BONDING

“Dryads,” Patrick said when Gabriel met him in the parking lot. “Why does it have to be dryads?” When Gabriel didn’t respond, Patrick said, “Raiders of the Lost Ark?”

“Is that a book?”

Patrick shook his head. “We have serious father–son bonding time to catch up on. We’ll start with movie nights.”

“This sort of bonding is perfectly adequate.”

“This isn’t bonding. It’s me doing you a favor because I feel guilty.”

“That is my idea of bonding. And it’s not a favor—you’re as curious as I am.”

Patrick caught the exterior door before Gabriel could open it. “Dryads, though? They make me look like a stodgy old man. Flibbertigibbets. That’s Mary Poppins. We’ll get to it after the action flicks. But dryads? Really?”

“Yes, they’re capricious.”

“That’s like saying the ocean is damp.”

“They found Seanna.”

“They claim to have found her.”

“Which means either they are far less inept than they appear or far less innocent. Either makes them interesting.”

Patrick sighed. “Of all the things you could inherit from me, curiosity is the one most likely to get you into trouble.”

They walked into the office, where the dryads were trying to figure out the coffeemaker.

“I really don’t think you guys need any of that,” Patrick said.

The dryads turned, and Helia let out a teen-girl yelp. “Oh my gods, it’s Patricia Rees!”

Patrick stopped mid-step.

Helia rushed over. “I love your books. We love them.” She paused. “Well, except the last few.”

Alexios nodded. “You do better with the gothics.”

“I see…” Patrick said.

“Overall, the paranormal ones are okay,” Alexios said. “The last one just went on way too long. Did you run out of time to edit?”

“Not…really.”

Helia whispered to Alexios, “I don’t think he wants to hear what’s wrong with his book.”

“I’m trying to help.”

“The book is already out. He can’t fix it now.”

“But he’ll know better for next time. Maybe he can hire a new editor.”

She looked at Patrick. “It was good enough. Seven out of ten. It’s just that you’re usually a nine. Well, your paranormals are more of an eight, but you could get them up to a nine if you worked harder.”

“Or just go back to the gothics,” Alexios said. “They were much better. I couldn’t get through this last book.”

“He didn’t even just skip ahead to read the sex scenes,” Helia said. “Which is what he normally does with your paranormals.”

Patrick turned to Gabriel. “This is your revenge, isn’t it?”

“Helia and Alexios?” Gabriel said. “This is Patrick. He’ll be accompanying us to Seanna.”

“Oooh,” Alexios said. “It’s a family reunion.”

“So you really are Gabriel’s father?” Helia said. “That’s what everyone says, but then we found Seanna and started thinking maybe the rumor was wrong, that you two couldn’t have…you know. She seems kind of…” She wrinkled her nose.

“Nasty.”

“Maybe he likes nasty,” Alexios said. “You’ve read his sex scenes.”

“I’m not sure they’re meant to be nasty.”

“I believe it’s time to go,” Gabriel said, ushering them out.

“Well played,” Patrick murmured as he passed. “Well played.”

The Jag idled beside an abandoned three-story school. As soon as the car rolled to a stop, the dryads had hopped out with “We’ll find her” and “We’ll call.”

Gabriel and Patrick watched them dart alongside the boarded-up building.

“Well, this looks sketchy,” Patrick said. When Gabriel looked over, he added, “It means disreputable and suspicious. I’m a writer. I know all the lingo.”

“I know what it means. I’m a defense attorney. And I have Olivia, who has used the term on occasion, along with others that aren’t in my usual vocabulary.” He surveyed the building. “Yes, it is disreputable and, in being disreputable, given the situation, suspicious.”

“Sketchy.”

“That is a vague term, used somewhat incorrectly, and therefore imprecise.”

“You always use precisely the right words. Another trait inherited from your father.”

“I read a chapter of the book you gave Olivia. I believe, wherever that trait came from, it was clearly an outside influence.”

“Ouch.” A moment of silence as they watched the dryads slip through a broken window. “So the book…Paranormal fiction isn’t your kind of thing?”

“My tastes are eclectic. I would not dismiss a novel simply because I haven’t read that genre before.”

“Double ouch.”

“That wasn’t intended as an insult. I simply discovered that reading a book you’d written was not a properly immersive entertainment experience. I hear your voice, which hardly allows me to fall into the world of your female, human narrator.”

