by Anya Bast
She stared up at him, wishing like hell looks really could kill.
He laughed. “I’ll show you how it works in a few minutes.” Pulling a piece of folded paper from his back pocket, he read it. “How about I start with Mr. Donnell McKee?”
Damn it. She fisted her hands so hard her fingernails dug into her palms. Niall had been taking notes, given them to the Black Tower, and now the Shadow Queen had sent this piece of work for her. Now what? She couldn’t let any of her people die over the pieces, yet she wasn’t ready to allow her mother to die, either.
Sweet Danu, what a choice.
She glanced into the kitchen on her right and focused on her iron skillet, hanging over her stove. The only way out of this was to defeat the pirate, right here and now. The goblins were a wild card, but she was betting that once their commander was out of commission, they’d back off.
Shooting to her feet, she bolted for it.
Searing electric pain shot through her body, dropping her hard onto the floor. She writhed, screaming, unable to do anything but endure the fire blazing through her veins. The scorching pain was gone as soon as it had started; leaving her with a marrow-deep ache in her body that prevented her from moving.
She lay motionless, moaning, as the pirate loomed over her. He was talking and gesturing angrily, but she understood nothing. The world had gone silent except for the roaring in her ears. Her mouth opened and closed, her fingers scratching on the polished wood of her kitchen floor. The pain wiped all thought from her mind.
Something caught the pirate’s attention. His head jerked up, gaze focused out the window. His eyes widened and he raced away. Oh, crap. Anything that could scare that guy was not good news.
Around her, chaos exploded.
From where she lay, she saw only feet—the pirate’s black boots; long, bare gray goblin feet; and new feet. Polished brown leather loafers, a scuffed pair of hiking boots.
Sounds began to filter into her consciousness and started to make sense again. Yelling. Explosions. Grunts and bellows of men and creatures in pain or in attack. Battle sounds. Smoke curled along the ceiling of her kitchen and foyer.
She lay, trying to endure the aftermath of what the pirate had done to her. Becoming water self was the only way to heal, and she needed to escape while the pirate and the goblins were distracted, but she couldn’t make herself dissolve. The pain was still too great, though receding, little by little, like the tide at twilight. All she could do was sprawl on the floor and hope she wasn’t trampled.
Her house was on fire. The bodies of the pirate and the goblins lay scattered around.
These facts registered dimly.
Smoke filled her kitchen. It tickled her lungs, and she would have coughed if she’d been able. Instead she just choked. A big man with red hair scooped her into his arms, carried her from the burning building, and laid her outside on the grass.
The redhead turned and talked to another man who had brown hair and eyes. The second man would have appeared totally harmless, if she hadn’t gotten a good look at his eyes while he examined her as she lay helpless. The second man had the eyes of a sociopath. Cold. Soulless.
Behind the two strangers, her house went up in flames.
The brown-haired man pulled a set of charmed iron cuffs from his pocket and took a step toward her. Oh, no. Time to go.
Dissolve…Nothing happened.
He took another step. Panic flared inside her.
Dissolve…Still nothing.
He reached down and caught her wrist.
Dissolve!
Anguish screamed as she forced water self. The moment of bursting into liquid caused bright, sharp, bone-chipping pain. The agony would have made her pass out, but the instant she became water, it disappeared. There was only cool trickling, the seeking of a wide flow and the surrendering.
No burning. No boiling. No dreaded evaporation.
She traveled away from the angry nature fae with the red hair and the small, evil brown-haired man.
Flowing. Free.
NIALL stepped over the body of Ragnar and toed his crispy shoulder. Dead. Definitely dead.
The smoking ruins of Elizabeth’s house lay all around him. Parts of it still smoldered. The Boundary Lands, sentient thing it was, usually found a way to put out such fires before they reached the trees. It had rained recently, very heavily. Tendrils of smoke curled through the kitchen and wound their way past the bodies of several goblins.
