The Earl's Childe (39 page)

“I'm not a spy! I want nothing to do with Calbraith!”

“But you let him into your mind.”

“I was unaware who he was,
what
he was when I first met him,” Max said. “Mrs.—I mean, Lady Berwickshire tried to help me block him earlier with some meditation and magick, but, clearly, it didn't work. Heather just stopped him!”

“Calbraith has a connection with you? You looked him in the eye and let him into your mind?” Cadmus peered at Max. In my peripheral vision, I noticed his violet eyes were the same shade as Calbraith's.

“Unwittingly, yes, m'lord.” Max's voice changed. He didn't sound defensive, but apologetic. “I truly had no idea. I knew
nothing
of fey or magick before, or how powerful you all were… well, really, before today.”

His tactic seemed to work. The fey lord tilted his head, relaxing some.

“Let my parents go, please? We just want to end this fight with Calbraith.” I begged, playing the “we're poor, weak human-types compared to your utter greatness” card.

Lord Cadmus turned to Lady Fana. With a frown, she turned to my parents. “Do anything questionable, and you will regret it,” she said, then turned away. Mum and Dad stumbled, catching each other, then quickly moved to Max and me. The owl fey guards pulled back. Ermie shifted even closer to us. Tom also strode over to stand beside us, arms folded.

None of that seemed to faze Lord Cadmus and Lady Fana. With flicks of their wrists, they righted the furniture and then settled back down. Clearly, our joined forces were perfectly threatening.

“Leave your blade on the edge of the fountain, Heather, and let us continue these negotiations in a more civilized manner,” Fana ordered.

Grinding my teeth, I did as she bade and took my seat again. After a breath, I asked. “So, you can undo what Calbraith did to

Max's head?”

“I can undo the binds. Calbraith is nearly half a century younger than I,” Lord Cadmus said. “Of course, it would be more useful for me to reverse that bind. Allow
me
to spy on
him.”

Max looked up in horror. “You want to get in my head, too?”

I agreed with him. Trade one faerie in my head for another? Even if the other didn't seem to be
as
sadistic or crazy? “No,” I said, putting my hand on Max's arm, letting him know I was with him. He gave me a look of relief. “No more messing with Max's mind!”

The two daoine síth glared at me. “You defy us, still? After offending us?”

“I don't mean to defy or offend!” I said quickly. “We just—”

“Your offer is insufficient,” declared Lady Fana, standing. Lord Cadmus joined her with a curt nod. “Handle Calbraith as you see fit. When he's done with you, we'll make our move, and you'll owe us fealty for rescuing you from his enslavement and whatever else he inflicts upon you. However many of you are still alive, that is.” She turned to leave.

“Wait!” Max stood also. “If I let you use me to spy on him, is that enough for you to protect the castle? If you saw where his armies are, how many he has, and how many are injured, you could direct your attacks efficiently, with fewest risks to your troops. Or, since he can attack my head, make me do stuff, if you're older and more powerful, can't you do that back to him?”

“Max—” I started.

“Heather, no. You saved my life. All of you. If this saves yours, we're good.” He looked at Cadmus.

“Would
you
swear allegiance to the court who works against your father?” Fana asked.

“I want nothing to do with Calbraith, ever. As far as I'm concerned, he's
not
my father,” Max spat. “So yes, I'll ally with you.” He took a deep breath. “But I want a temporary allegiance. After this, I'm done with all faery courts, too.”

“You're half fey. Half
daoine síth
. Being done with all faery courts is not really an option.” Lord Cadmus's voice was smooth as silk.

“Why not? I'm doing as you ask, right now. I'm surrendering my mind to you. Why can I not choose just to be part of the human world when we're done?”

Lady Fana looked at Max as one might look at an ant caught in a stream of rainwater. A tinge of sympathy, but not really caring. “You can choose to
try
to be part of only the human world, but Faerie
will
find you.”

Lord Cadmus nodded in agreement, but with a smile.

I felt Max shiver beside me at Lord Cadmus's smile. I shivered too. It wasn't as creepy as Calbraith's, but it wasn't remotely warm or fuzzy, either.

Max took a deep breath in and blew it out through pursed lips. Dad put a hand on his shoulder and looked at Cadmus. In the eye. In a blink, I saw Lord Cadmus almost flinch. Keeping his tone even, my dad said, “Max was born with his blood. Can you undo any and all fey bindings outside of what he was born with? Allow him his full free will so that no fey can take control of him or use him against his will?”

“That's a very broad statement, Lord Berwickshire.” Lord Cadmus narrowed his eyes and did, in fact, look away from my dad. “It's
easy
to impose upon one's free will. For example, another faerie court, perhaps another group of Unseelie vying for power in this country, upon hearing of a half-blood human of noble lineage, might, say, kidnap the boy's mortal mother. What they may demand of him to ensure her protection would certainly impose upon his free will.”

Max swallowed, eyes growing wide.

“As I said, Lord Maximilian Drummond,” Lord Cadmus stared at him hard. “Ignore your fey blood all you want, but Faerie
will
find you.”

A piercing wail from one of the castle towers made all of us cringe, covering our ears. The daoine síth and Max nearly doubled over, wrapping their heads in their arms. Ermie and Tom huddled together, almost on the ground, with their heads between their respective front legs and arms.

“Air raid siren,” Mum shouted as the wail receded some, only to come back for another loud scream, then soften again. “Jack got it up and working to let us know if they attacked.” The siren blared again. “They must be.”

“Smoke!” Max pointed. On the far side of the castle, from the addition that we lived in, black smoke rose.

