by Alex Rivers
I glanced at one of the Tube windows across from me—the one with my reflection. Siofra’s window into my world.
And I smiled, a smile with no warmth, the smile of a hunter watching his prey. A smile that said I’m coming to get you.
When I glanced back at my wrist, I could see Siofra throwing the mirror from her hand, smashing it against the wall. Then she angrily brushed her hand across the reflection.
She disappeared from sight, my bracelet flickering. Just another mirror now.
I searched for Siofra again, but couldn’t find her. In all likelihood, she and Abellio would leave their hideaway and find another place. We would send fae trackers to look for them, but they’d probably find nothing. Siofra and Abellio wouldn’t risk exposure again.
But if I had found her once, I could find her again. I’d scared her.
And I knew who she was working with.
Chapter 13
I had been on edge for the past few days: attacked by Seelie warriors, by my own reflection, threatened by Grendel.
But nothing had prepared me for the bizarre sight that greeted me when I returned from my hunt on the London Underground. I scanned my room’s interior, the hair raising on my nape.
Someone had made my bed, and the clothing I had left strewn over the floor had been tidied away. My haphazard scatter of parchment papers lay in a neat stack on the desk. Worst of all, the window that I needed open to feel like I wasn’t suffocating had been shut. From his perch on the bedpost, Odin cocked his head, blinking at me.
I frowned. “What the hell?”
“I cleaned the room a bit when you were gone,” a calm voice said behind me.
I turned to find Idelisa, her dark hair draped over her simple black clothes.
I folded my arms, irritated by the idea of a stranger rummaging around in here. “You went through my stuff?”
“I cleaned it up.” She pursed her lips. “Your room looked like the plains of Glandomirum after the great volcanic eruption.”
“But I knew where everything was. I had a system.”
“I found a bra on the windowsill with raisins in it.”
“Those were for Odin.”
“I replaced it with a birdseed container.” Her eyebrows drew together. “I found part of a sandwich in your weapons drawer.”
“I have a weapons drawer?”
“Yes. You do now. The third drawer in the dresser.”
“That’s where I put my… sandwich parts.”
She put her hands on her hips. “And from now on, you put your laundry in the laundry basket.”
“I have a laundry basket?”
“What did you think the basket in the bathroom was?”
“I never gave it much thought.”
“You are the Mistress of Dread!” Idelisa said sharply. “Yet you live like a mind-addled gutter fae.”
Ouch. I didn’t feel like being lectured right now. “It’s my room! I forbid you to—”
“Forbid? Am I your slave?”
“No, of course not—”
“Your servant, then? Is that why you took me from Grendel?”
“No, that’s why—”
“I am Idelisa Weala Broc. And as long as I’m around you, I will not have you sleeping in a place that looks like a kobold’s hovel!”
“I thought it looked like the plains of Glandularium.”
“Glandomirum. Did you eat dinner?”
“I had some chips from a stand at the tube station.”
“Chips.” She stared at me. “Was it a feast worthy of your standing?”
“Sort of. Do you know what Cheesy Wotsits are?”
She stiffened. “You’ll find dinner on the table every day when the clock strikes eight, prepared by Roan’s new chef. And you know, I think he got the chef for you. He knows pixies need to eat more than fae, and you never eat properly, so you’d better make use of it. Let me know if you’re late, and I will save some for you.” She turned around and walked briskly away.
I blinked after her. Tough broad. I closed the door, then hurried to open the window. Today, I’d forgo my daily brush with darkness.
Odin fluttered his wings. “Squawk! Some ocean, vexed as it may be!”
“You said it.”
“He ripped my dress away, baring my nevermore!” He hopped to the windowsill, tilting his head in displeasure at the birdseed container.
I sighed and pulled open the drawers in the dresser until I found where Idelisa had put my bras. I pulled one out, draping it on the windowsill, and poured the birdseed into it. Content, Odin pecked at it with gusto.
