A Fairy Tale (25 page)

One good look at the group of Maeve’s people clustered nearby told her exactly what the fight was about. She recognized one of the women—a human woman—from the wedding photo in Michael’s apartment. He’d found his long-lost wife, and from the looks of things, she either didn’t remember her husband or wasn’t inclined to go with him.
Oh dear,
Sophie thought,
this could get ugly
.

Maeve sauntered over and joined her people, smirking at Sophie. “So, your sister isn’t the only one you care about.”

“I don’t like seeing anyone get hurt,” Sophie shot back. “Honestly, all your goons, ganging up on an injured man?”

Behind her, she heard Michael struggling to catch his breath. She wanted to go to him, but she was afraid to turn her back on Maeve and her people. Then again, she probably needed to restrain Michael before he tried to go after his wife. She could hardly blame him; if Emily had been at this market, she knew she wouldn’t leave without her, even if she had to carry her out over her shoulder. But if his wife was part of Maeve’s court, and if she didn’t want to go, the chances of him getting away alive with her were extremely slim, even with Sophie’s help.

A low bark from below her knees told her she wasn’t entirely alone. She’d nearly forgotten about Beau, who must have joined Michael while she was busy. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Amelia and Athena come over to flank Michael. The odds looked a little better. The big question was what the free fairies would do.

As if Sophie had any doubt about what—and whom—Maeve wanted, Maeve turned to her men and said, “That’s the one. Take her, or else! I am tired of failure!”

Maeve’s goons moved toward Sophie, one of them sending a silver chain flying at her.
Not this again,
she thought as she raised a hand and sent it back at him to wind around his neck. He stumbled backward, bumping into his colleagues. They tried to move forward but the air between them and Sophie shimmered and they bumped into something. A glance to the side showed Sophie that Amelia and Athena had sprung into action, creating the shield.

While they held off the fairies, Sophie crouched beside Michael and got her arms around him to pull him to his feet. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Jen,” he gasped, struggling to get away from her. “They have Jen. She’s with them.”

“I know, honey,” she murmured. “But we have to go,
now
.”

“I’m not leaving without her.”

“I understand, trust me, but that could be a bit of a challenge.”

By this time, the rest of the free fairies had come to see what all the commotion was about. Some of them attacked Maeve’s people, others stood by as spectators, and a few joined in the attack on Sophie. Meanwhile, Maeve and her people were trying to dissolve the enchantresses’ magical shield. “Get him away from here!” Amelia shouted over her shoulder.

“Easier said than done,” Sophie muttered. She grabbed Michael by the chin so she could look him directly in the eyes and said as forcefully as she could, “We’ve got to get out of here. Can you walk?”

“I’m not going anywhere without Jen.”

The shield wavered. Beau snarled, barked, and growled, and Sophie was getting desperate. “She won’t go with you right now. She can’t,” she said, pleading. “But we need to get out of here. I can find her later.”

“No!” His eyes were bright with tears. “I’ve been looking for her for seven years, and I’m not leaving her now that I’ve found her.”

She hated to do this to him, but it was for his own good, as well as hers. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she reached into his mind and made him feel suddenly very tired, so tired that he needed to go home immediately. His eyes glazed, his eyelids drooped, and he sagged against her. Then he struggled away from her again, and she groaned. He was a husband who’d just found his long-lost wife and didn’t want to lose her again, so his will was strong.

She pushed again to put him into a trance. “Okay, I’ve got him,” she said to Athena and Amelia. “Now we just need to get away.” She hoped they were up to some good defensive spells because it was taking everything she had to keep Michael from going after his wife.

That was when the shield fell and the goons rushed at them. “Oh, dear,” Sophie murmured, wishing for once she’d learned something stronger to say in situations like this.

Amelia and Athena were now fighting off attackers individually. A few of the free fairies put themselves between Maeve and Sophie, but some of the goons got past. Sophie didn’t think she had it in her to do any magic while she was controlling Michael, and she didn’t dare let him go because he’d head straight for his wife, and then she wouldn’t be able to save him. With the arm that wasn’t supporting him, she reached into her bag and grabbed her iron skillet by the handle. It was heavy enough to knock aside attackers, and because it was iron, any fairy who got hit stayed down. Soon, they learned to give her a wide berth.

