City of Shadows

by Pippa Dacosta

  He really had been paying attention. “He disagrees?”

  Samuel paused. He stared unblinking into my eyes, but I felt no pressure to look away. Almost as though, for the first time since I’d arrived on the FA’s doorstep, he understood me. “We each have something inside of us we must overcome,” he said. “Take control of your future. This is your battle. Nobody will fight it for you.”

  That was easy for him to say, he didn’t have her draíocht in his veins and an ancient spirit calling the shots.

  “And what if what I am is insane like the queen? What if I let the truth in and it changes me for the worse?”

  “Then, at least, you’ll have discovered the path you must follow.” He picked the daggers up by the blades, one in each hand, and held them out to me, hilts first. “Training hall. Five minutes. You’ll need these.”

  I curled my fingers around them, feeling a sense of rightness settle in my bones, and drew them slowly from his fingers. Was he giving them back to me for good, or was this an attempt to soften me up before he kicked my ass?

  Before I could get any ideas about thanking him, he headed for the door. “Five minutes, Alina. Don’t make me wait, or Kael will hear about that lost earring of yours.”

  “You need to hone the skills we already know you have, without turning into a draíocht-hungry, dagger-wielding killing machine. Can you at least try to focus?”

  I was lying facedown on the training mat. Again. Samuel had yanked my arm behind me and pressed his boot between my shoulder blades, pinning me down with the unruffled efficiency of someone who could drop his opponents with a glance. Scaw had been right, Samuel really didn’t like to lose. He’d taken every opportunity to knock me on my ass, face-plant me into the mats, and kick my legs out from under me. I’d spent more time horizontal than vertical. There appeared to be a distinct lack of actual training in my training.

  “This gives me no pleasure, Construct.” He sounded genuine, but I didn’t believe him. Behind that blank fae face, the bastard was grinning from ear to ear. Smugness practically radiated off him.

  “Uh-huh,” I grunted. It was no secret that I could fight him. But dialing up that part of me at the click of my fingers was a little more difficult, and dangerous. I’d held back—for both of us.

  Samuel released my arm and left me on the mats while he crossed to a row of chairs running along the outside of the training hall. He picked up a bottle of water and a towel and threw both at me. I caught the bottle, but the towel smacked me in the face.

  He twisted the cap off his water and upended it, taking a long, deep drink. Considering we’d spent the last forty minutes getting physical, he’d barely made eye contact. Clearly, beating on me was a waste of his time, and he’d have preferred patrolling.

  I had gotten in a few clean and sharp right hooks, even cracked my elbow into his jaw with a very satisfying crunch, but nothing had rattled him. The same went for answering any subtle questions about Kael. Samuel wasn’t rising to my bait.

  Tossing his bottle aside with a bit more force than necessary, he took a few deep, measured breaths. At least he was out of breath. I could run, and being half his size and half his weight, I had made the most of that advantage.

  “You fight like a human girl,” he grumbled. “Just as you’re about to let go, you pull yourself back, falling back into the human role. Yet you’re not human. You are aware of this fact?”

  “Says who?” I got to my feet, sweeping my hair back from my sweaty cheeks and straightening my clothes. Muscle burn radiated through my shoulders and thighs. His words rang true, but I didn’t have to like them or give any hint that he was probably right.

  His smile grew. It wasn’t entirely pleasant. More like a frustrated slant to the lips. “A human couldn’t have almost killed Kael. Nor could a human hold back a lytch.”

  There hadn’t been anything human about the way I’d held off that creature or about the words coming out of my mouth.

  “You did well,” he added, gaze sliding away. “Saved a great many people.”

  “Thank you.” I hadn’t expected that. Not from him.

  “But it won’t do you any good unless you accept what you are.” And the prickly fae with a holier-than-thou complex was back. “And until you do that, don’t expect the rest of us to accept you.”

