by Alex Rivers
“I’m fae.”
I watched as her grip tightened on the edge of the bench, her knuckles whitening. She stared at me, confusion etched across her features. I wasn’t sure if that was the sepsis or the fact that her best friend had just confessed to being a monster.
I swallowed hard. “I didn’t know until I got to London. I’m half-fae, half-human. A pixie. And I’m not evil. I swear I would never do anything to harm anyone…” My words trickled away as confusion clouded my own mind. I couldn’t mention the whole terror leech thing. Save that conversation for some time when Scarlett wasn’t near death.
For several seconds, Scarlett just stared at me, blinking. She’d spent the past few days being tortured by a fae. If anything, her hatred for my species had just intensified.
“You idiot.” She winced, clutching her chest. “I know you’re not evil. Except when you haven’t had your first cup of coffee. Then you can be a nasty bitch.”
I let out a laugh mixed with a sob, and crouched down to hug her. She hissed in pain as my hands touched her back, and I quickly stepped back.
“Sorry!” I wiped a tear from my cheek.
“It’s okay. I’ll get over it.”
“We need to get you to a doctor. Now.” I leaned down, helping her stand, and she held me around my waist.
“Did I say thank you yet for rescuing me?” she asked.
“You don’t need to thank me. You’d do the same for me.”
She shuffled by my side, her body burning up. “Who were the fae you came with? There was that hot guy from the pub. The hot one… his girlfriend…” She was rambling now.
Jealousy flared, and I pushed the feeling to the back of my skull. “I’m not sure if Elrine is his girlfriend.” I took a deep breath. I hadn’t wanted to rush Scarlett into giving details about her torturer, but I had to find out what I could before I left her here. “Scarlett, I know you’re not feeling well, but this is important. Can you describe the woman who abducted you?”
“I caught a glimpse.” Near the desk, Scarlett leaned in closer to me, clinging to my chest. “About our age. Brunette, shiny smooth hair, a straight nose. Thick eyebrows. Five-six. Familiar. I don’t know why, where I would have seen…” She closed her eyes for a minute, resting her head on my shoulder. “It’ll come back.”
“Thanks. We’ll figure it out later.”
“Oh.” Her eyes opened. “I heard a name. Siofra. And…” she hesitated.
“What?” I pressed.
Scarlett blinked, sweat beading on her forehead. “She said…” She closed her eyes, concentrating. “Toll no bell for me, dear Father, dear Mother, Waste no sighs.”
If I hadn’t known about Siofra’s penchant for rhymes, I would have assumed this was fevered rambling. “That sounds like her.”
A woman sat behind a desk frowning at us over the rims of her glasses. “Can you tell me your name?”
Leaning on the desk, Scarlett turned to me. “I’ll take it from here. You’ll work it out. Call me in a day. Don’t let Fulton catch you before that.”
“I won’t.” I pulled my fake police badge, faking a British accent. “She needs to be seen straight away. She’s been tortured and her blood is poisoned, and she’ll die without immediate treatment.”
The woman nodded at me. “Of course.”
But before leaving, I marched up to one of the guards, an enormous man who hardly fit in his suit. I flipped the badge again as I approached. Damn thing was handy as hell. “Police. Can I use your phone? Just a quick call; it’s urgent.”
He muttered something under his breath, but he pulled his phone from his pocket. I snatched it from the guard, then dialed Gabriel’s number from memory.
“Hello?” he answered immediately, his voice rough, as if I’d woken him.
“It’s me.”
“What now, Cassandra? Please don’t tell me you’ve stolen the animals from the London Zoo or blown up Big Ben.”
“Good news, actually. Scarlett is safe. She’s at the hospital in Whitechapel. And the ravens are in a storage facility called Big Yellow Self Storage Kennington with a whole bunch of bread and water. The container is listed under the name Edgar Allan Poe. They should be fine.”
“Hang on. I don’t give a fuck about the birds. You got Scarlett?”
