Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
T he Terrapin golf course was a wash. Literally. The sprinklers clicked on, misting the manicured fairway of the golf course in sheets of crystalline spray. If I’d bothered to check the maintenance schedule, I would’ve known to start my search for Zachariah at a different golf course.
“You know,” an unfamiliar voice called, “I’ve been barred from sixty-three golf courses across seven continents. This will make sixty-four.”
I turned slowly, scanning the green. Nothing.
“Up here, lass.”
I looked up. He stood atop the flag of the eighteenth hole, balanced impossibly on the slender pole. He looked young—maybe twenty, maybe two thousand—with wild copper hair and eyes that shifted between amber and emerald. His mischievous grin was all teeth.
“You’re a faerie.”
“More of a chaos goblin, really. Friends call me Riot.” He gestured broadly at the golf course. “Lovely place for a chat, don’t you think? So green and pretty. Reminds me of home. ”
As he spoke, I noticed the grass beneath my feet beginning to grow, shooting up in wild, uneven patches. A golf cart rolled past us on its own, empty, its steering wheel turning in lazy circles.
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “Why are you here?”
Riot hopped down from the flagpole, which immediately bent sideways like a wilting flower. “Do you have any idea how boring this realm has become? Everyone following their little rules, walking their little paths. Someone needs to shake things up.”
“As the assistant director of security, I’m here to enforce those little rules.” Most of the time. “I’m going to guess you didn’t register as a visitor at the Evermore welcome center.”
He flashed that mischievous grin again. “Do I seem like the sort to do something so mundane?”
“I’ll ask you again, Riot. Why are you here?
” I pulled up the hood of my sweatshirt and released the snakes, ready to unleash them on the unwanted guest if necessary.
They hissed in unison, and I felt my body beginning to warm—that dangerous heat that meant my blood was responding to danger. “Last chance.”
His grin widened. “Oh, goody. A threat. I was hoping you’d say that.” The faerie snapped his fingers, and the eighteenth hole erupted like a volcano. Lava spilled from the gooey center. The faerie scooped up a handful and drank it.
“Delicious. You should try some. Tastes like Fanta.”
I gaped at him, praying my eyes had deceived me. He wasn’t a chaos goblin. He was something much, much worse.
“You’re an Unwoven.”
He bowed with a flourish. “ Famous, am I?”
“No, I happen to collect obscure, irrelevant facts.”
The Unwoven were a subset of fae who favored unpredictability over its opposite, and so they used their magic to unravel fate-threads.
Most people considered them a nuisance. The Fates, however, treated them like a virus to be stamped out of existence.
I hadn’t encountered many Unwoven in my previous line of work, but I’d heard plenty of tales.
“Did you mistake me for a Thornborn?”
“No, a Thread-Thief.”
He clutched his chest in mock horror. “You wound me with your words.”
I unsheathed my dagger. “I can wound you with a lot worse if you don’t start talking. Why are you here?”
“I should ask the same question of you, lass.”
“I chased you from the sanctity of my house last time you were here, or have you already forgotten? What were you looking for?”
“Ah, someone was in your home? Aren’t you the popular one?”
I preferred to be an anonymous one, but all these fae were making it impossible to lurk in the shadows of obscurity.
It was a danger that far exceeded the murders I was investigating.
It had been years since danger was a part of my regular routine.
Then the fae showed up and suddenly I was knee-deep in trouble each time I had the audacity to open my eyes.
It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? The only way to know for certain was to come out of hiding and ask those with answers.
Nope. Not a rabbit’s chance in a were-forest on a full moon. I’d sooner die.
“I’ll happily tell you what I’m looking for—the way home. And I think you’re the one to help get me there. ”
“Is that what the glashtyn and the banshee want too? Is that why you’re working together?”
“Nobody works with the Unwoven, lass. We’re in a class by ourselves.”
“You mean outcasts.” If it wasn’t this guy who ransacked my cottage, it must’ve been the glashtyn. The banshee would’ve made too much noise.
Riot danced from left foot to right. “What’s your favorite type of tree?”
“Is this a dad joke?”
“I beg your pardon. Where do you think mortal fathers discovered their particular brand of humor?”
“I’m going to go out on a limb—pun intended—and say they stole the jokes from your people.”
“Land. Women. Jokes. They care not what they take from others more worthy. Typical human males.”
“To be honest, I don’t think the world needs those jokes. Might be best if they went the way of your jig.”
