by Z. J. Cannon
“It’s too late for that. You already made your deal. And you’re fae. Your magic won’t let you break a promise.” I smack to the pile of bills. “You told me you would give me the information for free, if I paid you at every one of these meetings. I’ve done my part. Either you can honor your deal, or your own magic will burn you alive from the inside. I won’t even have to touch you. I’ll ask one more time—who is Mab holding captive?”
“Are you sure you want to know what I know? Do you want those images haunting your nightmares?” Whatever she saw in my eyes made her swallow and look away. “Very well. I knew who you were when I caught a glimpse of Mab’s prisoner. The son of Oberon has misplaced his own son, or so the rumors go—and Mab’s newest toy looks just like you. Almost. But younger, and more human.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “And so much softer and more vulnerable. It wouldn’t take much to hurt him, I don’t think.”
I wanted to accuse her of toying with me for the sake of her extortion scheme. She could have deduced my identity in any number of ways, and it sounded like my relationship with Lucien was well-known in the Winter Court by now. Once she had connected the dots, dangling hints about him in front of me would be the quickest way for her to get the cash she was after.
But she was fae. She couldn’t lie.
So when I opened my mouth, no accusations came out. Only a strangled, “Then he’s alive.”
“For now,” Nikla said sweetly. “To the frustration of Mab’s servants. They complain about the screaming. It keeps them up at night. One had the bad judgment to complain about it in Mab’s hearing. She had one of her men hold the servant down and shove a hot poker into his ears, one at a time. He doesn’t complain anymore.” She shook her head sadly. “But he’s useless as a servant now, from what I hear. In the end, Mab resorted to turning him into a toy for her dogs. He was getting quite fast at running, before they caught him and tore off a leg.”
“Is my son Mab’s prisoner?” I asked, enunciating every word. “And is he alive? I want a yes or a no. I know how well the fae can twist the truth.”
“How plainly do you need to hear it before you accept it? Is this clear enough for you? Your son is alive. My queen flays the skin from his bones every night, and regrows it every morning. She feeds her dogs on his flesh, and waters her flowers with his blood. Or she did, before she discovered that its taint of iron kills everything it touches. Not the dogs, though. They’ve never looked healthier.”
I forced myself to breathe. “Do you know where he’s being held? And how I can get to him?” This was good news, I told myself. If he was alive, it meant there was still hope. Kessa could still make it to him—and if she couldn’t, if something had happened to her, I could cross over and finish the job myself.
A scream, torn from a ragged voice pushed past its limit, echoed in my ears. I knew it was my imagination, but the sound of my son’s agony was as real as the background hum of conversation in the bar. This is good news, I repeated to myself, but it did nothing to drown out the sound.
“I can answer your first question,” said Nikla. “The second will be up to you, assuming you make it that far. But I can help you with that. I know secret paths where you won’t be seen. Passwords that will get you past the gates.”
I leaned in toward her, hands on the table. “Tell me.”
But Nikla shook her hand. “I’m going to need something more from you first.”
“We had a deal. You can’t break it without your magic burning you alive.”
“I told you I would give you the information free of charge, in exchange for your regular payments,” Nikla allowed. Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “But I never said the payment would stay the same. The price has gone up—which means you haven’t paid me for this meeting yet.”
Negotiating with the fae was a fool’s game. And every time I tried it, I felt like more of a fool. “How much?” I asked, the phantom screams in my ears making it impossible for me to hide my desperation. I would need to go back and get the money from Delaney, but for Lucien, she would pay.
“More money is a tempting thought,” said Nikla. “There’s the cost of living to consider, after all.” She said it as if it were a phrase in a foreign language. “But I think you have something else I want more.” Her eyes glittered as she faced me across the table. She was still sitting down, and even though I was looming over her, the fact that she hadn’t felt the need to get up only emphasized who had the power here—and it wasn’t me.
“I want Lara Delaney,” she said.
I did my best not to show any reaction. “The human politician? She’s dead. Which you would know if you bothered to watch any human television, or read their newspapers. You really should pick up the habit. If you had kept up with the news, you might have recognized me a lot sooner.” I could barely hear my own voice through the sound of the blood pounding in my ears, and Lucien’s phantom screams.
“My queen has heard a rumor that this human has plans that involve the Summer Court. Plans that would put Winter at risk by strengthening Summer. The rest of us have heard rumors, too—rumors that the human isn’t as dead as the other humans think. And that Oberon’s son knows where she is, and may even have thrown his lot in with her.” She stroked the bills on the table in front of her. “My queen is promising a great deal of gold for anyone who can bring her the human woman, dead or alive. And not only gold, but a guarantee to be kept off the front lines once the war begins. Personally, I find that promise more valuable than any material payment. I have no desire to die in this place.” She cast a look over her shoulder at one of the college students, who was laughing uproariously as he dumped a beer over his friend’s head.
“Fine,” I said, thinking fast. “Tell me what you know, and we’ll work something out.”
“Work something out?” She raised an eyebrow. “I know an evasion when I hear one. You can lie, son of Oberon, but you can’t break a promise any more than I can. Are you willing to promise me, right now, that you will deliver Lara Delaney into my hands?”
