But I didn’t know what I was feeling: some combination of sadness, sympathy, and confusion. So I said nothing, because I had no reply to such a macabre thought. “Yay!” or “That’ll be the day” felt wrong, so I pretended instead to have something in my throat and cleared it loudly, giving myself a couple of seconds to think about what to say next.
“So you died. Okay. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you after all. I-I did try,” I said weakly, figuring that if he could open up to me, I should at least try to return the favor.
“I guess I had an unfair advantage. I should have warned you about my ability, but I— ”
“—didn’t trust me.” I finished his thought, knowing exactly what he would say.
He shrugged unapologetically, and I knew I’d guessed correctly.
“No, I get it. Believe me. I know all about secrets.” I sighed and thought about my own. “Why did you give me Hook on that ship? You didn’t have to, you know. I know that the agency planned to sacrifice him to the Sea Witch.”
He snorted. “Yeah, and then you had to go and fuck it up to twin hells by being so bloody godsdamned noble.”
He sounded put out, and I laughed. The temporary truce between us felt so strange, and yet, I sort of liked it. “I guess even an old dog like you can still be surprised.”
He chuffed, a strange sound that was half chuckle and half huff, before shaking his head. “Aye, I reckon I still can be. Mind you, this doesn’t make us friends.” He gestured between us with one long finger.
“Oh, heaven forbid, old timer.”
“Fucking hells,” he grumped.
I shoulder checked him, having way more fun than I thought I could with him. For so long, Agent Crowley had been my own personal boogeyman, and I wondered what Hatter would think if he could see us.
Hatter. My laughter ceased as I thought of him. My heart hurt whenever my mind strayed toward my partner.
Crowley cleared his throat. “I released Hook because it was the right thing to do,” he said. He sat up. “Anyway.” His tone was no-nonsense again, and I understood that he didn’t wish to get any deeper into icky feelings so I respected his right to move on. “Anyhow, I tried looking for Hook today, just to see where they were holding him and what they were doing to him, but I had no luck. Sorry, Fish.”
Once, when he’d used that term, it had made me want to rake his eyes with my claws. Now, not so much. I shrugged. “I know he lives, and I’ve got an inside man helping me out.”
He turned his body partially toward me. “Who?”
“Someone you’d hate.” I chuckled.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea, so just spit it out,” he shot back.
I shrugged, deciding to test him. “Jacamoe, my father’s mage.”
“The enslaved Djinn? The one who I’m pretty sure knows more than he’s telling us. That one? Godsdammit, Elle, I thought you were smarter than that. I already warned you about him. I don’t trust that bastard. Not one bit,” he said in a sharp growl.
I laughed because there he was, the real Crowley. It was good to see him again. His eyes were glowing in an almost-heated-looking red.
“He’s the eyes and ears of the castle, Crowley. Anything you want to know about anybody, he likely already does, or he can learn it soon enough. Father used to call him ‘the whisperer.’ He’s a good ally to have. Trust me.” I winked.
“He’s always skulking about with a shifty look in his eyes,” Crowley persisted, pointing to his own eyes. “And trusting you will happen the day the twin hells freeze over.”
“Ha!” I laughed, and it was a real one that he soon reluctantly joined in on.
“Gods, you’re such a bitch,” he growled, but the insult lacked any real heat. It sort of felt like two detectives taking the piss with each other, it was familiar; it was even kind of… nice. I rolled my eyes, playing his game and laughed again before saying, “Well, I guess it takes one to know one. And don’t think I’ve forgotten, fyi.”
“Forgotten what?” he asked with a slight shake of his head as he scrubbed at his jaw with his long fingers.
“You never did answer me. How the hells did you get onto the noble floor? You do know that anyone not of royal blood or given regulated permissions is allowed to be up there, and yet there you were, la-de-da, without a care in the world.” I flicked my fingers for emphasis.
His smile was only half-formed, his eyes full of secrets. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Princess Fish?”
