Chapter 29

A dark Porsche pulled to a stop and the window rolled down, showing my father’s profile. Well, actually, showing his fae-mien’s profile, but one couldn’t expect the governor and prominent member of the Humans First Party to be seen in the Quarter picking up a glowing woman. I climbed to my feet slowly, using the crates I’d been hiding behind as leverage to pull myself up.

“This is becoming a habit, Alexis,” my father said, and I cringed at his use of my name.

I’d become accustomed to hearing it on Falin’s lips. Hearing it said in such a disapproving tone cut. Of course, I may never hear Falin say my name again.

My father glanced at me. When he wore his human glamour he was a respectably middle-aged man with dark brown hair and eyes. It always made me wonder where my sister and I got our coloring. Without his glamour it was obvious, his pale hair shimmered the same color blond as mine. I also had his green eyes. I looked away. I didn’t like seeing the similarities.

“Alexis, you could have called a cab.”

“Stop calling me that.”

He frowned, a flicker of confusion crossing his brow. It was the first real emotion he’d shown since I’d climbed into his car. “It is your name.”

“Yeah, well, just don’t use it, okay?”

“Shall I call you daughter dearest?”

I shot him my best death glare, which didn’t faze him in the least.

“My, my, aren’t we in a mood.”

“Did you miss the fact I’m glowing?”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.” He shrugged as if glowing were no big deal. Of course, as he was unglamoured he also shimmered. “You’re Sleagh Maith. This is our natural state. Though I must say, I’m quite surprised the glamour is failing so quickly. What have you been doing with yourself?”

Dancing in Faerie rings, playing their games, oh yeah, and eating their food. I cut off my sarcastic inner monologue as the implications of what he’d said sank in.

“Wait, what glamour?”

He didn’t answer as he switched gears and headed over the bridge that separated what most people considered the “witchy” side of town from the rest of Nekros.

“What glamour,” I asked again, “and how do I get it back?”

His fae face was as good at giving completely disinterested glances as his human one.

I ground my teeth but neither of us spoke for a long time, until I realized he was headed toward his mansion. The last time I’d called for help he’d dumped me in the mercy of an overly opinionated brownie at a ramshackle house in an old neighborhood.

“Going to risk being seen with me, huh?” I asked, and noticed that he once again wore his respectable gentleman glamour. If I had to guess, I’d also assume that the Porsche had changed colors and tags. My father’s skill at glamour was second only to his ability to manipulate those around him.

“You called me for a reason, Alexis.”

“Because I need not to be glowing?” I said as he pulled the car into the long drive.

When he stopped in front of the mansion he called a house, he turned, watching me expectantly. I knew what he wanted me to say, but the voice in the back of my head kept screaming that no, I wasn’t a fae, I couldn’t possibly…

I sighed. “I need to learn glamour.”

He nodded as if satisfied. Then, leaving the keys in the car, he climbed out and headed for the front door. He didn’t offer me a hand or wait, but he also didn’t rush. I extracted myself from the car much slower, reluctant to enter the oversized house.

The gate guard had called ahead and a man rushed from the house, sprinting for the idling car. Another man, presumably the butler who’d replaced Rodger, opened the front door. My father nodded a greeting to the man before he led me into the enormous receiving room. Neither the disused chauffeur nor the butler stared as I passed, and while expensive help was trained not to pay too much attention, I was guessing if I glowed they wouldn’t have been able to help themselves. Which meant my father must have extended his glamour to me when he changed the car and himself.

Good to know. As that immediate problem was solved, at least temporarily, one other rather pressing issue worried along the edge of my mind.

“Do you have any food?” I asked, and my father paused at the base of the marble staircase he’d been about to mount.

“Yes, Alexis, I have food.” The look he gave me could only be described as calculated curiosity. “I take it you would like to break your fast?”

He had no idea. I’d had one potentially life changing sip of wine, and I needed to know if…if I could still consume human food. My father’s studying gaze appeared to see straight through my skin, and I rescinded my earlier thought. Maybe he did know. I shifted uncomfortably, but when I nodded that I did indeed want breakfast, he turned to the butler who, in good invisible but always at hand mode, stepped forward.

“Would the young lady like to take her breakfast in the sunroom?” he asked, addressing my father, not me.

