Page 69 of Crown of the Fae King

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t tell me you have to study. I never asked if you were a student—"

“It’s not that. We’ve got—I’ve got family coming into town. Lots of cooking and cleaning to do to get ready. Then entertaining them, yada yada.”

He laughed. “You actually usedyada yada.”

I pulled my lips between my teeth and held them tight. He reached over and ran his finger along the side of my jaw and made me smile again.

“I wasn’t laughing at you, Lennon. I was relieved I’m not the only one who says it. I worried my age was showing.”

“Well, if you’re going to talk about age, I think our evening is over.”

He laughed with me, then sighed. “I do like spending time with you, fairy or not. I hope, when your visitors are gone, you’ll come find me again.”

“Maybe.”

I resisted the urge to give him hope. Besides, he really was out of my league. Maybe one day, if I survived my semi-dangerous life, I would look for him again. With a job like his, he couldn’t be that hard to find.

The following week,I wore a little more makeup and my favorite outfits. Like a schoolgirl, I watched out the corner of my eye, every day, hoping to accidentally run into Professor Carew despite my decision to keep my distance. I even returned to the stacks where we’d first met. The nearby desk seemed abandoned.

The brothers were hoping for another shot at reading the professor’s mind, but I made them promise not to try. If the man thought about me, I didn’t want to know. And if he wasn’t thinking about me at all…I didn’t want to know.

Flann’s curiosity led us to the Theology section of the Bod, but there was no sign of the professor. We followed some threads of thought comparing Fae Mythology to the Christian religion and found a few books on the subject. These were in English, so I was able to do my part, skimming through them, looking for a mention of The Covenant or star stones, or even healing stones, but found nothing.

I felt like I was in detention.

The weather in Oxford was overcast but couldn’t seem to rain. Even the clouds were frustrated. Every night I told myself he wasn’t coming back, that I shouldn’t get my hopes up. And every morning, I reached for something besides jeans.

“Come find me,” he’d said. Too bad he didn’t tell me where to look.

I plotted ways to avoid the others that weekend, to pretend I might wind up on the beach somewhere with them. Outwardly, I tried to appear as normal as possible. But on the inside, I was moody as hell.

Saturday morning dawned and we woke to a sparkling blue sky. Over breakfast, Everly announced we were all going to the coast for the day whether we wanted to or not. I knew she’d directed the last part to me. And though I suspected someone had been reading my mind, I didn’t think it was her.

All fifteen of us packed into three cars. The Youngs came in a minivan with the Bahri sisters and half a dozen coolers full of food and drinks. Wickham drove Urban, Everly, Brian and Flann. I rode with Kitch, Persi, and Alwyn, for which I was grateful. The last thing I wanted to hear was an Irish accent. Besides I’d spent far too much study time with the Muir brothers, and we all needed a break from each other.

Lymington, in Hampshire, was only an hour and a half away. Even though it was cold, the beaches were covered with people and blankets. Brightly colored houses, maybe 15 feet deep, lined up above the beaches. I thought maybe they were places to change your clothes. It turned out people rented them for short “holidays.”

Mini beach houses...

The beach itself was more rocks than the sand I expected, but they made walking much easier. At one point, I did take off my shoes and roll up the legs of my jeans so I could step into the surf. If I never got to see the ocean again, I wanted to be able to say that I’d gotten in.

We lingered for hours. Persi and I adventured down the beach like children, only coming back when we felt we’d gone too far. We gathered shells in buckets only to fling them back into the waves again. Stared out into the water and imagined the pirate ships that might have come along on a bright blue-sky day.

After our massive blanket picnic on a stretch of grass, we put the coolers back in the van and ventured into a town full of pastel-painted houses and pastel pennants hanging between rooftops and bannisters. Their triangle flags flapping in the breeze, a visual representation of the carefree day.

We wandered into little shops, looking at souvenirs…for family we didn’t have.

I stopped to look at a bunch of hand-painted doors the size of pop cans. The wood was thin and light, like driftwood. Some arched, some square. All different colors with painted ladybugs and flowers, rainboots and garden tools to add interest. One had a tiny, polished rock as a doorknob.

The saleswoman joined us at the display. “Fairy doors,” she said, rolling every r. “Ye place them at the base of the wall…to invite the fairies and their magic into yer life.”

I’d been charmed by a little gray and purple one, but Persi snatched it out of my hand and put it back with the others. “Absolutely not.” After the saleswoman walked away, she hissed, “Think of them as vampires. Never invite them inside.”

Next was a toffee shop. Nothing dangerous about those, so I bought three tins. Wickham had given me a credit card, which I tried to refuse until he explained that everyone in the house was in his employ, and they all had credit cards to cover their expenses. My reservations had faded slowly and were all but gone. Unless something was both expensive and frivolous, I could whip it out and buy what I liked without the guilt.

When we stepped out into the afternoon sunshine, my chest tightened. Those hairs rose on the back of my neck and I knew, for sure, we were being watched. Without saying a word, Persi and I turned to the left, back toward the cars. Heavy footsteps fell into rhythm behind us. She gave me a nod, and together, we turned and faced our stalkers.

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