by Isa Medina
I read the address and returned the paper. “Can you also print me a map? Or directions?”
She blinked at me like I was somewhat dense. “Put it in the GPS. Or
have your driver do it.”
“I have no car and no phone.”
The next few minutes were spent figuring how to print a map and finding which station or bus stop would bring me the closest. Dawn wanted to call a car for me, but I needed to conserve my money, so public transport would have to do. “Good luck,” she told me before we left the room. “And get me a
few photos if you do find the Skull. I’m going to start a scrapbook.”
I gave her a thumbs up. “You got it.” And with the folded map in my messenger bag, I left her store, the
Hub, and the part of town I knew best.
I had expected Dawn’s contact in the black market to be some curmudgeonly old man buried under tons of books in an ancient secondhand bookstore. I got two of those things right. He was curmudgeonly, and he did have secondhand things in his store. It was one of those places selling everything from vintage clothing to broken toys. Creepy, nightmare-inducing, broken toys, 1 amended internally, eyeing a collection of porcelain dolls missing bits of their faces.
Unlike Lockhart’s shadowed, dusty interior, this man’s store was filled with light and clean surfaces. It only made the creepiness more bizarre. Was that a stuffed hyena head by the rack of seventies-style flowing shirts?
“Yes?” came the owner’s voice. This must be Carr of Carr’s Curiosities, store owner and super researcher, according to Dawn’s information.
The store didn’t have a counter. Carr was sitting on a leather chair
in a corner, halfhidden by another rack of clothes, a book in his lap. He appeared to be in his fifties, lean and bony with salt-and-pepper hair cut short.
“I’m looking for Mr. Carr.” Better make sure I had the correct guy.
“That’s me.” His voice was curt and cold.
“Dawn Byrd from Red Creek Books sent me.” I approached, giving the group of dolls and the hyena head a wide berth.
He watched me with obvious suspicion. “Why?”
“Because I need information?”
“Is that a question?”
I was instantly brought back in time to my middle school years. “Nooo?”
“Make up your mind,” he barked, “or go away.”
My eye twitched. “I do need information, Mr. Carr. Dawn told me you’re the best in the business.”
“What is this, some bad movie script?”
“Wha—what?”
“I don’t need coddling, woman. If you need information, just say so. Any attempts at trying to grease my pride will get you nowhere, you understand?”
“Yessir.”
“Don’t be cheeky,” he snapped. He stood and threw his book into the nearest shelf It landed on top of a haphazard pile of other books. Did he ever pick them back up or just leave them there until there was no more space? “Follow me.”
We went the amazing length of three steps before he pointed at a strange metal pendant hanging on a column between the shelves.
“Use that,” he said.
The metal pendant depicted a scene of two women in tunics taking water from a stream. A series of tiny spikes graced the bottom of the scenery.
“You want me to pinch myself with this?”
“No, you daft woman. | want you to hold it.”
“Is it spelled?”
“Of course it’s spelled.”
IT held my hands behind my back. “] think I’ll pass.”
“Then you can leave.”
Sheesh, was he this nice to all his customers or just me? “What does the spell do?”
“None of your business.”
Irritation rose within me. “You know, I just got spelled yesterday, and I don’t feel like going through the same again today.”
Carr’s gaze flicked between me and the pendant, then he gave a sigh of annoyance. “Ah, whatever. You’re obviously not a Fae or sorcerer in disguise.”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel proud or insulted. He walked around me like I was the stuffed hyena head and approached a small side door.
“Are you coming or what?” he said, unlocking it with a key from his
keyring.
As I followed him through the door, I wondered if he and Aidan knew each other, and if they ever met to polish their manners together.
The door opened into a narrow hallway ending in a set of stairs. We didn’t go that far, though, only up to the first door on the left.
“In here,” he said.
The room beyond was as dark as the store was bright. Dark pan-eling, a massive, heavy, dark desk, dark shelves, and—you guessed it— dark cabinets. Even the shades covering the one window were dark brown.
Carr closed the door and went around the desk to sit on a black leather chair.
“What do you need?”
I decided to stay standing—better for running if it came down to it. Also, there were no other chairs in the room.
“l’m searching for information on a magical Fae item. Dawn said
you could help me.”
Another sound of irritation escaped his throat. “Woman, what is wrong with you? Come out and say what you want.”
The corners of my mouth drooped. There was no using my smoothness with this guy. “I need information on the Skull of Souls.”
He leaned his elbows on the desk, steepled his fingers right under his nose, and narrowed his eyes at me. “What kind of information?”
“When it was last seen, or who might have it, preferably.”
“My services do not come cheap.” His eyes narrowed further. “You don’t look like the sort of person who can afford me. Who are you working for?”
“Nobody. But I think I can match your price.” Would he take the bracelet as payment? Maybe the seeker? I’d be loath to part with it—
might come in handy down the road—but beggars and choosers and all
that. “I don’t think so.”
I lifted my chin, giving him an arrogant look. “I assure you I can.” If he had the same extra senses | did, he would know I was armed with artifacts and to be taken seriously. Was it really possible ] was the only one who could sense artifacts? Proof was stacking into a big pile of yes so far.
