“I am not her pawn!” I snapped, the echo carried off by the icy wind. I knew I should’ve been more deferential to Tildrum—he was just as menacing as Abarta, not to mention far older, a being born to a primal age and later assimilated into the fae collective—but he’d trampled over the worst of my sore spots: the suggestion that I had any allegiance to the Unseelie Court, or to the cold and calculating queen who ruled it. “And she had absolutely no justification for dragging me into this mess. You’re one of the sneakiest and most underhanded faeries in existence; and I don’t care if you take that as a compliment or an insult. There’s no reason why you had to step back after your bribe attempt at the auction failed. You could’ve subverted a mere human like Bismarck a hundred thousand ways. Why didn’t you?”
Tildrum raise his index finger and moved it side to side. Tsk. Tsk. “There are factors at play of which you are unaware, Vincent Whelan. One of those factors demanded I not directly confront the Tuatha rogue. Because my initial attempt to learn the harp’s location put Agatha Bismarck and Abarta himself on alert for additional interference to their plan, I determined I could pursue the issue no further without risking the confrontation I was explicitly commanded to avoid. Queen Mab confirmed my thoughts and gave me an alternative solution.”
I ground my heel into the snow. “What factors?”
He shook his head. “I am not at liberty to discuss the specifics with you at this time.”
“Then next time, choose someone else to be your lackey. I’m not interested in the faerie courts’ circus of deception, and I won’t have a hand in its manipulations, especially not when those manipulations risk what little I have left in this world.” I rolled my shoulders and straightened my back to project a level a confidence I couldn’t honestly claim. Then I enunciated, clear and loud and rash, “I do not work for Mab.”
This time, I hoped she did hear me. I hoped she heard my disdain.
Tildrum cocked his head to the side, colorful eyebrows arched. “You are correct, in the human sense. You do not ‘work’ for Queen Mab. You receive no financial compensation for the tasks you complete at her pleasure, understood or unbeknownst to you. But you do help Queen Mab. And you assist Queen Mab. And all actions you carry out that further her goals in some way are considered to be done in her name, whether that is your intention or not. Because you are Unseelie by blood, and an unbreakable bond with your Unseelie kin is the spiritual cost of your nature.”
“By blood,” I said through clenched teeth, “I am half sídhe and half human. My loyalties do not lie with the Unseelie more than they lie with humanity.” I huffed out a cloud of white breath, speckled with glittering flecks of ice. “So tell Mab to leave me out of her business.”
Tildrum gave me what might’ve been an incredulous look, or a bemused one. It was hard to tell with the cat eyes. “I will forward your request.”
“It’s not a request.”
Tildrum laughed, high and grating, bow raked across a violin. “It is always a request, Vincent Whelan. For Queen Mab does not defer to commands more easily than you.” His laughter crept across the neighborhood, squirming into every alley, every doorway, every tiny nook and cranny, until it sounded as if it was coming from everywhere at once, an army of tittering cats mocking me from the shadows. At the same time, Tildrum’s body unraveled before my eyes to the point where he was nothing but fluttering ribbons in the air, barely holding on to a human shape. Abruptly, the ribbons were snatched by the wind, but when I looked to the right to track them as they flew away, they had already disappeared.
The laughter, however, remained.
Unsettled, I turned around. To find my yard once again devoid of cats. There weren’t even paw prints in the snow to indicate they’d moved. All that remained of Tom Tildrum’s show of force was my tie, lying in the snow where the orange tabby had been sitting. I marched over and snatched it up, and the second I did, the last vestiges of the ghostly laughter fell to the wailing wind.
I stared at the tie in my hand for a moment, before rumpling it into a ball and stuffing it into my coat pocket. I had a great deal of information to digest, some of it irritating, some of it baffling, some of it downright terrifying. I had a faerie queen who wanted me wrapped around her finger so she could dip me into the paint of her many plots. I had a member of a defunct order of gods with my name at the top of his hit list. I had a rekindled friendship still heavily scarred that needed tender love and care I was afraid to give because I was haunted by the past. And I had a deep and aching iron wound in my shoulder that would take months to fully heal, and all the while I’d be the weaker for it.
But at least… I thought bitterly as I slogged over to my back porch and found a leather pouch filled with twenty thousand chits sitting just inside the door. At least I don’t need money.
I grabbed the bag, stormed up the steps, wrenched the porch door open. I took down my wards, unlocked the back door, entered my empty house. I slammed the back door shut, reactivated my wards, spent forever stripping off my boots and coat. I climbed the stairs, walked to my living room, lit a battery-powered lantern. I sank into my comfy chair, picked up the book I’d been reading, opened to the page where I left off. And that was all I did for the entire afternoon, read, read, and read some more, save for taking a dinner break and a bath. And that was all I was going to do for the duration of the foreseeable future.
Because I’d had enough bullshit for one week.
The Story Continues
IN WHAT MAN DEFIES
Out now!
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Books by Clara Coulson
CITY OF CROWS
Soul Breaker
Shade Chaser
Wraith Hunter
Doom Sayer
Day Killer
Spell Caster
TALES FROM THE CITY OF CROWS
Dream Snatcher
THE FROST ARCANA
What Fate Portends
What Man Defies
What Gods Incite
What Dawn Demands
LARK NATION
Hunter of the Night
Speaker of the Lost
Watcher of the Dead
KING & CROWN
Lock & Key
Ask & Answer
About Clara Coulson
Clara Coulson was born and raised in backwoods Virginia, USA. Currently in her mid-twenties, Clara holds a degree in English and Finance from the College of William & Mary and recently retired from the hustle and bustle of Washington, DC to return to the homeland and pick up the quiet writing life.
Clara spends most of her time (when she's not writing) dreaming up new story ideas, studying Japanese, and slowly reading through the several-hundred-book backlog in her budding home library. If she's not occupied with any of those things, then you can probably find her playing with her two cats or lurking in the shadows of various social media websites.
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