by Isa Medina
12
I shot out of the bed, spinning around. The room was empty.
Something fell on my head. 1 disentangled the—way too big to be human—tooth from my hair and tossed it back. The pantry was also empty. And so was the restroom.
“Faelette,” came Lord Velei’s voice again, amusement filling it.
It dawned on me that the voice was coming from above. And what was above me? The damn goo-pet.
I pointed at it “You’ve been spying on us this whole time!”
The goo-pet purred in satisfaction and dropped another tooth.
Aggravated, I threw it into a corner of the ceiling and sat on the bed. Why hadn’t we thought of this?
A new realization dulled the sting. “Ah, I see. You can’t figure out where we are, can you? Even with your goo-pet, you can spy and talk but not find us.” Or he’d be here in person by now. Him or his guards.
“Indeed,” he said, irritation and disappointment mixed in his tone.
It was bizarre—for all its mismatched teeth, the goo-pet had no mouth, being a mass of solid goo. Hearing the voice come from it, as if it were some kind of biological speaker, was the strangest thing. “It is too well hidden, even for me.”
“What would life be without some hurdles to keep it interesting?” | received a tooth and sent it right back.
“You are wise beyond your years,” Lord Velei agreed with the mer est hint of good-natured mirth. I liked that about the Fae Lord—he might enjoy going in circles around his point, and I might feel like an insect on display when he looked at me, but I never felt spoken down to.
It was the same with Aidan. He might think I lacked a brain most of the time, but he always took me seriously.
“To what do I owe the, uhm, visit?” Was it a visit when the pet had simply tagged along?
“T have a deal for you, faelette.”
“Of course you do.” Another tooth, another toss. I was getting quite good at this. “Tell me.”
“It is a simple exchange, and I am sure you already know my terms.” Of course I did. “The collection of artifacts in the bag, and I will give Aidan his Institute back.”
“Do you even have the power to fix things up there? I thought you didn’t go to the surface. They’ve run things over there for a long while on their own.”
“Ah, but that does not mean they do not ask for favors here and there.”
No wonder the Institute had a money-only policy when dealing with the part-Fae world—tfavors were a Fae’s favorite currency. And if you didn’t pay back when asked to? Then you ended up like Sullivan, a mass of goo and bones drifting on the ceiling of some Fae Lord’s manor.
“It is a good deal, faelette,” Lord Velei said.
“That might be so, but they’re not my artifacts.” And we both knew Aidan wouldn’t agree to such a deal unless it was absolutely necessary. And then, probably still not.
Besides, the collection included the Keeper, and if Lord Velei tried to retrieve its secrets and realized it was currently empty and suspected me of having learned them, I’d have to spend my life in this cabin or chance getting silenced in a more permanent fashion.
I toyed with the latest tooth offering. If I wasn’t mistaken, I had yet to receive the same tooth twice. A loud rumbling warned me I was waiting too long to return it.
“Thinking it over?” Lord Velei cooed. “Perhaps I can add something personal to sweeten the agreement.”
“Personal, how?”
“There are still many things you do not know, are there not? The hound, for example. Have you found what it has taken from you in exchange for becoming yours?”
The question startled me, and I fought to keep my expression blank. I had assumed the tradeoff would come in the future, not that it had already happened, since nothing had changed in my life.
“I could tell you the myths and legends that come along with that particular hound,” he added, letting me know I| was crap at keeping my expression blank. “I truly do think it is something you would like to know—and something you cannot find in your part-Fae books.”
“Tempting, but you’ll have to do better than that” I tried to make my tone uncaring, but I guessed that went as well as my blank expression.
“You are a tough negotiator. It is no wonder Greaves has decided to keep you under his wing. And the interest is mutual, is it not? He has gained such a brave defender! But a defender can only do so much with a basic knowledge of the powers at play. And Aidan Greaves… He claims a peculiar position in the Fae world. A peculiar history.”
Was he trying to tempt me with information about Aidan’s life and
how his family branch was related to Lord Velei? Darmnn, the Fae had read me too well. Curiosity—a Fae’s greatest downfall, and one I had used in the past to my advantage, now coming to bite me in the butt.
“And not only his history,” Lord Velei continued in a honeyed voice, “but how it intersects with yours.”
“What?” I blurted, startled.
“Your own origins, faelette. How much have you heard about your Fae ancestors? They were from the area, you know…or might still be. A drop of blood—which you owe me—and the knowledge will be yours.”
Wow, he sure knew how to deliver his punches. I’d never had too much of an interest in whoever had sired my line—being one-sixteenth Fae made things too nebulous in the past to really care—but the way he had voiced the suggestion raised all my hackles and made me suddenly curious. Because there had to be a reason he was choosing his words that way. Did I] have a Fae cousin somewhere around like Aidan had
Ren?
“You’re good,” | said, catching a falling tooth. “Tempting,” I added, throwing the tooth right into Aidan’s open duffel bag. The goo-pet immediately dropped from the ceiling right inside. I rushed forward and closed the zipper. The bag shook, and I dusted off my hands, satisfied. “But they’re still not my artifacts to give away.”
