Fire Touched

12

We followed Uncle Mike and Goreu through the double doors marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. I’d expected a kitchen, but there was only a stairway that led up or down. We took the up. Uncle Mike’s shouldn’t have had an up. From the outside, it was clearly a single-story building. Apparently, that was an illusion or this was a different kind of stairway. We climbed more than one floor. I started counting on the third-floor landing, and I counted seven more. I don’t know that there is a ten-story building in the Tri-Cities—maybe the new hospital building in Richland.

Goreu said, opening the door at the top of the stairs, “We wanted you to have a good view.”

It was windy, but warm enough, as we stepped out onto a flat roof, the kind of roof I’d have expected Uncle Mike’s to have, with battered machines happily humming away, keeping the tavern a steady temperature, and a knee-high barricade to keep people from walking off the edge. Just the right height for a tripping hazard, I thought. Someone stood on the edge of the roof, looking out over the river.

I’d once caught a glimpse of Beauclaire without the glamour that made him appear human. It hadn’t prepared me for the whole deal. He was, unlike a lot of fae, almost entirely human-shaped, and his height was somewhere between tall and average, an inch or so taller than Adam and of a similar build.

He turned to greet us, and I could see the hints of the Beauclaire I knew, parts that he’d pulled into his glamour—but he didn’t look like a human. His cheekbones were high and flat beneath eyes like expensive emeralds, clear and deep. Other than his eyes, his coloring came from the sun: his skin would have been the envy of a California bikini enthusiast; his hair, which reached past his shoulders in a thick, straight fall, held all the colors of gold with hints of red. Was he beautiful? I couldn’t tell. He was extraordinary.

“You are just in time,” he said. “I have pushed the last of the humans off the bridge—so I am ready for our little demonstration.”

Goreu huffed a laugh, then turned to us. “He didn’t mean that like it sounded. He encouraged the people who have been working on the bridge to find something else to do. We don’t need to kill people for this demonstration.”

“One of our Council members was convinced we should flood one of the towns—Burbank or Richland,” Uncle Mike said. “It took a while to persuade her that killing that many people would ensure that we’d never get a treaty of any kind with you, and it would play right into the hands of our foes on the Council.”

I shivered, though it wasn’t cold, and walked as close to the edge as I dared. We had a spectacular view, not as scary as the one from on top of the crane the other day, but spectacular. The Lampson crane was to our left, but it was the view of the Columbia and the Cable Bridge that was breathtaking in a different way than it had been from on top of the crane. From the crane, it had looked distant and small. From our current vantage point, it felt like we were standing right on top of it—and it was huge.

Beauclaire raised his hand and said something. It might have been a word, but it sounded bigger than that. It resonated in my chest and in my throat. Below us, under the center of the bridge, the water of the Columbia started to swirl.

Magic, thick and rich and warm as the noonday sun in August, pressed down on me, and I went to my knees. Adam put his hand under my elbow, but he had to wrap his arms around me before I could stand. I breathed like a racehorse, and my face grew hot, then very cold, and still the power moved.

The swirling water started small, but grew until the whole river circled beneath the bridge like traffic negotiating the stupid roundabouts that had been showing up where the four-way stop signs used to be. Gradually, the water moved faster, climbing the banks on the outside edge as the center dropped.

The pressure of the water made the bridge groan, I could hear it from where we stood. Overhead, a helicopter flew in and hovered.

Adam said something that I, consumed by the force of Beauclaire’s magic, missed, his voice just another rumble in my ears and chest.

I heard Goreu’s reply, though it didn’t make much sense to me at the time. “Our helicopter. We called the news agencies about ten minutes ago, but we wanted to make sure this was recorded for the media. We’ll give the footage to the local stations and let them disseminate it. That worked well enough for your killing of the troll.” He looked at me. “She is sensitive to magic.”

Adam grunted rather than answering, and Goreu smiled at him. For a moment, he looked less human to me, too, and I had the feeling that the real Goreu was a lot bigger than his glamour would suggest. But the bridge groaned again, and all my attention returned to the sight before us.

The water on the outside of the whirlpool was level with the bridge deck, much higher than the banks of the river, though Beauclaire’s magic kept all the water where he wanted it. Beyond the whirlpool, the Columbia’s waves grew choppy and white-edged, but the level of the river didn’t appear to be affected.

The whirlpool quit growing, but it continued to speed up and drain the middle to feed the edge until I could see bare ground beneath the bridge. The circle grew until the entire section between the two towers was empty of water. The bridge was shaking under the force of the water that now hit the railed edge before rushing over or under the bridge with twisting force.

Beauclaire spoke another word—and for a moment my eyes wouldn’t focus. When I could see again, there was no more dirt beneath the bridge. There was just . . . nothing, a hole, so deep that, from our perspective, I could not see the bottom.

The fae cannot lie. Beauclaire had told me he could drown cities, but until this moment, I hadn’t really understood what that meant. And this was nowhere near the limits of his power. He might have been able to fake his relaxed stance, but I could feel the magic he channeled to the river and the earth, and there was no end to it.

