FIFTY-ONE
Aly stood at the end of the close, where she could keep an eye out for Grant or any of his goons.
Like Rory. She suppressed a shudder at the prospect of encountering him again.
She’d barely escaped with her life last time, and Rory was the type to hold a grudge, even when doing so wasn’t in his best interests.
She pulled her coat more tightly around her, crossing her arms and tucking her hands into her armpits. The wind off the sea was cold and salt-kissed, blowing her hair in tendrils about her face.
It was late, and at this time of year the harbour was quiet. A handful of drunk labourers staggered past, singing—or more accurately shouting—a rather bawdy tune, but otherwise the only people she saw were solitary pedestrians, heads bowed as they traipsed through the wind as quickly as possible.
“What’s your name?”
Aly turned her head to find a man looming over her, well over a head taller than her, with a sealskin cape around his shoulders. There was something faintly familiar about his face, the angle of his jaw and the curve of his lip, but Aly couldn’t place him.
“Do I know you?”
“What’s your name?” His voice was strongly accented, like he came from a remote part of the Highlands.
“What’s yours?” Perhaps she’d recognise the name and figure out why he looked familiar.
“Where did you get that coat?” He stepped closer, and Aly fought the urge to shrink back.
Aly lifted her chin. “Not that it’s any of your business, but it was my father’s.”
The man leant closer, sending fear sluicing through Aly’s limbs. “And your father’s name?”
That was when she saw it. The sharpness in the shape of his ear was unmistakeable. He was fae. And not demi-fae, like her or Grant or any salch in Mossburgh. A proper fae, carrying a bronze knife at his side and with a coldness in his eyes that curdled Aly’s blood.
Her arm shook as she reached for her knife, her fingers fumbling on her coat, flapping uselessly as she tried to slide them beneath the garment. The fae’s gaze dipped to her hand, a snarl twisting his face as his hand shot out to grab her wrist, his grip painfully strong.
The air caught in Aly’s throat. Her chest was too tight, a vice clamping round her lungs.
The man muttered something in the fae tongue, leaning towards her. She stumbled back, slamming into a stone wall with an impact that jarred her bones.
“Who is your father?” he snarled.
Aly stared into the fae’s eyes, her breath hitching in her throat. Fear crowded at the edges of her mind, blotting out the wind whistling down the close and the drunken shouts of passers by.
The fae let out a snarl of disgust, jerking her wrist and hauling her forwards.
Pain slashed through her still-healing shoulder and she stumbled after him, trying to tug her arm out of his grasp.
Panic clogged her throat, turning her breaths to sobs.
This was what scared Calum so much, not just the cruelty but the strength, the power.
She could feel the fae’s magic washing over her as he dragged her down a series of sea-soaked steps.
Her legs shook, her feet stumbled, but her boots never once slipped on the wet stone, supported by the fae’s power. The thought made her skin frost over.
They reached a rickety dock, the fae’s grip still tight enough to cut off circulation as the wind threw Aly’s hair into her face.
“Fix that.” The fae pointed to a small boat tied to the dock. “Like a glamour.”
Aly stared at the boat, its wooden gunwales grey and rotting, the green paint on its hull flaking and chipped. Her heart was thumping against her sternum, the sound of her pulse in her ears as loud as the waves lapping at the dock.
“I can’t.” That was fae magic. She’d tried to glamour her arms to hide her scars, and nothing had happened. How could she glamour an entire boat?
Faster than it took her to inhale, the fae had her pressed against the wall, one of his bronze knives at her throat. “Do it, or I’ll slit your throat and throw you in the sea.”
Aly’s breath was coming in gasps, her chest seizing as she jerked her head back and away from the blade.
She met the fae’s eyes and her insides iced over.
It was no empty threat. His expression was utterly devoid of humanity.
It was harsh and cold, like the sea itself, and she knew if she failed he would kill her and toss her in without a single regret.
Aly nodded frantically, her chin quivering as she spoke. “All right, I’ll do it.”
The blade was cold where it kissed her neck. She was shaking violently, her eyes on the bronze as it glinted in the moonlight. He’d moved so fast, faster than any human, faster even than Grant ever had. She couldn’t stand against that speed in a fight. It would be hopeless.
She forced her thoughts past the knife to the rotting boat beyond. Her focus was fractured, her attention pulled in a thousand directions as she took in every imperfection of the boat.
