Authors: Jennifer Fallon
Kiva’s hand flew to her mouth as she gasped in horror.
‘I had nothing to do with the deal he had in the warehouse that burned down,’ Darragh added hastily, making sure he established Rónán’s innocence from the outset. ‘But his men were just like the cops. They couldn’t believe it was just a coincidence I happened to be there that day. They wanted to find out what I knew.’
‘Oh, my God, Ren … did they hurt you?’
‘I … I’d rather not talk about it,’ Darragh said, looking away. He was at a loss, not sure how much longer he could keep this charade up. Kiva seemed like a nice person. He didn’t want to mislead her, but he could see no way of telling her the truth.
Before he could say another word, however, she had jumped to her feet and hurried to his side to embrace him. ‘It’s okay
now, baby,’ she said, holding him tight. ‘Try not to think about it. We’ll get you through this, honey, I promise. We’ll get the best help. Murray will be there for you. We’ll get you all the assistance and care and the treatment you need. Don’t think about what they did to you, darling. Be brave.’
Darragh wasn’t sure what she was imagining had been done to him, but he did nothing to correct her assumptions. He wasn’t sure there was anything he could do to change her mind. She was an actress, after all. She thrived on drama. So he simply hugged her back and let her gush about how she would make everything better — Hayley apparently forgotten — wondering how he would get out of this mess.
For the second night in a row, Ren spent the night with Trása curled into the crook of his arm. He hadn’t realised she’d spent the night there until he woke the next morning to find a warm black ball of fur snuggled up next to him. He smiled at the sight of her, amused that in human form she professed disdain and irritation for him and yet in feline form — where disdain and irritation seemed much more likely sentiments — she apparently found him more than acceptable company.
He stroked her gently, fascinated by her feline eagerness to be petted, until her human awareness kicked in and she realised what she was doing. At that point, the cat jumped off the bed and turned to glare at him, transforming into the half-Faerie half-human girl she was meant to be.
‘Just you watch where you’re putting those hands, boyo,’ she sniffed, snatching up the blanket from the bed to cover her nakedness. Ren was sure she was neither self-conscious nor shy about her nudity. She just didn’t want him getting an eyeful. Had he been Darragh, Ren suspected — with the benefit of his brother’s memories — Trása wouldn’t have minded a bit.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pulling his knees up to his chin, grinning. ‘You looked like you were enjoying it.’
‘It’s the height of bad manners to take advantage of someone when they’re in animal form.’
‘Is it?’ he asked. ‘Gee, I must have missed that lesson. In my reality, they concentrate more on boring stuff, like … you know, mathematics and science … that sort of thing. Can’t imagine what they were thinking at that expensive private school my mother sent me to, leaving transmogrification off the curriculum.’
‘It’s rude to poke fun at people, too,’ she said, glaring at him.
Ren smiled. Trása looked genuinely annoyed. She couldn’t see the absurdity of what she was saying which made this whole bizarre world even more ridiculous.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So you should be.’
He glanced up at the high, narrow window above the door. The very first rays of dawn had already lightened the sky. It wouldn’t be long before the whole compound was awake. Trása needed to be gone by then. One suspected
Youkai
was enough for the Ikushima to handle. He wasn’t sure what they would do if they discovered they had a real Faerie to contend with.
‘Will you go back to
Tír Na nÓg
?’ he asked.
Trása shook her head. ‘I need to catch me a
Leipreachán
first,’ she said. ‘Now I know where to find you, I’ll head to Breaga. There’s always
Leipreachán
around there. At least there is in my realm.’ Then she frowned, and added, ‘Shit.’
‘
Excuse
me?’
‘I lost the trap I built. And the bait.’
‘What
do
you bait a
Leipreachán
trap with?’ he asked. Although Ren knew he wasn’t dreaming, when discussing things like
Leipreachán
traps it was hard not to wonder if the entire conversation was really the result of taking something mind-altering. He was half-expecting to wake any moment on the couch in the psychiatrist’s office, Murray Symes leaning over
him, notebook in hand, hoping to learn something useful from his disturbed patient’s chemically induced hallucinations.
‘Bacon, of course,’ Trása told him, exasperated that she had to explain something so obvious. ‘Can you get me some from the kitchens?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose. What about the trap?’
