In the days following their return to the realm, Clover had a lot of explaining to do. Their last-minute sojourn onto Earth hadn’t exactly gone as planned. Not only did they discover Mirabella’s betrayal and lose her to Alistair, but they’d also returned with a much-aged Button. She wasn’t sure which was worse—Button’s heartbreaking reunion with Sinann or Scobert’s utter anguish over the news about Mirabella. If she had to choose, her heart bled doubly for Scobert. Not only did he lose Mirabella again, but his wife, too. When she’d learned that Alistair had Mirabella, Therese had quickly dropped the act and admitted her treachery, spouting praise and adulation for Alistair like some kind of crazed cult member. Queen Helena quickly saw her to the dungeons, and Scobert had been a wreck ever since.
Even Momma Ruth was quick to point out how foolish their secret excursion had been. “I love you, sweetie,” she said as she poured them tea in Anna’s living room, “but what were you thinking?”
Clover’s shoulders slumped. “There was no way of knowing everything would go horribly wrong.”
Andie grabbed a biscuit from the serving tray and nibbled at it. “I had a bad feeling from the start.”
“Gee, thanks,” Clover shot back.
Anna, ever the diplomat, chimed in. “There’s no use pointing fingers now.” Then, she sighed heavily. “Such a shame, though. Any faerie could have told you that returning Button to Earth after all these years would undoubtedly trigger a hastened aging process. She is, after all, a human.”
“If only we’d told Kean like I suggested,” Andie offered up.
“I swear to God, Andie—” Clover started.
“Sorry. Just saying.” Andie held her hands up in mock surrender.
Burying her face in her hands, Clover let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re right, though. This was all my fault. We shouldn’t have left.”
“Like I said,” Anna chimed in, “assigning blame doesn’t do us any good right now. This was nobody’s fault.”
Clover had to admire Anna’s grit and resilience. Despite having to deal with the extant possibility she’d lost her son to the Unseelie King, she still managed to hold her chin up and keep it together, a true class act.
“I still can’t believe Mirabella was in cahoots with Alistair,” Momma Ruth mused, shaking her head. “She seemed like such a sweet girl.”
“I hardly think the girl had a choice,” Anna said. “She and her mother disappeared so many years ago. It’s clear now that Alistair was the culprit, which means he’d had all this time to get his hooks in them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been completely brainwashed. I just hope they didn’t gather too much intelligence while they were spying for him.”
Close to tears, Clover gave herself a little shake, attempting to regain some composure. She still couldn’t believe Mirabella had lied to them. Every time she thought about it, a lump formed in her throat and her hurt rippled to the surface.
As if reading her thoughts, Andie reached for her hand and said, “I know. I still can’t believe it, either. Floors me every time. I really liked her, too. You couldn’t have predicted she’d do that.”
“She did help us escape,” Clover said.
“That’s true,” Andie conceded. “Buyer’s remorse. She probably realized too late she’d sided with the wrong faerie.”
“In the end, she sacrificed herself for us.”
“Don’t you do that,” Andie said, chastising. “You are not going to feel guilty about Mirabella. You did what you had to do to survive.”
Despite her oftentimes happy-go-lucky attitude, Andie possessed a practical, no-nonsense world view which never failed to set Clover to rights. She inwardly appreciated the random series of unfortunate events that brought Andie to the faerie realm. She wasn’t sure how she’d cope without her.
“You’re right,” Clover conceded.
Momma Ruth gently cupped Clover’s cheek with her palm. “No matter how many road bumps we encounter and no matter how far we veer from the path, all we can do is keep on going.”
Clover nodded, silently vowing to dust herself off and, like Momma Ruth said, to keep on going. What choice did she have?
“It’s been tough going for all of us,” Anna said. “Tomorrow, the Seelie Court celebrates Lughnasadh, the Harvest Festival. I believe we could all welcome a little distraction. I’ve been enlisted to prepare a dish for the evening’s festivities. Anybody care to help me roast a calf on an open spit?”
“I’m in,” they all replied in unison.
