybe riding horses through the city wasn’t as weird as I’d first thought.
There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic, so the three of us had no trouble getting across the road, even with my uncoordinated gait. I couldn’t quite figure out where we were going, though. I looked up and down the strip of grass, and there was nothing of any interest as far as the eye could see.
Well, except if I looked out over the rail into the distance, but I didn’t feel much like doing that. It seemed I was more afraid of heights than I’d thought.
“Where are we going?” I asked, pleased to find that I actually was still capable of speech.
“Right here,” Ethan said, and we came to a stop.
“Here” didn’t appear to be any different from anything else along the strip of grass. I frowned, but I didn’t feel like asking any more questions. If Ethan wanted me to take this stupid test of his, then it was up to him to explain what I was supposed to do.
There was a noticeable stretch of silence before he spoke again, and I think he was annoyed that I managed to outwait him. Score one for me!
“Look out into the distance, and tell us what you see.”
At least he wasn’t asking me to look
down
. Slowly, I raised my head, having no idea what to expect. I braced myself for something scary.
But all I saw was a heavy blanket of mist that made it impossible to see very far past the moat.
“Am I supposed to see anything unusual?” I asked, but I was beginning to feel a flutter of relief. If I didn’t see anything unusual, that meant I wasn’t what they thought I was. Which meant I wasn’t important to anyone’s political ambitions, which meant I still had hope of moving in with my dad and having a close-to-normal life. Maybe the nightmare would soon be over.
I swayed, suddenly dizzy, and I was glad Ethan still had his arm around me. My stomach lurched, and I burped up the taste of Cheerios. Eww.
“I don’t think I do well with heights,” I said, quickly shifting my gaze back to the grass at my feet.
“Just give it another minute,” Ethan said.
“No thanks. Not unless you want me to barf on your shoes.”
He moved around behind me, and suddenly his hand was on my chin, forcing my head up. I felt the warmth of his breath against my skin as he spoke into my ear.
“One more minute,” he urged.
My first reaction was to close my eyes in protest. But he didn’t let go of me, and when I tried to jerk away, his other arm wrapped around me and held me still.
“Just look,” he said. “Please.”
It was the “please” that changed my mind. He sounded almost desperate, and I realized that whatever I saw—or didn’t see—meant a lot to him. I could deal with a minute or two of queasiness.
Besides, Ethan probably knew some kind of spell that would force me to open my eyes and look. I didn’t want to go there.
With a sigh of resignation, I slowly opened my eyes, braced for the dizziness and nausea. It was there waiting for me, and I held my breath, hoping I wouldn’t be sick. The warmth of Ethan’s arms around me helped steady me, and I gazed out into the distance.
I still couldn’t see anything but the mist. Except … There was something weird about the mist. I stared at it hard, trying to figure out what it was. Through the mist, I could see patches of the English countryside beyond the moat … only, there was a glimmer of something … else. A faint image that overlay the countryside, like a photo that had been double-exposed. I tried to focus on that elusive image, and suddenly, it came clear.
Just beyond the moat stretched a deep green forest. Not a pasture or building in sight, except as a faint afterimage.
“Whoa!” I said with a gasp, my heart leaping in my chest as my throat tightened in near-panic. I tried to back away, but Ethan was still holding me.
“What do you see?” he asked.
I shook my head, still staring out into the mist, trying not to believe what was right before my eyes. I blinked, and the forest was still there. Oh, crap. I shifted my focus to the afterimage of English countryside, and as I stared at it, it solidified once more, the forest fading into the background, but not disappearing.
“What the hell…?” I mumbled. I was getting dizzier by the moment, and I felt sure that I was going to fall down, into the mist that shifted continually before my eyes.
“Let her go,” Kimber said, and I felt her hand on my arm. “We already know what she sees.”
“I want to hear her say it!” Ethan insisted. He was still holding my chin up, his face right next to mine. I’d have freaked out about him being so close if I weren’t feeling so awful.
“Look at her face, you wanker!” Kimber said, her voice sharp as needles. “She’s about to faint.”
Surprisingly, fainting sounded like a really good idea. If I fainted, I’d be unconscious, so I wouldn’t have to see the impossible anymore, nor would I have to feel so dizzy and sick. Then maybe when I woke up, all of this would go away and I’d find it was all just a bad dream. The mist started to turn dark around the edges.
For the record: fainting sucks. I’d always thought of fainting as just losing consciousness for a few seconds. I didn’t realize it involved nausea, dizziness, shivers, and clammy skin.
I came to, sitting on the grassy shoulder, my back resting against something hard and warm as Kimber repeatedly smacked my cheeks. I blinked, but she didn’t stop immediately. My cheeks were stinging and my eyes watering from the blows, and I’ve already described how wonderful I didn’t feel.
“Stop that!” I snapped. I ducked my head and tried to block her arm with mine, but her reflexes were faster than mine and she got in one more “gentle” pat.
“Are you back in the land of the living?” she asked.
I glared at her. The wall at my back shook, and with a start, I realized I was leaning against Ethan, and he was laughing. With a snarl, I pulled away from him and sprang to my feet.
Way too fast. Can you say “head rush”? I swayed and flailed my arms for balance. Wouldn’t you know it, Ethan was there again, his hands on my shoulders, steadying me.
“Take it easy,” he said. “Unless you enjoyed fainting so much you’d like to do it again.”
“No thanks,” I mumbled, and I let him support my weight while the world stopped spinning.
The little splats of rain had turned more aggressive and almost qualified as a steady drizzle. And the seat of my pants was soaked through. God, please let that be because the ground was wet. I’d had enough humiliation for one day, thank you very much.
