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  Brooke put a finger to her lips, but she needn’t have bothered with that, either. All three of them scarcely breathed as they listened to the exchange at the front door—which wasn’t easy with Fox still howling and moaning in the same room like a lost soul.

  “Whatever was that ungodly ruckus earlier?” demanded a woman’s voice. “Why, I thought a tiger was in here!” Trahern silently cursed Braith for his determination to defend him from the angry little ellyll.

  “Goddess help us, it’s Claire,” whispered Brooke. “Lissy’s nosiest neighbor.”

  “. . . and I’m sure I heard a hellacious argument.” There was a pause, and it wasn’t hard to imagine that the woman was staring at Fox. “My goodness, is that boy all right? That’s quite a fit he’s pitching.”

  “My son’s just had too much excitement tonight,” said Lissy smoothly. “I turned on the TV hoping for a cartoon to take his mind off things, but there was a Godzilla movie still in the DVD, and the volume was all the way up. Scared us both, actually.”

  “Good save, girlfriend,” whispered Brooke, and Ranyon nodded in agreement.

  “I’m really sorry you were disturbed a second time,” Lissy said. “In fact, I’m surprised the whole neighborhood isn’t at my door with torches and pitchforks.”

  “Why, bless your heart, you know we’re just worried about you, hon. You’re carrying so much on your plate with a full-time teaching position plus a handicapped child to look after.”

  “Fox is not handicapped. He’s brighter than most of us, and quite functional, thank you.” For all that he was unfamiliar with human emotions, it was easy for Trahern to hear the tight control in Lissy’s voice and sense the anger that bubbled beneath it. The annoying woman, Claire, didn’t appear to notice. At least, her words indicated that she didn’t notice. He couldn’t help but think she’d fit in rather well with the Royal Court . . .

  “Well, of course he is, sweetie, and you’re so brave for thinking positive. But sometimes even kids who are special need a firm hand, and it’s just too bad he doesn’t have a daddy to help straighten out his attitude. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I can see you’ve got a hide to blister, so I’ll just head on home now.”

  “A hide to blister? For real? You honestly think I should spank my child?”

  “Well, now, everyone in the complex thinks so, hon. They just haven’t said it to you, so as not to add to your burden.”

  “My son is not a burden! And hitting him for something he can’t help would be as useless as slapping you to make you less ignorant!”

  “Well, I’ll be! That is truly ugly, and so unlike you, Melissa—”

  The front door slammed so hard that the kitchen tools swung on their hooks. Fox wailed all the louder, drowning out every other sound. Trahern risked a small wordless spell to enable himself to hear Lissy’s next words. “Don’t listen to her, Fox,” she said. “She’s a rude and nasty woman. I love you, and I’ll always love you, and I would never let anybody hurt you. Maybe you can read me a story when you’re feeling better, and then I’ll feel better, too.”

  Love again. Trahern didn’t get a chance to ponder it because Lissy was suddenly right in front of him. Fury blazed along her cheekbones, and righteous anger crackled like flames in her dark eyes. Still, she fought to keep her voice low. “You, and especially you!” she hissed, pointing first at Ranyon, then at Trahern. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Fox has trouble coping with a lot of people at once, but it’s much harder for him to deal with anger and contention even if it doesn’t involve him. Thanks to the pair of you, my son is upset. And even worse, I’ve just had to lie my face off in front of my child!” Lissy folded her arms and continued in the same ferocious tone. “I don’t know what the history is between you two, and right now, I don’t care. Whatever your problem is, take it somewhere else! Blow each other up with magic if you have to, but you’re not disturbing my son again!”

  Ranyon stared at the floor, rubbing one foot with the big knurled toe of the other. “Aye, I shoulda dealt with this traitor outside.”

  Trahern ignored the slur. “I regret that your home has been disrupted, good lady, and that Fox has been upset by my actions,” he said. Even though it wasn’t entirely his fault, he found himself wanting to express some sort of contrition to Lissy. “That discourteous woman was wrong. Your son is a very intelligent and talented child.” His words did nothing to appease her, however. If anything, he’d somehow succeeded in upsetting her further.

