CHAPTER ELEVEN

The manager, understandably eager not to let guests know they had a potential murder scene, didn’t object when Gabriel said we wanted to speak to him. He scooted us into an office and answered everything we asked. Then he produced the employee who’d checked Seanna in, and she gave enough detail to confirm our suspicion on who’d been responsible for that. Next the manager brought the man Seanna picked up in the bar, who’d been told by the police not to leave and was anxiously awaiting the go-ahead to escape. If he spoke to us because he mistakenly thought we could grant his reprieve, that was hardly our fault.

As we left the hotel, Lloergan appeared and fell in at my side. Our first stop was the presumed point of egress: the fourth-floor window.

Despite what I’d said to Detective Fahy, we weren’t absolutely convinced this was a setup. It seemed likely. The scheme was classic Seanna—clever enough, but overly complicated. Yet we couldn’t rule out the possibility she had been murdered. There was certainly no shortage of suspects. I was only glad Gabriel and I had been an hour’s drive up the lake.

We found blood below the window. It was a small pool, as if the person climbed down to the second floor and then hung off the balcony before dropping to the ground. A partial shoe print marred the edge. I took a photo of the imprint, but there wasn’t enough to identify the shoe size.

The blood dripped for a few yards south, headed into an alley, and then stopped, as if the person had paused to bind the wound. We were examining the blood trail when Lloergan gave a jowl-shuddering sigh.

“Getting bored, girl?” I said. “You can go wander if you like.”

Her look oozed reproach, and she glanced to the side just as two figures rounded the corner. It was the dryads from the abandoned amusement park.

“Blood!” the boy said.

“A clue!” the girl said, jogging over to us.

“Wrong crime,” I said.

“You have more than one?” she said. “That’s hardly fair. You ought to share.”

“They are,” he said. “They’re sharing with us. Even if they don’t want to.”

“Can we switch mysteries?” she asked. “Please?”

Lloergan sighed again and lowered herself to the ground, as if to wait out what was sure to be a long conversation.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

The girl lifted a brow in what was probably meant to be a crafty look, but she managed it as well as a three-year-old trying to be mysterious. “We have our ways.”

“Secret fae ways,” the boy said.

“We came to speak to you because we have a problem,” she said. “A lack of clues.”

“Complete lack.”

“Utter lack.” She held out a notebook. “We’ve tried. See? We went through the fun house with a fine-toothed comb.”

“We did?” the boy said.

“It’s an expression.”

“It makes no sense.”

“They never do,” she said. “But we searched and searched and found no trace of a crime. I know you said it was long ago, so we asked other fae. We’ll keep asking, but so far?”

“Nothing,” the boy said.

“So we came to find you. Even if it meant traveling to the city.” She shuddered.

“Not fond of the city, I take it?” I said.

“We can’t hide here.” She walked to a wooden fence surrounding the trash bins. When she pressed her hand to it, her skin changed to tree bark. “And this…?” She put her hand against the hotel wall, which made it look like a tree limb growing up the brick. “Even worse. The best we can do is try to blend in with the humans. Fortunately, we’re good at that.”

“Uh-huh.”

She waggled her finger at me. “Don’t mock. We are. Watch.” She turned to the boy. “OMG, Mrs. Phipps is a total bitch. Did you see what she gave me on that English essay? I worked for, like, a whole hour on it.”

“Yeah, and Chem is totally kicking my ass this year. If I don’t pull up my mark, Dad’ll take away my car keys.”

“That sucks. Poor baby. Here, let me make it better.”

She kissed him, just a quick kiss at first, but he pulled her into a deep one that left her laughing and catching her breath.

“So…you’re not brother and sister?” I said.

“What?” they said in unison.

“I thought you were siblings.”

“Eww,” she said.

“That’s gross,” he said. “And unsanitary.”

“I don’t think that’s the word for it,” she said.

“It should be.” He looked at us. “We’re mated. Married, as humans might say. Have been for a very long time.”

