“We have to get her away—we have to save her!” he was shouting to Lachlan.
“Save her from what exactly?” Lachlan’s voice was a bored drawl. “She doesn’t appear to be in any danger,” he went on. “In fact, she seems to have tamed a kelpie completely on her own. Someone with that much power doesn’t need help from the likes of you or me, O’Connor.”
I had no idea what they were talking about, but it finally dawned on me that seeing me with the white horse was causing Bran a great deal of distress. And, I reluctantly acknowledged, I couldn’t actually take off with my new pet and go riding over rainbows, no matter how attractive that idea sounded. I had a real life I had to live—homework to do, tests to take, not to mention rent to pay on our crappy apartment. If I left now, how would Mom make it alone?
Also, how would I ever graduate and go to college and live in the real world if I just took off with Airgead? As much fun as it might be, riding a magical horse between realms doesn’t exactly pay a living wage.
I wished I could ignore the practical part of me, but it was impossible. It was time to let my new pet go, though I really, really didn’t want to.
“Airgead,” I told him. “I’m afraid we have to say goodbye now.”
He whinnied loudly and shook his head, his silvery mane flying in negation.
But I am yours! You have tamed me to your hand—something every maiden who has ever seen me has sought to do and could not. I have been waiting for you all my long life, Mistress Emma. And now you wish to send me away?
“I don’t have anyplace to keep you,” I said sadly. “And you’re a magical horse—you wouldn’t like living in the human world. It’s really dull here.” Well, for the most part, anyway—though my own life had certainly been anything but dull lately.
The feeling I got from Airgead was sad but resigned. Slowly, he got to his feet.
May I at least come to you when you are in the Realm? he asked.
“Of course you can,” I promised him, though I had absolutely zero expectation that I would ever willingly enter the Fae Realm. “And…I’ll never forget you.”
I reached up to hug his proudly arching neck and the white horse put his head over my shoulder and breathed his sweet breath into my hair.
My Mistress, he said to me, I shall await your coming.
Then he took a step back, gave me one last look with those huge, liquid black eyes of his, and galloped into the forest.
I saw a flash of light and then he was gone.
29
I wanted to cry as I watched Airgead disappear into the forest. For a brief, shining second, I had felt as though all my preadolescent fantasies could actually come true. Those dreams that are the best and purest part of ourselves are gone so quickly, replaced by grownup wishes and desires that are somehow never quite as good.
Sighing deeply, I took a step back and my foot crunched on something. Looking down, I saw that I had stepped on the paper sack filled with rusty iron nails and that some of them had spilled out of it. Automatically, I bent to pick them up.
“Be careful—is that iron?” Lachlan’s voice was sharp and much more worried than it had been when I had been touching the kelpie.
“It’s all right,” Bran told him, sounding much more relaxed than he had been a moment before. “Iron doesn’t hurt her.”
“Who is this, anyway?” Lachlan asked, still staring down at me. “She can tame a kelpie without even trying and touch iron with no ill effects, yet I can tell she has Fae in her. Her blood sings to mine whenever I’m near her.”
“This is Emma Plunkett and she is under a glamour,” Bran explained. “I need your help to lift it.”
“Is that all?” Lachlan made a derisive sound. “You’re calling in your life-debt to lift a simple glamour? Has your power faded since you entered the human world, O’Connor?”
“It has not,” Bran said stiffly. “But this is no ordinary glamour. Come on, I’ll explain it when we get out of these woods.”
I felt relieved when we left the tangled forest behind and found ourselves back at Bran’s house.
“You have to be quiet,” Bran told Lachlan. “My parents and sister are asleep and I don’t want them waking up. My father would be very upset if he found out I violated our exile by calling you.”
“Your secret is safe with me.” Lachlan mimed twisting a key to lock his lips and throwing it over his left shoulder.
“Thank you,” Bran said stiffly. “I trust your word but my father might not.”
Lachlan’s perfect face twisted.
“What? Because I was born Unseelie? Doesn’t it count that I’ve declared my status as a Solitary Fae now?”
“You know my father and his views,” Bran said, frowning. “I can’t change his mind, so I don’t even try. Just keep quiet, all right?”
“Fine.” Lachlan shrugged, as though how Bran’s father saw him didn’t matter to him but I thought there was hurt under the nonchalance.
Was it really so bad to be Unseelie as opposed to Seelie? I had very little idea what the difference was. I only knew a little about the Fae—mostly that they were all bubble-headed blondes like Morganna, who thought they were too good to hang around with humans. To be completely honest, I really disliked them— but now I was realizing I knew almost nothing about them.
We got into the house and went quietly to Bran’s room, where he firmly shut the door. Out in the forest, I had almost forgotten how I looked. But now I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over Bran’s dresser. I winced all over again at how hideous I was.
“All right,” Lachlan said, assuming a professional tone as he looked me over. “She’s under a glamour all right. Tell me the details—what happened?”
Bran told him how I had tasted the Suva and then suddenly transformed into my current, uglified form.
“I gave her the counter-spell but it didn’t work,” he told Lachlan. “And I can’t leave her like this.”
“No, you certainly can’t!” I put in. “This is not okay.”
“Hmm…well…” I was sitting on the side of Bran’s bed and Lachlan came and knelt before me. He took my face in his hands and looked at me first from one direction then from another. It almost felt like he was a doctor examining me.
I noticed his clothing was as black as his hair and seemed to be slightly old-fashioned. Or maybe that was just how they dressed in the Realm of the Fae.
“Thank you for doing this for me. For helping me, I mean,” I said, feeling awkward, as I always did, around extremely good-looking people. I knew I shouldn’t let myself be intimidated by their looks but I couldn’t help it—both Bran and Lachlan were intensely gorgeous. I’m talking movie-star perfect. Even if I had been my normal self, they both would have been way out of my league and right now I looked awful.
I knew from experience that a guy as good-looking as either Lachlan or Bran would have simply not noticed me in the regular course of events. I just wasn’t pretty enough to attract their attention, so they would have looked right through me. So, to have Lachlan studying me so intently was unnerving to say the least.