Page 44 of Crown of the Fae King

We settledinto our previous seats at the top of the hour. Wickham came in and propped his hip on my table like some high school teacher playing it cool. "How are ye feelin, Lennon?"

"I'm fine."

"And the headaches?"

"Gone."

He seemed surprised. "That's grand, grand. Do ye feel up to speakin' about it now?"

I nodded, resigned. I knew this moment was coming. The meeting was for shoe dropping then.

"We all understood why ye left. So we'll skip that for now. But we need to ken how those fairies caught up with ye, and why."

"So you saw her too?”

He exchanged an odd look with Kitchens, then nodded. “Aye. The Trinity library. I assume she wasnae asking for her gemstones back?"

"I tried to tell her I didn't have any."

"First things first. How did she find ye?"

"I don't know. I took a bus from here to Waverly Station. They weren’t on that bus. I would have remembered. From the station, I started walking to the American consulate--"

"The consulate?" He was surprised again, then a little hurt maybe.

"I couldn't very well get back to the States without a passport. So..."

"Right then. I suspect they were watchin’ then, at Waverly. When we filled out that form, at the library, I did write Edinburgh..."

"A couple of blocks from the station, I stopped to adjust my strap, and I heard them stop behind me. I hadn’t noticed anything until then. Like I told the doctor, I hailed a cab. It took me around the corner and stopped so the three could get in with me.” My mouth went dry. “Then the woman told the men to search me.”

“I am sorry, lass. I cannae imagine how frightened ye must have been.”

“Yeah. For a minute. But then I remembered Andy Weaver and decided to fight back.”

Persi piped up. “Who’s Andy Weaver?”

“A bully from back home. Cornered me in a parking lot one night…” I shook my head to chase the memory away. Too much of what happened in that cab had happened in that parking lot six months ago, right after Andy heard my boyfriend had skipped town. “I don’t like being cornered.”

Everly laid a hand on my arm. “We hear you. Don’t we, Persi?”

“We certainly do.” Persi flushed pink and proved the color did, indeed, clash with her red curls. “I wish we would have gotten there sooner.”

That got my attention. “You were there?” I tried to remember what happened after the stomping, but the only memory I retained was pain. And maybe some shouting. And the car doors opening. I shivered, remembering the cold. Then I looked at the faces around the room. “How did you know where to find me?”

They looked at Kitchens, sitting beside me, looking guilty as hell. “Small tracker, tucked into a pocket. Just in case.”

My jaw dropped open.

“Well, ye didnae want me chasin’ after ye. Though now, I wish I would’ve, o’ course."

I sighed and squeezed his forearm. “I might be dead if you hadn’t thought of it. So thank you.”

He went red in the face, bobbed his head once.

Wickham regained my attention. “Did they say anything? Anything at all?”

I shrugged a shoulder. “Told me to strip.” I took a deep breath and let the memories come back. The feel of that hand on my chest, slamming me to the floor. The tangled legs. That woman hovering over me, her purple eyes alight. “She said,Where is it? Where is the claw something. Made me think of soccer.” I closed my eyes, knowing it would drive me crazy until I remembered.

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