try—and that’s not enough. In a minute, we’re going to have to tell my wife that they’re missing. I saw your hands.”
“What?”
“Your hands were fine when you got here. How did you burn your hands? Where are my kids?” That last statement was delivered with such vehemence that I realized for the first time in years just how large Mitch was. He doesn’t usually go in for violence, but he still has eleven inches and at least a hundred pounds on me.
Sometimes honesty is the best policy, especially when you’re dealing with someone who could break you in two without blinking. “I don’t know, but they aren’t here,” I said. “I don’t think they’re anywhere this side of the Summerlands.”
The look on his face was beyond broken; he’d passed all the way into bereft. “Can you find them?”
“I can try,” I said.
“And Karen?”
Oak and ash, Karen. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. But I can take a look.” I’m not a miracle worker; I’m just a half-blood with a talent for not getting killed. So far. The problems start when people assume that if I can survive, I can do anything. I wish they were right. It would make my life a lot easier.
Turning, I walked back to the stairs without another word. I was halfway down before I heard him following me.
Stacy looked up as we approached. She was still clinging to Karen’s hand. Cassandra was sitting on the other couch with her arms around Anthony, her chin resting lightly against the crown of his head. The pressures of the day had been too much for him, and he’d fallen asleep. Anthony nestled closer to his sister as I watched, whimpering in his sleep.
“Did you—” Stacy began. I shook my head. She pressed her free hand against her mouth. I’d never seen her look so old. I always knew her thinner blood meant she’d age faster than the rest of us, but it never seemed real before. She’d seemed too alive to show the signs of mortality. Now her children were in danger, and she was showing those signs in full. Looking at Stacy, I wasn’t sure she’d ever recover the vitality her fear had leeched away.
She still looked better than her middle daughter. Karen was practically a wax statue of herself, all the color bleached from her skin and hair. It was like looking at a corpse with faintly pointed ears, and my stomach lurched before I glanced away, trying to compose myself. Faerie corpses are supposed to be impossible. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I know that’s not the case; it’s possible to keep the night-haunts away, if you really try. I don’t advise it.
Spike rubbed against my leg, whining in the back of its throat before leaping onto the couch next to Karen and curling up by her head. I knelt, studying her carefully.
Karen wasn’t dead, just so asleep she couldn’t find the way home. Her pulse was strong, if slow. I leaned forward to hold my cheek near her mouth and felt the unlabored movement of her breath. There was nothing physically wrong with her. She just wouldn’t wake up.
“She’s asleep,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “I don’t know why.”
Stacy stared at me, eyes wide. “Well, c-can’t you wake her?”
“Not alone.” I paused. What I was about to ask might be too much, but I didn’t see another choice. “I may know someone who can. Will you let me take her with me?”
“No!” she cried, moving to shield her daughter with her body. I rose and backed away, not arguing. Mothers aren’t always logical. I should know. I used to be one.
“Stacy—” Mitch stepped forward. “We need to let Karen go with Toby.”
“No! She’s our daughter—Mitch, how could you?” She clung to Karen like a drowning man clings to drift-wood. It made sense; in her own way, she was going under. “We can’t just let her go!”
“Toby will be with her,” he rumbled. “Toby? Where do you want to take her?”
“The Tea Gardens. The Undine who guards them may know how to help.” Undine are regional fae and, once they merge with a place, they can never leave it. Lily hasn’t left the Japanese Tea Gardens since she came to America.
“If that doesn’t work?” He was talking to me, but his eyes were on Stacy; he was trying to make her understand. Good man. He knew as well as I did that unless we found out what was wrong with Karen,