I threw myself down on my bed, thinking of my next step. Roan had left his mansion to continue negotiations with various courts, but I’d sent him word right away about Siofra and Abellio—about their little friendship with the Seelie.
I needed to think like a profiler. What would motivate these two?
I was pretty sure Siofra was primarily driven by a bitter obsession with me. But there was more. The one person she’d cared for was the Rix. And I’d killed him. With her mentor gone, she tried to take over his work, tried to make him proud from beyond the grave.
I chewed it over. Would the Rix work with the Seelie? Not likely.
What about Abellio? He’d worshipped Ogmios, trying to be the better son, to earn his place by his father’s throne. From what I understood, Ogmios had hated the Seelie more than anything else. They’d ripped him from his ancestral home.
If Siofra and Abellio were working with the Seelie, they were no longer acting like their father-figures. Maybe they wanted to rip the old world apart, to replace their fathers. A bit Oedipal, isn’t it? And what had Oedipus ended up with? His father’s crown.
I swallowed hard. Is that what they’d get from the Seelie? A power vacuum had turned Trinovantum upside down. Maybe they’d cut a deal with the Seelie. Abellio and Siofra would help the Seelie—and in return, they’d get their own crowns. Just like their daddies.
From outside the window, the sound of drunken singing distracted me. Two men were singing loudly, together. Not the same song. One was singing Taylor’s Swift’s “Shake It Off,” while the other was singing “Row Your Boat.” Both were badly out of tune, and mangling the words.
Please be quiet and let me think.
I scowled out the window, peering at the two men stumbling down Crutched Friars. One of the drunks wore a rumpled suit, the other a track suit. Both zigzagged across the street, clutching their pints.
I felt a pang of envy for them. How nice would it be to feel that carefree for just a night? Granted, my last bender hadn’t exactly been carefree.
“Hey Darren,” the one in the track suit slurred. “Did you see the look on her face?” He huffed a laugh. “Did you see the look on that bird’s face?”
“That minger? Mate…” Darren doubled over, wheezing with laughter.
Track Suit stumbled into him, sloshing his beer.
“Oi! Watch it!” Darren straightened.
“You watch it, wanker. I’m trying to walk.”
“Oh yeah?” Darren shoved him, spilling his beer all over him.
“Twat!” Track Suit hollered, his voice reverberating in the street. Then, he held up his hands defensively. “Hang on. Hang on a minute, Darren.”
“What?” asked Darren.
“I think I left the burner on.”
Darren hesitated. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then.” He hugged his friend, and they began to walk into the darkness, with me staring at them in disbelief. What a ridiculous dialog. What a—
I think I left the burner on.
I bolted upright and ran for the door, running down the hallway, thundering down the stairs to the front door. I burst through, chasing after the two men who’d turned down Savage Gardens. I ran after them, heart beating wildly, breath short.
I think I left the burner on.
My code phrase with Scarlett. Had he really just said that? Mid-drunken conv
ersation? Was I just lonely? Making connections where none existed, the beginnings of psychosis? But I needed this to be real. I felt desperate for someone who knew me—not the Mistress of Dread, or the pixie, or the terror leech, but just Cassandra.
“Hey!” I shouted, but the men had left the street, and in the darkness, I hadn’t seen where they had gone. I clutched my chest, slowing to catch my breath under a brick archway.
“Hey, Cass,” a quiet voice spoke from the shadows.
My pulse raced.
And there she was, leaning against the brick wall in the darkness, her rich red hair swept back with one loose strand dangling down her cheek.
Her smile was dazzling.
“Scarlett!” I ran into my friend’s open arms.
I sat in a dark corner, under the arched brick ceiling of a nearby pub. Scarlett crossed the flagstone floor toward me, two glasses of Shiraz tucked in one arm, and a basket of fries in the other hand. I loosed a long, relieved sigh. For tonight, I could be Normal Cassandra, drinking Shiraz with Scarlett, stuffing our faces with fried food. I could be the old Cassandra, the one who didn’t know about fae, or magic. The one who only used mirrors to check on her hair and makeup.