“Yes.”
“How? Who took her?”
“Finding her involved math, and…” Okay. I couldn’t tell him about breaking into the CIA. “Mostly math.”
“Math? That makes no bloody sense, Cassandra. Who abducted her? What can you tell me?”
I eyed the guard nervously. “Look, I can’t really talk now. I’m at the hospital. I’ll tell you everything I can in the morning. For now, I can just tell you the woman’s name was Siofra, and she was keeping Scarlett in a mansion in Whitechapel. It’s… the building is gone now.”
“So the evidence is destroyed. Wonderful. You really know how to work a crime scene.”
“Please tell me you’ll send someone for the birds? I don’t know how long they’ll last in there.”
“Give me specifics about the building being gone.”
The guard was staring me down. “The fire department is there already. I think it’s under control.”
“Bloody hell. Listen, Cassandra. You’d better find some way to sort all this out with the CIA. They’ve sent someone ’round looking for you, and I don’t fancy having to lie to them again. I’ve been having nightmares about orange jumpsuits and waterboarding. And if you’re running around blowing up buildings in Whitechapel, I’m done lying for you, especially when you haven’t done me the courtesy of keeping me informed about anything.”
“I’m sorry.” It was true, I was hiding things from him. And yet, I wasn’t going to tell him about the CIA break in. “But the more I tell you, the more you’ll have to lie about. It’s better if you don’t know some of this. For your own benefit.”
He let out a long sigh. “I’m glad Scarlett is safe. Just please tell me you’re done with all the crazy shit.”
“Siofra’s still out there, Gabriel.”
“Of course. And you’re the person to stop her, right? I want more details tomorrow. You should be letting the police handle this.”
“I have to go.” I hung up, and handed the phone back to the guard.
Chapter 29
In my hotel room, milky morning light pierced the blinds. I checked the clock next to my bed—just after nine a.m.
I rose from the bed, then rolled over to pick up the hotel phone. I dialed Gabriel, and he answered after the third ring.
“Stewart.”
“Did anyone find the ravens?”
“Yeah. They’re back where they belong.”
“Good.” I sighed with relief.
“And yet the city is still falling apart. There are more cases of the dancing plague. Additional floods. Thirteen dead last night. Can you tell me anything about those attacks? Is there any connection to Scarlett’s abduction?”
“I think so. I think Siofra is doing it.”
“And the fire last night in Whitechapel. Was that Siofra’s house?”
“That was her house, but we didn’t find her there.”
“Looks like there are at least a dozen bodies inside.”
“They were fae. Did the fire spread to the other houses?”
“Yes, but only minimal damage done beyond that house. Fire department managed to contain it,” he said. “How exactly did it burn?”
“I didn’t burn it, Gabriel.”
“I didn’t say you did, and yet you have a knack for leaving chaos in your wake. The EDL is still going on about the bloody ravens and travelers or refugees or whoever they’re targeting this week.”
In a battle against the fae, chaos sort of came with the territory. “I know. I’m sorry. But we’re not going to solve this by using old-fashioned police work, Gabriel. This is a fae war.”
“And that’s how you see yourself now?”
“Yeah, I guess it
is.” Exhaustion punched a hole in my chest. “Here’s what I can tell you. Siofra is five-six, brown bob, straight nose, about twenty-six. She uses incredibly powerful reflection magic. She’s sadistic and likes to be in control. She probably thrives on fear. A terror leech, maybe connected to the Rix. Maybe not. She’s known to the CIA. She’s been targeting me specifically for reasons I don’t understand. She’s into rhymes and has a sick sense of humor.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. She murdered my parents. I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.” I hung up the phone before he had the chance to ask me more about that particular fact. I didn’t want to go into it right now, didn’t want to picture my father and mother sitting in our old, cluttered living room, the comforting buzz of the TV on in the background…
Right now, I needed to stay focused on what was going on in London, and Siofra’s attack on the city. Thirteen more had died of the dancing plague. Whatever her plan was, she didn’t seem about to stop just because I’d freed her captives.