In the many lifetimes Helena had known Scobert, she’d seen every side of him—from the downright silly to the unequivocally frightening—but in all those years, she hadn’t seen him quite so broken. The first time he’d lost his family, he’d gone on an angry rampage for nearly two decades, ostracizing everyone, including Helena. When his family returned, a long-ago extinguished light had turned on inside him, and much as it pained Helena to let go of what they’d shared, she couldn’t deny him a chance at happiness. Now that he’d lost them again, this time to betrayal, the wounds inflicted seemed too deep to heal.
Alone with him in her private quarters, Helena sought to find soothing words, but failed. She reverted instead to the one topic they’d always found common ground on—war.
“Lughnasadh befalls us and while the Court celebrates, our forces should be on high-alert. I wouldn’t put it past Alistair to try something,” Helena said, pacing the room.
Scobert was sprawled in one of Helena’s ancient armchairs. He exhaled, his jaw set. “I can almost guarantee he has something up his sleeve. He attempted to close the portals on Midsummer’s Eve, one of the great festivals of the Daoine Sidhe—an auspicious day, where magic is at its strongest and the walls that divide the worlds at their weakest. Harvest Festival is perhaps not quite as magical as Midsummer’s, but propitious, nonetheless. A perfect opportunity to complete the spell he’d botched when he failed to offer up Clover’s life to close the portals forever.”
“We’ll have Clover guarded and increase the fortifications on all the portals to the realm,” Helena said.
“He hardly needs Clover now, does he?”
Helena’s brow furrowed. “Of course, he does. He needs a half-blood to complete the spell.”
“Don’t you see?” Scobert almost shouted. “He has Mirabella. My daughter is half-Fae.”
As realization hit Helena, she instinctively found the closest chair and slumped down, ashen.
Scobert got up and paced the room. “It was his plan from the start—the reason he’d snatched my family. He’d groomed Mirabella to be his back-up and my wife a weapon used against me!”
“We won’t let him succeed,” Helena vowed.
A bevy of conflicting emotions seemed to plague Scobert at once. The expression on his face vacillated from anger to remorse and back to fury within seconds. The more he paced the room, the more emotions seemed to find their way to the surface. Finally, he stopped in front of Helena and knelt before her, his head resting on her knees.
“Helena, I hope someday you’ll forgive me for hurting you,” he said, his voice rough. Then he raised his head to look up at her. “However many lifetimes it may take, I will make it my mission to regain your trust. I recognize the value you place on allegiance and honor—notions that I similarly take to heart. But know this: I will kill Alistair McCabe and if Finn gets in my way, I will do what needs to be done.”
Andie tossed and turned in Anna’s guest bedroom, her anxiety getting the best of her. Ever since Finn and Garrett had shown up at her doorstep on that fateful, yet otherwise ordinary morning, her life had become some sort of prolonged hallucination. Like Alice down the proverbial rabbit hole, she wondered if she’d perhaps descended too far and whether she’d still be able to find her way out. The longer she stayed in the realm, the farther the real world seemed, and as much as she enjoyed being there with Clover, she had no intention of becoming another Button, unaged and unchanged forever—that is until she returned to Earth and became an instant senior citizen.
At some point, she’d have to go back home and hopefully, Clover would return with her. The thought of life in New York without her best friend was just too stressful to fathom. She’d probably have to move apartments, she decided. The ghosts of four dead faeries didn’t exactly bode well for a homey living environment. As she tried to foresee the possible twists and turns her life was about to take, a soft breeze wafted in through an open window. She turned to her side, then pulled the covers up to her chin. Next thing she knew, she was enveloped in a warm embrace. Garrett.
“God, you’re sneaky,” Andie teased, feeling Garrett’s cool breath on the back of her neck; not yet daring to turn and face him.
Garrett muffled a laugh. “You still don’t fully appreciate the whole pooka thing, do you?”
What Andie fully appreciated was the fact that letting go of Garrett would be one of the toughest parts about leaving the faerie realm. She nestled against him, feeling safe in his arms. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” she whispered into the darkness.
A tender kiss landed on her nape. “You still haven’t,” Garrett breathed.
For what seemed like a very long time, they stayed like that—Garrett with his arms around her and Andie treasuring the priceless moment of just being, not wanting to say a word lest the spell be broken.