“That’s fine, but something light and quick.”

And that’s my father. No consultation with me. I didn’t care, as long as it was real food.

This house had never been my home. I spent parts of my summers here as a child, but that didn’t create any warm fuzzy feelings in me, and my more recent memories of the place were far from happy. Which was a major understatement. Terrifying would be far more accurate. But I still remembered where the sunroom was. I didn’t need a guide or a chaperone. I got one anyway, my father leading me to a beautifully decorated sitting room with a large bay window facing east so the morning sun filtered in, casting the room in a warm hue.

Casey, my sister, sat at a small dinette, a mostly untouched muffin sitting beside a half-filled glass of orange juice. A paper lay on the table in front of her, claiming more of her attention than the food.

“Morning, Daddy, did you see this article on—” She looked up and stopped abruptly, pushing to her feet. “Alexis, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

I bet she hadn’t. It had been months since I’d seen my sister. She’d asked to see me when she’d been in the hospital recovering from the fallout of being the intended sacrifice in a megalomaniac’s ritual. I’d gone to see her once or twice at the private—and very discreet—hospital my father had placed her in, but on my last visit she’d told me she wanted to forget what had happened. Her chilly demeanor made it clear that she considered me a reminder. It wasn’t like we’d ever been close, so I’d made a polite good-bye and left. I hadn’t seen her since.

“Hello, Casey. You look good,” I told her, though I could feel the concealment charms she wore and I knew at least forty percent of her body, particularly her torso, was covered in scars. The glyphs that had been carved into her skin had a power of their own, so the doctors had to excise parts of them to make sure the glyphs remained inert.

Casey was everything I wasn’t. Where I had the height and sharper lines of the Sleagh Maith, she was a good head shorter with abundant curves that she usually dressed to accent. Not today. Her clothes were loose fitting and covered everything but her hands and her face. The concealment charms could hide the physical scars, but I wondered if she’d ever again be comfortable in her own skin.

She blinked at me, not acknowledging my words. Then she turned away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at me.

“Is there something you wanted to tell me, dear?” my father asked, his voice nothing if not the epitome of patience.

He never used that tone with me. I tried not to hold it against Casey.

“It can wait,” she said, and then, leaving her barely touched food, she swept out of the room.

I listened to the retreating click of her heels. “She hates me.”

“Does it matter?” His voice was once again empty, dispassionate.

I shook my head at him. “Sometimes I wonder how I ever believed you were human.”

“An unkind thing to say.”

Yeah, to the other fae I know.

I was saved any further awkward conversation by the older gentleman entering the room with a large blueberry muffin and a tray with coffee. The man glanced at Casey’s hastily abandoned food. “Should I take the remainder of Miss Casey’s food to her suite?”

At my father’s nod, the man gathered the food and silently excused himself from the room.

I sank into the seat opposite from where Casey had been and poured my coffee into the too dainty cup. Then I hesitated. What if I can’t eat mortal food anymore? I broke a section of the sugar-encrusted muffin top free, but I didn’t eat it. I was starving, but as soon as I tried it, that was it. If I’d become addicted to Faerie food, there would no longer be the hope I wasn’t.

“For goodness sake, Alexis, just eat the food. It doesn’t matter what you did at the revelry. You blooded true as Sleagh Maith. You are fae.”

I blinked at him, the break of muffin nearly falling from my fingers. He shook his head.

“Do you think I don’t know what the date is? Now eat. I don’t have all morning to waste on you.”

Nice to know I’m important. I popped the piece of muffin in my mouth. Not only did it not turn to ash, but it was absolutely delicious, the relief making it one of the best things I’d ever tasted. I polished off the rest of my breakfast quickly, and then followed my father out of the sunroom and upstairs.

I expected him to lead me to his office or a sitting room. Hell, maybe even my old suite. Instead he stopped in front of the last door I expected—or wanted to walk through. He pulled out a ring of keys, and unlocked the deadbolt securing the suite that until three months ago had belonged to my sister. That was before a dark ritual had been performed in her bedroom and I’d unintentionally torn reality apart.

“Um, why are we going in there?” I asked, hearing the slightly too high pitch in my voice. Casey and I both had nearly died in that room. I still had nightmares about bodies decaying under my touch as a swollen red moon hung overhead.

