“There have always been rumors. They have never been substantiated.” He frowned. “Until, perhaps, now. But if someone has weaponized it, and if it is being selectively delivered, then whoever controls it might also have a cure.”
I knew it was only an outside chance, but I couldn’t help seizing on the idea. “So then the question is, who would know that I would question Kordon’s shade? That is a fairly specific skill set and not utilized in Faerie. And from what I’ve seen, the courtiers try to distance themselves as quickly as possible from even the mention of death. How many know I’m a grave witch? Hell, how many know what a shade is?”
Falin tapped a finger against his chin. “In the winter court? The council knows, of course. They have seen you raise shades. Of winter’s citizens? The courtiers are most likely ignorant. It would be less difficult to believe that some of the independents are aware of your grave magic, as some function in the human world in which you work. In the other courts . . . ?” He paused, considering. “Your wyrd abilities are likely completely unknown aside from perhaps in the shadow court.” He glared at Dugan. “And we are back to your court again.”
“It does seem someone did their work quite well,” he said, and sighed. “Even among my people, it is unlikely to be common knowledge, but it would not be hard information to discover.”
There was another player as well. One I hadn’t told either man about. My father had asked me to investigate before Dugan had even stepped into my office. But did I really think my own father would try to kill me? I didn’t, but if the last few months had taught me anything, it was that I understood him less than I thought.
“What if it wasn’t a trap for me?” I asked, a new thought occurring to me. “I mean, I obviously blundered right into it, but I might not be the only one. Do we know if the healer who checked Kordon contracted basmoarte?”
Falin’s eyes widened. “I’ll have to inform the queen and the healer will have to be quarantined.”
“Wouldn’t the healer already know if she has it?” I mean, I’d been in horrible shape.
“Your infection, if you only contracted it yesterday, progressed exceedingly quickly,” Dugan said. “The largest recorded outbreak of basmoarte was due to healers contracting it and spreading it from patient to patient before symptoms ever started.”
I wrapped my arms over my chest. The random assortment of healing charms got in the way of the movement, and I lifted the cobbled-together necklace over my head. The charms in it were exhausted already anyway. “So, if this was targeted at a healer and not me, then it was a calculated attack to cause an outbreak in the winter court.”
Falin shook his head. “If this was an attack against the winter court, it would have been Stiofan who’d been infected. Not Kordon. Had Dugan not been so insistent that we try to restore Kordon, we would have sent the body back to the shadow court without a healer ever touching him.” His gaze bore into Dugan, and I knew he was thinking this was yet another guilty-looking strike against shadow.
A trumpet sounded somewhere outside the tent, making me jump.
“The sun is setting,” the queen’s voice said, and the magic of the revelry made it sound like she could have been in the tent with us. I found myself looking around, even though I knew she was likely speaking from her ice throne on the dais in the center of the clearing. “Our merriment comes to an end. May the roads rise up to meet us all.”
As the last word left her mouth, the very air around us changed. It was more than just the sound of the revelry, but the feel of it as well. The magic changed, the doors shifted, and the truce holding all of Faerie broke.
“We are out of time,” Dugan said, moving toward the tent flap. “We should attempt to approach Lunabella now that the revelry is over.”
“We will never locate her before the light court leaves,” Falin said, frowning.
Dugan only smiled and grabbed the edge of his cloak, spreading it to his side. A shadow unfolded from the darkness, jumping free of the other shadows. It landed prettily on four small paws, tail high. For a moment, I thought it was a black cat, but then I realized it was a shadow of a cat.
Dugan crouched beside the shadow cat and rubbed between her ears, not with his physical hand, but with the shadow of his hand. I watched, fascinated, and I swore the shadow purred.
“Take us to them,” he whispered, and the shadow streaked out of the tent. Dugan stood, glancing back at Falin and me. “Come on. You didn’t think I left her unmonitored, did you?”
* * *
• • •
Dugan followed the shadow cat, and we followed him. We weren’t exactly running, but we were definitely moving much faster and more determinedly than most of the fae around us. It was clear that many of the revelers had trickled out of the festival throughout the day, but those who were left seemed in no hurry to leave just because the sun had set and the revelry was technically over. They prolonged their good-byes in small clumps, or moved leisurely toward the hawthorns at the far side of the clearing. That could work in our favor if Lunabella was as reluctant to leave, but it was also slowing us down as we had to weave through fae who were not moving anywhere fast.
The shadow streaked ahead, vanishing into a thick throng of fae. We more or less had to shoulder our way through the first two or three fae, until the fae noticed that it was the Winter Knight and Shadow Prince making their way through the crowd. The sounds of merriment broke around us, fae hurrying to open a path. That hadn’t happened during the revelry, but the truce was broken now. Our progress quickened, but the part of me that never fully forgot what it was like being an outsider most of my life hurt for Falin. I hated the way smiles dropped off fae faces as soon as they saw him. The way fae looked away, seemingly preoccupied with something else. Or how some fled, getting as far away as possible.