It took maybe three more minutes, and the bridge gave in to the twisting water, breaking free of its supports and foundations. The noise was tremendous, Uncle Mike’s shook, and I could hear someone’s car alarm go off. For a moment, just after it was ripped from the bank, the bridge held its structure. Then it collapsed, torn apart by the water and by gravity. Some of the bridge dropped into the hole immediately, some of it was carried by the water to bang back into the supports that had held it up. Battered by water and by debris, the supports for the towers slid into the black hole beneath. The water swirled and spat bits of cement, metal, blacktop, and long, snapping cables into the hole until the water ran clean and nothing more fell out.

Beauclaire said another word, a release of some sort, because it was easier for me to breathe again. The hole in the earth closed up, and this time I could watch it happen, the soil building up from the outside and working in until there was nothing but disturbed dirt and rocks where the hole had been.

Beauclaire said another word, and the water slowed, the whirlpool edge leveled, and the center filled with water. Eventually, the Columbia quit swirling altogether and flowed with deceptive mildness in the same path it had taken an hour ago—except that now it didn’t flow past a bridge. It looked beautiful and peaceful. I could see people, some of them in uniform, on both sides of the river, and they were all staring, just like me.

Adam turned me around so he could see my face. He wiped my cheeks with his thumbs—that’s when I realized there were tears running down my face. I didn’t know why I’d been crying, I wasn’t sad—just overwhelmed by Beauclaire’s magic.

He bent down to me. Are you all right?

His voice slid through the mating bond, caressed me, and cleared my head. I felt like I could take a clean breath for the first time since Beauclaire had called his magic.

“I’m fine,” I told him out loud, because if I spoke through our bond, he would hear too much, and I was afraid that the echoes of magic still rattling my bones might cross and hurt him. I didn’t know why it was a worry, just that it was, and I had learned to trust my instincts.

He looked at Goreu, standing patiently beside Beauclaire. Sometime while Adam and I were talking, he had regained his usual, unremarkable, glamoured appearance.

“You said two things,” Adam said. “This was the first—a demonstration of what the fae can do. So that no one thinks that you were driven to treat with us because we killed your troll, and you’re scared. I found your demonstration very convincing.”

“The mortals and their government will be very grateful to you for achieving a neutral territory where they can be safe,” Goreu said. “The second thing is that you need to find a reason for us to treat with you.”

“The Fire Touched would work,” Beauclaire said. “I would guarantee his safety and his well-being.”

“Since he left our care, Underhill has been more difficult,” said Goreu. “She didn’t seem to mind while he was on the reservation grounds, but when he left, she was unhappy.”

Beauclaire shook his head. “She didn’t care that Neuth and Órlaith tortured him,” he clarified. “She only cared when he left her influence. Had I realized that, I would have taken him under my protection in the first place. But it would have cost me political power I needed at the moment, to step in to rescue a human—no matter how altered. So—” He stopped speaking.

“Don’t worry,” said Goreu. “I knew you helped the Dark Smith and his son escape with the Fire Touched. No one had to tell me—who else would have done it? Don’t worry, most of them are blinded by the fact that the Dark Smith killed your father. They wouldn’t forgive someone’s sneezing on them, and couldn’t comprehend you in a million years, my friend.”

“We won’t send the boy back,” I said.

“Do you doubt me?” asked Beauclaire. He didn’t sound offended, but it scared me all the same. It didn’t change my opinion, but it did scare me.

“No,” I said firmly. “But he wakes up screaming in terror on the nights he can sleep. He’s afraid of you—all of you. If you’d stopped the Widow Queen and her ilk when he first escaped Underhill, if someone, if anyone had cared for him, he wouldn’t have come to us. I don’t think that he’ll go back willingly. And I think he has suffered enough. I won’t encourage him to go back. I trust you and your word, Beauclaire. But I don’t think that he will survive if he’s forced back to you. I won’t force him, and I won’t allow anyone else to, either.”

Beauclaire turned to Adam. “Does she speak for you?”

“She speaks for herself,” said Adam. “But I agree. He cannot go back.”

“You will risk the survival of the pack for the happiness of a boy who will not be harmed,” said Goreu. There was no judgment in his voice. “A boy who is not a child at all.”

I looked at Adam.

He smiled. “My wolves would not thank me for sending a scared kid to the people in his nightmares just to keep them safe. Safety is not always the key. He belongs to the pack now, and we take care of our own.”

And that right there was one of the differences between Adam and Bran. Bran kept his eye on the end game. Adam understood the end game all right, but to him, the people mattered more than the game.

The werewolves needed Bran, who could make the tough choices to make sure they survived. I needed Adam because he would never abandon someone who loved him, the way that Bran had abandoned us. Abandoned me. Twice. I swallowed and reminded myself I was a grown-up. But I was so grateful that I had Adam. “Name something else,” said Adam.

