Juliet Dark - The Angel Stone

“I know you must go back,” he said, taking my hand. The light grew into a pillar and then swelled into an arched doorway. As its light touched the petrified vines, they turned green and flowers bloomed. The air was heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, the scent that had first brought him to me.

“I love you,” I said.

William smiled and shook his head. “You love the man I will become …” He bent his head to mine and kissed me on the cheek, whispering in my ear, “… And so I must become that man.” Then he wrapped his arms around me and stepped us both through the door.

We went straight into Faerie, finding ourselves in a flower-bedecked meadow under a lilac sky. Lambent gold light lapped over everything, but there was no visible source for it—no sun, no moon. It may have been dawn or twilight. It was peaceful and beautiful, but I knew that appearances here could deceive.

“William, what were you thinking? The Fairy Queen said she’d kill you if you came through Faerie again.” I anxiously looked around for Fiona, wondering if I could get William through Faerie and into Fairwick. The last time I’d gone through the door, I hadn’t paused in Faerie. That hope was destroyed, though, when I saw a procession climbing the hill toward us. It was too late.

The procession was led by Fiona the Fairy Queen and King Fionn on horseback. Behind them was a host made up of myriad creatures: satyrs and centaurs; winged blond Valkyries; a great stag with gold-tipped horns, a herd of deer in his wake; women with feathered legs and the faces of owls; short white-bearded men with red caps, looking like an army of garden gnomes. Even more frightening creatures lurked on the edges of the crowd and in the woods bordering the meadow. Rat-faced goblins and pointy-eared imps chattered and hissed but scared me less than the Fairy Queen, whose emerald-green eyes were fastened on William. I moved to stand in front of him, but he tightened his grip on my arm and held me back. “It’s all right, lass,” he hissed under his breath. “I know what I’m doing.”

But no whisper was low enough to escape the Fairy Queen’s ears. In an instant she was upon us, swooping down from her horse and over the grass with the preternatural speed of a hawk, a long sharp-nailed finger an inch from William’s throat.

“Didn’t I tell you, boy , that if you came back to Faerie I’d pluck out your eyes and heart?”

“Fiona,” I said, the anger pulsing in my voice with the same force as the blue vein that throbbed beneath William’s skin just where the Fairy Queen’s nail was poised. “Let him go.”

Her green eyes slid toward me with the malevolent stealth of a snake. I’d known the Fairy Queen in Fairwick and had found her formidable, but I’d never thought she was evil. Perhaps she’d gained civility in her long years living among mortals. This Fairy Queen, though, looked very much as if she would pluck out William’s eyes, eat his heart, and then happily dine on my spleen.

“Who are you to address me by my name and make demands of me ? I cursed you, too!”

“I’m the doorkeeper,” I said, “and I have this .” I held up the Luckenbooth brooch.

The green eyes widened as they took in the angel stone. She took her finger away from William’s throat and made a grab for it, but I swept it out of her grasp, stepping back to get her farther from William. Instead of running away, though, he moved to my side and addressed the Fairy Queen. “Aye, Cailleach found a way to destroy those bastards.”

While William’s pride in me was heartening, I hoped he wouldn’t make the Fairy Queen even angrier.

“And did she destroy them all?” Fiona asked nastily.

“No,” I admitted. “Some got away. But the rest are in Fairwick, back in my time. Let William pass and we’ll destroy them there. You won’t ever have to pay a tithe again. I’ll restore the door. You’ll be able to pass between the worlds …” I hesitated, not entirely sure that I wanted to let Fiona back into my world after what I’d learned she’d done to William and other unfortunate young men before him.

“You think to dictate terms to me ?” she thundered.

“Are you so reluctant to give up your human boys?” The question came from golden-haired King Fionn. He stood even taller than Fiona and had the same fiercely green eyes.

Fiona turned to him, her emerald eyes sparking. “As if you haven’t had your own human lovers!” Although she snarled the words, they lacked the conviction she’d had when addressing William and me. She was either afraid of the king or in love with him, I couldn’t tell which. Either way, I didn’t want to be in the middle of their lovers’ spat.

“We want to return to my time and get rid of the nephilim. Surely that is in your interest, as well.”

“But it’s not his time,” Fionn pointed out, glaring at William. “We can’t let humans use Faerie to move through time. It frays the fabric of both worlds.”

I looked at William, who was glaring at Fionn. “Then let him go back to his time,” I said, my voice cracking. It didn’t seem fair that I’d have to make this sacrifice twice, but I had to return to Fairwick and I couldn’t bear to see William trapped again by the Fairy Queen.

“No!”

At first I thought the word came from King Fionn, it was so loud and authoritative. But it was William who had bellowed it. I turned to him, confused.

“No,” he said more softly, returning my look with a sad but level gaze. “I won’t go back. If I do, then I’ll never become your incubus, or Liam, or Bill, the man you fell in love with.”

I stared at him, desperately trying to untangle the threads of time and refute his logic. “We don’t know that’s how time works,” I said finally. “The Stewarts had the plaid in my time, but I still hadn’t gone back to give it to them.”

“As doorkeeper, you are not bound by the rules of time,” Fionn said. “But William is. Unless he stays in Faerie and becomes the incubus, you will never meet him and never fall in love with him.”

The thought of never meeting Liam or Bill made me feel faint, as if I were standing at the edge of a vertiginous drop. I was . The maw of time was opening up to swallow me. It was one thing to give up William and another to give up ever having known him. But if it meant sparing him hundreds of years in slavery, I would have to make that sacrifice. I opened my mouth to tell him so, but he placed a finger on my lips.

“No,” he said again, with the same firmness as before but a shade more gentleness. “No, Callie. This is why I came with you. I knew what it meant. I had to come back so I could become the man you fall in love with. Knowing that you’re waiting for me at the end, it will be worth it.” He slid his fingers from my lips to my cheek and placed his lips where his fingers had been. His kiss tasted like heather and honeysuckle. Like the first breath of summer that had brought Liam to me and the last smoky sigh of fall. It tasted like eternity, but it was over too soon. He pulled back from me and looked into my eyes. “I will see you again,” he said. Then he looked past me and strode toward Fiona and Fionn.

I watched as he stopped before the king and queen of Faerie. He straightened his back, legs apart in a stance I’d seen him take when faced with a balky ram. “If I stay, you’ll let Callie pass through Faerie,” he said—not a question but a demand. The queen glared at me, but at a look from King Fionn she agreed to William’s terms.

“I have one more condition,” William said. Then he crooked his finger to indicate they should bend their heads to hear what he had to say.