by Lyra Evans
His head turning sharply to his partner, Niko waited for Cobalt to elaborate, but he did not. Instead, he made his way up the steps to the imposing front door and lifted the silver doorknocker. Three taps and he stood back, Niko taking position at his side. He made a show of studying the details of the entryway until he heard the door unlatch.
“Good morning,” a man said as he opened the large red door, swinging it wide to display the sprawling entrance hall of the house. “Nearly afternoon, mind you, but welcome all the same.” He smiled wide, in the way that real estate agents did, and gestured grandly for them to step inside. “You are here for the open house, yes?”
Niko nodded as he entered, forcing himself to look around the hall before he studied the agent. The air inside the manor was much cooler than outside, and the light vibrations over Niko’s skin at the threshold told him it was maintained by runemagic, meaning a set of runes was inscribed into the perimeter of the building’s foundation to keep the climate steady. Runemagic was difficult to master and expensive to maintain. But the effects were unlike any other type of climate control. The temperature across the entire house would be precisely the same, without variation, and perfectly attuned to the inhabitants. The runes also likely served other purposes, such as cleanliness and damage resistance.
The floor of the entrance was a light-coloured marble swirling with subtle details and a hint of iridescence. Niko couldn’t pinpoint the actual colour, mind, because it was the type of stone that shifted with light sources to achieve the most pleasant aesthetic experience possible. At the centre of the hall was a sweeping staircase in rich wood, gleaming from recent polish. The banister along the upper level was classic, but the paintings that hung along the pale taupe walls were very modern. Abstracts in geometric patterns contrasted with splatter-work in a rainbow of colours. Niko could hardly guess at the value of the paintings on the walls and turned his attention elsewhere.
At the base of the stairs, where the steps curved to either side, were alcoves fitted with indoor fruit trees bursting with flowers. Niko found himself standing mildly in awe of the indoor trees, before reining himself in and back to the point. Cobalt, next to him, seemed less impressed by the grandeur of the place. Granted, he spent much of his time in an underwater palace, Niko was sure, being guard to the prince of a Court. Surely he’d seen much nicer homes than this. Which conjured up a strange sense of embarrassment that he was housing Cobalt in his poor little apartment.
It took a physical shake of his head to dispel the strange experience, reminding himself that he didn’t care about what anyone else thought of his home. It was his. That was all that mattered.
“Quite the first impression, isn’t it?” the agent said, eyeing the hall with light in his gaze. Niko took the opportunity to take him in fully now. He had bright red hair, the colour of a ripe strawberry, cropped short and styled neatly to the side around his pointed ears. It seemed he was somewhat self-conscious about his age, given the slight hint of white roots around his temples. His skin was pale beneath the tan, as though he cultivated the complexion rather than come by it naturally. It wasn’t unusual for Maeve’s Court, but Niko always found it silly. The agent’s suit was off-white linen, light but very professional, and somehow completely crease-less. His shirt, beneath the jacket, was patterned with red and yellow and green foliage, and he wore a light yellow ascot at his throat. His shoes were a warm brown leather with silent soles as he stepped into the hall proper to lead them inside. “Rather a dream property, a home like this one. Have you been in the market long?”
Niko didn’t bother to remove his shoes, knowing the runes would take care of any dirt he trekked throughout. Cobalt seemed to wait on him, following his lead. As he walked toward the agent, Niko offered him a small smile. The agent’s eyes were dark, in contrast to his bright hair. The irises seemed almost black, though when the light from the hovering chandelier struck the man just right, Niko saw that they were in fact blue. Overall, Niko thought, the man was very attractive despite the effort he clearly put into his appearance.
“Not long, no,” Niko answered, deciding it was best to be vague as possible until it was necessary to clarify. The agent nodded, his gaze trained on Niko.
“Well, this is quite the property to start with,” he said. “Maybe you won’t be in the market long at all!” He laughed a pleasant sound, though it was almost certainly fake, and Niko felt more at ease. Which immediately made him suspicious. “Are you two married, then? Is this your first home together?”