“Faelette…” came the muffled voice from inside the bag.
Some time later, the portal shimmered awake, and Aidan came through. He found me lying on the floor, using the duffel bag as a pil-low. Lord Velei had gone silent after ] had trapped his pet. Here was another thing I liked about him—he kmew when not to press. Fae and biding their time, another iconic duo.
I jumped to my feet and held out a hand. “Your phone, please.”
Aidan arched his brows but complied. Opening the notes application, I wrote Lord Velei is in there and pointed at the bag.
He looked confused at first, then his gaze traveled to the ceiling. His
expression soured. “Figures. Grab the backpack.”
I did so and took his outstretched hand. After opening the portal again, he pulled me along into the small cavern.
Once the portal had dimmed to its usual pool of soft Faerie light, Aidan faced me, his thoughts inscrutable. “He was spying on us through the pet the whole time?”
“Yup.”
“What did he say?” His voice was carefully even, but I could hear the suspicion in it.
“Offered me a deal. The artifacts for your reinstatement as head of the Institute.”
“Of course he did. And?”
“And nothing. I told him they weren’t my artifacts to bargain with.”
Now he looked full-on suspicious. “Hmm.”
“It’s true.”
“I’m shocked. No, I’m actually impressed that you didn’t meet him
on your own and try to fix things.” By the sound of his voice, he was
telling the truth.
I gave him a winning smile. “My reputation precedes me, doesn’t it? Pretty sure that’s what he was counting on, too.” My tone became ur-gent. “Did you learn anything?”
“The Council knows I’m gone. I got in touch with my contacts, but nobody has learned anything yet. They’re still locking into why the Ethics Commission decided to go forward this time. It does appear Har-mon is somehow involved, though.” At my look of co
nfusion, he added, “The man who put the interim director in charge of the Institute. He’s old guard and carries a lot of influence in the Council.”
My blood chilled. “Does that mean you’re out-out?”
“My disappearance won’t earn me any favors, but it’s being kept quiet for now. I should have enough allies in the Council to get me back as the director eventually, no matter what Harmon wants, but for now…”
“For now, the Institute is fair game. What about Victor and the
others? Did you talk to them?”
Aidan shook his head. “I don’t want to contact Victor. They’ll be ex pecting it. The less I involve the Institute, the better.”
I melted a little. He didn’t want to get them into trouble. “I’m sure they’ll be trying to help on their own.”
He smiled ruefully. “I’m sure. Hopefully, not too overtly.”
“Don’t worry, if you all get fired, you can always start your own artifact hunting business. Instead of taking everyone’s dangerous artifacts for research and safekeeping, you can hire yourselves out to people who want their enemies’ artifacts gone.”
He gave me an odd look. “Maddie, you’re part of our group, too.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I’ll get you reinstalled, no matter what happens to me.”
I didn’t want to tell him that I wasn’t sure 1 wanted to work for the Institute without him. “If you think you have good odds at being director again, then I believe you. Did anyone figure out if someone is
looking for specific items? Maybe you should talk to Victor, after all, and ask him about the soulless Fae bit.”
“Nothing yet.”
“And Lockhart?”
“Nothing either.”
I wriggled my brows. “You know what that means?”
“T have absolutely no idea.”
“It’s time to set a trap!”
“We’re back to that?”
But I could tell he wasn’t as uninterested in the idea as he had been last night. “Call your Council contact. Aster, too. Have them hide and see who comes to catch us.”
“And how do you propose we set this trap? If ] take the ring off, the Council enforcers will find me, not whoever—or whoevers— orchestrated this. If 1 contact Harmon directly, he’ll send the enforcers
or be aware it’s a trap. I suppose I could have someone drop some hints
through back channels, but again, timing the meeting that way might be hard. Something like ‘Greaves will be at this spot at this time’ might not reach the intended audience when we want—the timing has to be exact. Enough time that they’re aware something’s going down, but not give them so long that they can make a good plan on how to act on it.”
“Yeah, we don’t need any of that.”
Aidan eyed me suspiciously. Tsk. Such lack of faith. “We don’t?”
I disengaged the Eye from the dagger and brought it up. “We have this.” Next, I unhooked the seeker from my belt loop. “And this.”
“Huh.”
“I’m not sure of the exact process, but the Eye seems to make the artifact it connects to work backward. It makes the dagger go from hurting others near the handler to hurting the handler.”
“So you think it might change the seeker from pointing to our desires or doom to calling on whoever wants to find us? Not the artifacts,
since the seeker won’t work on them, but us as the direct line to them.”
“It’s worth a try, don’t you think?” “Damn.” Again, he sounded impressed. Again, it infused me with
pride and warmth. “That might actually work.”
13
Once convinced of the plan, Aidan lost no time in implementing it He took me to an abandoned building in a run-down area filled with warehouses and old offices—an apparently oft-used zone for black market deals, and conveniently close to a “secret” portal Fae no longer used, but somehow remained put after all these years.
I had doubts about the secrecy of said portal.
At some point, the building had been a mix of warehouse and of fices, and Aidan stood in the middle of a wide and tall space while the rest of us were in the smaller rooms by the sides.
