by Jayne Faith
“He’s running a big bounty in his organization. I want to know what he has his people pursing. Know anyone who could get you that info?”
“Possibly,” she said.
“Please ask them.”
“What? Now?” Judah asked.
“Yes, now,” I said calmly.
His lips pressed into a thin line.
I knew how it looked. It appeared that I’d agreed to help but then was holding my help hostage until I got something I wanted. Well, that wasn’t entirely inaccurate. But the thing was, I couldn’t afford to work for free. Not when I didn’t have to, and especially not when I was blindly taking on risk. Maybe my years of working for Shaw had made me cynical, but that was the way my life had gone. I was just trying to survive. Besides, Judah was the one who sprung Blake on me.
“It’s fine,” Blake said to him. “I can make a quick call before we go into Faerie.”
She tapped a name in her contacts and put her ear to her phone.
“No answer,” she said after several seconds. “I’m going to send some messages to a few people, and with any luck, I’ll have responses soon.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
I pulled out my own phone. I was supposed to be on duty for Volkov Retrieval Services starting at ten that night. Jobs were nearly always performed at night after dark, so assignments went out by three or four in the afternoon at the latest. It was late evening, and I’d received nothing earlier that day, so I was probably in the clear. I’d step out of Faerie later when I had a chance so I could check my phone again to make sure nothing had popped up.
Blake finished up her texts and then powered off her phone and stuck it in her pocket. Judah and I both did the same with our devices. No sense running down the batteries in a place where there was no service.
I stepped over to face the arch. Judah’s hand curled firmly over my right shoulder, and when Blake’s smaller hand touched my left without prompting, I realized she’d likely done this before.
I drew the sigils and chanted the words, and the column began to waver. The three of us stepped forward into the void of the netherwhere.
Chapter 9
I TOOK BLAKE and Judah through a different doorway than the one I used when Shaw summoned me. This one spit us out on the other side of the Duergar palace, far from his estate. It would be better for me if Shaw didn’t know I was there. I wasn’t currently on a job for him, and I didn’t need him getting curious about what I was doing in Faerie. He’d grudgingly agreed to let me work a paying job on the Earthly side of the hedge, but he wanted me at his beck and call. He could be a moody SOB, and he liked to flex his control over me.
I plucked a thin black beanie from a pouch on my belt and pulled it over my bun and down to my ears. With my white-blond hair concealed, I’d be less recognizable. Then I checked to see how my companions had fared on their trip through the netherwhere.
If my demand had irritated Blake at all, her annoyance faded when we stepped into Faerie. We’d come through a doorway located in a small public garden, and she was inhaling deeply.
“I wish I could bottle this,” she said, her anxiety over her sister seeming to lift temporarily. “It always smells amazing in Faerie.”
Based on her state, she’d definitely been into Faerie many times. Judah, on the other hand, was bent over with his hands braced on his knees.
Wincing, I went over to him.
“Sorry,” I said. “I forget the doorways do this to people who aren’t used to them.”
He flapped a hand at me. “I’ll be good in a second,” he said, his voice strained.
I wandered back to Blake to give Judah a minute to make sure he wasn’t going to vomit. From his reaction, I was guessing he hadn’t been through a doorway since the one time when we were in kids and went from Boise to San Francisco. That meant he’d never been in Faerie before. First trips into Faerie usually caused a violently nauseous reaction, especially for non-Fae. I was impressed he managed to retain the contents of his stomach.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been summer here for generations,” Blake said. “The idea of eternal summer is so strange.”
I shrugged. “Nature works differently here than on the Earthly side.”
“Oh, I’m not criticizing. I love the strangeness of it. I wish I could live here for an extended time, but it wouldn’t work. Shifters are too connected to Earth nature and cycles.”
“Judah mentioned you prefer not to shift.”
A brief frown creased her forehead, perhaps indicating she didn’t appreciate that Judah had told me. Her cheeks and eyes tensed as if something painful had occurred to her.
“My sister and I weren’t allowed to explore our animal forms as we should have been when we were growing up,” she said. “As a result, we don’t have the . . . comfort level that we should at this age.”
“That’s too bad.”
Judah was the only shifter I’d ever known well. He’d been raised by his human mother, but she’d been careful to make sure he spent time with his shifter relatives on his deceased father’s side a few times a year. As a result, he’d developed properly. I wondered what circumstances had made Blake and Laine’s upbringing so different from Judah’s, but Blake was clearly uncomfortable with the topic, so for once I kept my directness in check.
I turned my attention to Judah, who was finally straightening and looking like he might be able to move without puking.
“Everything settling down?” I asked him.
He gave me a firm nod. “All good.”
I pointed down the lane leading away from the garden where we stood. “It’s about a mile walk to Aerwyn township from here.” I didn’t bother telling them that I planned to avoid all the places Shaw’s people tended to hang out, which would mean a slightly longer journey than the most direct route.
“Walk?” Blake asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “No ride-for-hire apps here. The towns and roads were made long before the invention of the automobile, anyway. On this side of the hedge, most travel is by horse, foot, and doorway. I don’t have any horses. And this is the nearest doorway to Aerwyn I know.” I gestured to the arch made of twisted hawthorn branches that marked the portal through which we’d come.