“Because what you need to learn will be easier taught inside.” His eyes cut sideways, as if ensuring the hall was empty. Then he traced a glyph into the door, just above the lock. The unfamiliar glyph glowed green for a moment, but though I’d recently become more sensitive to fae magic, I felt nothing from the glowing symbol, even when it faded and the door popped open.

I held my breath as I followed my father inside. The sitting room wasn’t bad. Nothing had happened there—it was the bedroom where everything had gone down. And that was exactly where he led me. My steps grew heavier the closer we walked to the bedroom door, so by the time I reached the threshold, I could no longer lift my feet, and I stood frozen outside the door.

Casey’s furniture had been removed from the room, but the division where Coleman’s circle had been drawn was obvious. On the outside of that line, the room was a normal room with plush carpeting and tasteful wallpaper. Inside, now that was a different story. Inside that circle reality looked like a child’s finger painting—if the child were insane. The Aetheric broke into reality in large, color-filled blotches. In other places, the decaying stain of the land of the dead leaked into our world. Emotional imprints, old ones ranging the gambit of emotions from Casey’s many years in the suite, to the raw pain and horror from that night, stained the room.

“Don’t dawdle.”

Easy for him to say.

But if following him into the backdrop of half my nightmares was what it took to stop glowing, I could do it. After all, I’d survived what happened here. And I’d faced real nightmares—the creatures, not just the dreams. I could face an empty room.

I stepped over the edge of the circle, ready to be assaulted by my own memories. Instead a gentle warmth slid over my skin. The air seemed thicker, more real. Somewhere in the distance I heard laughter, music. It felt like…Faerie?

I looked up, sure enough a sky filled with early-morning sunlight replaced what from outside the circle had been a ceiling. And not only that, but the shadows in the room disappeared. I turned a small circle, trying to see everything at once.

“It feels like home, doesn’t it?” my father said.

I froze. He was watching me, a bemused expression on his face—his fae face. He’d dropped his glamour again.

“I don’t understand. Faerie and mortal reality don’t overlap.”

“Coleman’s spell created a tenuous, unstable pocket of Faerie. I believe your magic cemented it in reality.” He walked a weaving path across the room to a small stone bench surrounded by containers of flowers I’d never seen the likes of before and could only guess were native to Faerie.

“You come here a lot, don’t you?”

He ignored the question, instead motioning to the spot beside him. “I don’t have a lot of free time, so let’s not dally, but do mind the dead zones. The clothes will rot off your body if you touch them.”

I was aware of that fact, but that he knew confirmed he visited this chaotic pocket more than occasionally. I knew he was in deep hiding, and that he hadn’t attended the revelry, so the fact he came here and described it as home somehow made him seem more like a person with actual emotions and stuff.

“Why here?” I asked as I wove my way to the bench. The heady embrace of Faerie held back the threatening panic attack, but I could almost feel the tightening of a remembered soul chain around my throat, the sting of a knife biting into my torso.

“Because Faerie will accept glamour more readily than mortal reality. Think of this space as your training wheels.”

Right.

My father then spent the next twenty minutes explaining the basic principles of glamour to me followed by an hour of trying to teach me how to feel Faerie’s magic. I was sensitive to Aetheric magic, and I was growing sensitive to fae magic as well, but reaching out and actually touching that very foreign energy? That was something different altogether.

Unlike Aetheric magic, which took ritual to reach and then had to be used or stored, Faerie magic was readily available but it was like water flowing through a grate. It couldn’t be stored. It was drawn as needed and passed through the user, bending to their will, and left nothing behind. In the mortal realm, iron blocked the magic and it was thinnest at dawn and sunset. Too much disbelief in a concentrated area could not only break glamour—it could thin Faerie’s influence.

The sun was high in the sky by the time I managed to pull the thinnest sliver of Faerie magic. It felt as soft as silk but had a strange weight as it entered my body, which wasn’t exactly unpleasant, just odd.

“Good, now imagine your skin a normal, human tone,” my father said.

My teeth were gritted from the hours spent attempting to reach the magic, so the fact his instructions made me laugh was more from tension than amusement. “Trust me, imagining myself not glowing isn’t hard. I shouldn’t be glowing in the first place.”

Except as I tried to direct that thin sliver of hard-won magic, it floated away from me without any noticeable change.

