How could did one do that? Not that she planned to ever be in an air terminal bar.

"Please? I'd like to learn to defend myself," she told them. Then perhaps Vix wouldn't think her quite so useless.

"You will do no such thing," Jeff snapped. With a sigh, his brow furrowed. "Noli, did you see Charlotte after you both left the school? Did you run away to her?"

"Yes ... and no." Noli busied herself with slicing off more apple. "It's complicated, but yes, I saw her in between leaving the school and her pa.s.sing on."

"Where? Did you go to Georgia?" Jeff pried, taking another bite.

Ugh. How did she get out of this?

"No, James took her back to the big house and stayed with her there until it was time." The words poured out as the sprite spoke for her.

"The big house?" Jeff made a face.

"Where V and James lived before they moved to Los Angeles."

Noli wrestled with the sprite for control before she said something incriminating.

Jeff blinked. "What?"

The sprite wouldn't budge. "James is really sad now that she's gone so he went with V on his errand for their mother."

Jeff paused, apple halfway to his mouth. "I thought their mom was dead."

Noli shoved the sprite back into her mental closet and sighed, trying to ignore the stab of pain slicing through her mind as she retook the body. "It was easier to tell people she was dead than the truth-she abandoned them. It's not a happy story. Anyway, James and V recently made contact with her. She doesn't like me much. I think that's why he broke it off with me-because she forced him to. After he returns we'll figure out how be together again."

Somehow. The more she thought about it, the more it smacked of Queen Tiana. Mr. Darrow preferred subtlety.

"And we're not going to find a way to be together simply because I have some societal need to be with a man. I can make my way in the world without a husband just fine. But I enjoy being with him," she added when Vix frowned in disapproval.

Jeff's eyebrows knitted. "Noli, I'm very confused. When did you meet his mother? Is she in Los Angeles? And, well, if she abandoned them, why would he listen to her? I could see how Mr. Darrow might take issue with you and Steven courting ... "

"Wait, that's why you're here?" Vix's face contorted in dismay, apple weighing in her palm as if she were about to throw it. "You're fleeing Los Angeles because some boy breaks it off with you because his mother made him?"

"It's complicated." It wasn't as if she could tell them V could never disobey an order from the high queen, or that he was Fae, or the big house was V's home in the Otherworld and he was actually a prince of the earth court.

Or that she was no longer mortal.

"I ... I'm sure it is. I need to return to the bridge and fly this tub before we crash. Perhaps you'll sit and explain this all to me?" Jeff gave her a pleading look. "You could start with when you left the school. I'm still not precisely sure what occurred when you went missing."

That definitely wasn't a story she could share with Jeff and Vix. "It's fine, Jeff." She finished her apple and tucked her knife into her boot. "Eventually V and I will figure it out. I'm sure as soon and he and James finish their errand he'll get in touch with me. That's why I left the note-so he could find me when he returns."

"Noli, if a boy won't stand up to his parents in order to be with you, then he's not worth it." Vix shook her head, dark strands flying. "It doesn't matter how handsome or wealthy he is. If he truly loves you, he'll be with you. He's not coming back. He's not going to fix this."

Her voice wasn't harsh, but Noli still bristled as their eyes met.

"Yes he is." Noli shot up out of her seat and threw away the apple core. "You don't know him the way I do." V valued his honor, his word.

"Noli ... " Jeff put a hand on her sleeve.

She looked into his eyes and what she saw made her knees shake under her skirts. "Wait-you don't believe it either? But you know V."

"I knew him once, but you aren't children anymore. Marriage and courting are complicated-especially among families like ours and with Mother's situation being what it is ... "

Noli's jaw dropped. "I can't believe you're telling me this. He'll come back." Her throat swelled. "He will."

Without waiting for an answer, she ran down the stairs and into her little room. Clutching her little pot of roses, she curled into her hammock, not quite crying but upset nevertheless.

Sometime later someone knocked on the door. "May I come in?"

"No, you may not," Noli sniffed, not wanting to speak to Vix, of all people. Whatever she meant about men not being worth it if they wouldn't stand up to their parents didn't apply to V since his parents weren't mortal.

