I smashed his glass—the same glass he had left for me in the beginning—against the wall and instantly regretted it—knowing he had left it there for exactly that reason. I counted the pieces where they lay and waited for the anger to wane.
At least Kellee knew I wasn’t here by choice. He must have seen the collar. But what if he acted on it? What if he confronted Larsen? The fae had already killed Kellee’s people. Larsen would finish the job.
I paced back and forth in my room.
Think. I knew how to push Larsen’s buttons. He didn’t want to hand me over to the Fae Courts. He said he was keeping me for entertainment, but he’d also said he suspected me of working for them. Handing me over would expose him, and he didn’t appear to want that either. I had to figure out a way to use what I knew. Attacking him in the hallway had been foolish, but I’d learned a few things. I knew he had a reserve of power. I also knew he wanted me to fight him, either because of my reputation or to get revenge for the death of his queen. The fae loved to draw out their vendettas. Courtly families warred for years behind closed smiles and veiled threats. Mab had liked that about me. She had told me I was simple, meaning it as a compliment.
So, he wanted to play a game.
I was good at games.
My coat, draped over the back of the chair, caught my eye. I picked it up and rummaged through its pockets, finding nothing. Turning it inside out, I did the same again. Nothing.
With a frustrated growl, I walked the corridors. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, all were smooth. The motion-sensing tek that controlled the lights were locked away behind immovable panels. If I had access to them, I could strip the units down and remake them into useful tek.
I threw my coat on, ignoring the torn flap, and slid down a wall to tuck myself in a corner. The table was still there, bolted to the floor, surrounded by broken glass.
Not so long ago, I’d stood behind Queen Mab’s right-hand side. If she could see me now, she would laugh. The Wraithmaker could easily endure a few days in isolation. This was nothing. But I wasn’t the Wraithmaker anymore. I’d seen to that when I killed her. I wasn’t Kesh either. And I’d been taken from my home too young to know who I’d been before the fae. I had a saru name from before. That was all. No memories of my home, no memories of my parents. Just a name. It was all I had that was completely me before the fae corrupted me.
I buried my hands in my coat pockets and rested my head back against the wall. I would find out what Larsen wanted from me and I’d give it to him. I’d make him think he controlled me, owned me like the fae owned all saru, and then he would talk. He would tell me his name and his reason for being here. And he would tell me what Arcon was hiding. When I knew all his secrets, I would break them open the way he had broken Sota open. I would reveal the fae to the humans, and he would pay. Nobody would come to save him. Not this far from Faerie.
My fingers touched a small tile of cool metal. I picked it out of my pocket. My home-built comms. Larsen had missed it. Would it work? Quickly, I pressed it to the skin behind my ear. “Kellee?”
The silence dragged alongside the hopeful race of my heart.
“Kellee?” I asked more softly, realizing any chance of the signal reaching me here, below Arcon, was remote. Please answer. I don’t want to be alone.
“…Kesh.”
The signal was so weak I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined hearing my name. I pressed the comms harder into my skin. “Kellee?” Please…
And waited.
A heartbeat. Another.
I didn’t hear the voice again.
“Kellee,” I sighed. “If you can hear me… you can help me now.”
Chapter 15
I waited, listening to Larsen’s soft footsteps coming down the corridor behind the closed door. The door to my room opened inward. He would have to reach in, his forearm exposed. I’d waited a long time, stewing down here. But now was the time to test him.
The fragment of glass dug into my palm, seated firmly. Its triangular point glinted.
The sound of his approach fell silent right outside the door. I held my breath.
The handle dipped.
The door swung open. I swept in, stabbed the point into his arm and slashed upward, splitting dark tattoos and tearing open a vein. Bright fae blood, as scarlet as his favorite human tie, splattered his clothes. Speckles splattered my face. He roared and lashed out, intent on backhanding me against the wall, but I ducked the swing and jabbed the stubby glass blade into his side.
“Is this what you want?” I hissed, pressing in close. I drew the weapon back to strike again, but he slammed his forehead down onto mine in a very un-fae-like move and shoved me backward. He didn’t pursue but stood in the corridor, a stream of blood running down the jagged cut on his arm, spilling from his fingertips.
