And right now, I didn’t want her to know.
I was suddenly just fine with letting someone be cursed.
If it was her.
Alicia’s entire body began to shake with violent trembles. The cold seeping into her had reached her core. I smiled wider and it was worth the pain. I tilted the vial, just a tiny bit. Just enough to rustle the filings.
“You bitch,” Alicia hissed. “You have no idea who you’re trifling with.” She tried to spit at me, but her teeth were chattering too hard, her jaw wouldn’t cooperate. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I poured a few iron filings out of the vial, watching them drift into Alicia’s eye. She tried to close it in time, but that was the problem with iron filings. They clung to sweaty skin like glitter, snuggled down and waited for you to open your eye. Alicia screamed again.
“I’ll call the Vanguard!” Alicia threatened. “You stepped inside my home without an express invitation. You’re a trespasser.”
“You asked us to come here!” Peasblossom shrieked. “And you attacked her first!”
I tilted my head. “When they see my face…whose side do you think they’ll take?”
Scath returned to my side. I could tell at a glance she hadn’t found anything. A door closed somewhere downstairs, and a man’s voice called out. I looked down at Alicia and shoved my hand harder against her ribs, pushing the last bit of cold into her body.
When I took my hand away, she rolled over and vomited all over the floor.
“Come on,” I said to Scath. “We need to get out of here.”
I tripped on my way out of the bedroom, my brain starting to register the pain again. Oh, yes, this was going to be bad when it caught up to me. Peasblossom clung to my head, and I felt a shiver of energy flow over my body. Then another. I knew the first one would be a stabilization spell, something to keep me from passing out. I didn’t realize what the second one was until I saw myself in the mirror in the foyer. Glamour. To hide the burns.
I ran the rest of the way out of the house, relying on Peasblossom’s stabilizing magic to keep me from tumbling head first onto the sidewalk. I made a beeline for my car. As soon as I slammed the door behind me, I unzipped my pouch, hissing as I remembered my fingers were burned too, from where I’d first tried to pry Alicia’s hands off me. “Bizbee, I could use a healing potion.”
I didn’t wait for the grig. I’d never replenished my burn supplies after my last unfortunate encounter with a fire wielder, and I needed to pick up a few things before heading back to my apartment. I didn’t know how long Peasblossom’s stabilization spell would keep me conscious, so I drove to the closest herbal store my GPS could find, praying I’d make it there before I passed out.
Bizbee handed me the potion as soon as I parked the car, and I gulped it down. The potion helped a little, but not much. Alicia’s fire wasn’t mundane, so it didn’t heal like mundane fire damage would. And even mundane fire damage was hard to heal, having to be done in layers to rebuild the skin and fight infection.
Peasblossom hugged my neck, her glamour a light buzz against my skin, keeping others from noticing just how bad a shape I was in. Didn’t want to scare the humans.
Scath stayed behind in the car with Majesty, giving me one less thing to worry about as I staggered into the Blue Leaf Apothecary and quickly gathered what I needed. I thought of Alicia’s eye, of the iron filings. Someone would have to use tweezers to pull the filings out one by one. And the damage would heal very slowly. Iron burned fey like acid. For all I knew, she’d have to re-grow the entire eye when all was said and done. I smiled.
“Hello again.”
I turned to see the precog standing beside the shop’s front door. I hadn’t recognized him at first with the new blue hair. “Hi. Like the hair.”
“Thanks.” He blinked at me. His pupils dilated and contracted, and a deep furrow appeared between his brows.
He’d seen something when he looked at me. A hint of my future.
“What do you see?” I asked, shifting my bag of supplies to the other arm.
“Blood,” he said simply. “Lots of blood.”
I nodded and pushed the door open with one shoulder.
“You know, most people would ask me whose blood,” he said as I passed.
I didn’t turn around. “It won’t be mine.”
Chapter 22
As I’d expected, Flint was at the apartment. He’d folded himself onto the couch opposite the door, probably settled his body just so, adjusted his clothes for maximum appeal with the top three buttons of his soft black shirt undone to reveal a tempting amount of bare chest. It was just after two o’ clock, so the sun pouring in behind him created an alluring shadowy effect on his perfectly sculpted facial features.
