“Hello?” he repeated. “Anyone there?”
Then again, it wasn’t like I was just overflowing with options. I cleared my throat, and that loosened it up enough for me to talk. “Yeah. It’s me. Dana.” I rolled my eyes at myself. I’m sure he recognized my voice without me having to tell him my name.
There was a half-second hesitation before he answered. “Well, this is a surprise,” he said in a low mumble I’m not sure I was supposed to hear. “Is everything all right?”
“Um, yeah. Sort of. Umm…” Oh, please! Could I sound any more pathetic? “Well, not exactly.”
“Sorry. That was a stupid question. You wouldn’t be calling me if everything were all right. Are you somewhere safe? Do you need me to come get you?”
“I’m fine,” I said, feeling more confident. “I’m at my dad’s house.”
“Oh.”
“Look, you know what a mess I’m in. Your father has filled you in, hasn’t he?” Because I couldn’t believe Alistair wouldn’t have told Ethan about the Queens being after me, not when the two of them had already been coconspirators.
“Yeah, he told me. But I was coming to that conclusion myself. The more I thought about those Spriggans…” His voice trailed off, probably because he realized talking to me about the Spriggans wasn’t his wisest move.
“My dad says I have to stay in Avalon for my own safety. I bet your dad and Aunt Grace agree.”
“But you don’t.”
“I assume Kimber told you about what happened to Finn the other day?”
“Yeah.” I could almost hear the wince in his voice.
“If I stay here, I’ll have both Queens after me, and they’ll have a lot more weapons they can use against me. If I leave, the Seelie Queen will be satisfied, and the only people the Unseelie Queen can send after me are humans.”
“But you won’t have any sort of magical protection at all,” he reminded me.
“I won’t need it if I don’t have Fae attacking me.” I think I was trying to convince myself as much as him. I reminded myself that if we escaped Avalon, Mom had promised to go into rehab, and that was worth whatever crazy risks I was about to take.
He changed gears. “All right; let’s say I buy your reasoning. I know I’m not your favorite person right now, so I’m guessing I have a part to play in this great escape?”
I bit my lip. I’d probably told him enough already to get me in trouble if he blabbed to his dad, but even so, it was hard to make that final leap of faith and tell him what I had in mind.
“Did you ever actually like me, or was the whole thing an act?” I found myself asking, without having had any intention of bringing the subject up.
“Of course I liked you. Like you. How could I not? I wish I had half your courage.”
That startled me. “What are you talking about? I’ve been a mess since day one!”
He snorted. “You saved Jason’s life when those Spriggans attacked. If you hadn’t slowed the Spriggan down, I’d have been too late to save him. Not to mention that you had the courage to come all the way to Avalon by yourself.”
“That wasn’t courage. That was stupidity.”
He laughed, but it sounded bitter. “I know you had to defy your mother to come here, and you’re planning to defy your father to leave. I have never once successfully defied my father. So that’s courage in my book.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Now tell me why you’re calling. What do you want me to do?”
I considered the ramifications of what he’d just said, and my heart sank a bit. “I was basically going to ask you to defy your father and help me get out of Avalon.”
“Tell me what you need, and I’ll help as best I can. Defying him behind his back might be slightly easier than doing it to his face.” Again, I heard a hint of bitterness in his voice. I hoped that meant his conscience was bothering him over what he’d done to me.
“So you don’t think I’m completely crazy for wanting to leave?”
“It’s a risk. But then, so is staying in Avalon. As you’ve already seen.”
I believed him. Of course, I’d believed him before and been wrong, so my judgment might be questionable. But he was the only hope I had, so I pushed forward.
“Right now, I can’t get out of Avalon because either Grace or my father has my passport. I don’t see myself getting it back, no matter who has it. So somehow, I need a fake one that will do the trick. Is that something your magic can do?”
For a long, tense moment, he didn’t say anything. I could practically hear him thinking. Now, if only I knew what he was thinking!
“I suppose you know this,” he said, “but that’s a hell of a lot more complicated than creating an illusionary wall.”
“Yeah, I figured. But is it possible?”
Another long pause for thought. “It’s certainly possible. I’m just not sure I can do it. I’m good, but that’s a tall order. There are a lot of pages in a passport, and they’re detailed. Plus, I’d need an American passport to model it on, because I wouldn’t know what one looks like off the top of my head.”
“I can get you an American passport,” I told him. “My mom came to Avalon looking for me, so we can borrow hers. The question is, can you make the counterfeit one?”
“I don’t know.”
“But—”
“The only way I’ll know is if I try. I can guarantee I’ll try my hardest, but I can’t guarantee it will work. When can you get me the model passport?”
That was going to be a bit tricky. (Yeah, like everything else was going to be so simple.) The easiest way to get Ethan my mom’s passport would be to send him to her hotel. But would my mom actually hand her passport over to some Fae she didn’t know? I sincerely doubted it.
Maybe if I called her and told her he was coming?
A chill snaked down my spine. I was currently trapped here in Avalon because Grace had absconded with my passport. I was willing to take the risk that Ethan might betray me, but could I also risk my mom like that? Could I have her hand over her passport to a guy I wasn’t sure I could trust?
The answer was no. I was going to have to get the passport myself, and I wasn’t going to let it out of my sight while Ethan tried to replicate it.
“I’m going to have to sneak out of the house somehow to get it,” I said.
“Not a good idea, Dana.”
I bit back a snappish response and went for dry sarcasm instead. “You expect me to get out of Avalon without leaving my dad’s house?”
He sighed. “Right. Good point. But I’m not letting you wander around the streets of Avalon undefended. Tell me when you intend to perform your great escape. I’ll come meet you. I’m not as powerful as Finn, but I’m better than nothing.”
More lip-gnawing was in order. If I was wrong about this, if Ethan backstabbed me, then I was delivering myself straight into Alistair’s arms. I wondered if he would change his mind about whatever agreement he now had with Grace and my dad if I were in his custody.
But despite my doubts, I had already made my decision before I’d even picked up the phone.
“I’m going to wait until late, when I’m sure my dad is asleep. Maybe one a.m.?”
“That’s good. There will be fewer people in the streets then. Less chance of being seen. I’ll be waiting for you. Call if there’s any change of plans, okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Oh my God, I was really going to do this. Was I nuts? “I’ll see you then.”
“Okay. Hang in there. If things go well, we’ll have you out of Avalon before the sun rises tomorrow.”
I clung to that hopeful idea as I hung up the phone and tried not to think about just how many things could go horribly wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Four
That night was one of the longest in my life. The hours of the early evening crept by like years, and then, once Dad and I said our good nights, they slowed down even more. I tried calling my mom about eight times to let her know I was coming, but she never answered. I hoped that didn’t mean something had happened to her. I also hoped that didn’t mean she was too drunk to answer the phone. Getting out of Avalon was going to be hard enough without alcohol entering the picture.