Finally, Garrett disturbed their tenuous calm. “I heard what happened in Brooklyn. I’m really sorry I wasn’t there to rip his freakin’ head off.”
Andie breathed a long sigh. “Everything is so messed up.”
“That it is,” Garrett agreed.
Andie reached for Garrett’s hand, interlocking her fingers with his. “What’s going to happen now?” she asked, sounding like a frightened child to her own ears.
“I don’t know,” Garrett admitted, and for the first time since she’d known him, Andie sensed a fissuring in his usual unshakeable façade.
“Will you stay?” Andie asked, then held her breath, fearing his answer.
“Not going anywhere, doll face,” Garrett said as he nuzzled in closer. “Not tonight.”
Andie closed her eyes and relaxed against him, knowing full well he’d probably be gone by morning.
Anna had always enjoyed the festivals of the Daoine Sidhe, the faerie-folk’s time-honored celebrations meant to mark the passing of the seasons. Whether in peace time or at the grips of war, Queen Helena and her Court had always upheld the realm’s traditions. This year, no matter how hard she tried to plaster a smile on her face and carry on as usual, she couldn’t quite get into the spirit of things; recent events making it virtually impossible. With Finn gone and Scobert in a state, every passing hour seemed to lead closer to disaster, as if they were all just bracing for yet another catastrophic train wreck.
Even when the usually comforting activity of prepping for an outdoor roast failed to lift Anna’s spirits, she donned the most believable happy face she could muster for the sake of her guests.
Mary was the first to arrive with a plate of pigeon pies. Anna laid the plate on a nearby table and gave her sister a tight hug. They regarded each other with the same concerned looks—they were both, after all, grieving for their sons.
“Is Scobert coming?” Anna asked.
Mary shook her head. “He’ll need some time.”
“Of course,” Anna said, understanding completely. Losing his family the first time had almost damaged Scobert irreparably. She couldn’t even imagine how hard he was taking this second blow.
A group of Anna’s neighbors arrived bearing crates of food, booze, and lawn chairs. It was tradition—every time Anna roasted meat on a spit, the whole block came to celebrate. She spotted Clover and Meara arrive with the crowd and waved them over.
They both had the same manufactured looks on their faces—shallow smiles that never quite reached their eyes. Anna almost laughed out loud. Her contrived block party was fast resembling a funeral rather than a feast.
Noticing Button’s absence, Anna shot Clover a quick inquiring look.
Clover cast her gaze downwards before meeting Anna’s eyes. “She didn’t feel like coming, but she sends her love.”
Her heart breaking for the poor girl, Anna simply nodded. “Come, the gang’s in the kitchen helping Ruth bake a cake.”
The mention of cake seemed to genuinely perk everybody up a tad. Anna rubbed her hands together and stood a little taller. No matter the present circumstances, she was going to try her darndest to enjoy the Harvest Festival and she’d be damned if she didn’t get everybody else to give it their best shot.
Button certainly didn’t feel like partying. Already self-conscious as a seventeen-year-old, morphing into a geriatric in the blink of an eye didn’t exactly help boost her self-esteem, especially since her girlfriend was drop-dead gorgeous—in Clover’s words, a supermodel—and now she looked old enough to be her grandmother. No sirree. She was fine on her own. Begging off of all Harvest Festival invites, she decided to take a long walk in the land where she grew up, the place she called home—the Land Beneath the Waves—the Otherworld.
As she traversed the extraordinarily beautiful walkways that miraculously meandered lazily through interconnected ponds, lakes, oceans, and rivers, she sighed contently. What business did she have inserting herself back in Brooklyn when she’d had a home all this time? When they’d returned beneath the waves that night and Sinann had seen her for the first time, she’d cried. Button had averted her gaze and shrunk from her touch, not even wanting to be in her presence, utterly mortified. Her stunning, statuesque girlfriend had gently cupped Button’s withered face in her delicate hands and whispered, “To me, you are eternally beautiful.”
The memory brought tears to her eyes and every step she took brought back more remembrances of her time in this other realm—the loving acceptance from Lir and Sinann’s whole clan, the friendships she’d forged, the extraordinary life she’d gotten to live. If she had wanted to return to Earth, all she needed to do was ask. In all those years, she never had. She wondered at whatever possessed her to try such a stunt without expecting consequences. Blood rushed to her face as she recalled Mirabella’s continuous prodding. She had been the one to plant the seed about attempting to find living relatives. Whatever her reasons may have been for deceiving them, Button doubted she had it in her heart to forgive her.