“You haven’t answered the question, lassie. What’s your favorite type of tree?”
“Whatever kind gets you to leave.”
He pirouetted and landed on flat feet. “Are you always this grouchy?”
I reiterated the answer I’d given to Gage. “No. Sometimes I’m asleep.”
He made a disgruntled noise.
“What’s the matter, laddie? My joke not good enough for you?”
“Hmm. I was debating whether to have a wee bit of fun with your fate-thread, but I can’t see it.”
“Humans have this wonderful invention called spectacles. ”
He narrowed his eyes, still searching my head in vain. “ Why can’t I see it? I can see everyone’s.”
“Might be time to hang up your chaos hat. You should consider a condo here in the Neighborhood. We cater to nonhumans who’ve aged out of modern society.”
His pert nose wrinkled. “What if we never aged in to modern society?”
“That’s a ‘you’ problem. However, your presence on this island is a ‘me’ problem.”
“For what it’s worth, I find you fascinating.”
I kept my distance, muscles coiled, dagger in hand. “Is that so?”
“A hideous Gorgon wrapped inside a pretty package. Must be exhausting, always keeping that hood up, always worried you’ll accidentally petrify some innocent bystander.”
“Not a concern. My snakes are contained unless I’m under threat, like right now.”
He plucked a stray golf ball from the green and juggled it idly. “Don’t you ever just want to let loose? Stop pretending you’re one of them?”
A translucent frost spread across the green between us.
“I’m nothing like you, if that’s your implication.”
“Aren’t you, though?” Riot’s voice dropped, losing some of its manic edge. “You don’t fit in their world, lass. You’re too dangerous. Too other. You’re stuck in between, following their rules to prove you’re not a monster.”
One of my serpents slithered free from my hood, tasting the air near my cheek. I didn’t push it back.
“I ken what happened, lass. I bet they locked you away on this godsforsaken island because they’re terrified of anything they can’t control.
” The faerie stepped closer, crunching across the frozen spray of earth.
“But you know what real chaos is? It’s possibility.
It’s the chance for things to be different from the way they’ve always been.
For people like us to stop bowing to people like them . ”
I met his shifting eyes. “Chaos isn’t freedom. It’s just another kind of prison. A paradoxical model of behavior where the only rule is no rules.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged, then grinned again. “Or maybe you’re too scared to find out what you could do if you stopped holding back.”
The sprinklers continued their rhythm around us, indifferent to the standoff, as the sun crept higher over the manicured green.
“I’m going to ask you one last time to leave.”
He slid across around the strip of frost. “Help me go home, lass, or your beloved community will suffer the consequences of your refusal.” Despite his menacing words, his puckish smile never faltered.
The icy fingers of dread returned. “Suffer how?”
“So many fate-threads in one isolated area. An Unwoven like me could have a grand old time.”
Vampires. Witches. Shifters. The ensuing chaos would be unfathomable. “Trust me, Riot. These are not the threads to pull.”
“Very well. I agree to leave them in peace in exchange for the key to my home.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Always a bargain with the fae. “I don’t have your precious key. Leave now or else.” I started to lower my hood.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Riot held up a hand, and the erupting fountain of dirt and grass froze mid-air, clods of earth suspended like a grotesque mobile. “Before we do the whole ‘epic battle’ thing? —
He hurled the golf ball, which expanded in size as it flew.
I twisted sideways, but the large ball curved mid-flight, impossibly fast, clipping my shoulder. Pain exploded down my arm. Laughing giddily, he ran—not away, but in a wide arc around me, fingers trailing through the air.
Everywhere he touched, reality bent.
The sand trap liquefied into a whirlpool. A grove of ornamental trees uprooted themselves and began walking on their roots like spiders. The peaceful course shattered into pandemonium.
I sheathed my dagger; the weapon was useless in this environment. I’d end up stabbing myself.
My crowning glory, however—that I could use. I threw back my hood completely. The serpents unfurled in a crown of scales and fury, hissing as one. I locked onto Riot’s darting form. The faerie stumbled, one leg beginning to stiffen, muted gray spreading across his calf like his own frost.
“Oh, you’re fast!” Still laughing merrily, with one stone leg, he dove behind a golf cart. The cart immediately sprouted wings and launched itself at me like a heavy metal bird.
I rolled, felt the wind of his passing, and came up in a crouch. My hand found a flagpole torn from the green. I hurled it like a javelin. It punched through the cart, and the vehicle spiraled into the pond with a tremendous splash.