"Please? I promised your brother and he gets cranky when he doesn't get his way."

A sigh died on her lips. Vix did say please and she hadn't spouted anything about this being her ship. Truly, since she was the captain Noli should say yes.

"Well, we don't want to make Jeff cranky because then he'll become insufferable and make everyone around him miserable." Noli sat up in the hammock, still holding the pot of roses. "You may enter."

Vix strode in. She closed the door and took a seat on the workbench. "They say you never truly get over your first love ... and it can be very difficult when things don't go the way you planned." Vix held up a hand. "I'm not saying this to be mean ... I'm saying this because when you spoke all I could hear was myself when I was about your age. I don't want you to go through what I did."

Noli crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not you."

Vix laughed. "No, not unless you snuck into his barn, stole his prize horse, let the rest of the horses go, then lit the barn on fire."

Her jaw dropped. "You actually did that?" Noli scrunched her nose. "But who still keeps horses? You're not that old."

Vix's lips pursed as if holding in her gut reaction. "Plenty of people still use and raise horses. Some people like them for recreation or sport-these were race horses and very expensive. If I'd realized exactly how much race horses were worth I would have stolen more."

"He didn't stand up against his parents?" Her voice softened.

"No, he didn't." For a moment she looked far away. "In all honesty, it was the best thing that ever happened. It started a chain of events that changed my life. Otherwise, I'd never have become a captain, gotten my own ship or ... " She smiled in a way that seemed almost schoolgirlish. "Met your brother. You know Jeff and I are ...

He told me, and well, now that I've met you, I can see why." Noli smiled back. Jeff never liked proper girls any more than Noli liked being a proper girl. Also, he loved things that flew more than anything. Any girl that could capture his attention would have to share that pa.s.sion.

Vix's smile grew wry. "I hope that's a good thing."

"Usually."

On the bench Vix squirmed a little. "Noli, there's no chance you might ... be of a delicate condition, is there? No one will be angry, no one will blame you, but since you're on my ship I need to know."

It took a moment for Vix's words to penetrate Noli's brain. Her jaw dropped. "No...that's not why at all... how..."

"It happens-more than you think, even among society girls." Vix's shoulders relaxed, her expression returning to her usual cool one.

"No ... no, that wasn't it at all." Anger welled up inside her. "First of all, he'd never do that. Second of all ... " Embarra.s.sment replaced her fury. "We never ..." They'd never done that for that precise reason.

For a moment Noli thought Vix might sneer at her lack of experience, or worse, think she was lying or that she was some dollymop who irresponsibly did things with boys.

Instead, Vix nodded, face devoid of judgment. "I needed to ask."

"It might be difficult to fix engines when you're in the family way." Noli tried to smile.

"In that time that you ... disappeared ... did anyone ... hurt you?" She didn't sound completely sure of herself, but didn't avert her glance as if embarra.s.sed. "We don't know what happened to you, and well, Jeff is worried."

Noli bristled, remembering the conversation she'd overheard her first night on the ship. "No one hurt me ... "

Not in any way that left marks on her body. Some of the punishments at Findlay House left marks on her soul. The feeling of water pouring down on her face still made her heart race and caused her to gasp for breath.

"Where did you go? Jeff thinks you were kidnapped." Familiar notes of disbelief tinged her voice.

Noli sighed. How would she explain making a wish, falling into the Otherworld, and Kevighn trying to get the magic to bind her as the sacrifice?

She couldn't. Not to her mother. Not to Jeff. Certainly not to Vix. Speaking about the Fae and the Otherworld would cause them to think she had gone round the bend ... and if she wound up in an asylum ...

It was difficult not to shudder.

Vix looked at her expectantly. Noli groaned inwardly. There was only one way to get out of this, since it looked as if the captain required an answer.

Noli tried to plaster her face with an expression both spoiled and wounded. "I ...I don't want to talk about it." The rawness in her voice was surprisingly real as her eyes met Vix's.

