Page 12 of Beltane

“Lizzie’s fine,” my mother said when I called her later that evening, her tone more lighthearted than what I would have expected from someone whose youngest child had been abducted by a changeling. “She’s busy with finals. I talked to her a few hours ago.”

Despite what she thought she remembered, that wasn’t true. Lizzie had been taken during Lex and Ivy’s wedding, and no matter how many times I tried to reach out to Poppy, I got no answer. Ivy and Miri hadn’t gotten out of bed yet, and Lex sat at the dining room table with a pile of books open in front of him, chain-smoking cigarettes down to the filter.

“Promise me you’ll keep an eye on Sophie and Charlie.” My other sisters went to college, but both had randomly been home this week.

“Of course,” Mom said. “Are you sure you’re okay? It couldn’t have been easy, watching all that on TV.” She knew how I felt about Ivy, and perhaps she even suspected how I felt about Lex. A self-described mystic and Reiki healer, she had always seen with more than just her eyes. She’d been a sympathetic ear my entire life, no matter what my issue may have been.

“They didn’t go through with it,” I said, avoiding Lex’s intrigued gaze. There were more important things to deal with, like finding our abducted family members and pushing the fairy king back into his own realm. But I’d admit, it was a small victory that Lex and Ivy hadn’t gone all the way. Some selfish part of me still saw her as mine, even if I shared her with two others, and if she ever married anyone legally in this realm, I wanted it to be me.

“Good news for you, then.” Mom gave me a small laugh, and when I didn’t return it, she sighed. “Carter?—”

“Just…stay at your house, okay? Promise me you’ll be safe.”

“Come home, my baby boy,” she said. “You’re scaring me. I need to see you.”

“I will soon.” I had to finish this, but then I’d be on the first flight back to Chicago.

We said our goodbyes and I thanked my lucky stars that my mother and my other sisters had been out of town when the king attacked. He didn’t know where to find them, if he’d even gone looking for them, and by the time they returned, he’d already gone back into hiding, seemingly to lick his wounds. Siobhan had put a ward on their houses, but if Poppy had gotten to Lizzie, I figured she could get to any of them anytime she wanted.

“She’s okay,” Lex said, bringing my gaze to his. He stood and walked closer, pinching his cigarette between his index finger and thumb to place it between my lips. “Even if Poppy takes her to him, he won’t hurt her until he gets what he wants from us.”

“He could be hurting Lizzie right now, all of them. Poppy, too.” I blinked back tears and forced myself to inhale deeply on the smoke before stabbing it out. I loved all my sisters, but Lizzie and I were the closest. Maybe being the oldest and the youngest set us apart from the middle two.

“That won’t happen either.” Lex dropped to his knees in front of me, his hips between my thighs. “He thinks too highly of his grand plans. He’ll want to make sure we know he’s hurting them, and until he lures us out of hiding, they’ll be safe.”

Lex could be incredibly convincing when he wanted to, and in this case, I yearned to believe him. His calm stoicism soothed the anxious side of me that wanted to give in to the panic, especially after what Miri had done yesterday. Things were getting more daunting the longer we waited to do anything about it. Lex grabbed me, palm to palm, and pulled me down so I leaned my forehead against his.

“We’re going to fix this, Chicago,” he murmured. “We’re going to save our family and the whole fucking world, so help me God.”

“How?”

He stood and shook his head, going back to his side. “Not sure yet.”

I pursed my lips, debating whether I should say what was on my mind. The king had done something irreparable to Miri, and it made me so fucking pissed, I could burn down the world just to get my vengeance. I wanted to hold her and protect her and keep her with me for the rest of her life, just so I’d know that whatever came for her would have to go through me first.

“It’s not safe for me to be here,”Miri had said last night. “I should go back to England as soon as we figure out how to break this curse.”

That hurt most of all. Even if we could end this connection between us, I didn’t think I’d want to. We had something unique and profound, and the rest of the world would never understand it. The idea of Miri not being with us pricked at this imaginary future I’d built where we all grew old together and reveled in our gifts until the end of time.

“What are we going to do about Miri?”

Lex narrowed his gaze and shook his head. “What about her?”

“The king is screwing with her mind, Lex.” I pointed to the stack of books between us. “Just like all those messed-up fairy tales. He lured her into a deep sleep, and what do you suppose he did after that?” I raised my eyebrows. She couldn’t remember, but it didn’t take a genius to guess. The lore was filled with stories of the fairy king drugging his human consorts and having his perverted rapey way with them.

Lex went eerily still, which wasn’t a good sign. When he got that villainous look in his eye, he wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted. In this case, it was mutual: the king’s decapitated corpse.

“You can’t blame her for keeping it to herself,” I continued. “For thinking it was better to stay away to try to protect us.”

“I can blame her for whatever the fuck I want.”

“You need to apologize to her, make it up to her somehow.”

“I will,” he said. At my scowl, he cleared his throat and rubbed a thumb over his eyebrow. “Besides, Miri is one of the strongest people I know. We’ll figure it out, Chicago.”

“What about the king?” I raised an eyebrow. “What about how we can’t get in touch with Poppy?” I met his gaze, remembering he’d been teaching the changeling how to travel back in time. “Don’t tell me you didn’t plan for this.”

He made a noise and gave me a look like I’d lost my mind before adding, “Of course I did. We just have to fix her.”

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