Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
DAPHNE
L ater that night, I return to Fletcher-Wilson, pausing on the sidewalk outside the office. Fletcher-Wilson is closed now, as are most of the other buildings on Verbena Street. There are a few other pedestrians around, along with plenty of coach traffic, but I can’t fight the tightness in my shoulders. I rarely go into town at night. Certainly not to mysterious locations alone.
Though…I supposedly won’t be alone.
I cast my gaze around, keeping my ears attuned in anticipation of fluttering wings. Araminta said to meet her outside the office at a quarter to nine, and since I don’t have any other close friends in town, she’s my best option for company. Hopefully I don’t regret it.
I step closer to the building, peering through the wide front window that reveals a pitch-black lobby. I’m not too concerned that Araminta has been locked inside. She may look like a pixie and her body and wings may be comprised of paper, but she is, at her barest essence, a book sprite. And since sprites are spiritual creatures, she can probably float through walls if she chooses to.
“Looking for me?”
I bite back a yelp and whirl around. A young woman stands there, towering over me by several inches. She has pointed ears, pale lilac hair arranged in a single long braid, and the most extravagant black gown in a style that hasn’t been fashionable for at least a decade. Her sly grin is all that sparks recognition.
I pull my head back. “Araminta?”
“Why are you surprised? I said I’d be here.” Her voice retains some of its girlish quality but with a depth it didn’t possess in her tiny body.
“I’m surprised because you look like this,” I say, gesturing from her head to the hem of her gown.
She titters, which tells me this is Araminta. “I’m not going to enjoy a night on the town in my unseelie form. Honestly, Daphne, what a silly concept.”
I assess her again, still trying to reconcile the tiny paper sprite with this eccentric beauty who stands before me now. There’s no sign of her wings, no parchment lashes. Is this how my friends and acquaintances felt when they first saw me in seelie form? “Why is your hair purple?”
She gives me a confused half smile. “I don’t know. Why is your hair black?”
I open my mouth only to snap it shut. I see her point. While I expected her hair to resemble the paper strands she has in her unseelie form, I can’t say my hair looks like my pine marten fur either. I’m gray-brown in my unseelie form with a cream throat and underbelly. Even though some fae retain similar features from one form to the other, not all do. Apparently, Araminta and I are the kinds of fae who don’t.
I turn my attention to her black dress, scanning her overly puffed leg-of-mutton sleeves and the ridiculously high neck of her bodice. “You look like an old widow.”
“Why, thank you.”
“Where did you even get a mourning gown like that?”
She pulls a face like I’m daft. “An old widow, obviously. I would have been naked if I hadn’t procured a dress.”
I narrow my eyes. “Where did you happen to get a dress from an old widow?”
“I didn’t get it from her . I got it from her house. She was very dead, so I don’t think she minded much.”
“You stole a gown. From a dead woman.”
“Her will hasn’t been read yet. Until then, her things don’t belong to anyone.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works. Furthermore, how did you come to know about a newly dead widow and the status of her will?”
“The Cedar Hills Gazette obituaries, of course. Such an informative publication.” She does a twirl, showing off her voluminous skirts. As she faces me again, she takes a whiff of her sleeve, lashes fluttering. “You know, the clothing of dead people smells almost as good as paper.”
“You are positively morbid. Is it too late to cancel my night?”
Ignoring me, Araminta links her arm through mine. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to be out on the town with my best friend.”
I grumble under my breath as she starts skipping, dragging me along in her wake, and drawing the judging eyes of a dour-looking businessman.
Despite how my cheeks flush, it’s oddly refreshing not being the most socially inept person around. At the very least, my current embarrassment distracts me from my anxiety over our unknown destination.
I double-check the address on the piece of paper. Then triple-check it for good measure. Yet there it is, the location of Monty’s mysterious solution to my model problem. It’s a blocky three-story building of crumbling brick nestled in the industrial district not far from Fletcher-Wilson’s printing warehouse. The only reason I know we’re in the right place is because the crooked sign at the top of the building that reads Tamisen’s Textiles also bears the address. Yet I know Tamisen’s Textiles closed last year after a fire swept through the interior, burning up every scrap of fabric and resulting in the company’s bankruptcy. Not to mention the wire fence that surrounds the building’s property with warning signs stating it’s been condemned. So why the hell are there so many people here?