Goreu turned to Beauclaire, and said, “I told you that would not happen.” He looked at Adam. “I’m afraid, then, it is up to you.”

“You can’t give us a better clue about what we could offer you?” Adam said.

“Ask Zee,” said Goreu. “Our people are hungry for magic, and Zee has been collecting the weapons he has made.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Now, that makes sense. We find ourselves on opposite sides in a conflict—and to stop it, we give you a powerful magical artifact, a weapon?”

Goreu grinned at my logic. “It might work.”

Uncle Mike, who’d been a silent witness to it all, shook his head. “That old man has been destroying his toys ever since his wife died. I’m not sure he has anything big enough to matter.”

I looked at him, and Uncle Mike shrugged. “He was forced to marry her, and he thought it would be easy so he allowed it. Then he fell in love for the first time in . . . for the first time, I think. When she died—he was very angry. Angry at the Gray Lords who made him make himself vulnerable. So he started to destroy any of his own work that came back to him—and most of it does, eventually. He also destroys other things when he can, too. The Gray Lords would stop him if they could.” He gave the two Gray Lords present a merry look. “But they can’t. So they pretend not to notice.”

“This is weird,” said Jesse at dinner two days later. “Last week, I was a social pariah at school. Hell—”

Her father cleared his throat.

“Heck,” she said. “Heck. Since the troll died? I could run for class president and win.”

“Don’t fret,” Aiden said, eating the spaghetti I’d made as if he was afraid it would run off his plate, “I’m sure you’ll be a pariah again soon enough.”

“That was pretty good,” Jesse said, dumping another helping of spaghetti on his plate without his asking. “It would have been better, though, if you’d swallowed before you started to talk. We eat with our mouths closed around here.”

“How do you get the food in?” asked Aiden.

She stopped eating. Opened her mouth, then shut it again.

“Gotcha,” he said happily, still talking with his mouth full.

Adam, I noticed, was looking pretty worn. He hadn’t said much since we’d sat down to eat. Tonight, it was just Jesse, Aiden, Adam, and me.

Joel, who was still experiencing better control of his shapeshifting, had taken his wife out to dinner. No one knew he was a pack member, so they didn’t have to worry about reporters following them around.

Adam was taking the brunt of the attention. The local newspeople knew him, the Feds knew him, and a fair number of the national press knew him from previous stories—and he was handsome and articulate. So he was the one they aimed their questions at.

How had we known what the fae were going to do? Why had they done it? Were they planning on doing it again somewhere else? After the first wave of reporters, Adam drafted a statement, which he read for the local TV stations.

“It was the fae,” Adam told them. “They came to us and told us that they wanted people to understand what we were dealing with. They are not just the boogie monsters hiding in fairy tales. Some of them are more powerful than that, some of them were worshipped as gods by our ancestors for very good reasons. The bridge was chosen because it was highly visible, and because it was easy to clear of people—because the Gray Lords don’t think that killing people will accomplish what they want. And because it was where we killed the troll. Could they do it to a bridge full of rush-hour traffic in the middle of Seattle, Portland, or Washington, DC? Yes. But they could have done that last year or ten years ago, too. They don’t want to. They and we are trying to negotiate a nonviolent end to our situation here in the Tri-Cities, in hopes that it might allow them, and us, and our government to negotiate a nonviolent end to the situation that occurred when our justice system made it clear that justice was for humans only. Thank you.”

And when the Feds came, Adam told them the same thing, mostly word for word except where pronouns needed to be clarified.

The newspeople took their photos of my handsome, sincere mate and wrote up what he could give them. But the Feds . . . they were pushier. We had the whole alphabet soup on our doorstep (figuratively speaking) because terrorist attacks belong to the FBI, and paranormal anything belongs to Cantrip. But the NSA was here, too. Adam told me that two of the people claiming to be Cantrip, and one who was supposed to be FEMA, were actually CIA. He told me he could tell by the way they made the back of his neck itch—he recognized it from Vietnam, where he’d first encountered their kind.

The Feds threatened, cajoled, and stopped just short of arresting Adam. We kept a patrol of werewolves who watched out for the fae. As a side benefit, the wolves kept the Feds off, too.

When the director of Cantrip called to complain about our lack of cooperation, Adam told him exactly where he could shove it and how far. Adam used some of Ben’s favorite phrases to remind them that a rogue Cantrip agent and his rogue-agent pals had killed one of our own not six months ago. That we’d found illegal tracking equipment on our personal vehicle that Cantrip had admitted to placing (when they’d summoned Adam to a closed-door meeting while I was talking Sherwood down from the crane). Cantrip would rot before we ever cooperated with them. And he hung up while the director was still talking.

Five minutes later, the FBI called and asked us to cooperate with Cantrip’s investigation. Adam said, “No.” When the man kept talking at him, Adam threw the phone through the wall.

My husband has a temper. Especially he has a temper when dealing with stupid people. It was why Bran had tried very hard not to use him as a spokesperson. There were no cameras on him when the phone landed in the entryway, so it didn’t matter as far as Adam’s public face.

