Jenna Black - Glimmerglass

I thought I’d hear my dad’s footsteps on the wooden stairs before he arrived at my door, but I didn’t. His sudden knock made me jump and gasp, and at first I didn’t answer him, my feet practically frozen to the floor.

“Dana?” he asked. “Are you all right, honey?”

I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and wiped my suddenly sweaty palms on my pants. Then I unlocked the door and swung it open wide, getting my first glimpse of my father.

The Fae, once they’ve reached adulthood, at least, are ageless. Intellectually, I knew that. But it didn’t lessen the shock of opening the door to a man I knew was my father and seeing someone who could have passed for twenty-five.

He had a typical Fae build, tall and slender, but he exuded a sense of wiry strength. His hair was very blond, cropped short around his aristocratic face. His eyes were the same cold blue as Grace’s—and mine, for that matter—but there was a kind of … weight to them that made him look older. Despite the youthful appearance of his face, his eyes were not those of a young man.

“Dana,” he said, his voice sounding almost awed as he looked me up and down. I felt like I was being inspected, but since I was doing the same to him, I could hardly complain.

For a moment, I thought he was going to hug me, and I tensed. I’m not a real touchy-feely person in the best of times, which these weren’t.

I was more relieved than I could say when he reached out his hand for me to shake instead. Ah, the famed Fae reserve. I’d almost forgotten about it, since Ethan didn’t fit the mold.

I shied away from thoughts of Ethan.

“Hi, Dad,” I said, feeling inexplicably weird calling him that. It hadn’t felt so weird on the phone.

“My poor child,” he said softly, giving my hand a firm squeeze. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through these last few days.”

I shuddered. No, he probably couldn’t.

“Let’s get you home,” he continued. “I’ve collected your suitcase and your laptop from Grace.” He smiled. “I suspect you’ll be more comfortable in your own clothes.”

“Before we go,” I said, “I’d like to ask you something.”

He nodded gravely. “All right.”

“Why were you so eager for me to come to Avalon?”

He blinked in surprise. “I discover I have a daughter whom I’ve never met, and it’s a surprise that I would want to meet you?” he asked incredulously.

“But you never even asked about my mom. You never thought it was funny that you only ever talked to me about the plans. There’s more to it than just wanting to meet me.” My throat tightened, but I think I managed to keep the pain of that declaration out of my voice.

Dad sighed. “Dana, I knew what it meant that your mother disappeared from my life without telling me she was pregnant. I knew it meant she wanted to keep you away from me. From the first time you and I talked, I knew you were going behind her back, and she would have stopped you if she’d known.”

It sounded plausible, I had to admit. But if there was one thing I knew for sure now, it was that all my mom’s warnings about my difficult place in Avalon politics were true. Maybe my dad really was eager to meet his long-lost daughter just for my own sake, but I didn’t think so.

“So your wanting to meet me has nothing to do with you wanting to be Consul and me maybe being a Faeriewalker.”

Ethan and Kimber had lied about a lot of things, but I could see right away from the look on his face that this wasn’t one of them. This silence was even longer than the last. When he finally broke the silence, I could tell he was picking his words with great care.

“I understand that my position might make it hard for you to trust my motives. Yes, I would like to be Consul. But I wanted to meet you because you’re my daughter, not because you were part of my political ambitions.”

My throat tightened again. He was telling me exactly what I wanted to hear. I wanted it to be true so, so badly.

Dad pursed his lips. “I’m going to make an educated guess that it was the so-called Student Underground who kidnapped you. Am I right?”

I gave him a skeptical look. “Since I called from Ethan’s cell phone, I’d say that guess was very educated.”

He nodded. “Indeed. And how much did Ethan tell you about himself and his Underground?”

Oh, God. Please tell me I wasn’t about to hear something else I’d rather not know!

“I’ll take your silence to mean you don’t know much,” Dad said. “Ethan is the son of Alistair Leigh, who is the leading Unseelie candidate for Consul. Naturally, Ethan and his Underground support Alistair’s candidacy, so whatever he may have told you about me could well be colored by his own political leanings.”

Yep, that was something else I’d rather not have known.

So that’s why Ethan was so interested in a not-particularly-attractive, half-blood high-school girl. Not because he’d fallen in love with me at first sight. Bad enough to think he’d wanted me as just another notch on his bedpost, but to think he’d tried to seduce me for cold-blooded political purposes was unbearable.

How I wished I’d held strong last night and not let him kiss me. My mouth tasted sour, and at that moment I pretty much hated him. He’d ruined my first kiss!

I remembered how hard Kimber had tried to convince me that Ethan wasn’t good for me. She’d even told me he was attracted to my power. She’d tried her best to warn me without actually explaining what she was warning me about. Too bad she’d been busy stabbing me in the back while she’d been “helping” me.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, determined to deal with my heartbreak later. I couldn’t put my faith in Ethan or Kimber anymore; I’d never even considered putting my faith in Aunt Grace; and even if I’d wanted to put my faith in my mom, she wasn’t answering the phone. There was a limit to how much faith I could put in anyone , but my father, the stranger, sounded like the best deal available.

“Can we get out of here now?” I asked, and my dad, with a look of sympathy in his eyes, agreed.

The Stone’s Throw Inn was situated relatively low on the slopes of the mountain, and I was glad Dad had brought his car, a racy little red number that I guessed was an Italian sports car of some sort. You know: the kind that wouldn’t be caught dead doing something so crass as putting the make and model where just anyone could see them. The bucket seats were so low I felt like my butt would hit the pavement if we went over a speed bump. Not that I’d seen any sign of speed bumps anywhere in Avalon, but you get the idea.

Dad laughed as he climbed in. “I know, it’s a bit excessive for use in Avalon,” he said, patting the dashboard like it was his pet dog. “I’d love to be able to drive out into the mortal world and see how fast it can really go.”

The engine purred as he started the car and pulled out of his parking space onto the steep, curving road that would take us higher up the mountain.

“I think you’d get a handful of speeding tickets before you ever found out,” I muttered, feeling the car’s quiet power as it accelerated effortlessly despite the steepness of the road.

He laughed. “Most likely.”

I didn’t know what the speed limit was in Avalon—there never seemed to be any signs—but I bet my dad was breaking it as he zipped up the road. I tried not to white-knuckle the door handle as we zoomed around the curves. In an ill-advised moment, I glanced out the side window. On this bright, clear day I could see for miles. Unfortunately, I was seeing miles and miles of deep green forest. Faerie.

I turned away without blinking. The too-fast car ride was hard enough on my stomach without adding the nausea-inducing view through the Glimmerglass. When I faced front again, I caught my dad’s sideways glance, and I fully expected him to ask me what I saw. But he didn’t, and I was relieved. I really didn’t want to talk about the whole Faeriewalker thing right now.