  I bit my tongue and kicked at the mat, swallowing the urge to tell him I didn’t want to be accepted by the FA, anyway. I wasn’t here for them or to unlock my potential.

  Samuel dropped into one of the chairs and leaned forward, running his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t volunteered for this; training me was probably his idea of hell. Did he always do what Kael said?

  “How long have you worked for the general?”

  “Since he pulled me off the streets of Faerie as a boy and put a blade in my hand,” Samuel replied. He looked up and met my gaze. “He gave me a purpose.”

  Something Kael believed I was looking for.

  Samuel pushed onto his feet and plucked his daggers free. We hadn’t fought with blades yet. If we had, I was pretty sure he’d have planted his in my back fifteen seconds into our session. Mine lay on a chair—behind him. If there was something I was good at, it was running, and I’d have to run if I was going to get around him and arm myself.

  “Stop wasting my time.” He flipped the blade in his right hand, catching it again without so much as a glance. “I’m not here to babysit you.”

  “Okay, but don’t go crying to Kael when the pathetic construct carves that smile off your face.”

  He lunged. I bolted, feinting left, then swerving right. His blade breezed past my neck, too close for comfort, but I was already beyond his black and red blur. Snatching my daggers, I ducked and spun, crossing the blades high, blocking the incoming strike. Samuel’s blade sang out against mine, ringing down my arms. He pushed in, driving me to my knees, but I’d done enough. I held him back. Even as he leaned deeper into my blades, a devilish delight in his eyes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Samuel must have been impressed enough with my ability to avoid death by his blades, because I’d been rewarded with a set of FA leathers to call my own during the next patrol. I had to push and pull various bits of me into the right place, and then ask Nyx to zip me up.

  “I can’t breathe,” I puffed.

  “They’ll loosen up once they’re warm.”

  “There has to be more practical clothing than this?”

  “Practical perhaps, but none as intimidating. Haven’t you figured out by now that it’s all about appearances.” She sank her fingers into my hair, twisted it into a quick knot, then rammed two pins through it. And she did it all so quickly, so efficiently, that I didn’t have time to protest. “There. If you’re on your best behavior, perhaps Samuel will braid it for you?”

  I threw her a look of horror, which only made her laugh. She handed me my blades. I pushed them into their sheaths, flicked them free, and shoved them home again, marveling at how easily I could have them palmed and ready.

  She stepped back and whistled through her teeth. “You’ll make a fine warrior, Construct. If you can stay alive long enough to learn how.” She winked and headed for the door.

  “Thank you.” I followed her into the hall. “For not agreeing to be present when they—” Words clogged my throat. I swallowed, and tried again. “When Kael tested me.”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “London sees us like machines, and that’s fine by us, but we have hearts too. Out there, on the streets, I’m a cold bitch. Here, I’m still a bitch, but I bite less.” Her smile revealed the tips of her sharp canines.

  “What’s Samuel’s excuse?” I asked, falling into step beside her.

  “You mean, why does he have a rod the size of the London Shard up his arse?”

  I winced, hoping wherever he was, Nyx’s voice hadn’t reached him. “Yeah.”

  “He thinks he’s got a lot to prove. He spent so long fighting to get to the top he’s forgotten we’re not in
Faerie anymore.” Nyx shoved open a set of double doors. We strode down a hall, up the main staircase, and out through the front door. A Range Rover idled against the curb a short walk away. Scaw was in the driver’s seat while Samuel rode shotgun.

  “Why does he have to prove anything?” In a few strides we’d be at the car and the answers would stop flowing.

  “Faerie was brutal for his kind.” She saw my blank look, slowed her pace, and lowered her voice. “In Faerie, the family you’re born into defines you. He wasn’t born a warrior like the rest of us. Kael found him as an orphan, living on the fringes of Murias and recruited him. By law, Kael should have let him die. No bloodline, no property to call his own. Samuel was nothing. Faerie isn’t kind to those with nothing.”

  So many questions spilled into my head. Nyx smiled. “He doesn’t know how to stop fighting.”

