Glamour of Midnight

by Casey L. Bond

  Copyright © 2018 by Casey L. Bond

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Book Cover Designed by Melissa Stevens / The Illustrated Author Design Services

  Professionally Edited by The Girl with the Red Pen / Stacy Sanford

  Professional Content Edits by Angela Smith

  Published in the United States of America.

  ISBN- 13: 978-1984331625

  ISBN-10: 1984331620

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  WHEN THE SMOKE GROWS THIN, THE BEASTS COME IN.

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  ON A MIDSUMMER’S DAY, SHE’LL BE CARRIED AWAY.

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  CREATURES NEW AND OLD, DESPERATE FOR HER BLOOD.

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  TAKE THE SHADOW PASS, FIND THE LOOKING GLASS.

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  DEVILS ON HER HEEL, HER SKIN THEY’LL PEEL.

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  RUN AND LEAP BACK THROUGH, WITH THE FAERY BREW.

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Glamour of Midnight Playlist

  Also by Casey L. Bond

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  Once upon a time, The Morrigan ruled the world of the Unseelie Fae; three queens with very different tempers: Badb, Macha, and Nemain. Badb, a fierce and unmerciful warrior, Macha, a natural-born ruler and seeker of sovereignty, and Nemain, whose very name meant poison. The Morrigan trio ruled for thousands of years in a kingdom trapped within a great mountain...until one of them became more powerful and conquered her sisters, consuming their hearts and with it, their powers. But Nemain did not stop there. Like a plague upon the land, she used her dark powers to break free of the earthen tomb in which the Seelie Courts had placed her.

  Nemain established her empire in the center of a sacred wood, but the evil in her heart could not sustain nature. Her destruction rained down upon all of Faery, and the land decayed around her. Still she fed, her poison leaking over the earth until little was left.

  Cities, human and fae alike, were ravaged.

  Until one day, Nemain contemplated her court, the Court of Ash, and thought it would be in her interest to prepare an heir. After all, look how fragile life for the once powerful Seelie fae had been. It had taken so little effort for her to eradicate it all.

  She could use someone powerful who would stand at her side, someone equally as ruthless as she. She did not want a man. She knew their hearts were power-hungry and she did not want competition, or someone who would seek to unseat her from her throne. Nemain would have a child, a protégé.

  When her daughter was born, it was clear she possessed many of the powers her mother possessed, but something even more spectacular and frightening emerged from the child. Where Nemain held the power to consume and take, the child had the power to create and give. As her daughter grew in age and ability, Nemain sought to use her daughter’s abilities to further her kingdom. In the crumbling throne room of her mother’s castle, the child toddled to the wall and placed her fingertip on the stone. The surface became smooth and reflective, a mirror of great power, but the child had innocently and unknowingly given it a small piece of herself.

  For years, the Queen of the Unseelie tried to turn her daughter’s pure heart into one of darkness to match her own. The magic mirror showed the Queen exactly what her own dark heart desired: that she was the most powerful creature in all the land.

  But as Nemain’s daughter grew, her powers began to mature, and finally, the mirror gave a different response.

  Outraged that her own daughter’s power had usurped her own, she called for her best hunter. “Bring me her heart,” she ordered the fae, peering down on her daughter from her tower window.

  The hunter agreed, but when the young girl saw him approach, she knew what it meant and she fled the castle and entered the woods. He tracked the girl vigilantly until there were no tracks, no trail to follow. It was as if she had vanished.

  While the hunter searched the forests for the girl, Nemain swept across the land in a brutal wave of violence. As punishment for whomever had taken her daughter and may have been harboring her, Nemain consumed the powers of the rulers of each of the four Seelie Courts: Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. The Seelie fae who fought back were either killed by the Unseelie or turned into monsters, damned to do their new master’s bidding.

  The girl was not found in the Seasonal Courts, nor did the hunter ever find the girl. He searched for days, which bled into weeks. When he was sure there was nowhere left in Faery to search for her, the hunter returned to the castle to tell his queen he had failed. They were the last words he uttered.

  When she ordered the magic mirror to show her the girl, it showed her nothing but billowing smoke...

  WHEN THE SMOKE GROWS THIN, THE BEASTS COME IN.

  2

  LOFTIN

  “They say you are the best.” Nemain circled me. Her voice was smooth as velvet, the fingertips that brushed my neck soft and warm. But only coldness surrounded her. The warmth from her touch quickly faded away, leaving a thin layer of frost on my skin. The shadows in this place writhed at her command, each begging for a chance to do their mistress’s bidding.

  The queen’s virulent power had ravaged the land. Her magic was so thick and potent, it seared my lungs from the inside, like she herself was a burning ember. I expected no less from the ruler of the Court of Ash, and I knew when her she-devils dragged me here that I was in deep trouble.

