Chapter 21
The words roared in my head. A force. A compulsion.
I wanted to obey her. I needed to.
No!
I fought the urge, shoved it aside, away. She gritted perfect teeth at me. Unlike Ashen, her features barely changed in my grave-sight. If anything, she became more lovely, more enchanting. Court fae.
In her palm she held a coiled length of silver thread.
She curled her fist around the string and jerked. My chest heaved in response to her tug, and in my gravesight I could see the glittering silver thread stretching between us. I reached for it, but though I could see it, I couldn’t touch it.
“Obey me.”
I looked at her, the struggle fading from my limbs, and she smiled. She was beautiful and powerful. My mistress.
I liked that she smiled. I wanted to please her.
“So strong,” she whispered. “How … valuable.” She pointed at the glass in front of me. “Drink, so we can go.”
I picked up the glass, stared at it. My fingers were trembling, making the golden liquid quiver. Suspended in the liquid, the blue swirls of a spell danced. I frowned at the spell. I didn’t like spells used on me. I set the glass back down.
“Drink it.”
My hand twitched. I didn’t want to disappoint her. I didn’t like spells.
“Alex!”
I looked up. Someone was running toward me, his hair glistening like fresh snow and his skin glowing in the dim bar. I knew him. But I couldn’t think how.
“Drink,” my mistress commanded again.
I picked up the glass. The man reached us, took the glass from my fingers. He set it on the table and wrapped his hand around my biceps.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he said, but when he pulled on my arm, my body remained in the chair.
“Alex?”
My mistress looked the man over. Falin. Yes, that was his name. She smiled at him, so I did as well. The corpse man even smiled.
“House rule,” she said.
Falin looked down at the full glass. He lifted it, swirling the contents. Then he tipped it back and swallowed the spelled liquid in one gulp. “Let’s go,” he said, slamming the empty glass on the wood.
“Alex doesn’t want to go; she wants to stay with me— don’t you, dear?” My mistress reached out and ran a feverishly warm hand down my cheek.
“I—” Saying I wanted to stay with her tasted like a lie on my tongue. I knew she wanted me to say that, and I wanted to please her, but the words didn’t make it out of my mouth.
She frowned, and Falin looked between us.
“You’re a slaver,” he said.
“And I just made my greatest catch.” She stood.
“Come, my pets, we have important buyers to see.”
The corpse man rose to his feet immediately. I moved less quickly.
“Alex,” Falin said. “Alexis, remember who you are.”
I frowned at him. He made me feel confused. I didn’t like it.
A tingling at my ankle annoyed me. The enchanted dagger wanted to be drawn. I could feel its desire in the back of my head.
“Come quickly,” my mistress said, heading toward the great tree.
I blinked at her, feeling the command, knowing I had to obey it. But I could also feel the dagger. It wanted to be drawn. It would stop annoying me once it was drawn.
The hilt fit my hand, the tingle of magic crawling over my palm. The dagger knew what it wanted, and I let it guide my hand. With one smooth upward motion, the blade slid through the silver thread.
“No!” the court fae screamed, turning around.
The string sagged, severed. I gasped. My head cleared, adrenaline pumping through my senses again, washing away the fog of the spell. The dagger in my hand tingled.
It wanted to sink through flesh, to draw blood. I gripped it tighter, holding it back, not letting it use me.
“What is it?” Ashen asked, staring at the court fae.
“I broke her toy,” I said. “Falin?”
He was already at my side. I expected his gun to be out, drawn. It wasn’t. He’d had to check his iron at the door. His hand moved to my shoulder. Was he holding me back? He swayed. No, he’s holding himself up.
He’d drunk the spelled liquor.
“I suppose I’ve made an enemy,” the woman said.
“But you are not powerful yet, feykin. Come, Ashen.”
They walked toward the tree. I trembled, the chill in my body threatening to tear me in two. No, Ashen couldn’t leave. He still had my heat.
I reached with my power, sending the endless cold out like a giant hand. Ashen was an animated body, but he was still dead. I could see that. And I had an affinity for the dead. When he’d attacked me, he’d hit me with force, like a jackhammer against my shields. I reached like a specter, my power seeping through the seams of his shields.
He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes wide. His shields tightened. My power was already there. Pouring into him. Diving into his being. Searching for my heat.
For the life force he’d stolen. Ashen yelped and began running. The woman reached the tree first. Then she vanished. A portal.
I couldn’t let Ashen reach that tree with my heat.
Desperate, I grabbed hold of his core with my power, and the dead body stopped, fell forward. Now instead of a man running for the tree, there was a running ghost.
