chapter fifteen

We walked until we were ready to drop, keeping ourselves relentlessly moving despite our exhaustion, determined to put as much distance behind us as possible before we lost the Green Lady’s protection. A couple of times, we heard hounds baying in the distance, but it was always far away.

Around midday, we found a little ground-fed spring and each drank about five gallons of water to ease our parched throats. A little later, we found a patch of what looked like blackberries, and we were hungry enough to eat them even though they didn’t taste like blackberries, and we all knew eating mysterious berries wasn’t the brightest idea. Lucky for us, there was no sign of them being poisonous—i.e., no one got sick or died—and I wondered if the Green Lady was giving us a little extra help, helping us find just enough food and water to keep going.

It wasn’t till the sun went down that we finally admitted we had to stop and get some rest. After last night’s rainstorm, the temperature never quite got back up to what it had been, and as the sun disappeared, the temperature took a nosedive. I’d never once been cold on the journey in, but tonight the breeze gave me goose bumps. And that was before the misty drizzle started.

We groaned in chorus. The drizzle was just enough to dampen our clothes and make us all clammy without being enough to provide us with any water. We ate the last of the blackberries—or whatever they were—as we searched for another place to hide for the night. The trees here didn’t have any convenient hollows, and the ground continued to be flat, not even providing any rocks we could use as shelter from the wind.

Eventually, too tired to move another step, we made our halfhearted camp among the roots of an enormous tree. It blocked a bit of the wind, and the drizzle had subsided, but we were all shivering in our damp clothes. Well, I was shivering. The Fae weren’t much affected by the cold, but that didn’t mean they were comfortable. We huddled together, me with Ethan and Kimber with Keane, but there was no kissing or teasing or secret smiles. Even the shot of hope the Green Lady had given us, the hope that tomorrow night we might sleep in our own beds, wasn’t enough to lift us out of our misery.

After about a half hour, Ethan rose to his feet. “I’m going to collect some firewood,” he announced.

Keane snorted. “Oh, yeah, that’s a good way to hide. Light a fire that anyone can see. With wet wood, I might add.”

Ethan scowled at him. “I can create a localized illusion that will hide us and the fire. And I don’t care how wet the wood is, I can make it burn.”

Usually, Keane would have argued more, but I think he was too tired to bother. “Fine, do what you want,” he said, then laid the back of his head against the tree and closed his eyes.

“Stay close,” Kimber warned as Ethan moved away. He spared time for a “well, duh” look before he disappeared into the darkness.

*   *   *

Ethan was as good as his word, returning to our makeshift camp with an impressive pile of branches. It took a while to get them burning, since he didn’t have a handy “light wet wood on fire” spell ready. From what I understand of magic, most of the Fae would take hours or even days of practice before they could train the magic to do a new spell, but Ethan managed it in about fifteen minutes. I could tell even Keane was impressed, though he would never dream of admitting it. At least Ethan refrained from acting all smug.

I can’t say we were exactly comfortable after that, but the fire was a welcome relief, and our silence as we huddled around it was almost companionable.

It didn’t take long for us to start yawning, the warmth of the fire making us even sleepier than we already were. We set up a watch schedule, because even though we’d neither seen nor heard signs of pursuit in the last several hours, it was still out there. Ethan took the first watch, and the rest of us curled up on the damp ground.

Exhaustion pulled me into sleep with alarming speed. My dreams were filled with images of blood and death and a man in a hideous horned mask chasing me down darkened roads. The man in the mask chased me into a dead-end alley, and I came to a stop in front of a high brick wall I could never climb. Heart pounding in my throat, I turned to watch helplessly as the man in the mask—the Erlking, I remembered with a sudden start—stalked down the alley toward me.

“My magic can destroy you,” I reminded him, then started to hum under my breath.

“I don’t think so,” the Erlking responded, and though I couldn’t see his face behind the mask, I heard amusement in it.

I kept humming as he continued to approach, but the magic was coming only sluggishly to my call. Unlike the flood I was now used to, there was only a trickle, and terror almost stole my voice.

The Erlking was too close. I couldn’t wait any longer or he would have me, so even though I hadn’t gathered enough magic to do much of anything, I let loose my screaming high note.