“I can’t promise you anything right now. Let’s set up a meeting for tomorrow night. We’ll negotiate the details then.”
Nikla shook her head. “I won’t give you the chance to work out some sort of plan with the human. Not when you’ve all but proved to me, with your refusal to give me the promise I asked for, that you have no intention of handing her over. You will call her now, while I listen. You will say nothing to her outside of my hearing. You will convince her to come to this place now, tonight. Or there will be no deal.” A small hint of her former smirk returned. “I know you’re in contact with her. Do you know how I know? Because once you gave up the pretense that she was dead, you didn’t bother trying to convince me you couldn’t do what I was asking.” She clucked her tongue. “You really should take better advantage of that ability to lie. I know I would, in your place.”
She was right. I shouldn’t have admitted so easily that I knew how to reach Delaney. I was too off-balance from the news about Lucien, too desperate for whatever she could tell me. And she knew it, too. That was the weakest possible position to be in for a negotiation, even without throwing fae word games into the mix: she knew I would do anything, pay any price, to find out what she knew.
Or almost anything. I would never hand over Delaney. Even if, deep down, a tiny part of me whispered that the chance of rescuing Lucien would be worth even that price.
Which meant the only way to win this was to turn it into something other than a negotiation.
“I have a better idea,” I said, leaning further in toward her, reaching for my watch almost automatically. “We stick to the original agreement. You take your payment, and tell me everything you know.” I started to unclasp the watch—and froze as my fingers met the iron. My conscious mind kicked back into gear just in time—or, depending on one’s perspective, just a couple of seconds too soon.
If I unleashed my magic, I would get the information from her… at least if my power d
idn’t rip her apart before she had a chance to say anything. Which was a possibility I couldn’t rule out. But the room was packed full of innocent humans. My rage and desperation had let me forget them for a moment. Now, though, I couldn’t block them from my awareness again.
Maybe my magic would limit itself to her. When it wanted to, it could protect people I didn’t want to hurt, even as it tore everything around them apart. But after what had happened back in March, I couldn’t trust my power anymore. I couldn’t trust myself.
I didn’t undo the clasp, but I did keep my hand where it was. But Nikla wasn’t fooled. She looked from the watch, to the humans around us, to my face; her smirk came back in full force. It got damned inconvenient, sometimes, the way everyone in Faerie knew my reputation for being softhearted when it came to humans. And apparently word about what I had done to the Hawthorne police station hadn’t made it across the portal yet.
“Tell me,” said Nikla calmly, “how much longer does Lara Delaney have left to live? Twenty years or so, maybe, if she makes it to the end of her natural life span? That is, of course, if one of us doesn’t get to her first—and we will. But let’s say twenty years, best case. How long is that, to someone who has lived as long as you have—or as long as your son likely will? Is that extra twenty years worth knowing your son will still be in Mab’s hands long after your human is dust?”
My fingers tightened on the clasp. I wished I could bring myself to take it off. I was afraid I would forget myself and actually do it. I tried to force my hand back down to my side, to remove the temptation. I couldn’t move.
“How much time do you think has gone by for him already, considering the way time stretches and distorts between the worlds?” she asked sweetly. “Has it been years for him already? Has it been centuries? Does he still call out for you to save him, do you think, or has he given up?”
I wrenched my hand away from the clasp, and reached down toward my waist instead. I had learned something after being caught without a weapon too many times back in the spring. I had found an iron-free titanium knife, high quality for the price, at least from what I could tell—physical weapons weren’t my specialty. I had even started training with it every day, rebuilding the skills I had lost. I had to do something with my time, after all—Delaney didn’t need me every day, or even every week, and until she gave me the names of her Arkanica contacts, I couldn’t spend that time pursuing my personal project.
I did some quick mental calculus. If I pulled a knife and attacked one of Jimmy’s customers, there was no way I would have the quiet exit I had been hoping for. Best case scenario, I would make a run for it and ditch the costume before the police got here. Worst case, I was leaving here in handcuffs—or a body bag, with the promise of an unpleasant wake-up in the city morgue a few hours later. After getting a little too up-close and personal with Arkanica a few months back, Jimmy knew how to defend himself and the people who worked for him.
And if I did end the night arrested or dead… well, there was no way that wouldn’t make it onto the news. Even in disguise, I wouldn’t be able to show my face in town for a good long time, assuming I made it out of the iron cage where the human police would put me.
But Nikla knew how I could find Lucien. Which left me with only one question—could I make her honor the original terms of our deal before Jimmy called the cops or put a bullet in me? I ran through the possibilities in a fraction of a second, and the answer I came up with was: it wasn’t likely. But it wasn’t impossible, either. And for Lucien, that was enough.
My thoughts hadn’t taken more than the space of a single heartbeat. Nikla opened her mouth to say something else. Before she could get the first word out, I stood and calmly exited the booth. She closed her mouth, her small frown returning as she watched me.
I paused to tip my hat to one of the clowns at the bar, who had turned to admire my costume. Then I slid in next to Nikla. She tensed as I slipped the mask off to shoot her a pleasant smile. Before she could do anything more than that, I gripped her wrist hard in one hand, and drew my knife with the other. I jammed the tip into her torso, just below the rib cage, stopping just short of drawing blood.