“I need—” Her voice was a croak. She wet her lips and tried again. “I need to use my hands.” The fae wasn’t restraining them, but he stood between her and the boat with a knife at her throat.
The fae shook his head. “Gestures are a crutch for those lacking discipline.” As if in demonstration, he unfurled his fingers from the handle of the knife, stepping back as the weapon quivered in the air against Aly’s skin.
Aly’s hands quaked at the sight, so violently they’d have been of little use anyway.
She shot her will towards the boat, picturing it with fresh, glistening paint, but the image was like water in her mind, sliding out through the cracks in her attention brought by the snarl curling the fae’s lips and the glimmer of moonlight on his blade.
The fae scoffed, his knife pricking deeper into Aly’s neck until a thin rivulet of blood slid down her neck.
“Wait!” Aly wrenched her head back, jerking it away from the blade.
“I’m demi-fae. Release me and I can prove it.
” He was here for the demi-fae captives, he had to be, and they’d all been freed.
She was the only part-fae prisoner he had left—he would want her alive. He had to. It was her last chance.
The fae stared at her, his knife pressing against her throat once more. She stopped breathing, scared that even inhaling was too much movement with the blade jammed so closely to her flesh. She held his gaze, willing him to believe her.
The fae’s knife flew back to his hand, releasing Aly, though he still loomed over her, close enough to grasp. “Show me.”
Aly drove a knee into his groin, smashing her elbow into his nose when he doubled over, then dashed up the stairs, her boots slipping on the wet surface.
She chanced a glance back at the fae as she neared the top of the steps, her heart galloping against her sternum, then slammed into a wall of wool and flesh.
She pulled up short, the apology dying on her tongue as she locked eyes with Grant. His face twisted with fury. “You treacherous little shit.”
The blood roared in Calum’s ears as he raced down the close, sweat-slicked fingers sliding over the smooth handles of his throwing knives.
His eyes were trained on the corner where he’d seen Aly disappear, so focused he didn’t see the other figure until it barrelled straight into him, slamming him into the wall.
The breath punched out of him. He gasped instinctively, unable to draw in air. His lungs seized, caught in an iron vice, as a weight pressed against him, and he found himself staring into an inhuman face.
The fae—that much was obvious—looked like it had been carved from a glacier, all ragged edges and blue-tinged white skin. Its eyes were chips of ice, tendrils of hair scraping together like icicles.
The fae had come from Caoimhe. It was going to take him back to Gleannbhròn. Terror clogged Calum’s throat. His thoughts were a jumble, disappearing like wisps of smoke every time he tried to catch hold of one.
The fae bore down on him, the icicles that were its fingers clutching his shoulder. It had to be from Gleannbhròn, cold and hard as the duchy’s snow-covered forests and the woman who reigned over it.
He couldn’t go back there, back to the house that sprawled across the grounds as though it had grown there, with the ivy that crawled over its stones and its banister made from sìth bones.
Back to the duchess who lived there, with her volatile moods, her affection for Calum only driving her constant disappointment that he wasn’t fae and would therefore never, ever be good enough.
“Calum!”
Sorcha’s voice cut through the haze in his mind and stabbed straight through to his heart. His head snapped round to see her fighting another fae, her axes flashing in the moonlight.
And more were coming.
At either end of the close, they advanced, the scrape of ice on stone sending shudders through Calum. The fae’s cold breath misted his face, chilling him to the bone.
But Sorcha needed him. She couldn’t fight them all herself—no mortal could.
The thought spurred him and he scrabbled at the handles of his knives, his hand shaking as he drew a glinting bronze blade and drove it straight into the centre of the fae’s torso.
For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of his own ragged breathing and the beat of his pulse in his ears. The knife had gone in, sliding smoothly through the ice like it was nothing more than flesh, but he didn’t know if the fae had a heart, or if it had one in its chest.
Then the fae disintegrated, collapsing into a million shards of ice that rained down on the cobblestones around Calum.
He didn’t have time to consider what that meant, what kind of fae splintered when stabbed. He was already racing down the close to Sorcha, his knife flying from his hand. Guided by his magic, it struck true, clattering to the ground as the fae came apart.
Sorcha was breathing hard as she stepped towards Calum, her hair beginning to fall out of its crown plait.
“Thanks,” she panted. “The steel wasn’t doing shit.”
