Grave Visions

by Kalayna Price

  By the time we’d unearthed the tree, I had mud caked under my nails and my fingers felt raw. Who knew such a small sapling would have so many roots? I considered rinsing my hands in the pond, but I doubted that would be much of an improvement. Besides, I didn’t want to get any closer to the water than I had to.

  We didn’t have a bucket or pot for the tree, so Falin turned another clump of Spanish moss into a burlap sack.

  “Why not just glamour it into a pot?” I asked, as I helped him wrap the tree’s root ball.

  He shrugged. “Masters of glamour can create objects from nothing and reality will accept the object, at least until the magic thins at dawn or sunset. But most of us need a base object to change. The fewer changes we make, the stronger the glamoured object’s place in reality.”

  So the fiberlike moss changed into a fiber-based textile was easier for reality to accept. It made sense. And it was something I’d never been told before. Of course, I was still at the stage of trying to learn to use glamour to cover my telltale fae glow, so creating objects was rather out of my ability range. The knowledge did give me an even scarier appreciation for Glitter though. No wonder it burned the user out if the hallucination didn’t kill them. The hallucinations-given-life weren’t transformations of a base material, but pure glamour fueled by the victims own life energy.

  We carried the tree between us, back to where the path and the pond met. I had no doubt Falin could have carried it himself, even with the weight of the soil packed around the roots, but I think having me help was his way of ensuring I was close. It also allowed him to keep his dagger out and bared in his free hand, just in case Jenny made another appearance.

  As we walked, I spotted a bit of purple near the edge of the pond. My phone.

  Falin wouldn’t let me approach the water—not that I really wanted to—so I stayed with the tree while he went and scooped the phone out of the muck. It was a little muddy, but it had been spared a trip into the water, so functioning. Of course, it still didn’t have signal.

  As we waited for the FIB agents, I did the best I could to clean up the phone with the edge of the blanket. While we’d been digging, I’d worked up a sweat, but now that we were standing still in the shadow of the trees, the chill was creeping in again. Thankfully, it didn’t take much longer for the agents to arrive. Falin described Jenny to them, and two went into the woods to search for the bogeyman, the third staying to watch for any sign of her at the pond.

  After that we were free to leave. Falin wanted to take the amaranthine sapling straight to Faerie, but what I really wanted was a hot shower and a change of clothes.

  “You don’t need me there to give the tree to the queen,” I said as we trudged up the path. The sapling may not be very big, but the longer we carried it, the heavier it got. I was breathing heavy before we made it around the first curve in the path. “Drop me off at home first.”

  He frowned at me. “The trip to Faerie would be good for you. Nearly drowning took a lot out of you. You’d waste less energy by recovering in Faerie.”

  And he’d been ordered to drag me back by force if necessary if I seemed to be fading too much. The queen didn’t want to risk losing even theoretical access to a planeweaver. I wanted to disagree, but I was both shivering and sweating with the effort of carrying half the tree, and I had no extra breath to argue. Falin sheathed his dagger and took the strap I’d been hauling, lifting the entire weight of the tree alone. He’d been heavily wounded yesterday, but he wasn’t even breathing hard.

  I didn’t fight to help carry the tree. I was too busy keeping my feet from dragging.

  We’d reached the parking lot when a shrill beeping issued from my phone.

  I had signal.

  I dug the phone out of my pocket. The smeared mud residue made it hard to read the screen, but I had a voice mail I’d missed by fewer than five minutes. It was probably a potential client who I wouldn’t be able to schedule an appointment for, at least not until this case was solved and I had my independent status secured. Falin was loading the sapling into the car, and I considered listening to the message later, maybe after I felt a little less shaky and had caught my breath, but I didn’t have anything else to do.

  The signal kept dropping, so it took me two tries to get the message to play.

  “Lady Craft,” a vaguely familiar voice said in the recording, “you told me to call if the hobgoblin returned to the bar. He’s here now,” he said. Then the message ended.

  I glanced at the time stamp. It had now been ten minutes since the message was left. Oh please let Tommy Rawhead still be there. I hit redial on the number.