Why was she doing this? And why had she killed my parents in the first place? My initial thought had been that the abductor hated me because I’d killed the Rix, but Siofra had murdered my parents long before the Rix came into play.
None of it made sense.
I pulled my laptop from my bag and flipped it open. In the search bar, I typed in the line Scarlett had quoted last night: Toll no bell for me, dear Father, dear Mother, Waste no sighs.
The first result to pop up was a poem called “The Changeling,” and a shiver licked up my spine. I read it twice—a sad poem about isolation, not fitting in. When I’d finished reading it, I searched for “changeling” and clicked the link to the Wikipedia page.
It seemed that, according to British folklore, when a human child was stolen and replaced with a fae lookalike, the fae baby was called a changeling. Changelings were supposedly unpleasant, difficult children. In the Victorian era, several children had been murdered for the crime of being changelings.
The Irish word Síobhra—and its English counterpart, Siofra—meant changeling child.
My heart skipped a beat. Siofra was a changeling: a fae who’d been raised as a human.
But this realization didn’t answer any of my questions—namely, why she was after me.
I looked again at the Wikipedia article. Something nagged at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I scanned it again, stopping when I got to a part about eggshells.
Supposedly, changelings could be uncovered if you boiled broth in an eggshell. If you stood near them when you did it, they’d burst out laughing. I’d heard something like this before. Alvin had once asked me if I ever stewed a broth in an eggshell. At the time, I’d thought he was just being weird. He hadn’t been. He’d been giving me a hint about Siofra.
I opened my email account, finding ninety-eight unread emails, fourteen of them from my Unit Chief, most of them with a caps-locked subject about checking in. But the topmost email was from Scarlett. My heart beating, I clicked it.
Cass, attached is the sketch of the psycho. BTW the food here makes me yearn for death.
Scarlett.
When I clicked open the file and it popped up on the screen, I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach.
It looked like a sketch of my mom.
Not exactly like her—the eyes were further apart, the lips a little fuller. But, aside from that, she looked just like my mom—same straight nose, same full, arched eyebrows. Hell, she looked a lot more like my mom than I did. Of course Scarlett thought she looked familiar—I’d shown her photos of my mom over the years.
Siofra was my mother’s daughter. Either Siofra and I were somehow sisters or…
I swallowed hard, as a dreadful thought hammered in the back of my mind.
When Alvin had told me about boiling the broth in the eggshells, he’d said you should try it. He’d suggested that I would find it hilarious. And why would that be the case, unless I was also a changeling?
What if I was the other changeling, the one who replaced Siofra? Maybe it was possible for a fae to be swapped for a pixie. I didn’t know.
My stomach tightened into knots. Maybe Siofra resented me for a life stolen—and maybe she and I were more alike than I dared to acknowledge. Two changelings; two terror leeches who fed off horror. Two sides of the same coin.
And if it were true, then who, exactly, were my birth parents?
Chapter 30
Thud. Something was pounding at the walls of my mind, my own heartbeat, perhaps. Thud. The thing I didn’t want to name, didn’t want to face, the whirling, shadowy possibilities of my own identity.
Thud. My dad’s voice calmly intoned in the back of my mind, Princess, monsters aren’t real.
Oh, monsters are real, Daddy.
I just wasn’t sure if I’m one of them. Thud. I needed to know more about my past. A cold sweat broke out on my skin, and I clamped my eyes shut. Why did my past really matter? Why did it matter who my parents were? I believed in the power of environment to shape a person. Evil wasn’t innate, right? I’d always said it was learned. Thud. Thud. So what the fuck difference did it make where I came from, or who my birth parents were--unless I no longer believed my own theories? Thud. Thud.
Maybe I didn’t.
