The Avalon Grande turned out to be an old church converted into a theater, and it held more than one surprise for Ethan and Maddox. Aside from the fact that it was disconcerting to watch a bunch of mortals wandering around pretending they were nobles of the Faerie courts, it was substantially more disconcerting to discover that not all of the actors were, in fact, mortal. It was Maddox who noticed it.
"Well now," he murmured in a tone of voice that made Ethan turn and look. "There's interesting for you."
"What? Where?" Ethan craned his neck to see what it was that Maddox had seen.
"There."
"Maddox, if you're pointing at something, I can't see it. We're invisible," Ethan hissed. They had secreted themselves in a dim alcove backstage and had called up strong veils for good measure.
"That one way over there- In the green tunic. The one playing Puck."
"What about him?"
"Let's just say he's not exactly 'acting' the part."
"He's a boucca?" Ethan's eyes went wide.
"Sh!" The veils might have hidden them from the sight of humans-even other Jade- and all but the most powerful Faerie, but they didn't mask the sounds of their voices, and the acoustics in the old building were surprisingly good.
"Sorry." Ethan stared at the actor in green cartwheeling around on the stage. "Are you serious, Madd?"
"The real deal." Maddox's tone was tinged with wariness. Boucca were a rare breed of Fae that were almost as powerful as High Fae royalty. Characteristically mysterious and notoriously changeable in their moods and allegiances, they had been known to serve the various Faerie courts but mostly preferred to serve themselves. Wherever they went, stories of mischief and mayhem abounded. They were a colorful lot, flamboyant, but they also had a reputation for being dangerous if provoked.
Ethan was dubious. The figure cavorting clownishly around the stage, hanging upside down by his knees from the set scaffolding as he said his lines, didn't seem so very threatening.
"Gods. No wonder he's slumming at a theater. Pooks and their bloody theatrics."
"Yeah, see . . . I wouldn't call him a 'pook' to his face if I were you."
"Ooh, I'm scared." Ethan snorted, but he cast his Jade awareness in that direction, to get a sense of whatever it was about the boucca that had managed to impress Maddox so very much. After a moment he frowned. "I'm not reading him."
"No, and you won;t." There was a great deal of respect in Maddox's voice. "That there isn't just any garden-variety boucca. He's old magic. Powerful. A boucca like that can fly under your Jade radar without so much as breaking a sweat."
"How can you know for sure?"
"I recognize him. I used to see him coming and going from the Unseelie Court in the days before Auberon shut the Gates. Before your time, Eth."
Ethan blinked. "You don't mean to tell me he's the original Puck?"
"Dunnno," Maddox mused. "I heard a rumor that the actual Puck has been stuck in the mortal realm for the last hundred years or so, trapped in a jar of honey buried under a rock somewhere in Ireland. Ever since he did something that royally pissed off a leprechaun."
"Wow." Ethan whistled low. "I wonder what he did to deserve that."
"Who knows? Consider it a cautionary tale," Maddox chuckled. "Leprechauns have their own fair share of ancient power and no discernible sense of humor."
From a seat in the audience, one of the mortals-the director, it seemed-had called a stop to the boucca's scene, apparently satisfied with the work done on it (or perhaps just tired of telling Puck to "quit bouncing around the bloody set"). At any rate, they moved on to a scene with Ethan's guy from the park.
"C'mon, let's get closer," Ethan whispered to Maddoxas he stepped farther into the wings, nearer to the stage proper.
"Why?"
"We might be able to find out something about him. You know, get a clue."
"You suit yourself. I'm not getting any closer to that boucca than I have to."
"Fine. Go and have a look around outside then. See if you can find a kelpie tied up anywhere."
"I don't even see why you think there's any connection. That boy could have dropped his script anytime," Maddox muttered as he turned to leave. "It could have been sitting there for days. Weeks."
Ethan had considered that, but he had also seen the boy- Jack -with the very same script only an hour or two before he'd found it beside the Lake. He'd found the crushed rose. It was his, all right. He knew it. Now he just needed to find out whet he'd been doing there. And what, if anything, that he knew about a dangerous Faerie horse.
"Come, now a roundel and a fairy song. . . . "
The boy made his entrance through the center stage arch, stepping gracefully up a set of stairs and onto the floating platform suspended by cables that represented Titania's bower. Garlands of silk flowers hung from the tops of ivy-wound poles, and gauze and organza draperies hung in filmy panels around the sides and back. The whole thing was lit in shades of green, gold, and blue to mimic a dappled forest.
It was sort of pretty, Ethan supposed, but nothing the least bit like any of the places where Titania and his Seelie Court were likely to spend time.
Gauze wings sprouted from the boy's shoulders, held there by elastic ribbon. Somehow, despite the ridiculous contraption, "Titania" managed to impart a kind of Faelike elegance to the lines as he went about assigning various duties to his fairy attendants.
"Some keep back the clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders at our quaint spirits." The boy finished his commands, reclining among the cushions. "Sing me now asleep, then to your offices, let me rest,"
A few members of the fairy dance corps flitted away into the wings to do his kingly bidding while the rest gathered about kneeling or perching on the set rigging. They began to sing:
"You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blindowrms, do no wrong,
Come not near our Fairy King."
The quaint Shakespearean lyrics wound through the air.
"Philomel with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby lulla, lulla, lullaby . . . "
The song was like an enchantment,
The stage lights seemed to flicker and dim.
And the boy in the bower began to glow.