by Isa Medina
“That he’s been taken in by the Council? Duh.”
News did travel fast in the part-Fae world. 1 wondered how many people had spent the night celebrating. “You realize it was all set up by whoever hired you, right?”
“It’s a strong possibility.”
“And you still won’t tell me who itis?”
“T will. For the Skull.”
“But Aidan is your best bet to find it, and he won’t if he’s in jail.”
Lockhart shrugged. “They’ll let him out at some point. He has plenty of resources outside the Institute.”
How bad would the repercussions be if I kicked him in the shin? Trying a more personal approach, I said, “Your client tried to murder your assistant thinking he was you. Don’t you want revenge?”
“Eventually, sure.” He grinned a little bloodthirstily. “But for now, I want my Skull.”
I took the bracelet out of my pocket and dangled it between us. “What about a gorgeous spell guide?”
He barked a laugh. “Nope.”
Dammit.
“Find my Skull,” he said, almost as if he were laughing at me, “and we can talk again.”
I shoved the bracelet back into my pocket and went to the back door. Right before leaving, I stopped and glanced at him over my shoulder. “Be careful with your wording, Lockhart, or I might take finding your skull at face value.”
Yeah, that shut him up.
Lockhart’s door closed softly behind me, and I faced the empty corridor running along the back of the stores.
Okay. How hard could finding a super-powerful Skull made out of dead Fae bones be?
My brain’s immediate answer was a howl of hysterical laughter, so I decided to ignore it and went to one of my favorite hiding nooks by one of the service stairs, where I was sure to be left alone.
Assuming the Skull was in Faerie—an excellent assumption, otherwise it would’ve surfaced at some point—I could simply go there via Greenie Express and risk using the seeker.
But there were plenty of seekers around—they were one of the most basic types of artifacts—so wouldn’t the sore have already tried something like that? He had a portal into Faerie, and he had more than enough power to defend himself were the seeker to lead him to his
doom instead of his heart’s desire.
Come to think of it, if a seeker worked that way, people would use them all the time to find whatever artifact they were currently obsessed with. So, why didn’t they?
I slid down to sit on the cold floor and held the messenger bag on my lap, mulling this question.
Aidan had told me a probable reason nobody had thought of looking into Lord Velei’s Fae phone for the Keeper was that Fae considered the magical phone an artifact, and artifacts nullified other artifacts. Perhaps it was the same for seekers—they wouldn’t work on other artifacts.
But then, why had the seeker led me to the Eye-dagger back at the pond in Lockhart’s garden? Were Fae weapons not classified as artifacts as far as seekers were concerned? If that was the case, why not use seekers to find super amazing weapons?
I replayed my encounter with the pond monster in my head, from the time I had gone into the water to try to find the Eye-dagger to finding it in the remains of the monster. Unless…
Unless the seeker had been pointing me toward my doom—the pond monster—and it was pure coincidence it had happened to carry my dagger inside.
Or, piped in a small voice in my head, unless it had pointed you to-ward your heart’s desire—Aidan.
I touched my lips, remembering the feeling of his as they had pushed against mine, hard and fast and passionate. It had been over too fast, leaving me reeling and longing for more, my hands itching with the need to curl around his arms and anchor myself in his warm, solid presence.
Yup, I was majorly crushing on Aidan for reasons unknown, and I was pretty sure he was crushing back.
Which would do me no good as long as he was in the Council’s crosshairs.
Refocusing on the matter at hand, I reviewed my options on how to
find a Fae skull.
I could ask Lord Velei about it, but then 1 might as well simply ask him who the person orchestrating this whole thing was. Going to the Institute again or asking Marta to search their database for it was out of the question—I didn’t want to tempt Fate. Plus, judging from Aidan’s reaction when Lockhart had asked for it, 1 doubted they had much information about it
Without the Fae or the Institute, I only had the Wishing Well lefi. 1 was reasonably sure they might know something about it, but asking Kane to look into it for me was courting trouble. | had forgiven him for selling me out to Sullivan, but there was no telling who he might alert if he started asking about it Stealth was the word of the day. Normalcy and stealth. Okay, two words of the day. No biggie, they could share.
It still got me nowhere closer to finding the Skull. I propped my chin on my fists dejectedly, my elbows leaning on my knees. My lack of options was depressing. I really should’ve worked on gaining more
black-market contacts during all my years working at different spots in
the part-Fae world, instead of thinking I could cultivate them later.
An idea popped into my mind, re-energizing me with the speed of lightning. I had cultivated a new contact in the Hub just a day earlier— Dawn Byrd of Red Creek Books.
I lost no time in scrambling to my feet and trotting down to the sec-ond-floor stores. A few people ambled around, talking and examining the display windows. Nobody paid me any attention as I went into Red Creek Books.
To my surprise, they had a couple of people browsing their shelves. I’d have expected it from Good Heart books—the one with the best-sellers—not Red Creek, specializing mostly in warfare stuff.
“Hey.” Dawn greeted me warmly. Her earbuds were off, but the knitting remained. She put this aside when I approached the counter.