He sniffed the air, smelling sulfur. Some magick he was unfamiliar with had done this job. He frowned. It didn’t feel natural, but it didn’t feel like fae magick, either. He looked down at Ragnar. Whoever had done it, he owed them a debt of gratitude.
Elizabeth was gone. Either she was now a prisoner of whoever had killed Ragnar and burned down her home, or she was on the run. He was betting on the latter. After all, he knew better than anyone how hard it was to catch an asrai. She was like fisting water—just ran right through his fingers.
He stepped into the yard, leaving the smoldering wreck of her home behind him. He’d come here to warn her, but he’d been too late. The fact that he’d raced to save her from Ragnar made him squirm. He didn’t have time to examine it, though.
It was time to find her mother.
His first move was to check on her people. Niall assumed they were all right, since Ragnar was lying dead behind him, but he wanted to make sure. Plus, they all knew Niall’s face, since he’d distributed food to them the night he’d caught Elizabeth, and they might be able to tell him where all the sprae-dependent fae lived around here.
There couldn’t be that many, and one of them was bound to be Elizabeth’s mom.
ELIZABETH flowed, her water self burbling happily down a stream. Occasionally she would meet a Lady of the Lake, a Glaistig, or a Gwragedd Annwn. Their consciousnesses would brush up alongside each other’s in acknowledgment and she would continue on her way.
She couldn’t quite remember what she was supposed to be doing. All she could remember was the pain she’d experienced in her corporeal self.
Avoid.
Instead she wanted to flow, surrender.
Above the streams and rivers she flowed through, the sun shone brightly. That was strange and not nice. It made her feel weak. So she just traveled, trickled, dripped, and soaked. All day she swirled in eddies and played in the currents of rivers.
It would be nice to do this forever. Forget that whisper that not all was right. Just flow.
Yet somewhere deep within her consciousness, a nagging sensation lingered. It told her to re-form. As the sun sank lower in the sky and the weakness receded, the nagging grew stronger and stronger until she finally gave in.
Re-forming at a location her water self recognized as familiar, Elizabeth found herself lying by the side of a small stream at twilight, all her memories and the full consciousness of her corporeal self restored to her. She closed her eyes, enjoying the absence of pain.
One of the perks of being an asrai was being able to heal almost any injury by dissolving into water self, almost any…not iron sickness. That was because charmed iron negated her ability to shift.
Traveling as water self was an enjoyable experience, especially during stressful times like now when she needed to hide or simply not think about anything. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do it for too long. The longer she stayed water, the greater her chances of losing her corporeal self forever.
Sometimes she wondered if that was what happened to her biological mother. Had she lost herself somehow and merged with water forever? Was she running through this stream at her fingertips even now?
The thought made her sad.
It also made her think of Thea. The event back at her house had changed her plans. She needed to move her mother before she went to the ocean. She’d removed all evidence that could trace back to her mom from her house when she’d accepted the pieces—and now it was all burned to the ground, anyway. Yet it was still possible someone might discover her mom�
�s location.
Elizabeth had been dreading this. Somehow she needed to relocate her mom without telling Thea why she needed to move. Her mother’s cottage was only a little over a mile away. Forcing her chilled muscles into action, she pushed up and sought the heavy plastic bag she’d hidden behind a nearby rock and pulled out the clothes and shoes contained inside.
Dressed, warmer, but not feeling any more cheerful, she started for her mother’s place. She needed to hurry; she’d already wasted too much time today.
Dread filled her chest with a leaden sensation. She hated lying to her mom, and her mother was not an easy person to deceive, especially when she was already suspicious about Elizabeth’s recent disappearances. She’d just have to stay vigilant.
Under no circumstances could she eat any of her mother’s food or drink any of her tea.
NIALL knocked on the door of the trim house and admired the profusion of flowers in the yard. It was clear that Elizabeth visited often and used her gardening skills. The sprae lighted on everything here, the trees bracketing the fenced-in yard, the brown clay shingles on the roof, and the matching wooden shutters. There were definitely more sprae here than anywhere else he’d noticed lately.