I wiped the blood from my cheek, tasted it on my lips and beckoned him forward with my finger. “Should have worn bracers.” The fae often did back home. Bracers protected their forearms and hid weapons. He’d forgotten that. What else had he forgotten?
He looked down as though noticing the gash in his arm for the first time. “Are you done playing games?”
When he faced ahead, he smiled, telling me I had him pegged. He wanted this. Fuck knew why, but I’d give it to him.
He stepped into the room. “You can do better.” The flesh on his forearm pulled closed, self-sealing the wound. Only the blood remained. His perfect skin hadn’t even scarred, unlike mine.
“Come closer and we’ll find out.”
One more step, bringing him within arm’s reach. He watched me closely, waiting for tells, for any sign of what my next move might be. Wild predators watched their prey with that same patient glare.
I tossed the bloody piece of glass at his feet. “Take me to Sota.”
Irritation briefly tightened his smile, twisting it downward.
“I want to know my drone is functioning before this”—I gestured at the blood splattered on the shiny floor—“whatever this is, continues.”
Wordlessly, fully healed and wrapped once again in illusion, he took me to Sota. Subdued lighting implied it was resting hours on Calicto, and we only passed a couple of Arcon’s late-night employees on the walk to Sota’s room.
My drone woke the second I touched his outer shell.
“Sota?” I peered into his single red eye. He didn’t answer, but the lens moved, contracting and then shifting to the side. “It’s okay.” I attempted to reach him through our neural link but met a wall of silence.
“What have you done to him?” I snapped at Larsen. “You said you wouldn’t harm him.”
“I modified a few things.” He lifted a hand, stopping my objections. “Nothing untoward. I may even have improved him.”
He had modified my drone? Improved him? I turned my back on Larsen and pressed my palm to Sota’s outer shell. “Talk to me.”
“I…” Sota stammered like broken code. “I am s-sorry, Kesh.”
None of this is your fault. He couldn’t hear my thoughts. Larsen had done something to our link, probably severed it for good. He might even have replaced it with his own. “Sota, look at me.” The drone’s eye swiveled to fix on me. He didn’t have many expressions, but sadness rolled off him in static waves. “Whatever he did to you, I’ll fix it.” I’m the one who’s sorry.
Larsen loomed to my right, encroaching on my personal space. “Ask him if he wants to be fixed?” the smug-ass fae inside a human disguise asked. He crossed his arms and nodded, already knowing the answer.
I bared my teeth in a snarl. “So, you rewrote his code.” Larsen shouldn’t even know how to write code. Fae didn’t know such human things. Tek things. “I don’t care. I’ll write it back again.”
Sota’s single red eye buzzed brighter. Hotter. He was arming his weapons. I straightened and backed away, alarmed to see his shell crack open, revealing two firing ports.
I swallowed and lifted my hands. “Sota?”
Larsen patted the drone’s top p
anel. “It’s okay,” he said, echoing me. “She can’t touch you without my consent.”
He’d stolen my drone. He hadn’t just taken him away, he had reprogrammed Sota. A hard, stupid knot tightened in my throat, and my vision blurred. I had created Sota from nothing. I had given him life. He was mine. He was all I had. And Larsen had taken the first and last thing I owned away.
Sota’s motors whirred. The drone rose into the air. “Cease all aggressive action, Kesh Lasota,” he ordered, sounding like the tactical drone he had originally been. There was a threat to his master in this room: me.
“Kesh…” Larsen warned, glancing between me and the drone. “Tell the drone you don’t want to hurt me.”
I didn’t want to hurt him. My thoughts weren’t nearly as neat as that. I wanted to destroy him. I turned from the room and strode away, hearing Larsen telling Sota to power down. The fae followed, his fake-heavy human footfalls racing with the sound of my heartbeat.
