“If this isn’t an emergency,” Anca agreed, “then I shudder to think what would qualify.”
“Besides,” Reece added, “once he leaves, it’s not like he can find his way back.”
The dry tone of his zinger left me wondering if Reece had just cracked a joke.
I laughed to be on the safe side, which Midas neither understood nor appreciated, so I ducked my head.
“This is Reece.” I pointed to his screen, and then I indicated hers. “This is Anca.”
“It’s nice to meet you both.” Midas gave a subtle nod. “I appreciate the work you do protecting Hadley.”
Elbowing him in the ribs, I corrected him. “He means the city.”
“No,” Anca said, laughing. “He means exactly what he said.”
“Statistically,” Reece confirmed, “he cares for his pack above everything else. You’re his mate, and therefore pack. Instances where he’s prioritized the city only happen in conjunction with cases you work together or when you ask him outright to render aid.”
Huh.
As much as Midas worried his cultural mores kept me off balance, always tilting toward his own beliefs, I had similar concerns. I assumed he was fighting for the same reasons as me, and he was, but on a smaller scale. I never once stopped to ask myself if he would have interceded on Atlanta’s behalf without me to haul him stumbling into danger for the greater good.
Phrased like that, yeah. Probably not. Being the pack prince and all.
“I wrapped the background check you requested,” Reece muttered, already distracted, “on Lily Valley.”
About to ask who, or maybe what, I flashed to the only such request I had made in days.
“That’s her name?” I pictured Remy’s friend and decided it fit. “As in Lily of the Valley?”
“Fae often adopt names that reflect their powers or aspects of their appearance,” Anca said. “Though it is interesting that she chose that plant to represent her.”
“She turns into a lily.” It seemed obvious, which meant it wasn’t. “What am I missing?”
“Lily of the Valley isn’t a true lily.” She hummed. “Actually, I believe it’s part of the asparagus family.”
Mmm.
Asparagus.
Cooked with bacon, it was delicious, and cooking Lily was the next best thing to cannibalism.
Get with the program, stomach. I’ll feed you…eventually.
Its pathetic rumble of doubt guilted me for having no immediate plans to hold up my end of the deal.
“Maybe she doesn’t know?” Just like I hadn’t known. “Or maybe she’s punny?” I had to respect anyone able to laugh at themselves. “What’s the dirt on her?”
I waited, and waited, and waited.
Not a single huff, snicker, or chuckle.
Sheesh.
Tough crowd.
“There is no dirt. There’s no soil in which to dig.” Reece flung a copy of her Faraday application on one of the lower screens. “Her previous addresses, the ones that are legit, belong to abandoned buildings. The rest are in vague proximity to fast food restaurants.”
“Remy did say she met her on the streets,” I told him, but I heard the doubt in my voice.
“That would explain her previous living situation, but she’s got no references. No family, friends, or jobs. Aside from Remy.”
“Could she be here illegally?” I chewed on my bottom lip. “That would explain why she’s grifting.”
“Two-thirds of the fae population of Atlanta are here illegally.”
And that right there explained why the Society hadn’t had kittens over the number of fae in the city. The Society tended to ignore all factions outside of their own. When they did get curious, rather than looking around them, they relied on official reports. They believed all they did was right, good, and proper and that everyone respected paperwork as much as they did, but no. Most of us had better things to do, thanks.
“They’re fleeing persecution,” Anca murmured. “But it’s not only the innocent who book passage between realms. There are predators as well, wolves in sheep’s clothing. They follow their food source.”
Up to this point, I had tried to avoid fae entanglements whenever possible. Granted, it hadn’t been possible to avoid much given the witchborn fae coven’s determination to own this city or die trying to claim her. But I had to do better.
I couldn’t say I did my job if I didn’t also protect the fae living here. Without the Earthen Conclave’s sanction, they had no one. They existed in a gray area that would get them killed without aid.
I hadn’t been appointed only to police the earthborn species. The entire city, and all her citizens, fell within my purview. I had to banish the fear of having my knuckles rapped for interfering with fae business and develop a strategy, with or without help from the Earthen Conclave.
Their job was to govern fae this side of Faerie, and they were falling down on the job. I wasn’t holding my breath for a miracle—I learned a long time ago you were more likely to suffocate—but my friends had taught me I could make my own luck.
I had a plan, and it was a doozy.
It ought to insulate me from the worst of any fallout that might come from asking for their assistance, but I wasn’t ready to pitch the idea yet. I had a few more pieces to fit into place locally before I presented my case to a foreign ruling body.
Flashing crimson smudges on his palms, Midas asked, “Do you have somewhere I can wash my hands?”
The stain was blood. I didn’t require a gwyllgi nose to figure out that much. It was just as apparent he had no intention of telling me who it belonged to or how it got there. But I could guess, and I tried to stay out of his dustups with Bishop.
“Sure.” I took Midas’s hand, which was warm and strong, and guided him. “The kitchen is this way.”
“The kitchen is a common area,” Reece reminded me. “There are antibacterial wipes under the sink. Use them.”
“Midas didn’t pop in a for a quickie.” I wiggled my eyebrows at Midas. “Or did he?”