“Okay. I’ll take that.” Patrick looked at the school. “So, the dryads are leading us into a trap. Unfortunately, being dryads, they’ve done a very poor—and obvious—job of it.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to tell me it’s actually a good thing we’ve seen the trap?”

“No.”

Patrick grinned. “Because that makes it less of a challenge. See, this is why we work together so well. I was hoping you’d call me in when Liv was gone this fall.”

“Call you in?”

“The last time Liv was away, you called me to help on a case.”

“No, you gave me a case. And tried to insist we work it together.”

“Same thing.”

“Not even a little.”

“You’ve been hanging with Liv too much. You’re becoming a smart-ass.”

“I always was. You just never had enough interaction with me to realize it. Now, are we going to sit here and talk until they have the trap set?”

“That’d be more fun.”

Gabriel opened the car door and climbed out.

The dryads had entered through a window that, upon closer inspection, was not merely broken but boarded. The boards, however, were only partly nailed and could be swung aside. Once they were through, Gabriel took out his cell, turned on the light, looked around, and saw a problem. Possibly a significant one.

It looked as if some effort at reconstruction had been made years ago, the drywall torn out and the flooring removed, leaving wooden studded walls and bare underlay floor.

Wood. Lots of wood. Which dryads used for camouflage. As Gabriel recalled, though, it worked better in the forest, against uneven surfaces. He continued into the hall and then paused as light footfalls sounded overhead.

“Time to find a way up,” Patrick whispered. “I vote…” He looked both ways. “Left.”

“It’s right,” Gabriel said, and started walking.

“Are you just being contrary? Because—”

Gabriel pointed to the floor, where dusty footsteps led right. He followed them down two corridors to where stairs had been torn out, possibly to keep squatters from accessing the upper floors.

“That’s inconvenient,” Patrick said.

Gabriel ignored him. Presumably, dryads could not fly. Therefore they’d gone another way. He picked through the debris until he found the dryads’ footprints, which led to a service elevator. The doors stood open, the car stopped eight feet off the ground.

When Gabriel looked around for more footprints, Patrick shook his head. “No, this is the way. Damn dryads are like monkeys. Give me a boost.”

Gabriel did. Then he walked off as Patrick called, “Where are you going?”

“To find something to step on.”

“You’re a big guy. Haul your ass on up here.”

“The fact that I’m a ‘big guy’ means that my ‘ass’ and the rest of me requires additional upper-body strength to lift.”

“No, you just don’t like to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. Why are you wearing a dress shirt anyway? It’s Saturday. Wait…” Patrick peered down at him. “You aren’t wearing a tie. I knew there was something different. No tie. Top button undone…”

“If I’m not wearing a tie, I’m hardly going to fasten my top button.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a tie.”

“You have. You just didn’t notice.”

Gabriel unbuttoned his cuffs and meticulously rolled his sleeves. It was not so much a matter of getting dirty as of permanently damaging an expensive shirt. He’d already lost one today, and while he did not regret the loss if he was going to damage shirts, he’d rather lose them in that manner.

Gabriel grabbed the bottom of the elevator car and hauled himself up, hoping the exertion might distract him from the memory of how he had lost that other shirt. It did not. When he pulled himself into the car, he stepped past Patrick and took out his phone.

“What are you doing now?” Patrick whispered.

“I need to check in with Olivia.”

“This very moment?”

“Yes.”

He checked his texts—none from Olivia—sent one, and then took another moment to fully distract himself.

“You’re checking your stocks?” Patrick said, looking over his shoulder.

The market was slightly down, which had the proper effect, as did the disappointment of not having Olivia immediately text him back. He didn’t expect her to—she was busy—but it successfully redirected his thoughts to the matter at hand.

“Oh, now we can leave?” Patrick said as Gabriel hefted himself out of the car onto the next floor. “Are you sure you don’t want the weather report first?”

“Clear and cold,” Gabriel said. “A chance of light snowfall tonight.”

Patrick pulled himself from the elevator car. Gabriel continued tracking the dryad footprints down the hall. He was almost to the end when a sound made the hairs on his neck rise, and he stopped short, Patrick bumping into him.

“Time to check sports scores?” Patrick said. When Gabriel didn’t respond, Patrick saw his expression and lowered his voice. “Gabriel?”

“Did you hear that?”