My father shook his head. “No, that’s disbelief, not belief. You can’t disbelieve the truth away. You can cover the truth, you can create something new, but either way you have to believe what you are creating.”

“So what you’re saying is that all faeries are delusional. Great. No wonder it’s the crazy ones that are in charge.”

He frowned at me, and then letting his hands fall to his thighs, stood. “I think that’s enough for today.”

“What? But I’m still glowing.”

“Did you expect to learn glamour in a few hours?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but stopped. The truth was, I’d hoped he’d tell me what the hell was going on and make me stop glowing. “Can’t you just…” I waved my shimmering fingers.

“If I glamoured you, it would only last until sunset. But why bother, or take the risk someone could trace my glamour back to me? I can’t hide you from the courts anymore—you’ve spoiled that completely.”

Why bother? Why bother? I glared at him. “Because I’m running a business under an OMIH certification. The ‘H’ in that stands for human, and humans don’t glow.”

His expression of detached disinterest persisted. Not that I expected anything more from him. Unless he was talking to lobbyists or potential voters, it was his most common expression. That thought made me pause, and I could feel just how devious the slow smile that crawled over my face must look.

Judging by the sudden spark of interest in my father’s eyes, I wasn’t wrong. When I just sat there, that smile still claiming my face, he broke the silence first.

“Yes?”

“You should bother,” I said, the words as slow and meticulous as my smile, “because if you don’t make me stop glowing, I’m going to call Lusa Duncan at Witch Watch and give her an exclusive about being your daughter.” I cocked my head to the side, gazing up at him. “I heard you’re planning to run as the presidential candidate for the Humans First Party. Just imagine the scandal when the story goes national, which I imagine would be, oh, dinner time-ish.”

He stared at me. I stared back. Making threats against the person I needed help from could backfire, but whatever his “long game” plans, as he called it, his political career somehow played into the scheme. I gambled it was one of the few things he cared about.

I wasn’t sure what response I expected from him, but it certainly wasn’t for him to smile. And not the false friendly controlled smile that the politician wore, but a smile that spoke of mischief and made his eyes light with amusement.

“An admirable attempt, Alexis. Flawed and doomed to fail, but quick and targeted.” He almost sounded proud. I was never going to understand the man. He pursed his lips, staring at me, and then said, “Stay here a moment.”

He left me sitting in the chaotic mess. I’d been in the room so long, the panic had been forced to either ebb or send me into a breakdown. Since I’d been busy trying to draw magic I’d never used before, I’d been too focused to panic, but now that I was alone, I couldn’t help noticing my location again.

Think about something else, Alex.

I stood, no longer able to sit still. It wasn’t until I’d paced a full circle around the bench, my arms wrapped tight around myself, that I realized I was touching the edge of the bullet wound in my arm. It didn’t hurt. In fact, I realized that aside from when Falin had gripped me with the intention of causing pain, I’d barely noticed it since before the revelry. I peeled the gauze away and marveled at the pink and white edges of the wound. It looked weeks old, not a day. Even the OMIH-approved healing spell in the dressing couldn’t cause it to heal that fast.

“You’ll heal faster inside Faerie,” my father said from the doorway, and I jumped. I hadn’t heard him enter. I clumsily pressed the gauze back in place as he wove his way through the maze of Aetheric and dead-zone holes. “You probably heal faster than human normal in the mortal realm, but not by much. Faerie’s magic isn’t strong enough to combat the iron and the human belief in how long it takes to heal.”

“So if Faerie is so great, why are you here?” I wasn’t expecting an answer, so I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t receive so much as an eye twitch from him.

“Here.” He held out a hand. In his palm was a necklace that glittered like silver but the small rectangular charm was inscribed with fae glyphs so I guessed it was the same metal as my dagger.

It was also very familiar. I reached out and touched the edge of the charm. It was warm. Not like it had absorbed my father’s heat but like it pulsed with its own energy.

“That was Mother’s, wasn’t it?”

My father frowned. “She wore it for a while.”

A dodgy response.

He touched something on the charm, and what had seemed a solid piece opened to reveal a small compartment. “It needs your blood and hair.”

I cringed. “And what does it do exactly?” I hated magic that involved blood. Yes, it personalized charms and made them stronger, but the pain and ick factor aside, that same ability to create a powerful link with a good charm made blood a dangerous connection if used for less virtuous spells.