He was on me before the sound rose from my throat, his hand clamped over my mouth, trapping my scream. I flailed.

And woke up to find a hand over my mouth and my wrists held together in a bruising grip. But it wasn’t the Erlking’s eyes burning into mine, it was Ethan’s.

My first thought was that I’d been thrashing around, having a nightmare, and Ethan was trying to keep me quiet so I wouldn’t draw any search parties. Still sweating from the terror of my dream, I forced myself to relax in his grip and signal to him that I was awake. But he didn’t let go of me.

Ethan dragged me to my feet, one hand still clamped over my mouth, his other arm wrapped around my waist, trapping my own arms at my sides. His grip was bruisingly tight, and he didn’t ease up when the pained whimper of protest rose from my throat. Then, he started to drag me off into the forest.

I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I did know something was horribly wrong with this scenario. Ethan was hurting me, dragging me away from the campfire and my sleeping friends. But I hadn’t suffered through all my self-defense lessons with Keane for nothing.

I stopped struggling against Ethan’s hold, then stomped down hard on his instep. He cried out in pain, the sound jerking both Keane and Kimber out of sleep. They jumped to their feet while, wincing, I took advantage of Ethan’s distraction to give him an elbow to the gut.

I didn’t have the courage to do it very hard—this was Ethan!—but it was enough to make him let go. I whirled around to face him, opening my mouth to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. But Ethan had already recovered from my admittedly wimpy blow, and before I could get a word out, his fist was swinging toward my face.

A few weeks ago, I’d have been helpless in this situation, and even now shock made me a little slow. But Keane’s training kicked in again, and I managed to block the punch with my arm. It hurt like hell, but better to take a punch on the arm than in the face. Ethan took another swing while I was still reeling, but that blow never landed because Keane jumped in between us.

The air filled with the prickle of magic, and the boys swung at each other furiously.

“What is going on?” Kimber wailed, coming to my side and reaching out helplessly toward her brother and Keane.

I’d have answered her if I had a clue, but I could only stare in horror as my friends tried to pound the crap out of each other.

Ethan never had a chance. Not with Keane’s skill at hand-to-hand fighting. I was certain that some of the magic in the air was Ethan’s, but even he couldn’t get a spell off when someone was kneeling on his chest and pounding on his face.

“Keane! Stop it!” I cried, because Ethan was clearly already down and beaten.

Keane, of course, ignored me. I stepped forward, meaning to try to drag him off of Ethan, but Kimber grabbed my arm.

“Don’t,” she said, and I turned to her in shock. This was her brother who was being beaten senseless!

Kimber’s eyes were wide and frightened-looking, and she winced with every thud of fist hitting flesh. She spoke to me without looking away from the fight.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but as long as Ethan is conscious, he’s dangerous.” A tear leaked down her cheek, and her hand tightened on my arm, like it was taking everything she had not to interfere.

I knew she was right, no matter how much I hated it. Ethan was ridiculously good at magic, and I had no idea what the limitations of his power were. If he had suddenly gone crazy during the night, then he could probably kill us all with a single spell.

Eventually, Ethan went limp, and Keane stopped hitting him, though he remained sitting on his body, poised for action and panting with exertion. After the incident when Ethan had taken Keane’s shield spell down during our sparring session, I might have thought Keane would enjoy beating him unconscious, but he didn’t look like he was having fun.

“Get something to tie him up with,” Keane ordered, not taking his eyes off of Ethan. “I don’t know how long he’ll stay out.”

I didn’t know if he was talking to me or to Kimber, but since I was the only one who had anything other than the clothes I was wearing, I ran to my backpack and yanked the zipper open. My hands were shaking, and I was having a hard time catching my breath as I pawed blindly through my belongings.

I’d been locked in a nightmare about the Erlking when Ethan had attacked me. I didn’t think that was a coincidence. I had freed Ethan from the Wild Hunt, but because he wore the Erlking’s mark on his face, Ethan was still subject to his will. I’d been off-limits to the Erlking on this journey because of Titania’s guarantee of safe passage. I suspected that guarantee had been revoked and the Seelie Queen had just sicced the Wild Hunt on me.