Athena and Amelia and a few of the free fairies had created a clear path for her, so she called, “Beau, come!” and headed for the stairs. Sophie couldn’t run with Michael’s weight on her. She glanced over her shoulder to check on signs of pursuit and saw several of Maeve’s people get past the enchantresses to launch themselves over the castle terrace wall and land with catlike grace on the ground below.

Sophie tightened her grip on the skillet. She couldn’t outrun the fairies, she couldn’t use magic without losing her tenuous grip on Michael, and her only weapon was a cooking implement. This situation was almost as bad as a preschool ballet class with mommy separation anxiety.

Then a sprightly woman in white with flowing white hair to match darted out from the trees, calling, “Here!” as she pointed to a gap in a nearby wall. Sophie wasn’t sure she and Michael together could fit through that small opening, but somehow they did, and then Sophie realized where they were: the Borderlands. She didn’t think they were any safer there, but at least their pursuers weren’t hot on their heels. Eerie sounds nearby made her heart beat faster. She’d never entered the Realm this way, but she’d heard about the things that lurked on the edges.

To make matters worse, a group of fairies appeared ahead of them, and Sophie muttered a heartfelt,
“Drat!”
before recognizing Tallulah. She didn’t think Tallulah would join in the kidnapping, but why was she there? “This is
not
a good time. I’m kind of busy here,” she told the fairy. On the bright side, the eerie noises had ceased at Tallulah’s arrival.

Tallulah walked straight up to her and touched her lightly on the forehead. “I have one more task for you. You must stop Maeve.”

“That was my plan.”

“Your plan was to rescue your sister, but even if you don’t achieve that, you must keep Maeve off the throne.”

“I don’t suppose you have any suggestions on how to do that?”

“You already have everything you need.” Her voice intensified. “Keep Maeve off the throne. If you fail, I will ask another payment, and you will not like it.” She gave Michael a long, appraising glance, then turned back to Sophie with a sly smile before gesturing for Sophie to follow her.

Tallulah led them to a gateway, and they came out on the edge of the park, near the street. Sophie wondered how safe they really were. Would Maeve’s people dare leave the bubble of the market to go after them in the real world? She only let herself relax when they’d crossed Central Park West and Beau stopped growling.

Her next challenge was getting Michael home. In addition to his emotional anguish, he seemed to be in physical pain, and his breathing didn’t sound good. She had his good arm draped across her shoulders and her arm around his waist, but the weight dragged on her. To make matters worse, she hadn’t changed out of her pointe shoes, and they weren’t designed for long walks. She’d have a mess of blisters after this adventure.

Fortunately, his apartment wasn’t that far away and there weren’t that many people out to notice her half-carrying a man. Not that New Yorkers would care. They’d just think he’d had one too many and she was getting him home. Beau led the way down the sidewalk, dragging his leash. She wondered if that would count as adhering to the leash law. It wouldn’t do to attract police attention while she was hauling around an incoherent police detective.

At Michael’s building, she paused to catch her breath before taking him up the front steps. She unlocked the door magically, then it took the last of her strength to get him up the stairs to his apartment, where the door flew open at a thought. Beau headed inside first, and she willed the door shut behind her. She got Michael to his bedroom and dropped him on the bed, found the bottle of painkillers on the nightstand, and made him take one before arranging him into a more comfortable position.

Only then did she release her control over him. He tried to sit up, calling out, “Jen!” but she pushed him back down onto the pillow.

“Hush,” she cooed. “Easy, easy. Hush.” She sent a soothing impulse to him, and she felt the tension in him ease. Poor thing, she thought, sitting beside him and stroking his hair gently. Imagine, finding his wife again after all that time, and in that way. But how had he seen her? He shouldn’t have been able to see the market at all, nor anyone in it. When he settled down, she bent to remove her shoes, then flexed her feet and sighed with relief.