  “Eternal Bloom, come in and let us enchant you,” the voice that answered said.

  Cute. But hopefully not accurate.

  The person who’d answered was male, but I wasn’t sure if it was the bartender who’d called me.

  “Yes, hi. May I speak to . . .” I trailed off. The fae had never given me his name. Would it be rude to ask for the satyr who tended bar? “Uh, well, that is, this is Alex Craft. I’m returning a call from this number.”

  “Oh, my lady,” the voice on the other side of the line said, confirming that he was the same bartender. “I was beginning to think you didn’t get my message.” He sounded as if he would have been relieved if his message had somehow gotten lost in the nether-space of cell reception.

  “Is the hobgoblin still there?” I asked, ignoring the satyr’s obvious discomfort. I put the phone on speaker and climbed into the car, motioning to Falin to listen as well.

  “No. He caught sight of the current clientele and turned tail. There are agents in the bar today.” The way he said agents let me know he was none-too-pleased with the FIB presence.

  “Did they go after him?”

  There was silence on the other side of the phone for a moment before the bartender said, “One is gone.”

  So, maybe. I wanted to growl out a frustrated remark about him paying more attention, but that would be rude. He’d kept an eye out like I’d asked and he’d called me. He hadn’t had to. I hadn’t offered him anything.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath so my voice came out calm, even, when I asked, “This hobgoblin, was he wearing a cap that appeared to be leaking blood?”

  “Yeah, pretty nasty. He freaks people out when he’s in here.”

  I bet.

  Falin had started the car while I was talking, and now he careened out of the parking lot. He dug his waterlogged phone out of his pocket. It was, of course, still not functioning.

  “You’ve been very helpful,” I said, taking the phone off speaker so that I could hear and be heard above the roar of wind. Talking on a cell phone in a car with the top down going way too fast on curvy roads was not fun, but time was short and I wasn’t about to ask Falin to slow down. “If you see him again, call me back. I owe you a boon.” As I said the words, I felt the debt take hold, but at least with a boon, I could refuse certain manners of repayment if I didn’t agree with the favor asked.

  “My lady,” he said as way of acknowledging my words, and he sounded amazed. I guessed not too many Sleagh Maiths offered boons to independent lesser fae.

  We both disconnected and I passed my phone to Falin. He shot me a frown.

  “You have to stop giving away debts,” he said as he dialed. I was more than a little nervous with him driving one-handed at the speeds he was pushing the car, but I held my tongue and instead shrugged at his comment. The movement transformed into a shiver, and I sank lower in my seat, dragging the glamoured blanket tighter around my shoulders.

  “He was helpful. And if this information helps us catch Tommy Rawhead, it will be worth the boon.” And if it didn’t, well, it might not matter.

  Chapter 25

  The agent had, in fact, followed Tommy Rawhead, but it took several calls for Falin to confirm it. Unfortunately, as the agent had been t
old only to detain fae matching Rawhead’s and Greenteeth’s descriptions, and as she couldn’t get in touch with Falin to clarify her orders, she’d decided to trail Rawhead instead of attempting to arrest him in a place heavily populated by humans. By the time Falin got the agent on the phone and learned she was actively following Rawhead through the streets of the Magic Quarter, we were only minutes away.

  Another call got backup headed to her position. While fae typically avoided negative public attention, like a messy public arrest, the FIB would make an exception for this case. Falin pulled onto the main strip of the Quarter. If everything went as planned, the actual takedown would likely occur before we arrived on the scene, but Falin didn’t want to take any chances of Rawhead slipping his tail.

  My phone rang.

  “Sir,” an uncertain female voice said when Falin answered. “I think we have a problem.”

  Oh no.

  “The hobgoblin just entered Magic Square,” she said. “He changed his glamour again, and I think I’ve lost him.”

  Crap. I exchanged glances with Falin. He looked grim as he said, “I want agents scouring that park. I’ll be there soon.”

