The Iron Traitor. Julie Kagawa

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СКАЧАТЬ dad when we get home? You decided to visit New York, and I agreed to drive you there?”

      Kenzie had shrugged, the moonlight shining off her raven hair. Behind her, the great expanse of Central Park was a black-and-silver patchwork quilt, fading into the glimmering towers over the tree line. Her slim arms hung around my waist, her fingers tracing patterns in the small of my back, distracting me. “Can you think of anything better?”

      “Not really.” I shivered as her fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt and brushed my skin. I resisted the urge to squirm and tried to focus. “But won’t he be mad that you just took off without telling him?”

      The girl in my arms gave a bitter smile, not looking up. “He has no right to be,” she muttered. “He doesn’t care what I do. He never checks up on me. As long as I come back with all my fingers and toes, he won’t care where I’ve been. And if he does say something, I...I’ll tell him that I wanted to see New York City before I died. What is he going to do?”

      My gut twisted for a different reason then. I didn’t answer, and Kenzie peeked up at me, apologetic. “What about you?” she asked, cocking her head. “What do you want to tell your family when we get home?”

      “Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “My family has dealt with this before.” When we lost Meghan. “I’ll come up with something.”

      She fell silent, chewing on her lip. Her soft fingers were still tracing patterns beneath my shirt, sending tremors up my spine. “Ethan?” she said finally, her voice strangely hesitant. “Um...I’m going to see you again, when we get back to the real world, right?”

      “Yeah,” I whispered, knowing exactly what she meant. She wasn’t worried that I would fade from sight like one of the fey, but that I would go back to being that mean, hostile jackass who kept everyone at arm’s length. “I promise, I’m not going anywhere,” I told her, brushing a dark strand of hair from her eyes. “I’ll even do normal things like take you to dinner and go to the movies, if you want.”

      Kenzie grinned. “Can I introduce you as my boyfriend?”

      My stomach lurched the other way. “If you think introducing me to anyone is a good idea,” I said, shrugging. “I just hope your dad is as lenient on your boyfriends as he is on your whereabouts. You said he’s a lawyer, right?” I grimaced. “I can just see how that first meeting is going to go.”

      Kenzie rose on tiptoe, her hands climbing my chest to my shoulders, and touched her lips to mine. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes, feeling her soft mouth caress my lips, forgetting everything for a moment.

      “Let me handle my dad,” she murmured when we drew back.

      “Prince Ethan.” A short faery with a potato-like nose, wrinkled and stubby, padded up. The gnome was dressed in a long white coat, and one of its arms was mechanical, the fingers made of needles, tweezers, even a scalpel. “You are injured,” it stated, gesturing to the rough bandages trussed around my leg and arm where I’d been sliced open by a couple nasty faery knights. My sleeve and half my pant leg were covered in blood. “The Iron Queen has bid me to tend to your wounds. As she said, in her own words, ‘I do not want Mom and Luke freaking out the second he comes home.’ Please, sit down.”

      Kenzie let me go, and, suddenly feeling my injuries, I maneuvered painfully into a seated position. “You can stitch me up all you want,” I grumbled as the gnome’s index finger became a pair of tiny scissors and began cutting away my arm wrap. “They’re still going to freak out when they see me half-drenched in blood. I see an emergency room visit in my future.”

      “Not necessarily,” the gnome returned, and waved its regular arm. I felt the tingle of glamour settle over me as the blood on my shirt abruptly...vanished. Holes disappeared, tears stitched themselves together and my clothes looked perfectly normal again. Beside me, Kenzie drew in a sharp breath, even as I recoiled, not wanting any faery glamour put on me, even if it seemed harmless.

      “Oh, calm down,” the gnome said, taking my arm again. “It’s an illusion, nothing more. But it will break the second you remove your clothes, so I suggest you make sure you are alone when you decide to change. As for these—” it plucked at the sleeve of my shirt “—I suggest a nice bonfire.”

      * * *

      When I’d gotten home that night, I’d been bracing myself for an interrogation. Thanks to my sister disappearing into Faeryland thirteen years ago, my parents were paranoid and overprotective to the nth degree. If I was out five minutes past curfew, Mom would be calling my phone, demanding to know where I was, if I was all right. As I’d slipped through the front door that night, I still hadn’t known what I was going to tell them, but when I’d seen them in the living room, waiting for me, I’d realized they already knew.

      It seemed they had received a visit from the Iron Queen that very night, and Meghan had told them I was safe. That I had been with her in the Nevernever and I was on my way home. She didn’t tell them the whole truth, of course; she’d left out the parts with Keirran, and the Forgotten, and how I’d almost died a few times. I’d thought Mom and Dad would want the rest of the story; even if they couldn’t see the bloodstains covering my clothes, or the stitched wounds beneath them, they’d had to know something had gone down in Faeryland. But whatever Meghan had told them seemed to be enough. Mom had just hugged the breath out of me, asked if I was all right about four dozen times and left it at that.

      Truthfully, I didn’t think she wanted to know. Mom was terrified of the fey and thought that if she pretended they didn’t exist, they wouldn’t harass us. Which kind of sucked for me, because they did. But, at least that night, I’d been glad I didn’t have to explain myself. It wasn’t often that I was let off the hook. I’d just hoped Kenzie’s family was as understanding.

      Kenzie. I sighed, scrubbing my hand through my hair, worried again. I hadn’t seen her since the night she went home, back to her dad and her stepmom. I’d tried calling her over the weekend, but either her phone was still dead or it had been taken away, because my calls went straight to voice mail. Worried and restless, I’d gotten to school early this morning in the hopes of seeing her, finding out how her family had taken her abrupt disappearance, but I’d been pulled into the principal’s office before I could catch a glimpse of the girl who was very suddenly my whole world.

      Morose, I headed back to class, still scanning the hall for any glimpse of blue-streaked black hair, irrationally hoping to run into Kenzie on her way to the principal’s office. I didn’t see her, of course, but I did pass a group of girls in the hall, talking and laughing beneath the bathroom sign. They fell silent as I passed, staring at me with wide eyes, and I heard the murmurs erupt as soon as my back was turned.

      “Oh, my God, that’s him.”

      “Did you hear he forced Kenzie to run away with him last week? They were on the other side of the country before the police finally caught them.”

      “So that’s why the cops are here. Why isn’t he in jail?”

      I clenched my jaw and kept walking. Gossip rarely bothered me—I was so used to it by now. And most of the more colorful rumors were so far off it was laughable. But I hated the thought that, just by being around me, Kenzie would be the target of speculation. It was already starting.

      She wasn’t in any of the classes we shared, which made it difficult to concentrate on anything happening around me. Even so, I caught suspicious glances thrown my way, whispers whenever I slid into my desk, the hard stares of some of the popular kids. Kenzie’s friends. I kept my head down СКАЧАТЬ