A late middle-aged woman answered the door. She had short, curling reddish brown hair, laugh wrinkles around her grass-colored eyes and full lips. She was attractive, likely had been a knockout when she’d been younger.
She gave an easy smile. “Can I help you?”
The scent of freshly baked cookies wafted from behind her. She displayed not even a hint of fear that a strange man was at her door, even though she lived way out in the middle of nowhere. Interesting. He’d been expecting to need to win her trust.
It could mean that Thea Jocelyn Saintjohn was not as innocent a nature fae as she appeared and had ways of defending herself. He would need to be careful.
“Hello, Mrs. Saintjohn, my name is Niall Daegan Riordan Quinn. I’m a friend of your daughter’s. I was looking for her. I stopped by her house, but she wasn’t there. Is she here, by chance?” She wasn’t and he knew that, but it was a good opening gambit.
Luckily, she displayed no recognition of his name. Good. Less explaining to have to do. “Elizabeth? No, she’s not here right now, but she’ll probably be arriving soon. She usually stops by every evening.”
“That’s too bad. I’ll have to wait, I guess. I really need to speak with her.” He rubbed his hands together and shivered. “Cold evening, isn’t it?” He smiled, and started to walk back toward his car.
“Niall? Is that what you said your name is? Would you like to come in to wait? I’d enjoy hearing how you know Elizabeth. She doesn’t have many friends.”
Bingo. He turned back to the door. “That would be great. Thanks very much.”
She nodded and turned inside, holding the carved wooden door open so he could follow. Inside the house smelled of fresh baked cookies and coffee. A fire burned in the kitchen hearth. The house wasn’t big, one open room with a hallway leading to what he presumed were bedrooms and bathrooms. The kitchen was the largest room, obviously a well used area with shiny pots and pans hanging from the wooden rafters of the ceiling interspersed with bunches of drying herbs.
“Would you like a cookie?” she asked. “They’re oatmeal raisin.”
“That would be great.” He sat down at the butcher’s block that partitioned the kitchen and living room while Thea served him a plate with two warm cookies and a cup of coffee.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down next to him. “Now, tell me how you know my daughter. Like I said, she doesn’t have many friends, let alone attractive male friends.”
He bit into a cookie and stifled a groan of total ecstasy. They were incredible. He pointed at the cookie. “You should be selling these. They’re delicious.”
She smiled. “They’re very special cookies. Old recipe. We keep it in the family. I whipped up this batch for my daughter. I was hoping to tempt her with them when she comes to visit tonight.” She sipped her coffee and looked at him expectantly.
She seemed like such a sweet woman. Niall had the immediate sense that she had no idea what her daughter was up to.
And for some stupid, inexplicable reason, Niall found he didn’t want to tell her.
Niall took another bite of cookie and chewed thoughtfully, framing his answer. He was going to have to lie to protect both Elizabeth and her mother. “I was assigned to—”
He snapped his mouth closed. What the fuck? He’d meant to say he’d met Elizabeth at Donnell’s house, thus dropping another name Thea knew and cementing her trust in him, but the truth had come out instead.
He tried again. “I was ass—” He fell into a coughing fit to cover his gaff and stared at the cookie. Was it possible? Was it these damned delicious oatmeal raisin cookies? He set the cookie down on the plate and took a sip of coffee.
“You were saying?” Thea prompted. “You were assigned?”
“Ah, yes.”
Okay, it appeared the mom wasn’t as harmless as she appeared. Now he had to tell the truth without actually telling the truth. “I was assigned by the Shadow Queen to look for the two lost pieces of the bosca fadbh. My search led me to the Boundary Lands, where I met your daughter. We struck up a…friendship.”
Huh. They weren’t really friends, were they? Yet the truth cookies had let him say that. Fascinating.
The front door opened, and Elizabeth entered. “Mom? Whose car is that…Niall?” Her eyes flicked from the plate of cookies to Niall’s face and she went completely still.