Whatever the case, the fact was, I needed to find Siofra. Something about me enraged her, and she was taking it out on innocent people in London. It wasn’t my fault, exactly. But somehow, I couldn’t escape the gnawing feeling that it was because of me. Somehow, she was killing Londoners to get at me. She wanted my attention, wanted to torment me, wanted me to feel the blood on my hands. Thud. Thud. Perhaps she hated the fact that I’d lived among the humans, and wanted to torture me by slaughtering my own kind.
My heart was pounding in my skull. I had to get out of here. I needed the noise, the chaos of the London streets. Absurdly, I wished Odin were still here with me, to drown out my thoughts with his inane chatter.
To help me forget the blood on my hands. Mistress of Dread, Mother of Death.
I clamped my hands over my ears, trying to block out the sound of my own heart. Thud. Thud. Thud.
No—it wasn’t my heart. That was the sound of a fist hitting the door.
Taking a long, shaky breath, I rose from the bed and crossed to the door, my thoughts still churning.
My body trembled as I stood on my tiptoes to peer through the peephole, shocked to see Roan staring back at me. How did he know to find me here? I pulled open the door.
“Cassandra. I nearly broke down the door. I could feel your emotions surging through.” He peered at me closely, his body tensing. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I clenched my hands together to stop them from shaking.
“You look pale.”
“I’m fine. I’m just trying to figure everything out.”
“I need to talk to you.”
I opened the door wider and he walked inside, dipping his head to avoid hitting it on the door frame.
I gestured at the rumpled bed. “Have a seat. Did you find out anything about this Siofra? She’s still killing people.”
He sat at the edge of the bed, and it groaned under his weight. “Only that she is a young fae. Not even a century old. Apparently, she grew up in the Rix’s palace.”
“The Rix?” A tendril of dread coiled through me, and I was having a hard time breathing.
Roan nodded. “I believe she was his servant, or slave. We’re trying to find out more.”
“Are pixies and fae ever exchanged for each other, as changelings?”
He shook his head. “No. A fae wouldn’t be exchanged for another fae. Why are you asking about this?”
For a moment, my heartbeat slowed, but the seed of this dreadful idea had taken root in my skull, and I couldn’t get rid of it. What if Siofra were human? Neither of my parents seemed particularly fae-like. They simply seemed human—they were too frail to be fae, too skittish, too flawed. Gra
y hair and creases around their eyes, my dad snorting when he laughed.
I paced in the small room. “Is it possible for a human to use magic the way a fae does?”
“What does it have to do with anything?” He frowned. “Cassandra, what’s wrong? I can feel your emotions whirling out of control.”
“Is it possible?” I demanded, nearly screaming now.
“Yes. It’s just very complicated.”
My gut dropped. If Siofra and I had been exchanged at birth, she could be the daughter of the two human parents who’d raised me. And that meant—I was the daughter of the man who’d raised her. The Rix. The monster I’d killed, the one with the poisonous soul.
I clutched my stomach, fighting a wave of nausea, trying to convince myself I could be wrong. I didn’t have much to go on yet—just a comment about eggshells, and the fact that the parents who’d raised me seemed human. It could easily be wrong. My racing pulse began to slow slightly.
Roan’s gaze pierced me. “You really don’t look well.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m just trying to figure everything out. Based on some things she said to Scarlett, I think Siofra could be a changeling. And I think I could be linked to her somehow. I’m just not entirely sure how.”
“But she’s fae, raised in the fae realm.”
“Right.” I loosed a sigh. “So you’re certain she’s fae. It’s unlikely that she could use this powerful magic if she was human, right?”
He cocked his head. “Unlikely, but not impossible. A human must harness power from a particular tree in the fae realm. A human can channel the power of the spirit who lives in that tree. It takes years of practice for it to work. If the link to the tree is severed, the power is gone. They’d have to start over, building that relationship up again. The Rix would know how to do that. If she were human, it would explain how she ended up a slave in the Rix’s court.”