The sound came again. He couldn’t quite place it. No, that was a lie. A shameful one, born of fear rather than uncertainty, like a child listening to thumps under the bed and telling himself he’d heard nothing.

Gabriel had spent twenty years building his defenses. Grow up, get in shape, learn to fight, and banish his fear of physical intimidation and abuse. Go to law school, work hard, invest wisely, and banish his fear of hunger and poverty. Learn to live alone, without attachments, and banish his fear of neglect and abandonment.

The last two were not ones he would ever acknowledge, but he had enough self-awareness to know they festered there, remnants of a very small boy who would light up when his mother was kind and then analyze his behavior to figure out what he’d done to please her. That child did not survive long—he quickly evolved into a boy who realized Seanna’s kindness was as capricious as the moods of a dryad, untethered to his actions.

Gabriel had gone years without knowing true fear. That changed with Olivia. Allowing himself to form an attachment meant allowing himself to fear for another person. And, yes, to fear that person would leave him, would decide he was really too much trouble.

But the fear strumming through him now? The one that made him lie and insist he’d heard nothing? It was a fear he hadn’t experienced since he’d been locked in that cubby, hearing the creaks and rattles of an old building and imagining all the terrifying creatures from his aunt Rose’s wonderful and terrible books. It was, indeed, the fear of the child who dares not look under the bed.

Gabriel heard the beating of wings against glass.

He knew there was a rational explanation. Perhaps a bird had flown into a window. Or it was simply the wind. But it sounded like what he’d heard with Olivia in the vision, and therefore that was what came to mind, dragging with it the sheer and mindless fear he’d felt then, trapped between himself and Gwynn and some memory so deeply rooted it was part of both human and fae DNA.

The sluagh is coming. The unforgiven is coming. The darkness is coming.

“Gabriel?” Patrick prompted.

“Whatever it was, I don’t hear it now,” Gabriel said quickly. “I do hear the dryads, though. Coming this way.”

Which was true. Their light footsteps pitter-pattered over the boards, like scampering woodland creatures. Gabriel stood his ground, and the dryads veered around the doorway and stopped short.

“You didn’t wait,” Helia said.

“You were supposed to wait,” Alexios said.

“Yes,” Gabriel said.

Alexios nudged Helia. “See? I told you he wouldn’t. Gwynn does not follow the orders of mere semi-immortals.” He looked at Gabriel. “I know you don’t like that name. I just meant—”

“I understand what you meant. And no, if I do not wish to wait, I don’t.”

Alexios smiled. “Good. You shouldn’t. You’re king of the Fae. And if they”—he nodded to Patrick—”try to say otherwise, tell them where to shove it. You have the power to do that. Don’t ever forget it.”

Patrick’s brows lifted.

“We were coming to get you,” Helia said. “We just wanted to make sure Seanna’s still here.”

“It would be very embarrassing if she wasn’t,” Alexios said. “We also needed to make sure no one else had found her in the meantime. The mother of Gwynn is valuable. Others are looking. We’ve heard there is a reward for her capture.”

“That would be mine,” Patrick said.

“You only offered money,” Helia said. “Others offer more.”

“What others?”

“Those hunting wouldn’t tell us. We tried insisting. We even threatened. But no one ever takes us seriously when we threaten.”

“Not even when we scowl.” Alexios looked at Gabriel. “You could make them talk. You have a good scowl.”

“Where is Seanna?” Patrick said. “Every second you delay, my reward drops.”

Alexios wrinkled his nose. “We don’t want your money.”

“Wouldn’t take it,” Helia said. “Money only causes trouble. We hope to win the goodwill of Olivia and Gabriel, but that is a hope, not a price for our help.”

“Where is—?” Patrick began.

They turned and zoomed off.

Gabriel and Patrick followed. It was the only way to see what scheme the dryads were hatching.

As they walked, Gabriel’s phone buzzed with an incoming text from Olivia.

All done. Meet up?

He sent back, I’m in the middle of something. I’ll call you within the hour.

He hit three wrong keys typing that—his fingers were just too big for a phone keypad. Olivia would say that was a sign he should learn text-speak. Or at least allow himself to write sentence fragments. He would rather correct the mistakes.

He sent the message and then hesitated, his fingers still over the keys. Should he add more, now that their relationship had changed?

Miss you? It’d been two hours, and he did miss her, but it might make him seem needy.

