House of Earth and Blood

It was true. But Bryce still said, “What the Asteri and their Senate say goes.”

Lehabah had been guardian of the gallery’s library for decades. Logic insisted that ordering a fire sprite to watch over a library was a poor idea, but when a third of the books in the place would like nothing more than to escape, kill someone, or eat them—in varying orders—having a living flame keeping them in line was worth any risk. Even the endless chatter, it seemed.

Something thumped on the mezzanine. As if a book had dived off the shelf of its own accord.

Lehabah hissed toward it, turning a deep blue. Paper and leather whispered as the errant book found its place once again.

Bryce smiled, and then the office phone rang. One glance at the screen had her reaching for the phone and hissing at the sprite, “Back on your perch now.”

Lehabah had just reached the glass dome where she maintained her fiery vigil over the library’s wandering books when Bryce answered. “Afternoon, boss.”

“Any progress?”

“Still investigating. How’s Pangera?”

Jesiba didn’t bother answering, instead saying, “I’ve got a client coming in at two o’clock. Be ready. And stop letting Lehabah prattle. She has a job to do.” The line went dead.

Bryce rose from the desk where she’d been working all morning. The oak panels of the library beneath the gallery looked old, but they were wired with the latest tech and best enchantments money could buy. Not to mention, there was a killer sound system that she often put to good use when Jesiba was on the other side of the Haldren.

Not that she danced down here—not anymore. Nowadays, the music was mostly to keep the thrumming of the firstlights from driving her insane. Or for drowning out Lehabah’s monologues.

Bookshelves lined every wall, interrupted only by a dozen or so small tanks and terrariums, occupied by all manner of small common animals: lizards and snakes and turtles and various rodents. Bryce often wondered if they were all people who’d pissed off Jesiba. None showed any sign of awareness, which was even more horrifying if it was true. They’d not only been turned into animals, but had also forgotten they were something else entirely.

Naturally, Lehabah had named all of them, each one more ridiculous than the last. Nutmeg and Ginger were the names of the geckos in the tank closest to Bryce. Sisters, Lehabah claimed. Miss Poppy was the name of the black-and-white snake on the mezzanine.

Lehabah never named anything in the biggest tank, though. The massive one that occupied an entire wall of the library, and whose glass expanse revealed a watery gloom. Mercifully, the tank was currently empty.

Last year, Bryce lobbied on Lehabah’s behalf for a few iris eels to brighten the murky blue with their shimmering rainbow light. Jesiba had said no, and instead bought a pet kelpie that had humped the glass with all the finesse of a wasted college guy.

Bryce had made sure that motherfucker was given to a client as a gift really quickly.

Bryce braced herself for the work before her. Not the paperwork or the client—but what she had to do tonight. Gods fucking help her when Athalar got wind of it.

But the thought of his face when he realized what she had planned … Yeah, it’d be satisfying.

If she survived.

16

The mirthroot Ruhn had smoked ten minutes ago with Flynn might have been more potent than his friend had let on.

Lying on his bed, specially shaped Fae headphones over his arched ears, Ruhn closed his eyes and let the thumping bass and sizzling, soaring synthesizer of the music send him drifting.

His booted foot tapped in time to the steady beat, the drumming fingers he’d interlaced over his stomach echoing each flutter of notes high, high above. Every breath pulled him further back from consciousness, as if his very mind had been yanked a good few feet away from where it normally rested like a captain at the helm of a ship.

Heavy relaxation melted him, bone and blood morphing to liquid gold. Each note sent it rippling through him. Every stressor and sharp word and aggravation leaked from him, slithered off the bed like a snake.

He flipped off those feelings as they slid away. He was well aware that he’d taken the hits of Flynn’s mirthroot thanks to the hours he’d spent brooding over his father’s bullshit orders.

His father could go to Hel.

The mirthroot wrapped soft, sweet arms around his mind and dragged him into its shimmering pool.

Ruhn let himself drown in it, too mellow to do anything but let the music wash over him, his body sinking into the mattress, until he was falling through shadows and starlight. The strings of the song hovered overhead, golden threads that glittered with sound. Was he still moving his body? His eyelids were too heavy to lift to check.

A scent like lilac and nutmeg filled the room. Female, Fae …

If one of the females partying downstairs had shown herself into his room, thinking she’d get a nice, sweaty ride with a Prince of the Fae, she’d be sorely disappointed. He was in no shape for fucking right now. At least not any fucking that would be worthwhile.

His eyelids were so incredibly heavy. He should open them. Where the Hel were the controls to his body? Even his shadows had drifted away, too far to summon.

The scent grew stronger. He knew that scent. Knew it as well as—

Ruhn jerked upward, eyes flying open to find his sister standing at the foot of his bed.

Bryce’s mouth was moving, whiskey-colored eyes full of dry amusement, but he couldn’t hear a word she said, not a word—

Oh. Right. The headphones. Blasting music.

Blinking furiously, gritting his teeth against the drug trying to haul him back down, down, down, Ruhn removed the headphones and hit pause on his phone. “What?”

Bryce leaned against his chipped wood dresser. At least she was in normal clothes for once. Even if the jeans were painted on and the cream-colored sweater left little to the imagination. “I said, you’ll blow out your eardrums listening to music that loud.”

Ruhn’s head spun as he narrowed his eyes at her, blinking at the halo of starlight that danced around her head, at her feet. He blinked again, pushing past the auras clouding his vision, and it was gone. Another blink, and it was there.

Bryce snorted. “You’re not hallucinating. I’m standing here.”

His mouth was a thousand miles away, but he managed to ask, “Who let you in?” Declan and Flynn were downstairs, along with half a dozen of their top Fae warriors. A few of them people he didn’t want within a block of his sister.

Bryce ignored his question, frowning toward the corner of his room. Toward the pile of unwashed laundry and the Starsword he’d chucked atop it. The sword glimmered with starlight, too. He could have sworn the damn thing was singing. Ruhn shook his head, as if it’d clear out his ears, as Bryce said, “I need to talk to you.”

The last time Bryce had been in this room, she’d been sixteen and he’d spent hours beforehand cleaning it—and the whole house. Every bong and bottle of liquor, every pair of female underwear that had never been returned to its owner, every trace and scent of sex and drugs and all the stupid shit they did here had been hidden.

And she’d stood right there, during that last visit. Stood there as they screamed at each other.

Then and now blurred, Bryce’s form shrinking and expanding, her adult face blending into teenage softness, the light in her amber eyes warming and cooling, his vision surrounding the scene glinting with starlight, starlight, starlight.