I didn’t exactly have rope stuffed in my backpack, and my frantic searching didn’t find anything even vaguely ropelike. I flinched when I heard the sound of fist hitting flesh again.

“Hurry up!” Keane barked.

Kimber yanked a T-shirt I was pulling out of the backpack from my hands, and I turned to see her easily tear a shred off of it. Well, that solved that problem.

Still shaking and almost sick to my stomach, I watched as Kimber and Keane ripped apart my shirt, then bound Ethan hand and foot. Ethan’s face was badly bruised, and bloody from a split lip. I couldn’t help suspecting Keane had beat on him more than necessary to subdue him, but I bit my lip to keep myself from saying so. Starting another fight was not going to improve the situation.

When Ethan was thoroughly trussed, Kimber turned to me while Keane hovered over her brother with a watchful eye.

“What happened?” she asked, but from the look on her face I thought she’d already guessed.

“I was dreaming about the Erlking,” I said, “and when I woke up, Ethan was trying to drag me away into the woods.”

Keane cursed, and Kimber looked like she was on the verge of tears. I don’t even want to know what I looked like. The pain in my heart was almost too much to bear, even though I knew Ethan hadn’t been responsible for what he’d done. Gingerly, I rubbed the spot on my arm where I’d taken the punch. It throbbed steadily, and I was going to have a humongous bruise in the morning.

Ethan moaned softly, and we all went on red alert. Keane knelt beside him, ready to grab him if he went berserk despite being tied up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Kimber hugged herself and looked worried while I knelt at Ethan’s other side.

“Ethan?” I said. “Ethan, can you hear me?”

He dragged in a shaky-sounding breath, and his eyes fluttered open. He hissed and quickly closed his eyes again, his skin going a sickly shade of green.

“You puke on me and we’ll be going another round,” Keane growled, all heart as usual.

Ethan’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, his eyes still firmly closed, his voice tight with pain.

“Are you all right?” I asked, then wanted to slap myself for the question. No, he wasn’t all right. In more ways than one.

He shrugged as best he could with his hands tied. “Been better.” He cracked his eyes open again. His wince said it hurt.

“Are you you again?” Keane asked.

Ethan sucked in a deep breath. “Yeah. For the moment, at least. Whatever you do, don’t untie me.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Keane said.

Ethan looked up at me, his expression stricken. “I’m so sorry, Dana. He ordered me to bring you to him, and I couldn’t disobey him. I tried to be noisy about it so Keane and Kimber would stop me, but that was the best I could do.”

“I know,” I assured him, laying my hand on his shoulder. I wished I could think of something to say that would make him feel better, but he’d been bitter about the hold the Erlking had on him before this.

“You’re still connected to the Erlking,” Keane said. “That means he can find you through the bond, right?”

I heard Kimber’s gasp of dismay, but I already knew just how much deep shit we were in. It wasn’t just Ethan that the Erlking could track anywhere in Faerie.

“You’re going to have to leave me behind,” Ethan said.

“No!” Kimber said. “Absolutely not!” She looked back and forth between Keane and me, waiting for our chorus of agreement, but we didn’t join in. For entirely different reasons, I suspect. I couldn’t help thinking that Keane would get some amount of satisfaction from abandoning Ethan, but maybe I wasn’t giving him enough credit.

“We have bigger problems than just Ethan if Titania’s set the Wild Hunt on me,” I said. “I bear the Erlking’s mark, too.”

Kimber gasped in surprise. Keane, of course, already knew about the mark, so it made sense that he didn’t look shocked. I expected more of a reaction from Ethan, but there was no sign he was surprised by my announcement.

“You knew!” I said to him with a hint of accusation in my voice.

“He told me,” Ethan responded, and I didn’t need to ask who “he” was.

“Seems like you have some explaining to do,” Keane prompted me. “What were you saying about the Erlking’s mark?”

I said a silent thank-you to Keane for not telling anyone he’d already known about the mark. I doubt either Kimber or Ethan would have taken it well if they’d found out.

Wishing I’d found the courage to fess up earlier, I gave Kimber the same abbreviated version of the story I’d given Keane.