  “Oh, blow it out your ear. And I’m not your good lady, either. I may not have a whole lot of magical powers myself, but even I’ve heard that it’s unlucky for a human child to be complimented by a faery,” she said. “And you’ve said just a few too many flattering things about him tonight. I don’t know what’s going on between you and your brother, but I want both of you to leave.”

  “Aye, and so do I,” added the ellyll, balling up his slender hands into knobbly fists again. He was about to say more, but Lissy shook her finger at him.

  “Ranyon! You know I love you dearly, and I know you’ve been through a lot, but you’ve done nothing but make this situation a whole lot worse tonight!”

  “But I’ve—but he’s a—”

  Trahern used their distraction to return to the room where the boy still howled, a lost and despairing sound. Brooke hovered protectively a few feet away from him, humming a soothing tune that Trahern recognized as a gentle calming spell. It wasn’t working in the least, of course. He narrowed his eyes until he could see the discordant vibrations Fox was throwing off. They pulsed at odd angles through the air, effectively blocking the healer’s spell. “Pardon me, Lady Brooke,” he said. “I believe that Lissy requires a moment of your time in the kitchen. And I must attempt to contact my brother.”

  Brooke eyed him suspiciously, but he was unconcerned by her scrutiny. He trusted in the empathic abilities of a true healer to inform her that he harbored no ill intent. Just to be certain, however, he underscored Lissy’s fictional need of her with a magical suggestion of a type that Brooke was unlikely to detect. She left the room at once, and Trahern glided to the boy’s side. With the forefingers of both hands, he drew a glowing arc in the air over Fox, while quietly pronouncing the five words of a distawrwydd spell.

  ELEVEN

  Lissy eased herself into a kitchen chair as Ranyon apologized for the third time, complete with tears that squirted out of the corners of his bright-blue eyes. She handed him the dish towel from the nearby oven handle and tried not to flinch as he loudly blew his ample nose on it. I feel so bad for lecturing him. What happened to his family was horrific, and he had every right to be upset—but what was I supposed to do? Her son’s well-being had to come first, and right now Fox alternated between shrieking and crying in the other room. She supposed she’d have to haul him up to his room like a newly roped steer and let him sort himself out on his own. Right now, though, it felt like her son’s bedroom was ten flights up instead of only one. Was this weird-ass day ever going to end?

  Brooke appeared in the kitchen. “Are you guys all right?”

  “Nay, I’ve been naught but a proper dihiryn and given dreadful offense to a dear friend.” Ranyon sniffed as fresh tears spurted.

  Lissy ordered herself not to roll her eyes. She knew the little ellyll wasn’t being melodramatic—much. He just felt what he felt very keenly. “Yeah, we’ll be okay,” she answered. “Now if I could just figure out what to do with Fox so we can both get some sleep, that’d be great.”

  Brooke put an arm around her. “He’ll settle eventually. You know he will.”

  “Eventually can be an awfully long time when he’s this far gone. The grocery store on Saturday was nothing compared to this. He’s stimming, and you know he hasn’t done that for a very long time.” In fact, Fox hadn’t curled up in a ball and rocked himself—if you could call it rocking when he bashed himself against the back of the couch with as much force as his nine-year-old body could muster—
since he was six. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. “On top of that, I never should have pissed off Claire. She’s going to report us to the residence board again for sure.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “But did you hear what she said about Fox? How can anyone, least of all an educator, be that uninformed in the twenty-first century? Or that rude? Usually I can ignore it, but this time I let her damn condescending tone get to me.”

  “You’re right, it’s not that she doesn’t understand,” said Brooke. “I can feel it. She understands perfectly well; she just enjoys causing trouble. It makes her feel powerful. You can’t let her get your goat—it’s exactly what she wants.”

  “She’s trying ta steal yer goat?” Ranyon jumped off the chair, his melancholy temporarily forgotten. “I’ll be teaching her a thing or two about that!”

  “Figure of speech, bud. Just a figure of speech.” Brooke made calming motions with her hands. “I meant that Claire deliberately tries to upset Lissy by saying mean things about Fox.”

  “Aye, I heard the ffiaidd insulting our boy.” He shook his fist, and Lissy had a sudden brain wave.

  “Ranyon, would you like to do something to make things up to me tonight?”

  His whole demeanor brightened. “A’course I would! You’ve only ta name the task.”

