Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
I wake to the bright sun streaming through the sliding glass door.
It shines on Rime’s blond hair and pointed ears like a spotlight.
He’s asleep on the floor nearby, his massive form tangled in a blanket and one arm splayed above his head.
I stole his bed on the couch, poor guy, and he didn’t make the slightest protest. He just let me pass out like a drunk frat-groupie.
I vaguely remember Leo offering to drive me home, and I more distinctly remember thinking, No way am I gonna let him carry me to my dorm. I’ll stay here, but I’m not sleeping in his bed. Ever again.
So here I am in his living room. My suitcase and borrowed shoes sit by the door, but how they got there I don’t know.
I sit up and pat the back of my head. My updo has come half undone and my eyeliner is crusted in the corners of my eyes.
I was in a sort of trance last night, my mind on one track: deliver the message.
Once the words were out of my mouth, the bone-crushing fatigue set in.
I’d harnessed my own energy to see through those glamours, and no amount of chocolate could replenish it.
Not that there’s much real cocoa in Cocoa Puffs, anyway.
They only kept me awake for about fifteen minutes, and even then I was barely cognizant.
Only now, after some sleep, am I truly aware of my surroundings.
I’m in the same room where two weeks ago the truth came to light.
Where Leo’s disguise fell away before my eyes.
I twist my shaky hands in the blanket and sigh.
On the coffee table lies my phone, in the same place I haphazardly tossed it last night. When it rang for the thousandth time, Leo grabbed it out of my bag and thrust it at me with a barely contained growl.
“Call him.”
He didn’t ask questions, and I didn’t explain.
Instead, I met the accusation in his eyes with defiance in my own.
There were two voicemails and three texts from Zander, and at least as many from Liv.
Apparently, she had no clue about Zander’s little room-switch plan.
I shot her a quick message, assuring her I was fine, then silenced my phone.
Checking my messages this morning, I see that she’d promptly replied: You scared me. Glad you’re safe. Talk tomorrow.
Talk? I shut off my phone and untangle myself from the blanket. How are Liv and I supposed to talk when there’s almost nothing I can tell her?
As I peel myself off the couch, Rime stirs but doesn’t wake, even though it’s past nine.
When I showed up last night and announced my news, I imagined the three of them running off in hot pursuit—scoping out the hotel, interviewing witnesses, stalking the bad guys through the mountains—but none of them even left the apartment. And none of them are up and moving now.
I creep past Rime to my suitcase and dig out some clothes to change into. In the hall bathroom, I wash my face, wiggle out of my wrinkled dress, and pull on a sweatshirt and jeans. Because why do a walk of shame to my dorm this morning when I didn’t do anything fun last night to earn it?
At my first step back into the hall, Leo appears in the kitchen doorway.
I freeze and stare, my breath caught in my throat.
His hair is tossed every which way, looking so soft and touchable.
He’s in sweats and a t-shirt, both in shades of gray, looking exactly as he did after our night together.
Only that morning he was sleepy and rumpled and content.
And I was the one who’d made him look that way.
He manages a hesitant smile. “Good morning.”
“Hi.” I smooth a hand over the appliquéd flowers on my folded dress.
“Feeling any better?”
“Yeah,” I say politely, even though I want to throttle him. No, kiss him. No, run away. “Thanks for letting me crash here.”
“Of course.” He motions to the kitchen. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Um.” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “I should probably get going.”
He sucks in his bottom lip as though he’s biting back words, but when he speaks, his tone is even and patient, “If you don’t mind staying, just for a little while, we’d really like to hear more about what you saw.”
Okay, I know I wasn’t exactly coherent last night.
I made my dramatic entrance, all set to deliver my news, then crashed less than a foot from the finish line.
And now, this morning, just because those beautiful brown eyes are paired with pointed ears, I’m ready to quit the race altogether?
If my ability has any purpose at all, it has to be for something like this.
It’s time to put on my big girl panties and do what I can for the greater good.
I inhale, nod, and follow Leo into the kitchen.
Rime calls from the living room, “You’d better be making me some tea!”
Leo heaves a sigh.
Incredulous, I ask him, “You make him tea?”
“Absolutely not.” He sets the cream and sugar by the hissing coffee maker.
I turn when someone snorts behind me. Rime stands in the entryway, elbows propped on the doorframe and a smirk on his face. “Because he’s a lazy son of a bitch.”
Leo barely glances at him. “Son of a bitch? Is that your newest expression?”