‘That’s actually the easy part,’ she said, looking thoughtful. ‘I’ll have to build another one when I get to Breaga, though.’ She stopped for a moment and then threw her hands up in frustration. ‘I just don’t understand why I need to. I mean … why aren’t there any
Daoine sídhe
around here?’
‘According to the people here, the Empresses had them all killed.’
‘I know,’ she said, frowning. ‘You told me that yesterday. But I don’t see how they could kill them all. Or imagine a reason why they’d want to. I mean … they obviously use magic in this realm. Why destroy the people who know most about it?’
‘Maybe they wanted to destroy the competition?’ Ren asked with a shrug, wondering what he was supposed to have learned since their discussion yesterday that warranted asking the question again. ‘I don’t know.’
Trása pursed her lips and studied Ren for a moment. ‘I think you need to find out. It may affect our ability to get home.’
‘Why don’t you ask your pet
Leipreachán
when you catch him?’ Ren suggested. ‘I’m not exactly the flavour of the month around here after the other night. They probably won’t tell me anything. I’m half expecting them to send me back to the Tanabe in chains with a written apology for all the trouble I’ve caused pinned to my
yukata
.’
‘I doubt that,’ she said. ‘You and Madam Oopsy-Daisy seemed pretty friendly to me.’
‘Her name is pronounced Ow-ee,’ Ren said. ‘And I’m pretty sure she was just being polite.’
‘Whatever,’ Trása said, as if she was tired of discussing it. She glanced over her shoulder at the window and the rapidly brightening day. ‘I need to get going. I’ve wasted enough time here. There’s something decidedly off about this world. I intend to find a way home and be gone from here as soon as possible. You coming, or staying?’
‘I don’t think they’ll let me just walk out of the compound,’ Ren told her. ‘I can’t change into a bird and fly away like you can, you know.’
‘Then how did you get away from the Tanabe?’
Ren had avoided answering the question so far, whenever Trása asked. He wasn’t sure if she would let the subject drop quite so easily this morning. He shifted on the futon, crossing his legs as he said with a shrug, ‘They were slack. I saw an opportunity and I took it.’
Trása eyed him curiously. ‘You’re lying.’
‘Why would I lie?’ he asked, looking at her with what he hoped was wide-eyed innocence.
‘Because you don’t want me to know the answer, that’s why,’ she said, sounding puzzled rather than offended. ‘And you know what? I don’t care. Just get me some bacon and I’ll be on my way. Maybe, when I found out how to get out of this crazy place, I’ll come back and let you know. Or maybe I won’t.’
‘Yeah,’ Ren said with utter certainty. ‘You’ll come back.’
Trása didn’t get a chance to answer. Someone knocked politely on the door. Before Ren could react, Trása was back in feline form, disinterestedly washing her face with her white-tipped paw, where only a moment before she’d been standing there, arguing with him.
‘Come in.’
The door slid open to reveal Aoi standing on the veranda, dressed less formally than she had been the night of the Tanabe attack. Now she wore a simple white
yukata
which Ren still thought of as little more than a glorified dressing gown.
‘Good morning, Renkavana,’ she said with a low bow. She glanced at Trása and frowned. ‘I didn’t realise you came with a pet.’
‘I didn’t,’ Ren said, giving Trása a gentle push with his foot to hurry her out the door. ‘It’s a stray. Wandered in here the other night like it owned the place. I didn’t have the heart to kick it out.’
Aoi seemed to accept his explanation and paid Trása no more attention. Trása took the opportunity to slip past Aoi and escape the hut. Hopefully, the next time Ren saw her, she would have some news about getting out of this crazy realm.
‘My brother asked me to escort you to him,’ she told Ren. ‘He wishes to discuss your future plans.’
That’d be nice if I had any future plans
, Ren thought,
other than getting the hell outta here
. ‘Okay. Lead me to him.’
‘He is waiting for you in the drying yard,’ Aoi explained, taking a step to one side to allow Ren to exit ahead of her.
