I looked to Melanie again. Her eyes were wide, and her lips trembled, but she gave me the slightest of nods and glanced down. I followed her gaze and saw a razor-edged piece of glass from the broken window gripped between her fingertips.
Just a couple months of being a Changeling and I was already forgetting—mortals could be pretty goddamned tough.
I leapt toward her, aiming for the sprite on her left, just as Melanie let out a cry and slashed at the sprite on her right. Both sprites fluttered to the ground.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her, before realizing what a stupid question that was.
She opened her mouth to reply.
Lethenan barreled into my side, tackling me like a football player. My right side hit the ground hard, all my wounds reopening, my bruises screaming. Something crunched beneath me, wetness seeping through my jacket.
The unicorn-purified water.
Only one way left to end the blood rite, only one way left to save Melanie’s life. And I shouldn’t have been worrying about that right at the moment, because I was pinned beneath a man who very clearly wanted me dead.
I grabbed my sword and tried to bring it to bear. Lethenan slammed the heel of his palm into my wrist. The hilt fell from my nerveless fingers as pain exploded in my arm. I fumbled for it, but he reached it first. His fingers wrapped around the hilt and I couldn’t get a grip on it as he lifted it high.
Over my chest. Over my heart.
A big, dark shape jumped onto Lethenan’s back and dug teeth into his shoulder. The two sprites still harried Anwynn, stabbing her, but she paid them no mind. She only clung to Lethenan, clawing. I could have bought her a thousand televisions in that moment (and it’s a good thing I don’t actually make purchasing decisions in the thick of battle).
Lethenan reeled and fell away from me, screaming. Anwynn pinned him on his back, his blood dripping from her jaws. He writhed and yelled, but couldn’t get away.
Anwynn met my gaze, her eyes cold. “Just say the word, boss.” She wanted to do it. She wanted to savage this man, to taste his blood, to kill him.
And I couldn’t let her.
I picked my sword up from the ground. “No,” I said. “This is my duty. I won’t let someone else do it for me.” I didn’t want to do this, and he was related, however distantly, to Kailen. But if I didn’t, then Melanie—a mortal who had nothing to do with any of this—would die. I couldn’t let that happen. Not on my watch.
Anwynn stepped off of his chest as I approached. I stood over Lethenan. He was a mess of blood and tattered skin. For a moment, I hesitated, hoping that he would find some new store of energy, that he would attack and give me some excuse to feel more righteous.
He only glared at me. “Do it,” he said. “Get it over with. This is what my actions have earned me, is it not?”
I sank my blade into his chest, into his heart, the sword entering his body as easily as if it were clay. The breath went out of him—slowly at first, and then all at once. The two sprites who had been harassing Anwynn flitted away with little, frightened cries.
When I glanced up, I saw the mark on Melanie’s forehead glow briefly before it disappeared. All the fight, the energy, went out of me in a rush, leaving me shaky and lightheaded. Anwynn and I exchanged glances. “You know what?” I told her. “I fucking hate being one of the Sidhe.”
And for once, she had no reply.
I pulled the blade free from Lethenan’s chest, staggering backward. I took me a moment to regain my balance. “Do you…uh…need a ride home?” I asked Melanie.
“I’ll find my own way, thanks,” she said. She eyed my grushound with a certain amount of distrust, and I couldn’t blame her. Anwynn looked like a bloody, angry bear.
As soon as she’d disappeared behind some trees, I picked up Lethenan’s feet. “Help me with the body,” I said to Anwynn. She obliged by seizing his shirt with her teeth. A Sidhe body hanging out in the mortal world would raise too many questions.
We swung him into the trunk. I sagged against it as I shut it. And all this for what? To free a Queen who had received just punishment for her crimes. What a waste.
“Let’s go home,” I said to Anwynn, “and let’s not leave for a few days.”
She coughed and hacked out a clot of blood onto the grass. “That’s the best idea you’ve had all week.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WE DIDN’T STAY AT HOME FOR A FEW DAYS, OF COURSE. I had a corpse in my trunk, and those don’t keep all that well. So Anwynn helped me haul him back to the Le Fay lands in the Fae world. I was too much a coward to knock on the doors of Grian’s old palace, so I left him out in the field, the wind blowing through the grass.
I remembered to avoid the ring of flowers this time.
But after that, we did stay home, and Anwynn wasn’t completely unpleasant. Just mostly. She lay on the carpet, licking at her wounds. I’d long since given up on telling her not to.
I sat on the couch, convalescing, a cup of tea in my hands. I stared at the blank wall where my television had been before Lethenan had sliced it in two. I’d never actually killed a person before. Maybe the Sidhe weren’t people, strictly speaking, but they were my people. And I’d killed one.