Our favorite contractor was still working on the damage the fight with the fae had done to the house. One more wall wasn’t going to add that much to the overall bill, so the hole in the wall that the phone made wasn’t important, either. Two more walls, because Aiden had burned down the wall between the safe room and the adjoining bathroom.

The phone survived. That protective case proved that it had been worth the money.

The real reason for Adam’s short temper was frustration. We still hadn’t been able to come up with anything the fae would want or need.

Other than Aiden.

Despite Uncle Mike’s words, I’d have asked Zee, but he and Tad had left the house the morning after the fae attack, and I hadn’t seen them since. Zee’s house was empty—there was no sign that he’d been back there since he’d escaped the reservation.

In the meantime, life went on. Adam got his work done mostly from home to avoid the rush of reporters (and the Feds of whatever alphabet variety). Ben and Warren took turns escorting Jesse to and from school. And we ate breakfast and dinner together. Tonight, it had been spaghetti that I’d made from scratch. The noodles were packaged, though. If Christy had made dinner, the noodles would have been freshly made from scratch, too. I hoped she had met the nice young billionaire of her dreams and decided to stay in the Bahamas. Heck, I even hoped she lived happily for the rest of her life, as long as she did it in the Bahamas.

The phone rang while Adam and I were cleaning up the dishes. He started the dishwasher while I answered the phone. He had gotten less and less polite since the Sinking of the Cable Bridge, so I had started answering the phones first when I could.

“Hauptmans’,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“Mercy,” said Baba Yaga’s voice. “That is not a question you should ask until you know who you’re talking to.”

Adam spun to look at me, and his response stopped Jesse and Aiden in their tracks. I raised an eyebrow, and he made a rolling motion with his hand. I was, it seemed, to carry on with the conversation.

“Just because I asked what I could do, doesn’t imply I would do it,” I said peaceably. “Hello, Baba Yaga. What can I do for you?”

“Well, you could have called me,” she said. “Here I all but gave you an engraved invitation . . . no, no. I did give you an engraved invitation, didn’t I? I gave you my card and told you to call me when you needed information. And yet here I sit uncalled.”

The kids couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Adam could. He nodded at me.

“Okay, then,” I said, and asked her the question we hadn’t been able to find an answer to: “What can we do for the fae that will allow the Gray Lords to sign a treaty with our pack that sets up the Tri-Cities as neutral territory?”

“You could give them the fire-touched boy,” said Baba Yaga brightly. “I am sure that Beauclaire gave you his word that the boy would be safe. Beauclaire would die before breaking that word.”

She placed a slight emphasis on her last sentence. She thought that if we sent Aiden into Beauclaire’s hands, he would die keeping Aiden safe. Not that he would die before letting anything happen to him—but that he would die. Or she wanted me to think that. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“I think we can agree that we don’t want Beauclaire dead,” I said.

“Oh, I think we can indeed agree to that,” she replied.

“So we won’t give Aiden back to the fae,” I said. “Since we didn’t intend to do so, we’re doubly convinced that would be the wrong thing to do. What do you suggest?”

“You could steal the sword of Siebold Adelbertsmiter,” she said. “The blade that cuts through anything and takes any shape it desires. The one he used a few days ago to kill his fellow fae. I assure you that the fae would consider that a gift worth signing a treaty that benefits them far more than it benefits you.”

“No,” I said. “No. I couldn’t steal the sword or any other artifact from Zee. It would not be possible. Besides, he’s off somewhere. I will ask him if he has something the fae would consider worth signing the treaty for, but, as Uncle Mike said, I do know he’s been destroying anything he thought too dangerous. Anything he doesn’t think too dangerous, the fae probably wouldn’t want.”

“True,” said Baba Yaga. “True.” She made a humming sound. Then in an apparently complete change of subject, she said, “Órlaith is missing.”

I started to ask her what that had to do with anything. But then I remembered that Órlaith was the Gray Lord who had tortured Zee. Maybe it wasn’t a change of subject. So I held my tongue. Aiden was staring at me, his expression frozen. I looked at Adam and tilted my head. He saw Aiden’s face and went over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“We won’t send you back,” he told Aiden.

“I thought we’d already agreed upon that,” said Baba Yaga, though she couldn’t have seen who Adam had been talking to. Probably, it was only a good guess.

“What is it that the fae need?” she asked. “I always look at that first when I’m bringing someone a present. What do they need?”

I blinked at the phone, then I looked at Adam. Who shrugged.

“They need Underhill to play nice,” I ventured.

“Yes,” Baba Yaga agreed. “We’re not going to give them . . . uhm, let me rephrase that. You aren’t going to give us Aiden. That’s right. But you might listen to what he’s going to tell you. I’ll give you a call back in five minutes or so, and you can let me know if he says anything interesting. Ta.”

She hung up before I could respond.