Walking past the city limits, Button made it to one of the largest ocean formations in the Otherworld, the one that connected to the Atlantic Ocean. A light mist enveloped the beach, the sea surging beyond it, prompting the most remarkable of Button’s memories. This was where she’d first crossed over from her world to Sinann’s: The Ninth Wave, one of the rarest portals into the Otherworld, existing only when the sea was ferocious, and the swells were majestic; its existence known only to the merrow-folk.
A lifetime ago, hand in hand with a beautiful, mysterious merrow, she had swum out to sea, meeting oncoming waves head-on, half elated, half-terrified. Each new wave was bigger than its predecessor, seemingly saturating her whole being. When she felt she couldn’t go any further, Sinann’s voice was in her head. The Ninth Wave will carry us to a new world. We’re almost there. She swam on, the Ninth Wave looming like a tsunami in the distance. When finally the surge was upon them, they dove and were lost to that world. They’d emerged on the other side, on a different sea.
Countless years after that life-altering day, Button gazed out to sea, her eyes tracked on the burgeoning crest in the distance, bigger than any wave ought to be, the Ninth Wave. She gingerly jogged along the rocky sea wall, passing each amplifying wave, reliving the journey those many years ago that had changed her life forevermore. Now completely soaked from the spray of the sea and the crashing waves, Button felt the same heart-pounding excitement she’d felt that day. Standing on the edge of the jetty, she closed her eyes as the Ninth Wave swelled and crashed upon the angry sea, drenching her from head to toe, nearly carrying her out to the water.
With a smile on her lips, she opened her eyes and was greeted by a most surprising sight. Three heads bobbed in the water, rocking with the ocean’s ebb and flow. Button crouched low and watched intently as the tides carried the mysterious travelers to shore, her curiosity peaking. She squinted as their silhouettes reached the shore, two of them clearly recognizable despite their soaked and bedraggled appearance. The third was someone she’d never seen before but whose identity she easily guessed at. A petite woman with rich mahogany skin. She would have bet her bottom dollar that if the lady turned around, she’d be greeted by blood-red eyes. Even though her advanced age had affected her eyesight, she was pretty darn sure. Alistair, Mirabella, and Iekika had just entered the Otherworld.
Alistair watched a contingent of Unseelie soldiers swim to shore while Iekika prepped for the sacrifice like a suburban housewife would for a tea party, with pep and precision. Since Lughnasadh wasn’t quite as magical as the summer solstice, the sorceress needed to make a few adjustments to amplify the magical field. After laying a blanket on the beach, she dragged Mirabella and unceremoniously plopped her down, and with a few flicks of her wrist, performed a binding spell. When the girl was safely contained within its four imaginary walls, Iekika drew an inverted triangle on the sand around the blanket, stepping aside every now and then to admire her handiwork. She clapped her hands together eagerly.
Of all the women Alistair had been involved with, Iekika was fast becoming the most useful, yet the most bizarre. Her allegiance to him was only bested by her own uncanny abilities to inflict harm on others.
“How much longer?” Alistair asked.
“Almost,” Iekika replied while she drew another line on the sand, this one inside the triangle, parallel to the bottom.
Mirabella sat on the blanket, still as a statue, her fierce, emerald eyes shooting daggers at Alistair.
“Spare me the attitude, mutt. You knew this was coming,” Alistair mocked.
She held her chin up. “I’m keeping my end of the bargain. You better keep yours.”
Alistair laughed, marveling at the girl’s audacity to make demands while facing her impending death. “And if I don’t?”
Mirabella charged at Alistair but was held back by magical restraints. “You promised me you’d keep my mother alive!”
“Relax, child. Your mother is no good to me dead. If I ever break her free from Helena’s dungeons, she will live.”
The Unseelie soldiers made their way to shore, all heavily armed and foul tempered.
“Iekika, I don’t have all day,” Alistair admonished. “Are we ready?”