  “Well, then, what I need most is for you to help me with Claire.” She held up a cautionary finger. “I don’t want her hurt in any way, understand. But I need her to forget everything she saw and heard tonight. Oh, and I’d love it if she never speaks or writes our names.” That ought to cover any complaint forms Claire might fill out or phone calls she might make. But why stop there? Here’s my chance to really fix this problem once and for all. “You know what else, Ranyon? I don’t want Claire to ever hear a sound out of this house again, no matter how much noise we’re making. And it’d be fantastic if she completely forgot she ever met us. So, what do you say? Can you manage all that?”

  The little ellyll rubbed his twiggy hands together. “I have charms aplenty fer that and more! And I’ll be gettin’ right to it, too.” He disappeared, and Lissy sat back in her chair with a sigh.

  “I sure hope I don’t end up regretting that.”

  “Naw,” said Brooke. “You were pretty clear. And if he gets it a little wrong, that miserable woman is due for a lot of karma anyway. So, what should we do now?”

  Good question. Lissy had the beginnings of a headache, and her ears were starting to ring, yet her son could easily carry on for another hour or more. His record was three hours, thirty-two minutes, though that had been when he was much younger. She’d asked Ranyon before about a charm for meltdowns, but he’d explained—with almost as many tears as tonight—that Fox repelled most of his type of magic. “The poor little lad seems to need to work through his troubles on his own,” Ranyon had said.

  Wait a minute . . . Something twigged at her mind, but she couldn’t pin it down. It was too hard to think about anything with all the racket coming from the next room.

  Brooke sat beside her. “I tried relaxing Fox with a gentle spell, a lullaby, really, but as usual it didn’t work. I just hate that I can’t seem to reach him when he’s like this.”

  Lissy patted her friend’s arm. “It’s not your fault you can’t fix it. I’m his mom, and I still don’t know of anything to do except wait it out. It’s discouraging, though,” she admitted. “I keep thinking we’re making progress and then, bam, he totally loses it.”

  “Oh, but you’re making tons of progress—both of you,” said Brooke. “Holy cow, I remember when it was practically Armageddon every day!”

  “Yeah, but we went almost three weeks this time. Three whole weeks without an incident! He was fine, then without warning he lost it at the grocery store on Saturday. Now this.”

  “Lissy, you know you can’t count tonight. It hasn’t been a normal night. It wasn’t even a normal weekend. Look at it from a kid’s perspective, any kid. Fox did a lot of things outside of his comfort zone—camping, hanging out with a whole bunch of people, tasting a s’more even when he thought it looked yucky—and he coped with it all.”

  “Yeah. Then he meets a giant faery dog, plus the big frowny faery who goes with it,” she said.

  Brooke laughed a little. “You have to admit, it’s a miracle Fox didn’t melt down hours ago—”

  The sudden silence was almost as intense as the noise her son had been making. She was in the living room in seconds, her brain taking in the scene at once. Trahern sat on the couch, cradling Fox in his lap. Her son’s eyes were closed, and he appeared utterly limp.

  Lissy’s heart stuttered in her chest. And then she recovered. “Hey! What the hell did you do to my kid?” She raced over, intending to snatch the child away—and collided with something hard enough to knock her backward. If Brooke hadn’t been right behind to catch her, she would have landed on the floor. Clutching her head, she glanced wildly around, searching for what she’d hit, but saw nothing.

  Trahern frowned. “Have a care, good lady. I do not wish you to injure yourself.”

  I’ll show you some injury, dammit, as soon as I get my hands on you! Lissy reached out and walked slowly forward, feeling around until she connected with something. Whatever it was, it was cool to the touch, like glass. She tapped on the invisible wall with her fingernail, then her fist. Hard as concrete. “What have you done to Fox?” she demanded. “Let him go!”

  “I have done nothing to your child. I used no magic on his person. I merely created a distawrwydd—a bubble of silence—around him to relieve him of stimulation for a time.”

  “If you didn’t do anything to him, then why isn’t he moving?”

  “The boy fell asleep at once. I believe him to be exhausted.”