Ren wasn’t sure if the drying yard was meant to have any special significance, and figured it would be impolite to ask. He’d been all but ignored by his hosts since his ill-advised rescue the other night. His meals had been delivered to the hut, and nobody had spoken to him. He wasn’t sure if he was a guest or a prisoner. The request to discuss his future plans made him hope his status was that of a guest.
He followed Aoi through the compound toward the high brick wall that separated the fireworks factory from the residential areas. The daylight increased with every step. The wall was a wise precaution, given the explosive nature of the work that went on in the factory, but it was too close to the houses of
Shin Bungo
for safety, Ren thought. He looked around for Trása but couldn’t see any sign of her, or a black and white cat. Perhaps she’d left for Breaga already, to take up her search for a
Leipreachán.
He hoped that when she caught one, he’d be able to explain what the hell was going on in this world.
Aoi made no attempt at small talk. Ren couldn’t read her well enough to tell if she was angry or had nothing to say. When they reached the brick wall, she waved her hand at one of the guards on duty, who hurried to push the big, brass-studded gate open for them.
The smell hit Ren as soon as he stepped through the gate. It was an odd mixture of cordite and wet paper. This was the part of the factory Ren hadn’t toured yet. Before him stretched a vast sea of low tables covered in paper balls. That’s what they seemed to be at first glance, but he realised that these were the paper shells used to contain the fireworks for which the Ikushima were so famous. There were thousands of the thick brown paper shells on the tables, ranging from golf ball to basketball size. The reason the fireworks factory was located so close to a forest harvested for paper became apparent. And the reason they must be at war with the Tanabe. The
kozo
trees the Tanabe harvested for their magical origami paper must be the same as the paper the Ikushima used for their fireworks.
Namito had given Ren a tour of the parts of the factory involved in creating the firework powders, explaining how the powders were mixed to produce the different colours. It was interesting in a Discovery Channel documentary sort of way, but it wasn’t until Ren entered the drying yard that the full impact of the economic battle waging between the Tanabe and the Ikushima hit home.
It still didn’t explain the absence of the Faerie in this realm, but it was easy to see why the Ikushima, who’d colonised this area of Ireland hundreds of years ago and planted their
kozo
trees to provide themselves with a renewable resource, were so miffed. The more recent Tanabe immigrants wanted the same trees to make paper so they could wield the magic they had stolen from the
Youkai.
‘Renkavana!’
He looked to find Namito walking toward him, also dressed in the ubiquitous
yukata
everyone favoured. The
Daimyo
was not smiling as he approached, which Ren took to be a very bad sign.
‘
Ohayou gozaimasu
,’ Ren said with a bow, hoping his ‘good morning’ was formal enough. And that he hadn’t pronounced it so badly it sounded like something different or — with his luck — something very rude.
Namito wasn’t in the mood to be polite. He glared at Ren for a moment and waved his arm to encompass the entire yard. ‘You see all this?’
‘I see it,’ Ren agreed warily.
‘This is what you have endangered with your bravado.’
Ren wasn’t sure if he could say anything to answer that.
I hope you catch your
Leipreachán,
Trása
, he begged silently, wishing telepathy was one of his gifts.
And that you find us a way home. Soon. Because I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well.
‘Our spies in the Tanabe compound report that Chishihero has sent word back to
Chu-cho-
to inform them the Ikushima are harbouring
Youkai
.’
‘And you’re not in the least bit interested when I tell you I’m not
Youkai
, are you?’ Ren asked, realising that Namito’s almost unthinkable lack of civility meant he was in a lot of trouble.
‘Your denials are meaningless,’ Namito said with a shrug. He waved his hand again, motioning a number of armoured samurai forward. ‘From now on, I can do nothing but protect my family and my people from the wrath of the Empresses.’
The wrath of the Empresses
sounded dire, Ren thought as he glanced around the vast drying yard, wondering if it was worth making a run for it.
I did it once
, Ren told himself, as the guards closed in on him.
Surely I can zap myself away again?
He reached for the magic —
tried to recall how Darragh wielded it with such finesse. But he had nothing. It felt like dry sand sliding through his fingers. Whatever ability Ren had tapped into a few nights ago when the Tanabe were trying to kill him was lost to him now. The other night he was in imminent danger of having his throat slit, and that must have made a difference. This time, Namito was only having him arrested.