  He parked the car in a loading zone and jumped out. Magic Square, the park in the very heart of the Magic Quarter, wasn’t accessible by car. We’d have to walk. Or really, run.

  I scrambled out of the car, and nearly tripped over my own legs in my haste. Falin frowned, his eyes cutting a quick assessment over me.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  “Hell, no. Out of the two of us, which can see through glamour?”

  I had him there, we both knew it, so he didn’t argue. We took off at a run, but he had to slow several times for me to catch up as I wheezed and sucked down air. I almost told him to go on, that I’d catch up, but I hadn’t been lying—my ability to see through glamour would be an asset. He had agents swarming the park. We’d be there soon. I just hope it’s soon enough.

  When we reached the gates, I cracked my shields. Wind whipped up around me, blowing across from the land of the dead, and people stopped, stared. Of course, it probably didn’t help that Falin and I were both still covered in rancid pond gunk.

  I ignored the stares as I scanned the area. We raced through the park, passing several FIB agents. Each gave a quick report to Falin before he sent them back to their own searches.

  My feet were all but dragging, my tired legs feeling as if they’d been pumped full of lead, and I was ready to admit defeat when I heard the first scream. It was a high-pitched screech, followed by wailing cries like a child would make. A second child added her voice to the first. Then a third.

  I ground to a stop and turned toward the sound. I wasn’t the only one who could see through glamour. For bogeymen, at least, young children could always see the fae’s true form, as the toddlers at Tamara’s wedding had proven.

  There was a playground on the far side of the park, and I dashed toward it. Falin was right beside me. He made a gesture over his head, motioning for all the FIB who saw it to descend on the play area as well.

  Several children had run to their baffled mothers or were hiding behind playground equipment, and it didn’t take me long to spot why. Near the back exit of the park was Tommy Rawhead, glamoured to look like any other jogger out enjoying a run in the brisk autumn air. I pointed to him.

  “Gray tracksuit with bloodred piping,” I gasped out.

  Falin didn’t waste time asking questions. He sprang to action, sprinting across the green space, several of his agents on his heels. I tried to keep up.

  I couldn’t.

  I doubled over, gulping down lungfuls of air. Between fading and my near drowning, my chest ached, my breaths making a high-pitched sound with every wheezing inhalation.

  By the time I straightened, still out of breath, Rawhead was already in cuffs, Falin dragging him across the park. I didn’t bother trying to run to catch up, but set a pace I thought I could manage.

  Falin was waiting at the car when I reached it. The other agents were nowhere to be seen, but Rawhead was both cuffed and charmed immobile in the cramped backseat beside the amaranthine tree.

  Well, it looked like I was going to Faerie after all.

  • • •

  “How dare you,” the queen yelled, stepping down from a throne so melted it barely resembled the majestic seat of power it had been the last time I’d visited the throne room.

  I was seriously hoping the queen was talking to the bound hobgoblin Falin had just shoved down into a supplicating position. But she wasn’t looking at the bogeyman, her crazed gaze fixed on me, pinning me to the spot like a needle through a bug.

  “Your majesty?” My voice came out thin, frightened. I cleared my throat before speaking again. “We’ve brought you the hobgoblin Tommy Rawhead. We believe he’s been distributing Glitter to the humans, and he is likely sworn to the alchemist.”

  She didn’t even glance at the bogeyman. She raised a hand that trembled with rage and pointed at me. “You did this. You are doing this to my court.”

  I gulped. There was certainly something wrong with the winter court: the ice-crusted walls glistened with dripping water, the floor was little more than a puddle, the seemingly ever-present snow that typically fell from the ceiling without ever hitting the ground had turned to sleet that pelted me, chilling me to the bone, and the distant music that always seemed to filter through Faerie had turned harsh, disharmonious.

  “Unraveling a court’s magic is certainly possible for a planeweaver,” Maeve said offhandedly. Ryese made a sound of agreement from where he leaned against a melting pillar. Lyell only stared straight ahead. Not looking at anyone in particular.