A part of Niko wanted to flee, but he’d been trained better than that. Cobalt’s eyes glittered with mischief as Niko glanced at him.
“Partners, technically,” Niko said, with the same vague smile. “First time buying.” He rolled his shoulder back slightly, pulling as much of his confidence out into his posture as he could. As if this house was barely a cottage to him. Cobalt sidled up closer to him, taking his cues from Niko’s oblique answers. Niko’s eyes fluttered slightly, involuntarily, as Cobalt’s warmth spread to him. The agent seemed to catch it, and Niko tried to be unbothered by it.
“Ah, I see, of course,” he said, a knowing smile on his face. “Say no more, say no more. You are free to roam around the house at your leisure, or I can take you on a guided tour. Either way, let me know if you have any questions at all.”
“Of course,” Niko said. “And, I’m sorry, what was your name?”
The agent looked convincingly embarrassed. “Ah, of course! What am I thinking?” He leaned forward, hands planted at either side of him, and nodded deeply. “My name is Vermillion Oak of Red Horizon Real Estate. I’m the agent representing the owners. And you are?”
Niko leaned into Cobalt, trying not to enjoy it too much. He nodded politely to Oak. “Niko Spruce. And this is Cob.”
Cobalt nodded around Niko, his arm cradling Niko’s back very lightly. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Oak.”
Oak smiled widely again and pulled out some cards from his jacket pocket. “Please, let me give you my card. If you don’t currently have a real estate agent, perhaps you’ll consider me.” He offered his card to both of them in turn. Niko studied the shiny card in his hands.
“It says you’re the founding agent of Red Horizon?” Niko asked.
Oak nodded. “Indeed, I am. We’re a small agency, but we’re very competitive.” He waggled his eyebrows at Niko.
“And do you represent commercial properties as well as residential?” Niko pressed on.
“We do,” Oak said. “Why? Are you looking to enter the commercial market as well?”
Niko considered this. “Possibly,” he said.
“Mr. Oak! We were just in the solarium and were wondering about the new windows. You said they were installed only yesterd—” A young woman with tightly styled purple hair appeared from beyond the stairs somewhere. She wore a fitted cocktail dress Niko had seen in some shop window in the fashion district and heels that clicked out a very particular sound against the marble floor. They looked to be made of crystal and gold, and Niko recognized those, too, as designer goods. The man who followed behind her was older than she was, his hair greying at the temples and his eyes adorned with the wispy beginnings of crow’s feet at the edges, but he was very clearly not in charge.
“Ah, forgive me,” Oak said, nodding again to Niko and Cobalt. “Please have a look around and let me know if I can help with anything at all.”
He walked off to deal with the other potential buyers, leaving Niko and Cobalt standing much too close to one another alone in the entrance hall. Niko waited a few beats, listening intently to the dissipating voices of Oak and the couple, then turned to face Cobalt. He was face to Cobalt’s chest and inhaled a full breath of his ocean breeze scent. The barest moment of thoughtlessness nearly had Niko leaning in to take a deeper breath, to feel Cobalt’s body against his, but he stopped himself before he moved.
“Interesting fellow,” Cobalt said under his breath so only Niko could hear. “Seemed more than a little interested in you
.”
Niko stepped back, his movements feeling rather wooden. He needed space from Cobalt if he was going to maintain his dignity and stop from blushing or behaving in an otherwise ridiculous fashion.
“He’s just a salesman,” Niko said, brushing off the suggestion the moment he felt he could breathe normally again. He stood on the opposite side of the stairway to where Oak and the others went, wanting to keep some distance between them. “The pseudo-flirtiness is just a tactic.”
“I’m not so sure,” Cobalt said, following Niko toward what seemed to be a sitting room. It was decorated with plush furniture and a thick carpet, more artwork, and curated lighting. It looked stripped from the pages of a magazine. “Would someone trying to make a sale really risk flirting with one half of a couple?”