Love you? If he hadn’t said the words in person, he certainly shouldn’t say them in a text, not in such a jaunty, offhand way. And if he did send that message, he suspected Olivia would come running, thinking someone had stolen his phone.

In the time he paused, she sent back, Meet at office. Need to check a file.

He still hesitated, his fingers ready to type back his usual All right.

“Put the phone away,” Patrick whispered. “You’ll see her soon enough.”

Perfect. Gabriel texted, See you soon, and a moment later she sent back a smiley face. He allowed a hint of a smile himself and pushed the phone into his pocket.

The dryads scampered ahead, not even looking over their shoulders. When they reached the middle of the floor, they flanked a classroom doorway and said, “Ta-da!”

Gabriel let Patrick go first, reasoning that, as a fae, he might have more protection against whatever lay inside. Gabriel followed right at his heels, though, curiosity prodding him forward even as he tried to pace himself, ears attuned for a rear ambush.

Inside the room, they found…Seanna.

“She’s bound,” Patrick said.

“How else could we make sure she stayed put?” Alexios said.

“And gagged,” Patrick said.

Helia looked at him. “You’ve met her. Can you blame us?”

Gabriel ignored Seanna’s glowers. It was indeed much easier to deal with her—and ignore her—when she was in this particular state. He moved farther into the room and then realized the dryads still flanked the door. He waved them inside. They obeyed without hesitation.

It was a classroom, like all the others they’d passed. No windows. A flashlight propped up in one corner. A sleeping bag and nest of blankets. To one side, a duffel spilled clothing. Fast-food wrappers littered the floor.

Seanna must have been squatting here when the dryads found her. The sight of her “camp” brought back memories of Gabriel’s own years on the street. Except he’d been unable to afford fast food. Or a sleeping bag.

“I’ll need to question her,” he said. “Then we’ll take her to the police, to prove she is alive.”

And after that? He hadn’t thought of what he’d do with Seanna after that. He had ideas, most of which involved very deep holes, but they were only fleeting fancies. While Olivia would doubtless say he deserved to entertain those fancies, he wanted to rise above them.

The deep-hole fantasy wasn’t about punishing Seanna; it was about protecting Olivia. Protecting Rose. Even protecting himself and the life he’d built. Put Seanna someplace she couldn’t harm them.

Jail seemed the best solution. He was still working out the logistics for that. It might involve accusing her of a crime she had not committed. And no, he would not feel the slightest bit guilty for that.

“I will ask you to escort her out,” Gabriel continued. “I have sedatives, if it proves necessary.”

“You brought sedatives?” Patrick said. “It seemed wise.”

“You have sedatives just lying around your house?”

“It’s an apartment. Seanna? If you don’t wish to be sedated, I would suggest you accompany these two quietly. Remember, you can’t escape if you’re unconscious.”

“I don’t think you should give her ideas,” Alexios whispered.

Patrick only shook his head. He knew Gabriel was advising her to stay alert because she had no actual chance of escape and sedation was merely inconvenient. Which was not entirely true. Gabriel was bluffing about the sedatives. He certainly didn’t keep them on hand. If he did, there’d be far too much temptation to use them on far too many people.

The dryads started toward Seanna. Then they stopped, pursing their lips in unison as they looked about.

“Oh, let me guess,” Patrick said. “You hear something. And we need to run and hide, leaving you…”

Patrick kept talking, but Gabriel no longer heard him. No longer heard anything except the softest beating of wings against glass.

The dryads had gone as still as trees. They heard it, too, that soft sound, slowly escalating—

“Down!” Gabriel shouted.

Dozens of windows shattered in one deafening crash. Gabriel ducked, arms over his head. He heard Helia shout “No!” as she ran toward him, Alexios following her. Patrick turned on them, his face contorted in a snarl, his glamour rippling, a flash of light keeping Gabriel from seeing what lay beneath.

The light arced and Helia fell back, knocked off her feet. Then came a tremendous crack, as boards were ripped from the walls. Black smoke rushed in. Patrick saw it, his eyes rounding. Gabriel lunged at him. The smoke hit Helia and the dryad screamed, and blood sprayed, and Alexios shrieked—an inhuman shriek of rage.