Relief rocketed through him. She hadn’t been captured. Niall gave her a slow smile and a wink. “Hi, Elizabeth!” he returned brightly.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
Her mother turned in her chair. “Come on in, honey, Niall was just telling me how you two met. You didn’t tell me you had a new friend.” Her tone said the unsaid—who’s a man.
“I was going to tell you, Mom.” She smiled. “I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.” Her eyes met Niall’s while her mom’s head was turned, and he mouthed liar at her. “But I’m really glad to see that Niall is here because I need to talk to him. Right now. Outside. Would you be offended if I took a little walk with him, Mom?”
Thea immediately stood up. “Not at all! While you’re gone, I’ll make you both some dinner.”
Niall regarded the stove warily. If the cookies made him tell the truth, what would dinner make him do? “A walk is a great idea.” He stood and followed Elizabeth out the door.
Once they were traveling the moonlit path away from the small house, she whirled to face him. “What the hell are you doing here? How did you even know where to find her?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m the only one who knows where to find your mom. A friend found an obscure reference to a sprae dependent woman who adopted a possible asrai, and I followed up on the lead. Took me all damn day.” He studied her. “She’s who you’re protecting, right? And she doesn’t know about it. She’s got no idea you have the pieces.”
“She knows now.” Elizabeth gestured angrily at the house. “You ate her cookies.”
“No, I didn’t tell her you’re the one hiding the pieces of the bosca fadbh. She has no idea you’re currently the most wanted fae in all of Piefferburg.”
She said nothing for a long moment, then tipped her head to the side. “Why? You could have taken her into custody, threatened her. You could have used her against me. Why didn’t you?”
His jaw clenched, apparently he still couldn’t lie. “I came to warn you about that very thing, but certain events have transpired since then. Walk with me.”
She fell into step at his side. She wore a tight pair of leather hunting pants, popular with nature fae, a pair of scuffed boots, and a heavy black cable-knit sweater. Her red hair hung loose around her shoulders. If it hadn’t been for her pale skin and her hair, she would have blended seamlessly into the night.
And she looked
good.
“Have you been to your house lately?”
She shuddered. “There was a man, a big guy with long black hair and a gold tooth. He came with goblins.”
“Ragnar Joren Kvalheim,” Niall replied grimly. “I saw his body. Who killed him?”
Hugging herself, her boots crunching dead leaves, she led him into a small clearing and sat down on a boulder. He sank down beside her, and she moved a degree away—probably afraid of being captured by him again. “I don’t know. That Unseelie did something horrible to me, felt like my veins were on fire.”
“He can—could—boil blood and the water in a person’s body.”
“Lovely. Whatever he did, it nearly killed me. All I know is that some other people showed up, two men I didn’t recognize. There was a big battle, and my house ended up on fire.”
“You didn’t see their faces, hear anything they said?” He rubbed his chin. Who the hell were these new players? Someone sent by the Summer Queen?
“Gee, no, sorry. I was too busy writhing in absolute agony. They tried to cuff me in charmed iron, but I managed to force myself to dissolve right before they got me.”
“Why did you come back here? It’s not safe.”
She looked at him sideways. “Why do you care whether I’m safe or not?”
“I’m not a fucking monster, Elizabeth. I came to warn you that the Shadow Queen told me to back off, says I’m too close to do what needs to be done after all that time I spent in your head.”
Apparently she’d been right, considering he was sitting here having this civil conversation with Elizabeth.
“She sent Ragnar after you instead,” he continued. “He’d intended to torture and kill all the people you care about one by one until you gave up the pieces.”
“Damn it. Ragnar is dead, but that doesn’t mean she won’t send others.” She pushed away from the boulder and paced in front of him, hugging herself.
“Right. The Black Tower has a surplus of badass fae who have no problem hurting people if ordered. So it’s time to give up the pieces before you lose the people you love.”