“Well, you didn’t like the last one.” Rime offers me a nod as he squeezes past. The kitchen is barely big enough for Leo and me, but with Rime in here, I feel like a sardine. The Taj Mahal would barely be big enough for him.
Rime grins at me, elbowing Leo out of the way of the kettle. “I like your expressions, you humans. Especially American slang.”
“Do you?” I ask. “Like what?”
“Like loser,” Leo supplies. “And boujee. He was stuck on that one for days.”
Rime side-eyes Leo. “He gave me a long history lesson on it.”
I bite back a giggle. Yeah, I’ll bet.
“So, what was the last one?” I ask Leo. “The one you didn’t like?”
His only answer is a roll of the eyes.
Rime tosses me a wink. “Douchebag.”
A laugh bursts out of me so abruptly I almost spill the spoonful of sugar hovering over my mug.
“Please,” drawls a feminine voice, “let’s all congregate in the smallest room in the apartment.
” Topaz pushes her way past Rime, zeroing in on the coffee pot.
I step back before she can shove me aside, too.
She’s wearing a short, silky red kimono, her long legs bare and beautiful.
All of her is beautiful, but not in a Tinker Bell sort of way.
From an ignorant human’s point of view, she looks more like a succubus than a faerie.
She complains as she pours her coffee, speaking to no one in particular, “Everything’s small here. And dark. With your little apartments and your little windows and all the asphalt everywhere.”
Here in the Subworld.
“And what do you have in Nàdar?” I ask her, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.
She blinks at me like she’d forgotten I existed. “Homes that let in light and air. Endless fields of wildflowers. No parking lots.”
“Sounds nice,” I mutter into my coffee.
She leans back against the counter and considers me. “So you were at a ball last night? I didn’t know humans still had balls.”
I refuse to wilt under her stare. “Yes, we have balls.”
“In a hotel?”
Rime reaches around her for a spoon and sings behind her back, “Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“Wrong side of the bed?” She whips around. “What does that mean?”
I hide a snicker in another sip of coffee. Rime shrugs innocently and exits the kitchen, Topaz stomping after him, demanding he explain himself.
“Sorry about her,” Leo says to me.
“I’ve dealt with much worse.”
He gestures for me to hand him the half and half. “Do you mean that sorority? The one that blackballed Liv?”
I nod, passing him the carton. “At least Topaz isn’t a phony.”
“No.” His smile is hesitant, and crooked in that way that always makes me a little lightheaded. “She’s certainly not that.”
As he shuts the refrigerator door, my eyes snag on the notes and postcards stuck to it. Particularly the email address of a Dr. Joyce Logan, Professor of Anthropology, College of William and Mary.
I tap the note. “Who’s this?”
“Who? Oh.” He swallows and averts his eyes. “Remember back in the fall, when Robin and I went out of town for a week?”
Yes, although I wish I didn’t. That was right after the fateful Halloween party, Leo and Zander’s first face-off. No winners in this game.
Leo continues, “Dr. Logan was able to provide us with evidence that at least one of the Roanoke colonists had settled here in the mountains.”
“Here, here?” I point to the ground beneath my feet.
“Yes, Alderford or very close by.”
Topaz’s voice reaches us from the living room, “We need to debrief.”
Debrief? It’s everything I can do not to salute.
Leo is much more casual, waving me to the doorway. “Come talk.”
On my way to the living room, I grab my dress from the dining-room chair where I’d tossed it, and shove the poor, crumpled thing into my suitcase.
Leo sits beside Rime on the couch while Topaz relaxes in the wingback beside the sunny door. I sink into the overstuffed chair, fold my legs under me, and wrap my hands around my mug.
“So, this is cozy and all,” I say. “But I don’t understand. Why aren’t you all going after Brier’s team?”
Rime calmly sips his tea. “You said they left.”
“Well, yeah, but they left in the middle of the night. Doesn’t that suggest they know something and they’re on their way here?”
“Possibly,” Leo says. “But it’s more likely they’ve gone to Tennessee.”
“Tennessee? Why would they go there?”
“It’s where Robin and I ended up.” He sets his coffee on the end table and crosses one foot over his knee.
“Remember that line of Spanish forts I told you about? That’s as far west as it goes.
And logically, if an Englishman wanted to come this far inland, he’d follow the one trail made by other Europeans.
Especially if he’d heard they’d found gold. ”
Uh, sure, logically. I give my head a slight shake. “Okay, but isn’t it your job to hunt Brier’s guys down?” In Tennessee or Mexico or China or wherever they go?