I drove over the Willamette and to the other side of town, where the donut shop was. A light misting of rain coated the windshield as I drove, the early spring weather given to capriciousness.
As soon as I parked and stepped out of the car, I felt it. The presence of a doorway was like a blankness in my mind. If I closed my eyes and imagined the environment around me, doorways existed as a black spot, devoid of light and shape.
This one was up against the wall of the donut shop, and it felt fresh. The edges weren’t tattered or worn, like the ones created by Kailen’s wristwatch over the years. This was clean. It had been created by moonstone, and it hadn’t yet disappeared.
A few cars still drove by, tires sliding over the moist-slick streets, but no one paid attention to the alleyway. “Anwynn,” I whispered to her, in case anyone was listening. “Smell anything?”
She set her nose to work, sniffing the air, the walls, and the ground. Her lip curled back. “One of the Sidhe has been here. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Do you know who?”
She gave me a level gaze. “You realize that I am one of the lesser Fae, that I, until recently, didn’t have eyes, and oh, I also don’t have a fondness for your kind. You’re all the same to me. I don’t know who this is. All I know is that this is one of the Sidhe, they have Sidhe magic, and they used it in this vicinity.”
“Fine. Signature scent?” Every Sidhe had a scent attached to his or her magic. Mine was dark chocolate. You could clean it up after performing magic, but grushounds had the most powerful sense of smell among the Fae.
She sniffed again. “Smells like a flower. Calendula.”
It could have been any of the Sidhe (Dorian, after all, seemed to pop between worlds like doing something illegal was going out of style). But given the proximity to the sprites I’d been chasing, and the freshness of this doorway, I could reasonably assume it had been created by the hooded figure.
Who had then subsequently gone to Tulloch family lands.
I ran a hand through my hair, as if I had to look presentable for anyone, and strode toward the doorway. “Looks like our goals end at the same place,” I said, in an attempt to quell my anxiety.
“Your goals,” Anwynn said.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and stepped through the doorway.
CHAPTER THREE
STEPPING THROUGH A DOORWAY ISN’T LIKE STEPPING from one room into another. It’s like going from the back door of your house to the pool house, except the space in between is utterly dark, devoid of sound, and colder than a winter in Antarctica. You can’t feel your legs or your hands or even your face. You just have to trust that the momentum from stepping through carries you safely to the other side.
Because if it doesn’t, you cease to exist.
Or so the legends say. There’s really not a good way to verify that. The Void. My favorite place.
I popped back into existence again in the sunny hollow between two rolling, green hills. Sweat had beaded on my forehead; my hand shook as I lifted it to wipe away the moisture. Anwynn appeared next to me, irritatingly unruffled. The Void never seemed to affect lesser Fae the way it did the Sidhe.
“Which way is the market?” I said, my voice tremulous.
Anwynn’s ears pricked as she swiveled her head, and in the ensuing silence, I heard the sounds myself. There was a low hum, like you get near a beehive, the occasional clanking sound, and the knocking of wood against wood.
“Over there,” she said and led the way. I followed her up the side of one of the hills, my hand on the butter knife in my pocket. Our would-be-murderer had fled toward these lands. If I encountered her or him, I’d want to be ready.
As soon as we crested the hill, I saw the marketplace. It spread out between the valleys, like too much rain formed into puddles. Trees grew on the hillsides, providing shade for the various Fae that walked between stalls and carts, searching for the wares they wanted. Some merchants had even spread rugs across the grass, their inventory laid out on the ground. The faint smell of something cooking wafted into my nostrils—something sweet and savory, like barbecued pork. My mouth watered and I remembered that I’d only had the chance to wolf down a pretzel while I’d been hunting down the sprites.
I headed down the slope toward the market. This wasn’t my first time in the Fae world, but it was my first time among the general populace. “Keep an eye out for anyone cloaked in blue and brown. And don’t let me do anything stupid,” I muttered to Anwynn.
“Don’t give me an impossible task,” she bit back. “Too often there’s little chance to stop you.”
“Quiet,” I told her automatically.
