TWENTY #2
Aly’s insides frosted over. She’d heard of glamours, of monsters wearing the faces of beautiful humans.
Grant was beautiful—inhumanly so, now she thought about it.
His skin was a little too smooth, like the finest porcelain, his hair always a little bit shinier than a midtone chestnut colour had any right to be.
“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” Calum said. “You’ve likely never seen his true face, but you know the face you see isn’t quite right.”
The words dredged something up from the depths of her memory.
“I think I have seen it,” she said slowly.
“When he was sleeping. It was like . . . I still recognised him, but I wondered why I thought he was attractive. He wasn’t ugly, mind, he was just .
. . plain. The kind of person you wouldn’t notice if he passed you in the street.
Then he awoke and . . . and I couldn’t figure out why I’d doubted. ”
“That’s the glamour, Aly,” Calum said. “It affects your mind. Human magic doesn’t do that, but fae magic does.”
Panic squeezed Aly’s lungs. She shook her head, her breath sawing in and out of her.
“No, he can’t—he can’t be.” She’d worked for a fae, obeyed his instructions even when her every instinct screamed it was immoral, and now—well, now she was stealing from him and betraying him and there was no way that could possibly go wrong.
Nausea rose in her throat and she leant forwards, resting her head in her hands and taking slow, deep breaths.
“I feel like I’m going to boak.” She’d not just accepted a fae into her life, but into her body.
She’d been pregnant once. She’d never told Grant, and she’d terminated it as soon as she found out, but if Grant was fae, that meant that for three weeks she’d had a fae—a monster—growing inside her.
There was a scrape of metal on wood as Calum slid a bucket under her face.
She stared at the scratched and dented copper, willing herself not to vomit in it.
“Can you tell from the glamour what kind of”—she swallowed—“what kind of fae he is?” What kind of creature she’d carried in her womb, might even have borne if she’d made different choices.
The thought sent a fresh wave of nausea through her and she retched, but nothing came up.
“No,” Calum said. “I only saw through the glamour for a second, not long enough to see his true face.”
Aly’s hands trembled. “Well, he looked human. I think.”
“I think he is human. Partly, anyway. He’s likely demi-fae, meaning he has both fae and human ancestry. I’d guess he’s got a fae grandparent or great-grandparent, considering he can do a glamour.”
“So he’s only part mythological monster, and part normal human monster,” Aly said. “That makes me feel so much better.”
Calum let out a sound that was almost a chuckle. “Are you all right?”
Aly lifted her gaze from the copper bucket. Her elbows were on her knees, and she felt as though the entire weight of her body rested on them, too weak to sit up. “Tell me it’s going to be all right. Tell me I’m not making the worst mistake of my life betraying a fucking fae.”
Calum stared at her a long moment, then slowly shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.” Aly’s shoulders caved in and she slumped forwards as he went on, “But I can tell you that I’m not backing out. Knowing he’s fae . . . all that does is make me more determined to see him in prison.”
Aly nodded, her teeth clattering. When had she started shivering?
But she was cold, despite the fire next to her.
The rhythmic sound of Calum’s boots on the wooden floor echoed, then she was enveloped in a woollen blanket, his hands warm on her shoulders.
Aly looked up at him, clutching the edges of the blanket in front of her chest. “How are you so calm?” Calm was perhaps overstating it; he was clearly scared, but he was still able to function, still able to notice she was cold and give her a blanket.
Calum sat, leaning his forearms on his thighs and looking at the fire rather than her as he spoke.
“The fae scare me more than anything else in the world,” he said after a moment, his words slow and measured.
“But it’s not a new fear. That kind of fear .
. . you carry it with you, and you get used to it. ”
Aly’s heartbeat pounded in her chest. “You said you got those weapons from a fae . . .” The full impact of what he’d said hit her like a hammer on an anvil.
Calum’s fingers slid through the white streak above his left ear. “I did.”
“Is that—is that normal? In the Highlands, I mean?” Aly’s fingers tightened in the tassel of her plait. “I mean—no one in Mossburgh believes in the fae, not once they’re past childhood. Everyone thinks they’re just a superstition. No one’s ever seen them.”
“The fae don’t like cities,” Calum said after a moment.
He was still staring into the fire. “They don’t like the noise.
They don’t like the lights or the sheer number of humans about.
And they hate all the iron, in railings and doorknobs and hinges.
” He sucked in a breath, wetting his lips.
“You know the stories, about the fae taking people back to Faerie, and they either never return home, or they get back, but it’s been hundreds of years and everyone they know is gone? ”
Aly nodded, her mouth dry.
Calum’s hands clamped tighter around one another.
“To my knowledge, they’ve not taken anyone from Mossburgh in centuries.
And so, over time, the stories of the fae have turned into, as you said, superstitions, only believed by children and the gullible.
Everyone else knows that the reason you take care near a canal is so you don’t fall in and drown, not so you don’t get dragged under and eaten alive by a shapeshifting fae.
People have stopped believing in the fae here because the fae don’t come here.
” He clenched his jaw. “It’s different in the Highlands.
Every village has its own stories—a child who watched as their sibling was snatched away in the middle of the night, a shepherd who followed a light into a peat bog and barely made it out alive. ”
At that moment the front door creaked open, making them jump. Calum whirled round, his fingers pawing at his chest as though he was expecting to find a weapon there, then he relaxed.
The woman who had just walked in had to be Calum’s sister.
She had the same tall, muscular build, the same stormy grey eyes, the same straight, dark hair, though hers was long enough to plait in a crown around her head.
She wore dark fitted trousers tucked into her boots and a quilted waistcoat over her shirt instead of stays.
Her grey eyes, framed with long, dark lashes, narrowed at Calum. “Why do you look like someone’s died?”
“There’s a fae in town,” Calum said.
His sister raised her eyebrows. “For real this time?” She cut a glance at Aly. “It’s not you, is it?” She held out a hand in greeting. “I’m Sorcha, by the way. Calum’s sister.” She jerked her head at Calum, who had stood and started rummaging in a bookcase.
Aly shook Sorcha’s hand. “I’m Aly, but, uh, could you keep this quiet?” She grimaced. “I’m really not supposed to be here.” Calum trusted his sister, and Aly trusted Calum, and she would have to hope neither of them had misplaced their trust.
“Don’t worry, no one would believe me if I told them Calum had invited someone into his house.” Sorcha flashed an affectionate smirk at her brother’s back. “Other people in his house might touch things. They might even move his pile of books two centimetres to the left.”
Aly grinned, but before she could reply Calum had returned, brandishing a newspaper.
“Here.” The page he held out had an illustration of Grant next to a fluff piece about a charitable fundraiser he’d organised on behalf of the Guild of Brewsters.
“Grant Mercer. One of the most reputable and wealthy members of the Guild of Brewsters. In his spare time, he’s a crime lord who goes by the name of the Wulver. ”
Sorcha took the paper. “And he’s a fae?”
“Aye. I met him earlier. He was glamoured.” Calum tilted his head at Aly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Aly here is his deputy, and she’s my informant, so you never saw her, okay?”
“Of course.” Sorcha looked down at the paper. “So, there’s a fae in town who’s both a dangerous criminal and a wealthy business owner, is that about right?”
“Aye,” Calum said.
Sorcha frowned at the newspaper. “Well, fuck.”