All That Burns (3 page)

“It seems the flower arrangements are poisonous. Find a way to dispose of them and let the Winfreds know,” the king orders them. “Discreetly, please. I’m sure it was an honest mistake.”

“You’re quite trusting,” Julian says, “for a man in your position.”

Richard’s shoulders grow rigid under his tux. He snaps open the cloth napkin and places it in his lap. “If you call it trusting to believe that people make mistakes. Then yes.”

“I find that mistakes are never quite as common as
they seem.” The politician drops the bruised blossom onto the tablecloth.

“We’re all human.”

“Are we?” A smile curls its way across Julian Forsythe’s face. His eyes land on me.

I stare back, struggle to keep smiling.

“You’re right though,” Julian goes on. “The arrangements were probably a mistake. Death by flower is hardly effective. If anything I’d say they were a warning.”

Richard still hasn’t let go of his napkin. His face is handsome, steady, straight, as he wrings the white fabric under his fingers. I slip my hand under the table, rest it on his.

“I see you’ve met the Forsythes. Julian is the leader of the M.A.F.,” Richard says finally.

“M.A.F.?” I ask.

“The Mortal Alliance Front. It’s a new party formed to protect the interests of mortals against monst—” Julian stops short. His eyes still haven’t left me. “—other creatures.”

Richard’s hand twitches under mine but he looks straight at Julian. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here. They said you were on your honeymoon.”

“It was brief. I’m afraid I can’t take too much personal
time, with the state of things.”

“Your honeymoon?” I leap at the change of subject, go for its throat. “Where did you go?”

“If Elaine had had her way we would’ve spent the week in dreary Wales. Reading manuscripts, exploring castles, being cold.” Julian looks over at his new wife, his expression softened. “She’s getting her doctorate in medieval studies. Those things fascinate her. I practically had to drag her to the Mediterranean kicking and screaming.”

“Medieval studies?” Richard’s fingers have relaxed, but only barely. “You have a wealth of information sitting right here. Emrys lived through those times.”

His words make my toes squirm. As if they needed a reminder of how
other
I am.

Elaine opens her mouth, as if she’s about to speak. The boat gives a sharp, unforgiving shake. All across the yacht glasses tumble, dishes rattle, chandeliers sway like wind chimes.

“What the—” Julian Forsythe snaps around in his chair.

I look in the same direction—out over the waters. The Tower Bridge looms well behind us. The wider lights of London have ceased gliding. Instead they hover: jewels of electric, washed-out colors. Oranges, blues, and yellows
dancing over dark currents. The yacht sits, stranded in them.

There’s a second, startling shudder. A server’s scream cuts the night; her tray of cucumber sandwiches scatters all over the bow deck.

“Th-there’s something! In the water!”

My chair tumbles behind me, my heels left behind. There’s a tug and a rip on my gown, but I keep running—barefoot—all the way to the open deck.

The Thames’s dark waters are almost invisible against the night’s reflections. But there’s one spot where London’s lights don’t show. A break in the water. A huge mass of
something else
.

It could be anything down there, draped in the river’s black currents. A U-boat, a giant sea-beast Kraken, some disgruntled water Sprites. But then a sound rises. Soft and hushed, like a sneeze and a purr and a downpour of gravel all at once. A noise I know well.

The Kelpie is a huge one. In the water it resembles more of a whale than a horse. I can just make out its glistening, seal-like fur and pinned lynx ears as it swims the length of the yacht. Its wake bulges and fans through the Thames.

White fear washes over my face, my knuckles. For years of my former life it was all I did: shepherding Queen
Mab’s Kelpies through the Highlands. But I always,
always
made sure to keep them far from the water.

On land they’re rideable; some Frithemaeg might even consider them tamed. But once they’re in their element—waterborne—Kelpies are deadly. More than a few men have been lured to the great, green deep. Consumed whole at the bottoms of lakes and riverbeds.

Sprites and other water spirits abandoned this river years ago when the sludge of the city made its waters unbearable. There shouldn’t even
be
Kelpies in the Thames.

But this giant Kelpie is here. And it wants something. It makes a swift circle; its massive form strikes the yacht. Lord Winfred’s boat tilts so far that I have to clutch the rail to keep my balance. A sound like splintered thunder laces the air: fiberglass.