“Very, very long,” the girl said. “We’re old.”

“Incredibly old.”

“Almost dead,” she said. “But not yet. Which is why we’re always looking for fun. Fill in our twilight years with excitement.”

“That’s where you come in. We’re stuck—temporarily—on your other mystery, so we’ll take this one. What do you need?”

“Ooh, let me guess,” she said. “You want to find the person who left that blood trail. We can do that.”

I eased back. “I’d say go for it, but she’s almost certainly in the city, which you hate.”

“We’ll survive. Can we use the cŵn?”

The boy frowned. “Why don’t they use the cŵn?”

“Good question.”

Both looked at us expectantly. I glanced at Lloergan. I’d been considering asking her for help, but the rogue Huntsman who’d enslaved her had forced her to track humans and fae, and not for the reasons a cŵn is supposed to track.

“Lloergan?” Gabriel said. “Could you help?”

“Is that her name?” the boy asked.

“It means moonlight,” the girl said.

“You know Welsh?” I said.

“We know many things.” Again, she tried—and failed—to look suitably crafty and mysterious. Then she added, “It is a lovely name.”

“An excellent name,” the boy said.

“If nearly impossible to pronounce. Much harder than ours.”

She gave us another expectant look. We hadn’t asked their names. I’d been avoiding that, actually. It implied a future relationship.

“What are your names?” Gabriel asked, surprising me.

“He’s Alexios. I’m Helia.”

Gabriel nodded and turned to the cŵn. “Lloergan?” He crouched before her and pulled a sock from his inside pocket, one he must have snagged from the hotel room. “This belongs to the person we’re looking for. Can you follow her trail from here? It’s up to you, of course.”

She sniffed the sock gingerly, as if it didn’t smell very good. Then she snuffled the ground and headed into the alley. We followed.

“We can come along?” Alexios called after us.

“Shhh,” Helia said. “Don’t ask. Just follow until they make us leave.”

Gabriel turned, and Helia fell back with a yelp.

“Let me make this clear,” he said. “If you wish to help us, we will not stop you. Nor will we set you on tasks or give you any information that might be used against us. If we seem paranoid, understand that we have cause. Outside Cainsville, fae who have asked for help or offered it have been uniformly—”

“Nasty,” Helia said.

“Horrid,” Alexios said.

“Don’t interrupt him.”

“I’m not the one who—”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “They betrayed us, which has taught us a few things about dealing with fae. It has also, I hope, taught them a few things about dealing with us. Namely, that we are enough fae ourselves to understand the concept of quid pro quo. Help us and we help you. Hinder or harm us…”

“We have heard the fates of those who crossed you,” Helia said, going serious. “We might seem foolish, but we did not live to this age by being foolhardy. Our help is offered freely. In return, we hope for a bit of fun and, yes, the favor of Matilda and Gwynn, which is no small thing. The favor, not a favor.”

“Not a specific thing or a chit,” Alexios said. “Just to—in the colloquial—get on your good side, because it seems a fine place to be.”

“All right, then,” Gabriel said, and we returned to following Lloergan.

The trail didn’t go more than a mile before Lloergan lost it. Cŵn aren’t tracking hounds. They can pursue prey in the forest, and they can find them in the city, but the latter requires preternatural abilities, some of which her injuries stole from her.

It was equally likely that, after that first mile, Seanna got into a vehicle and the trail legitimately ended. Either way, Gabriel only wanted to see how far the trail went because it told him that we weren’t following someone disposing of Seanna’s body. It was her. On foot. And not so badly injured that she couldn’t walk a mile.

As we’d tracked Seanna, I’d given the dryads what information I could to help them find her. Not that I expected they actually would, but it would keep them occupied.

“If you go after Seanna, you need to be careful,” I said after we’d hit the end of the trail and turned back.

“We will not harm her,” Helia said. “She is the mother of Gwynn. She deserves our respect and our care.”