“As I’m sure you can already tell, this blade doesn’t have any iron in it,” I said almost pleasantly. “With the healing ability of a full-blooded fae, that means you should be able to heal from anything I can do to you, almost as quickly as I do it. How much do you think I can hurt you, in the time it takes someone to stop me? With the right motivation, probably quite a bit. And you’ve given me plenty of motivation.” I bared my teeth at her in a colder smile as I dug the tip a little deeper. “It will probably cause quite a stir, when all these people see you heal instantaneously from injuries that should have been fatal. That kind of thing makes humans nervous. Do you know what nervous humans do? I have plenty of stories I could tell you—but we don’t have time for that. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.” I drew my lips back a little further. “Unless you want to reconsider your terms.”
She wasn’t smirking anymore. “And what do you think they’ll do to you?”
“Nothing they wouldn’t have already. You really should have kept up with the news. After everything else they think I’ve done, this will be one more drop in the bucket.”
I felt her tense, and prepared to drive the knife into her belly. I didn’t want to do it. Despite the nonchalance I was trying to project, I had no desire to draw any human attention tonight. And even after all the time I had spent fighting Arkanica, forcing myself to become accustomed to getting my hands dirty, I still got queasy about torturing information from someone. It was easier than it had been—and whether that was a good thing or not was anyone’s guess—but I still felt the need for a scalding hot shower every time afterward, and could smell the blood for days.
Walking into a room full of people who needed to be removed from the world, taking off my watch, and letting my magic take over… that was different. It felt more impersonal, somehow. Like I was standing back and letting a righteous hurricane of vengeance flow out from me. When it was just me and a knife, or a lighter, or a pot of boiling water… there was no poetry to that. Just the stink of blood and urine, and the harsh sound of screams ringing in my ears.
But right now, I could still hear those other phantom screams echoing through my head. Lucien’s. So for his sake, if Nikla attacked like I suspected she was about to, instead of simply following through on her original deal and walking away with her money, I would do what I had to do.
Once again, I watched her hands. That was where her attack would come from, whether she was going to reach for a weapon or aim her palms at me and blast me with elemental magic. Which was why I didn’t see Jimmy walk over to us. Not until he slammed his own hands down on the table hard enough to send a miniature earthquake through it.
I jumped. The knife almost slipped. But lucky for Nikla, I kept my hand steady. I tensed, ready to run. But I couldn’t leave. Not without getting what I needed from Nikla.
“Kieran Thorne,” Jimmy growled. “I thought I told you never to set foot in here again.”
Chapter 6
Jimmy’s voice was too low for anyone to overhear him say my name. Apparently he had decided to have that much mercy on me—for now, at least. But the way he had struck the table had already drawn a fair bit of attention. All around the bar, people were shooting us curious looks.
But I couldn’t pay that much attention to what the other patrons were doing; it felt too risky to let Jimmy out of my sight. The first time I had met the man, he had been closed-off and suspicious. Since then, I had seen him afraid, and I had seen him grateful. I had seen him understandably wary, after the news accused me of bombing downtown Hawthorne and killing Delaney. And I had thought I had seen him angry, the last time he had ordered me out of the bar.
But I had never really seen his anger, I realized now. Not until this moment.
He wrenched the knife out of my hand, as if I didn’t have the power to
reduce him to his component atoms in the space of a few seconds. As soon as he did, Nikla jumped up and squeezed past me. Jimmy shifted to let her by. With a grateful look toward him, she ran out the door.
I rose to my feet. Jimmy blocked my way.
I spoke quickly. “Let me go, and you won’t have to see me again anytime soon. I’m going through the portal to save my son. She’s the only one who can tell me how to get to him.”
Because that was what I had to do. I knew that now. I had known it since Nikla’s first taunt about what she knew. Yes, I had told myself I would bring Arkanica down before going after Lucien. And yes, I knew stopping them was more important than any one person’s life. But promises to myself weren’t binding, and I would just have to live with breaking this one.
I would catch up with Nikla. I would cut the information from her piece by piece if I had to. And after that… after that, it was probably best if I just slipped away. Maybe I would give Delaney an apologetic phone call. Maybe not even that. I didn’t want her reproachful voice telling me what I already knew.
Delaney wanted Lucian back almost as much as I did, I reminded myself. Once I saved him, she would be happy I had done it. Even if I was gone long enough to give Arkanica the chance to put their plans into action. That was what I planned to keep telling myself.
Anyway, Delaney would probably be relieved. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t wanted me gone ever since that day in downtown Hawthorne. And I had kept my word to her, even though I had never made it a binding promise. I had helped her find a human helper. She had what she needed now to build the groundwork for an alliance with the Summer Court, once Lucien came back to do his part.
But I knew those were all just excuses. I might not have made a binding promise, but I was still walking away from a commitment. To Delaney, to myself, and to the wider world. I had said I would stop Arkanica. Just stepping through the portal could mean throwing away that chance. Time worked differently between the worlds—if I spent five minutes in Faerie, a hundred years could pass here in that same time.