C. E. Murphy - Wayfinder

He was radiant: she hardly had to look at him to know that. Radiant and utterly inhuman, with the fine chiseled features of the Seelie race no longer hidden by blunting glamours. Even human, he was beautiful, but his eyes were brown, not amber, and his slim form looked ordinary, not sculpted. Worse, with the glamour gone, the padded tunic and leggings that he’d worn under the discarded armor looked all the more out of place, enhancing every aspect of his inhumanity. Lara’s heart lurched as she looked at him, taking in every aspect of his slender allure. Without fully meaning to, she stepped in front of him. He was the taller by several inches, impossible to hide, but a knot of determination unlike anything she’d ever known lodged itself inside her. The intruders might want to take Dafydd away, but they would go through her to do it. She wished she had a weapon and the knowledge of how to use it.

The worldbreaking staff came to life with the thought, humming urgently for her attention. Against all wisdom, Lara reached over her shoulder, drawing it from its bindings one fistful at a time, until she pulled it free and held it in front of herself at a crosswise angle. Power rushed through it, so eager to be used that the ivory vibrated in her hands. It could wreak havoc, it promised: it could make certain no one would take Dafydd from her. All it needed was her command. Less than that: tacit permission, almost granted by the act of drawing it, would unleash its magic. Nothing mortal would stand in its way.

Dickon, cautiously, said, “Lara, don’t make this worse than it has to be.”

“I don’t want to.” Truth shivered through the words, so cold she hardly recognized her own voice. “Believe me, I don’t want to. But I won’t let anybody take Dafydd.”

“What is he?” One of the doctors spoke, less angry than baffled, despite the disruption in her hospital. She watched Dafydd as avidly as Lara ever had, though her interest seemed more scientific than romantic. “He’s like the other one in the secure wing. What are they?”

“People,” Lara whispered. “They’re people, even if they don’t look like us. They’re not for experimenting on or dissecting or questioning. Please, just leave us alone. We’ll go away and won’t bother you again, but I will not let you take him from me.”

The doctor flashed her a look of genuine sympathy, though it was riddled with less kind pity as well. “Do you really think that’s your decision, miss? Do you even think it’s mine?” She took a step forward and Lara lifted the staff.

Power crashed from the weapon, invisible but potent, a barely controlled wave that made all the equipment in the room surge and beep frantically. The doctor spun toward Detective Washington, concern for her patient slightly greater than fear or interest in Dafydd, and she shot Lara an accusing look as she checked the detective over.

Lara’s knuckles went white around the staff, her whispered “No” directed at it alone. “No. Not unless there’s no other way.” She felt it struggling against her will, against the truth she invested in her words, and had an instant of wishing the weapon was slightly more alive than it was, so she could threaten it more effectively. The only thing she could potentially do was break it for disobeying, and that would have repercussions far beyond any she could anticipate.

“Nurse. Double-check this, please.” The doctor’s voice sharpened and two of the nurses broke away from staring at Dafydd to join her. The equipment had settled back down, beeping and thrumming regularly, but the doctor scrolled back through information on one of the machines, a nurse at her elbow.

“He stabilized,” the other woman said after a moment. “A few minutes ago, his heartbeat stabilized from the arrhythmia we’ve been seeing the past four days …”

“An improvement that wouldn’t have happened without Dafydd.” The truth stretched but didn’t break. Without Dafydd, Aerin never would have come to Boston; without Aerin, Washington’s vitals wouldn’t have stabilized, not as quickly as they had. Lara moved for the door, trusting boldness over rationality. “Call it a fair trade, Doctor. Let us go without a hassle.”

“Wait!” Hope shot through the doctor’s voice and she gestured around, obviously meaning to encompass the hospital as a whole. “Can he do this for everyone?”

Regret made a sharp place in Lara’s heart. “Not any more than you could. I’m sorry.”

Disappointment, but not surprise, etched itself across the woman’s face. Lara could see conflict in her eyes, an uncertainty as to whether she should have them detained, and Lara gave a quick nod toward the door, hastening Kelly and Dafydd out before the doctor made a decision. The dreadful noise of a full glamour at work slid through her mind as Aerin slipped past as well, leaving Lara the last to abandon the room full of hesitant hospital staff. Dafydd scrubbed his hair forward, covering his ears, and hunched his shoulders, head down as they hurried for the elevators and for escape.

Seconds later, Dickon Collins’s voice followed them: “Hang on. I’m coming with you.”

Hesitation ran through every visible member of their group, but Aerin, through what sounded like gritted teeth, said, “Let him. I cannot maintain this glamour long enough to argue, Truthseeker.”

“I don’t think I could stop him anyway,” Lara muttered, and Dickon slipped through the elevator doors as they began closing. He folded his arms over his chest, making him more of a wall than usual, and turned a hard look on Dafydd.

“What’d you do in there?”

“I did nothing,” Dafydd said with more light amusement in his voice than Lara thought warranted. “Dickon, my old friend, if you insist on accompanying us, perhaps I could walk in your shadow, as it were, while we escape this place.” He lifted his eyes deliberately, showing Dickon his unglamoured countenance, and spread his hands in rueful admission. “Frankly, without your help, I’m uncertain we’ll leave here unmolested.”

Dickon’s jaw clenched, face turning a fiery red brighter even than his hair. “You have a hell of a lot of nerve, Kirwen.”

“I do, and yet you’ve chosen to join us, so I’m forced to determine my nerve will not go unanswered. Please, Dickon,” he added more quietly, and for the first time Lara saw strain lining his ageless face and darkening his amber eyes. “I need your help.”

“Reg is going to live?” Dickon’s gaze went to Lara, who felt a pang of guilt as he ignored Kelly entirely. Not that Kelly had the truthseeking skill that Lara possessed, but a handful of days ago they’d been a couple, planning to wed. To see Kelly so thoroughly dismissed hurt Lara, even if she understood.

And the only answer she had wasn’t quite enough. “I think so. He made it this far, and he’s stabilized now.”

“You only think so?” The elevator doors dinged open behind Dickon, revealing three or four people who automatically moved forward, then startled and fell back again, exchanging glances with each other and at Dickon’s broad back.

Lara shrugged. “I’d promise it was true if I knew it was, Dickon. If he’s strong enough, he’ll live.” That had rung true when Aerin said it, but whether the detective had the strength to rally remained unknown.

Dickon scowled. “He’s tough.”

“Then he will live,” Aerin snapped from nowhere. Dickon flinched, then grunted as Aerin shouldered past him as a blur of headache-inducing light and color in Lara’s vision. She ran to catch up with the Seelie woman, making apologies to the people waiting outside the elevator as they were brushed aside by something they couldn’t see.

Or could half-see, Lara feared, by the time she and Aerin reached the front doors. Aerin knelt off to one side, glamour flickering in and out around her like an ancient film as the others caught up to them. “I’m sorry, Truthseeker. I lack the strength of Rhiannon that flows in Dafydd’s blood. We must find shelter very soon.”