“Thank you all so much for coming out today to hear our favorite guest author. I know she needs no introduction, so without further ado, here is Lady Fiona Campbell, England’s beloved author and illustrator, to talk about her book, The Forest Fairies.”
The room erupted into whistles and applause, and Fiona’s cheeks pinked up again, which fascinated Christophe so much he nearly tripped over one of the younglings near the back of the crowd, where he stood. The tiny girl looked up at him, all big eyes and pigtails, and he tried not to grimace. She scooted nearer to her mum, though, as if she’d seen inside him to the scary monster within. That was one thing about kids, they were perceptive.
He’d known the couple who’d adopted him were zealots past the point of insanity, but nobody in that backward hamlet listened to a four-year-old child. At least not until he’d started crying for his parents and for Atlantis, and his budding magic talent had displayed itself.
Then they’d listened.
“Mister, are you okay?” The small voice caught his attention and snapped him out of dark thoughts. “You look sad.”
It was another small girl, this one brave enough to approach the scary man. Before he could answer, she reached out with one tiny hand and patted his arm. “When I’m sad, I read one of Lady Fiona’s books and it makes me feel better. Just listen to her read and I bet you feel better, too.”
He blinked and stared down at her in utter astonishment. No child had dared approach him in centuries. He’d even wondered sometimes if when Atlantean parents warned children of the things that go bump in the night, they pointed to him as a fearsome example. Now this tiny girl whose curly-haired head barely reached his waist was comforting him.
Any moment, a seahorse would sprout wings and fly through the room.
She smiled up at him, her two front teeth missing, and something in his heart, long unused and rusty, lurched a little. “I think you’re right,” he told her, but then her mother was there, grabbing the girl’s hand and snatching her away.
“So sorry if she bothered you,” the woman said, but Christophe saw the suspicion in her eyes. She probably thought he was a predator, here to snack on the children.
“No bother at all.”
Declan stepped up next to him and grinned at the woman and little girl. “Declan Campbell, Fiona’s brother. I see you’ve met our friend, Christophe.”
The woman’s suspicion melted away in a genuine smile. “No, but Lily did. She’s never known a stranger she doesn’t make into a friend in a heartbeat.”
“A dangerous trait in a child,” Christophe said harshly. “Not all who smile are friends.”
Her smile faltered and she took a step back. “Of course. Quite right.” As she hurried away with her child, Declan shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced up at Christophe, who had a few inches on him.
“Making friends wherever you go, I see.”
Christophe glared at the boy. “Anyone who calls another friend too easily is a fool.”
Declan shrugged, not intimidated in the least. “And anybody who doesn’t is alone. Which is worse?”
Christophe opened his mouth to answer and then decided to ignore the impertinent boy. He turned his attention to Fiona, who was well into her reading. She told the story of a Gille Dubh, a lonely and lost dark-haired lad who played and danced in the forest, clothed in moss and leaves, luring unwary children to come and play. Unfortunately, once they danced with the Gille Dubh, they were stolen away to the land of the Fae, to play and dance for years and years and years, until their parents and everyone they’d ever known were long dead.
It was a grim tale, the truth behind her made-up story, and only too real. Christophe had no love for the Fae, who played games with humans as easily as though with chess pieces on their carved marble boards. But in Fiona’s version, the lad—a spirit, no longer a living child—fell in love with a bonny lass who enticed him back into the sunshine of the fields, which released him from the spell of the Fae, and he became a real boy again.
As in so many modern fairy tales, the children in the tale all lived happily ever after. If only life outside of books were as happy or predictable.
“We need to help now,” Declan said, and Christophe realized that everyone was clapping and standing up from their seats. “They’ll ask questions and then queue up to get their books signed.”
“What do we do?” Christophe asked, bemused that this lad was confident enough in his new partner to order him around like an old friend. Hopkins would have been pointing a gun at him, undoubtedly.
“We ask for names, entertain the kids in the line, that sort of thing.”
Christophe folded his arms across his chest. “Do I look like the sort of man who would stand around entertaining children?”
Declan blinked. “Actually, I don’t know what you look like. You don’t seem to exist in any database, civilian or governmental, so I’m guessing Fae. Hopkins has a bit of a talent for reading minds, actually more like reading intent, and he said you believed you’d never harm us, and, well, you rather look a bit like an action film star, but this is what we do, you wanted to be here, soooo . . .”
It took Christophe a moment to work his way through all that. Hopkins could read people, could he? Obviously not in any degree of specificity or the questions that morning would have been a great deal more intense. As to entertaining children? “Absolutely not. I’ll be out front, looking for danger, protecting our flank, and that sort of action film star thing.”
“Whatever, dude. Gotta get busy.” Declan strolled off, turning on his not inconsiderable charm, leaving Christophe blinking at the idea that a human man—barely a man, practically a child himself—had just called him dude and Christophe hadn’t stabbed him for it. Something was very, very wrong.
Maybe the sex had made him soft.
He grabbed one of the books on his way to the front of the store, where he could breathe since the crowd was all centered around Fiona. As he casually opened the book and started flipping through the pages, he slowed, and then returned to the first page to begin the story. Examining each illustration, he realized that Fiona had a true gift. The soft watercolors made her paintings come so alive that he half expected the fairy to dance right off the page. Her imaginative retelling of the tale kept the slightest undercurrent of danger, but the bright, cheerful language and happy ending guaranteed both small children and parents alike would be content to share this book, over and over, at bedtime, with no fear that it might cause nightmares of being stolen by the Fae.
Not that only the Fae stole children. Sometimes humans stole children after the Fae finished murdering their parents in front of them.
He gritted his teeth against the memories that he’d thought safely buried in the dark recesses of his mind so many long years ago. Perhaps being around all these children was doing it. Whatever the cause, he needed it to stop. He needed to focus. Steal the Siren, forget about his worthless childhood, and conquer his obsession with the Scarlet Ninja.
Easy.
No problem at all.
The voice that spoke up behind him was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. “Christophe, we’ve got a problem.”
Chapter 13
Christophe swung around to find Denal standing behind him. The younger warrior was trying to act casual and doing a terrible job of it. In his black clothing, the bones in his face standing out starkly, Denal was as out of place in the children’s bookshop as Christophe himself. Looking around, though, Christophe noticed several of the mothers—and a couple of the fathers—giving the two of them more than friendly looks. The Atlantean gene pool working its magic. Christophe scowled, and most of them quickly found something else to do.