I can’t tell if the hull’s been breached. That side of the boat is all foam and dark water as the Kelpie wheels around. But I know one thing—the yacht won’t be able to withstand another charge. The next hit will sink us. Drag us all into the Kelpie’s wild, lusty waters.

I look back over my shoulder. The yacht’s world is shattered glass and frantic, glamorous people clutching their chairs. I’m the only soul on the deck until Richard comes rushing to my side.

“What is it?”

“Kelpie,” I tell him in a clipped, managed tone. “Whatever you do, don’t go near the water. Try to make everyone stay on the boat.”

I start gathering the gauze of my skirts, making room for my legs to move up and over the rail. Richard’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Emrys, what are you doing?”

“I can get it under control. Lead it away from the boat. Give the captain time to get to shore.” I think. I’ve wrestled Kelpies before, but it was always on land. And I had spells to protect me from the Kelpie’s magic.

“Stay on the boat.” It’s more of a plea than a command, the way Richard says it. “Let the Frithemaeg handle it.”

Helene—she should be here. But she’s nowhere to be seen. The dark, gliding hump of the Kelpie’s hindquarters pulls out and switches back. Charging with even more speed than before.

“The Faery guard isn’t here. We can’t wait around for them to show up.”

“But you’re . . .” He bites his lip. “You’re mortal now, Emrys. You could die.”

“If I don’t do something, we’ll
all
die!” I shout back at him. It’s getting harder to hear, harder to speak with the roar of the Thames, the screams and sliding tables
of Lord Winfred’s limping yacht. “This boat is going to sink and that Kelpie will drown each and every one of us. I’m not helpless, Richard. I still have some magic left. I can do this.”

There are more people on deck now. Gripping the railing with petrified knuckles. The Forsythes have joined the exodus—faces blanched with righteous terror.

“Emrys.” The king’s fingers tighten on my shoulder. I hear the fear in him. “Please. This isn’t your job anymore. I don’t need your magic, I need you. Stay on the boat. Stay with me.”

His words cut, but I don’t have time to feel them. I don’t have time to remember how breakable I am. The Kelpie barrels down; the Thames’s water froths white under its speed.

Richard’s grip on my shoulder isn’t enough to stop me as I climb over the rail and jump. My world becomes nude gauze and the shock of October water on my skin. The gown which was so airy only moments before is now an unbearable weight. The waters pull and lick, hungry for me.

I feel the slick of the Kelpie’s fur against my arm. Realize the raw power of the muscle beneath it. Longer hair from its mane or tail threads through my fingers, as slimy
and tangled as seaweed. I grab hold.

The beast keeps churning and charging. My arms yank forward, snap tighter than whips. Water rushes into my face. I feel the force of the river clawing at me as if it wants to rip me apart.

My lungs burst with desperate fire. I need air, but I can’t let go. Not if I want to draw the Kelpie away from the yacht. I dig deep, scrounge through what little magic Herne left me. Not enough for a binding spell, or a banishment. It isn’t even enough to hurt the creature.

I think of Lord Winfred’s Faery light chandeliers. The last gasp of air in my lungs is spent in a garbled, underwater yell:
“Inlíhte!”

It’s only enough for an instant: a blinding, blue light. Everything is illuminated, silhouetted like shadow puppets on a watery wall. The deep, underwater pillars of the Tower Bridge. The hulking base of the yacht. The enormous length of Kelpie flesh under me. Even when the light is gone these shapes stay in my vision: neon-lit ghosts.

The Faery light does its job. I feel the Kelpie hesitate. The Thames presses down on my shoulders and lungs. Its water becomes searing. Electric. The Kelpie’s spell sings and weaves through the currents, seeking me out.

I’m trying to fight it, trying to break away from the
predator. But my gown is so heavy and the Kelpie’s magic is everywhere. In my ears and nose and pores, begging me to unravel. To give it all up to the water’s deep.

I don’t have the magic to fight back. Some dim, clawing thought bubbles from the back of my mind.
Richard was right. I shouldn’t have jumped.

I’m going to die. Not at the hands of a powerful Old One, or lying next to Richard in a hospital, withered with age. I’m going to drown on the back of a disoriented Kelpie. Trapped in the gauze of my own dress.

I’m not what I was before. I’m not strong enough.

And then, hands and arms wrap around my waist, draw me up into clean air. My lungs claw for it, consume it. I’m being dragged out of the river, away from the boat by the time I can even speak.

