Wil, sitting on the blanket he’d gone into trance on, froze, too afraid to move. But not too afraid to speak.
“I had to. It was the only way to get Jasmine.”
“Yeah, it worked pretty well, huh?”
He sounded near tears. “I’d gone a year without any chance of getting her. Then that sprite cut me the deal. Said if I got you to go over, they’d give me Jasmine back. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t move the gun. “I was your only chance to get her back. If you hadn’t led us into that trap, we’d be back here with her now.”
He groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I just wanted her so badly.” He looked back up at me. “What happened? Why did she run away? Was she scared?”
“Maybe. Or it could be that…what’s that called? Where people help their kidnappers? Stockholm syndrome?”
“What, like Patty Hearst? No. Jasmine wouldn’t do that.”
I wasn’t so sure. She was young and impressionable, and Aeson struck me as a very forceful figure.
“He’s too pathetic to kill,” observed Finn after studying Wil for a moment.
“No harm in doing it anyway,” said Volusian. “Kill him and enslave his soul.”
Wil’s eyes widened farther.
“Eugenie!” Tim stared at me like I was insane. “You aren’t seriously considering that.”
Probably not. Sighing, I lowered the gun. “Get out of here, Wil. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
He scrambled to his feet, face falling. “But Jasmine-”
“You lost your chance. You blew it. Get in your car before I do something stupid.”
Wil hesitated, his face pleading and upset. Then wordlessly he headed toward the trail that led out to a makeshift parking area. I watched him leave, bitter anger boiling up within me. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
“Eugenie…” began Tim hesitantly. A slight wind ruffled his hair.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Take me home.”
We gathered up his things and walked in the direction Wil had gone.
“Meet me back at my house,” I told the minions. They vanished.
Tim had enough sense to leave me alone on the car ride back. I leaned my head against the window, liking the feel of the cool glass against my fevered cheek. So many things had happened tonight, I had no idea what to fixate on first. Jasmine? Wil’s betrayal? Aeson’s stupid accusation? Kiyo?
Yes. Kiyo was probably the safest, which was saying something. My heart had leapt at seeing him again. It was stupid, considering the way he’d used me, but my emotions didn’t appear to realize that yet. Why? Why did he have this pull on me when I barely knew him? I didn’t believe in love at first sight.
And what about the fox thing? I knew of no gentry who could do that, but I did know shape-shifters filled the Otherworld. I’d fought some before but never a fox. Seemed like a weird choice. Perhaps that explained why he hadn’t felt gentry. He was something else, not gentry but still Otherworldly. Not much of an improvement.
I left Tim as soon as we got home, seeking out the solitude of my room. Well, as much solitude as I could get with the three spirits waiting for me. I threw myself onto the bed, leaning into the corner where the bed sat against the wall. Exhaustion ran through me, and I did and said nothing, staring into the darkness. Thunder rumbled again but seemed fainter now, like the storm had changed its mind. The spirits simply waited and watched me.
“Tell me what just happened.”
“Um, which part?” asked Finn after a minute.
“Any of it. Tell me what Kiyo is. The fox.”
“Oh.” Finn seemed relieved to have a question he could answer. “He’s a kitsune. Japanese fox spirit.”
“Roland taught me hundreds of magical creatures. Never heard of a kitsune.”
“You don’t find them around here much,” explained Finn. “And they’re not really dangerous.”
“He looked dangerous enough to me.”
“They carry animal traits into human form,” said Volusian. “Strength. Speed. A certain sense of aggression.”
I thought about sex with Kiyo. Yeah. That had been pretty aggressive. I closed my eyes.
“Why would he mark me and then follow me?”
“I do not know.”
It figured.
“Anything else I should know about him? About them?”
“They’re usually female. Men are rare. Perhaps his human blood affected that,” said Nandi in her emotionless voice.
“Half-human? Oh. His mother was the kitsune,” I mused, recalling him talking about his parents.
“Yeah,” agreed Finn. “The women are supposed to be pretty hot. Like sirens. Real seductive. Men can’t stay away from them.”
“Like a drug,” added Volusian.
I opened my eyes. “Could he do that too?”
“Possibly.”
Suddenly my obsession seemed less weird than twisted. Had he used some sort of sexual power to lure me in? Was that why I couldn’t stop thinking about him?
“I guess half-human isn’t so bad,” I muttered, speaking out loud without meaning to. I hadn’t bedded a full-fledged Otherworldly creature.
“Not bad at all,” agreed Finn happily. “He’s just like you.”
“Stop it,” I snapped. “That whole thing…what Aeson said…it’s stupid. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And like so much, you ignore what you don’t want to hear. Being Storm King’s daughter is no small thing.” Volusian’s red eyes held my gaze.
“Your bluntness is so endearing.” My stomach turned, but it was now or never. “All right. I’ll bite. Why does Aeson think that?”
None of them had an answer right away. The impression I got from them was surprise more than ignorance.
“Because you are, mistress,” said Nandi at last.
“No, I’m not. I’m human.”
Volusian crossed his arms over his chest. “You are half-human, mistress. And as I said, your prejudice blinds you from the truth.”
“One gentry’s accusation isn’t the truth. Where are the facts?”
“Facts? Very well. Here are facts. Who is your father?”
“Roland.”
“You know what I mean, mistress. Who is your blood father?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. My mom always said he was a bastard not worth knowing.”
Volusian stared at me expectantly.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“What about your powers? You are rapidly surpassing every other human shaman. You are equal in strength in both worlds. Do you think it’s coincidence that the most powerful shaman in remembered history grew up in Roland Markham’s household? He brought you there, taking you from Storm King.”
“From where? Are you saying I was born in the Otherworld?”
Volusian inclined his head. “Storm King abducted your mother and made her his mistress. She bore his child. You.”
“You seemly awfully sure about this.”
“I saw your mother when she lived in the Otherworld. I have seen her in this world. She’s the same woman.”
“You’re lying.”
“By the power that binds us, you know I am not.”
He was right. He couldn’t lie to me-not so openly, at least. I knew that, and acknowledging that forced me to put my own world into a new perspective. It might explain why my mother hated the Otherworld so much. Why she and Roland had been adamant about instilling that hate in me, making sure I could never have any empathy with the gentry or anything else from that world.
I swallowed and realized I was on the verge of tears. God. That would probably blow the show of strength I always tried to hold around these guys. We needed to get through this interview. “So, are you saying that’s why Roland eventually killed him? To protect me?”
“Among other things. Storm King’s invasion was imminent. He had come to claim you. Roland Markham killed him, both saving you and halting Storm King’s plans.”
“So Dorian was telling the-wait a minute. He knew! That bastard. He sat there and fed me that stuff about Storm King, knowing who I was!”
“Everyone knows who you are, mistress,” said Nandi.
“It’s pretty recent, though,” added Finn, seeing the look on my face. “Came out only a couple of weeks ago. The same time everyone learned your real name.”