The Boy with the Hidden Name (12 page)

moment of triumph.

I sweep over to Ben’s mother. I cannot tell if she heard my

exchange with Ben, and I cannot tell if it would mean any-

thing to her anyway. “Is this how we’re getting to the feast?”

I inquire politely. “On the corgis?”

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“Of course,” she says, and then she sends that cold Seelie

anti- smile around to encompass all of us. “Welcome to the

Unseelie Court.”

x

Riding on corgis is difficult, harder than it looks. It was a lot easier to ride the cave horses, even if at the time I didn’t think it was especially easy. The corgis do a lot of…gamboling.

That’s the only word I can think of. The ride to the castle isn’t long, but they do a lot of bounding about on the way there,

and I have my hands twisted into the corgi’s fur to keep from

falling off. I could hold onto Ben, who I am sitting behind,

but I feel like that might eliminate the impact of my last statement to him, which I’m honestly pretty proud of.

Our corgi leaps over the drawbridge leading to the castle, and

then we are inside a courtyard, castle walls rising all around us.

I slide off the corgi quickly and Ben does the same. Behind us,

Kelsey and Safford are sliding off their corgi, and Will is sliding off of his. The three faeries who had ridden out to meet us

had traveled back up to the courtyard, and the female one who

wasn’t Ben’s mother had taken the Erlking along with her. The

four of them are now waiting for us in the courtyard.

“What did you think of traveling by corgi?” Ben’s mother

asks us, smile wide on her face.

“Er,” Will replies, looking dubiously at his corgi. “It

was unique.”

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“It’s the only way to travel. But maybe you have to be born

to it. Come.” She turns grandly, with a commanding sort of

sniff, and marches through two enormous double doors into

a hallway.

Ben follows her. Will and Kelsey and Safford and I all look

at each other.

“Ask her,” I hiss at Will.

“Shh,” Will says sharply, shakes his head, and then follows

after Ben.

I sigh in frustration. I mean, it wasn’t like
I
asked her, but I still decide it’s easier to be miffed at Will for not picking up the slack.

It is very dim inside the castle. There is some feeble light

along the hallway we’re walking down, but I can’t really figure

out where it’s coming from, because there aren’t any torches

or lamps or orbs or anything like that. But I know there’s

light because Safford’s red hair gleams like a beacon in front

of me, picking up every piece of light there is to gather.

Safford’s hair, frankly, makes me think of the sun. I decide

I’m tired of being underground. I am never taking real, unen-

chanted sunlight for granted again.

“Here we are,” Ben’s mother announces, coming to an

abrupt stop. She turns and smiles at us. I wish she would

stop smiling; her smile is unsettling. “We are having a feast,

did Benedict tell you?”

“He mentioned it,” Will replies politely.

“Excellent. Surely you wish to freshen up before the feast.

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You’re looking a bit…” She casts her eyes over us. “Travel-

weary,” she finishes delicately.

Ben’s mother turns to her left and throws open a door I

hadn’t noticed before. Then she turns to Will. “Mr. Blaxton,”

she says to him and indicates the doorway.

Will does not move, and I realize that, while she hasn’t

named him with intent, she nonetheless knows his name. Her

smile grows more chilling. I didn’t realize that was possible.

“Thank you,” Will says eventually, after a moment of silence.

He sounds smooth and unruffled, but I think it’s all an act.

Will, after all, has been living among faeries a long time and

can lie with the best of them. He walks briskly through the

doorway and then closes the door behind him. Well. I hope

he closes it. I hope it doesn’t swing shut of its own accord.

Ben’s mother moves down the hallway, flinging open more

doors. “Safford,” she says. “And Kelsey.”

They both hesitate on the thresholds of their rooms. Kelsey

looks back at me. I flicker a little smile at her, as if I know

that this is all going to be okay, when coming to the Unseelie

Court now seems to me to be the worst idea that I have ever

had. And then Kelsey walks into her room and shuts the

door, as does Safford.

Ben’s mother moves to the next door in the hallway. “And

now, for the fay of the autumnal equinox,” she starts, hand

on the iron ring that acts as a doorknob.

“She’ll stay with me,” Ben inserts and takes a step closer to

me in the twilight of the hallway.

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I look at him in surprise and annoyance, as his mother

says, sounding amused, “I suspected you would insist upon

as much.”

She starts walking again, and Ben places a hand on the

small of my back to nudge me forward.

I resist. “I’d rather have my own room,” I announce loudly,

because really, that seems a little arrogant of Ben, who I am

still
angry
with
and who isn’t acknowledging that I have every right to be angry.

His mother stops walking and turns back to us. She lifts

her eyebrows at me. “Would you?” she muses speculatively.

She walks slowly back to us and leans down, so that we are

level. I look straight into her colorless eyes, and I suppress my shudder. “Would you
really
?”

What
are
we
doing?
I wonder suddenly. We need to get our information and leave. I blurt out, “We’re looking for the

other fays.”

“It is the fate of so many to be looking so far and so long

for so much,” responds Ben’s mother.

“Okay,” I say, even though I could not care less about what-

ever that was. “But the book of power said that you know

where they are because you hid them.”

“Did I hide them?” says Ben’s mother. “It was so very long

ago. So difficult to remember…”

I think of the Seelies, of their secret power of forgetting,

and I wonder if Ben’s mom is suffering from it. “It was writ-

ten in the book,” I say eagerly, hoping it will jog her memory.