“Don’t. Say. Anything.”
I bit the words out one at a time. Each one forced my face to move, forced that excruciating pull of skin against the hand-shaped burns on my cheeks. Flint took one look at me and snapped his mouth shut.
I blazed a path to the bedroom, concentrating on breathing through the pain as I gathered a new set of clean clothes. Tears had started falling at some point between the herbal shop and here, and the saltwater felt like acid sliding through the burns.
This shower was going to hurt.
When I reached the doorway of the bedroom with my arms full of clothes, I stopped. I was about to be naked in the shower, with Flint waiting outside. He’d never walked in on me, but I hated the idea of him in the same building as me when I was naked, let alone just outside the door. If I tried to make him leave, would he push back? Would he insist on staying in the bathroom? Watching?
“Get out.”
Scath’s voice surprised me. I hadn’t noticed the signs of her change like the stomach-churning popping and grunting sounds, or her dark form writhing on the floor before splitting to reveal a human body. I wondered how long I’d spaced out and the thought brought a fresh dose of adrenaline spurting into my system. The room tilted around me and I locked my knees to keep myself upright.
It took several seconds of blinking for me to focus on the blurry shapes in front of me. Flint stood in the living room, but now he was holding a potion bottle in his hand. Scath stood between him and the bathroom door, only a few feet in front of me. Her feet were planted like someone with no intention of being moved, her hands loose at her sides. She looked like she’d already decided to hurt him, and was just waiting for an excuse. I was willing to bet she’d already chosen the body part she’d tear off first.
Flint looked from Scath, to me, and back. He put the potion on the floor. “I need to know what happened.”
“No, you don’t.” Scath kept her voice low and even, but that just made her sound scarier than if she’d been angry.
Flint’s eyes shifted from hazel to gold and brown. “You and I need to have a conversation.”
I took a step closer to Scath, swaying as the room tilted again, in the opposite direction this time. I knew he owned a gun, and I knew he was very quick to use it. I didn’t see it on him now, and the jeans clinging to his hips didn’t seem to offer a very good hiding place. But he was sidhe. If he was wearing a weapon and didn’t want me to see it, I wouldn’t see it.
“You know she signed a contract with me,” he continued, his attention locked on Scath. “You know the consequences if she breaks it. You can’t break it for her, you can’t interfere.”
“I know about the contract. I know all about the contract.”
There was something about the way she was staring at him, something about her choice of words, that nagged at me. Flint’s expression went blank, his posture radiating false calm. He looked at Scath, and this time, I recognized the look in his eyes.
He was trying to figure out if she was bluffing.
But about what?
“Get out,” Scath said again. “Get out, and let her follow your orders.”
This time, Flint looked at me. “Drink the healing potion. It’s a good one.”
&
nbsp; My jaw tightened so fast, I imagined it might crack. Or else my teeth might fuse together and I’d never get my mouth open again. I choked on a gasp, shaking with a horrible rage. I held on to my clothes, crushed them to my body as if they were the only things keeping me from striking him dead right there. And in that moment, I knew I could do it.
I didn’t remember seeing him leave. One minute he was there, the next he was gone, and Peasblossom was calling my name.
“You know what that means, don’t you?” I asked, my voice sounding like it came from miles away. “You know what it means when he buys one of his super potions. The ones meant to heal mortal wounds in one gulp.” I laughed. “He knew I’d be injured. He knew that something horrible would happen, something where my magic—my considerable healing magic—couldn’t help me. He knew…”
Scath put an arm around me. It was a strange sensation. I’d never touched her human form. She’d never touched me. She was strong, and her body heat pulsed against my skin. It wasn’t quite the buzz of Liam’s aura, but similar. A low hum that soothed my aching muscles and frazzled nerves.
She led me into the bathroom while Peasblossom hugged my neck and sang in old Sanguennayan. It was a lullaby my mother had sung to me. Back before our happy life had fallen apart.
