have?
“You and I don’t exactly see eye to eye on these things.” Alain hadn’t done anything wrong—at least, not that I’d seen. The image of her tear-streaked face flashed before my eyes, and suddenly I knew I couldn’t let Vance go near her until I’d confirmed if she was guilty or not.
“I don’t harm innocents.” He cast a dismissive look at the dead half-faerie.
“Good to know.” I walked after him, out of the room.
I pondered what we’d found on the long journey back, trying to figure out how in hell to talk to Alain without getting killed or maimed. A spell might help. Aside from truth serums, which were tricky to operate at the best of times and might not even work on half-faeries like they did on humans… Maybe if I sneaked in there without anyone knowing who I was.
Without anyone knowing I was human.
Illusion charms… Isabel did have some. But the ingredients were hard to get hold of, and considering she used beautification charms herself, Alain might see through it. Odds were, I’d be better walking in as Ivy the freelancer and hoping I wouldn’t get attacked this time. Apparently, closing the veil and saving all their hides didn’t get me a free pass to half-faerie land.
I sighed inwardly and sent Isabel a message.
A response came: I need to show you something.
I frowned. Show me what?
I managed to separate the serum in the faerie’s blood and tried a distant tracking spell on it. The results were a little blurry, but maybe you can make more sense of it than I can.
Wait, I messaged back. You tried to see where the serum came from before that half-faerie injected himself with it?
Tried to. It’s the distant past, so it’s pretty indistinct. I think someone sold it to him. I saw someone hand it over, but didn’t see cash exchange hands. The details were blurry, though.
Sold it. Quickly, I told her what we’d discovered. And then, hesitantly, I told her my idea.
There was a long pause. Vance looked at me. “What are you doing?”
“Talking to Isabel,” I said, shifting in my seat. “She tried a tracking spell on the serum. Looks like someone sold it to the half-faerie. Or gave it to him.”
Vance looked preoccupied. “The same person? Or a collective? I’ve asked the mages in the other districts, and there haven’t been any reports of similar incidents.”
“Hmm…” I frowned. “Might be a local thing. Like the faerie equivalent of a drug dealer, promising immortality. That’s messed up.” But if we knew who was selling the stuff, we’d be able to stop it.
All I needed was a way to get into half-blood territory, undetected.
***
The following morning, I checked my phone and found no response to my messages. Dammit, Vance. Should have known better to trust he’d keep his word and tell me his plan. He might be in another meeting, of course, but the guy could summon his phone out of thin air if he wanted to now he was back in the city.
I had bigger problems, anyway.
“I don’t believe I’m doing this,” I muttered.
“Keep still,” said Isabel.
“I am.”
I kept an eye on the edge of the circle I stood in, trying my hardest not to jump out of it. The edges swirled with red smoke, forming unreadable glyphs. I trusted Isabel with the difficult spell, but I’d been standing in the middle of the circle for twenty minutes and I looked exactly the same. The spell was meant to make me appear like a half-faerie—or a passable one.
I tapped my fingers against my crossed arms, watching as Isabel applied another layer of a faint blue powder to the circle, from a glass container. At least a dozen more lay on the side, filled with bright, glittering powders and potions. Words passed her lips, but I didn’t understand a single one. The language was ancient, kept amongst historians and students of ancient magic. Only the witches used it, though I’d seen similar glyphs on the walls of the mages’ headquarters and around the necromancers, too.
A tingling
“You and I don’t exactly see eye to eye on these things.” Alain hadn’t done anything wrong—at least, not that I’d seen. The image of her tear-streaked face flashed before my eyes, and suddenly I knew I couldn’t let Vance go near her until I’d confirmed if she was guilty or not.
“I don’t harm innocents.” He cast a dismissive look at the dead half-faerie.
“Good to know.” I walked after him, out of the room.
I pondered what we’d found on the long journey back, trying to figure out how in hell to talk to Alain without getting killed or maimed. A spell might help. Aside from truth serums, which were tricky to operate at the best of times and might not even work on half-faeries like they did on humans… Maybe if I sneaked in there without anyone knowing who I was.
Without anyone knowing I was human.
Illusion charms… Isabel did have some. But the ingredients were hard to get hold of, and considering she used beautification charms herself, Alain might see through it. Odds were, I’d be better walking in as Ivy the freelancer and hoping I wouldn’t get attacked this time. Apparently, closing the veil and saving all their hides didn’t get me a free pass to half-faerie land.
I sighed inwardly and sent Isabel a message.
A response came: I need to show you something.
I frowned. Show me what?
I managed to separate the serum in the faerie’s blood and tried a distant tracking spell on it. The results were a little blurry, but maybe you can make more sense of it than I can.
Wait, I messaged back. You tried to see where the serum came from before that half-faerie injected himself with it?
Tried to. It’s the distant past, so it’s pretty indistinct. I think someone sold it to him. I saw someone hand it over, but didn’t see cash exchange hands. The details were blurry, though.
Sold it. Quickly, I told her what we’d discovered. And then, hesitantly, I told her my idea.
There was a long pause. Vance looked at me. “What are you doing?”
“Talking to Isabel,” I said, shifting in my seat. “She tried a tracking spell on the serum. Looks like someone sold it to the half-faerie. Or gave it to him.”
Vance looked preoccupied. “The same person? Or a collective? I’ve asked the mages in the other districts, and there haven’t been any reports of similar incidents.”
“Hmm…” I frowned. “Might be a local thing. Like the faerie equivalent of a drug dealer, promising immortality. That’s messed up.” But if we knew who was selling the stuff, we’d be able to stop it.
All I needed was a way to get into half-blood territory, undetected.
***
The following morning, I checked my phone and found no response to my messages. Dammit, Vance. Should have known better to trust he’d keep his word and tell me his plan. He might be in another meeting, of course, but the guy could summon his phone out of thin air if he wanted to now he was back in the city.
I had bigger problems, anyway.
“I don’t believe I’m doing this,” I muttered.
“Keep still,” said Isabel.
“I am.”
I kept an eye on the edge of the circle I stood in, trying my hardest not to jump out of it. The edges swirled with red smoke, forming unreadable glyphs. I trusted Isabel with the difficult spell, but I’d been standing in the middle of the circle for twenty minutes and I looked exactly the same. The spell was meant to make me appear like a half-faerie—or a passable one.
I tapped my fingers against my crossed arms, watching as Isabel applied another layer of a faint blue powder to the circle, from a glass container. At least a dozen more lay on the side, filled with bright, glittering powders and potions. Words passed her lips, but I didn’t understand a single one. The language was ancient, kept amongst historians and students of ancient magic. Only the witches used it, though I’d seen similar glyphs on the walls of the mages’ headquarters and around the necromancers, too.
A tingling
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