Aiden and Jesse had been clearing the table; Aiden still had the plastic-wrapped salad in his hands. He seemed to become aware of it after I put the handset back in its stand. He moved away from Adam and put the salad in the fridge.

“I will go back,” he said, turning to face us. He looked at Jesse for a moment. “She should be safe—and while I am here, she will never be safe.”

And moments like that were why, even though sometimes he was very difficult, I still liked him.

“You’re not going back,” said Adam. “And are you implying I can’t keep my daughter safe?”

“Or she can’t keep herself safe?” Jesse said. She looked at me. “I forgot to thank you for teaching me how to shoot your rifle.”

“No trouble,” I said. “I enjoyed the company.”

Aiden tilted his head, then shook it. “You can’t stop me.”

“Maybe I could,” said Adam. “But I won’t. I misspoke earlier. You can’t go back and be our tribute for the fae so that they will sign a pact with us. You can go back. But we will tell them that you did it without our knowledge or consent, and so they owe us nothing.”

I fought it for a second—but then I kissed Adam, the kind of kiss that made Jesse say, “Really, Mercy? Dad? Get a room.”

I stepped back and met Adam’s eyes. “You know I love you, right?” I looked at Aiden. “So your sacrifice is refused. Baba Yaga seems to think you are the key, though she made it clear that returning you to the fae would be a bad idea. You are outvoted and outnumbered. Help us think outside of the box.”

Jesse said, “She told you not to return Aiden to the fae? Good. Artifacts might work, but Zee isn’t here, and he’s the only one who would have an artifact that would be powerful enough to make them accept.” She held up a hand to me. “The walking stick won’t work because it won’t stay with them. Giving them something that will only take itself away again will force them to abandon any pact they make.”

“Right,” I said.

“Back to Baba Yaga,” she said. Her father watched her with a smile on his face. “She said something about Underhill.”

“Not quite,” I told her. “She asked me what the fae needed—and I told her that they needed Underhill to behave.”

Aiden sat down on a chair. “Underhill contains a lot of artifacts,” he said. “I know where some of them are.”

“You can’t go back there,” Adam said.

Aiden nodded. “Yes, yes, I can. I can get out, too. The same way I got in, I know how to open the doors to Underhill whether she wants me to do so or not. Water figured it out—and she taught all of us.”

“One of the other elemental changelings?” asked Jesse.

I was still stuck on the “I know where some of them are” part of what Aiden had said.

Aiden answered Jesse’s question. “There were only four of us who survived. Sort of survived anyway. I guess I’m the only one who got out and survived the fae afterward.”

Jesse said, “Good for you. So if Dad can get the fae to guarantee you safe passage to and from Underhill, you can go in and get an artifact that is powerful enough to please the fae? Something that will let them interact with Underhill better?”

He stood up and took Jesse’s hand and kissed it. “Yes, my lady, that is exactly what I have to say.”

The phone rang.

“Hauptmans’ mortuary,” I answered. “You stab ’em, we slab ’em.” Baba Yaga was wearing off on me.

“Hard-boiled is the best way to eat eggs,” said Baba Yaga. “But I’ve quit eating eggs—it upset my household. What did the boy-who-isn’t-a-boy have to say?”

I decided I didn’t want to know what inspired the information about eggs. “He said that if the fae will guarantee safe-from-them passage, he knows of an artifact that will help the fae deal with Underhill.”

“Very good,” she said in a chipper voice that was more usual in bad children’s programming on TV. “So you and yours have safe passage to Underhill and back from Underhill. We will sign the treaty before you go in—just in case you don’t come out again. That way no one’s sacrifice is in vain. No, I’m not listening in, Mercy—that would be rude.” She rolled her “r” on rude. “People are just so predictable. You should bring your walking stick, Mercy. Oh, and that oh-so-handsome Russian-blooded wolf. Just you four should be enough.”

“Four?” asked Adam.

“You, Mercy, Aiden, and the walking stick,” she said. “That should be enough. The right ingredients make the stew, you know.” She hung up.

I’d just replaced the handset when it rang again.

“Yes?” I said.

“I’m waiting for more cleverness,” Baba Yaga said. “Hauptman House of Horrors, don’t mind the screaming—we don’t. Something of the sort.”

“Okay,” I said. “Hauptman House of Horrors—”

“Sssss,” she said. “You and that Coyote are always ruining my fun. Anyway. I forgot to tell you—we accept your bargain. You should come tomorrow early.”

“Come where?” I asked.

She laughed. “To the reservation. Guides will meet you along the way so you won’t get caught up in the protections. I don’t think I’ll see you there, but I’ll see you sometime. Ta’, darling. Give that wolf of yours a nudge for me—I do love Russian men.”

She hung up, and I set the phone back on the counter and watched it. While I waited for her to call again, Adam told Jesse and Aiden what Baba Yaga had said.

Jesse frowned at him when he was done. “Okay. You, I understand. You can keep everyone safe. Aiden has to go in, but why Mercy? Why not Zee, who is fae, or Tad, who is nearly fae? Or another werewolf?”