I slid a glance toward the other customers. “Can we talk?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, talk talk.”
“Oh, in the back?”
I nodded. She stood and beckoned. To the customers, she said, “Going into the back for a minute. Ring the bell when you’re ready to purchase anything, or if you have any questions.”
I followed her into the back room. It was similar to Lockhart’s, but a lot quainter. Closed shelves lined some of the walls, and an inviting dining table and kitchenette took the rest of the space. Dawn pointed at their coffee machine, but I shook my head.
“Aren’t you scared someone might steal the books?” I asked, curious.
“We got tracking spells on the expensive stuff. Honestly, it’s not the sort of place people steal books from. Heart’s gotten a couple of problems with some of the office people, though.”
“Really?” I asked, fascinated. “Not kids or old people?”
She laughed. “I know, right? Still, I shouldn’t be gone too long.”
Right. “I need some information.”
“About the spell—hey! Whatever happened with your potion?” She inspected me as if she expected to find insect appendages protruding from my person. “Did you get it, or did the spell nin out?”
I scratched the back of my neck, almost scared to discover something growing there. “Got the nullifying potion. It all worked out at the end.”
Her smile was broad again. “That’s great. Would’ve sucked if it had taken all your memories.”
“No kidding.”
“So, what kind of information do you need?”
“Have you heard about the Skull of Souls?”
Dawn’s face filled with excitement. “The Skull of Souls!”
“You know about it?”
“It’s supposed to be made of bits of ancient Fae skulls.”
I scrunched my nose. “I gathered.”
“Can you imagine?” she asked, eyes bright “Someone went around
digging up old, powerful Fae corpses and taking bits from their skulls to g
lue them together into some sort of bowl. So cool.”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
Her expression turned pensive. “I wonder if whoever did it cleaned the skulls or if the thing still has bits of skin and hair attached to them.” She laughed. “It is called the Skull, after all. Maybe it’s got a handle made of braided hair.”
First of all, yuck. Second of all, “Do Fae corpses decay like ours, or do they stay whole in all their glory no matter how long they’re dead?”
She looked at me like I truly got her. “Excellent question. There haven’t been any Fae tombs discovered in over three hundred years—at least none people have talked about—so it’s hard to know what happens to them in death. The few tombs that have been described mention the dead Fae in question were laid to rest on top of a dais or platform, dressed in their best armor. The accounts describe their features to an
extent, which suggests if there is any decay, it’s as slow as their natural
aging. However, it might be because of where they’re laid to rest.”
“The magic of Faerie keeping them young, even in death?”
“Exactly.”
The Fae didn’t talk about death—that was one tradeoff of living they took pains to avoid. They died, of course—murder, mauling by scary Fae creatures, or simply eventually—but it wasn’t something they discussed openly. Once Aidan was free, I’d have to ask him about this. Being so close to his Fae side, he might be able to tell me something.
The general consensus was that important or powerful Fae were given small mausoleum tombs for their eternal rest, and the rest got tossed in some stream or ditch for Faerie to eat them back.
The reason there wasn’t a Fae tomb raiding business was that Fae didn’t bury their dead with riches, and since their tombs were in Faerie, no part-Fae was truly willing to go poking around. As for the full Fae themselves, since they avoided the dead and all mentions of it,
there were no accounts of tomb construction or maps or hints
anywhere to be found.
And, man, had we veered off my original intent in coming.
“Anything else you can tell me about the Skull?” I asked.
“Not off the top of my head—hah!” We high-fived. “But let me look at the books.”
| thanked her earnestly and added, “Any information will work. I re-ally appreciate it.”
“It’s no problem.” She pointed at the nearest chair. “Might take a few.”
I sat obediently. It was the same chair I had used the day before— my doodle of Aidan’s face was still on the table’s surface. I licked my thumb and tried to erase the ink.
On the other side of the room, Dawn had opened one of the shelves and was taking a tome out. She held it open on one arm, flipping the pages with her free hand.
“You have a lot of information about artifacts and Fae stuff in
there?” I asked, rubbing the table harder. It was definitely going to take an actual cleaning solution.
“It works for us,” Dawn answered in a distracted tone, running a finger down the contents of one page.
“I would spend all my day reading them,” I told her, a little envy in my voice. I bet they indexed their tomes here, unlike in the Institute’s library. Ah, what I’d have given to be back in the Institute, bugging Aidan and Victor about letting me help search for the Skull. I abandoned my efforts to wipe Aidan’s face off the table. He looked kind of cute, in an a four-year-old could draw a better portrait way.
“T wish,” Dawn answered. “Veronica doesn’t like it when the books leave the room. They took her too long to collect.”
“Spelled too?”
“Yep.”
The business of selling military history books must be booming to
afford all this spelling. Or maybe… I cleared my throat. “How much is
this going to cost me?”
Dawn threw me a kiss. “For you, free.”
Until she found something actually worthy, I supposed. But hey, I’d take it. I grinned back, and she busied with another tome.
