by Shona Husk
Even a changeling like him outranked this Grey. Pity there was no one here to enforce the rules and protocol. Caspian willed himself to remain still and wait, trying to think of ways to get rid of the Grey without it being construed as an insult or a sign of weakness. He drew a blank.
“While I don’t want your soul, I do want something from you.” The Grey smiled the way a fox would smile at a cornered rabbit. His pale eyes glinted in the pre-dawn light.
Caspian was as good as dead. If he refused he was as good as dead, and if he helped he was as good as dead. It was simply a matter of time and a question of who would kill him first. The Grey or his father—the Crown Prince of Death, guardian of the veil between worlds—for breaking the rules and making a deal with a banished fairy.
Caspian watched the Grey but said nothing.
“I’m looking for a mirror, one lost in your world centuries ago.” The Grey paused as if waiting for a reaction and got none. “It’s very valuable, and you shall help me find it.”
Caspian was willing to bet that the mirror he’d picked up at the garage sale wasn’t the one the Grey wanted, otherwise they wouldn’t be having this one-sided conversation. The Grey would have merely taken it and left. This Grey knew about the Window. Was he the one Dylis had warned about? However, the Grey didn’t know that Caspian knew as much about the Court as he did.
“What does it look like?” If he spoke carefully and gave no real answers, perhaps the Grey would leave, perhaps Dylis would show up… hell, perhaps his father would show up and kill the Grey. All unlikely outcomes. The best he could hope for was politely refusing and hoping the Grey left without doing more damage.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you, would I?” The Grey took a couple of paces and kicked a chipped cup. It spun across the tiles and smashed against the wall sending shards across the kitchen floor.
Caspian’s fingers curled at his side, but he forced himself to remain still. He couldn’t react. The Grey was trying to goad him.
“What makes you think I’ll help you?” Caspian knew he was on dangerous ground, baiting the Grey, but he wouldn’t stand for such a blatant invasion in his home.
Before Caspian could even track the movement, the Grey had closed the distance and snagged a handful of Caspian’s hair.
Caspian bit back a curse but didn’t struggle. If he got angry, he’d make mistakes and he couldn’t afford to make mistakes with this Grey. This close he could see the fine lines of desperation etched around the man’s eyes. The too sharp jut of his cheekbones. Recently banished but trying to hold onto his looks and power.
A human would have looked into those pale bottomless eyes and done whatever was asked of them. The magic slid over Caspian’s skin and fell away without leaving a trace. He drew in a breath and looked steadily back. He wouldn’t show even a glimmer of fear, even though his stomach writhed with ice-cold snakes.
“You will help me because you don’t have a choice.” The Grey glared at him, and again Caspian felt the shimmer of magic as the Grey tried to enchant him.
This time the magic didn’t roll away quite so easily. If the Grey kept going there was a chance Caspian’s defenses would crack. And he’d thought all that time with Dylis learning how to be safe around fairies was a waste. Now he wished he’d paid greater attention and been a better student instead of just doing enough to get her off his back. As he stared down the Grey, Caspian was sure he could see subtle changes; a deepening of the lines, a dulling of his skin, and a fraying of his clothing. Every time the Grey tried to enchant him, every time he used magic, he was losing a little more. Soon he would have to choose. Stature or looks or power—and even then a Grey couldn’t live forever. Cut off from the magic of the Court, they were condemned to a powerless and slow and ugly death. The thing all fairies feared.
Caspian waited until the Grey stopped trying to enchant him, then he crossed his arms and smiled like he hadn’t noticed the magic gliding over his bare skin. “I need more information.”
He had no idea where to even start looking.
The Grey’s jaw worked as he considered what to say next.
Caspian was just as curious about how much the Grey would reveal as he was about the mirror. It must be something very special for a Grey to come to him for help. Did he not fear that Caspian would go directly to Court with this news—or was he aware that Caspian never went near Court?
With a snarl the Grey released Caspian and stepped away as if touching a human would infect him with mortality. “The mirror is fairy-made and very old. It hasn’t been seen in over a century. I hope to find it and return it to your grandfather.” The Grey folded his hands in front of him and tried not to look desperate.
The act would have worked better if he hadn’t started off by destroying the tea set and being haughty and rough.
While he would have liked to laugh and tell the Grey no outright, he didn’t. He was having a conversation with a Grey and so far hadn’t agreed to anything and he still had his soul. He was winning, and hopefully he could end this his way and with no nasty side effects.
“You hope to buy your way back to Court.”
“You’re a little too perceptive for a human.”
“I’m a little too fairy to be human.” Every word out of Caspian’s mouth was carefully spoken so it couldn’t be misconstrued.
“You have psychometry, you can read objects. Find me the Window.” The Grey thumped his fist on the kitchen counter.
“Why?”
The Grey blinked, startled as if no one had ever questioned him before. “Because I said.”
Caspian shook his head. “You have no authority over me, and I don’t make deals with fairies.”
The Grey nodded, his pale eyes cold and calculating. “Not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But you will help me find the mirror I seek.” Then he turned and walked down the hallway and out the door.