“We’re not a couple,” Niko said under his breath, rubbing his hands together to make a trade. He needed his magically enhanced senses, not his usual physical ones. In an instant, the trade was made and his right hand could ‘touch’ traces of magic on the air. It immediately felt like shoving his hand into a pool of water, the entire house being affected by the runemagic.
“Not what you told him,” Cobalt reminded him. Niko frowned. “And ignoring that, he also showed little to no interest in me.”
Niko stopped moving, a vaguely amused look crossing his face. He turned to Cobalt, searching for a wounded ego but found instead a man more intrigued than anything else. “So you’re telling me you are aware of the effect you have on people,” Niko said. Cobalt smiled. “You’re doing it on purpose!”
Cobalt seemed to fight a laugh. “No,” he answered. “I’m not doing anything. It’s—ah—a natural effect Selkies have on other races.”
Straightening, Niko set his jaw and glanced around to ensure no one was nearby. When he was certain, he marched back up to Cobalt and glared at him. “Are you telling me that every Selkie turns whoever they meet into a horny, desperate mess upon meeting them?”
Cobalt’s bright eyes bore into Niko’s, his tongue drawing a slow line across his lower lip. Niko felt his spine alight with tingles but ignored it. “Not everyone, no,” Cobalt breathed. “Effects differ from Selkie to Selkie and from person to person. The effect seems to be strongest when the Selkie fits the person’s fundamental attraction parameters. Meaning men attracted to women are less likely to feel the effects of a male Selkie, and so on. And the length of duration is usually rather short and confined to the first few moments of meeting.” He tilted his head slightly to the side and pressed closer to Niko to speak into his ear. “Sorry to disappoint, but you’re a horny, desperate mess because you want me.”
All the air seemed to leave Niko’s lungs at once. He ground his teeth together and shoved at Cobalt, turning to get back to work. But as his right hand brushed Cobalt’s chest, he felt a surge of magic and intense sensation such as he’d never experienced before. He yanked his hand back as though he’d been burned, but in truth it was more like euphoria than that. Niko glanced between his hand and the point on Cobalt’s chest he’d touched. It had been a hair’s breadth away from where his Soul Stone was covered by the shirt.
Trying to shake off the last few moments, Niko ignored Cobalt’s comment and set about pacing the room with his hand out. “You should have told me sooner,” he said, his voice remarkably even despite his frayed nerves. “If Indigo or any of the others had this kind of effect on the wrong person…”
“I doubt it,” Cobalt said, moving around the room counter-clockwise to Niko’s clockwise circle. “Like I said, the effects vary and generally only last a few minutes at best. Then it passes.”
Niko wasn’t so certain. The constant assaults on his mind of images of Cobalt fucking him were an indication that Cobalt’s effect was more long-lasting on Niko. What if someone else had had a similar reaction to one of the other Selkies? What if they were more possessive… more aggressive… more determined to have what they lusted after?
“What if it doesn’t pass?” Niko asked, pushing thoughts of Cobalt on the sofa of the sitting room, his legs spread around Niko who was on his knees, Cobalt’s cock in his mouth, out of his mind. “You said the effects are variable. What if someone is still under the sway of this effect?”
“Not possible,” Cobalt said.
Niko pursed his lips. “How?”
“Even given the possibility that the effect could last more than a few minutes, more than an hour, or a day,” Cobalt mused, though it was clear he thought the idea ludicrous, “the effect would end the moment the Selkie in question was out of their sight. And it only happens the first time we meet someone. Anything after that isn’t down to a quirk of our race. Anything after that… well,” Cobalt said, considering Niko, “that’s something else.”
Feeling as though he was pinned to a dissection board, Niko tried to consider the possibilities. If what Cobalt said was true, then it was almost impossible their suspect was someone who’d fallen into instantaneous obsession with one of the Selkies. The moment that Selkie went to the bathroom, or the moment the subject even turned around, the effect would stop. And even if it didn’t, that could only realistically explain the disappearance of one Selkie. Was Niko supposed to believe that there were ten separate individuals who would react that way and see fit to kidnap a person and possibly even commit murder? It was too messy, too nonsensical.