“Do you guys have a side artifact business like the Wishing Well?” I asked casually. Might as well use this time to go digging for other types of information.
“Just research,” she answered. “Good money, low risk.”
“Makes sense,” ] agreed. “You ever come across artifacts that steal dreams or memories or secrets in your books?”
“Still thinking about your memory spell?”
“Gotta be prepared, in case similar things are going around. What if the next time I get affected is by an artifact instead of spells? How would I go about getting my memories back from the thing?”
Seriously, smoothness was my superpower today.
Dawn made a thoughtful noise, returning her current book and
going for another. “You work for the Institute. Wouldn’t they know about that stuff more than I do?”
Her tone had turned curious, so 1 chose my words carefully. “I’m a newbie. They barely allow me to leave the reception area. The memory spell landing on me was a coincidence, but what if someone targets us with something worse next time? What if they take Aidan—Greaves’s memories and we gotta take them out of an artifact?”
“Oh. There is information about memory-returning spells, but I’m not sure that would work with an artifact that stole memories, I’m sorry.” She shrugged apologetically. “Our resources lean more toward spells and related types of magical objects.”
Unlike artifacts, whose magic acted like a transaction, similar to spells, magical objects were simply imbued with power. Like the Skull.
“No worries,” I said. And since we were circling the topic… “What about Eyes? The Institute doesn’t have much on them. Why would anyone make an artifact out of a hound’s eye?” I asked, more to myself
than her. I had pondered this a lot.
“Why do Fae do anything?” she said. “I heard some creatures give them up willingly, though.”
My jaw dropped. “Really? Why would they do that?”
“Who knows. A sign of loyalty to their masters?”
I sure hoped Greenie wouldn’t come around one day, pop out one of his eyes, and expect me to do anything with it.
“But I think it’s more likely they were experimented on,” Dawn continued. “Fae creatures have as much magic as the Fae themselves. If you can turn a bunch of Fae bones into a powerful item, why not bits of Fae creatures?”
I wished Greenie was around so I could hug him. “That’s depressing.”
She shrugged again and closed the bookshelf. “It’s Fae. Depressing is the least messed up thing about them.” Coming to stand by the table,
she produced her phone and began swiping around. “We don’t have
anything worthwhile about the Skull—only guesses about its appearance or mentions about how powerful it’s supposed to be—but I know someone who might help.”
Her swipes stopped, and she met my hopeful eyes. “They’re a researcher we work with a lot—knows about everything Fae under the earth. He’s worth his weight in gold.”
Understanding filled me. She was offering one of her contacts in the black market. The kind of information that went beyond favors.
“What’s this going to cost me?” A tendril of panic escaped the general mass of anxiety and doom I’d kept locked in my chest so far. I didn’t have the Institute resources, not really. Aidan would probably pay any debt incurred while I searched on his behalf, but what if she wanted a favor, or an artifact in the Institute’s possession? “Another personal favor?” I made sure the personal part came through very clearly. Sure, Dawn was being nice and helpful now, but who knew what the
future might bring?
“You already owe me one of those,” she said matter-offactly and slightly cheered. ] wondered if she had found something in her books and was using this other researcher as a way to earn some extra money. But so far, her demeanor had appeared open and truthful.
And i
f I were to be honest, it wasn’t like I hadn’t held back things in the past to attempt to get my way.
So, I wiped the suspicion from my tone and decided to be as open as she was. “Tell me.”
“I want a book.”
I blinked. “Okay.”
“It’s a very rare book.”
Was she going to ask me to rob someone? Ethics aside, I wasn’t sure my current skill set was up to par. Although with Greenie’s help, I bet I could do a pretty good smash and grab. Unless the book was on a second floor or above, where Greenie was unable to access, and never
mind. “You want me to get it for you?”
“It’s been lost for years, but I bet with the Institute’s help, you can find it.”
I sighed with relief. “You don’t want me to steal it from someone.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Okay. No, wait. Is it something dangerous?” | didn’t want to be put in the position of trading a tome filled with ways to doom peo-ple in exchange for helping fix my current problems. Even if it meant Aidan’s freedom. Ugh, morals. How bothersome.
“Nothing dangerous. It’s a collection of Fae stories, illustrated and all. Each story is about a spell and how it came to be, but there are no actual spells in it. None that can be copied, at least.”
As far as things to find went, it sure was better than a bowl made with skulls. “And if 1 can’t find it?”
“Promise you will try to the best of your abilities.”
I stood and shook her hand. “I promise I will search for your book
to the best of my abilities. I will not steal it for you, but I will tell you
where to find it.”
Her smile was a ray of sunshine. “Great.” She returned to her phone but then sent me an apologetic glance. “This guy…he won’t give the information for free.”
Ah, there went my soul, attempting to escape my body. “Of course not.”
“What’s your number? I’ll text you the address.” I reached for my phone, but it wasn’t there. “I don’t have my phone on me.”
“T’ll print it out, then.”
A few more swipes of her fingers, and a printer began to rumble in one of the cabinets. Dawn got the paper and handed it over.