I’d thought it would affect me more. I felt pain and regret, but I felt like I should feel more pain and more regret. I’d cut his long Sidhe life short. But he’d tried to cut mine short. And that’s when it hit me: I was going to live for a very, very long time. I’d still been thinking of myself as having a normal mortal lifespan. Unless I got killed early on in the line of duty (pretty likely), then I was going to outlive most of the people I knew. Would my human morality eventually fade beneath Sidhe conventions? Would I forget what it was like to be human, to grow up with a human family? Would I eventually stop caring about this city?
Despite the warm cup in my hands, a chill touched the back of my neck. My gaze traced the deep scratch in my wall from where Lethenan’s sword had sliced.
“You know,” Anwynn said, interrupting my thoughts, “you could get another television. You could even get two.”
I sighed. “Do you ever just let things go?”
“Ask anyone about grushounds, and they’ll tell you that they’re known for their single-mindedness. Lest you forget, I got stabbed for you. That ought to count for something.”
“Fine,” I said, determined that this would be the first and last time I gave in to Anwynn, “I’ll get you a television.”
“Now?” she said.
“Tomorrow.”
Her ears flattened against her head. She opened her mouth for some rejoinder, but my phone rang, interrupting her.
“Hey,” Kailen said when I picked up. “I just wanted to check on you. Are you okay?”
I looked down at myself. “Battered, bruised, and pincushioned, but alive.”
“So you stopped the rite?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t ask any more questions, for which I was grateful. The Sidhe tended to hold their cards pretty close to their chests, and I’d learned that Kailen held his a little closer than most.
“Hey, do you remember someone in your family? Someone named Lethenan?” I wanted to stop the words as soon as they’d left my mouth.
“He’s my second cousin,” Kailen said. “I don’t know him very well. He joined up with the Guardians a little after I did. Good kid. Nothing like my dear old mum.”
“Oh.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I was…” I chickened out. “I was wondering who was next in line for the throne after you.”
He sighed. “Could we not talk about my family? I called because I found something I thought might interest you. I was looking through some old boxes—the stuff I packed away when I moved to the mortal world—and I found a book. A Fae bestiary. I was wondering if you wanted it.”
I had rudimentary knowledge of fairies and various mythical creatures, but that was all. “Yes, of course. That sounds great.”
“You
can drop by and grab it,” he said.
“Sure, be right there.” I hung up, set down my tea, and pulled off the blanket. I was still wounded, but the bruises were healing. I could walk, albeit with a limp, and I didn’t have a strong grip with either arm. But I could still drive.
Anwynn cocked her head at me. “So you’re going to Kailen’s place.”
I shrugged, trying to make the gesture look nonchalant. “Maybe.”
“Just him and you,” she said.
“Why, is that a problem?” I ran my hands down my shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles.
Her gaze bored into me. “Looking at a Fae bestiary together, flipping pages side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, thigh-to-thigh…”
My ears burned. She made book-reading sound nigh lascivious. “I haven’t bought that television yet,” I said.
Anwynn looked away and then scratched at an ear. “I suppose I can mind my own business. It is so very difficult, though.”
“Good.” I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. “I’ll domesticate you yet.”
“I am not a dog,” Anwynn growled, her hackles rising. She called after me as I left. “I’m going to take that stupid leash down from the wall, shred it to pieces, and shit on it.”
I shut the door, got into my car, and opened the glove box, just to check. A leather leash lay curled inside. I smiled.
That’s one of the nice things about being organized.
You always keep a spare.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A.G. Stewart was born in Canada and raised in a number of places across the United States. She spent an inordinate amount of time during her childhood reading and remembers often being told to quit reading and pay attention! Her love of fantasy and science fiction began when she was in grade school. She grew up in a family where Star Trek marathons and questions such as “When are you building me that FTL drive?” were the norm. Weekly trips to the library led her to discover authors she still enjoys reading—Peter S. Beagle, Isaac Asimov, and J.R.R. Tolkien. She now lives in California with her husband and a veritable menagerie of animals on her suburban microfarm.
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OTHER IGNEOUS BOOKS TITLES
GERMINATION by Jamie Thornton
A group of runaways. A horrifying virus.
Mary knows how to thrive on the street. She makes it her mission to keep other kids away from everyday monsters. But when she’s attacked by a crazed man clutching a bloody heart she realizes—there’s a new kind of monster in town.
A single drop of blood, and now Mary’s one of the infected. Unless she can stop the virus and save her friends, the new monster in town might just be her.
The opening novella to a post-apocalyptic Young Adult series where the runaways are the heroes, the zombies aren’t really zombies, and you can't trust your memories--even if they're all you have left.
THE WINDS OF PATWIN COUNTY by Richard Crawford
Murderers. Madmen. An ancient red-handed spirit named Molly. Patwin County is an unsettled place, full of shadows and secrets.
When Laura Livingstone’s mother vanishes, Laura and her husband must find her before evil engulfs the county. As they search the streets of San Augustin, they uncover a terrible secret and fall into a supernatural horror beyond their imagination.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
Changeling on the Job: A Changeling Wars Novella Page 7