“Was that The Alfar Powers That Be?”

Anyan only nodded.

“Do you know who it was, exactly?”

“Yep,” the barghest said. “I recognized their scents and their voices. That’s probably why they gagged me. You, Jane True, warranted an abduction from none other than the Alfar Leader of this territory, himself.”

“The king?”

Anyan’s chest rumbled as he sighed. “Nothing as straightforward as that, I’m afraid. There’s a saying, here, that ‘Whosoever holds the Island holds the Race.’ You can probably guess how that’s caused a lot of problems. There was always some crazy who wanted to be king or queen of the mountain, and they were constantly attacking whoever ruled the Great Island.”

“So then how is that dude the leader?”

“Leader, Jane, with a capital ‘L.’ It’s all because of semantics. Long ago the Alfar realized that calling anyone king or queen of the Great Island was just asking for trouble. So they changed the word ‘king’ to ‘Leader.’ ”

“That’s lame.” I said, looking up at Anyan and wrinkling my nose.

“Yes, but it worked,” he said, then kissed me on said appendage. His mouth lingered, and I felt my body flush.

After all the adrenaline of the day: the firefight, then getting kidnapped, then getting thrown out of a moving vehicle, I shouldn’t be surprised at what happened next.

I pounced.

My mouth was on the barghest’s, and I was kissing him as passionately as I ever had. I suddenly really wanted him. Maybe it’s because I wanted to know he was alive and well, or maybe because we’d just had such a crazy day together and the one thing I’d come out of it realizing was that I could rely on him always to be there.

We’d even gotten kidnapped together, twice, as if our abductors knew we went together like a horse and carriage.

Anyan kissed me back, just as passionately, helping me swing my leg around so that I was straddling him on the bench. His hands cupped my bottom and I moaned into his open mouth.

Then a passing car honked, and I realized we’d both forgotten a glamour.

I lifted my face, giving a finger to the car, then looked back at him with a sigh.

“Maybe this isn’t the best time,” I said, sliding off of him to sit next to him on the bench.

“No, it probably isn’t. You’ll just have to wait for our next date.”

I grinned. “When will that be?”

“Soon as I can finagle it, little minx. We can shoot for no interruptions, for that one.”

“Nobody likes interruptions,” I said, solemnly.

“No. How am I supposed to make you beg with someone blowing up my pager?”

“You are so old,” I said, laughing at his nineties-speak. “Now tell me about the Leader.”

So Anyan did. Apparently the Leader was your typical Alfar, but more savvy than most. The Great Island wasn’t an easy place to rule, so there couldn’t be the sort of All Powerful But Completely Out of Touch rulers that our own continent’s territories were known for.

The leader’s name was Luke, and the other voice had been Luke’s own second, Griffin.

“Griffin’s an interesting Alfar,” Anyan said. “Extremely powerful, but also really with it. He’s probably the edgiest Alfar I’ve ever met. He’s also really smart, but he’s tremendously conservative. He doesn’t want anything to change the status quo, ever, and he wholeheartedly believes in the superiority of purebloods.”

“He sounds like a charmer,” I said dryly.

“That’s the funny part,” Anyan said. “He is a charmer. He’s one of the most personable, interesting Alfar you’ll ever meet. He’s engaged, fully, with reality in a way the rest of his kind eschew. Yet he’s still totally Alfar in his thinking.”

“Well, it makes sense,” I said. “After all, that system rewards him for being born himself. Why would he want it to change?”

“It’s still amazing that beings like Griffin can constantly be faced with facts that challenge their worldview, but remain oblivious.”

“It happens all the time, Anyan. Although I’m happy to hear it’s not just humans that are so blind.”

“Anyway,” Anyan said, “They’re obviously aware something’s up, and they wanted to find out what it was.”

“So they kidnapped us?”

“I think they kidnapped you, really. I was just thrown in because I was with you. I think you present them with the real mystery: what are you doing here and why? The rest of us are known around these parts. They probably figure we’re just spying for the rebels, or the Territory. But you they don’t understand, and your being here makes us being here look more suspect.”