“Nobody has seen the Skull of Souls in a very long time,” he said. “Tracking that kind of information will be difficult.”
“Isn’t that why people pay you?” I dared with an arch of a brow.
His expression didn’t change. “Let’s see if you can put your wallet where your mouth is.”
He reached for a drawer in his desk then froze. His gaze snapped back to me like I had just turned into a giant rat.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Did he send you?” he snarled.
The intensity of his sudden fury forced me back a step. “Dawn sent
”
“Are you working for him?”
“T told you, I’m not working for anyone.”
He straightened and slammed a hand on the desk. I jumped with a yelp.
“You’re working for that conniving son of a bitch, aren’t you?” he nearly shouted.
“Who?”
“Lockhart!”
Oh, crap.
His eyes widened, his cheeks darkening. “You are.”
“I’m not, I swear,” I told him.
“Get out of here!”
“But—”
“Out!” He stomped around the desk and across the room to jerk the door open. “Now!”
The anger and outrage emanating from him told me arguing would
get me nowhere. Still, ] tried one more time as he chased me through the hallway and into the store. “] swear I’m not working with Lockhart. I’m with the Magical Artifacts Institute.”
He had already opened the front door for me.
“And tell that little bastard,” he his
sed as I slipped past him, “that he can go hang himself with his innards and rot in Hell before 1 move a finger to help him.”
The door slammed against my butt, making me yelp again. Sull in shock, I peered through the display window and saw Carr was talking on his phone. I couldn’t hear a thing, but he was still all fury in the way he prowled and gestured.
He looked up and caught me staring. His face morphed from rage into triumphant smugness.
He had told someone about me. About me and Lockhart. Someone who must have Lockhart high up on a hit list.
Double crap.
I hurried away from the shop, processing the whole mess. Carr and Lockhart had obvious bad blood between them—having met Lockhart, not hard to imagine—and now that Carr thought I was working for Lockhart, that put a target on me, too.
Whoever he had just talked to…if me being linked to Lockhart got around, it’d be extremely bad news. It might not take long for whoever was behind the Institute takeover to learn that the guy in the hospital was Lockhart’s assistant and not the sorcerer, which meant they would look into any information that surfaced about him. Information I had just unintentionally provided on a silver platter.
On top of that, I had told the guy that I was with the Institute.
Given that all current Institute workers were accounted for except for the recently fired one, it wouldn’t take a lot of brainpower to realize it was me who was apparently working with Lockhart.
Which meant that either they might search for me as a way to get to
Lockhart, or, if they had already realized the artifacts were missing, they
knew I was looking for the Skull and would extrapolate my next moves from that.
Awesome.
Time to change plans. Since I was back to square one, might as well go all the way to the raw materials and see what I was working with.
I made my way to the room where I’d hidden my backpack, being extra careful that nobody was following me, and sat on the floor, spreading the artifacts in an arc in front of me. From the wall, poster rainbow cat looked approvingly at the proceedings.
I opened one of Victor’s chocolate energy bars and took a good bite, munching slowly and inspecting the collection.
There was the familiar conch-shaped Keeper of Secrets, a small Fabergé-style egg that probably contained all the horrors of the world inside, a huge, gaudy signet ring, a jade brooch, a gold hairpin, a pouch with what felt like a few marbles inside, and a wooden box.
I heard Greenie pop out of the wall behind me and come sniff my
hair.
“What do you think?” I asked before taking another bite of the bar.
Greenie poked my hip with his muzzle.
Right. I took out the bracelet, unhooked the seeker, grabbed the Eye-dagger, and added them to the collection. Look at that, I could open my own museum at this rate.
Greenie sniffed the Eye-dagger. The Eye-dagger narrowed its eyelids at him. Maybe they had known each other in a previous life.
I ran a hand over Greenie’s soft moss skin. “Greenie, did an evil Fae experiment on you and stole your eye?”
Greenie licked the Eye-dagger. The Eye-dagger’s pupil roamed to stare pointedly at me. It blinked several times to make its point.
“Greenie, | don’t think the Eye-dagger likes you.”
Greenie yipped and licked the dagger again. The blinking inten-sified.
“Okay, boy,” I said, tugging at his neck. “I need to think.”
Greenie panted loudly—his version of laughing—then lay behind
me. He was enormous, and the scent of fresh grass and meadows enveloped me.
Back to the artifacts. Something in this collection had to be of use.
Otherwise, what good were they if they couldn’t help my current pred-icament?
I traced the beautiful butterfly-shaped lines of the seeker. It wouldn’t find the Skull for me, but it might help me find a person. Perhaps Ren? I didn’t see how to make Ren be my heart’s desire, although since the seeker apparently could help me find Aidan, I’d file that for later in case it ever came down to having to break Aidan out of a jail.
There were probably less risky ways to find where Aidan was, such as asking Marta, but one never knew.
As for the other artifacts… I truly had no idea what they were. The egg and the box, I didn’t dare open, and the others I had never heard of.