His contact in the Council itself—a man named Mathews—was hid-ing around one wall along with Aster from the Ethics Commission. Two witnesses were better than one, I had argued. Aidan had eventually given in, asking Mathews to bring her with him. From the cold looks he kept giving her, Mathews fully agreed with Aidan on the need to involve someone from the MEC.
An extra phone had been hidden among some rubble, set to record, and Aidan had put me in charge of his own phone. In case.
The backpack with the artifacts, we had left back in Faerie. Also in case.
With everything set, Aidan touched the Eye to the seeker and used his power. The gemstone inside the seeker moved to its center and did not budge. I took that to mean whatever the Eye did to the seeker when used together had worked.
Aidan tossed the Eye and seeker to me and told me to scamper, so I moved to my position, out of sight and near a small window I could use to escape if things went “in case.”
Those two words were really getting on my nerves.
As minutes passed with not a soul coming into the building, I began to get angsty. I wished I had hidden with one of the other two so I could at least pester someone with whispered questions and “are we
there yets,” or use their phones for playing games—if they weren’t
doing it themselves. 1 doubted Aidan would appreciate it if 1 down-loaded anything to his phone.
How long would we wait before determining the Eye-seeker combo hadn’t worked and giving up? If the combined magic worked anything like Lord Velei’s spell when he had compelled me into his presence in Faerie, whoever was most interested in finding Aidan would be itching to come here. Hopefully, they had as little self-control as I did.
At last, and as I prepared to speak up, there was the noise from a car stopping outside. ] held my breath instinctively and moved to get a bet-ter look, taking care to make no sound.
A tall man in a suit and a shorter woman in jeans and a tailored shirt came inside the building.
“Harmon,” said Aidan without inflection. The councilman responsible for the ethics complaint going through.
“Greaves,” said the man. One good thing about the building—
amazing acoustics. “You have broken your agreement with the Council,
broke your tracking spell, and left your home. Enforcer Cruz here will take you into custody.”
Harmon’s voice was as cool and lacking in emotion as Aidan’s. Was there a 101 course somewhere out there everyone but me knew about? How to act and sound like a feeling-less robot at will, monthly payments accepted.
“What did they offer you to push forward that ridiculous complaint?” Aidan asked.
“l’m not the one under investigation. The claims came from a reputable source, and it’s in the Council’s best interest that we see it through. You would expect the same if the complaint involved any other branch.”
Aidan tilted his head. “And if we were to look at your own artifact collection, we wouldn’t see an increase in unregistered items?”
“All my artifacts are registered, as you well know,” Harmon answered primly. “Which takes me to another point You failed to tell us
that you’re the only one with access to part of the Institute’s artifact collection. I will need the combination of the safe when we leave here.”
Gotcha. 1 grinned, leaning forward a little more.
“I wonder,” Aidan said, overly thoughtful, “will you share this information or make your own trip into the Institute’s vault, get a first look, first choice, finders keepers kind of councilman deal?”
“If you’re insinuating I’d steal from the Institute, please refrain from making a fool of yourself.”
“If an artifact or two were to disappear, it would be your word against mine, w
ouldn’t it? Easy to accuse me of shoddy paperwork or outright lying.”
“Interfering with our access to the whole of the Institute would not be in your favor, if you expect to continue being its director. In fact, your unwillingness to cooperate so far indicates a lack of loyalty to the Council. We cannot have a person who ignores the mules in charge of a
key branch like the Institute—there’s too much at stake.”
For whom? I snorted.
The enforcer turned her head sharply in my direction. I] hid behind the wall. Crap.
When no shouts of alarm or approaching footsteps followed, I dared another peek. Aidan and Harmon didn’t appear to have noticed anything was amiss. The enforcer was scrutinizing the other side of the warehouse, where Mathews and Aster had hidden.
“You’re good at talking polite nonsense,” Aidan said. “Perhaps this will help sharpen your language—give me the name of whoever put you up to this, and you get first choice at the artifacts.”
“l’ve always admired your direct approach.”
“What do you say? You get your artifact, no questions asked, I get my name. You abandon this sham of an investigation, and all parties are happy.”
Goosebumps broke over my arms, the hairs on my nape standing
on end. Uh-oh.
“Not all parties,” said Lord Velei, walking in from the back of the warehouse. A few paces behind followed my favorite Pirate Fae, Ener, his apparent second in command. “I believe part of this artifact cache belongs to me. Is that not true, faelette?”
He glanced in my direction, forcing Harmon and the enforcer to fol-low suit. What a jerk.
I stepped out of my hiding place. Aidan crossed his arms, his face carved into stone. But what else was I supposed to do?
“Who’s this?” Harmon demanded.
“T thought you didn’t go outside Faerie,” I told Lord Velei, slightly hurt.
He shrugged elegantly. “It happens here and there.”
“Who are you?” the enforcer asked Lord Velei, unfolding a baton with a snap.
“My, my. I should make more trips up here, if my person is so easily forgotten.”
Ener stepped forward, hand going to her sheathed sword. “Put your weapon away, enforcer, unless you want to lose your arm.”