We left the garden and walked three across down the road, with me in the middle.
“I put out some inquiries about Darren Baumgartner and Killian Abernathy, just trying to come up with any theories about why either of them got involved with Balisarde,” Blake said, her voice low as she darted an apprehensive look around. “Is it safe to talk about that kind of thing?”
“You’re right to be careful,” I said. “Half the Duergar are spies. The other half employ spies. Just speak softly. Obviously if anyone passes by, wait until they’re out of earshot.”
“Okay, got it,” she said. She took a breath. “I wish there was something there, but try as I might, I can’t figure out how Killian Abernathy knew we were supposed to have Balisarde in our possession. And I can’t see how this Darren Baumgartner might have ended up with the sword. It’s baffling.”
I had a very good idea about why Killian was interested in Balisarde, but not how he came to know of the sword. I hesitated disclosing anything, though. Something about the whole episode still seemed off to me.
We were approaching a busier area, so Blake went silent while we passed a horse-drawn cart, some business buildings with doors thrown open, and people moving around on foot.
“I just wish we had some idea about where Laine is,” Blake said, her brows drawn low with worry.
I peered at her. “She’s definitely in Faerie.”
“How do you know?” Judah asked.
“She’s a panther shifter,” I said. “If she were on the Earthly side, she would have shifted and gotten away. You said the two of you know how to shift; you just don’t prefer to do it.”
“Not necessarily,” Judah said. “There’s magic that can keep a shifter in human form.
Or she could be in a silver-laced cage.”
I shook my head. “Too much trouble. Why would Killian, a Fae, bother with any of that? Much easier for him to just drag her into Faerie where he knows his way around and she can’t shift.”
We walked in silence for a block or two. Judah was peering around with curiosity, and Blake seemed to sink deeper into her fear for her sister’s safety.
We maneuvered through a small gathering of Fae waiting to get into a restaurant. The sun had set, and the evening crowd looking for food and drink was out in force along the street where we walked, which was lined with eateries and pubs.
“Do you have any functional magic?” Blake asked me. She seemed to be reaching for a distraction from her concerns.
I shook my head. “I didn’t get any of my mother’s witch magic, and I don’t have enough Fae blood to wield Faerie magic.”
One of her shoulders twitched up in a small shrug. “Eh, I’d rather have a talent like yours than functional magic, anyway, if I had a choice.”
I’d always wanted magic like my mother and Felicity had. At least, I had when I was growing up. But I’d come to realize that I’d mostly wanted to be a witch because they were, not because it really would have suited me. Still, it would have been nice to have some power, even if it was weak, in addition to my talents. But sub-quarterlings like me—those of us who were less than a quarter Fae—were often barren of functional magic.
When I was a kid freshly recruited by Shaw, Heloise used to tell me I had an “edge of magic,” which sounded a whole lot cooler than “just a dribble enough to be able to use Faerie doorways.” My real edge was my talent, she liked to say. And more important was my ability to work hard. She always tried to drill into me that what you were born with didn’t matter nearly as much as what you chose to hone.
Judah, Blake, and I had left the busier streets behind to take a dirt road that connected the town surrounding the Duergar palace to the township that was our destination. I’d been trying to keep my head down or turned away whenever we passed anyone, and I seemed to have avoided running into anyone from the network.
I pointed ahead to a low, crumbling rock wall. “That’s the border of Aerwyn township.”
We moved off the road, all of us instinctively heading to a darker area under a stand of oak trees.
“What are we going to do when we get to his house?” Blake asked.
“If no one’s home, we’ll take our time and have a look around,” I said. “I should be able to easily sense the sword if it’s there.”
If the house was vacant, I fully intended to break in to try to retrieve the sword. After all, it was my profession. But I’d do it alone. I didn’t need a couple of shifters lumbering in after me.
“And if someone is there, we’re still going to have a look around,” Judah said, his brow lowering, casting his eyes in shadow.
“Easy there,” I said. “Let’s not go looking for a fight.”
He turned to me, and moonlight glinted off his eyes. “If one happens to start, I have no problem finishing it. We don’t want to lose an opportunity at the sword.” His voice took on the subtlest growl.
My brows lifted a bit. This was a side of Judah I wasn’t used to. I kind of liked it.
“Tara?”
I whipped around at the sound of my name, reflexively reaching for a knife at my belt even as my brain told me to hold up because I recognized the voice.
A stocky guy with a short Afro was striding toward me. I slid the half-drawn throwing dagger back into its sheath.
“Hey Marty,” I called softly. To Judah and Blake, I said, “Stay here, I’ll be back in a sec.”
I jogged to meet Marty, a halfling with a human mother and a Fae father. We’d met over a decade ago when I’d left home to try to save my mother. Marty had been with me the night I’d made the blood oath to Shaw.
“You in on Shaw’s big game?” I asked.
Marty and I had known each other a long time. He wouldn’t be offended if I didn’t step through the usual niceties.