They weren’t common artifacts like the seeker, or peculiar enough like
the Eyes. It was too bad the same sense that alerted me when artifacts were nearby didn’t also tell me what the heck they did.
Sending photos to Dawn or Kane to see if they recognized any of them was out of the question.
Then there was the Keeper. 1 picked it up and rolled it between my hands. So innocent looking, so valuable. Not only because it allowed the user to bypass the need for a true name to make someone obey an order, but because it took a deep secret every time it was used. If my suspicions were correct, it might actually contain more than a few true names from the Fae who had inadvertently used it through the years.
Hmm. What if it had Lord Velei’s tue name or some other deep, dark secret ] could use to my advantage?
“I don’t suppose you know how to get the secrets out of this thing, do you?” I asked Greenie, waving the Keeper in the air.
Greenie didn’t even bother to open his eyes.
Maybe simply concentrating would do it? As long as I didn’t send
an order, it would steal no dark secret. Not that any of my secrets were dark or valuable.
Awakening the magic in my blood, I pushed it into the artifact in my hands and concentrated hard on Lord Velei.
Nothing happened.
I tossed the Keeper in the air absentmindedly, pondering my options. Giving it up for information about the bad guy would take my ace away if I needed Lord Velei’s help later.
My gaze fell on the Eye-dagger. Its pupil moved up and down as it tracked the Keeper’s voyages through the air.
A slow smile began to spread across my face.
When the Eye was connected to the dagger, when I cut something,
the cut was mirrored on me: when it didn’t have the Eye, the cuts were
mirrored on someone else. Would the same principle apply to the Keeper, even though artifacts weren’t supposed to work on other artifacts?
Time to find out.
The Eye watched me curiously but detached without complaint. With the Eye on one hand and the Keeper on the other, I brought them together in front of me. There was no good way for the Eye to stick flush to the Keeper—the conch’s tiny spikes made that impossible—but hopefully, it’d be enough.
Give an order, reveal a secret.
I called on my magic again and pushed it through the artifact and the Eye at the same time.
“Release.”
My word, magnified by the Keeper, echoed in my ears. Greenie shifted, perhaps wondering what the heck he was supposed to be releasing, and, damn, I sure hoped he didn’t think it was pee—or worse.
As soon as the errant thought came into my mind, it was annihi-lated by an avalanche of…knowledge. 1 reeled back, almost losing my grasp on the Eye and the Keeper. My vision darkened; my ears rang. My head felt so full I thought it might burst.
And then it was all gone.
Fading tendrils remained, teasing me with bits of information. I lunged for the notebook and pen, but by the time I was ready to begin writing, it was too late—it had all disappeared.
I groaned into my hands. I should’ve seen something like this com-ing. Get the secrets out, but good luck keeping them—that was the artifact’s job, after all.
Leaning against Greenie, | stared at the ceiling. Way to go, Maddie. Nice waste of countless valuable intelligence. Should get a parade, really.
Well, at least now if 1 did end up trading the Keeper to Lord Velei, I wouldn’t be putting anyone in danger by him knowing their secrets.
But hell if t
he disappointment didn’t sting. Disappointment in my-self and anger at the world. I wasn’t usually one to waste energy hating life, but this hurt. All ] had accomplished so far today was run in circles and increase the target on my back. Might as well go stand in front of
the Council with a flag saying, Yo, I stole your artifacts. By the way, they’re
in my backpack. Feel free to give them away to the bad guy who framed Aidan.
Perhaps the problem was that my scope wasn’t big enough. I was thinking like Maddie, Artifact Hunter Wanna-Be, and not Maddie, Badass From The Heavens Raining Fury On Her Enemies.
Maybe I wasn’t being proactive enough, for once.
Maybe I needed to start taking instead of asking.
6
Greenie seemed unable to find Lockhart, so I asked him to find the next best thing. The hound had no trouble remembering where the house the sore had taken us to was, possibly due to being frustrated at the wards surrounding it. Greenie could go through Fae wards, but Lockhart’s magic was different. With time, Greenie would probably learn how to cross those, too, but time wasn’t something I had.
Greenie catapulted me into the human world through a mass of bushes. The ley line we had taken had been narrow and scary, with barely enough space for both of us, but the magic of it still sang in my veins. | counted myself lucky. I wasn’t sure how Greenie would take me to places that weren’t connected through a ley line, but I didn’t think I’d enjoy it.
I spit some leaves and oriented myself. I was in someone’s back yard, but the street appeared quiet. ] ambled around until I got my
bearings, then directed my feet toward Lockhart’s house and the many
wards protecting it.
With an evil cackle, I called on my magic and stepped on his warded territory. If ] was correct, somewhere Lockhart was getting a bunch of magical alarms going off in his head. Technology was hit or miss with magic, so if he had any cameras, they were hopefully going haywire between the wards activating and my magic.
Lockhart’s yard was unkempt, the house possessing a perpetual air of abandonment. I suspected the wards and some spells kept people away. Both front and back doors were locked, so I magically stomped my way around the house a couple of times before coming to sit on the front steps. I hoped he didn’t take long.