“The walking stick,” said Adam after a moment. “It only follows Mercy.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “One of the things it can do is show us the way home. That might be useful in Underhill.”

“Every boarding party needs its guide to light the way, its wizard to defeat the magic, and a tank to kill everything that tries to stop the party,” Jesse said. She had been playing too much ISTDPBF with the pack lately, and it was affecting her thinking. She looked at her father. “The tank is not sacrificial.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” said Adam with only a little irony in his voice.

“You come home, Daddy,” she told him. “I love my mother, but if I have to live with her for very long, one of us will commit a homicide. And you bring Mercy and the pip-squeak back.”

“Am I the wizard or the guide?” I asked our captain.

“Aiden is fire touched,” she told me after considering the matter. “You can only turn into a coyote. So he’s the wizard, even though he has to guide the party in. You guide the party out. And Dad makes sure you all get out alive.”

“Next time,” said Aiden, who’d been learning the fine art of playing pirate on computers, too, “I want to be the tank.”

Jesse came with us.

“No one will touch her,” Zee told Adam, breaking into the middle of the heated after-breakfast discussion. “I will be there. Tad will be there. Nothing will happen to her.”

Zee and Tad had shown up in the middle of the night, neither of them willing to talk about what they’d been doing. Since Baba Yaga had sort of told me already, I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.

“What do you mean, you’ll be there?” asked Adam.

“Underhill doesn’t like our kind,” Zee said. “So we won’t follow you in. But Tad and I will come with you, we will watch over Jesse and see that nothing befalls her. I agree that Underhill is no place for someone who is wholly human.” He glanced at Aiden, who grimaced and nodded emphatically. “But Jesse is no longer a child. It is her right to witness what her father does.”

The Alpha wolf and the Dark Smith held each other’s eyes.

“Daddy?” asked Jesse.

The Alpha stare-down broke up with neither participant a winner or loser.

“Please?” she said.

“Fine,” Adam huffed, because Jesse’s awesome, seldom-used secret power was that she had her father wrapped around her little finger.

“Now that that’s settled,” I said, “we should go.”

I took my dishes to the sink and stopped to kiss Adam’s cheek as I passed him. I would have moved on, but he held me against him for a moment. He smelled of me, of our early-morning lovemaking, and of the pack. But mostly he smelled like himself: mint and musk and Adam.

We loaded ourselves in Adam’s SUV. I took the middle of the front while Jesse took shotgun, leaving Aiden, Zee, and Tad to sort themselves out in the backseat. As Adam backed the SUV out of its parking space, I saw Joel, in human form, leaning against the frame of the front door. He wasn’t happy at being left behind, but that was an argument Adam had won.

Ben, who had listened in, had quipped lightly, “You know you’ve got a good Alpha when everyone beats each other up trying to throw themselves in the tar pit after he jumps in.” But he’d patted Joel on the shoulder, and said, “Enough. We all know you’re willing—and if you weren’t, there are a dozen of us who would have his back if he needed it. He appreciates it, but you’re distracting him from what he needs to do.”

And so Joel had given in. He watched us drive off with an unhappy expression on his face, but he would wait. He was pack; he knew he was valued, that he had purpose. That didn’t mean he had to be happy about obeying orders, just that he obeyed. Which is why he mostly fit in the pack a lot better than I did. Suggestions I might follow: I had trouble with orders.

It was still dark out as we pulled into the road. Adam’s shoulder against mine was warm. For an accidental moment, I caught his thoughts.

It was just a visual of my face, lit by the blue light of the dash. It wasn’t the face I saw in the mirror every day. He thought I was beautiful. He was worried for me.

I saw his hands tighten on the wheel and put my hand on his thigh. I don’t think he knew I’d caught what he was thinking. I was lucky he wasn’t thinking I should lose a few pounds or clean under my nails better. Or how gorgeous that early-morning jogger we just passed was (and she was).

“Adam?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, still lost in his thoughts.

“Hey, Adam,” I said again.

“Woolgathering,” he told me with a faint smile.

I grinned at him. “An appropriate activity for a wolf.”

“Did you need something?” he asked.

For this trip to be done. For all of us to be home and safe.

“No,” I said lightly. “Or if I did, I’ve forgotten what it was.”

Silence fell in the SUV again. It was early. I wiggled to get comfortable—the center seat was more suited to a child than an adult. From the backseat, the scent of fear was getting stronger.

To distract him—because it wasn’t Zee or Tad who was worried—I asked, “So, Aiden, what do you think we’ll find in Underhill?”

“Underhill,” said Aiden stoically. He was afraid, but he also smelled resigned, like the rabbit who knew it was dead and quit struggling. The confidence he’d shown us last night was gone. He cleared his throat, and said, “Sometimes the terrain is forest or desert, sometimes it’s a snowy mountaintop or an ocean so deep, you can’t find the bottom. If you blink, it can change—but it doesn’t matter where you are, Underhill is always there.” His voice tightened. “Watching.”

