C. E. Murphy - Wayfinder

“Your ambitions were always greater than mine.” Dafydd fell back again abruptly, rejoining Lara in not so much a retreat as a strategic commentary. Aerin’s fists clenched, but she said nothing else, and let Dafydd and Lara take the lead again as they cut down another street toward Kelly’s apartment complex.

“Does it work that way?” Lara wondered aloud. “I thought maybe there was no real inheritance, not when you all live so long. Heirs in name only, for all intents and purposes.”

“For all intents,” Dafydd agreed. “Even royalty dies, as my mother did, but Emyr was never likely to set aside his crown from grief, even if Ioan and I hadn’t been children by our standards. Even almost by human standards,” he added. “We were very young. Ioan was only nine or ten when I was born and he and Merrick were exchanged as hostages to good behavior.”

“I thought you didn’t have very many children. I’d think two children in ten years would be unheard of.”

“It was. And perhaps Rhiannon paid the price for breeding at such a mortal rate, as I was only a child myself when she died.”

“I’m sorry. Oh, good, here we are.” Lara ran forward, suddenly eager to get out of the street as she buzzed Kelly’s apartment. Aerin scowled at the sharp sound, hand tightening on her “purse” again, and Lara shot her a sympathetic smile. “It’ll be quieter insi—Hello? Hi, Kelly? It’s Lara!”

Momentary silence followed Kelly’s initial “hello?,” which had been half-drowned under Lara’s reassurance to Aerin. Then Kelly gave a short incredulous laugh. “Oh my God. Come on up, I’m buzzing you in.”

She met them in the hallway outside her apartment, eyes wide above a cheek swollen with medical staples. Lara made a dismayed sound, but Kelly charged forward to grab her in an astonished, breathless hug. “When you said ‘see you later’ I thought you meant in about ten years. Oh my God, Lara, you’re home already? You’re okay? What’s going on? And David!” She nearly yelled his name, releasing Lara to haul the slender Seelie man into a hug. “You’re not dead! And—oooh.” Her voice dropped as she took in Aerin, then put a hand out to shake. “I didn’t get your name, but you’re obviously the other wom—Uh, I mean, you’re Dafydd’s frie—I mean, aw, shit, I mean, hi, I’m Kelly.”

Aerin looked dubiously at Kelly’s hand, then carefully took it in her own. “I am Aerin.” She glanced at Dafydd, curiosity raising her white eyebrows. “Her injury appears profound. Why has she not healed it?”

Kelly shot Lara a look of bewilderment and Lara groaned. “She only speaks Seelie and my magic’s not enough to make you understand her. Or her understand you. This is Aerin. She wanted to know why you haven’t healed your cheek yet.”

“Are you kidding? The best doctors in Boston say it’s healing up really well. I won’t even need plastic surgery, probably, to hide the scar, it should be that unnoticeable.” Kelly grabbed Lara’s shoulders. “Speaking of plastic surgery—”

“I saw the newspaper story. Have you—?”

“I’ve been trying for two days to get in to see him. There are mooks in black suits and Ray-Bans lurking around the hospital. I can’t believe they haven’t taken him out of Boston yet.”

“How bad is he?”

“His brains are leaking out the back of his head,” Kelly said with an unfortunate degree of truthfulness. “I’ve got a girlfriend on the nursing staff, but even she can’t get me in to see him. All she can tell me is he hasn’t woken up and half of the medical community on the Eastern seaboard has come in to look at him. The papers are sticking with the extreme surgery story, but people are talking about alien invasions.” She herded everyone into her apartment as she spoke, Dafydd translating her tumble of words for Aerin.

Four days was enough to have turned Kelly’s apartment from relatively tidy into a minor disaster area. She darted around the living room, scooping up empty pint cartons of ice cream and blankets and socks and dumping them into trash cans and closets. Lara counted seven ice cream cartons before they were swept away, and caught Kelly’s hand to stop her whirlwind cleaning.

There was no diamond on her ring finger. Lara said “Oh, no, Kel,” and Kelly went still, eyes cast downward.

“He’s been at the hospital all week,” she mumbled. “Sitting by Reg’s bedside when he can, sleeping in the lobby when he’s not allowed to. The only time he’s left, pretty much, was to come see me in the ER when I came in bleeding like a stuck pig. He made sure I was more or less okay, and then he broke up with me. Said he didn’t know who I was anymore, that maybe he never did. I blew it, Lara. I mean I really, really blew it.”

“No.” Unexpectedly, it was Dafydd who interrupted, voice low but confident. “No, Kelly, if anyone is to blame, it’s me. Dickon was my cameraman and close friend for years, and he had no reason to suspect I was anything other than human. Though in most ways I neither would nor could change that, I should have found a way to tell him the truth immediately after I returned from the Barrow-lands without Lara. He deserved better than the friendship I offered him, and you deserved far better than the disaster I imparted upon your relationship.”

“I could have picked him,” Kelly whispered. Tears trembled down her cheeks and she pressed a finger above the cut on her face, giving the saltwater another path to travel than into the wound. “I could’ve done something else instead of turning into a criminal mastermind and spiriting us all away from a crime scene.”

Lara slipped an arm around Kelly’s waist, offering her a tentative smile. “Will it make you feel any better if I say no, you really couldn’t have?”

Kelly sniffled. “Couldn’t I?”

“Not from what I hear in your voice,” Lara said. “The truth is, helping Dafydd get away was the only thing you were ever going to do that day, Kelly. You weren’t going to let him die on a lab table, no matter how high the cost somewhere else might be. If Dickon can’t appreciate the strength of character that shows, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

Kelly laughed, a shaky wet sound. “That’s not fair. I have to believe it when you say it, Lara. I don’t have to believe me when I say it, but I have to believe you.” She wiped her eyes again, then hugged Lara hard. “Thank you. You might have to tell me five thousand times so I remember I have to believe you, but thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Lara hugged her back, then sighed. “How’s Detective Washington doing, anyway?”

Kelly sank down into an armchair. “He’s not out of the woods yet. We got stupid lucky with that mess at the courthouse garage, Lara. I mean, Dickon doesn’t care, because he was there and he knows we left Reg behind, but David’s lightning fried the whole security system. All the digital backups for the whole week got wiped out. There’s no footage anywhere that proves who was in the garage, and the only one who could identify us is Reg. He’s still unconscious, which is probably why I’m not in jail right now. They’ve got him at the same hospital Ioan’s at. If we could get in there, could you help him?” Her gaze went to Dafydd and Aerin, beseeching, and Dafydd once more translated before spreading his hands uncertainly.

“Neither of us has a talent for healing, Kelly. If Reginald Washington is indeed still in danger, if they’re still uncertain as to his recovery, the truth is we might best help him by bringing him to the Barrow-lands where he can be tended to by the other side of the magic that did him harm.”

Kelly flashed a sharp, bright smile. “Fantastic. I’ve always wanted to visit fairyland. Let’s go.”