And several of the Selkies seemed to have disappeared at the same time. It was unlikely one person would manage all that. And ten people acting independently? Certainly not. Plus there was the connection to the Woods to consider… No, this line of thinking wasn’t getting him anywhere.
Niko sighed to himself, shutting away the information for later use and pretending as though it didn’t unsettle him that Cobalt said his own reaction was something else. He dropped his hand and glanced around the room again.
“I’m not getting anything in here,” he said, trying for professionalism after the conversation they’d just had. “And this place is massive. We need to move if we’re going to search the whole building.”
Cobalt followed him out and into the next room. The first door they came to was, apparently, a linen closet. Niko wiped his hand over the shelves regardless, but he felt nothing out of the ordinary there. So they moved on. The next room seemed to be a dining room.
“What precisely are we looking for?” Cobalt asked, following him into the lavish dining room.
“Any indication a catastrophic magical event occurred,” Niko said. “If Indigo was here the night he died, he might have actually died here. And that would have required a significant magical output. Magic like that leaves a mark, even if you try to hide it.”
Cobalt stopped and stared around the room. “Is it likely he was murdered in the formal dining room?” he asked, and Niko frowned, walking steadily throughout the room with his hand out.
“Likely? No. Possible? Yes, which means I have to search it regardless,” Niko answered, frustrated by the point. He made a circuit of the room, and finding nothing, crossed his arms and stared down the long glass table, unseeing. “Okay, fine. We don’t have enough time to search this whole damn place. At least not without alerting Oak and the owner of the house to our purpose.” Cobalt approached him, glancing now and again to the doorway to check no one was there eavesdropping. “So let’s think more strategically. If Indigo was here the night he died—why? What was he doing here?”
Cobalt pulled out one of the glass and silver chairs and sat down on it. After a moment’s adjustment, he immediately got back up, glaring down at the thing as though unable to understand it. “He seemed to believe this was one of the properties connected to the disappearances of his friends,” Cobalt said, dismissing the chair and shoving it back into place. “Perhaps he was here investigating that lead?”
Niko nodded, raising one eyebrow at the chair. “That uncomfortable, was it?”
Cobalt grimaced. “Like sitting on ice. Ridiculous aesthetics.”
Holding back a laugh, Niko thought about
the map on Indigo’s wall. “Okay, two options there. If he was investigating and this place has nothing to do with the other Selkies, he probably wasn’t invited here. Which means skulking around. Which suggests he was outside, if anything.” Niko mulled this over. “The grounds here are vast and complex. Lots of places to hide. Harder to clean but easier to destroy evidence.” He shook his head, twirling his magically-enhanced fingers in the air. “It’ll take a lifetime to search the grounds.”
Cobalt glanced out the far window of the dining room, the glass of them shimmering with reflective magic to keep out the more blinding rays of the sun. “What was the other option?”
Niko tilted his head, weighing it out. “If this place is connected to the other Selkies, and Indigo knowingly got himself mixed up with the Woods, then maybe he was invited here. Maybe they all were.” Niko thought over what Starla had said about Indigo wanting help to get all his friends out. For that to be feasible, he would have to know their location, all be together, and be close enough to the ocean that an escape seemed possible to him. This place might well fit that description. “How many rooms are in this house?”
Cobalt raised an eyebrow but slipped out of the room and back toward the entrance. Niko followed him part of the way to see him lift a shiny pamphlet from one of the entrance tables. It was a detailed description of the listing with photos and highlights of the features of the property. Cobalt flipped to the back and returned to Niko’s side. They made a show of looking at the details.
“Forty bedrooms,” Cobalt whispered, his breath like a breeze on a sun-soaked beach. Niko stared at the number.
“Forty?” he asked, alarmed. Who needed forty rooms in one house? “We can’t search forty—” Then a thought occurred to him. Indigo and the others weren’t invited as guests. If this was a Woods operation, they would have been here as property. “Does it list the servants’ quarters?”
Cobalt hesitated, scanning down the list of features. “It doesn’t list the number. Only says they’re located in the basement. Access from the kitchens.”