“What do you think will happen?” asked Jesse.

After a moment, Aiden said, “She’ll pretend to ignore us at first, I think. She’ll be mad at me, and she’ll want to take her time to decide what to do.”

“Why mad?” asked Jesse. Since Aiden was telling her more than he’d told Adam or me, I thought I’d just keep quiet and see what Jesse could pull out of him.

“Because I left,” he said. “None of us was supposed to leave her. And I was the last one. Water. Earth. Air. Fire. Her creations, she called us. Her children. The others died or were killed when they left her. She told me about it.” He hesitated. “I think she caused their deaths. Or did something that made the fae cause their deaths. I left last because I was afraid to leave.”

“So why are you going back?” Jesse’s voice was cool. “If she caused their deaths, don’t you think she’ll kill you?”

“No,” he said, when, I could tell, he hadn’t intended to say anything at all on the subject. “Not while I’m in Underhill itself—because that would be cheating. If we get attacked, and I can’t defend myself, that’s a fair death, but she can’t turn her hand specifically toward that end, or she’ll ruin her own game.”

When Adam turned off the highway and took the road that used to lead to the reservation, dawn was lightening the sky, though the sun herself wouldn’t be up for fifteen or twenty minutes. He drove steadily past vineyards and cornfields into the hill country. I was pretty sure that he’d driven farther than it had taken to get to the reservation, but it didn’t seem to bother him.

The road took a sharp turn I didn’t remember, then Adam had to hit the brakes hard so he didn’t run into the horsemen lined up across the road. There were three of them, each riding a white horse and dressed in gray. As soon as the SUV stopped completely, they turned their horses and began trotting down the road.

“Our guides?” Adam asked the backseat denizens.

“Ja,” said Zee. “Good to know that drama is still alive and well among the fae. Schimmelreiter. Bah. Theatrics.”

Adam was smiling his hunting smile as we followed the three galloping horses who moved as fast as the SUV could safely negotiate the narrow mountain road that bore no resemblance to the road that used to go to the Ronald Wilson Reagan Fae Reservation.

The road might go different paths, but the walls around the reservation had been left, block cement topped by stainless-steel razor wire. The guard towers were apparently empty, and the gates hung wide open. It looked abandoned, but it didn’t smell that way. It smelled green and alive, even through the filter of the SUV.

The horses slowed to a walk to cross through the threshold of Fairyland, and Adam slowed the SUV to follow them.

Zee made no sound as they crossed into the reservation, but I could smell Tad’s sweat. Aiden’s heart beat double time. Jesse and Adam were the only ones in the car who weren’t affected. I include myself as the affected. The one time before that I’d been in Underhill had been a scary, scary thing.

We followed the walking horses through streets that could have been in any unimaginatively-laid-out suburb in America as the sun rose and lit the world. The streets were set in a numbered grid—as if the original architect feared that people might get lost here. I knew how they felt, but I also thought that the hope that a sign could lead someone out of Faery was the belief of an innocent.

Magic was stronger here than it had been the last time I’d come. I gripped Adam’s thigh and practiced a swimmer’s breathing, in through my mouth and out through my nose, in an effort to block the overwhelming rush. It wasn’t as bad as when Beauclaire sank Cable Bridge, but it was bad enough.

“Are we feeling Underhill?” asked Adam in a low voice.

I looked at him. Adam wasn’t very sensitive to magic, but his wolf looked out through his eyes, so he was feeling something.

“Yes,” said Aiden. His voice was faint. “This is what happens in places where there are too many doors in too small an area. Her magic leaks out.”

“Even though the doors have long been closed in the Old Country,” Zee added, “there are places that people avoid because the spill of magic lingers. And others that they visit in hopes of miracles.”

There were still fae in Europe, I knew, but most of them had come to the New World fleeing the spread of cold iron. Iron had followed them here, too, but they seemed to have come to some sort of terms with it. Tolkien’s elves had traveled to the West, and there were scholars who argued that Tolkien had known some of the fae left behind who spoke with longing of their kinsfolk who had traveled to the New World.

The horses stopped in front of what had once been a municipal building of some sort—the sign in front of it was hacked into indecipherable splinters, the bits of wood left where they lay, though the lawns were mowed and tidy.

As soon as the riders began to dismount, Adam turned the SUV off and got out. I scooted out behind Jesse because I wanted to make sure she wasn’t standing alone in the reservation for long. Of the six of us, she was the most vulnerable—which was why Adam had tried to leave her at home. Standing here, among our enemies—or at least our unpredictable and dangerous acquaintances—I wished he’d succeeded.

Two of the riders led the horses away, but the other one waited to escort us into the building. Adam went first, Zee and Tad took the rear guard, and the rest of us spread out between them.

The building wasn’t much to look at. Built to the military specs of the eighties, cement steps took them to a plain painted door set into uninspired vinyl siding. But inside . . .

Jesse sucked in her breath, and said, “It’s a TARDIS.”

“A what?” asked Aiden.