It reached the tree and vanished, and my tongue curled in my mouth. I killed him? I swallowed. No, he was already dead. Or sort of dead. The now-empty body on the floor decomposed before my eyes, turned to dust. The fae at the surrounding tables were quiet. They watched me, their eyes cautious. Some scared.
I tumbled back a step and slammed my shields in place, pushing the grave away from me. My knees gave out, and my vision went black. I hit the floor, shaking.
Cold. I could die from this cold.
I curled in a ball on the wood floor and pulled my knees tight to my chest, but I felt as if my organs had been swapped for icicles, my muscles for frozen wood.
“You’re like ice,” Falin whispered, his hands sliding over my arms. “We have to get out of here.” But he was too unsteady to help me up.
It took two tries, but I got my feet under me. I clung to Falin, and he clung back. We slowly made our way forward, me blind and shaking, him swaying and stumbling.
No one stopped us, but no one helped us.
“Do you hear music?” he asked, stopping.
I did. A lively fiddle. One I could dance to. Falin turned our course, stumbling toward the sound. What had I heard about a fiddle recently?
The endless dance.
“No.” I tried to pull Falin back.
He laughed, a full-chested sound of pure joy. “Dance with me, Alexis,” he said. His hand around my waist slipped and slid along my arm as he ran forward.
I grabbed his hand. The fiddle music was all around me, and I could hear the dancers’ laughter. Then my grip on Falin’s hand slipped, and he was gone.
My head swiveled, and I searched the darkness before my eyes. The circle of dancers was just ahead. And somewhere inside it was Falin, spelled to be pliable and caught in the endless dance. He’d drunk the spell for me.
I wasn’t leaving without him.
I did the only thing I could do: I reached for power.
My grave-sight filled my vision, and the dancers snapped into focus. The beautiful and the monstrous danced, twirling and gliding, and in the center was the fiddler, playing on a rotting fiddle. They dance until the fiddle strings snap.
I had to reach that fiddler.
I surged forward, ignoring the music, intent on the fiddle. But the dancers were dancing. A thorn fae smiled at me, his barbed fingers closing around my hand, and he dragged me with him, twirling with me before passing me off to a woman with hair that flowed around her as if alive. Hands touched my body—hands that were too hot, searing my frigid skin. I screamed, but no one noticed. The fae passed me to a dwarf half my size, who tossed me in the air. A troll caught me and spun with me before passing me to the next dancer. I was shocked to see a fully human face, one I recognized.
“Tommy?”
“You joined the dance, Alex? Isn’t it amazing?”
Tommy passed me off to another dancer, and the faces all began to blur.
Wide faces, thin faces, beautiful, terrible, blue, green, stone, bark. I was dizzy and no longer sure where the fiddler was. My skin burned from too many too-hot touches. I had to find the fiddler.
Glimmering hands landed on mine, but these hands didn’t burn. I looked up at Falin’s smiling face. “Alexis,” he whispered, his arms sliding around my waist. He lifted me off my feet and spun in a tight circle. As he brought me back down he lowered me halfway, hugging my body to his. Then his mouth claimed mine.
His lips tasted of honey and laughter, and the first touch of warmth bloomed in my body, trailed from my lips to my core. Then he broke away, and new hands, hot hands, grabbed at me, tried to drag me to a new partner.
Pain burst over my skin as a fae with hair of living flames grabbed me. I jerked away, stumbling back as welts lifted on my arm. I tumbled sideways.
Then I was in the center of the circle. The dancers flowed around me, but this small pocket was clear. Room for the fiddler. I jumped to my feet.
The fiddler’s back was to me, but I could see the frail and brittle strings. I unsheathed my dagger and surged forward. I swiped the blade over the strings, and in my grave-sight, the strings crumbled.
The music died. The stunned fiddler looked down and studied his fiddle, and the dancers stopped. They laughed and clapped, and I ducked through the crowd, searching for Falin.
I found Tommy first. I grabbed his wrist. His skin burned against my palm, but I didn’t let go.
“Come on, you have to get out of here.”
“I only just got here, Alex.”
“Really? When?”
Tommy frowned at me. “Maybe twenty minutes ago. I was having lunch with the lieutenant governor’s chief of staff before I started dancing, and I danced to only one song.”
“Right.” I found Falin and grabbed him. Then, with shaking steps, I dragged both of them to the door.
“Sign out on the ledger,” the little fae said from her podium.
I ignored her, dropping Tommy’s arm to wrench open the door.
“Wait! You can’t leave at this time,” she yelled.
We did anyway, passing the confused-looking troll on our way out. Then we stumbled into twilight.