Scarlett sipped her wine, then leaned closer, studying me. “You look… different, Cass.”
I could smell her scent from this distance, a scent of lilies. I’d never noticed it before, but now that I named it, it seemed so familiar.
This was the fae side of me—the one that belonged in the forest. The one that recognized people by smelling them, but commenting on it was too weird. “You look the same,” I said instead.
A flicker of pain briefly appeared on her face. “Almost. I’m not as tough as I thought I was. After the last time I was here…”
She let the thought die on her tongue, but I knew what she meant. She was talking about Siofra’s imprisonment of her. The changeling had abducted my friend—tortured her, branded her, cut off her toe. I nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“I had to take some time off,” she continued. “I had to get my head together again. I couldn’t think clearly, you know?”
“Oh, believe me. I know.”
As much as I wanted it to be the old Scarlett and Cassandra, we simply weren’t them anymore. Our memories haunted the both of us. I sipped my wine.
She touched my shoulder gently. “What about you? I heard about Gabriel.”
“Yeah.” My voice trembled slightly.
“I’m so sorry, Cass.”
“Thanks.” I swiped my eye with the back of my hand, wiping off a tear that had just materialized. Scarlett held her hand out to me, and I took it. She squeezed it, saying nothing. We didn’t need words; we knew each other well enough that a simple look or touch was enough. We remained silent for several minutes, until I felt I could talk without bursting into tears. Then I pulled my hand away and smiled at her, thankful.
“I was really worried about you.” Her brow furrowed. “After Gabriel died, I couldn’t reach you. You disappeared off the grid completely. None of our sources had any idea what had happened. No one heard from you or saw you for several months.”
For most of those months, I’d been talking to my imaginary friends in a dark hole in the king’s dungeon. How much did I want to tell her? “I ran into some trouble.”
Scarlett looked around, making sure no one lingered near us. “Then the Unseelie king was killed, and I began to hear about the Mistress of Dread. It just kind of rang familiar. This mistress can manipulate reflections. Hangs around with a large fae called Roan Taranis.”
I nodded, saying nothing.
“And now she’s apparently stuck in the middle of a war between the fae. London’s citizens are going crazy. The tabloids are full of news about these new invaders they don’t understand. They’re calling them Vikings. They have no idea.”
I blinked. “Vikings?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t seen any of the newspapers? What have you been doing?”
I shook my head. I’d become completely out of touch with the normal human world. I hadn’t even wondered how they were explaining the recent attacks. The old Cassandra—the one who would have worried about that stuff—she was gone.
“You know what I’d like?” I asked.
“What?”
“For us to just have an evening of nothing—no talk about the fae or kings or the rest. Just have a conversation about… movies, and books, and the scruffy men you’re dating.”
“I don’t date scruffy men!”
“You dated that skater guy who always had a sweatpants boner. Same sweatpants, same boner, every day.”
She scowled. “That was like, one week in college.” She sipped her wine. “My tastes have improved. I’ve been on a few dates recently with one guy.”
“Exciting. Does he own more than one shirt?”
“I’ll have you know he owns over two shirts.”
“I stand corrected, then.”
“And he doesn’t work for the government,” she added. Scarlett had dated her colleagues twice, and the results had been disastrous both times. “He’s an English teacher.”
“Well, that sounds very sensible.” I grinned back at her. “I’m kinda seeing someone too.”
She nodded, suddenly distracted. She raised a hand and then withdrew her phone, laying it on the table. She glanced at it significantly, and then at me. I looked at it, realization dawning on me. Of course, it was very possible that we were being listened to. She was, after all, a CIA agent in their counter-fae unit, meeting with a pixie. My muscles tensed again. This was my life now. I couldn’t even see my best friend without the CIA monitoring us.