“She didn’t even recognize me,” he whispered, drifting back into consciousness.

“That happens,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Sophie, what’s going on? What was that place?”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning. You won’t remember anything I say right now.”

“It’s real, right? It wasn’t all a dream?”

“It was real,” she confirmed.

He started coughing, and she propped him up until the coughing spell stopped, then settled back against the headboard with his head pillowed on her shoulder and her arms around him.

He tried to get up again. “I have to go get her.”

She pulled him back. “She won’t be there.” To distract him, she asked, “How did you two meet?”

He relaxed against her. “I was working foot patrol. She had an audition, and she couldn’t find the place, so she asked me for directions. She got the part, so she found me later and said I was her lucky charm. Whenever she had an audition, she looked for me, and she got the part if she talked to me first. Then she invited me for coffee. She gave me a keychain with a four-leaf clover in it.” His voice trailed off wistfully. “I still carry it.”

That
explained it. Carrying a four-leaf clover was one way to see the fairies. “And coffee led to more?”

“Yeah, it did. I proposed six months later.” He sighed. “And she’s been gone longer than we were married, longer than I knew her before she vanished. Maybe that’s why she forgot me.”

Her heart broke for him. She felt tears trickling down her face. “No, that’s not it. She can’t help it, where she is. It’s not just you she forgot. I doubt she remembers who she is.”

“They brainwashed her?”

“Something like that.”

He sighed again, deeply, and she felt the last of the tension flow from his body. The painkiller must have kicked in. “Is that where Emily is?” he asked, his words slurring even more.

“Probably.”

“Does she remember who she is?”

“I think so. She knows what to do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. It’s hard to understand. Now hush and rest. I’ll still be here with you.”

He was silent for a long time, and she thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he said, “Sophie, who were those people?”

“They were fairies. But we’ll talk about this in the morning.”

His fingers folded around hers, squeezing as if he was hanging onto a lifeline. His breathing gradually evened. She wondered what she should do. She might be able to blur his memories so he would think it had all been a dream, but would that be fair to him?

“Can you get her back, Sophie?” he asked after another long period of silence when she thought he’d fallen asleep.

“I don’t know, honey. I don’t know. I’ll try, I promise.”

She doubted he’d let her make him forget. He’d cling to this memory with his last ounce of strength. Which meant that she needed to be ready to teach Fairy 101 the next morning.

The Cell in Maeve’s Apartment

Later

A scratching sound at the lock woke Emily. She raised her head from where it rested on Eamon’s shoulder and saw that he, too, was awake. “Looks like it’s go time,” she whispered, then she fought back a groan as she stiffly moved away from the wall where they’d been leaning. She grabbed the iron shackles from the far corner of the room and flattened herself against the wall next to the door. The door opened, and one of the guards stepped inside. She was about to swing the shackles when she caught the quick shake of Eamon’s head and held back. She saw why when Maeve appeared in the doorway.

Emily swung out with all her might, striking Maeve square across the face with the iron. Maeve’s scream was so terrible it almost made Emily feel bad for her—but then she remembered what the shackles had done to Eamon and got over her pity. Even so, Maeve’s screams made Emily’s skin crawl. The sound bypassed her ears and went straight to her nerves.

While screaming, Maeve rolled on the floor, clutching her face. Her guards rushed to her aid, and Emily took that as her chance to make a run for it. She moved to help Eamon up, but he was already on his feet. Emily took the lead, holding the shackles in front of her as a shield. She vaulted Maeve, fended off a guard with the shackles and found herself in the lobby, which was full of Maeve’s courtiers. She cleared the way to the front door by waving the iron. Fairies scattered, but the door was still guarded, and possibly still enchanted.

Emma and Leigh, the other human captives, stood blocking the door, and the iron didn’t scare them. Emma looked particularly upset. She had tear stains on her face, and Leigh had a comforting arm around her shoulders. Upset or not, Emma stood her ground. “Her majesty didn’t give you permission to leave,” she said.