The floor shattered under Gabriel’s feet, and he plummeted, one hand striking jagged wood, a flash fire of pain, yet still he dropped, so fast it wasn’t even like jumping from the bridge, where he’d had a moment to think, to move, to position himself. The floor gave way and he fell, and then he hit the next floor so hard that he broke right through, another flash of pain.

Falling again, hitting again. Still plummeting through darkness.

He slammed down on a pile of debris, the wind knocked out of his lungs, leaving him flat on his back, gasping and wheezing, his brain screaming at him to get up—stop this nonsense, breathe, and get the fuck up, because the sluagh was here, and he was lying on his goddamned back—

“Gabriel?”

A hand touched his shoulder, and he twisted, snarling.

The fingers fell away and the voice became Patrick’s, saying, “It’s me.”

Gabriel had to resist the urge to snap that he didn’t give a damn. He was lying on his back in the darkness, and everything hurt, and the sluagh had attacked, and why the hell hadn’t he told Olivia where he was?

At this moment, hers was the only voice he wanted to hear—the only person he trusted to help him out of this. That wish lasted only a heartbeat until he realized that, no, he very much did not wish Olivia was here with the sluagh attacking.

“Where are they?” he said as he started to push up.

“Don’t move,” Patrick said. “Let me check you—”

“I have this.” When Patrick’s hand touched Gabriel’s arm, he yanked himself away, saying, “I said I have this. I know enough not to leap to my feet. Just step back, and let me get up.”

“You don’t need to be so damned self-sufficient, Gabriel…” Patrick’s voice trailed off at the end, as if he realized what had made Gabriel that self-sufficient. “I’m sorry. I—”

“If I insisted on doing everything myself, you wouldn’t be here. I simply would prefer to assess my own condition. Please step back and allow me to do so. If you can manage some form of light…”

Patrick turned on his cell phone. Gabriel rose slowly. He’d landed on the debris of the floors he’d crashed through, which kept him from hitting the concrete of the basement. He was only lucky he hadn’t impaled himself on the broken wood.

It hurt to rise. Hurt to breathe. But nothing prevented him from doing either, meaning he had not sustained any mobility-threatening injuries.

Patrick cursed under his breath and said, “You’ve sliced open your arm.”

As he remembered cutting his arm, he felt it, both the throbbing pain and the dripping blood. He glanced to see a gash about three inches long. While he’d had the forethought to roll up his sleeves, it hadn’t saved his shirt. He sighed softly, and twisted his arm for a better look at the damage.

“You need to bind that,” Patrick said. “I’ll look for a rag.”

“Anything you find down here will be filthy. I’d be safer bleeding. I can bind it with my shirt, which is already ruined. I’ve done this before.”

Which might suggest he should start carrying a roll of bandages. Or buying cheaper shirts.

He pulled the shirt off, trying not to wince. While he didn’t appear to have broken anything, it felt as if he’d broken everything. When he went to rip the fabric, the tensing muscles made his arm gush fresh blood.

“Give me that.” Patrick took the shirt from Gabriel, tore a strip off the bottom, and said, “Now your arm,” and seemed surprised when Gabriel complied. “There. Looks like you’ve got a few other scrapes, and you’ll probably have—” He swore as he circled Gabriel, shining the light on him. “You’ve scratched up your back, too. They’re shallow, though. They look more like…Um, unless the floor also nipped your collarbone, I’m guessing that’s preexisting damage. Please tell me it was Liv.”

“As opposed to…?”

“Anyone else.”

Gabriel gave him a look.

Patrick raised his hands. “Hey, I write romances. I know that old saw. Try to get a woman’s attention by messing around with someone else, making her jealous and proving that other women find you irresistible.”

Gabriel shrugged on the remains of his shirt. “I would hope it’s obvious I have both the intelligence and the self-respect never to consider such a moronic stunt.”

“Good. Wait. So…Liv? Yes? You’re telling me that you and Olivia—”

“I’m telling you that we were just attacked by the sluagh and fell through three floors, and this may not be the time to discuss my love life.”

“Love life. You said love life. Not sex life. Meaning it wasn’t a heat-of-the-moment tryst followed by oh-no-we-really-shouldn’t followed by another whoops—Yes, I write romances.”

Gabriel ignored him and concentrated on the door, which naturally did not open. He shone the light from his miraculously-still-functioning cell phone at the gap, and when he turned the knob, he watched the latch retract. So there was no lock. Instead, dark horizontal strips on the other side suggested the door had been boarded shut.

