Chapter 32
The nursery! Danger!
Elizabeth sat bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding. It must have been a nightmare, this sense of Cerridwen screaming at her.
But then it came again, the sending clear as day. Jenny needs you! Now!
She tumbled out of bed, fear tearing at her throat. It was full dark, still the middle of the night, but her feet knew the way. Not even stopping to put on her slippers or a dressing gown, she raced out the door in her nightrail. On my way.
Jenny was in danger.
Elizabeth ran her hand lightly against the wall until it gave way to the open space of the staircase. A faint light at the top guided her way as she dashed up, her mouth dry.
It was coming from the nursery, along with the sound of Jenny crying.
Her bare feet could not move fast enough. Then she was inside - and rebounding off an invisible shape. One that should not be there.
But she did not care about that now. There was Jenny, crying against Nelly's shoulder, and that was the only important thing. Elizabeth hurried forward and pressed her hand against Jenny's tiny back. “Is she hurt?” she asked huskily.
Nelly looked like a ghost in her shift, her thin, steel-grey hair in a loose plait, her expression anxious.
“I do not believe so, madam. Just upset to be awakened so roughly. There, there, little sweetheart, it will all be well now. Your mama is here.” She lifted the baby and put her against Elizabeth's chest.
Elizabeth had to fight to hold her gently, not to clutch her tightly. “What happened?” She glanced back at whatever had blocked her way.
“The dragon can tell you better.” Nelly dabbed at her eyes. Clearly she had been badly frightened.
“It was that fae,” Agate said in his reedy voice, pointing towards the invisible thing.
“He was trying to do something to Jenny, tugging at her hair. It woke me up. When I asked what he was doing, he grabbed her and ran. I sprayed his legs with some fire, but it was not enough to stop him. I am not very good with dragonfire yet.” He sounded ashamed.
A fae. Trying to steal Jenny. Her greatest fear. “Why is he still here?” And should she be taking her baby and running far from him?
The nestling hung his head. “That was Jenny, not me. I called for Nurse, but I knew she could not waken quickly enough, so I told Jenny she had to stop him, that he was a bad fae. And she did, though I do not know how.”
Her tiny infant had somehow stopped a fae in his tracks? “What is he doing?”
“Nothing,” the dragon said. “Just frozen in place. I do not think he can talk. So I called Cerridwen for help.”
Just then a familiar rapping came at the window, sending a wave of relief through Elizabeth.
Cerridwen had the magic and the power to defend them, far more than an elderly nursemaid and a young nestling just coming into his abilities.
“Will you open that, Nelly? The bird outside is my dragon, here to help.” Elizabeth rubbed her hand along Jenny's back as the baby quieted into hiccoughing gasps.
Nelly obeyed with an alacrity that belied her age, and Cerridwen's kestrel form stepped daintily in, shaking the rain off her wings. “Agate has told me what happened,” she said in her squeaky bird-form voice. She hopped to the ground and waddled to the apparently empty space where the fae must be.
Elizabeth leaned down to Nelly and whispered, “Could you go rouse a servant? I want Mr. Jasper Fitzwilliam here as quickly as may be, and no need to be formally dressed. And Miss Darcy, too.”
“Right away,” she murmured. “Shall I take the little one away from here, too?”
She wanted to say no. She ached to keep Jenny in her arms - but she would be safer farther away.
“Take her to Lady Amelia,” she said slowly.
She hated to wake the old lady, who found sleeping difficult these days, but there was no one better to protect Jenny.
“Bring Agate, too. And pray stay there to help care for her.” Reluctantly she handed her Jenny.
Nelly slipped out the door with the baby while the kestrel was still sniffing and tapping the air with a talon.
“I can remove it,” Cerridwen said. “I suspect it will fade rather quickly in any case. The spell is not strong.”
“Astonishingly strong for an infant who cannot yet roll over,” Elizabeth retorted.
It was a terrifying idea, but she had no time to deal with that right now.
Instead she picked up the poker by the hearth.
It was iron, and she had learned enough from Jasper to be certain she could hit with some strength.
“I have sent for Jasper and Georgiana. Perhaps we should wait until they come.”
“That will be interesting.” The dark irony in Cerridwen's voice sounded almost absurd coming from a bird's mouth. “He is one of Miss Darcy's fae. I have seen him with her.”
Elizabeth's chest tightened as a sick feeling roiled her stomach. Could her sister-in-law be behind this effort to steal Jenny? Had she been wrong to believe that Georgiana was on their side? What if she had been working for the Wicked King all this time?