However, that was the truth in so many ways. Not only couldn't she tell anyone here the truth, but the events, from the wish to her losing her mortality to Charlotte's death, tore at her soul. The very memory made her regret everything she'd done since April-especially the joyride in the Pixy which had put everything in motion.

No, she couldn't bear to think about so much that had happened let alone talk about it.

Even V didn't truly understand her pain and regret- or how hard she struggled to maintain the sliver of self that remained. V. She clutched her roses and sniffed. Where were he and James? What were they doing? Oh, how she missed them, missed him.

A sigh hissed from Vix's lips. "You don't want to talk about it? You were missing for months and you don't want to talk about it?"

"No, Captain. I'm sorry, but I don't." As she exhaled her entire body shuddered.

Vix shot out of her chair, her persona of irritated ship's captain fully returning. "I don't know what to make of you."

Making an exasperated noise, she marched out of Noli's room, the door closing behind her, without so much as a backward glance.

Noli couldn't expect her to understand. No one understood-except V and James and Charlotte. They were gone. All of them. Leaving Noli all alone.

Noli changed into her nightdress and slippers. Braiding her hair, she covered it with a cap, not caring that air pirates didn't sleep in bonnets. Her arms wrapped around her pot of roses she climbed into her hammock, pulled her blanket close, closed her eyes, and fell asleep to the off-kilter song of the engines, wishing everything had happened differently.

Nine.

New York City.

The air pirate who'd abducted Steven and James, Igan or something, sneered at them from the other side of the bars of the brig. "End of the line, you two."

Steven's pocket watch said it had only been about twelve hours. Still, he had a sinking feeling that they'd gone twelve hours in a direction opposite North Carolina.

"Thank goodness, I'm starving." James shot up off the floor.

Steven rubbed his arms against the chill, stomach growling in protest. "Where are we?"

He prayed to the Bright Lady that they weren't in the middle of nowhere.

Igan's eyebrows arched, a smirk playing on his crooked lips. "If you were left on an island with only one item- any item in the world, what would it be?"

His heart lurched. An island? However, he couldn't think of any island twelve hours from Chicago via airship.

Igan reached through the bars and smacked Steven. "Answer me."

"My pen," Steven replied, not really thinking, face stinging.

James eyed Igan. "Trousers."

Igan pointed a pistol at them. "Strip, the both of you, shoes too."

Neither brother moved.

The sound of a pistol c.o.c.king ricocheted through the hold.

"I said strip. I might not be able to kill you princes- but that doesn't mean I can't relieve you of some body parts." He gave them a mad grin, eyes gleaming, as his pistol focused on a region Steven wanted to keep free of bullet holes.

Steven and James removed their clothes, shoes, and socks. They were tied up and frog-marched at gunpoint down to the cargo bay by the rest of the unsavory crew. His heart pounded and his belly clenched with apprehension.

One of the unwashed air pirates opened the hatch. Steven couldn't see what loomed on the other side but frigid air blast through onto all his bare bits.

"Out you go." Igan cut their bonds then unceremoniously shoved them through the hatch.

Gritting his teeth, Steven prayed to the Bright Lady this ended well. A second later he hit the ground, hard, sc.r.a.ping his bare flesh. He looked up and saw the airship hovering above them, the sound of wind and engines roaring in his ears.

Igan waved at them from the ship, eyes dancing with mad delight. "Have a good quest." He threw something at them. "Here's your pen."

Steven watched as his pen skittered across the strange triangular surface they'd landed on. He viewed his surrounds in a three-hundred and sixty degree turn and saw nothing but darkness. Wind whipped at his hair. Where were they?

"Hey, you said one thing. Where are my trousers?" James yelled up at the ship.

"These?" Igan dangled James' trousers out the hatch then tossed them to the wind. The crew laughed maniacally as they flew out of reach and off the side of the building. The hatch snapped shut and the ship departed.

Steven stood, bracing himself in the still-present wind. He sucked in a sharp breath as he peered down at the lights of city below-far below-still busy even in the dark of night.

"Flying figs." James stood beside him. "We're in New York City. I'd know that skyline anywhere."