chapter nineteen

The ambulance and paramedics arrived at the same time as the police. I was still shaking, but I had enough brain function to know I was better off staying by Finn’s side—even though he could do nothing to help me—than letting the police take me down to the station for a statement or questioning or whatever. The police had arrested my father on a trumped-up charge, and I had no idea whose pocket they might be in. I didn’t want to take the chance of losing what freedom I had, so I pretended to be a little more hysterical and hurt than I was. There was enough blood on me to make the act more than convincing.

Kimber and the shopkeeper received a cursory examination by the paramedics and were quickly dismissed as non-emergencies. Finn, however, was a different story. He was unconscious, and had clearly lost a lot of blood.

I rode in the ambulance with Finn to Avalon’s only hospital. The paramedics—one Fae and one human—didn’t seem anywhere near as worried about Finn’s condition as I was.

“He’ll be fine,” the Fae paramedic said. “If they’d been trying to kill him, they’d have used an iron knife instead of silver.”

“And they wouldn’t have put it through his shoulder,” the human muttered.

The Fae are vulnerable to cold iron, which is what they call pure iron. It doesn’t exist in Faerie, where silver is a much more common metal.

I’d gotten a better look at the knife than I’d wanted as I sat by Finn’s side waiting for the ambulance. The hilt was some kind of wood, maybe ebony, because it was very dark. But that wasn’t what had caught my attention. No, my eyes had been drawn to the ivory rose inlaid in that dark wood. I couldn’t help seeing that knife—left behind at the scene of the crime—as a claim of responsibility. Either the Seelie Fae were behind the attack … Or someone wanted us to think they were.

There was nothing I could do to prevent being separated from Finn once we reached the hospital. He was whisked off to the Severe Trauma Ward, and I was left with a cranky Fae healer who seemed to think I’d wanted to have shards of glass piercing my knees and palms.

I was gritting my teeth, trying to be a brave little trooper as the healer hunted for glass with his evil forceps, when my dad arrived. I was more relieved than I could say when I laid eyes on him.

I think Dad was planning to hug me—or at least give me a comforting pat on the shoulder—but the healer gave him a stay-out-of-the-way glare, and he stepped back.

“What happened?” Dad asked.

I opened my mouth to blurt it all out, then thought better of it. I glanced pointedly at the healer, who seemed to be finished picking glass out of me and was now using magic to heal the wounds. Dad nodded that he understood.

“Is Finn going to be all right?” I asked, even though multiple people had already told me he would. But those Knights had hurt him so terribly, and, because of me, he hadn’t even tried to defend himself.

“He’ll be fine,” Dad reassured me. “We Fae are a hardy lot, and our Knights more so than most.”

“What exactly is a Knight?” I finally remembered to ask.

“They are a warrior caste, the protectors of Faerie. They’re also sometimes known as the Daoine Sidhe. Most of them reside in Faerie and don’t set foot in Avalon. But those who live here are the best bodyguards in the world.”

“All done,” the healer said with a satisfied nod. “You can go home whenever you’re ready.”

I blinked, startled. No insurance forms to fill out? No bill to pay? And, most puzzling, no police to talk to?

I sent Dad a quizzical look, but he just smiled at me. “Let’s get you home and into some clean clothes, shall we?”

I wasn’t at all unhappy with the proposition, so I went with him despite my misgivings. On the way out of the exam room, he snatched a hospital gown off the top of a pile on a shelf in the entryway.

“I’ll give it back,” he assured me when I looked surprised.

I didn’t know why he wanted it in the first place—thank God he didn’t make me wear it—until we got to the parking lot that adjoined the hospital. Then I remembered the hot little sports car, and realized Dad didn’t want me to mess up the seats. It didn’t exactly give me a warm, fuzzy feeling, but Dad didn’t seem to notice anything amiss as he draped the gown over the seat and held the door open for me.

Okay, I know, if I had a car like that, with tan leather seats, I wouldn’t have wanted to get blood all over it either. But I felt sure that if Fae magic could seal all my wounds and save Finn’s life, it could probably clean a car seat, too.

Dad didn’t question me about the attack again until after we got home and I’d showered and changed. I then sat down on the couch beside him, the ever-present cup of tea cooling on the coffee table, and told him everything I could remember. When I got to the part about the knife with the white rose on the hilt, Dad visibly stiffened.

His lips pressed tightly together; then he let out an angry sigh. “Damn it!” he said. He leapt to his feet and began to pace, and it looked like he was thinking furiously.

“What’s going on?” I asked, a bit plaintively, I must admit.

He sat back down, but his posture didn’t relax any. “Ethan said that the Spriggans were trying to kill you. But that didn’t make sense, not when you were, at least at the time, in the hands of the Unseelie Fae.”

I remembered Ethan had said much the same thing.

“And now you’ve been attacked by the Seelie Fae while you’re living with me.”

“It was Finn they attacked, not me.”

He waved that off. “It was Finn they injured. It was you they attacked. And hurt.” He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Finn is a warrior, and while he might not enjoy being injured in combat, it’s part of his job. You have no reason to feel guilty about it.”

But I did anyway. I couldn’t help remembering how Finn had looked at me and then chosen not to defend himself in order to protect me. How could I not feel guilty about that?

“So what does this all mean to you?” I asked my dad. “If neither attack makes sense, then why do you think they’re after me?”

He gave me a long, measuring look, one that warned me I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear. “The Fae of Avalon, both the Seelie and Unseelie, want you here, alive and under their influence. But I’m beginning to wonder if the Queens of Faerie have other ideas.”

“What?” I cried. Bad enough I had a horde of manipulative politicians hoping to capture me and mold me to their ideals! Now Dad was telling me the Faerie Queens were after me, too? “Why?”

