“I can smell siren, I think.”Carl sniffed the air.He looked toward the bushes on their right.“Let me check.”
Laurette turned to where Carl was headed, which was when Theo saw his frown.“No running off, please.Stay with the group.We’re right behind you.”
Carl pointed.“I just—I think, erm, I think they were over there.”
“My stepbrothers don’t tend to hide in shrubbery.Though they have at times seen fit to toss me into the thorns,” Cloudtree said, a hand going to his pecs.If he didn’t wear a shirt to covers those, yeah, thorns would hurt, and not in the fun way.
Laurette turned and looked at Theo.“Call them, please.”
Theo didn’t think he was any more adept at reading a room than the next person, never mind the compliments Celeste had given him on his people skills.But he heard something in the Elven lord’s voice he didn’t like, and next to him, Peter let out a slow, steady breath—the kind that wasn’t natural but forced.
“What’s wrong?”Theo pulled out his phone and called Corvin.The call didn’t even go through, almost as if Corvin had turned off his phone.Theo went to his call list and tried Mike to the exact same result.“I…I can’t get them.What’s wrong?”
Gertrude rattled the chain she was still holding, tugging Cloudtree back from where Laurette and Carl were looking at the bushes.“There’s magic in the air,” she said.
Meanwhile, Peter had drifted closer to Theo, his arm around Theo’s shoulders a comfort he wished he didn’t need.He watched as Carl sniffed around by the stairs, earning some bewildered side-eye from students who all faded into the background.Ever since Bernard, Theo had felt apart from these people who should be his peers, and he wasn’t even sure he minded anymore.
Laurette turned while Carl was still looking around.“I think they have been taken.”
“Taken?”Theo asked, even as Peter’s hold on him tightened.
“To Faerie.I don’t understand why, but that’s the magic I’m getting.Like teleportation, like binding human to Fae so they’re easier to pull through.”
“It…it would not surprise me to hear it,” Cloudtree said.He was looking guilty.“My stepbrothers enjoy hunting.They talked about coming to the human plane, though I never thought they would.I didn’t think… It’s possible they followed me, perhaps to spoil my fun.”
“You thought you were going to havefunwhen you walked up to me?”Theo asked, his voice icy.
Cloudtree looked at him with big purple eyes.“I thought I could free you, bring you back to yourself.I was hoping for a kiss, or perhaps some little favor.”
“Were you?”Peter said.“I find that hard to believe.Little favors are far more than a kiss for your kind.”
Cloudtree straightened.“I know that.But I do not think it just.I didn’t mean to come here to bring a lover back with me.I meant to come here and stay.”He looked at Theo.“Sensing your distress was mere coincidence, but I knew I had to help if I wanted a home here.It isneighborly.”
He said the word as if it were foreign, something he’d seen on a page but never said out loud before.
Laurette sighed as he rubbed his hands together.“Well, emigrants are rare, but not unheard of.What is proper though, is a petition.Since I have claim on this area, it’s proper to petition me.”
He gave Cloudtree a pointed look.The Fae blushed.
“Well, I thought to give aid.That’s all.”
Theo shook his head.“That doesn’t even matter.Where the fuck are Corvin and Mike?Where did your brothers take them?”
Cloudtree raised his chin.“Stepbrothers.”
“Faerie.”Peter’s voice was a growl, and his expression was hard.“They’ve been taken to Faerie.”
Laurette nodded.“Pretty much.Which means we’re going to have to do some rescuing.”
“I’ll come,” Carl said right away, having come back over from where he’d been trying to get a scent.
“I don’t understand… Faerie?”Theo looked up at Peter.“That’s a real place?”
Peter narrowed his eyes.His arm around Theo held him firmly.“Yes.But don’t worry about it.It’s no place for humans.”
Before Theo could tell Peter that he could stuff that, especially with Corvin being there, Laurette said, “Yes.It’s not a place for vampires either, but I presume you want to come along?”
“Michael is my employee.”Peter shrugged.“I have to.”
