It was one of the more spectacularly fucked episodes of the Republic’s history.
Lehabah sighed. “Buy my freedom from Jesiba. Then I can go live at your apartment and keep your baths and all your food warm.”
She could do far more than that, Bryce knew. Technically, Lehabah’s magic outranked Bryce’s own. But most non-humans could claim the same. And even while it was greater than Bryce’s, Lehabah’s power was still an ember compared to the Fae’s flames. Her father’s flames.
Bryce set down the client’s purchase papers. “It’s not that easy, Lele.”
“Syrinx told me you’re lonely. I could cheer you up.”
In answer, the chimera rolled onto his back, tongue dangling from his mouth, and snored.
“One, my building doesn’t allow fire sprites. Or water sprites. It’s an insurance nightmare. Two, it’s not as simple as asking Jesiba. She might very well get rid of you because I ask.”
Lehabah cupped her round chin in her hand and dripped another freckle of wax dangerously close to the paperwork. “She gave you Syrie.”
Cthona give her patience. “She let me buy Syrinx because my life was fucked up, and I lost it when she got bored with him and tried to sell him off.”
The fire sprite said quietly, “Because Danika died.”
Bryce closed her eyes for a second, then said, “Yeah.”
“You shouldn’t curse so much, BB.”
“Then you really won’t like the angel.”
“He led my people into battle—and he’s a member of my House. I deserve to meet him.”
“Last I checked, that battle went rather poorly, and the fire sprites were kicked out of Sky and Breath thanks to it.”
Lehabah sat up, legs crossed. “Membership in the Houses is not something a government can decree. Our expulsion was in name only.”
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 pas
t 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.
“Fucking Hel,” Bryce muttered, and aimed for the door. “You’re pathetic.”
He managed to say, “Where are you going?”
“To get you water.” She flung the door open. “I can’t talk to you like this.”
It occurred to him then that this had to be important if she was not only here, but eager to get him to focus. And that there might still be a chance he was hallucinating, but he wasn’t going to let her venture into the warren of sin unaccompanied.
On legs that felt ten miles long, feet that weighed a thousand pounds, he staggered after her. The dim hallway hid most of the various stains on the white paint—all thanks to the various parties he and his friends had thrown in fifty years of being roommates. Well, they’d had this house for twenty years—and had only moved because their first one had literally started to fall apart. This house might not last another two years, if he was being honest.
Bryce was halfway down the curving grand staircase, the firstlights of the crystal chandelier bouncing off her red hair in that shimmering halo. How had he not noticed the chandelier was hanging askew? Must be from when Declan had leapt off the stair railing onto it, swinging around and swigging from his bottle of whiskey. He’d fallen off a moment later, too drunk to hold on.
If the Autumn King knew the shit they did in this house, there was no way he or any other City Head would allow them to lead the Fae Aux division. No way Micah would ever tap him to take his father’s place on that council.
But getting wasted was for off-nights only. Never when on duty or on call.
Bryce hit the worn oak floor of the first level, edging around the beer pong table occupying most of the foyer. A few cups littered its stained plywood surface, painted by Flynn with what they’d all deemed was high-class art: an enormous Fae male head devouring an angel whole, only frayed wings visible through the snapped-shut teeth. It seemed to ripple with movement as Ruhn cleared the stairs. He could have sworn the painting winked at him.
Yeah, water. He needed water.
Bryce showed herself through the living room, where the music blasted so loud it made Ruhn’s teeth rattle in his skull.
He entered in time to see Bryce striding past the pool table in the rear of the long, cavernous space. A few Aux warriors stood around it, females with them, deep in a game.
Tristan Flynn, son of Lord Hawthorne, presided over it from a nearby armchair, a pretty dryad on his lap. The glazed light in his brown eyes mirrored Ruhn’s own. Flynn gave Bryce a crooked grin as she approached. All it usually took was one look and females crawled into Tristan Flynn’s lap just like the tree nymph, or—if the look was more of a glower—any enemies outright bolted.
Charming as all Hel and lethal as fuck. It should have been the Flynn family motto.
Bryce didn’t stop as she passed him, unfazed by his classic Fae beauty and considerable muscles, but demanded over her shoulder, “What the fuck did you give him?”
Flynn leaned forward, prying his short chestnut hair free from the dryad’s long fingers. “How do you know it was me?”
Bryce walked toward the kitchen at the back of the room, accessible through an archway. “Because you look high off your ass, too.”
Declan called from the sectional couch at the other end of the living room, a laptop on his knee and a very interested draki male half-sprawled over him, running clawed fingers through Dec’s dark red hair, “Hey, Bryce. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Bryce jerked her thumb back at Ruhn. “Checking on the Chosen One. How’s your fancy tech crap going, Dec?”