“Actually, I meant be careful of her. She’s a career criminal. She wouldn’t have any problem leading you to your doom.”

“She’s part fae,” Alexios said. “We’d expect no less.”

“True, but even for fae, she’s…” I glanced at Gabriel, not sure how much farther I should go.

He said, “Seanna Walsh is a drug addict, an alcoholic, a part-time prostitute, and a full-time con artist. She cares nothing for anyone except herself.”

“And you,” Helia said.

“No, I am not the exception to that rule.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Are you sure you want us to find her?”

“Not particularly, but it seems prudent.”

We walked in silence for a few steps. Then Helia said, “I hope you do not feel obligated to find her, Gwynn.”

“I prefer Gabriel,” he said, but his tone was soft.

She nodded. “We will remember that. But you don’t feel obligated, do you? Even among fae, there are two exceptions to our selfishness. One is our mate.” She caught Alexios’s hand and squeezed it. “You cannot be a partner to someone you do not respect and care for. The other exception is our children. For fae, reproduction is not easy. Alexios and I were never blessed, but we knew if we were, we’d have to change. Be less…” She smiled at her mate. “Less capricious.”

“Less dryad,” he said.

“Exactly.” Her voice lilted, a touch of that lightheartedness seeping back in. Then she sobered again as she said, “You don’t feel obliged to your mother, do you, Gw—Gabriel?”

“Not one single bit.”

“Excellent. We shall be careful, then, for our own sakes and not for hers.”

“We could get rid of her if you like,” Alexios said.

Helia rolled her eyes. “Again, agori mou, one does not ask these questions. Gabriel will say no and then we cannot do it, or we will have disobeyed him.”

“Uh, no,” I cut in. “Whatever the situation, killing Seanna isn’t the answer.”

“Oh, we didn’t mean kill. We don’t do that. But we have ways to make her disappear.” That crafty look again. “The secrets of trees.”

“No, please,” I said. “General rule? Don’t harm anyone while completing a task for us unless your own lives are in danger. Okay?”

“No,” Alexios said.

I turned to him. “Then you aren’t working for us. Either you do as we ask—”

“We will,” Helia said. “But you asked if it was okay. It is not. We will do it, though. You need to be more specific in your questions, Matilda. Or do you prefer Eden?”

“Liv or Olivia.”

She scrunched her nose. “Olivia is for olives, and in the old country we saw far too many of those. We had to live in a field of them once, when they cut down our forest.” She shuddered. “Olives stink. But we will call you Liv, if you insist.”

I sighed. “Call me whatever you want. Now, since Lloergan lost Seanna’s trail so—”

“It isn’t her fault.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” I rubbed the cŵn‘s neck. “It’s hardly her fault that Seanna got into a car.”

“I meant that the cŵn cannot perform as well as she’d like as long as she still suffers from her injuries.”

“We’re working on that.”

“They’re deep wounds.” Helia moved to Lloergan and reached to touch her torn ear.

“Rude,” Alexios said.

“Quite right.” Helia crouched in front of the cŵn. “May I examine you, Lloergan?”

Lloergan turned her head, offering her injured ear. Helia checked it and fingered a few scars. The she settled in front of the hound and gazed into her eyes—the clouded one and the good one—before rising.

“Someone has done well with the ear,” she said. “But more scar tissue can be removed to unblock the canal. For the eye, I would suggest a tincture of coleus. But most importantly, consider small doses of nightshade mixed with kanna and skullcap.”

“Isn’t nightshade toxic?”

“Not to fae. Mixed with other ingredients, it creates a potion that helps dull old memories. Traumatic ones. That’s her greatest problem. Not the physical injuries, but the ones in here.” She tapped Lloergan’s skull and then patted her head.

“Speak to the Tylwyth Teg,” Helia continued. “They’ll know the recipe. It’s a common one for fae.” She offered me a half-sad smile as she gave Lloergan one last pat. “In such a long life, there is always something we’d rather not remember.”