  Much of the London Underground would be closed overnight. And tomorrow, according to Samuel’s brief explanation as we drove, strike action would be announced, closing off the entire subway for forty-eight hours while the FA inspected the tunnels.

  A nervous engineer let us through the locked gates. Nyx winked through the window as Scaw pulled the Rover away, leaving me about to enter miles of underground tunnels with Samuel at my side. Wonderful.

  “The Crossrail project unearthed a plague pit nearby,” Samuel said, jogging down the steps. “We’ve had a unit sweep through here, but given the lytch’s fondness for the deceased or dying, I want to take another look myself.”

  “Plague pit?” And my night was just getting better and better.

  The lights rippled on deep into the station and down quiet escalators. At least it wasn’t all pitch-black, just as silent as a tomb.

  “Mass graves used to dispose of bodies during London’s Black Death.”

  “I don’t suppose we can blame the fae for the Plague?” I asked, falling behind Samuel as he climbed the static escalators.

  “You’d blame the fae for bad weather during Notting Hill Carnival.”

  Was that a joke? I couldn’t see his face, and his voice had remained level. If he was joking, he was an expert at deadpan. “Yeah, but did you have anything to do with it?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “Because the fae aren’t fond of answering them.” We leveled out and headed toward the silent platforms. “You still haven’t answered.” I definitely heard a frustrated little growl.

  “The Plague happened long before our arrival. Though we had a similar outbreak in Faerie.”

  “Oh, aren’t you all virtually indestructible?”

  “Here, yes. Faerie is … very different. The weak die quickly there.”

  “Did many weak fae die?”

  “Not as many as could have.” He glanced back. “The Hunt destroyed hundreds. The infected and those who happened to be considered exposed.”

  The Hunt? I was about to ask who or what the Hunt was, but Samuel strode onto an empty platform, his long-legged stride difficult for me to keep pace with. Under the harsh Underground station lights, he seemed all the harder. From what I’d heard, to survive in Faerie you learned to kill. Nyx’s words came back to me. Samuel as an orphan, with nothing and nobody. I knew that loneliness and that fight. I’d killed to survive. So had he. And we’d both do it again.

  I stopped at the platform edge and peered into the dark tunnel. “Where would a lytch come from?” My words sailed into the quiet along with the sound of our footfalls on the platform.

  Samuel stopped at the edge and dropped down onto the track bed. “Like the rest of us, they were pushed here when Faerie’s elders decided to banish those they considered the worst of us.”

  “And is Kael one of those? One of the worst?”

  Samuel backed up, and lifted his head. He studied me, quietly assessing the best way to answer, or formulating a lie? “The queen brought General Kael with her, and those most devoted to him followed.”

  I shivered as the alien memories bubbled to the surface of my thoughts. She’d offered Kael what he must have seen as redemption for the death of his soldiers. Once here, and caught in her web, Kael, like Reign, likely had no other choice but to follow her. That didn’t mean the general wasn’t guilty. He’d turned the FA against London by having them work for the queen. He’d been responsible for the deaths in the tunnels—the fae warriors I’d killed. And yet, there had to be something good in him to take in Samuel as an orphaned boy, when according to Nyx, fae law dictated he shouldn’t have.

  I considered Nyx’s words as I walked beside the fae who Kael had saved. The general didn’t seem the sort to help anyone, unless it benefited him. So why had he helped Samuel? Maybe he’d seen the same potential in Samuel, seen something he could use? Samuel did follow Kael’s orders without fault. If there was a bond there, I could exploit it to get my answers.

  He stopped at the platform’s edge, unclipped a small flashlight from his belt loop, and tossed it to me. “How well does a construct see in the dark?” He flicked his own flashlight on and turned toward the tunnel. “The track electrics have been disabled. We can walk the tunnels between here and Bank. Are you afraid of the dark, Alina?”

