Christina Henry - Black Heart

“Since you killed the Faerie Queen,” Daharan said.

There was no judgment in his tone, only a statement of fact.

“Yes,” I said, putting my fork down. “She thought I killed Bendith.”

“Of course she thought you killed her son. Because it was arranged so that she would think that.”

His voice was still calm, but I could see the anger banked in his eyes. The anger wasn’t for me, though.

“Do you know who set me up?” I asked. Whoever it was had a lot to answer for.

Daharan took a large sip of wine, swallowed it, and gazed directly at me. “Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me who it is?” I asked.

“I am sorry I did not return to you as soon as you expected me,” Daharan said. “So much of this could have been avoided.”

“Where were you, anyway? And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you didn’t answer the question,” I said.

“I was detained by Alerian,” he said.

“Alerian?” I asked, alarmed. “Why? What’s he up to?”

“Nothing that he will reveal to me. He simply wanted to see me, as we have been out of contact for many centuries,” Daharan said. “But our powers are in such direct opposition to one another that it has a dampening effect on our magic when we are together. You may have felt the connection between us break while I was in my brother’s presence.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I thought you left, went to some other universe or something. It was the same feeling that I used to get when Lucifer went to the land of the dead.”

“It was because of Alerian’s presence that I did not feel the threat to you when the faerie king’s apartment was under attack,” Daharan said. “Else I would have rushed to your aid immediately. And if that had been averted, none of the rest would have followed.”

“So who was it?” I asked.

“The same person who has interfered so often in your life lately,” Daharan said.

“Lucifer,” I swore. “I don’t know what he’s up to, but when I—”

Daharan shook his head. “Not Lucifer. Puck.”

“PUCK?” I ASKED. I DON’T KNOW WHY, BUT THAT TOOK me off guard. “Puck did this? But why would he kill his own son?”

“He has another,” Daharan said.

“Kids aren’t usually that interchangeable to their parents,” I said.

“I would not know. I have none,” Daharan said.

“You don’t?” I said, momentarily distracted. “Lucifer’s got them coming out of his ears.”

“Lucifer is not as discriminating as I,” Daharan said. “And my true nature makes it difficult to mate with human women.”

I made a concerted attempt to refocus. “Still, even if he does have Nathaniel, it makes no sense for Puck to kill Bendith.”

“There is something you do not know about Puck,” Daharan said. “Many millennia ago he was tricked into binding his life to Titania. He has served her ever since.”

I stared at Daharan. “And let me guess. The binding is only broken with Titania’s death.”

“Yes,” Daharan said.

The darkness rose up inside me, swirling as my fury rose. “He set it up to make it look like I murdered his son so Titania would blame me. And he used me to kill Titania and free him from his servitude.”

“Yes,” Daharan said sadly.

I stood from the table. The Retrievers came to immediate attention in the living room. I stomped through the hallway and into my bedroom. If Daharan had restored everything else in the house, then the object I was looking for would still be there.

On my dresser a bright blue jewel winked like Puck’s merry eyes. I grabbed the jewel off the dresser and went back to the living room.

“Puck!” I shouted.

Nothing. He was supposed to come when I called, when I used the jewel.

My power rose up, furious now, and Daharan made no move to calm or stop me. He simply waited. The Retrievers lined up in a row before me and sat on their haunches, as if awaiting my command to attack.

“PUCK!” I said, and pushed my power into the jewel.

“There’s no need to shout,” he said from behind me. “I’m right here.”

I spun around. Puck leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed, his usual expression of merriment on his face. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a black Neubauten T-shirt, and he wore engineer boots. His hair had been artfully arranged with some kind of hair product. He looked like he was going to a concert at the Metro.

And while Puck was grooming himself for a night out, I was drawing upon the darkness in my soul to unwittingly kill the Faerie Queen for him.

“I am going to kill you,” I swore.

I raised my hand to throw a spell at him, but Puck waggled his finger at me.

“Uh-uh-uh,” he said. “I think you’ll find you can’t do that.”

I paused. I was pretty sure that, having taken Titania down, I could definitely put the hurt on Puck, but he seemed very confident.

“Why in the name of all the hells not?” I said.

“Remember what I told you about magic leaving a trace of itself behind?” Puck said.

Back on the far-distant planet, when Puck had given me a boost of energy when I’d been flagging, he’d told me that the spell would not leave permanent damage. But that it would leave a trace of itself.

A bond. And that I might find that I would be unable to harm him should I ever wish to do so.

“You didn’t just arrange Bendith’s death,” I said. “You arranged the whole damned thing from beginning to end.”

Puck twinkled at me. “Of course I did. And let me tell you that it was no simple thing. I had to cull you away from your herd of merry men by sending you to Batarian’s world. I had to maneuver you into trusting me, into unleashing the dark power inside you. Without it you never would have been able to defeat Titania. I had to make sure that I left a mark on you so that you could not harm me. And I had to give Nathaniel and Bendith enough time to form a bond so that you would all chase after him if you thought he was kidnapped. So many pieces to arrange, but I must say that I am pleased with the way my jigsaw turned out.”

I felt sick to my stomach. “So there never was a threat from the Cimice? Titania wasn’t going to unleash them on Chicago? You just put me there and told me that story so I would exercise a part of my power that I had never touched before?”

“Yes, basically,” Puck said. “It was a pain to plant the Cimice there, too, with Lucifer’s thrice-bedamned portal restrictions.”

“And Batarian’s fae?” I said. “What of them? Did you even care that they might suffer because you had put an alien species on their planet, in their forest?”

“Oh, those fae were never there in the first place,” Puck said dismissively. “They used to be, long ago, but Lucifer killed them all. I simply summoned the memory of them to help convince you to take care of the Cimice. You do so seem to enjoy protecting innocents,” Puck said.

I’d told Batarian that his people were nothing more than pawns on a chessboard. But I hadn’t realized just how right I was when I’d said that.

“That means you sent that Cimice here to kill Jayne Wiskowski,” I said slowly, as I put the pieces together. “All this time, all along, you were leading me here, to this place, so that I would get rid of Titania for you? How dare you? How dare you?”

“How dare I what?” Puck said, and the merriment vanished from this eyes. “Use you? I would have done anything if only it meant that I could be free of that witch. I suffered for centuries at her hand, treated like an inferior creature when my power was far greater than hers. When you appeared in court it was as if you had been sent to me by fate. I knew as soon as I saw you that you would be the one. Only you would have power enough to do it, and only you were human enough to be manipulated into place.”