Betrayal tasted bitter in her mouth. William would be devastated. For the first time, she was glad he was far away.
Jasper arrived first, his shirt ends flapping loose over worn breeches, his hair disheveled, and a blade in each hand. Elizabeth had never been so glad to see a sword before.
“You traitor,” he spat with obvious distaste at the invisible figure. Of course, he could see fae now. “Elizabeth, do you want him dead, or just disabled?”
Elizabeth said, “Disabled will do. I want to be able to question him.” And she was no longer inclined to wait for Georgiana. She could barely restrain her fury. How dare he try to hurt Jenny?
“Shall I release him, then?” Cerridwen had somehow managed to transform herself into half-sized version of her true self.
Elizabeth nodded. “Do not let him get away, though.” She shifted towards the doorway, poker in hand.
She was prepared to use it, along with the energy she had gathered in her hands, spinning it into a mage power.
Jasper and Cerridwen had by far the best chance against the fae, especially since they could see him, but she was fully prepared to back them up.
She had come a long way from the girl at Longbourn who never thought to have an enemy.
“There,” Cerridwen said. A palpable current of magic snapped through the room. “He is free.”
Jasper lunged forward, sword extended, stopping abruptly as he apparently hit something. A cry of anguished pain came forth from the empty air.
Elizabeth ordered, “Make yourself visible to me!”
A creature rippled into view – a familiar one, with ears that pointed to each side. Crimson fae blood trickled down his patched tunic from where Jasper's rapier impaled his shoulder.
“Mistletoe?” Elizabeth gasped. The fae who had saved them from being poisoned, who checked all their food, who overheard their conversation at every meal. The one she had trusted with their lives. “How could you do this to us?”
“I never meant to hurt her,” Mistletoe sobbed. “I only wanted a tiny lock of her hair, and then I would have put her back.”
Anger burned inside her as she advanced towards him.
“Why? What did you want with her hair?” As if half the old fae stories did not speak of the mischief that could be caused with a lock of hair.
Lady Anne's hair had permitted the High King to steal the trueborn Georgiana Darcy and replace her with the current changeling Georgiana.
Whom Elilzabeth had thought until tonight was her ally and a friend of sorts.
Was Georgiana, like Mistletoe, only pretending to help them?
Why had she ever thought a fae could be trusted?
“Nothing! I was ordered to fetch it.”
“Who ordered you to do so?” Elizabeth put every ounce of ferocity into it, even knowing the fae could not lie to her. But he could hide things, and she wanted the truth.
The fae seemed to fold in on himself, despite the sword in his shoulder. “The High King,” he wailed. “I have failed him. I am dead, I am dead, I am dead.”
The door flew open, and Georgiana entered. She clasped her hand to her mouth. Was it true shock, or merely a false front? “Oh, Mistletoe, what have you done?”
Now he did collapse to the floor, held up only by Jasper's blade. It must have been agonizing. “Great lady, forgive me, forgive me.” He dissolved into miserable sobs that wracked his thin body.
Elizabeth felt no sympathy for him, nor for her sister-in-law.
“What did he do?” Georgiana's voice was like sharpened steel.
“He tried to take a lock of Jenny's hair to give to the Wicked King,” Elizabeth said flatly.
The girl looked genuinely horrified. “But...” She crouched down beside the fae. “Mistletoe, you swore to me you hated the High King, that you wished to see him fall.”
“It is true, it is true, every word!” he cried. “But he holds my little daughters prisoner and will torture them if I do not do as he says!”
Georgiana frowned. “You said no one had sent you here.”
“He did not send me! Merely told me to get the locks of hair and where they were. I did not want to betray you, great lady! You are the kindest, most generous lady, and I wish I could serve you all my days, but he has my babies.”
Jasper, with an expression of disgust, withdrew his blade, and the fae fell to the floor. “If you move from this spot, I will skewer you again.”
“Stop,” Elizabeth interrupted. “You said locks of hair. What other hair does he want?”
The fae fell silent, except for his whimpers of pain.
“Answer her,” Georgiana urged.
“All of you! I gave him yours already, and Lady Frederica’s.
” He pointed with his good arm at Jasper.
“And that man.” A crafty expression came over his face as he turned to Georgiana.
“But, great lady, I never told him about your healing, your tears. I kept your confidence on that! I never told him anything about what I heard here.”