I whirled, grabbed Larsen by the neck and slammed him into a glass wall. Cracks sparked behind his head and shoulder. Indignation flared in his eyes. He gripped my arm but stilled when I leaned in. “I’ll kill you for this.” Tears wet my cheeks. Useless tears. “You turned him against me. I don’t care who you are or what you’re doing here. I will cut you open and spill that fae blood and magic all over Arcon. I will ruin you and this fantasy of yours, you crazy, fucked-up Faerie reject—”
Larsen brought his elbow down on my hold, buckling me under him, and in a blur, I was the one with my back against the glass and my feet dangling off the floor. He cocked his head, the fae-like movement odd when coupled with his human face. Parting his lips, he ran his tongue across his pearly teeth. “You’ve been a ghost for so long I wondered if the Wraithmaker was even in there. I see her now.” He drew closer, so close his lemony scent filled my head and his fae-gaze burned through his illusion. “And I see the fire our queen so admired.”
More tears fell. I hated them. I hated him. I hated everything. I hated that just the mention of the queen twisted my insides into knots.
“K-Kesh…” The marshal’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Kesh, can you hear me?” The comms tickled.
Larsen’s gaze shifted from intrigue to suspicion. He moved in closer, his cheek against mine. Had he heard Kellee too?
I couldn’t let Larsen discover the marshal. I needed Kellee on the outside of all this. I needed his help.
Larsen’s cool breath brushed my cheek. I turned my head toward him, my lips brushing the corner of his mouth. “I will ruin you,” I promised, and then swept my tongue across his lower lip, tasting where I’d wanted to since I’d seen him drink the water. His entire body tensed, but his grip on my neck softened, lowering me to my feet. His mouth followed mine, wanting more, but not daring to commit. What he was doing—desiring a saru—went against his upbringing, his life, his rules. He likely hated me too.
I teased my mouth over his, tentatively asking, seeking. I imagined it was Kellee’s smart mouth I provoked. Imagined it was the marshal’s firm hand resting on my hip and easing higher. Larsen released my throat and drove his hand into my hair, holding me rigid as his mouth smothered mine. The kiss turned brutal and hungry, as though Larsen were starving. I dragged my hand down his waist and around his back, finding the corded tension there. I pulled him close, feeling every stuttering breath, every tight shift, every hard inch of him. I hated him, hated everything about this, hated how I arched closer and how every inch of my skin sparked alive where his hand rode up under my top, hated how I sounded, snatching at breaths the same way my hands snatched at his clothes. I ran my palm up his waist, watching his human illusion spin apart and the fae become real. He shouldn’t feel so good. I shouldn’t want to touch every ripple of muscle and explore the rest of him with my mouth. But it had been so long since I’d tasted them, so long since I’d loved them, so long since I’d lain with them.
“Kesh… did he hurt you?”
The scorching lust faltered at the sound of Kellee’s voice. The madness waned. I pulled my hands back, closing them into fists, and turned my head to the side, shutting Larsen down.
A woman stood at the end of the hallway, stacks of used cups in her arms. She gaped at the glorious black-haired fae from thousand-year-old legends pressing me up against the wall. Larsen’s hand brushed my thigh. Just a small, hapless touch, but it ignited an aching desire. A groan escaped me as I imagined that hand roaming inward. I didn’t want to want this. He didn’t want to want this.
“Oh,” the woman squeaked.
Larsen’s touch vanished. He stepped back and threw out a hand. His magic flared and the poor woman’s entire body fell limp, her eyes glassy like a doll propped up by an invisible hand. She dropped her cups. They exploded across the floor into hundreds of jagged pieces.
He frowned at the interruption. It was a lazy look, the kind of dismissive expression I had seen on countless fae as they regarded their saru slaves, considering their fate.
“Don’t kill her.” She didn’t need to die. Nobody would believe what she had seen. “Glamor her. Make her dream. Spin an illusion. You have the power. She doesn’t need to die.”
An otherworldly heat burned in his eyes. The same heat I’d seen in so many of them. He had the power to make the woman dance, make her love, or make her die.
I stepped in front of him and heard the woman collapse behind me—his hold on her snapped. His gaze dropped to mine and that heat set me ablaze. “Spare her,” I whispered. Whoever this fae was, whatever his past held, there was one way I could placate him. I closed my right hand into a fist as generations upon generations of saru had done, touched it to my chest over my heart and dropped to one knee. “Please.”