“It will help conceal what you are. Which includes dampening your glow so you appear human.”

I regarded the charm. “Mother needed it?”

“In the end, it turned out not to be enough.” No sorrow or loss touched his voice. “Until you can use glamour properly, it should be sufficient. It won’t protect you from iron though. Now that you are fully awakened and the last layer of the spell has been stripped away, you’ll be more susceptible.”

More? Being around it already made me uncomfortable to the point of feeling ill. But more important, what spell? He’d alluded to the fact I’d been glamoured before, and now layers of a spell?

When I asked he gave me one of his meaningless smiles but no answer. Great. I reached for the charm, but he pulled it out of reach, and looked at me expectantly. I sighed. He hadn’t offered me anything to prick my finger, so I leaned down, pulling my dagger from my boot. To my surprise, he looked pleased when he saw it.

“Has it bonded to you yet?”

I froze, willing my expression blank. The dagger had been a gift from Rianna when I’d graduated from academy. I’d never shown it to my father and he surely hadn’t seen enough of it to identify it. So what did he know about it. And how?

He watched me, that neutral look on his face as if he didn’t care if I answered him or not. I made a mental note to question Rianna about where the daggers had come from. I knew that mine was part of a matching set that she’d been gifted, but I was now extremely curious by whom.

Without answering my father’s question, I focused on cutting the tip of one curl and then pricking my finger without allowing the dagger to bite too deep. For once, the dagger behaved. I placed the small lock of hair in the charm and squeezed out a single drop of blood. He held up a hand before my blood could drip into the small compartment.

“That is for something else,” he said, snapping the charm closed. He flipped it over. The faint outline of glyph was carved into the back. “Trace this with your blood.”

I hesitated, staring at the unfamiliar glyph. This wasn’t just personalizing a charm. This was blood magic.

“What does it mean?”

The name of the glyph rolled off his tongue like a musical note, which didn’t tell me anything about what it was or did. When I didn’t make any move to do as told, he sighed.

“A rough translation would be ‘chameleon.’ Now you’ve stopped bleeding so you’ll need to open the wound again.”

I glanced at my finger. He was right: the drop of blood had dried, turning flaky. Damn. I didn’t trust the dagger to behave as well a second time. Of course, I wasn’t sold on the charm yet either. Blood magic combined with glyphs I didn’t understand? A dangerous combination.

“What’s the worst possible outcome from the glyph and charm?”

He thought for a moment. “The charm isn’t a controlled glamour. You aren’t choosing how you appear to people—they are seeing what they expect. As long as they assume you are human, you will appear as such. If they believe you are not human…” He shrugged.

“Will I be able to tell what they see?”

“Only by their reaction.”

Great. Perception charms were something I understood, even if this one was a little different from a witch’s charm. I drew the dagger again. I still wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but as I couldn’t use glamour, this was the best option. After pricking my finger, I reached for the charm.

“Do I need to channel Faerie’s magic to activate the glyph or will Aetheric energy work?” I hoped the latter would be sufficient—I might have to bleed myself several more times before I managed to draw on Faerie’s magic again.

“Neither. You are Sleagh Maith. The magic of Faerie runs through your veins. Your blood will be enough to activate the glyph.”

Right. My finger felt large and clumsy as I traced the intricate glyph, smearing blood more than drawing anything recognizable, but as I added the last line, Faerie’s magic moved through me, pouring into the charm. The metal warmed, not exactly an uncomfortable heat, but noticeable. I slid the necklace over my head and the light in my skin faded. I let out a sigh of relief before tucking the charm under my shirt.

I looked back up at my father. “Shouldn’t you warn Casey about all this? Because let me tell you, being blindsided by ‘awakening’ to a fae nature is hell. She’s been through enough already. A responsible parent would warn their child about something like this.” Okay, so maybe the last comment was as much about me as about my sister.

“Casey?” He gave me a bemused look. “She is none of mine. She and Bradley are simply backups of your mother’s genetic line.”

I blinked. “Hold on. What?”

His glamour flowed over him, turning him back into the respectable middle-aged man. “I suppose you need a ride somewhere?”

I stared at his retreating back. Sometimes my father scared the hell out of me.