Chapter 1 #2
“I am physically well but emotionally wrecked,” I said, sounding lifeless. “How are you?”
My dad would’ve laughed to hearing me using manners while handcuffed in the back seat of a police car.
The officer only nodded. “I’m good. And your hand? Didn’t you punch a fairy? They’re harder than they look.”
I frowned down at my hand. Come to think of it, it didn’t look okay. I flexed my fingers. Ow. “Oh. I guess I’m bad on the inside and the outside.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry about this. You’ll probably be released after the boss looks at your file. She’s not influenced by crazy fae, no matter how rich and powerful they are. You can probably make it back to the cemetery before sundown.”
Did I want to go back to see my mother’s glamoured face through the glass lid surrounded by flowers that would stay fresh and enchanted longer than her glamour would last? No. I might shatter the glass, trample the flowers, and scream at my mother for leaving us.
He parked, opened my door, and helped me out. For some reason, I swayed and almost fell over. Maybe because I’d forgotten to eat today. Maybe yesterday. Maybe since Monday when my mother had slipped silently past the shade.
A tear crept down my cheek, dropping onto the front of my funeral dress. She’d insisted that I buy it for her funeral after she was diagnosed with iron poisoning. She wanted me to celebrate her passing instead of mourning. And I wanted her to not die. I guess neither of us got our wishes.
The officer had a hand on my back as he ushered me across the parking lot and to the elevator.
My stomach twisted as we rose until we came out in the main station.
There were goblin guards who looked like elite assassins, the kinds of goblins my dad had taught me to watch out for and avoid.
An enormous ogre female manned the front desk, muscles coming out of her button-up, pale-blue regulation top.
Without sleeves. It looked like she’d ripped them off.
“Lewell, what’s this?” she growled, giving me a broad-tusked smile that put up my hackles. The ogres the fae kept as bodyguards weren’t anything close to this monster in raw brute force.
The police officer barely glanced at her as he picked up a stack of papers. “Assaulted a fairy at a funeral. You know how they are. The fairy’s secretary should be here any time with the charges so he doesn’t have to personally spend his time.”
The ogre gave me another look, this time with interest. “You punched a fairy at a funeral? I don’t like a lot of fairies, but I’m starting to like you.”
“I think I broke a finger,” I said.
She laughed from her gut, a sound that sent shivers down my spine. This ogre should’ve been on a battlefield somewhere, eating dead bodies. Why was she at a police station?
“What’s going on?” a dark-haired woman in a black suit said, the badge on her jacket declaring her to be Lieutenant Sato.
“Were you assaulted?” She looked me up and down, searching for injuries, landing on my hands where they were cuffed.
“You’re a perpetrator?” She bit her bottom lip then nodded firmly, gesturing behind her.
“Come to my office. We’ll get things sorted. ”
Once we were in the square room, she sat behind a desk piled high with manila folders, and I sat across from her, feeling like I was back in school, in the office for bad behavior. I’d tried so hard to be good, but sometimes I’d forgotten.
“Tell me what happened.”
I stared at her, the steady eyes with purple in their depths. “I punched a fairy.”
“Why?”
“He insulted my mother. It was her funeral.”
She sat back, crossed her arms, and scowled. “Wait, you’re telling me the police took you from your mother’s funeral after someone insulted her? Do you want to go back? I’ll take you personally, if you’d like.” She gave me a smile that had a tinge of viciousness to it.
I sniffled, because this wasn’t what I’d expected to get at the police station. Or anywhere, really. “I don’t want to go back unless my dad comes. He’s missing. Ever since she died. He said he’d take care of the funeral, and then he disappeared.”
She reached over the desk, undid the cuffs then clasped my hand in her warm grip, eyes concerned, compassionate. “Then you’re in the right place after all. We’ll help you find your father.”
I blinked rapidly and shook my head while the tears crowded closer and closer to the brink of falling. “It’s fine. I’m sure he’s okay, just doing something… He’s a goblin.”