His head tipped, eyes narrowing. He leaned closer, seeking something deeper inside my gaze. The intensity of his glare reminded me that, in his world, I was a lesser thing. I was human, a creature made for the fae and their whims. Long ago, long before legends, they had given us the gift of life. Without the fae, my species wouldn’t exist.
I bowed my head, exposing my neck. Traditionally, the pose invited a blade to end my life, but it meant more than that now. I was bowing to him, subjugating myself, acknowledging his status above me. After every battle, trembling and covered in blood, I had bowed to them. Again and again and again. That woman’s life was my battle now.
He moved around me. I snuck a glance and saw him crouch beside the fallen woman. At his touch, she stirred but didn’t wake. He turned his head and caught me watching. What he was doing was no minor illusion. Whoever he was, he wasn’t just another fae. He had the power to make people and worlds bend to his will.
I touched the comms tucked safely in my pocket.
I had to tell Kellee everything.
Chapter 16
My basement was wrapped in illusion. I’d suspected as much, but now that I knew what he was capable of, I also knew he could make me see and believe almost anything. Bizarrely, the collar nullified both my magic and the worst of his. He could manipulate what I saw and heard, but not my thoughts. Suddenly, I was in no hurry for him to remove the collar.
After he’d set the woman at her desk and given her dreams of fantastical things, Larsen had escorted me back to the basement, his stern fae face rigid, his body perfectly controlled. He shut me inside without meeting my eye and left. I waited a few minutes and then reapplied the comms and set about walking the corridors, speaking Kellee’s name, hoping there was one spot where the signal would get through. I had assumed I was below Arcon, but I could have been on the top floor. I might not even have been in Arcon. That worked in my favor. I’d assumed the comms would never work and given up trying. Now I had hope.
“Kesh!” Kellee said. The signal crackled, but I’d heard him.
I pressed my hands to the walls of one of the nondescript rooms and bowed my head, hoping the signal held. “Kellee?” Please hold. Please be there.
“Yes, Kesh…”
Relief flooded through
me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed this to work. An odd exhaustion rolled over me, tiredness like that of a thousand lifetimes. I wasn’t alone.
“Finally,” Kellee grumbled, audibly relieved. His voice sounded gravelly and monumentally pissed off. With no other distractions, I heard all the tiny nuances, including the touch of a growl. “Where have you been?”
I smiled. “I’ve been busy.”
“I saw. Sharing canapés with Larsen.” The comment was meant to sound light, but he didn’t quite pull it off.
I’d missed him. How long had I been stuck in Arcon? Hearing him now, it seemed like forever. I wanted to see his secret smile when he believed I wasn’t looking or he thought he knew something I didn’t. I wanted to rouse that beast in him and study its movements. It was irrational—this want—but I needed it to cling on to. Like hope. Hope was always irrational, wasn’t it?
“Kesh?”
“Yes, I’m still here. I was just thinking…”
“It’s about time you started.”
I closed my eyes and imagined the marshal here with me. In my head, he stood behind me, half smiling like he knew I would come around to his thinking eventually. I’d been so alone. I hated how I ached for company—a fault left over from Faerie.
“This is so much worse than we thought,” I said, softly. What if Larsen knew I was talking with Kellee? It didn’t matter. I needed this or else I would lose my mind in this maze of illusions. “He’s insane but in a way that makes him dangerous. And he knows, Kellee. He knows who I am.”
A pause. “Has he hurt you?”
Something in my chest hurt. Not my heart. Guilt? “No. Not really. Not like he’s capable of.” I swallowed, moistening my throat so the words didn’t choke me. “He’s been away from Faerie too long. He sees something of his home in me… I think he knows what he should do, but he’s torn. I think he’s hiding here like I was. But he’s been here a lot longer than me. He knows things the fae shouldn’t know. He knows about tek. He knows… He did something to my friend. He’s different from the fae back… back home.” Admitting where I’d come from was easier than I’d expected. If anything, it was a relief to say it.
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