  “I am the best.” I clutched my ribs. They were cracked, but would heal soon enough. It was the first time I’d been caught off guard by one of her Banshees, and I vowed never to repeat the mistake. Blood and saliva pooled in my mouth and I spat it away from both of us, lest the evil witch turn me to ash straight away.

  “Your kind is a dying breed.”

  “My kind?” I feigned innocence, unsure whether she was asking about my recent skills learned hunting the beasts she’d unleashed from the great mountain, or about my heritage. She would need to be more specific.

  “Every hunter before you has failed to find my daughter. What makes you think you’ll succeed?” she asked. Her voice echoed over the vaulted ceilings, slithering down the walls.

  She was right. Every hunter before me had failed, and either fallen upon their swords for fear of facing the Queen’s wrath upon their return, or fled and become the hunted. Nemain’s beasts always found them, feeding upon them or worse. But what choice did I have at this point? She wanted her daughter and I wanted to live. I had to play her game. And I would have to play it well to make it out of this mess alive.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t just end you now,” she proposed sweetly, as if I’d come to her and offered my services instead of her sending her mutts after me, having me beaten half to death, and then dragging me to her court.

  “I’m not a game hunter, like those sent to find her
before. I am a bounty hunter.” The lie slid off my tongue easily. Technically, you’d have to be paid to be a bounty hunter, and no fae in Faery would dare enter into an agreement with me. “Maybe we can come to a mutual agreement, so we both get something we want,” I suggested.

  “How dare you make demands of me?” she scoffed, but then stopped in front of me as if considering my suggestion. “But your boldness is intriguing. I’m listening,” she acknowledged, tapping her chin. I could feel her hawk-like gaze on my face, searching for so much as a flinch in the wrong direction. There was no escaping her now. She’d caught me fair and square. But if I was going to die, I’d die for something I believed in. And who knew? Maybe I could find the girl and get what I needed. If I was being forced to hunt for her, I wanted to choose my reward.

  “The prize I ask for is dear to me, just as the girl is dear to you.” I kept my eyes focused on the wall across from me, refusing to look into her eyes. I’d heard she could kill with a glare, turning fae warriors to stone with a flick of her eye. I just hoped she was as desperate as I was.

  “What is it that you want, bounty hunter?”

  “If I find the girl and bring her to you unharmed, you will restore the life force of the King of Autumn.”

  “Your terms are impressive. I must admit, no one before you has had the courage to ask anything of me.” In my periphery, I could see her lips stretch into a smile. Nemain truly was beautiful, as if death itself had taken the form of a woman and formed her of perfection and poison.

  “It’s a bargain, then? The girl for my father,” I replied.

  She wanted me to locate her daughter and see her safely home, although I knew to what end. But what became of the girl after she was delivered was not my concern. My concern was my prize, and the Queen would pay heavily if she wanted the girl back, assuming I could find her. She had already consumed my father’s power. She broke his once-powerful form, leaving his shell of a body in the middle of the court he once ruled over; alone and discarded like the core of a rotten apple. I wanted her to restore him and bring his life force back, if not his power.

  “I remember you,” she breathed, recognition dawning across her features. “You are King Kegan’s son, the Prince of Autumn. Heir to a ruined kingdom.”

  Somehow, I managed to keep my teeth from gritting together. “What you ask is difficult and risky. Our kingdom is in ruin, but I would gladly risk my neck to find your daughter if you vow to bring my father back.”

  She stepped closer and snapped her teeth together, grazing my chin. “I will not restore his power.”

  “I’m just asking for his life, nothing more. Not his power or our court. Simply restore his life, and I will bring you the girl.”

  She tutted. “Bring me the girl—alive—and I will restore his life.” Her eyes burned into me. “Look at me, bounty hunter,” she commanded.

  I met her eyes, and couldn’t help but blink. They were a molten mixture of all the colors of fire and ash; shades of red-orange roiling within shades of black, white, and all the gradations of gray between them. “You do not want to fail me. My daughter is an abomination and I want her dead, but I need to be the one to end her life. Do not harm a single hair on her head, and protect her from the fae that would devour her.”

  She didn’t say the words if you are lucky enough to find her, but they were implied. The rest was as much a promise as a threat, and I knew Nemain would torturously make good on that promise if I failed, and that my father would remain nothing more than a husk for all eternity.

  No, I couldn’t fail her. For my father’s sake and for my own.

  KARIS

  Sometimes I wish I were deaf instead of blind.