I shook my head. “You’re such a bloody bastard, Crowley. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“A time or twenty.” He smirked. “Now, some of my secrets are mine, as they pose no danger to you or others. I’d say that’s fair. Wouldn’t you?”
I found my fascination with getting to know who the real Crowley really was only beginning to grow deeper, like a child who was suddenly interested in a toy that she’d ignored before. I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll figure you out someday, rest assured.”
He tipped his head back and gave a full belly chuckle, and holy twin hells, my body exploded with a riot of sensations as I watched him dissolve into a spate of true laughter.
Crowley had always been an attractive male, but it had been hard to admire his beauty because he was always doing douchebag things to remind everyone what a giant dick he was. But he wasn’t behaving that way anymore, not at all.
I clutched at my throat with cold fingers and forced myself to take two deep breaths. I might not have been a siren true anymore, but my body still felt the effects of it sometimes. When he finally stopped laughing, I had to look down at my feet and get my riotous emotions under control.
It was Crowley. Not my friend, and definitely not my lover. I had enough problems to juggle, anyway, with Hatter and Hook. I definitely didn’t need to add more to my already full plate.
Many sirens take on a harem, a small obnoxious voice in my head suddenly said loudly and clearly. I glowered and gave myself a small shake. What the effing hells was that?
I am a one-man woman, I reminded myself sternly, but Hook had obviously changed me.
I cleared my throat, embarrassed by the thoughts rolling through my head. Thank the gods he couldn’t read minds, because Crowley would never let me live it down. It’s the stress of all that’d happened getting to me now , I thought. That and this constant forced proximity.
So I thought of him as he truly was: chasing me, hounding me, and up my arse for everything. I remembered his constant threats and his bullying, and that was enough to douse whatever temporary insanity had been about to grip me. I was stressed out and knew that sex would help. It was biological—Ichabod had taught me that. But I would die before I bedded this beast.
“How’d you find this wall?” I asked, needing desperately to switch the subject.
When I looked over at him, Crowley wore an uneasy look that reflected how I felt, and I had to wonder what he could have been thinking about. He shrugged and ran his fingers over his chin. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, and with only one case to work on and a smallish perimeter to boot, well, I’ve been climbing the walls and obsessing a bit.” His grin was sheepish.
“Me too.” I chuckled softly then frowned and shook my head again. Stop that , I mentally castigated myself. I needed to keep a professional distance. Once Crowley and I left this place, we would fall right back into our old routines as bitter and sworn enemies at odds constantly. What was happening was nothing more than a temporary truce. Period.
“How’d you know that this area would respond to your wishes as it did?” I asked, referencing his ability to command the seaweed and ivy to turn into a bench for us.
Scratching the side of his nose with the edge of his thumb, he gestured with his chin toward the hedgerow and the smallish lean-to peeking out from the damaged section. “My ability to smell isn’t merely limited to smell alone, if that makes sense. If the trace of a scent is strong enough, I can see faint, almost ghostlike images of what’s occurred. Of course, the image has to be
one that’s been created so often or with such a powerful desire behind it that it’s been practically burned into the DNA of the object. In this case, the sea ivy itself stored part of the memories.”
First had been Hatter’s ability to see the past and future, and now, Crowley was saying he too had a strange ability. “Is that why you were chosen for the agency?” I asked, suddenly realizing that it must have been that ability or one very similar to it that had given him the edge over so many other applicants.
I’d applied to be part of the agency almost a decade before and had been soundly turned away. I’d thought my credentials should have been enough to get me through the door at least, but I’d never even made it to boot camp. There hadn’t been many water elementals then, and there still weren’t, but even I could admit that if Crowley really did have that ability, it made him incredibly valuable—maybe even more valuable than a cast-out princess of the deep.
This new knowledge also answered many of the questions I’d had about how he always seemed to have a sixth sense about what I was up to.
He nodded slowly. “One of,” he simply said.
