Chapter 27
Pain… that was the first thing Spencer became aware of. A deep, pounding ache behind his eyes that felt suspiciously like someone had attempted to cave his skull in with a brick.
Which, in all honestly, was not outside the realm of possibility. Spencer groaned softly, forcing his eyes open, and immediately regretted his decision. The room spun violently, making his feel instantly nauseous.
“Fantastic,” he muttered hoarsely. He was still in the Ferret’s Mott.
In their room, and he was still dressed, collapsed sideways across the bed like someone had simply dropped him there and hoped for the best. His memory came back slowly.
Fragments at first from the bar. The stranger who had joined them with gold eyes and his brother being unusually agreeable for once.
That should have been the first warning sign.
But he had trusted his brother and accepted the drink… but then… nothing.
Not nothing, Spencer frowned hard as flashes returned. A hand gripping his shoulder and the sudden heaviness in his limbs. His beer tasting slightly bitter and then darkness.
Spencer went utterly still. “No.”
The word came out rough and disbelieving, and his stomach dropped violently.
Drugged.
His own brother had drugged him. Spencer shoved himself upright too quickly. The room lurched hard sideways. He barely managed not to fall straight back onto the floor.
“Shit.”
His pulse thundered now, adrenaline slicing brutally through the fog in his head. The note he had watched his brother and the stranger write. A trap for Edith…
“Mark…” Understanding hit all at once.
The stranger, all of the questions and the pushing, it was to drive a wedge between them. Mark had believed it, all of it, had drank it up and actually believe that he was compromising the job, deciding to put himself out of commission and act on his own.
Spencer stumbled off the bed violently, his legs barely cooperating beneath him. The drugs still clawed at his system, slowing everything down just enough to make movement feel like dragging himself through deep water.
He nearly hit the floor, but somehow caught himself hard against the wall. He tried to take deep breaths, fighting back nausea before he attempted to move again, to try and fix this clusterfuck.
“Idiot,” he snarled at himself, and at his brother as well as the entire situation… because Edith had trusted him. Even though she had no reason to, now she was walking straight into a trap wearing his name.
Spencer forced himself forward and out of the room.
Somehow, he made it down the stairs. The Ferret’s Mott blurred around him as he shoved through it, half-drugged and furious, earning startled looks from several early risers.
Spencer didn’t stop, he didn’t have the time to explain to anyone who may have been interested, although most would have just thought of him as still drunk.
By the time he hit the street, dawn had barely begun bleeding properly across the horizon, and the cold air hit him hard. It seemed to help… a little but not nearly enough.
He staggered once before catching himself against the side of a building, nausea twisting sharply through him. He needed to keep moving, Edith was alone and if the stranger truly was who Spencer suspected, then she was in serious danger.
Spencer’s jaw clenched so hard it hurt and he pushed forward again. Toward Krakens Hollow and towards the only people who might know where she was.
The Hollow came into view through the lingering morning mist, lights still dim inside. Spencer hit the front door hard enough to rattle the frame.
“Edith!” he shouted. No answer, so he banged again this time louder. “Open the damn door!”
Finally, there was movement inside. Voices filtered through the wood as well as footsteps. The door swung open to reveal Maeve in oversized pyjamas and enough irritation to kill lesser men.
“What in the ever-loving fu—” She stopped and blinked at him. Because Spencer probably looked awful. Sweating and pale as well as barely upright.
Behind her, Arietta appeared immediately, magic already crackling faintly around her fingers in suspicion. “Well, this looks concerning,” she muttered.
“I need to see Edith,” Spencer said immediately.
Maeve crossed her arms. “At dawn?”
“Yes.”
“Suspicious.”
“Whatever,” Spencer snapped, forcing the words through the lingering grogginess, “Please. I need to see her now.” Something in his tone must have landed.
“She’s asleep,” Maeve said slowly.
Spencer’s stomach dropped.
“No, I don’t think she is,” he said immediately, and Maeve frowned.
“What do you mean no?”
“She’s not.”
Arietta narrowed her eyes.
“How would you know that?”
Because she got a note supposedly from me because my brother drugged me and I think he just handed her directly to the male she ran from… Spencer didn’t say that aloud, he just swallowed hard against the nausea rising again and said, “She’s in danger.”
Silence crashed down instantly. Maeve’s expression sharpened violently, Arietta moved first. She disappeared down the hallway toward Jessica’s room.
The seconds stretched unbearably. Spencer fought to stay standing, using the door frame to hold himself up. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to move, to find her and fix the mess he had caused.
Arietta returned, and only one look at her face told Spencer everything, confirming his own fears.
“She’s gone.”