Declan Emmet didn’t usually appreciate anyone belittling the lucrative career he’d built on a foundation of hacking into Republic websites and then charging them ungodly amounts of money to reveal their critical weaknesses, but he grinned. “Still raking in the marks.”
“Nice,” Bryce said, continuing into the kitchen and out of sight.
Some of the Aux warriors were staring toward the kitchen now, blatant interest in their eyes. Flynn growled softly, “She’s off-limits, assholes.”
That was all it took. Not even a snapping vine of Flynn’s earth magic, rare among the fire-prone Valbaran Fae. The others immediately returned their attention to the pool game. Ruhn threw his friend a grateful look and followed Bryce—
But she was already back in the doorway, water bottle in hand. “Your fridge is worse than mine,” she said, shoving the bottle toward him and entering the living room again. Ruhn sipped as the stereo system in the back thumped the opening notes of a song, guitars wailing, and she angled her head, listening, weighing.
Fae impulse—to be drawn to music, and to love it. Perhaps the one side of her heritage she didn’t mind. He remembered her showing him her dance routines as a young teenager. She’d always looked so unbelievably happy. He’d never had the chance to ask why she stopped.
Ruhn sighed, forcing himself to focus, and said to Bryce, “Why are you here?”
She stopped near the sectional. “I told you: I need to talk to you.”
Ruhn kept his face blank. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d bothered finding him.
“Why would your cousin need an excuse to chat with us?” Flynn asked, murmuring something in the dryad’s delicate ear that had her heading for the cluster of her three friends at the pool table, her narrow hips swishing in a reminder of what he’d miss if he waited too long. Flynn drawled, “She knows we’re the most charming males in town.”
Neither of his friends ever guessed the truth—or at least voiced any suspicions. Bryce tossed her hair over a shoulder as Flynn rose from his armchair. “I have better things to do—”
“Than hang out with Fae losers,” Flynn finished for her, heading to the built-in bar against the far wall. “Yeah, yeah. You’ve said so a hundred times now. But look at that: here you are, hanging with us in our humble abode.”
Despite his carefree demeanor, Flynn would one day inherit his father’s title: Lord Hawthorne. Which meant that for the past several decades, Flynn had done everything he could to forget that little fact—and the centuries of responsibilities it would entail. He poured himself a drink, then a second one that he handed to Bryce. “Drink up, honeycakes.”
Ruhn rolled his eyes. But—it was nearly midnight, and she was at their house, on one of the rougher streets in the Old Square, with a murderer on the loose. Ruhn hissed, “You were given an order to lie low—”
She waved a hand, not touching the whiskey in her other. “My imperial escort is outside. Scaring everyone away, don’t worry.”
Both his friends went still. The draki male took that as an invitation to drift away, aiming for the
billiards game behind them as Declan twisted to look at her. Ruhn just said, “Who.”
A little smile. Bryce asked, swirling the whiskey in its glass, “Is this house really befitting of the Chosen One?”
Flynn’s mouth twitched. Ruhn shot him a warning glare, just daring him to bring up the Starborn shit right now. Outside of his father’s villa and court, all that had gotten Ruhn was a lifetime of teasing from his friends.
Ruhn ground out, “Let’s hear it, Bryce.” Odds were, she’d come here just to piss him off.
She didn’t respond immediately, though. No, Bryce traced a circle on a cushion, utterly unfazed by the three Fae warriors watching her every breath. Tristan and Declan had been Ruhn’s best friends for as long as he could remember, and always had his back, no questions asked. That they were highly trained and efficient warriors was beside the point, though they’d saved each other’s asses more times than Ruhn could count. Going through their Ordeals together had only cemented that bond.
The Ordeal itself varied depending on the person: for some, it might be as simple as overcoming an illness or a bit of personal strife. For others, it might be slaying a wyrm or a demon. The greater the Fae, the greater the Ordeal.
Ruhn had been learning to wield his shadows from his hateful cousins in Avallen, his two friends with him, when they’d all gone through their Ordeal, nearly dying in the process. It had culminated in Ruhn entering the mist-shrouded Cave of Princes, and emerging with the Starsword—and saving them all.
And when he’d made the Drop weeks later, it had been Flynn, fresh from his own Drop, who’d Anchored him.
Declan asked, his deep voice rumbling over the music and chatter, “What’s going on?”
For a second, Bryce’s swagger faltered. She glanced at them: their casual clothes, the places where she knew their guns were hidden even in their own home, their black boots and the knives tucked inside them. Bryce’s eyes met Ruhn’s.
House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) Page 19