The hinges indicated the door swung out. Gabriel heaved on it, and then hissed an involuntary gasp of pain.

“Here, let me,” Patrick said, which Gabriel did, but it was clear that whatever gifts a bòcan might possess, extraordinary strength was not one of them.

Gabriel backed up to the hole in the ceiling and circled the perimeter. “You’ll need to get on my shoulders,” Gabriel said.

“Not in the shape you’re in.”

“Shall I climb on yours, then?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just gave an impatient wave beckoning Patrick over. “The only exit is boarded over. Unless you can burrow under concrete, this is the answer.”

Gabriel positioned himself beside the heap of debris, laced his hands, and gritted his teeth. Patrick started to lift his foot. Then he said, “Wait.”

“We don’t have time—”

“Just hold on.”

Patrick closed his eyes and took a deep breath. As he exhaled, his glamour rippled, and Patrick’s true form appeared.

“Yes,” Patrick said. “It’s not quite as conventional as others, so let’s get this over with before anyone sees.”

Patrick’s bòcan form was indeed not conventionally human. Yet given the illustrations Gabriel had seen of hobgoblins, it wasn’t nearly as bizarre as it could have been. The biggest difference was his skin. Which was green. A light green, but definitely that color. His hair was longer, wilder, and also green, a dark shade that appeared black until the light hit it. He was taller than his human height. Slighter of build, too, so lean he seemed all ropy sinew. That was why he’d shifted—it was a lighter form, easily boosted onto Gabriel’s hands and then his shoulders.

Gabriel still felt the weight and winced at it, his battered body not quite up to this feat. But he gritted his teeth, and Patrick gripped the floor above and—

“No,” Gabriel said, backing up so fast that Patrick let out a “Cach!” and grabbed the ceiling edge, hanging there.

“Some warning, please?” Patrick’s glamour snapped back in place as he struggled to heave himself up. “At least give me a boost.”

“Get down. Now.”

“I’m almost—”

“I said get down.”

Patrick glanced at Gabriel’s expression and dropped to the floor. “What’s—?”

Gabriel motioned him to silence. A moment later, footsteps sounded. That hadn’t been what stopped him, though. No sound. No sight. Just a feeling, cold dread seeping through his veins.

They’re coming. The darkness. The unforgiven.

“Probably one of those damned dryads,” Patrick said.

“Helia was hurt.”

“There’s two of them.”

“Alexios won’t leave her if she’s hurt.”

“Unless that so-called injury was planned. This whole thing still smacks of a setup, Gabriel. Helia tried to attack you.”

No, she’d tried to shield him, but Gabriel wasn’t arguing with Patrick. Those footsteps were getting closer, and they sounded nothing like a dryad’s scamper.

Gabriel strode to the door and threw his shoulder against it, ignoring the crack of pain.

“Come help me,” he said, and Patrick did, without a word, both of them pushing—

“Are you trying to flee, Gwynn?” A voice floated down through the hole. “Hardly befitting the most famous king of the Fae. But you’re not Gwynn, are you? Just a boy who thinks he’s a man. Barely thirty years old. Yes, we know your birthdate, given our role in helping you enter this world. How is your mother, Gabriel?”

The voice gave him pause. It bore a note that plucked at his memory. But it was like hearing an actor who voiced a children’s cartoon—those notes of similarity weren’t enough to trace the thread back to the associated memory.

As she talked, Gabriel walked along the wall, shining his light and looking for a weak spot.

“Would you like to know how your mother fares?” she continued. “Or don’t you care? I suppose you don’t. Not much of a mother, was she? One cannot be a mother without a soul, without some trace of humanity. When you were a child, such a mother was a terror. Now, though, she’s merely an inconvenience. Would you like us to rid you of that inconvenience, Gabriel? As a favor? We will. She has played her role, and it’s time for her to come home.”

Gabriel found a gap between wallboards and tried to pry one off, but it was nailed tight.

“Do you think you can escape?” she said. “Where would you go? There isn’t a door that can stop us, Gabriel.”

“What do you want with him?” Patrick said.

“Is that the bòcan? Like Seanna, you have played your role. You may be silent now. Your voice is but a reminder that we failed to ensure Gwynn had a more fitting sire. A half-bòcan Gwynn ap Nudd is terribly disappointing. There are so many more worthy types.”