For several heartbeats Caspian didn’t move. His breaths were shaky as he let the tension go. He’d survived—that was a small victory. He curled his fingers and forced movement though his limbs. Slowly he picked up the larger pieces of the tea set and placed them on the kitchen counter, then he swept up the shards and spilled sugar and put them in the bin. As he worked he became aware he was being watched.
Dylis. She could go back to Annwyn and stay there. He ignored her the way he wished he’d ignored the Grey as he filled the little teapot. A hairline crack ran up the side. It wouldn’t last. Dylis was silent for once, as if she knew that speaking first would be the wrong thing to do. He took a breath and forced calm into his voice.
“Who was he?” Caspian didn’t turn to look at his godmother.
“Shea ap Greely.”
“And who the hell is he?” Caspian rounded on Dylis.
Dylis cast her gaze over the damaged cups as if debating how much to tell him. With a muttered curse she sat on the counter. “The ripples in the river of souls were caused by the Queen’s not-so-subtle affair with Shea.”
Now he was getting the full story out of Dylis instead of a hint designed to spike his curiosity. “And he got banished for it while she still gets to be Queen.”
Dylis nodded. “Annwyn needs both King and Queen.”
Caspian’s jaw tensed. “So she gets away with cheating.”
“Don’t put your values on us. She and the King have both had lovers. When you live as long as we do, being faithful literally is an eternity. What matters is love. The very idea of sharing power is enough to make most of us swear off the very mortal affliction.” Dylis glittered with fury as if all her power was trying to burst out of the tiny body she chose to wear in the mortal world. “Shea stole her heart from the King.”
The Queen was no longer in love with the King; she was in love with Shea. That was what caused the ripples on the river of damned souls. Caspian didn’t want to be caught in a power struggle between the King of Annwyn, the Queen, and her lover. No wonder the Prince was concerned. There was no way that was going to end well f
or anyone.
A sigh slipped past his lips. If the river broke its banks, there would be plague the likes of which the world hadn’t seen since the Black Death.
A squabble and a hundred died.
A fight and thousands died.
If the King and Queen separated, the world was fucked.
“Finding the mirror will calm the river?” While he could turn his back on fairy politics, he couldn’t walk away when their bickering bled through and started killing humans.
“It will help.”
He nodded. “And where were you while Shea was trying to trick me? I thought you were supposed to help me with this stuff.”
“I saw no reason to reveal myself,” Dylis said. “You obeyed the rules. If you’d done something stupidly human, I’d have stepped in.”
He considered the beautiful and annoying fairy and how little he knew about her. How little she told. “Shea knows you, that’s why you hid.” It was a bold assumption, but maybe she’d reveal something
“Everyone at Court knows everyone worth knowing.”
Getting a straight answer from her was going to be like pulling out his own teeth. But she obviously had some standing when she was at Court. What a comedown it must be to spend time with him. “What do you know about the Window?”
It certainly wasn’t the one he’d bought, but had that been bait laid out by Shea? A chance to watch and see what he was capable of? If it had been, he’d fallen for it.
He watched Dylis carefully; she’d been the one to alert him to the Window’s existence, and the probability that it was in Charleston. She could be on Shea’s side. And Shea’s side wasn’t the King’s side. And while he may not be fairy, he knew which side he was on and it wasn’t with a fairy banished for sleeping with another man’s wife.
“Nothing more than I’ve already told you.” That sounded like the truth. “I’ll have to ask some careful questions. The Queen will have supporters and spies. And I’ll need to let your father know Shea is actively looking for it.”
“You do that.” The words were harsher than he intended. He sighed. If Annwyn was in trouble, Dylis was right—whatever side she was on she was in danger. “Take care at Court.”
“I always do.” She stood and gave a half-bow. And then she was gone.
* * *
As a precaution Caspian took the enchanted mirror to work with him. He didn’t want it in his house attracting anymore Greys. While it had seemed like a good idea at the time, after spending several hours in its company all he wanted to do was throw back its covering and gaze at the Court. He found things to do to keep himself busy and distracted. He prepped the till even though most people paid with credit. Gave everything a dust. Just because the furniture was old didn’t mean it had to look like it came straight out of a museum. People had to be able to picture the Victorian armchair in their house and the art deco vase on their sideboard.
He paused at the china. He desperately needed a new tea set to woo back the Brownies. While he had some beautiful pieces in the shop, he had no children’s sets. He’d have to stop by a toy store and hope for a china set. If he didn’t get something today they wouldn’t be happy and might disappear altogether—if they hadn’t already.
The music of the Court filtered through his shop at the edge of his hearing. He couldn’t sell the mirror as it was, it was too dangerous for anyone with a touch of fairy blood, and he couldn’t keep it for the same reason. He should have known the bargain was too good to be true.
With careful footsteps, Caspian made sure he didn’t follow the beat, no matter how tempting. That would be the first step in falling into the lure of the Court. He pulled a screwdriver out from under the counter and walked out the back. The mirror lay on the workbench still wrapped from being transported to the shop.