They stood back-to-back, facing either end of the alley, Calum racking his brain for what kind of fae reacted to fae-forged bronze but not steel, and turned into shards of ice when stabbed.
“The sluagh,” he whispered, as understanding struck him.
“The what?” Sorcha repeated.
“The host. If we can find the fae controlling them, and kill them, the sluagh will all disappear.” He’d seen the unearthly host summoned before.
They were dreaded even by the most hardened fae warriors, because they did not feel pain or fear, and because they attacked as a unit, all of them controlled by a single puppeteer.
They were like a more animated, more complex version of Calum’s knives. The puppeteer would be able to sense where each of the sluagh was and control its movements. Whoever it was, they would have to be somewhere close.
Calum’s gaze darted to the high windows in the warehouses on either side. In one of them, perhaps, or down by the quay. His eyes fell on the iron bars on one of the windows. Not inside, then. They wouldn’t be able to control the sluagh with all that iron between them.
He reached out his consciousness and felt for the knife on the ground, tugging it towards him till the handle slammed into his palm.
He pulled another knife free of the bandolier, running his thumbs over the hilts.
They felt right in his hands, like they belonged there. He twisted to give them to Sorcha.
Sorcha’s eyes flared wide. “What are you doing?”
“You said the axes weren’t working,” Calum said. “And we have to split up. They’re coming down both ends of the close.”
Sorcha opened her mouth, as though she was going to argue, then closed it and nodded.
“If you see a fae, kill it.”
He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in for a quick hug as the sluagh scraped ever closer to them. The puppeteer was toying with them, he was sure of it, building up their dread with the sluagh’s slow approach.
Sorcha kissed his cheek. “I love you. Be safe.”
“And you.” Calum released her and turned to face the oncoming horde.
Grant drew a hand back to hit her. Aly flinched, but before the blow fell the fae spoke from the bottom of the stairs.
“Hit her, and I will make you regret it.” The fae’s voice lifted the hair on the backs of Aly’s arms.
“Do you know what she’s done?” Grant’s hand clamped over Aly’s shoulder, and he dragged her down the stairs, her feet skidding on the slick stone and threatening to slide out from under her entirely. “She’s ruined everything.”
“She has?” The fae snarled. “You promised me mortal fae, and I arrive here to find none.”
Grant shook Aly so hard her teeth clashed together, and a bolt of pain went through her. “Because she betrayed me!” He snatched one of her sleeves up, brandishing her arm at the fae. “But look, she’s mortal fae, too.”
The fae yanked Aly out of Grant’s grasp. Her bad shoulder screamed, and she bit back a cry of pain. “She doesn’t count.”
Aly swallowed the question on her lips. The fae knew she was demi-fae, yet insisted she didn’t count for his purposes, whatever those were. She was—at least in his mind—different from the other demi-fae. The idea made her insides roil.
“Why not?” Grant asked. His eyes were wide, and with a jolt Aly realised he was afraid. Whatever he had agreed with the fae, he was failing to uphold his end of the deal, and it terrified him.
Good.
“Did you have a nice chat with Edzan, then?” Her voice shook as she forced the words out.
“You sneaky wee—” Grant started down the stairs towards her, but pulled up short when the fae brandished his knife at him.
“Leave us or die. It is your choice.”
The words, and the utter lack of feeling in them, turned Aly’s blood to ice.
Grant scrambled up the stairs, shooting one last look at Aly and the fae as he disappeared beyond the top of the wall.
“What do you want with me?” Aly’s voice trembled, fear pulsing through her. She wished he’d let Grant take her. She knew what Grant could do to her, and she knew how to manage him. Grant would attack her in a rage and then—if he hadn’t killed her—make it up to her.
The fae, though . . . when he learnt she had no skill at illusion, that she wasn’t the mortal fae he thought she was, he would dispose of her with as little thought as he would an old newspaper.
“Come with me.” The fae clamped a hand over her wrist.
Aly planted her feet, fumbling for a knife at her belt. “No.”
The fae’s magic slammed her into the wall, sending pain searing through the arm behind her back.
He reached in a pocket and pulled out a twist of paper, opening it with one hand and holding it up to Aly’s face.
She writhed and flailed, but his power pinned her in place.
Fear froze the breath in her lungs as he grasped her hair and forced her head around, pain tearing at her scalp.
He muttered a word and blew on the contents of the paper, and Aly fell into a haze of rosemary and sage.