“No,” I breathed, covering my mouth. I thought of everyone still in the castle.

“It seems our time is done,” Fana said, looking at Max. “Surrender yourself to us and let us use his binds upon you to spy on him. Then join our court as one of us. You—” she looked at my mum and dad “—surrender your kelpie to our control as it answers to Heather, and fight alongside our armies. We will protect you as one of our own.”

“Wait,” Mum said. “The smoke is disappearing.” It was. After a moment, there was no more. Then, we saw another flash of flame, a moment of smoke. Then nothing. “Oh. Yeah. Heather, there's that other thing we forgot to mention.” She gave me a look.

“Oh?” Lady Fana glared daggers at me. I almost expected to feel that burning sensation. But I didn't. She wanted to know what we knew.

‘Yeah,” I said, standing up tall. “There's a djinni in the castle with the royal family, and I'm pretty sure one of Joe's wishes was that it protect his family from, well, just about everything. And then he gave me this.” I pulled the lamp from my shirt. “So, it might be kind of useful to you to help us, because if we defeat Calbraith by ourselves and save your people from having to fight him, then
you'd
owe us some fealty or whatever. Isn't that how it works?”

In my head, I heard both Tom and Ermie say the same thing.

Well played
.

CHAPTER

20

The precious cost of a soul
.

Lady Fana and Lord Cadmus
really
did not want to owe my family any fealty. Or anything for that matter. They agreed to release any and all of Calbraith's hold on Max that they could, after they used the ties to capture Calbraith and his troops. It so happened that he didn't really have that many troops, either, just fifty or so red caps. And my friends and Ermie had already killed a dozen.

There was hardly any fighting involved.

Calbraith had planned on intimidating my family into making a contract with him before Lady Fana and Lord Cadmus intervened. He had
not
expected to lose Max to us and have Cadmus use Max against him.

The only hiccough in the negotiating was when Lady Fana tried to suggest we did, in fact, owe them
something
.

“You were protected beyond the boundaries of your castle until the lines were broken, no?”

Mum and Dad had glanced at each other, probably thinking of our discovery of the extra salt lines around the gardens. “What do you mean?” Dad asked.

“It was one of ours who convinced one of your servants to continue spreading salt around your borders. Were your children not protected by that?”

Tom coughed at that. “Excuse me, m'lady.” He looked at my dad. “That was me. And I told this to Lord Berwickshire when he came to
me
to apologize for acting against me in my job as liaison for the Lady Heather MacArthur. But I was the one who told our mutual
friend
, Mickey McInnis, to continue what Heather's father had started, because I knew they would be in danger.” He paused, closing his eyes and lifting his nose in the air. “Of course, I have not yet been
officially
welcomed back to the court for many years, and more recently, I recall being banned for having spoiled our relations with the humans.” He opened one eye and looked at my dad again.

“The breakdown between us was of no fault of Tom's. It was mine, and for that I apologize to you, as well,” Dad said.

Needless to say, after a lot of formal blah, blah, blah, Tom was reinstated to the court as my “official” liaison and as page to the Lord and Lady. Which meant, of course, that I wasn't off the hook on the whole liaison business. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

In any case, we ever-so-formally paraded through the gardens—me atop Ermie, Ermie behind Lady Fana, Lord Cadmus, Max, Mum, and Dad, with Tom bringing up the rear—to the front of the castle. Mum and Dad were then to hand over Tom's mum, the Marquesa.

Calbraith was in copper shackles, as were a line of red caps. I recognized several of the fey who held them. The cool rabbit fey who wore the green and brown ruffled jumpsuit was at the head of the red-cap line, just daring them to try something. I could also pick out the faint glow of the will-o'-the-wisps floating around the beasties, making their eyes glaze over; the red caps certainly didn't look like they'd start anything with the rabbit fey.

The selkie I remembered stood at the end of the line of red caps, spear in her hand, glaring hatefully at Ermie, who dramatically ignored her. The four other daoine síth from the meeting stood around Calbraith, who didn't look remotely mollified or intimidated. He almost
lounged
. I really wanted to stick my tongue out or muster a good sneer at him or something, but I contained myself. It wouldn't be…dignified. And I was now a lady. Ha! Take that, next person who tried to call me a boy!

Ermie didn't say anything as we waited for Mum and Dad to go inside and get the Marquesa. He didn't have to; I
felt
that he was proud of me. When I wasn't feeling his opinion of how tasty seals were (causing me to severely smack a midge on his neck that might not have actually been there). My friends crowded around Max and me, demanding to hear what happened.

I told them I'd talk inside, when this was over. I had a feeling it would be rather rude to brag about out-negotiating faerie in front of actual faery folk. Then something small zooming towards us caught my eye.

I recognized the rose-bark pixie. It was zigzagging from the weight of a small, metal dagger. I remembered its mate was in the canister one of the daoine síth guards held.

The rose-bark pixie buzzed my arm, drawing blood. I didn't even feel any pain; the blade must have been razor sharp. “Hey!” I swatted at it and missed, but turned to the guards. “In the canister you took! There's a pixie! Let it out!”

The daoine síth looked at each other, then me, and opened the canister. When they held it upside down, nothing came out.

Calbraith smiled widely.

“Too late. I already made a deal,” Rose-bark said. It circled back around, heading for Ermie's head. Ermie bounced, dancing, trying to get us away from it. My friends backed away from us, all of them swatting.

The pixie landed in a crouch between Ermie's ears. Its sword, the color of gold and the size of my thumb, dripped with my blood.

It cut through the crown of Ermie's bridle in one slice, and the bridle fell from his head.