‘Oh, and I poured salted river-water down your throat while you were out of it.’ I heard Bandana say happily through the noise of my own retching. ‘Didn’t want the magic to have any nasty lingering after-effects.’
Sadistic bastard.
‘You’re the only nasty lingering after-effect round here,’ I spat out when I could, wishing, not for the first time, that I’d blasted the whole of Bandana into wood shavings when he’d tried to kidnap me, instead of just his appendages.
Finn held out a bottle of water. He’d just called it, so it was ice-cold from the fridge. I thanked him, rinsed my mouth and gave it him back—and it disappeared. Clasping his offered hand, I hauled myself up and stood swaying as another bout of dizziness hit.
I shrugged on my jacket, glad of its warmth against the chill breeze, and held on to Finn as I willed the light-headedness away. The Thames rushed past behind us, its waters slapping loudly against the concrete dock, almost blotting out the background buzz of tourists and traffic. A raucous caw drew my attention up to Tower Bridge above us. A large raven perched on one of the parapets, head cocked to one side, watching. Was the bird something to do with the dead faeling? There were ravens at the nearby Tower of London—
The bird dived down and past us and my gaze caught on the high railings fencing off the dock from the public, behind which a snap-happy contingent of paparazzi were clustered, their cameras flashing like a mini electric storm. I froze in panic until I realised the cameras weren’t pointed at our little group but at the half-dozen uniforms—Constable Martin among them—gathered by the police cruiser tied up at the dock.
‘The dryad cast an Unseen spell,’ Finn muttered, squeezing my hand reassuringly.
Relief filled me, then Bandana being first on the scene clicked in my mind. His presence wasn’t likely to be a coincidence. Ignoring the fear that sliced through my gut, I shot him a disgusted look. ‘You’ve been following me, haven’t you?’
‘No one ever notices a tree, unless we want them to.’ His cape of branches rustled proudly. ‘Not even those who stand in our shadow.’ He spread his arms out and turned a slow circle, magic dripping from his fingertips like raindrops from twigs. ‘Something else you should thank me for, sidhe.’
My attempted rapist was stalking me.
I swallowed, hoping I wasn’t going to vomit again. I had to stop him.
Finn let go my hand and took a step forward, his fists clenched. ‘You and the rest were to keep your distance until the Summer Solstice, dryad. That was what was agreed.’
I had to get him to leave me alone. Just as soon as I could move without falling over.
‘That was before dead faelings started clogging up the river,’ Bandana sneered. ‘What happens if she’s next? You might be first in the queue, satyr, but snagging pole position means sod all if the sidhe’s dead. We have to protect our future.’
I needed a plan.
‘Gen’s more than capable of protecting herself most of the time, dryad,’ Finn growled, and I mentally cheered him on, ‘but if she does need help, you’d be last on her list.’
Bandana wasn’t even on the list.
I took a steadying breath and nudged Finn’s arm, telling him to stay out of it, then, moving slowly, I walked towards the dock’s handrail until I was out of sight of the press, not wanting to rely on Bandana and his Unseen spell. I looked down at the river—the tide was in, and the water eddied brown and murky just below the dock—then turned to face Bandana. ‘I want you to take a message to Lady Isabella,’ I said calmly. Lady Isabella wasn’t high on my list of BFFs, but since she was Head Dryad and Bandana’s graft-mother, I knew he’d pay attention.
He strode over and stood next to the railing, legs apart, branches flexing, leering down at me. ‘What’s the message, sidhe?’
‘Tell her I don’t want you or any of her other thugs following me.’
He made a noise like branches creaking in the wind: laughing. ‘You forget I just saved your life or something, sidhe?’
Talk about bigging himself up! My life hadn’t ever been in danger, not that I bothered to tell him that. Instead I focused on the group of uniforms by the dock and called the Stun spell from Constable Martin’s baton. She didn’t notice as the green firefly of magic shot towards me. Luckily, I caught it easily this time and held it up between us. ‘Now, I can be civilised if you think you can persuade Lady Isabella I’m serious. Or I can leave you here for her to find.’ I hit him with a ‘just give me an excuse’ look. ‘I’m easy, so it’s your choice.’
‘Lady Isabella won’t be happy if you do anything to me,’ he sneered, the tips of his whip-like branches flaring warily around him.
I shrugged, bouncing the Stun spell on my palm. ‘That’ll make two of us then, seeing as I’m so not happy right now.’
‘You’ll be even less happy if something happens to you,’ he said, keeping a watchful eye on the Stun spell, obviously calculating whether he could dodge it from this close.
‘A point I happen to agree with,’ I said matter-of-factly, ‘which is why there’s a more interesting part to my message.’
He stopped watching the spell and frowned at me.
‘So here’s the deaclass="underline" I’ll agree to the dryads courting me’—his yellow eyes widened, and behind me I heard Finn stifle a groan—‘but I won’t accept you or anyone else in your gang who took part in your little “rape the sidhe” excursion. Got it?’
Bandana’s expression turned sullen for a moment, then he nodded sharply. ‘Got it, sidhe.’ He looked over my shoulder at Finn. ‘Well, satyr, seeing as the sidhe’s all hot for some real wood in her bed, looks like you’re missing more than sap in your pencil.’ He laughed, and the mocking, creaking sound was repeated by the nearby trees. ‘But hey, no hard feelings; drop by sometime and I’ll give you some tips on how to get it up.’
Anger and disgust ripped through me. He really wasn’t worth the ground he was planted in.
‘Try keeping it up like this,’ I muttered and before he could react I slapped the spell on his chest. Burned mint scorched the air as green lightning arced around him, shoving him back against the railing as it stunned him. Impulsively, I dropped to a crouch, hooked my hands behind his ankles and used his own momentum to heave him up and over the railing. The splash as he hit the water echoed through the loud buzzing in my head as my legs gave way and I collapsed onto my knees, gasping; the exertion was too much, too soon after being jerked around by The Mother. I knelt there, watching in a satisfied daze as the fast currents of the Thames whisked Bandana’s unconscious body away. Lady Isabella would still get my message, just not quite so quickly.
After a few minutes, I realised Finn was again offering me a hand. I looked up to meet his gaze.
‘Lady Isabella’s not the only one who’s not going to be happy,’ he said quietly, belying the flash of anger in his eyes.
No, she wasn’t. I wrapped my fingers round his and let him help me up. ‘He’s a willow; a trip down the river isn’t going to kill him. Unfortunately.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant, Gen.’
‘I know,’ I said, reluctantly pulling my hand from his and stepping back.
‘Why, Gen?’ A muscle twitched along his jaw, but beneath the anger, I could see the hurt, and remorse pricked at me. ‘Why did you do that, why agree to let them near you, when I’ve done everything in my power to keep them away from you? To keep you safe?’
He had. For the last five months he’d kept a gentlemanly distance from me, while managing to convince the rest of London’s fae he was my boyfriend/lover/whatever. He’d also convinced everyone to respect our privacy after the trauma of Hallowe’en and Grace’s death—‘privacy’ being a nice euphemism for: no, we weren’t going to have sex in the middle of a public fertility rite for all to witness, no matter how much they all considered that a great idea. I owed him a hell of a lot for that, and I’d find some way to repay him, but—