My mind went blank. I went over our conversation, making sure I hadn’t given anything away. But I hadn’t; Scarlett had made sure of that, letting me know as soon as I was about to talk about Roan.
“Really?” she asked. Her tone was same as before, but her eyes warned me to tread lightly. “Who is it?”
“Just some guy I met here,” I said, making sure my tone remained neutral. “It’s getting a bit serious.”
“Really?” She leaned back. “So… are you staying here? You aren’t coming back?”
I swallowed hard. “Back where?”
“Back home.”
Home. There was that word again. And I knew the home Scarlett was talking about, and yearned for it. Back in the United States. Back to living among humans, where my emotions wouldn’t be an open book, or a drug. Back to waking up to work in the morning, and meeting with friends and family. Uncle Rob, who would always crush-hug me when we met, then argue with me for half an hour about LGBT rights. Cousin Janet, who was constantly telling me about the great new TV show she had just seen, spoiling all the endings, and her two hyperactive children.
Let’s look at my fae family. It was really just the father I had overthrown and helped kill, and a murderous brother who had betrayed me and tortured me.
Still—could I really return there? I wasn’t the same Cassandra.
I took a long sip of my wine, thinking of the CIA operative listening in. “I’ve been MIA for too long. The Bureau would never take me back.”
“They can be persuaded,” Scarlett said. “Or better yet, forget them. There’s a place for you with people who would appreciate your talents.”
Understanding began to dawn. Of course, Scarlett hadn’t set up this spy charade—two drunks loudly shouting a code—just so we could grab a drink. “Are you trying to recruit me?”
She winced at this. “The agency is trying to recruit you,” she said. “I took some time off, got on a plane to London, because I missed you. Because I was worried about you. And before I left, they told me they had an offer for you.”
“They want me on your unit? The counter-fae unit, or whatever you’re called?”
“They want you. Period. Sure, you’d be useful in my unit. But Cass, you’d be useful anywhere. Think of it: an agent with your talents. Able to just find and watch people thro
ugh mirrors whenever you want, from the safety of a hideaway. Think of the amazing things you could do for your country. Watching ISIS terrorists through your hand mirror, locating people of interest, helping with search and rescue operations… the human lives you could save. Will save.”
“But—”
“I’ve been authorized to offer you a free selection of your team. I can be on it, if you want.”
My head was swimming. This was a bridge to another life. “You think I could get my old life back, the one with lattes and muffins and safe little jogs in the park?”
“I don’t know, Cass.” Her eyes, her face, told me no. I was never leaving the mad shit of the fae realm. That bridge had been dismantled, burned, the ashes shot to space.
“I’m not sure I can leave the Unseelie behind.”
She looked worried. “Cass, the fae are about to destroy each other, and you’re on the losing side. Did you know the Seelie have a prize on your head? And Roan’s?”
I shuddered, pushing my own fears away. “It’ll be okay. We’re planning something.”
“We? There is no we. There’s the Seelie, the Unseelie, and there’s you.”
“I’m half-fae, Scarlett. I’m not as foreign to all this as you are.”
Scarlett’s eyes narrowed, and she leaned closer to me. “But you’re half-human, too. Most fae think we’re animals. Do you know how the fae execute humans they think step out of line?”
I shook my head. I didn’t suppose I could tell her I didn’t want to know.
“They’re bound with metal and trapped in a wicker statue, formed to look like a pig. That’s because they think we’re no better than pigs, and they want to remind us of it right before they kill us.”
“I think I know how this ends.”
“It ends with fire. Do you know how long it takes a human to burn to death in such a situation?”
I took a long sip of my wine, hoping in vain she would let it drop. “Any chance we can talk about something else?”
“Forty-five minutes, on average, depending on the wind. They killed one hundred seventy-four humans that way in the 1880s. Because some of these people banded together and began to talk about the threat of the fae. Just talking, no more. The fae killed them, their families, their friends.”