“Okay,” I said. “So how did I do?”

Anyan shrugged. “I think you did well. You didn’t give anything really important away, and we’re alive. I’d count that as a success.”

“But I lost the ax,” I said. “And the cheese.”

“We don’t know you lost either, yet. Maybe they were picked up by the others. Plus I don’t think the labrys is the type of thing to get itself lost. And I can always buy you more cheese.”

“You’d do that?” I said, impishly, beaming up at him.

“Of course,” he answered, with an expression that was so affectionate my heart lurched like a drunk on a bender. Then it realigned itself as I remembered something important.

“Wait, who will The Powers That Be side with? Us or Morrigan? She is Alfar, after all.”

“That, my dear, is a good question,” Anyan replied, gone serious again. “And one we still can’t answer. But I think we can be fairly confident that even the Alfar here can’t be stupid enough to want the Red and the White to rise again.”

“Ugh. I don’t like relying on ‘confident.’ ”

“Neither do I, but we’ll have to for now. At least until they show their hand.”

I made a disgruntled sound, expressing my unhappiness with our situation.

“So you’ve met the rebels and you’ve met The Powers That Be. Which do you like better?” Anyan asked.

That was easy.

“I’m thinking neither group is going to end up on my Christmas list.”

Then, with a sigh, I finally brought up the thing I’d really been dreading acknowledging.

“We have to get that book back.”

Anyan nodded. “I know.”

“I don’t want to have to be a hero,” I said, my voice small.

The barghest put his arm around me, drawing me close.

“I know,” he said.

I let him hold me like that, till Gog showed up in the white van to carry us away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

That we’d been kidnapped by the Alfar Leader didn’t impress any of our new friends. Apparently, they’d all been kidnapped at sometime or other by TPTB. Neither were they impressed with my news about Hiral having hid out in Morrigan’s trunk.

Turns out the gwyllion had already called. He was in Brighton, where he’d discovered Morrigan had her hideout. From what Blondie had told me, the Red and the White had always had a slight obsession with Brighton, and had tried to use the human king, King George IV, as one of their resurrection tools. He hadn’t found any of their pieces, but he’d commissioned dragons everywhere throughout the Brighton Pavilion.

As for our current mission, the others had picked us up with our bags already packed and our train tickets already bought. I was hugely relieved to discover we were already on track to get the book back, the bones back, and kick Morrigan’s admittedly rather fine Alfar ass. Unfortunately, however, my friends had neither my cheese nor my ax. I did a pretty good job of flipping out when I discovered I was now a weaponless champion, but Blondie assured me cryptically that all would be well—that the ax would find me when it was needed and that it wasn’t going to lose me so easily. Since I still had no idea where it was, however, I didn’t find her words particularly comforting. Instead, I went right ahead and kept freaking out until she yelled at me that I wouldn’t live to see the labrys returned to me if I didn’t stop irritating her.

When I still didn’t stop she sighed.

“Do you feel like it’s lost?” she said. “I know you think it’s lost, but do you feel like it’s lost?”

I paused at her words, and buried my instinctive response to shout, “yes, I know it’s lost so it feels lost.” Instead, I tried to feel for the ax, as I could do when it was in my hand.

“No,” I said, surprised. “It doesn’t feel lost… but where is it?”

“It takes care of itself,” she said. “You’ll get it back when you need it. Now shut up about the damned ax.”

So I tried to put a cap on my nerves by concentrating on the other thing I was feeling quite strongly, at that point: my hunger. Luckily, I’d been assured there’d be snacks.

So soon enough I found myself on the hour-long train ride to Brighton. We’d gotten a whole table to ourselves, with four seats around it. Anyan and I sat facing backward, while Blondie and Magog sat across from us. Gog was going to arrive in Brighton a few hours after we arrived, with the little white van and some other rebel fighters to help pad out our numbers.