“Let’s get you inside and out of the rain,” Ethan said. “And I bet you could use a hot cup of tea.”
I tried not to make a face at the thought. “I could really go for a cup of coffee right now,” I said, but neither Ethan nor Kimber seemed that interested in what I wanted.
Once again, Ethan put his arm around my shoulders, only this time Kimber didn’t bother to argue. I was trying hard not to think about what I’d seen and what it might mean, and even harder not to think about the fact that I’d actually fainted, so I wasn’t as focused on the warmth of Ethan’s body next to mine. When I snapped out of my temporary daze, it was to find that my arm had somehow found its way around his waist, and that I was now matching his stride. No more awkward hip bumps.
When we got back to the courtyard, all three of us went up to Kimber’s apartment. Kimber gave me some dry clothes, and I ducked into the bathroom to change. It occurred to me that my life might have been much easier if I’d lied and said I saw nothing unusual when I’d looked out into the distance. I was a pretty good liar—Mom gave me plenty of occasions to practice—but I doubt I’d have been able to pretend nothing was wrong in the face of the dizziness and nausea.
I looked at my face in the bathroom mirror once I’d finished changing, and I hardly recognized myself. My eyes were a little too wide, my face too pale. I leaned forward and inspected the roots of my hair, half-expecting to see it had turned white, but it still looked normal.
I splashed hot water on my face, and that brought some color back to my cheeks. Then I took a deep breath and went to join Ethan and Kimber in the living room. At this point, I was beginning to suspect I didn’t
want
an explanation for what I’d seen, but I supposed I was going to get it anyway.
Ethan and Kimber were sitting on the sofa I’d used as a bed last night, their heads bent together, their voices no louder than a whisper. Ethan was looking earnest, and Kimber was scowling at him. I wondered if she ever smiled when Ethan was around.
They both noticed me at the same time, Kimber interrupting herself mid-sentence while Ethan sat up straight and flashed me one of his dazzling smiles. The smile warmed me like I was standing in a ray of sunshine, and I found myself smiling back in spite of everything.
There was a prissy china tea set on the coffee table, and Kimber made a racket fussing with the pot and then pouring three cups. I knew she wasn’t even remotely clumsy, so the noise was probably meant to annoy Ethan. It seemed to work. He stopped smiling at me and rolled his eyes at her.
I took a deep breath, not realizing that I’d stopped breathing entirely while his eyes had been on me. My heart did some weird fluttery thing in my chest. I could get used to Ethan looking at me like that, smiling at me and bathing me in warmth.
I shook my head at myself.
Out of your league, Dana
, my inner voice said. It was nice to have a hottie like him treating me like a woman instead of a girl, but I didn’t dare let myself think of it as anything other than habitual flirting on his part. I’m not ugly—how could I be with Fae blood running through my veins?—but I’m not anything special, either. Certainly not pretty enough to attract the attention of someone like Ethan. He was hot even for a Fae, and he could have his pick of women prettier, more worldly, and more sophisticated than me. I’m a big believer in not getting my hopes up.
I felt shy and vaguely silly as I took a seat on an antique straight-backed chair perpendicular to the sofa. I picked up the cup of tea Kimber had put in front of the chair—beside her, not Ethan, of course—even though I didn’t really feel in the mood for tea. Especially not when I saw the little specks peppering the bottom of the cup. Apparently, they didn’t use tea bags in Avalon. Sigh.
I raised the cup to my lips and took a halfhearted sip. Then I lowered the cup back into the saucer and found myself staring at the tea leaves, wondering what a gypsy would read in them. I had a feeling it would be nothing good.
“So are you guys going to tell me what’s going on now?” I asked, still looking at the tea. Almost like if I didn’t look at the Fae, they wouldn’t speak to me and tell me what my shifting vision had meant to them.
“You’re a very special girl, Dana Stuart,” Ethan said.
Against my will, I found myself looking up at him, getting trapped by his gaze. I may be naive, but I’d seen enough movies and TV to recognize the R-rated look in those striking teal eyes of his. My throat tightened, and I wasn’t sure whether I felt hot or cold. It took all I had not to squirm.
“My name’s Hathaway,” I said weakly. My parents had never married, and I’d carried my mom’s name my entire life. I didn’t feel inclined to change that now.
His lips quirked, but his eyes still had that dark, hungry gleam in them. “Stuart or Hathaway, you’re special.”
Kimber cleared her throat loudly. Ethan pouted at her.
“You are such a buzz kill,” he grumbled. She started to say something, but he cut her off, his attention back on me. “You know your father is one of the elite, one of the most powerful Fae in Avalon.”
Now I
did
squirm. I wished my mom had told me the truth all these years so I’d have known what I was getting into when I came to Avalon. But she’d told me so many contradicting stories that it had been impossible to determine what was truth and what was fiction. Unfortunately, I could no longer deny that my father’s exalted status among the Fae was one of those truths.
“The Fae are not a spectacularly fertile people,” Ethan said. “We don’t have children with each other all that often, and we have children with humans even more rarely.” He grinned. “Kimber is kind of a freak of nature, because she was born less than two years after me.”
Kimber smacked his arm. Hard. “Most people consider me a miracle baby, not a ‘freak,’” she said. But the look in her eyes suggested this wasn’t the first time she’d heard the word
freak
used to describe her. I instantly liked her better, understanding that her prickliness was a defensive behavior.
“Usually,” Ethan continued, “a child of mixed blood will inherit primarily its mother’s … traits, for lack of a better word.”
“Maybe
heritage
is a better description,” Kimber suggested, having apparently shrugged off her hurt.
Ethan rolled that word around his mind for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is. So a child born of a Fae mother is much more Fae than human, and a child born of a human mother is much more human than Fae.”