The sorceress beamed at him, and the effect, quite frankly, was frightening. “We are ready. Do you recall the spell?”
Alistair nodded. Every word of that spell had been faithfully etched into his brain, waiting for this moment. He’d failed to offer Clover up as sacrifice at Midsummer; there was no way he was making the same mistake again. A half-Fae bride would die by his hands tonight. Knowing that all the portals to Faerie would be monitored by Helena’s men, he chose the most obscure portal in the realm, one very few knew of: The Ninth Wave, a rare phenomenon and closely guarded secret by the merrow-folk. He had his love-affair with Meara to thank for that bit of useful inside information. Especially in matters of the heart, he was nothing if not resourceful.
He walked over to Mirabella and pulled her up. “Are you ready for marriage and death?”
“Death would be a welcome reprieve after being married to you,” Mirabella hissed.
Alistair traced a finger from her temple to her collar bone, admiring her hutzpah. “You are a beautiful woman.” He leaned in until their lips were barely touching. “Soon to be a beautiful corpse.”
He turned to Iekika. “Perform the ceremony. Quickly.”
The sorceress raised both hands upright like she was declaring a touchdown. The sky turned dark, and the sea raged. Alistair smiled to himself.
Usually always at Queen Helena’s side, Liz opted to forego Lughnasadh festivities for the first time in centuries. She stayed behind in the queen’s private quarters, under the pretense of tidying up. Helena, ever pragmatic, had allowed her the charade, fully understanding her predicament. Although her physical wounds had mostly healed, she still carried emotional traumas that, while invisible on the surface, were nonetheless devastating. A tightly strung ball of anger and hate, when she closed her own eyes at night, Iekika’s crimson unfeeling ones greeted her in the dark, the image seemingly burned into her retinas. She longed for the time when she didn’t jump at the most innocuous of sounds or whimper like a child at the most gruesome of nightmares. The thought that even her mind wasn’t safe from Iekika’s sinister intrusions was enough to give any girl serious trust issues. Mostly, she longed to be with Finn. The last time she’d felt any degree of safety was in his arms.
When she’d found out Finn had sided with the Unseelies, she hadn’t believed it then—and still couldn’t. Knowing somebody for as long as she’d known Finn, it gave one an up-close look into a person’s soul. He was the most honorable man Liz had ever known, and it would take a hell of a lot more than hearsay to convince her of his betrayal. Blood be damned. The Finn she knew would never turn his back on the Seelie Court.
Liz sighed, hoping against hope that her faith in him was not misplaced.
A strange sound coming from the queen’s bedroom made her jump. Silently she berated herself for being such a nervous wreck. When she got her heart to stop hammering in her chest, she listened intently for the sound, trying to find its source. The queen’s quarters was home to countless curios, priceless and oftentimes magical objects that were known on occasion to buzz, chime, or even speak.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
It was the sound of amplified waterdrops. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Liz searched the queen’s bedroom frantically, pushing rubies, ornate boxes, and other unidentifiable knick-knacks aside to locate the source of the strange sound.
Then she saw it. An ancient barnacle-ridden conch shell—one of the oldest treasures in Queen Helena’s cove. It had been a gift from the God of the Sea, with a promise that if Helena ever needed help from the Otherworld, all she need do was pick up the conch and call. Helena, in turn, had extended the same offer of assistance. In all the years it’d gathered dust among the queen’s riches, it had never once moved or made a sound. Until now.
“You are wed,” proclaimed the red-eyed witch with a genial smile on her face. Mirabella had to look away. Everything about the woman gave her the creeps. Now, she was face to face with Alistair—the evil leprechaun who’d abducted her when she was a baby, groomed her for sacrifice, married her, and was now about to kill her. She almost vomited in her mouth just looking at him. Disgusted though she was, she wasn’t backing off. She’d barely had a life, with no one for company except her brainwashed mother, basically just waiting for something—anything—to happen. Then she’d met her father, Clover, Button, and so many other wonderful people. She’d be damned if she was going to let anybody take their lives, even if it meant sacrificing hers.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said, willing herself to look Alistair in the eye.