Anca chortled, a merry sound, and covered her mouth with her hand as I led him away.
The set of his lips informed me a handwashing wasn’t all he was after in requesting a semiprivate room out of view of the monitors.
“We’re going to practice the whole carving out time to talk in the middle of a crisis, yes?”
“Yes.” His gait remained stiff, his expression dark. “I think that’s wise.”
“Give me a second.” I dipped a hand into the cross-body bag, retrieved the jar of ink and a brush, then painted a circle around the table. I shooed Midas onto a seat and then closed it around us. “They’ll be able to see us, but they can’t hear us.” I studied one of many cameras, this one nestled in the corner of the room. “Fair warning, I’m willing to bet Reece can lip-read or code a program to do it for him.”
Elbows on the table, Midas beckoned me closer with a crooked finger.
Mirroring his position, I sat and leaned in until his bristled cheek rubbed mine.
“Bishop,” he whispered, his hands easing under my hair to cradle the back of my head.
“Yeah.” I returned the gesture, scratching his scalp with my fingernails. “That was…intense.”
“Does Linus know who he’s hiding?”
“I don’t know.” I angled my mouth toward his ear. “I don’t know who he is either, do you?”
“No,” he breathed, “and that worries me more than what he is, which we also don’t know.”
“Bishop is my friend.”
“Bishop is more than your friend.”
“I’m more than Hadley,” I argued. “You’re more than Midas.”
“Hadley.” He sighed my name, but there was so much love in the sound it was hard to take offense.
“We both have predatory natures.” I kept hammering away at him. “Who are we to judge his dark side because it scared the bejeepers out of ours?”
“You understand where he took
us.”
“Yes.”
“You understand it’s no different than how the coven travels, only on a smaller scale?”
“No?”
Until he mentioned it, I hadn’t viewed it in that light. I had assumed we were in Faerie-Faerie, not an offshoot or pocket realm or whatever the kids were calling it these days. But Midas would know the difference. If he said Bishop’s wintry road was a construct of his making and not a naturally occurring path, I believed him.
“You’re not worried there’s a connection there?”
“Between Bishop and the coven?” I snorted. “Um, no.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Monsters don’t care that they’re monsters. Bishop was ashamed of who he became in that place. He left rather than face me.”
“The coven loves theatrics,” he countered, but without heat. “It could have been for show.”
One of us needed to remain objective, so I didn’t blame Midas for preventing me from compartmentalizing away what I didn’t want to see or hear. He forced me to look, to see, to think. And, as much as it hurt, I was grateful for it.
“You saw him,” I said quietly. “Do you think it was for show?”
Midas was silent for a few seconds before he shook his head. “No.”
“I’ll have Reece test him.” I kissed Midas’s cheek to show there were no hard feelings. “Just to be on the safe side.”
It was the smart thing to do, the necessary response, but it would wound Bishop. He had given me a glimpse of himself, his true self, and my response was to jab him with a needle the same as I would any potential enemy.
But, I reminded myself, our friends and allies get tested daily too.
I wasn’t singling him out.
Sure, I wasn’t.
Goddess, I hated the coven.
Aside from my mother, I wasn’t sure I had hated anyone in my life, but these guys definitely ranked.
“Moment over.” He breathed me in and then withdrew. “We need to start planning for the archive.”
“Yeah.” I drummed my fingers on the tabletop. “We have to figure out how to sever it from Buckhead.”
We rose in unison, and I smudged the line to lower the circle so the others could hear us again.
“Oh good.” Remy strolled in wearing a lime-green tutu over a white jumpsuit sparkling with sequins and red-orange combat boots to complement the lily still in her hair. “I was starting to think you wanted privacy.”
Frowning, I asked, “Why does everyone think Midas showed up at my job for a quickie?”
For the first time ever, we had an outsider at HQ. Okay, fine. Not the first time, Remy was proof of that, but still. Did they not know me at all? Bad example. Did they not know Bishop at all? He would never allow a lapse in protocol for the sake of a make-out session.
“You haven’t told her she stinks of eau de Midas, eh?” Remy pegged Midas with a knowing stare. “Everyone can tell exactly how mated you two are lately.”
Embarrassment stung my cheeks, and I debated hiding in the empty storage closet, anything to avoid having this conversation. I settled for rushing to wipe up the ink with paper towels and spray cleaner.
Eyes crinkling at the corners, Midas read my unease and attempted to rein in his amusement. I could tell he was quite proud of himself. It made me want to thump his ear. But, I suppose, knowing wouldn’t have saved me from alerting every gwyllgi in sniffing distance how we spent our alone time.
The heads-up would have only mortified me that much sooner and resulted in a relapse of using the fire escape to get in and out of the building without being noticed—or smelled—by the pack.
Deftly changing the topic, Midas asked, “Any clue how we implode the archive?”
“You can’t without swaying a witchborn fae to your cause. Even then, you would need hundreds of them to overpower the spell keeping that place humming. It’s ancient, full of power, and used on the regular.” Remy moved around the small kitchen, helping herself to a bowl of cereal. “The best you can do is sever its connection here.”