My feelers went way up. “One of” could mean a whole host of different things. But I reminded myself for the hundredth time that I wasn’t there to shoot the breeze. We were actually working a case, one that was far more personal to me than any other I’d ever worked.
“I won’t pretend that I understand you at all, Crowley, because I don’t. I won’t even pretend that it isn’t driving me mad with desire to learn all I can about you. You’re far more interesting than I’d have ever thought possible. But that’s not what this is about. My sister is being buried in two days—I have no doubt the tribunal will give us that long before they call our hearing, which means we have to work quickly but accurately. So if you know anything at all that can help us solve my sister’s case, please, help me.” The last of my words came out as a breathy plea. I fluttered my long lashes as I glanced down at my feet.
I’d humbled myself. I’d revealed to him just how much it mattered to me and how much I needed him to be not my enemy but my ally. I bridged my fingers and idly rubbed hard circles on the backs of my hands with my thumbs.
He inhaled deeply. “I brought you here, Princess— ”
“I’m not a princess,” I corrected.
“You will always be a princess,” he said simply and without rancor, glancing at me from his periphery with his hands clasped gently in front of him as he leaned forward. “I know you’re a witch now. I saw what the Sea Witch did to you. I heard what she said.”
Immediately, I tensed, wondering where he might be going with this. Our past was such that it wouldn’t be a far stretch to imagine him following those words with threats of reporting my unique and potentially deadly status to the agency. I could still wind up on all-points bulletin.
“I brought you here, Detective, because this is all I can do,” Crowley said. “I can tell you that I smell death, but I can’t pass those wards.”
I blinked, still mightily confused but trying to act as though I wasn’t. “And you think I can?” I chuckled, holding up my cuffed wrists. “I’m as good as neutered with these on. Not to mention the little fact that I don’t have the first clue how to be a witch. I’ve only ever been a siren. That is who I am. That is what I’m good at.”
Even I heard the hint of longing in my words. I hadn’t had a chance yet to consider what might happen to me and who I might become if I never took my powers back from the witch. The thought that I might never again swim the waters or feel the sluicing wetness of a mighty wave massaging every inch of my body as I cut cleanly through it made my heart tremble in the cage of my chest. There was the twinge of a small fracture in my soul.
He stood, and I felt the heated press of his stare looking down at the crown of my head. I turned toward him, glancing up, curious about the look on his face.
“We’re not born to be just one thing or another, Detective. Remember that.” Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he turned and made his way back toward the castle, leaving me to stare at the spot where he’d left me with hundreds of new and different thoughts milling around in my head. Just who is the real Crowley? I wasn’t sure there was an easy answer anymore.
I glanced back at the lean-to, someone’s home but with the smell of death inside it. Standing, I dusted off my legs.
Jacamoe had said he would start to train me whenever I wanted, and that was as good a place as any to begin.
CHAPTER 42
HATTER
I’D NOT HEARD BACK from Agent Crowley’s specter since the incident hours before, but I’d been climbing the walls of my flat with worry. I’d even gone down to the precinct, debating about whether to alert Bo to what had happened.
But the echo of Crowley’s warning to me still rang in my ears, making me hesitant and cagey, a fact that the others noticed. Bo had eventually emerged from her back office—alerted by someone, no doubt—and promptly sent me home. She’d told me not to come back for at least eight hours after that, cautioning me that if I couldn’t get my act together, they would consider a longer leave of absence for me. which I couldn’t have, not when I needed the department’s resources. Also, going home would mean being alone, and I hated being alone. I hadn’t always been that way, but I knew no one in Grimm Central on a personal level other than Elle, which left me stuck in my one-room apartment alone and with nothing to keep my mind occupied.
I didn’t trust Agent Crowley as far as I could throw the man, but he was likely Elle’s only ally in Undine, and he had seemed adamant that Elle be protected at all costs.
I felt useless, adrift, and consumed by hundreds of worries and questions, but at least I knew that I could turn the mania into something useful.