His fingers tightened around the plastic screwdriver handle even as he wanted to pull back the wrapping with his free hand and peek into Annwyn again. Before he could do something stupid, he slammed the screwdriver into the center of the mirror.
Glass cracked and for a second he smelled heady floral perfume like a garden in full bloom. Then it was gone and so was the music that had taunted him. Caspian swallowed down the sudden sense of loss. With his next breath he knew the threat was gone and he was free of the desire to see the Court once more.
He peeled back the wrapping to examine the damage. He’d devalued an antique as well as broke the enchantment. The old glass cut his reflection into pointed shards. Pale green fairy eyes looked back. But at least they were his own eyes.
But what about the mirror Shea wanted? Would he have the strength to shatter that one when the time came? And even if he did, what would be the price?
Chapter 5
Caspian pulled into the long drive of Callaway House at dusk. In the fading light, the dark house almost looked forbidding. Yet he was eager to get inside. Eager to see Lydia.
He locked the car and knocked on the door, a faint echo of laughter lingering beneath his fingers. He couldn’t help himself from looking over his shoulder. Were there any banished fairies living in the graveyard down the road, or following him? How far did Shea’s power reach?
He shivered. People who couldn’t see fairies didn’t know how easy they had it.
The door opened and Lydia stood limned by light. Dressed simply in skinny jeans that showed off her long legs, ballet flats, and a shirt that hung down to her hips, she looked like she was dressed for a casual evening in. The jolt of raw attraction caught him off guard. He’d been expecting corporate Lydia. Not sexy-stay-at-home Lydia.
Caspian blinked to break the spell she’d cast. This wasn’t her house, nothing he’d touched had indicated she lived here, and it sure as hell wasn’t a date. Would it be wrong to ask her out for dinner? He should’ve grabbed something on the way over, but he was already late.
She smiled and stood to the side to let him in. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I, er, lost my keys.” Caspian stood on the step, unwilling to push past in case he touched her and slid into the enchantment she didn’t know she was casting. Bewitching. Lydia wasn’t fairy; her power was far more potent.
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t seem like the disorganized type.”
“I’m not usually.” Get a grip. She’s not interested in you. But she held his gaze for a moment too long for him to believe the lie he was telling himself.
“Ah.” She nodded. “And I thought you were immune to Callaway House.” Her lips curved in a small smile that made his chest constrict.
Caspian glanced down for a second and tried to find something to say. He didn’t want her thinking he was flustered by the house’s history; that would be worse than letting her think she affected him. He met her dark gaze. Chocolate brown, a color no fairy would have, yet no less mesmerizing. “It’s not the house.”
That was probably the wrong thing to say. He’d never been good at these things. Even Natalie had thought him eccentric, something she’d found endearing at first.
Her eyes widened for a second so fast he could’ve imagined it. “Come in.”
He followed her into the hallway and was once again surrounded by the weight of history. This house had lived even before it had stopped being a family home. The Callaway name had once been respected. Rumors of gambling debts followed by the gradual fall from grace had tainted the name. He spent some time earlier doing a bit more basic research. Sometimes using the computer was easier than sifting through years of history—plus he didn’t always get the full story by touch.
She closed the door, giving him a view of her butt. At least when she was in a suit and being cool or upset he could ignore the attraction that kept rising up. Now he could almost taste it in the air. If he’d met her anywhere else… he’d have done nothing because he’d have been too afraid to start anything because he knew where it would end up. He couldn’t handle that again.
Keep it professional. “So, where did you want me to start?”
Lydia was studying him as if searching for something. If she looked too closely, would she realize that he wasn’t quite human? And if she did, that flicker of desire would die.
“Someone released the details of Gran’s death to the media.” Her gaze never left him, and he knew this was a test. She suspected him.
“I heard the news. I understand why you’d want to keep it quiet.” Again he was grateful that his life and troubles had all remained very private.
She nodded. “It wasn’t you.”
“No. I don’t divulge details; it’s not good for business.” Neither was standing around chatting. If he hadn’t been here for work, he’d have gladly spent hours talking to Lydia about anything and everything. It had been a long time since he’d felt at ease around someone—not enough to be himself and tell all, but enough to relax a little and enjoy her company. If he let himself slide down that path he could almost picture himself sharing the details about his life that he’d never told anyone. He’d vowed to be honest next time. To not get into a relationship without at least mentioning the psychometry… it was best for everyone that he never mentioned fairies.
She smoothed her hands over her thighs in a move that drew his gaze for longer than it should have. “You’re all about business?”
“I run my own, it’s only me, so yeah, it takes up a lot of time. But I like it. It’s interesting to find out when a piece was made and working out what it’s worth.” His work had stopped him from drifting after Natalie. He’d thrown himself into it, partly out of necessity as he’d needed to eat and get another house, and partly because it was familiar and something he could control.
Now was the moment to explain how he worked and to see how she’s react, before he let himself get too caught up in the idea of asking her out or thinking she’d accept. He looked at her and the way her lips curved, inviting and tempting, and the words that he should say failed to form. Asking her to believe in psychometry was as bad as asking her to believe he was a changeling prince.
“Every day something new to explore?”