“Shaw made all of us swear.” He flashed me his palms in apology. “Even if I tried, I couldn’t tell you anything about it.”
I grumbled. “Yeah, I heard about the oaths. The bastard.” I irritably pulled my hand down the side of my face but tried to shake off my agitation. The situation wasn’t Marty’s fault. “How are you otherwise?”
He tilted his head from side-to-side. “You know. Could be better, could be worse.”
Marty had been in Shaw’s network even longer than I had. Like me, he’d been pulled in when he was a teenager. It’d happened after he’d gotten caught up in something stupid, as he’d said, and he and his younger brother dug themselves in too deep with the wrong people. I didn’t know the details. Part of his oath to Shaw involved not being allowed to talk about the specifics. Marty and his brother had gone to Shaw, who’d taken them into the network in exchange for pardons for whatever they’d been caught doing.
“Who’re they?” Marty nodded in Judah and Blake’s direction.
“Probably better if I don’t tell you,” I said. “In case Shaw gets wind I was here or anyone sees you talking to me.”
“You’re not trying to indie on the side, are you?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
Shaw’s people weren’t allowed to do any independent work. My contract with Katerina was only by Shaw’s special approval. And if he crooked his finger, I had to drop whatever I was doing, even if I was in the middle of a retrieval job. Which reminded me, I needed to step out of Faerie and check my phone for any messages from Volkov Retrieval at some point.
“No, it’s not like that,” I said. “The guy’s an old friend. You won’t mention this, will you?”
“Nah, you know I won’t bring it up,” he reassured me.
But we both knew he’d have to answer truthfully if Shaw happened to ask Marty a direct question.
I weighed the risks for a moment and then decided it was worth revealing a little bit to Marty in case he might have anything on Darren, Killian, or the stolen sword. “Do you know a Fae around here named Darren Baumgartner?” I asked.
Marty shook his head. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“What about a sword called Balisarde?”
“Don’t know it.” He peered at me. “I thought you said it was better not to reveal what you’re doing here.”
“Yeah, but I need info, and you’re one of the only people I know in Faerie who’ll even talk to me right now.” Damn Grant Shaw. “Heard anything about Killian Abernathy recently?”
His face soured at Killian’s name. “Nah, I try to steer clear of that guy.”
I sighed. “Don’t we all.”
“If I do hear, I’ll send a raven.”
“I appreciate it,” I said. I probably wouldn’t be in Faerie long enough for Marty to get info to me via messenger raven, but it was a nice gesture.
I absently touched the pendant that was tucked under my shirt. If only I could get in on whatever Shaw had running. The thought it practically made me salivate.
“Tara, we should get going,” Blake called to me.
“Be right there,” I said to her and then turned back to Marty. “How big is it? The payout?”
He opened his mouth, but when no response came, I knew that answering that question, even in vague terms, would violate the oath he’d taken. It wasn’t that he didn’t try. The oath made him physically unable to tell me. But by the way his eyes rounded and shone, I guessed the prize was very, very big. My spine tingled with an almost feverish desire to be on the hunt, to have a shot at getting a real step closer to freeing myself from Grant Shaw for good.
“Never mind,” I said with a brush of my fingers through the air. “I’ll let you go. I should get moving, too.”
He stepped in for a quick, brotherly one-armed hug. “Take care out there.”
“You take care out there, too, Marty.” I turned to go back to the others.
“Wait, Tara?”
“Why are you taking a risk?” He flipped his fingers in a small gesture toward Judah and Blake, one that was blocked by my body so they couldn’t see it.
I gave my head a small shake. “Because I’m stupid.”
“We can’t afford to be stupid.”
“I know. I’m going to try to bring it to a close as fast as possible,” I said.
He nodded. “Do that.”
I rejoined Blake and Judah, and we passed through the opening in the crumbling rock wall that marked the entrance to Aerwyn.
But my thoughts kept returning to the look that’d come over Marty’s face when I’d asked him how big the prize was. I needed in on that damn bounty.
Chapter 10
AS WE MADE our way through Aerwyn, stopping periodically at the stone slabs with street directories carved into them, my preoccupation with Shaw’s bounty gnawed at my brain. I had to at least find out what the target was. I assumed it was an object. He strongly preferred to deal in objects rather than people or information.
“Navigating without GPS is surprisingly laborious,” Blake said, pulling my attention back to the task at hand. She leaned forward to run her fingers over the carved stone of the directory. “But these are rather charming.”
“This way,” I said, pointing down the road to our right. “One more turn, and we should be on Baumgartner’s street.”
I walked swiftly, antsy for the mission to be over.
Judah had been quiet for much of the trek through the Duergar kingdom, though I’d felt his gray eyes on me more than once. Each time I’d turned to him, he’d met my gaze with an intensity that gave my pulse a bump. He seemed focused yet preoccupied. Or maybe it was just his normal demeanor, and I didn’t know any better after so many years of not seeing him. My normal M.O. would have been to ask what was going through his head. But something made me hesitate.
We reached Darren Baumgartner’s street. From Blake’s intel, we knew his house was the middle cottage of the seven structures on his side of the block.