Her ears swiveled forward, her tail beginning a slow wag. “No can do, boss. You’re in Fae territory now. Talking grushounds abound.”
Well, they didn’t abound, exactly, but as we grew closer, I saw minotaurs and pixies among the crowd, dryads and goblins. They all spoke, and Anwynn was right—no one would give her sidelong glances for talking. They’d give her sidelong glances for having eyes, though.
We hit the edge of the market, and the bustle of it surrounded us. Sidhe from various families I didn’t recognize strode across the grass, their family insignias embroidered into a sleeve, or emblazoned across the front of a tunic. Some took a subtler approach, wearing gloves with their family insignia tooled into the backs of their hands. Each was followed by their own small entourage of lesser Fae. There were bulky, odd-looking men and women I couldn’t place as far as species, and the small sprites and pixies, who flitted about their masters, straightening gowns and bringing cups of water.
It was so entirely odd and foreign that it took me a long time to realize that while I stared at the market, it stared back.
I was dressed in mortal clothes, and although my jacket was zipped up all the way, a leather jacket, jeans, and boots weren’t exactly the sort of things that the Fae wore. Not here, anyways. They wore gowns of embroidered silk, soft-heeled suede shoes, and tunics of shimmering material that floated with the wind.
I was like the girl who walked into prom wearing a pair of overalls and beat-up sandals. I crossed my arms, suddenly aware of how a few stray tatters of my shirt trailed from beneath the hem of my leather jacket.
If the person who had begun the blood rite was here, they’d be given plenty of warning. My clothes screamed a fanfare before me: “Hello, the Changeling is here in the Fae world. Also, my job is to stop people like you. HI.”
A group of Guardians passed us on patrol, their silver armor gleaming in the sunlight, their eyes darting about, watchful for illegal activity or signs of trouble. I supposed it made sense to have a neutral armed presence in an area where all the Fae families mingled. Or allegedly neutral. Grian had had some of the Guardians in her pocket. Like mortals, Fae could be bought, bribed, and threatened.
As we pressed farther into the market, I heard the whisper following me: “Changeling.” I wanted to hide beneath my hands. I hadn’t felt this many eyes on me since I’d battled a Guardian in the Arena. Normally, I didn’t have a problem being in front of a crowd; it was being constantly watched that bothered me.
I passed stalls and carts selling various baubles, gems, and phials. I stopped at one with a multitude of flowing scarves, so abruptly that Anwynn ran into my knees. Stumbling, I put out a hand to halt my forward momentum and found it on a soft green scarf with pale blue streaks. “This one,” I said, “how much is it?”
The merchant set down a mug and rose from his chair, and I almost balked. He hunched over, as if he carried a burden on his back that was too heavy to bear, making his standing height only barely taller than his sitting one. His beard fell nearly to his knees, braided in places and tied with silver wire. When he peered up at me, it was with bright black eyes in a face that looked as though it had been hacked from a crusty tree trunk. “Eight gold lions,” he said. “It’s all hand-dyed, finest gossamer. Repels rain—wonderful for those misty days.”
My salesperson instincts took over. Never mind the m
erchant’s odd appearance. I knew what he was about. Talk up the product, make the customer feel like they need the product. And a tactic I rarely ever used for fear of long-term consequences: exaggerate. I picked up the clay mug of water he’d been drinking from at the edge of his display.
I tipped it a little over my choice of scarf. “Water repellent? Wonderful.”
“Wait.” He put out a hand. “Six gold lions.”
“Five.”
“Fine.”
“And how did you plan on paying for that?” Anwynn murmured from the side of her mouth.
I fumbled in my pockets. Sometimes I did tend to get ahead of myself. “Put it on the Aranhods’ tab,” I said, hoping beyond hope that tabs were things that the Fae kept, and they had some way of doing so in a market.
The man grunted, pulled out a ledger. “Name?”
“Nicole,” I said.