Dad leaned back in the cushions of the sofa, still wearing his thinking face. “The last Faeriewalker before you allied himself with the Unseelie Court. One day, he went into Faerie and never came back. His body was eventually found, beheaded.”

I swallowed hard, unable to resist the urge to put my hand to my throat.

“There are those who speculated that the Consul had ambitions in Faerie and might have used the Faeriewalker in an assassination attempt against Mab, the Unseelie Queen. If it’s true, the Queens might view Faeriewalkers more as threats than as potential allies or pawns.”

I groaned and lowered my head into my hands. This was all just too much to take. My life since I’d set foot in Avalon had been one disaster after another. I wished I had a pair of ruby slippers I could click together to magically transport myself home. Like Dorothy, I hadn’t realized how good I’d had it until it all was gone.

“I have to get out of Avalon,” I muttered from behind my hands. I didn’t like the idea of being bullied into leaving, but if I stayed, I was likely to end up dead. And bring everyone around me down with me.

“No, Dana,” my dad said, and he started rubbing his hand up and down my back. It was probably supposed to be a comforting gesture, but I was way beyond being comforted.

I sat up straight again and stared at him. “You can’t seriously want me to stay here now! Not if you supposedly care about me. Or are you hoping to use me to try to take over Faerie just like that other guy you told me about?”

My father’s glare was furious enough to stop the words in my throat, and for a moment, I thought he was going to hit me he was so mad. His cheeks flushed red while his lips pressed together so tightly they turned almost white.

“I have no ambitions in Faerie,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ve made Avalon my home, and I have every intention of staying here.”

I believed him, even though he was obviously very ambitious in Avalon. “Then why do you want me to stay when my life is in danger?”

“Because you can be protected here in ways that are not possible in the mortal world. If you leave Avalon, that might be enough to satisfy the Seelie Queen—you are, after all, technically a member of her Court. But I doubt Mab would let you go even then. After all, it’s always possible you’d come back someday. She will send agents into the mortal world after you, and they will pursue you for the rest of your life. Don’t think that just because these agents would have to be human means that they cannot kill you. Or your mother. Or anyone else who becomes dear to you.”

I wished I could argue his logic. But even if I only believed half of what he said, it left me up the proverbial creek. Unfortunately, I still wasn’t convinced I’d be any safer in Avalon.

“I think it is time for me to have a meeting with both Alistair and Grace,” Dad said.

I’d had too many nasty surprises today to react much to the announcement. “I thought they were the enemy.”

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “In that they want to manipulate you for their own causes, yes. But they are both extremely powerful. I don’t believe either one is cold enough to want you to be killed, but even if they were, they wouldn’t want it to happen while they still had a chance of winning your loyalty.”

And wasn’t that a rousing endorsement.

“Do you think either one of them would want to challenge the Queens?” I asked.

Dad shook his head. “Alistair was born in Avalon and has lived all his life here. I can’t believe he’d have any ambitions in Faerie when his platform is all about the Fae severing their ties with the Courts and becoming ‘true citizens of Avalon,’ as he calls it. And Grace … has other reasons not to want to live in Faerie.”

“Such as…?”

Dad didn’t answer.

“Since it’s my life on the line, I think I have a right to know,” I argued.

His expression turned to one of distaste. “Lachlan.”

I waited a beat, but that seemed to be all he planned to say on the subject. “What about Lachlan?”

Dad’s lip curled into a sneer. “My sister has a certain … attachment to Lachlan. One that is not sanctioned even in Avalon, but one that would cause her to be completely shunned in Faerie.”

In other words, Grace and Lachlan were a couple. At least sort of. I couldn’t help remembering how Lachlan had spoken about her, with a kind of reverence almost. I doubted their relationship was exactly a partnership between equals.

Dad shook off his distaste for Lachlan. “I expect the healers to be finished with Finn within the next several hours. I will arrange a meeting with Alistair and Grace, and I will make certain you are well defended while I’m gone.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Shouldn’t I go with you? I have a pretty big stake in all this.”

Dad started to say something, then changed his mind. He thought about it a little more, then fixed me with a level gaze. “I promised I would be honest with you, and so I will be. You do, of course, have the biggest stake of all in what we decide. But, my dear child, you really have no say.”

I gaped at him.

“Honesty isn’t always pretty,” he said. “You are young and untried, and you don’t begin to know the extent of your powers. I’m also your father, and have legal custody.”

“My mom has legal custody.” And oh my God, did I owe her an incredibly supersized apology when—or, gulp, if—I ever saw her again. Right now, I’d happily nurse her through the aftermath of a bender, while pulling up our roots and moving and trying to keep her problem secret from my friends. That all sounded so easy when compared to having two Queens of Faerie trying to kill me.

“Believe me, Dana,” my father continued. “As far as Avalon is concerned, my claim on you is undisputed. Your mother isn’t here, but I am. That’s all that would matter.” He reached for me, but I twitched out of his grasp.

“You don’t get to touch me and act all paternal. Not after that speech!”

He raised his eyebrows. “Would you have preferred I lie to you? Because although I long ago turned my back on the Courts of Faerie, I was a key player there once upon a time, and one does not survive long without learning to lie with frightful facility.”

I didn’t fool myself into thinking he wouldn’t turn that skill on me in a heartbeat if he thought it would profit him. Hell, for all I knew, everything he’d told me today had been a complete fabrication. But the ugly truth was, if he wanted to keep me here, he could. That was one thing I was certain he wasn’t lying about.

Without another word to my father, I stood and walked away, climbing the stairs to my room while my father planned a meeting between all three of my would-be puppet masters. And you can bet the first thing I did when I got to my room was take off the white rose cameo, and toss it into the nearest trash can.