  Him and me both. She exchanged glances with Brooke. If there was negative energy present, from mild envy to petty spite to full-blown malice, her empathic friend would sense it immediately, just as she had with Claire. But Brooke only shook her head. Lissy took a deep breath, reaching for some shred of calm, and looked again at Fox. He seemed so fragile against Trahern’s tall and powerful frame—but she could see the steady rise and fall of his small chest beneath the Scooby-Doo pajamas. He’s okay. Relieved, she felt her gaze wander slightly to Trahern’s chest. She couldn’t see it beneath all that elegant dark leather, yet she sensed its shape and form as surely as if she had run her hands over it. The fae’s hair had escaped its braid, falling over one shoulder like a white silk cape. What would it feel like against her skin?

  Whoa! Her cheeks flared with sudden heat. Where on earth had those thoughts come from? Mortified, she made the mistake of looking directly at the suspected source—and found herself staring into eyes that were first purple, then blue, then green, then colors she didn’t even know the name of. Are you putting ideas in my mind?

  Why would I do such a thing? Your own thoughts are interesting enough.

  That velvet voice in her head produced a whole-body shiver that culminated in a soft, decadent warmth between her legs. Lissy tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone desert dry. Just get out of my brain, okay? I’m overtired and not thinking straight, and I don’t want you listening in.

  Very well. I will not intrude. But it is pleasing to know you can hear me.

  She gave herself a mental shake and tried again to focus on the issue at hand. “Look, Trahern, you shouldn’t do things like this with Fox without asking me first,” she began, then decided he probably deserved a little appreciation. “Thanks for trying to make things easier for him, though.”

  Long twiggy fingers suddenly seized her elbow. Ranyon had reappeared at her side. “Are ya daft?” he asked, his gnarled face further contorted by sheer alarm. “’Tis dangerous to be thanking a fae! Especially that fae!” He stood on his tiptoes to address Trahern, although he still wasn’t eye to eye. “What is it yer up to, son of Oak? I’ll be tying yer snowy locks to a bwgan’s prickly arse!”

  “I am attempting to undo the difficulties I
may have contributed to this night. And I certainly do not take advantage of genuine courtesy,” retorted Trahern. “I have no need to bind anyone to my service or return ill for good intentions.” He turned his attention to Brooke. “You are a human healer. Do you think the child will remain asleep if I move?” he asked her. “I do not wish to disturb him now that he has found some peace.”

  “Fox usually sleeps very soundly after an episode,” Brooke replied. “Frankly, I don’t think he’d notice if a herd of elephants stampeded through here.”

  Lissy caught the puzzlement in Trahern’s mind. Either there were no such animals in the faery world or they were known by some other name.

  “Aye, now there’s a brammer of an idea,” Ranyon declared. “I can call up some elephants right now if you don’t give Fox back to us!” Brooke shushed him at once.

  “Truly, I have not taken Fox from you,” said Trahern, but he looked at Lissy rather than the ellyll. “I only sought to give him a few moments of respite. I understand more clearly now what you meant when you said he was sensitive to his surroundings.” He drew a strange symbol in the air that glowed for a split second, then vanished.

  Lissy reached out and discovered that the barrier had also vanished, as if it had been nothing but a soap bubble. Her initial impulse had been to grab Fox and rush away with him, but a very different instinct directed her now. That strange energy was once again in play, that impossible sense of recognition she’d experienced the first time she’d met this man, this being. It was so strong and deep that she surprised herself by deliberately sitting on the couch right next to Trahern. As she held out her arms, the fae carefully deposited the sleeping child into them.

  Braith suddenly reappeared from wherever Ranyon had sent him, with Squishy Bear dangling from his enormous mouth. His pendulous lips were drawn back, and the exposed sharp teeth held the toy as carefully as if they were tweezers. Gently, the dog deposited the stuffed toy next to Lissy before lying at her feet. Brooke sat across from them. Ranyon remained standing a few moments longer, his branchlike arms folded across his Blue Jays T-shirt and his brow so furrowed that his eyes were barely visible. Finally, he sighed and clambered up beside Brooke. Lissy was grateful he didn’t say anything more to Trahern. She didn’t have enough energy left to play referee or to ponder the strangeness of the group now gathered in her living room. All she wanted was to hold Fox for a while, dammit. When he was exhausted like this, it was the only time she got the chance to simply cuddle him. You wouldn’t let me if you were awake, sweetie, she thought as her fingertips brushed the pale blond hair from his forehead.