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Ben’s mother lifts her eyebrows at me. “You have a book?”

“I don’t, but— ”

Ben’s mother reaches out and lays a finger against my lips.

Her finger is ice- cold and I stop talking out of sheer shock.

“You have not learned the lesson yet, little fay.”

“Don’t,” Ben starts, but his mother flicks a glance up at him

and says, “Shh, shh, shh.”

“What lesson?” I manage around her finger. I try to jerk

my head back but her finger follows, contact with my lips

not lessening.

“You shouldn’t ask questions before dinner. It’s rude.” She

leans closer to me, and I am suddenly abruptly grateful for

the warm barrier of Ben behind me, because it reminds me

that I’m not alone. “Must I teach you this lesson? Shall we

begin right now?” Her finger moves off my lips, trails over my

cheekbone, tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear.

“Stop,” I manage finally, harshly, and jerk out of her grasp.

She smiles an anti- smile at me. “Good. I thought you’d be

a quick learner.” She turns and walks away, calling over her

shoulder, “You should wear the coat I got for you, Benedict.

It’s a special occasion.”

“We’ll see,” Ben answers noncommittally and then grabs my

hand. He pulls me into a room with him before I can react,

still thrown by the phantom recall of his mother’s finger on me.

“She’s
awful
,” I say, shaking.

“Yes, turns out she’s not the most charming of faeries. Are

you alright?”

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“I’m fine,” I answer vaguely, preoccupied by studying the

room we’re in.

It’s perfectly round, with a bed and a desk and a chair and

a round window in the wall. The ceiling is high above us,

crossed over with wood beams, and there are a few wrought-

iron chandeliers hanging from it. The floor appears to be dirt,

which suits the rough furnishings of the room, and the view

out the window looks like the sunny meadow where we had

been earlier that day, when I had first met Ben’s mother.

I shake my hand out of Ben’s and walk over to the window.

It doesn’t have any glass over it— Unseelies must share the

glass aversion trait with Seelies— so I stick my head through

it and look at the meadow.

“It’s an enchantment,” Ben says behind me.

“I figured,” I say and pull my head back through the window.

Ben is on the bed, on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

It’s a little bit strange, because I have, technically, slept with Ben, curled close into him, but there has never been a bed

involved before, so I stand awkwardly by his window. Plus,

there’s the fact that I’m angry with him. It’s only been a few

days since I last saw him, I think, if I’m keeping time cor-

rectly, but it feels as if it’s been years, or it’s been a few minutes. I’m so confused by the battering I feel like my emotions

are taking from seeing him again. It was easier to hate him so

much when he wasn’t right in front of me, so familiar, and

I wasn’t calling up the memory of several different lifetimes’

worth of longing for him. But it was also easier to forgive him

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when he wasn’t right in front of me being so unapologetic

about the whole thing.

I open my mouth to tell him to leave.

“She’s very nostalgic,” Ben says finally, breaking the silence.

“Who is?”

“My mother. This is the room I grew up in.”

So I guess I can’t tell him to leave then. I blink in surprise

and look around the room with new eyes. “This is?”

“Well, I mean, not really, that room doesn’t exist anymore.

She’s enchanted it this way. She’s very nostalgic, like I say.”

I look at him. “She enchanted it this way for you?”

He shakes his head briefly. “She didn’t do it for me.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.” He turns his head to finally look at me. His eyes

are very green in this room, green like the meadow outside.

“Go on,” he says.

“Go on with what?” I ask, confused.

“With questions. You must have a million questions. You

always have a million questions. You never stop asking ques-

tions. So go on.”

I bristle. “I’m sorry if my questions irritate you.”

“I never said they irritate me.”

“What is going on here, Ben?”

Ben considers then shakes his head. “You need to start with

a simpler question than that.”

“Have you asked your mother where the other fays are?”

“Yes. I get in response the sort of thing you just saw. She

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won’t answer any questions. Which isn’t exactly unusual for

a faerie.”

I’m frustrated. “So she doesn’t want to help us? Why did

she hide the fays if she wasn’t going to help us?”

Ben is silent for a moment. “I don’t think she’s…right. She

spent time in Tir na nOg. It does things to you. Faeries are terrible at plans to begin with, and then she…I don’t think she…”

“So did she really forget? We can ask Will what he did with

the book. Maybe it will jog her memory?”

“I don’t know if she wants it anymore,” Ben admits. “I

think she did, once, want the overthrow of the Seelie Court.

But she
likes
it here. She’s told me more than once. Actually she tells me constantly: how much I’m going to like it here.”

And
so
Ben
got
what
he
wanted
, I think. Reunited with his mother. Happy ending to the story. And forget about the rest

of us trying to fulfill our prophecy; he’s just going to let it go, wait it out here in the Unseelie Court.

“Do you think if you stay here with her, you won’t suc-

cumb to the prophecy and die?” I demand.

Ben looks at me in confusion.

“Benedict Le Fay will betray you,” I remind him, “and then

he will die.”

Ben shakes his head. “That’s not the prophecy. That’s a false

prophecy. That was your mother, getting into our heads. No

one else has ever said anything like that about the prophecy, not even a pig’s whisper. I wish you’d stop worrying about that.”

I am frustrated that I’m the only one who seems to be

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taking the threat seriously. I march over to the door and try

to open it. It’s locked.

“Where are you going?” Ben asks.