I braced myself for her reaction.
I didn’t expect her warm smile. “Is he? How lucky to have a goblin father. They’re very clever. I’m married to the goblin king.”
I stared at her while my toes went kind of numb and weird and my tears evaporated. “Oh. That’s lovely.”
The goblin king was my number one person to avoid.
Why? Because fairies and goblins weren’t supposed to be able to have children.
I was an impossibility, particularly with a full-blooded goblin father and strong-blooded fairy mother.
The goblin king’s half-brother had married a fairy, and they would love to have children, so dissecting me was something that could happen.
At the very least, they’d want to study me.
I’d put effort into staying under the radar for more reasons than keeping my job in the fancy department store that catered to the heavenly side of the spectrum.
The dark side was just as prejudiced and twice as dangerous.
“I don’t really want it to get around, my dual nature. It’s problematic at the best of times. Anyway, if we could get on with the processing, that would be great.” I gave her my most polite customer smile.
She studied me. Was she sniffing me? She finally smiled and sat back in her chair. “I’ll issue a formal warning, Miss…?”
“Charles. Kesty Charles.”
“Miss Charles, be certain not to punch a fairy in front of any witnesses. You’re free to go.”
I stood up, relief washing over me. “Do I have to pay a fine?”
“No. You don’t. It’s hard enough paying for a funeral. I hope you have relatives who can help.”
I laughed, but it was choked and unpleasant.
“Do people have relatives who help? I wasn’t aware.
No, they helped hold me until the police came.
” I sighed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to whine, it’s just been a long…
” I bit my lip and held still, hoping the tears would stay inside instead of tumbling down my face like a leaky faucet.
She stood up, handed me a tissue, and walked me to the door.
“Lewell will drive you home, but he’ll stop at The Cat’s Pause on the way for some sushi.
You probably need it with your streak of goblin.
” She grinned at me then held out her hand.
“I’m Rynne. Maybe you’ll come sometime when I’m there and we can chat. ”
I hesitated. I should shut down this offer of… Was it friendship? It felt like it, and she smelled like truth, justice, and empathy. Like she understood standing in two worlds and belonging in neither. But she was married to the goblin king, who I absolutely had to avoid.
But I really should eat. I didn’t want charity, but I had some strawberries in my fridge that I’d been planning on using to make strawberry shortcake for my mother.
I could make Lieutenant Sato something sweet that she’d like, something enchanted to help her bear the weight of justice.
I could thank her when I wasn’t feeling so delicate.
And I needed to clean out my fridge, because the end of the month was coming up, and I needed to find another place, another job, another life.
So much to do when the world was trembling under my feet and the sky was falling. I took her hand and offered her a smile that felt almost honest. “Thanks.”
She grinned back at me. “Hopefully, the next time we meet will be under happier circumstances. Do you need to go to the hospital for a healing spell for your hand?”
I shook my head. The cost of visiting an emergency room was outrageous, and with my mixed blood, it was hard to get magic or medicine to work right on me.
“I’m a quick healer.” That was a lie. I was a very slow healer, almost as slow as a full-blooded human, because my goblin side, which was practically indestructible and a very rapid healer, kept fighting my fairy side, which was also practically indestructible, but not as fast a healer.
My flesh was constantly at war. The one thing all of me agreed on was baking.
Baking magic was the only kind I’d really managed to use.
Maybe I’d find a place that had a better oven, full-sized, dual fuel, a real convection oven. There it was, that streak of optimism I’d inherited from my mother. Well, no sense in being less happy than you had to be.
“If your father doesn’t show up in twenty-four hours, come back, and we’ll help you find him,” Lieutenant Sato said with a professional smile as she handed me over to the nice officer, Lewell.
I nodded and left the police station feeling slightly better than I had when I’d gotten there. Except for my hand. That hurt worse. Still, finding some kindness in the world felt like a gift, maybe from my mother, a little spark of hope and happiness from beyond. And that made everything possible.