  I shot them a collective disgusted glance. Even if the planeweavers of legend could have done this, I most definitely didn’t know how to accomplish the task. Besides, while there was no doubt something was wrong with the winter court, if I’d have had to stake my life on the cause—and maybe I was gambling with those stakes—I’d have said Faerie was reflecting the state of the queen.

  She was not well.

  Her dark hair hung in damp, stringy strands that clung to her face and shoulders. Her soaked dress was tattered where she’d pulled at the seams, and lacked any of her normal ornamentation. She was usually as pale as freshly fallen snow, but now that pallor was sickly, like a corpse, and her flesh seemed to be pulled too tightly over her sharp features. And her eyes? Her eyes were fever bright with madness.

  No, something was definitely not all right with the queen. And her Faerie court reflected that fact. Of course, I probably didn’t look much better. The exhaustion that beat at me weighed me down, even in Faerie, and I’d seen the visible toll fading was taking on my appearance. Add to that the slime and muck encrusted in my hair and clothes—of course the muddy puddle around my boots suggested that sleet had washed at least some of that off—and I probably looked pretty sick myself. But it was more than the queen’s body that was unwell. It was her mind.

  In the past she’d struck me as manipulative, narcissistic, and cruel. But never mad . . .

  “My queen,” Falin said, kneeling between the Winter Queen and me. It was unlikely that she had failed to notice the fact he’d physically blocked her access to me, but he hurried on before she could rage about it. “Alex has been a friend to our court. She discovered an amaranthine sapling and has brought it to your court. She’s also brought a traitor’s conspirator for you to question.” He motioned to the bound bogeyman, who had very wisely remained still and hadn’t drawn attention to himself while the full weight of the queen’s fury had been focused on me.

  Now, she finally turned to the bogeyman. Her pale lips curled back in a disgusted sneer as she studied him. “What say you, you repulsive little man? Are you sworn to a member of my court?”

  Tommy looked up and smiled at the queen. It was a disturbing expression with his mouth
of pointed teeth and the blood dripping down his face, tinting the water around him.

  “I will never say, Queen of Ice.”

  Her fist balled in her once full skirt, ripping at an already frayed seam. “To whom are you aligned?”

  “You may ask until your last breath, but I will give you no names.”

  If he’d been human, I’d have applauded his bravado, but guessed it wouldn’t have held long. But he was fae, and he promised it with such conviction of truth, that I guessed he was bound not to reveal the alchemist.

  “There are ways to loosen your tongue, hobgoblin.” The queen motioned to Falin, who drew his two wickedly long daggers. They flashed in the unearthly light and I gulped. I wanted answers. Needed them to complete my bargain with the queen, to stop the influx of Glitter on the streets, but I hadn’t signed on for torture. Of course, what had I really been expecting? An interrogation room with a table, a couple of chairs, and a two-way mirror?

  “Shall I take him to Rath?” Ryese asked, making a step toward the bogeyman. “We could start him on the rack.”

  My stomach flipped and if the late breakfast I’d eaten hadn’t been quite so long ago, I might have been revisited by the food. Instead I just felt queasy. The urge to run out of the room and disassociate myself with the whole thing was strong, but I was a part of this. If I wasn’t going to protest, I wasn’t going to wash my hands of it either.

  The queen pursed her lips. “No, I don’t think that will do. While I have no doubt he will eventually break, I do not wish to devote that much time in the creature.”

  “Will you truthseek, Ice Queen?” The hobgoblin asked, still grinning that terrible grin.

  “By your gloating expression, I’m assuming that would be a fruitless exercise as you are oath bound to reveal nothing.” She leaned down until she was eye level with Tommy. “Funny things about oaths—they bind only until death. Knight, kill that creature.”

  Falin, who couldn’t disobey a direct command from his queen, jerked the hobgoblin to his feet and pressed a blade against the smaller fae’s exposed throat. For the first time, the smile fell from Tommy’s face, the whites of his eyes flashing as his eyelids drew back as if he could manage to see more of the danger that would somehow show him a way out of it. But it didn’t. Had he so much as breathed hard, the blade pressed against his throat would have bitten into flesh.