He wrote something in the ledger, stared at it for a while, and then gave a satisfied grunt. Whispering a thanks to my biological parents, I swept up the scarf, pulled it over my head and wrapped it around my shoulders and torso until just the bottom of my jacket showed. I didn’t look as effortlessly put-together as the rest of the Sidhe, but at least I didn’t look like a sparrow in a swarm of hummingbirds.
“Good thing your parents are looking out for you,” Anwynn said as we walked away. “Good thing they put your name on their accounts.”
A bit chastened and a lot annoyed, I stepped back into the crowd, my visibility much diminished. As we pressed farther into the market, the shade of the trees grew more oppressive; the grass turned to dirt and decomposing leaves.
Anwynn sniffed the air. “Calendula,” she said. A growl started in her throat. “The person you’re looking for has been here and has used some magic.”
“Can you follow the trail?”
She shook her head. “No. They’ve cleaned up. It’s too faint.”
“Unicorn water, then. If we find who we’re looking for, all the better.” I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering the insignias I saw at the Arena. “One of the families uses a unicorn for an insignia. Maybe they’ll have some unicorn-purified water? They might keep some around just for nostalgia.”
“Not a terrible idea,” Anwynn mused. We stepped around a stall with a myriad of shiny silver weapons hanging from its walls. “They have some stalls on the other side of this forest.”
“And I want to know who might be interested in enacting a blood rite. Which families keep sprites as bonded lesser Fae?”
Anwynn snorted. “Nearly all of them. The Volenths don’t. They live in caves, which aren’t conducive to the delicate lungs of sprites. Neither the Muirgheals or the Rustannars keep air sprites, which are what attacked us.”
Three families eliminated. That left nine other families—and all their hundreds of members. At least I’d narrowed things down. A little.
I let my hand slip back into the pocket with my butter knife, its cool weight comforting. Why now? Why wait until a month after Grian’s capture to try and enact a blood rite? It could be the power vacuum left after the police had arrested her. Grian’s family, the Le Fays, had been influential, thanks to Grian’s willingness to bribe, murder, and steal. Maybe someone saw this as an opportunity to take a risk and to elevate their family’s standing. After all, what were a few mortals to the Fae?
My jaw clenched. This was why I’d agreed to the Arbiter’s conditions: because I’d wanted to believe in something larger than myself. I wanted to be a part of something greater. But I had more to do than to reflect on self-improvement.
I lifted my gaze from my boots and caught a glimpse of a brown and blue cloak. It was mottled, almost blending in with the shadows beneath the trees. I pressed past a couple of dryads and saw the flash of a silver belt.
“Anwynn,” I whispered. “Ten ‘o clock.”
Her great head swiveled. “I see.”
“Flank them.”
“Already on it,” she said as she slipped away. She could be surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive for her size.
The man or woman stood at a stall under the shade of an elm tree. I couldn’t quite see the merchant in the shadows, but she hunched over her wares like a hen incubating a set of eggs, whispering in a low voice to the cloaked figure.
I drew closer and their voices drifted to me on the wind. “…and what sort of powers does this give the recipient?” A man’s voice floated from beneath the blue and brown hood.
“It won’t be any sort of Talent. The daemon geas isn’t Sidhe magic, so the power won’t be Sidhe power. It’s chaotic, difficult to control.”
“But someone with enough will and focus…?”
“Would be able to channel the geas in certain directions. You’ll need to find the last ingredient, of course.”
“Of course.” I heard the clink of coin against wood. The man slid them to the merchant.
“An excellent decision,” she replied. I caught a glimpse of wild gray hair, eyes black and beady as a sparrow’s.
She collected a few things from her wares, her long, curving nails clicking against the items. And then she slid them toward the cloaked figure.
Anwynn crouched, her belly low, her ears pricked, ready to pounce. The man reached for the items—a small pearly tooth, a glass bauble, dark feathers, a twisted root, and a vial.
“Hey,” I said. Both the merchant and the cloaked man looked to me.
I’d hoped to see the man’s face, but he wore a gray scarf over his mouth and nose. All I could glean was a pair of hazel eyes, brown skin a shade lighter than my parents’, and black brows.
For an instant, we just stared at one another. And then the man swiped the objects into a bag at his side, whirled, and ran.