I stood in the bathroom as Scath ran the shower, still clutching my clothes when she returned with a fluffy white towel.
Scath helped me into the shower, and stood there as if ready to catch me when I fell. She held out a hand for Peasblossom and deposited the pixie safely on the counter while I got cleaned up. The shower would have hurt less if I’d drank the potion first. But my hatred for Flint drove me to ignore his potion. The potion that meant he’d known this case would bring a special level of pain. For all I knew, Alicia wasn’t even the threat he’d bought the potion for. There could be worse things headed my way.
And he hadn’t warned me about any of it.
I cleaned myself up as best I could, swaying as the heat of the shower ratcheted up the pain in my face till I almost passed out. I groped for Scath’s hand, accepting the sidhe’s help to get out of the shower. She dried me off, and I didn’t say a word.
“I’ll stay in this form tonight,” Scath said as she helped me get dressed.
Some part of me knew that offer was significant, but I didn’t have the brain power to think about it right now. “There’s a new package of underwear in the suitcase under the bed. Help yourself to whatever clothes you like.”
I retrieved the bag from Blue Leaf and set to work smearing the creams and herbs over my cheeks, spreading it on thick, until the air didn’t hurt my face so much. Then I stumbled out of the bedroom and into the living room, snagging my waist pouch from the floor as I went. It took me two tries to unzip the pouch.
“Bizbee? I need the case file, some tape, a pack of index cards, and a black marker.”
“Ye don’t have a healing potion that will touch that burn,” Bizbee, said seriously. “It’d be a good investment for ye.”
I didn’t turn around, didn’t spare the potion Flint had left on the floor a glance. “I’ll look into it.”
Bizbee gave a disapproving huff, but he retrieved the items I’d asked for. I quit fighting the pain and just let it settle around me like an angry warm cloud. I picked the wall in the living room with the most available empty space and started taping up the pictures from the file, adding notes to the index cards and putting them near the pictures.
A knock at the door drew my attention. I blinked and shook my head. When I managed to shake my thoughts back to the present, I was surprised by how much I’d gotten done. There were at least twenty index cards on the wall now, and I only remembered writing half of them. Scath sat on the couch where Flint had been, dressed in a plain black long-sleeved shirt and one of the two pairs of plain black leggings I owned. She rose from her seat as the person at the door knocked again. The image of her feline form briefly superimposed itself over her in my brain and I saw her ears prick forward.
It said a lot about my state of mind that I opened the door without asking who it was.
Arianne Monet glared at me. My jaw dropped, and I started to ask how she’d known where to find me, when she thrust something at my face.
“What is this?” she demanded.
I stuttered back a step, blinking rapidly to focus on the colorful bouquet only inches from my face. The sweet smell of fruit tickled my nose. “It’s an Edible Arrangement,” I managed finally.
Arianne’s dark eyes narrowed. “A what?”
Pain seized my stomach, reminding me it had been a long time since my last meal. I eyed the fruits cut to look like flower petals, orbs of cantaloupe shoved onto kebab sticks like fat cattails, and watermelon trimmed to look like daisies.
“An Edible Arrangement.” I reached out and plucked a strawberry shaped like a rose off one of the wooden sticks and popped it into my mouth. “See? It’s fine.”
Arianne stared at me like I’d sprouted a horn in the middle of my forehead. “You sent me a fruit basket.”
I scowled at her, then froze as the pain in my face reminded me that expressions were very bad. When I could breathe again, I swallowed the strawberry. “You haven’t liked anything I sent you. Or at least you’ve never said so. I’m trying to apologize, but you just won’t accept it. I’m sorry if this is less than what you’ve come to expect, but I was having a bad day, so I guess I was off my apology gift game.”
The dream sorceress continued to stare at me, but there was a new expression in her eyes that I’d never seen before. Bewilderment.
“You are a strange little witchling,” she said finally.
“Don’t call me witchling,” I calmly. “I’m not in the mood for condescension.”