  I wasn’t sure which sound was worse; the constant tinkling of the millions of tiny iron bells that were strung from every available eave and limb in the city of Ironton, or Vivica’s feline voice. The bells were meant to repel the fae, but if I were one of the monsters, their collective sound would be equivalent to a dinner bell ringing out to announce that the feast was ready. And Vivica? I was only here because Iric was too afraid to leave me home alone while he ran up and into the Slopes to deliver a few packages.

  “When is he coming after you?” Vivica asked too casually. Her impatience was growing with each passing minute, evident in the way she couldn’t sit still. Her movements were a whisper across the dilapidated floor, and I wondered how she could keep the boards from groaning as she moved over them. She’d stood with me at the door, then moved to sit at the small table with the single chair, then further into her hovel where she seated herself in front of her vanity—a piece of discarded furniture Iric had carried down from one of the mountain homes when they tossed it out for having a single scratch on it.

  Boar bristles raked through the long strands of her hair.

  Not soon enough, I wanted to answer. “He only had three deliveries.” And he was fast. Iric was the fastest runner in Ironton, and Slopers paid well for him to carry their goods up the mountain paths for them.

  “You’re grown. You haven’t needed watching in years. Why now?” The brushing paused briefly as she listened closely for my answer. It was a skill that she’d honed over the years, one that many people didn’t have the patience to learn. Listening. The small bench beneath her creaked as she turned, and I felt her eyes on me.

  Vivica, and my lack of sight, taught me that you could hear a world of truth in the smallest of inflections in a person’s voice, in the words they chose, and whether they thought before speaking or simply blurted things. A person who listened could discern lie from truth, and actual emotion from what the person was trying to project. Because listening led to hearing, and hearing someone was the most intimate thing two people could share.

  “Someone painted something on our door again.” It’s what Iric told me to tell her; that he’d come home and found a slur, a nasty message meant for me. It had happened before, too many times to count. He would never tell me what the letters spelled, but his younger brothers had no qualms about it. It was always “Changeling,” “Monster,” or “Witch,” and according to the boys, the slurs were usually written in red, a color the fae supposedly loathed. A color the Slopers revered. Despite the fact that I was none of the three, I understood the vandals’ fear.

  I’d be afraid of me, too. I was different and not just because of my blindness, but because of how awkward I was with anyone outside of my adoptive family (and some of them, too). And then there was my past…

  Years ago, when I was only a child, Iric found me just inside the perimeter wandering around with muddy hands outstretched, taking tentative steps to avoid falling yet again, sobbing and afraid. Neither he nor I knew where I came from or how I got to Ironton without being eaten by one of the fae monsters our border wall protects us from, but I made it to safety. Somehow.

  Iric helped me, and in no time adopted me into his life, and by extension, so did his five living brothers.

  Vivica, their mother, was a different story.

  “What did it say? It must have been something worse than what they wrote the last few times,” was her snappish reply. She turned back around and resumed her brushing.

  There had been a hundred slurs painted across our door since we moved there a few years ago, thick coats of dark paint covering them, some of the layers peeling back from the top. But Vivica scented the lie I’d spoken. In truth, this time there was no painted slur. Two young men entered our house while Iric was on a run, and found me there alone. Their subsequent message was one of terror, almost as bad as the message I’d sent to them in return.

  “I’m not sure what it said. Iric refuses to repeat it,” I answered softly.

  The light rain that had lasted much of the morning and afternoon eased, but water still dripped off the roof in a soft pat-pat-pat rhythm. On the wall beside me hung one of Gregoire’s moths, its wings pinned to a small piece of wood. I’d traced the velvet-soft wing once, and Vivica beat me for touching it, screaming that I could have ruine
d it.

  Iric pulled her off me and whisked me away. He’d just become a member of the Border Grays and was coming to tell us his good news when he heard the commotion. That night, Iric and I celebrated by ourselves. He bought food from the market vendors and led me to his assigned watch tower, leaving Vivica behind.

  The following morning, he took me to a small cave on the outskirts of the Trenches where the earth heaved up into great mountains. The space was only big enough for two cots, but those and a door were all we needed.

  He never told his mother about his new job, however, she heard about his position a month later and started asking him to pay for things she needed, even though she worked plenty enough to afford them. Iric confided she’d always been somewhat cold, but after she lost one son and then another, Vivica pushed her boys away instead of bringing them closer.

  Gregoire had disappeared just before Iric found me. Some say he was pushed out of the wall as part of a prank and never returned. Others say he walked through the smoke of his own accord and didn’t look back. Either way, he entered Faery and was never seen again.

  Roane died in a mine cave-in when he was just a boy. They used him in the mines because he could squeeze into spaces no grown man could. In memoriam, Vivica had sewn curtains for her window out of one of his work shirts.