“Very well,” Alistair said, all smug and prissy-like. He pulled a short sword from a sheath that hung by his side. It looked like some kind of ceremonial knife with an exceptionally sharp tip. He took in a breath to speak. “On this August eve, a spell I weave to summon forces dark and light, that earthly plights and faerie nights need never be as one tonight. A virgin bride, two worlds collide. A mongrel sacrifice. Of unions cursed, such was foretold, a new day to behold. With tainted blood and might of lore, Daoine Sidhe’s door shall be no more…”
Mirabella braced herself. She wasn’t about to die with her eyes squeezed shut and her head bowed low. Squaring her shoulders, she returned Alistair’s gaze.
A gilded arrow zipped through the air, almost nipping Mirabella’s ear, piercing straight through Alistair’s wrist. The sword dropped, and Alistair turned in the shooter’s direction.
Mirabella swung around to see an imposing man holding a golden bow and arrow, his torso covered in the most exquisite looking tattoos, his eyes as deep as the sea.
Alistair pulled the arrow from his wrist with a wince. “Lir, this is not your fight. Stay out of it.”
“When a young girl is harmed in my kingdom, the fight is laid at my door. When that same girl happens to be a good friend of someone I love dearly, then I bring the fight to you.” Lir nocked another arrow and aimed it at Alistair, this time, at his heart. Mirabella spied Button and Sinann standing behind Lir, along with a cavalry of the sea god’s forces, mounted on animals that looked to be half steed, half seahorse.
Iekika raised a hand in Lir’s direction, clearly conjuring a spell. Sinann wasn’t having it. With a lazy flick of her finger, a powerful jolt of energy propelled Iekika backwards into the foamy waves. A whispered incantation from Sinann’s lips soon bound the witch’s hands and feet with unseen restraints. Mirabella tried not to laugh as Iekika tumbled around in the surf like an irate beach ball.
“Don’t make the mistake of underestimating my kind,” Sinann said to Alistair. “You’ve been warned.”
Lir’s cavalry aimed their arrows at Alistair and the Unseelies.
“If it’s a battle you want, sea god, so be it. My troops are prepared to fight.”
Mirabella slowly moved away, not wanting to be caught in the middle of an impending skirmish. When the restraints cast by Iekika prevented further movement, a quick pleading look sent in Sinann’s direction soon found her freed from her magical fetters.
“Alistair!” boomed a voice from a distance. Mirabella turned, recognizing it instantly.
Scobert barreled toward them, Queen Helena at his side, and a large contingent of Seelie soldiers at their heels. Mirabella wasn’t quite certain which was more frightening—the look of utter bloodlust on Scobert’s face or the same look mirrored on Queen Helena’s. She shivered despite herself.
Alistair’s expression bordered somewhere between annoyance and fear. Despite being now outnumbered, he stood his ground.
When Scobert screamed, “Charge!” Lir’s and the queen’s army attacked, and it was as if the beach exploded on itself. Mirabella cowered in the sand, trying to crawl to safety. Arrows swooshed by in fast succession, the smell of magic permeated, and the clash of swords and the ring of gunfire filled the air.
When she was safely out of reach, Mirabella searched the melee for Button. Despite her acts of betrayal, Button had shown up for her. She owed her friend an apology. Amidst the chaos, she spotted Button crouching by a tree in the distance. As she made her way toward her, she saw something that made her heart drop. As Scobert battled Alistair, from a short distance away, an Unseelie soldier with a blue mohawk pulled out a gun and aimed it at her father. As the Unseelie punk adjusted his sights, out of sheer instinct, Mirabella ran.
The next thing she knew, she was leaping toward Scobert, then she was down on the sand. When her hand went to her rib cage, it came back covered in blood. The world became a blur as coldness gripped her, her breath coming out in frantic spurts. She saw her father’s face contorted in fear, perhaps anger.
Then she heard Alistair’s voice. “With tainted blood and might of lore, Daoine Sidhe’s door shall be no more! And what once was shall never be. All of this, I implore of thee!”
The spell. He completed his spell. Realization hit Mirabella like a cruel joke. As she gasped for a breath, a booming sound enveloped the realm, louder than anything she’d ever heard before. Another gunshot? She wondered, half delirious. Then, with an ironic clarity that perhaps came with impending death, she realized what it was: the sound of portals closing.