Page 26 of Enthralled

“Aw, sweetheart! You’re hurtin’ our feelings!” another man says, his smile growing so wide, it no longer fits naturally on his face.

My heart thuds harder, fear jolting through my limbs. “Please,” I say, my voice quavering. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“Neither do we,” another one says in a slithering, sinuous tone. “We just want that kiss, luv. One wee little kiss.”

He lunges. My limbs freeze, but Ilusine moves faster than I would have believed possible considering her frail condition. She dives between me and my attacker and drives one bony elbow first into his face then into his gut. A second man leaps at her, and she whirls like a cat, scratching, screeching. I’m fairly certain she bites the third man in the neck. He howls and pushes her off, and Ilusine spits out a curse before shouting,“Run!”

Raw instinct takes over. I pivot on heel, unaware of direction so long as it’s away. I take three steps. Long fingers catch me by the hair atop my head. I scream as I’m yanked backwards. That slithering voice hisses in my ear: “Not so fast, little miss. Not without that kiss.” My eyes roll, the glare of the streetlamp nearly blinding me.

A tall shape appears suddenly and blocks out that light. I stare up at a looming, featureless figure. My heart stops, overcome with doom and dread. The next moment, a brilliant beam of light bursts in my eyes. I turn my face to one side, squeezing my eyelids tight. The figure at my back utters a howl of agony, and the fingers twined in my hair release. I stagger, fall to my knees. Lifting my head again, I look up at the stranger. He turns in place, shooting that beam of light around at all the writhing, strange forms. I catch glimpses of faces far too pale, eyes far too large, leering mouths full of too many teeth. They scream, throw up their hands, and scatter like rats. Then the lantern-bearer kneels before me, and suddenly, I’m aware of a familiar waistcoat directly in front of my eyes. I’ve seen it many times, that rich wine red with gray pinstripes.

“Clara, are you hurt?”

“Danny!” I yank my head up. Lanternlight casts his face in strange shadows. But he’s Danny. Unmistakably Danny. I’ve never been happier to see him in my life. I have to stop myself from throwing my arms around his neck. “What are you doing here?” I gasp instead.

His face is stricken. He looks as though he’s lived and suffered the agonies of death since last we met, since I told him I never wanted to see him again. Oh gods! How could I have said such a thing? How could I have been so cruel? “I never left Clamor Street,” he admits. “I knew you would try something rash like this, damn it. I also knew you couldn’t manage it on your own. Not in your . . . condition.”

I press a hand against my abdomen. When I try to speak, no words will form. Not with Danny looking at me like this, tipping his head forward so that his blue eyes seem very bright in the glow of his lantern.

“Are you really so determined to do this?” he asks. “To return to Eledria?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I must find my husband.”

Pain stabs across his face. But when he draws back and gets to his feet, he holds out a hand to me. I take it, letting him pull me up from the cobblestones. “I might be able to help you,” he says.

“She doesn’t need any of your human interference.”

Danny turns sharply. He spies Ilusine and sucks in a breath. Spatters of blue fae blood stain her mouth, and her eyes gleam strangely as she peers out through a veil of ragged hair. “Who are you?” Danny demands, holding up his lantern once more.

She snorts. “I’m not some Noxaurian who can be chased off by a little glimmer.”

I grab Danny’s arm. “She is Princess Ilusine of Solira, and . . . and she’s a . . .” I can’t quite make myself speak the wordfriend.I don’t think Ilusine would appreciate it. “She’s helping me.”

“Princess?” Danny’s lip curls as he takes in her distinctly un-princess-like appearance. “I’ve had some experience with fae princesses. None I should like to repeat.”

“I could say much the same about humans,” Ilusine replies and spits blood from between her teeth. “But that’s hardly the point. What makes you think you can help find a way back to Eledria? Do you know something she doesn’t?”

Realization quickens my pulse. Of course! Danny did make his way through to Eledria once before. I never found out how, but he journeyed to Aurelis and then all the way to Vespre library. I should have thought of this before. “Do you know of a gate?” I ask, breathless with hope.

He shifts his uneasy gaze from Ilusine back to me. “I . . . I made a bargain,” he says. “There was this old woman, you see. A very strange old woman.”

“Do you remember any particulars about her?”

He shudders visibly. “I can’t recall her face, only that something about it was unsettling. What I do remember is that she seemed to live in my grandmother’s house. Which isn’t possible, of course. Granny never lived in the warehouse district; she kept a cottage in the country. It was demolished for a railway line long ago.”

Ilusine and I exchange looks. When I visited one of the crones, the interior of her strange, stilted house had been an exact replica of the Gale family’s front parlor. “That sounds about right,” I say.

“And you bargained with this crone to get into Eledria?” Ilusine presses. “What sort of bargain were you foolish enough to make?”

Danny casts Ilusine a sideways glance before focusing on me once more. “I bargained to give up my dearest dream in exchange for your safe return home.” He closes his eyes briefly. When he looks at me again, tears brim in his lashes. “My dream was always that you and I would wed and be happy, so I knew . . . Iknew,damn it, that it could no longer come true. Even when I stood at the altar yesterday morning, I knew the price would have to be paid. Part of me hoped otherwise, hoped we’d managed to bypass the bargain entirely. But that only made the dream sweeter, dearer . . . and then to have it taken away . . .”

Ilusine sniffs and crosses her bony arms. “Sounds like crone magic to me.”

My stomach twists, sickened by the hurt Danny has endured, sickened at the pain I myself have caused him. But it’s also true that he made those choices. He made that bargain. Those decisions, however well intended, were born of his own brokenness. I could not prevent him. Gods, I tried! I had overtly told him not to attempt to rescue me, told him I could not and would not marry him. He chose not to listen.

Just as I had not listened when the Prince warned me about Oscar.

I gaze into Danny’s pain-stricken eyes. How much hurt we have caused each other simply by refusing to let go! By holding on to what we thought was love. That love was real at one time; but the poison of circumstance has turned it into a toxic thing.

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