I rubbed my neck, wondering what in the hells she was going through. I leaned against the back wall of my flat and stared out the window at the flickering lights of downtown. The neon buzzed and glowed.
It’d been almost three hours since I’d had that chat with the agent in the lift. The time to act was coming hot and fast. I could either trust the word of a man who had never given Elle or me reason to and hope that he was being honest, or I could try to find her on my own.
I already knew the second option was not only unlikely—it was impossible because of where she was being held.
Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I blew out a heavy breath. It would have been so much easier if I could just speak with her and see for myself that she was okay, that my fears were nothing but unrealistic anxiety.
Disreputables were starting to crawl out from under their rocks, leaving the dark shelter of their daylight hours to crowd the sidewalks and corners. I frowned, rubbing at my devil’s marking that’d been burning like hellfire all day. But no glow meant no sight, and I couldn’t understand why, other than maybe stress. I knew my gift was trying to show me something, but I felt magically constipated. No matter how much I felt the need to see, nothing was happening other than my arm feeling scorched to holy hells.
I hissed as another hard bolt of fiery energy tingled and sizzled through my pores, but just as before, all I saw was a blank canvas of darkness. It was the past being shown me, or at least trying to be shown, but I knew there was more to the darkness than what I saw, I also know deep in my heart and soul that it all centered around Elle.
When I’d been pair bonded to Alice and we’d had our child… A muscle in my cheek clenched and I glared at nothing in particular, forcing myself to stop focusing on Mariposa and to think of anything else. Finally, slowly, the thought of the March Hare’s devotion to haloshrooms caused me to grin and helped calm the riot in my mind. My visions and flashes had been centering more and more on my family, and I didn’t like it, although it wasn’t surprising. My emotions were deeply entwined with every other aspect of my nature—I simply felt things on a greater and deeper level than most, which was why I always knew the moment when those closest to me needed me or were in trouble.
I ope
ned my eyes and looked out once more into the sea of life thriving and buzzing down below. I had to get out in it. I knew I couldn’t tell Bo anything yet, though I should. But if I told her, she would only take me off this case or, worse yet, tell me I was too emotionally invested and force me to go speak to IA. She might even split Elle and me up.
I worried my bottom lip. I had to do it alone, and not because I trusted Crowley—I didn’t. But she was down there, ready to face a tribunal of peers who were incapable of remaining unbiased in matters concerning her. I would be damned if I let my partner down again, and…
Taking a deep breath, I swallowed forcefully. Just because. That was why.
I kicked off the wall with my bare feet and padded silently toward the door to find my shoes. I hadn’t changed out of my work clothes. I slipped on my shoes then grabbed my keys, wallet, and badge. Technically, I was off duty, and I knew I shouldn’t be abusing my authority like this, but I would kick down whatever doors needed kicking to get her back, safe and sound and in once piece.
I slipped out then shut and locked the door behind me and headed toward the Persiannous district. I would find the damned Tinkerer even if it killed me.
Elle
A SHORT WHILE LATER, I finally found Jacamoe in his study. He was bent over a long desk with a pair of spectacles perched jauntily on the tip of his nose, muttering beneath his breath as he read aloud from the open book in front of him. The words sounded strange—they were in his native tongue, lyrical and beautiful and full of power. Every fine hair on my body stood on edge each time he uttered a new sound.
“Gawking is rude, Little Fish. I do believe I taught you better than to spy.” He peeked at me over the rim of his glasses with a knowing gleam in his intelligent eyes.
I jumped, feeling like the little child he’d always castigated for lingering in doorways. Clearing my throat as the heat of a blush formed on my cheeks, I gave him a tight-lipped smile, though he’d long since returned to his task. “I wished to know if we could have our lessons now,” I mumbled pathetically. I sometimes felt that no matter how many years lay between me and this place, there were moments where I was not an adult but a child again, especially in instances when gave the look he was giving me now. His lips were pressed tightly together, and one eyebrow was raised high, his displeasure stamped clearly upon his face.
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