“The Kelpie! The yacht!” My words wheeze and splutter. They sound pathetic even to me.

“Stay here! I have to go help Lydia!” The hands let go, rest my body on the shore. I turn just in time to see Ferrin, one of the youngling Fae guard, before she disappears into velveteen waters.

Ferrin. Lydia. What are they doing here? Last I heard they were in the Highlands, doing grunt work at Queen Titania’s court.

My body feels weak and crumpled, like the wads of rubbish which string along the Thames. With every breath I feel life flowing back in—how close I was to losing it.

I look back at the rogue Kelpie. Lydia has managed to catch the beast, with some help from Ferrin and another soaked youngling. It must be Helene. After long, thrashing minutes, the trio drags the Kelpie from the muddy currents. Once the creature’s hooves hit dry land it stands no chance against their spells.

All three Fae are breathing hard. Helene even has blood streaming down her left cheek.

“Will someone
PLEASE
explain this?” I look around the group. Guilt flashes across Lydia’s and Ferrin’s heart-shaped faces. Both of them have their fingers wreathed deep into the water-spirit’s mane, subduing it with wordless spells.

In the end it’s Lydia who speaks first. “It was my fault, Lady Emrys. It’s a good thing you shone that light. I don’t know if we would’ve found it otherwise. It shot off as soon as it caught wind of the river.”

I stare at the youngling and clench my teeth. She’s not the one I’m angry at. Not really. It’s the burn in my lungs and the tremble in my limbs. My mortality. My weakness.

But this doesn’t stop me from yelling.

“Your fault? It shot off?” My throat catches, chokes on some leftover river. “What do you mean? Did you
bring
the Kelpie here? Into the middle of
LONDON
? BY A RIVER IN A CITY FULL OF MORTALS? You almost got every single soul on that yacht killed!”

“I was acting on Queen Titania’s orders,” Lydia says.

“Ti-Titania ordered this?” I glance back across the river and see the yacht. I look for Richard, but from this distance all tuxedos look the same. “Why?”

“We were sent to fetch you. Queen Titania ordered us to bring a Kelpie so you could ride back swiftly.”

“Ride back?” Normally when I visit Titania’s Faery court in the Highlands, I take a train to Inverness and then hike into the wilderness, where I’m met with a Kelpie mount. If the new Faery queen is summoning me with such little warning—and creating even greater risk by sending a ferocious spirit into London—something must be very wrong. “What happened?”

Lydia and Ferrin exchange glances. As if they’re uncertain how much they should reveal.

I stare at them, press my thumb hard into my ring. Its swirls of silver filigree dig deep into my finger. A small pain. I try to focus on it instead of what I’m not. It keeps
the anger down. Manageable.

Ferrin breaks first under my glare. “One of the Ad-hene sought an audience with Queen Titania today. At her court.”

An Ad-hene at the court? I bristle at the thought. The Ad-hene are the Manx spirits—long-hardened natives of the Isle of Man. In the mortals’ lore they’re spirits too terrible for heaven and too virtuous for hell. In reality they are fierce, brooding creatures who never leave their island. The perfect guards for a Faery queen’s prison.

“Why?”

Lydia answers this time. “The Ad-hene . . . he came to tell us there’s been a breakout. A prisoner has escaped.”

“Escaped.” I echo her word. Try to wrap my mind around it. “That’s not possible.”

A cold fills me. A cold which has nothing to do with my damp skin or the night frost. It’s a freeze sprung from memories. Memories of when Queen Mab ordered me to escort prisoners to the Ad-hene’s prison: a labyrinth of tunnels snaking from the sea cliffs—wide and deep and never-ending under the Isle of Man.

Anyone the Faery queen deemed dangerous or unlikeable was doomed to at least a time in the endless weave of corridors. Assassins, thieves, would-be usurpers. Spirits more
powerful than the entire youngling Guard put together. Cursed to centuries of iron bars and darkness.

Thousands of immortal souls. Hundreds of years. And not one of them has ever escaped.

Until now.

“Queen Titania ordered us to escort you to the Isle of Man,” Ferrin finishes. Her fingers tighten into the water-spirit’s mane.

The beast glares at us, eyes slit and bloodshot. It whickers, bares its long, yellowing teeth.

My voice is still weak, sapped dry by anger. “Helene, will you tell King Richard I’ve been called away? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”