  I’d learned there were various shades of dark, some hungrier than others. Flicking on my flashlight, I followed Samuel into the tunnel, trying not to think about how easily a lytch could hide in my peripheral vision—close enough to breathe down my neck. I swept the flashlight beam around me. The air smelled dry and dusty, with a twang of metal.

  “If you were a lytch beast, this is where you’d be, huh?” I walked between two rails so as not to fall over them, but I still couldn’t see much farther than a few feet ahead. Samuel didn’t seem to be having any problem striding into the dark.

  Shivers trickled down my spine. I swept the torchlight behind me, piercing the dark, but finding nothing more than bundles of cables running like veins along the tunnel walls. Facing ahead, I tripped over a rail and stumbled onto Samuel’s side of the tracks.

  He raked a “really” glare over me. “Sometimes you’re entirely too human.”

  When he faced ahead again, I smiled at his back. He’d think he’d insulted me.

  We walked on, the loudest thing the sound of my own thudding heartbeat. “That clinic you took me too. All the FA go there?”

  “You don’t like silences, do you? That’s why you ask questions.”

  “You don’t like direct questions, do you? That’s why you keep changing the subject.”

  He hesitated, but kept moving. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, all of the FA are required to frequent that particular clinic.”

  “Don’t you, ya know … Well, I mean—isn’t it a bit beneath you?”

  That garnered me an over-the-shoulder raised-eyebrow glance. I’d have to be subtler in getting my answers.

  “It serves its purpose,” he said. “It’s that or we stalk humans on the streets of London. As enjoyable as that may be, it’s not likely to endear us to the people. And then there’s the fact the FA are meant to be enforcing the Trinity Law, not breaking it. We can live in peace here, I’m sure of it. It just takes careful management.”

  “Don’t the FA ever, ya know … want more?” Like, enough to steal people and keep them hidden somewhere? People like Becky?

  He stopped abruptly and turned his flashlight on me, shining it off to my right so as to keep it out of my eyes. “Nyx told me you’d starved yourself. What were you doing on the Underground in that condition?”

  I blinked and lifted my chin at his indignant tone. “Trying not to act on the thoughts in my head.” I could still feel the need crawling beneath my skin. Nyx’s top-off had taken the edge off, but it wasn’t enough, particularly after the training session.

  “Your resistance could have ended in unwilling bespellment. Next time, take what you need at the clinic. I’ll take you back there and tie you down, if I have to.”

  He was right, but that didn’t mean I had to like
it. I pushed forward, around him, and headed into the dark. “Does Kael use the same clinic?” My voice echoed ahead until the tunnel swallowed it up.

  “Why?”

  “He seems so restrained. I can’t imagine him waiting in line like we had to.” I lowered the flashlight and watched my footing over the tracks.

  “Yes, Kael uses the clinic.”

  I didn’t miss the slight inflection at the end of Samuel’s sentence. More of a question than an answer. “But?”

  “But … Ask him your irritating questions.”

  “You can thank the queen for that.”

  “She deliberately made you irritating?”

  I snorted. “She made me curious.”

  A few more steps into the dark. “What’s it like, being a construct?”

  I huffed a laugh through my nose. “What’s it like being an arrogant fae asshole?” The words left my lips before I could stop them, or maybe I hadn’t wanted to. It’s not like I was telling him something he didn’t already know.

  “I don’t have a frame of reference to compare it to.”

  “Exactly. I’m me and you’re you, and we’ll never know what that feels like.”

  “But you’re Arachne too? If we are to believe what we’ve seen so far.”

  Arachne. My stride tripped. The way he just dropped it into conversation, as though it was common knowledge. My heart beat fast and light inside my chest, shortening my breath.

  “What must that feel like? Her power inside of you? Exhilarating, I imagine.”

  “I’m trying not to think about it.”

  The general had been talking, sharing his theories with Samuel. And others too, probably. Hearing the spirit’s name on Samuel’s lips made her real and brought home exactly what it was I was battling inside.