“Anwynn!” I called. I needn’t have bothered. She leapt at him.
For a lesser Fae, grushounds were intimidating creatures. They were swift, strong, smart, and relentless. Though I couldn’t stand her personality, I’d come to rely on her abilities. But as she launched into the air, the cloaked man ducked swiftly to one side, flowing away from her attack as though he were a fish and Anwynn’s attack just the clumsy swipe of a hopeful toddler. She only caught a scrap of his bag between her teeth, her jaws snapping shut.
The market around us drew back, the Sidhe gasping and clutching at their belongings. “Stop that man!” I called, throwing off the scarf over my head.
No one moved to obey except Anwynn.
I guess I should have expected as much. I wasn’t a Guardian. The Arbiter had made me my own Fae family to discourage other families from placing Changelings, which technically made me a Queen. But I had no other family members to support my reign or power. Titles were only that when it came to the Sidhe. Power was acquired through the bonding of lesser Fae, the crafting of items, through information and shows of force.
So no one listened to me—the Changeling, the loner, the one who made her home in the mortal world.
Keeping the Fae and mortal worlds separate? That was my job, and mine alone.
My feet, already tired from chasing sprites through Portland, ached as I pounded across the packed earth of the marketplace. I heard Anwynn’s panting as she recovered from her lunge and followed me.
The man darted and wove through the lesser and greater Fae, an eel gliding through reeds. I followed as best I could, drawing on my Talent for swordplay to increase my speed. The man darted to the left, between two hills. It was more crowded in that direction, the wandering Fae forming a bottleneck. I’d catch him there; the two hills had nearly sheer sides, the grass fading away to reveal rocky surfaces.
I shoved my way into the crowd, stumbling into Sidhe and lesser Fae alike, muttering apologies they probably didn’t hear. If I could just end this here, find the unicorn water, and then get back to the business of closing stray doorways, the Arbiter wouldn’t even have to know about the blood rite.
The man’s cloak fluttered just out of reach, constantly disappearing behind the crowd. I reached for
his bag.
With a bit of a kick and a jump, he rose above the crowd and ran sideways across the sheer face of the hill. His bag hit a couple Fae as he passed; the place where Anwynn had bitten it caught on a minotaur’s horn and ripped.
Something shiny fell from the bag, but the man didn’t slow. He leapt to the opposite cliff, bounced off of it, and was clear of the crowd. A flash of sunlight hit my eyes, I blinked, and he was gone.
I slowed and Anwynn caught up to me. “What the hell,” I said, panting, “what the hell was that?”
“Someone skilled in the fighting arts,” she said. “Someone Talented in swordplay.”
“Well I’m Talented—I can’t do that.”
“Yes, but you’re also newly manifested.”
I had a lot of raw power, but not enough refinement. Certainly not enough to run on walls. How was I going to catch this guy? If he was Talented, that meant he was one of the greater Fae, one of the Sidhe. I’d hoped he was one of the lesser Fae, because that would make things so much simpler. Now I had larger things to consider, like who I might offend by apprehending him and how it might shift the balance of power. And what had he been talking to that merchant about?
I reached the spot where the man’s bag had ripped further. The minotaur was still there, rubbing at his horn with an irritated expression on his face. “It’s fine, Agram,” the Sidhe woman next to him said. “Honestly, you’re fussier than a cat in a puddle. You’re not hurt.”
I knelt and brushed aside some dried leaves to find a round, dark brown stone. It hadn’t been among the items he’d bought. Reflexively, I held it out to Anwynn to sniff. She took a great big whiff.
“Smells like death,” she said.
I waited.
She tilted her head, as though carefully considering. “You know,” she said, “it doesn’t have to be a very large television.”
I choked back an exasperated sigh. “What’s next? You want a hot tub? Input into decorating decisions?”
She gave me a curt nod. “There is a tall vase of sticks by the front door. What’s the point? Every time I hit it with my tail, you get angry, and it’s hard not to do when it’s so close by.”
Changeling on the Job: A Changeling Wars Novella Page 3