A crowd gathers before the door as figures enter the building one at a time. Most of the patrons are men, though there are several women amongst them too, many of which are dressed like me in casual slacks and blouses. Not a soul is outfitted in a mourning gown, but Araminta doesn’t seem at all concerned that she’s overdressed.
“There are so many people here,” she says, her eyes alight with wonder as we hover on the sidewalk, neither of us daring to take a step through the gap in the wire fence that will lead us to the building. “Do you think it’s an orgy after all? I looked that word up in the dictionary this evening. It sounds fun!”
“No,” I say, a note of scolding in my tone. Not for the first time, I think of turning back. Yet my curiosity is too strong. I may be anxious around crowds and strangers, but my fascination with the unknown has always been prominent. It’s what drew me to human society in the first place. After the fae won the last human-fae war and united both peoples for the first time in over a thousand years, I got my first look at a human city. It was terrifying. Enormous. All hard lines and clashing noise. Fleshy bodies, strange scents, undetectable dangers all around. But there was something else I discovered, amidst all the grotesque new sights.
Art.
Stunning statues, hand-painted pottery, galleries filled with paintings with gilded frames, each piece capturing a moment in time or a scene only one’s imagination could convey.
What a beautiful terror that was to behold.
That terror stuck with me, even after I returned to my village in the unseelie forest. It burrowed deep inside my heart until it transformed into a thrill. A thirst. An unrelenting hunger. I needed to see that art again. To understand it. Like the first time I sought to hunt prey larger than a squirrel, I was invigorated.
I feel some of that now. A need to know what’s inside that building. A pull drawing me closer to my source of fear and fascination.
Before I can lose my nerve, I take a step toward the gap in the fence. “Let’s go.”
We follow a pair of seelie fae with humanoid bodies and mossy hair through the fence and head toward the building until we merge with the back of the crowd. I flutter my fingers at my sides, expelling some of my anxiety. I’m tempted to shrink into my pine marten form, an urge I always get when I’m nervous, and it grows when I spot a pair of raccoons—fae in their unseelie forms—darting between ankles and sneaking toward the front. So badly I want to shift and call after them, Wait, I’m like you! We’re the same! Let’s go together.
But we’re not the same, and I’m not going to shift. When I decided to adopt seelie form full-time, I vowed to stop shrinking when I’m scared.
We reach the front of the crowd, and a fae male greets us from behind a ragged podium perched just before the closed door. So far I’ve only glimpsed a sliver of dim light during the short intervals when the door opens to allow guests, so I still haven’t a clue what lies inside. The buzz of conversation around me hasn’t given me any indication either, as most are talking about their workday or other casual topics.
The fae male extends his hand over the podium. I glance from his open palm to his face. He’s slightly taller than me and covered entirely with golden-brown fur. His ears are pointed, though in a completely different way from most seelie fae. Instead of a fleshy angled shell, he has elongated fur-covered ovals, shorter than a rabbit’s but longer than a mouse’s. Like a kangaroo, perhaps? That would explain his broad torso and the bulge of his biceps beneath his shirt. It suddenly occurs to me how much he looks like the male figures I draw. Human-shaped, but quite animal in nature.
If only Edwina wrote about heroes like him, I’d be a stellar artist.
I assess his open hand again—his very human-shaped hand, albeit a hairy one, so maybe I can’t draw heroes like him after all—but still don’t know what he wants. A handshake? I hesitate before placing my palm in his, then startle as a chuckle escapes his lips.
“Payment,” he says. “It’s six emerald chips tonight.”
I snatch my hand back. Damn it all. Leave it to me to misunderstand such a gesture. I smooth my palms over my waistcoat, seeking which pocket I might have put my chip purse in. Did I even bring it? “I, uh, I wasn’t aware this was a paid event. I was invited by someone, and he didn’t tell me?—”
“You’re on the guest list then? What’s your name?”
