Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie (Page 51)

There was a curious sensation, like the sound of the music was squeezed out of my ears, becoming only a faint hum in the background.

“Wouldn’t want anyone listening in,” Una said. “Keep in step with everyone else, or they’ll notice. Admire my cunning, leanan sidhe.”

“It’s awesome,” I told her. “Now what about the piper?”

“It is not really about the piper,” Brendan said. “She just said that to get you to come. It is really more about the dead.”

“Which has something to do with the piper, because he will be dead,” Una added, with a bright smile. “And so will you. So really, it is about you too.”

“First, you have to tell us where your allegiance is,” Brendan said. “Is it with your faerie side or your human side?”

“And don’t be tricksy,” Una told me.

Their hands felt tight in mine as we kept spinning and dancing; I felt trapped. I couldn’t lie, but I couldn’t tell the truth either. What would these faeries do if they knew how I felt? My silence felt damning.

Brendan watched my face with a certain satisfaction. “Good. I was hoping that you were in love with the piper. The daoine sidhe have no small fondness for humans, but we need them in this case. You are as close to human as a faerie can get, and your ties to him only make me more certain we can trust you to take their side.”

My voice was harsh. “What is it you want from me? I’m already dying. I don’t care to run errands.”

“Our new queen”—there was considerable vitriol in Brendan’s voice when he said it—“is restless with following the human cloverhand wherever the cloverhand cares to go. There are rumors that she means to ally with the dead to break the cloverhand’s power, although I don’t know what foul magic she intends to use to accomplish such a feat.”

“But you can be sure it will involve blood,” Una said. “Lots of it!”

“Yes,” Brendan agreed. “Human blood. Human losses. Not daoine sidhe.”

“Then what is your interest in this? If you have no small fondness for humans?” I demanded.

“It is one thing to be free,” Brendan said. “And it is another thing entirely to trade one master for another. So, are we to trade the cloverhand for the antlered king, and lose our affiliation with humans, only to become no better than the lost souls and the dark fey that are already beneath him? It is hard enough indeed to follow Eleanor without following her into that dark place.”

I couldn’t disagree. “And what do you want from me?”

“Watch the cloverhand,” Brendan said. “Keep her safe on Halloween.”

That was definitely what I wanted to do on my last day alive: babysit Dee.

“I’ll be a little distracted,” I snapped. “I’ll be burning, remember?”

“That’s what the piper’s for,” Brendan replied. “Tell him. He loves her.”

I stumbled. Una pulled me back up. Around us, the dancers seemed to have sped up, the music feverish and insistent. As we spun, I caught a glimpse of Eleanor and her consort stepping into the circle, the air shivering with her beauty. Her consort glanced at Eleanor while she wasn’t looking, and in that split second, he looked afraid.

I stumbled again.

“She’s done dancing,” Una told Brendan.

“I decide when I’ve had enough,” I snapped. “No one knows me but me.”

But they let go of my hands, and the sound of the music surged back into my ears, louder than before.

I spun away, lighter without them anyway. The dancers parted for me as I danced by myself. The beat pulsed through me, relentless, driving, the same beat as my heart. I let myself imagine, for a second, that James was here in the circle, and that he would dance with me. Once I had the thought, I couldn’t let it go, and the idea of him, his summer-brown arms draped around my waist, his body confident and hot against me, his cheek bristly against my smooth one, filled me with such a fiery need that I could barely breathe.

It was like a waking dream. The drum thumped, promising endless dancing and eternal life, and I closed my eyes, giving into the daydream. James’ fingers, pressed against the bare skin at the small of my back as we spun, setting me on fire. The leather-and-soap smell of him, his forehead against my forehead, his h*ps against my hips, our bodies moving like one seamless instrument, grinding, dropping, spinning. The music driving us, urgently, dance dance dance, and my body screaming at me, savagely, more more more.

I couldn’t tell if the world was spinning or if I was.

I wanted it. I wanted him here, dancing with me, so badly, that I could almost hear his voice.

Nuala.

Nuala. Open your eyes.

The hill was getting dark; night was winning against the orbs of faerie light. The music was fading. I could only hear the drum, thumping like my heartbeat.

Damn it, Nuala.

I could see stars above me, and I could actually smell him, his pipes and his breath and his skin.

Nuala, just tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do. Tell me how to help you.

All I could think was, if he’d come earlier, we could’ve danced.

James

It was so early that the daylight seemed fragile, like if you breathed too hard the light at the horizon would blow away and dissipate into the darkness. It was in this freezing cold half-light that I found Nuala on the steepest of the hills behind the school. My brown hoodie was nothing against the cold, and I’d only been kneeling beside her for a few minutes before I was shivering.

“Nuala,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say.

I was so used to her being powerful, kick-ass, all hard edges, that I couldn’t stop looking at her in the grass. She looked like one of those police-body-chalk things, her arms sprawled out above her and her long, bare legs tangled together. She really was just a girl. Just a fragile body after all, looking a little like she was dressing up in someone else’s clothes to look older.

Why won’t you wake up? Her breaths were so slow, like it wouldn’t take any effort at all for her just to skip one, and then the next one, and the next one.

I gritted my teeth, steeling myself against the cold, and then I pulled off my sweatshirt and lay it across her legs. I cupped one arm beneath her knees—God, her skin was frigid—and one beneath her neck, and I pulled her into my lap and held her against my body.

Goose bumps rippled across my skin, but not from her. From real cold. I cradled her head next to my chest, feeling how icy the skin of her cheek was through my T-shirt, and leaned down close to her. Her breath came out across my face and it didn’t smell like anything at all. No flowers. Nothing.