I stepped back, panic rising in my chest. My sneaker caught the edge of something hard. I kicked it with my toe.Metal. Some kind of tool. Maybe heavy enough to do some damage.
Blake stepped toward me, dragging Flynn behind him. He pressed his hands against Flynn’s temples. Flynn’s eyes clouded over, and his face kind of crumpled, as if his skin was sliding off his bones. Something crackled under the fae’s fingers, giving off a sugary sweet scent as Flynn’s face contorted in agony.
Blake continued. “And your vocabulary… tsk tsk. You’re on English soil, so you need to learn correct English. A shag is a birdanddescriptive of being overtiredanda delightful naked activity. A rubber erases pencil marks and doesn’t prevent childbirth.”
Blake took another step toward me, dragging Flynn’s limp body alongside him. If I was right, he’d just stepped over the invisible barrier, but I had no way of knowing for sure. “To you, trousers are pants, instead of the sexy scrap of fabric underneath. Tell me again, what do you call?—”
CLONK.
The spade connected with the side of Blake’s head.
His emerald eyes remained fixed on mine, but the rest of him wobbled. His hands slid from Flynn’s cheeks, and he toppled forward, hitting the ground hard. He didn’t get up.
“In Arizona, we call that a spade, motherfucker.” I grinned, waving it at Blake’s crumpled body.
“Maeve—”
I dropped the spade and rushed to Flynn’s side. He’d fallen with Blake, his body bent over backward. His skin felt cold and clammy.
“What did he do to you?” I cried. Flynn slid his hands around my neck and allowed me to pull him to his feet. A lattice of darkspiderwebs spread across his temples and forehead, radiating out from where Blake touched him.
“Nothing a dram of finest Irish whiskey won’t cure.”
Flynn’s weight dragged me over, but I managed to pull him a little way up toward the hill.
“Don’t worry…get…the baby…” he whispered, each word a ragged breath.
I whirled around just in time to see Blake crawling toward the sidhe, the baby tucked into the crook of his arm. The other two fae had already disappeared down the staircase, which was now only ankle deep with water. Blake turned back at the entrance to the mound, his crystal eyes meeting mine. He shot me a lopsided grin that might’ve been vaguely attractive if he hadn’t just tried to kill my friend. The baby cooed in his arms.
“I’ll be seeing you around, Miss Arizona,” he called. “Don’t worry, I haven’t damaged your Water Witch permanently. At least, not much. If I were you, I’d keep practicing your chess moves. Because next time, I’ll show you just how important a pawn can be.”
I hurled myself toward Blake, but he disappeared down the steps, his coat fading into the darkness below.
“We’re too late,” Flynn croaked. He leaned hard against me, barely able to support his own weight.
“What did he do to you?” I stroked the lattice of red lines across Flynn’s freckled cheek.
Flynn’s eyes darkened. “I have no idea, but I feel like I’ve been run over by a train carrying a herd of holidaying elephants, and then another train carrying plutonium. But… I guess we just met Blake, prince of the Unseelie Court.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FLYNN
My legs shook so badly I could barely hold myself up. Maeve had to drag me back to the castle. Whatever that Blake character did to me, it was fuckingwretched. I didn’t even have the energy to make a joke about shags.
The whole encounter weighed on me as Maeve wrenched and jerked my pain-filled body toward Briarwood. Nothing made sense. Seelie and Unseelie were there together, and they were both working to steal that baby. Blake seemed incredibly powerful, but who – or what – was he? We knew all of the Unseelie princes by name, so why had we never heard of him before?
And where the fecking hell were the others? Corbin could usually sense when one of the coven was in danger. Why hadn’t he come?
Maeve dragged me past the walled kitchen garden and in through the buttery door. Rowan glanced up in shock, dropping a tray of bread on the floor. “Wipe your feet!” he yelled.
“Rowan, get the others.” Maeve dragged me into the kitchen. “Flynn’s been attacked!”
As soon as Rowan’s eyes met mine, he registered that something was wrong. He darted up the hidden staircase, callingout for Arthur and Corbin, but there was no answer. He dashed outside, calling at the top of his lungs.
Maeve pulled out a seat at the butcher’s block and poured me into it. I grabbed the edge of the bench to steady myself, gritting my teeth at the fresh wave of pain. I hadn’t been this buggered since that time Corbin decided we should all run a half-marathon to get fit for battling fae and I’d stopped at the pub halfway through to re-fuel before trying to finish it.
“Hey, no fair,” I murmured as I started to slide off the edge of the stool. “You stuck me on a chair made of jelly.”