“Bigger on the inside than it is on the outside,” Jesse said.

She was right, because we’d entered not a small antechamber that probably had originally been the first thing visitors saw, but a spacious room with marble floors and pillars. The marble was pink, flecked with patches of black and gray. The room was empty, and our escort didn’t slow down as he crossed the room and out through one of many doorways. This one led to a large office, easily large enough it didn’t feel crowded despite floor-to-ceiling bookcases and the seven of us. In contrast to the size of the room, Beauclaire’s desk was of normal size. The fae lord himself sat behind it.

“Sir,” said our escort, “I bring you the guests you were expecting.” He didn’t wait for acknowledgment, just turned and left the room.

Beauclaire cleared away the papers he was working on and set them in a folder without hurrying. His desk was as hyperorganized as Adam’s. Adam had learned to organize in the army; I wondered where Beauclaire had picked up the habit. Only when the papers had been properly stowed did he turn his attention to us.

“Gentlemen,” said Beauclaire, his gaze drifting past Adam’s face and lighting on mine briefly before stopping to dwell on Jesse’s. “Ladies.”

“My daughter,” said Adam, answering the question the fae wouldn’t ask. “She needed to see us off on our journey.”

Beauclaire knew about daughters. His face lit with appreciation of our predicament.

“I told him no harm would come to her here,” said Zee.

Beauclaire met Zee’s eyes in a way he hadn’t Adam’s. “I am pleased to help you keep that vow.”

Zee inclined his head regally.

“You wouldn’t happen to know why Órlaith and several other fae of her cadre are missing, would you?” Beauclaire asked Zee.

Zee smiled and said nothing.

Beauclaire smiled back. Evidently, none of the missing would be missed by him.

Beauclaire reached into a desk drawer and brought out a roll of vellum. He stretched it out across his desk, so the lettering faced us, putting a paperweight at the top and the bottom to keep it rolled out. “The others have signed,” he told Adam. “When you have read it and signed, I’ll make my mark, and the bargain will be made.”

Adam nodded, pulled up a seat, and began to read. I read over his shoulder.

We, the Gray Lords of Faery, representing themselves and all of Faery, do make this bargain with Adam Alexander Hauptman and his mate Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, who represent themselves and the Columbia Basin Pack . . .

When Adam was finished, he stood up and looked at Zee. “Would you mind going through it as well?”

Zee nodded. It didn’t take him as long as it had us. “It says what we think it does,” he said, his smile brief but real. “It helps that the fae want this more than you do.”

After Tad nodded, too, I wrote my name in the space left for me, then handed Adam the quill pen to sign. Beauclaire rounded the desk to sign rather than turn the sheet around.

When he was finished, he set the pen aside and put his hand on the vellum. He took three deep breaths, and magic swelled. I sneezed twice and still couldn’t get the tickle out of my nose.

Beauclaire bent his head then, and spoke a word. Adam put his hand on my shoulder, but Beauclaire didn’t use the kind of power he’d called when destroying the bridge. When he took his hand off the document, there were two copies.

He rolled them both and wrapped some kind of keeper around the rolls. One of those he left on his desk, and the other he gave to Zee.

“I’ll take you to a door,” he said, and started out of his office, only to pause in the doorway. “You should take off any iron or steel you have on your persons.”

But Adam had spent the night going through the go-bags he kept ready and waiting in our closet. He’d substituted plastic and nylon for most of the metal.

I had a thought. “Adam. Your dog tags. What are they made from?”

“Stainless steel,” Adam told me, and started to take his off.

I had one of his tags on the necklace I always wore. I undid the clasp and looked at it. It was an untidy mess—a gold lamb charm, my wedding ring, and the tag. I put out my hand and took Adam’s steel necklace with his remaining tag—and then I put both necklaces around Jesse’s neck.

“These are our promise to you,” I told Jesse, “that we’ll do our best to get back to you if we can. That we will do our best and expect the same from you.”

“That’s my Mercy,” Adam said. “Not too good with words until it counts. And then she’ll pull the rug right out from under you.”

Jesse blinked hard and gave Adam a “help me” look out of her watery eyes.

He grinned at her. “Just remember whose daughter you are,” he said. “And whose daughter she is.” He tipped his chin at me.

I felt my jaw set hard. But I didn’t protest. “Joe Old Coyote,” said Jesse.

Who had been Coyote wearing a human suit. Joe Old Coyote had died, not abandoned my mother. Coyote had abandoned my mother—and me.

“Joe Old Coyote was tough,” Adam told Jesse, putting an arm around my shoulders. “He hunted vampires, and he took on Mercy’s mom. Of the two, I know what I’m more scared of.”

That made me laugh. “My mom isn’t that bad.”

Adam gave me a look.

I bit my lip, then gave up and laughed again. “Okay, okay. She is. Worse. I’d rather face vampires any day than my mother.”

“I found her charming,” said Zee.

Laughter, I thought with satisfaction, is a terrific way to start an adventure.