Arianne’s eyebrow rose but she didn’t retort. Her gaze drifted over my shoulder. “Your threshold is nonexistent. If you don’t treat this like a home, you’ll have a very difficult time defending it when the time comes.”
It was a creepy thing to say, made creepier when she shoved the Edible Arrangement into my arms and breezed past me into the apartment, trailing a scent cloud of lavender in her wake. I grabbed a cantaloupe cattail and stayed where I was to watch Arianne cross the room to my new murder wall.
She squinted at the pictures and index cards, reading what I had to admit was not my best handwriting. When she was done, she looked back at me. On the way, her gaze snagged the potion sitting on the floor outside the bathroom. She started to say something, then stopped, considering the flask on the carpet. Something moved underneath the couch. Majesty, playing hide and seek. Arianne took a small step back.
“You’re not what I expected from a PI,” she said finally. “I thought you were supposed to figure out who committed the crime.” She gestured at the wall. “Do you always spend this much effort figuring out how each of your suspects might try to kill you?”
I followed her gesture to the wall, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t feel like talking about the fact that it didn’t matter who the thief was. They’d all be at the same place tonight, and the thief would tell me who they were eventually. Right now, my concern was surviving the night. And figuring out the most likely way each of my suspects might try to kill me seemed like a good way to kill time.
When several minutes passed and I still hadn’t said anything, she returned her attention to the wall. With one pale finger tipped in dark maroon nail polish, she pointed to Alicia’s picture. “She was at the show. The one put on by Treasure Hoarders. A stupid woman, if I’m any judge of character.”
“And you’re not,” Peasblossom grumbled from her hiding place behind my neck.
“The bowl you were asking about. I know which one you referred to. Unlike you, I put a great deal of effort into my wards. I know everything that comes into my hotel, what sort of a threat it poses.” She pointed to the picture of the bowl. “That bowl is cursed. I spoke to the woman that examined it, and she confirmed that both the bowl and the rest of the set it b
elonged to will be a nasty surprise for anyone who tries to use them. She didn’t tell Alicia, so I don’t think she knows.”
She looked at me, and again she seemed to be waiting for me to say something. I stared at her, my pulse roaring in my ears. It hurt to talk. Hurt because talking moved my mouth, which moved my face. And my face hurt. A lot. But as I stared at the dream sorceress standing in the middle of my living room, my temper climbed high enough that in one, blinding second, the pain was worth it.
“That information,” I said, my voice between a whisper and a hiss, “would have been very helpful yesterday.”
Arianne blinked, then understanding dawned. “Alicia did that to your face.”
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t respond. Instead, I stalked over to the potion and snatched it up from the floor.
“Do you always leave your potions on the floor?” Arianne asked.
“It had to settle,” I said shortly. Then, just to be contrary, I looked her in the eye, held my thumb over the cork, and shook the bottle like a five-year-old with an unopened soda. Arianne’s lips parted, then she snapped her mouth shut as I pulled out the cork and downed the potion.
The magic rolled through me with all the gentleness of a cotton wrapped Zamboni machine. It spread over my cheeks, pulling the skin taut until I had to clench my jaw to hold in the screams. I swore I felt my skin crackle like dried paper, felt dead skin slough off. But it was a potion, and magic didn’t work like that. My face still felt like so much raw meat when I was done, but I could tell from the look on Arianne’s face that it had made a big difference.
“That was a powerful spell,” she murmured. “Did you brew that potion yourself, or did you buy it?”
“Arianne.” My voice came out hoarse, the single word breaking before ending in a squeaky gasp. I cleared my throat. “As much as I have enjoyed this visit, what with you being so kind as to point out the state of my face, my long list of deadly enemies, and the unsatisfactory state of my wards, I’m afraid this is not a good time for me. Perhaps you could come back and visit later? We can chat about my inability to walk in heels, or the fact that I drink far too much soda? Perhaps we’ll have time to dissect my poor teleportation skills, or the fact that I still can’t quite seem to cast that adjustable polymorph spell? But for now, I’m afraid I’ll have to cut our visit short. I hope you understand?”
Betrayal Page 27