“Oh, uh, it’s Daphne.”
“Right,” he says, nodding at a list upon his podium. “There you are. A special guest indeed. You’ve even got your own table. Number eight on the second floor. And your friend?”
Araminta flutters her lilac lashes and sinks into a formal curtsy. “Lady Araminta of the Shining Waters.”
His mouth quirks sideways. “I don’t see a Lady Araminta, but Miss Daphne has a plus-one. Go ahead.” He raps his knuckles on the closed door, and it swings open.
I exchange a glance with Araminta, who beams back at me. Before I can think better of it, she ushers me inside the building. The lighting is so dim I almost miss the enormous fae male who stands beside the door, curling horns on each side of his head. “Enjoy your night,” he says in a surprisingly sweet tone.
Araminta links her arm through mine like she did on our walk here, and this time I don’t mind. Because I need to hold onto something as the narrow hall opens to an enormous space. Chatter and laughter fill the air, along with shouts of “Place your bets here!” from figures holding large rectangular boxes. The scent of sweat, ale, tobacco smoke, and the distinct aroma of year-old cinders invades my nostrils, yet there’s no sign of the burned-down textile factory this place once was. Instead of being crowded with machinery, the floor is open save for the bodies mingling animatedly, an air of anticipation sizzling around them.
My shoulders climb high as I fold in on myself, my senses overwhelmed by all the new sights, sounds, and smells. Araminta’s arm through mine is all that keeps me from covering my ears.
“Second floor,” Araminta says, pointing to the side and dragging me toward a rickety metal staircase. We weave through bodies until we reach a balcony that lines the interior walls of the building. There’s a third-floor balcony overhead, and neither this floor nor the one above offers more than a flimsy metal railing to keep its occupants from spilling over the ledge. I give the edge a wide berth, pressing myself close to the safety of the wall as we proceed down the walkway. My pulse increases the further we go and the more people I brush against in my attempt to reach our destination. The kangaroo fae from the entrance said I have a reserved table, but the only tables I see are farther down. Thankfully, that’s also where the crowds are thinnest.
My nerves settle somewhat once we reach a faded velvet rope that partitions the table area. I have to give my name to a human female dressed in a black suit before we can pass it. I’m sweating by the time we settle in at table eight, a crooked piece of furniture with a tattered red tablecloth. My pulse begins to calm now that I’m seated, but I’m still struggling to process the sounds, sights, and smells that assault me from every angle.
I pull my attention to my immediate surroundings, seeking a narrower range of view to give me some semblance of comfort. My gaze lands on a glass lamp at the center of the table. It’s filled with fluttering orbs of yellow light—fire sprites. As I lift my eyes, I find more flying overhead or filling the enormous glass orb that hangs from the ceiling, providing the only source of illumination. Only now do I realize there’s no electricity in this building. Electricity is a relatively modern invention, harnessing the magic of the ley lines that crisscross the isle of Faerwyvae, yet most modern establishments use it. Certainly Tamisen’s Textiles does.
Or…did.
Wouldn’t the electricity still work despite the fire, since all that burned down was cloth?
Then it hits me. We’re in an illegal operation.
The rundown building, wire fence, and lack of event signage should have tipped me off.
I leap up from my chair, sending its legs screeching behind me. “We need to go,” I hiss at Araminta.
“What? Why?”
“We might get arrested.”
“Oh, how novel!”
“No one is getting arrested.” The familiar voice accompanies a gentle hand that lands on my shoulder. I angle my head to find Monty Phillips beside me, his dimpled grin on full display. “I assure you, this is all perfectly legal.”
“Yes, well, what exactly is this ?”
“You’ll see.” His palm leaves my shoulder, and his other comes forward, bearing what I at first think is a bouquet. Instead, it’s a puff of pink candy floss on a stick. With a mocking bow, he extends it to me and adopts a haughty tone. “For you, miss.”
I can’t help but humor him with a grin. As I accept the confection, he nods toward the railing. “You’ll want a closer view. Trust me.”