“The coven would just move it somewhere else.” I followed her example and poured Midas and myself sugary bowls of fruity loops with a splash of milk. “They could anchor it outside of town and do as much damage or more.” I took a bite, and before I knew it, the bowl was empty. Midas pressed his into my hands and went to make another for himself. “We can’t dump the archive in someone else’s lap anyway. It’s unneighborly.”
“So cut its cords all around.” She slurped her pinkish milk. “Leave it adrift.”
“Do pocket realms work that way?” I didn’t say no to a third bowl when Midas gave me his fresh one too. A glare from me as I handed him the other empty warned him he better eat the next one or I was spoon-feeding it to him. “Can you cut them loose?”
“There are stories of entire worlds the fae created for their own amusement, grew bored with, then basically lost the keys to, only for someone else to rediscover the place centuries later by accident.” An amused expression crossed her face. “Of course, then bloody wars were fought between the person who discovered this new world full of treasures and the person who forgot it existed but wanted their toy back rather than let someone else play with it.”
“You’re saying we can cut it loose, but that someone else might find it later?”
“Assuming the archive works the way Vasco claims. I would have to enter it to tell for certain.”
As a creature of deepest Faerie, and a rare one at that, a dunk in the archive ought to be along the same lines as Remy dipping her toe into familiar waters. It was also not Faerie, but an offshoot created and maintained by the coven. That dark origin might affect her more than me, who already had a blight on my soul. In addition to the fact I had two souls, essentially, sharing space in my body.
Thanks to Ambrose, I was topped out spiritually. The souls harvested by the coven and stored in the archive couldn’t enter my body. I didn’t have enough room left. The same might not apply to Remy, and I didn’t want to find that out the hard way.
Careful not to insult her delicate pride, I hedged, “Do you think that’s safe?”
“I have a lot of soul.” She grinned, cereal in her teeth. “As long as I go in fully loaded and don’t split myself too far apart for too long, I should be fine.”
“You should be fine?” I rubbed my arms, recalling the photos of that yawning void, the ravenous creatures who inhabited the place. “That’s living dangerously, don’t you think?”
Stubborn glare on her face, she swept her gaze up and down me. “You’re going in, right?”
“Yeah.” I carried my bowl to the sink while Midas finished his. “Vasco gave me the okay.”
“Do you really think we’re going to let you go in alone?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far,” I admitted, washing and drying it. “I was still working on that part.”
“That’s because your plans suck.”
“They do not.”
“They always go something like this.” She pretended to shade her eyes against a nonexistent glare. “I’m going to locate the bomb,” she said in a syrupy drawl. “Oh! There it is.” She pointed a finger. “Let me throw myself on top of it.” She flung herself into a chair. “Now everyone will be safe.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Except me. Oops. Hope I don’t die!”
“Work on your Southern accent,” I grumbled. “That doesn’t sound like me.”
“She’s right.” Midas refused to quail under my glare. “You have done that, literally, several times.”
“There was only the one time.” I heaved a sigh. “The others don’t count.”
The bomb in my old apartment had taken me by surprise, so that one wasn’t my fault.
The bomb at the restaurant after the wake was an OPA-approved trap, so not totally my fault.
The bomb in the pit during the skirmish with the coven, okay, that was pretty much all my fault.
By my math, I was a victim two out
of three times. That practically made me innocent, in my opinion.
“A dozen coven members are exiting vans on the corner of Peachtree Street Northeast and Spring Street Northwest,” Reece reported from the other room. “They’re receiving backpacks and their marching orders.” A tick, tick, tick filtered to me followed by a click. “Countdown to the next group begins…now.”
“I recommend you be in position before the next batch exits the archive,” Anca added softly, aware how her voice carried in the small space. “The drive to Buckhead will take that long, but if you beat them, you can set your phone’s timer to make sure you don’t cross paths with anyone while you’re in the archive.”
There was a quicker way to reach the warehouse, but Midas’s grim expression told me he wanted to risk traveling Bishop’s winter road again about as much as he wanted to get waxed in his other form. Our saving grace was, if we burned him out, he couldn’t bring our backup to us. That gave us a valid excuse for avoiding that trek twice in one night.
“Good thing I drove,” Remy said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “We’ll plan the nitty-gritty on the way.”
Leaving a clean kitchen behind us, we entered the control room to join the conversation in progress.
“What should we bring with us?” I checked with Midas. “What do you suggest?”
Time moved differently in Faerie, and then differently again from Faerie in its individual pocket realms, a phenomenon I experienced firsthand with Bishop earlier. What would it mean for hunger? Thirst? Other biological requirements? Would our bodies stay on track with this time zone? Quicken? Slow? Pause?
“There are backpacks stocked with energy bars, water, power banks, and basic survival gear in the first closet on the right.” Anca pointed in the general direction. “Bring one for each of you.”
“I’ll get them,” Remy volunteered. “Six, right?”
“Six works.” A spare never hurt anyone. “Unless…do your other selves require their own?”
“Nah.” She patted her stomach. “It all goes to the same place.”
“Anything else?” I tugged my hair back into a loose tail. “Weapons? Clean undies? Prayers?”
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