“Sticks and stones…” Patrick said. “If you’d like me to shut up, you’ll need to tell me what you want with him. Otherwise, if there’s one thing bòcans are very good at? It’s not shutting up. What do you want—?”

“Nothing. Everything. It depends on him. But for now, like you and his mother, he is simply a means to an end.”

And that end was Olivia.

Gabriel peered at the dark hole in the ceiling. Then, pushing against everything that shouted at him to stay clear, he cautiously approached it. When Patrick reached out, Gabriel ducked his reach and kept going.

Once under that hole, he looked up and saw nothing but darkness. Even when he lifted the light, the wall of black swallowed it.

The sluagh. The darkness.

“What do you want with Olivia?” he said.

“What we’re owed.”

“What are you owed?”

“Our fair share.”

“Of what?”

“Of what indeed? Tell me, boy, what is Matilda’s role?”

He hated giving the answer, feeling like a twelve-year-old being asked the sum of one plus one. When he didn’t respond, Patrick moved past him.

“Matilda prolongs and improves the life of the local Tylwyth Teg or Cŵn Annwn,” Patrick said. “She chooses between the two branches of fae.”

“Does she?”

Patrick’s voice sharpened. “If you want me to explain exactly how her presence cleanses the elements for her chosen side, I fear that answer is above my pay grade. Elemental forces of nature, blah, blah, blah.”

“No, my dear bòcan. I want a correct answer, which I would have hoped I’d get from such an illustrious scholar. You said she chooses between the two branches of fae.”

“Fine. You’re arguing that the Huntsmen aren’t fae. They are, but if you insist on mincing words—”

“No, I insist on not mincing words. The Cŵn Annwn are fae. But you say two branches. Is there not a third?”

“You mean the sluagh? That one is definitely debatable. The Cŵn Annwn and the Tylwyth Teg share a common ancestry. They were, at one point, the same species, and the Hunt was only a vocation within it. Then the Cŵn Annwn broke away, and like any group that severs ties, they eventually became a separate race, with characteristics—”

“I did not ask you for a history lesson, bòcan.”

The snap in her voice made Gabriel flinch, but Patrick only said, “Mmm, anthropology really, with some biology. The point is that there’s no evidence of a common ancestry with the sluagh. They are actually more human than Gabriel here, the majority of their ranks being comprised of human souls—”

“Do not lecture me.” Her voice whipped around them, setting every hair on Gabriel’s body rising. “I am as fae as you. I am the sluagh. The darkness. You call us the unforgiven. That is incorrect. Our melltithiwyd are the unforgiven. They are human souls that serve us. We are the sluagh, and we are fae, and we are tired of being forgotten. We want our share.”

“Of Matilda,” Patrick said.

“Yes.”

“Fine. There’s not a hope in the Otherworld she’d choose to keep you lot alive. But sure, why not. Join the fun. Sit at the table. Make your case. Just tell me where to send the invitation.”

The room rocked, as if with sonic boom, setting the concrete under Gabriel’s feet quivering.

“Do you think you are clever, bòcan? You are a fool. You have played your role, as has your epil. He plays it even now, graciously summoning Matilda for us.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Whatever threat you plan to employ, you may save your breath. I won’t summon her.”

“But you already have.” The voice slipped around him again. “Check your phone, Gabriel.”

He glanced at it. The home screen showed no new messages, but when he clicked on his text conversation with Olivia, their exchange now continued past her smiley face.

Gabriel: I could use your assistance if you aren’t otherwise occupied.

Olivia: Just waiting 4 you. What’s up?

Gabriel: I may have found my mother. It seems unwise to proceed without backup.

Olivia: Good call. Give me an addy & we’re on our way.

Their current address followed. Then,

Olivia: Be there ASAP!

Gabriel: I’m inside. Text when you arrive.

Olivia: Yes, sir. :)

Gabriel stabbed the button to call her back. Nothing happened. He checked his connection. No service. He typed a message anyway.

Stay where you are. I didn’t call you. Do NOT come here.

The text appended at the end of the conversation, with the exclamation mark to show it hadn’t sent. He flicked on the wi-fi and watched until it showed no service found.

“The next step is to raise it over your head,” the voice said. “See if you can get signal that way. Then ask your father if his is working…Oh, I see he’s already checking. I’ll leave you both to that. I have a new arrival to greet.”