The shadow cat led us to the tree line and then paused, its back arching.
“Something is wrong,” Dugan hissed under his breath.
“What is it saying?” I whispered.
He turned to frown at me. “She’s a cat.”
Which I guess meant it didn’t say anything. How was I supposed to know? Weirder things than cats spoke in Faerie.
The cat took off at a run and we sprinted after her. I’d never been deep into the woods that surrounded the revelries. It was a magical clearing, so in all honesty, I wasn’t sure the woods around it were fully real, or if we’d hit some sort of barricade or find ourselves in a magical loop that just led back to the clearing. The latter was my best guess, and maybe if we traveled far enough would prove to be the case, but there was clearly at least a little bit of forest that was real, because we were dodging low-hanging branches and stepping over raised roots. The dark didn’t help in that, but at least the snow reflected some of the moonlight.
The glamoured alterations Falin had made to my dress had made all the difference at the festivities of the solstice, but it was still a damn ball gown with a full-length skirt. Not so great for running through the woods. I hiked it up to my knees, gathering as much fabric as I could in my hands, but still ended up snagging sticks and branches, which slowed me down. The fact that the corset allowed my diaphragm only half its normal movement—and let’s face it, the fact that I’d been deathly ill for most of the day—didn’t help matters either. I lagged behind.
Falin hesitated, waiting for me. I waved him on. He and Dugan were moving all but soundlessly through the underbrush. Me? Not so much. A rendezvous this far out in the woods meant Lunabella didn’t want to be seen or overheard with whomever she was meeting. My stomping around would give us away, and my attempts to move silently were far too slow.
Falin seemed uncertain if he should leave me. I motioned again for him to go. Leave me a trail. I mouthed the words, unwilling to call out in case we were close.
He looked down, seeming only now to realize that neither he nor Dugan was leaving tracks in the
snow. Yup, only my blundering footsteps were visible behind us. I watched him purposefully dig in his heel. Then he turned and sprinted after the Shadow Prince.
I paused. Leaning against a tree to catch my breath, I channeled magic into the privacy bubble charm on my bracelet. The noise-canceling spell sprang up around me, instantly blocking out all the ambient forest noises. I pushed off the tree and hurried in the direction Falin had gone, watching for the path he’d laid for me. Now it didn’t matter how much noise I made since the spell hid it, so I didn’t worry about trying to move quietly, just quickly.
Of course, the main benefit of the privacy bubble was also its main downfall. No sound passed through the bubble, whether I wanted it to or not.
I focused on following the almost invisible trail Falin had left, studying the spot just before my feet as I ran along, glancing up only occasionally to see if I could spot the guys ahead of me. I’d just rounded an enormous redwood tree when a hand closed around my biceps, pulling me to a stop before tugging me back behind the wide tree.
I yelped. Panic spilled through my brain. I scrambled to pull magic back out of my charm, aware no one would hear me scream inside the bubble. Then more than just the lizard part of my brain caught up. The hand that had stopped me wasn’t hurting me. It had just stopped me, and moved me back, but it wasn’t trying to drag me away. I spun as Falin pressed a finger over his mouth, obviously not realizing that my scream was contained. From the expression on his face, he must have tried to call to me before he grabbed me. But . . . privacy bubble.
Maybe not my best plan.
I pulled the magic out of the charm, releasing the spell, and the sounds of the forest rushed around me again. I expected to hear murmuring, some secret conversation happening just ahead, but aside from my own thundering heartbeat pounding in my ears, I heard nothing that indicated anything bigger than some forest creatures were close by. I glanced at Falin. His eyes were narrow, his lips pressed thin, and one of his daggers was in the hand not gripping my arm.
“Did we lose her?”
He frowned. “You could say that.” He jerked his chin, gesturing forward.
I stepped to the edge of the tree, peeking around the side. My brain perceived the colors first. Cheery yellow. Brown. Bright red. White snow.
It took a second longer for my brain to start categorizing what I saw. That was a foot sticking out from under the yellow and gold trim of a dress. There was a torso in a gray brocade jacket. That was a gloved hand just below a pool of slushy red snow. A few yards away, that brown spot was long hair, the ends dark where they were coated in blood from the neck stump of a severed head.
I squeezed my eyes shut and spun back around, flattening myself against the bark of the tree. It was rough against my bare shoulders, and that was good because it was something solid I could focus on.
“Was she already . . . ?” I started, but then faltered. Two. Had I seen that right? There were two bodies? I sucked down a breath and realized someone was missing. “Where is Dugan?”
“Hunting with his shadows for a trail.” Falin’s gaze searched the woods around us, alert, his muscles coiled and ready to move if a threat appeared. “And to answer the question you weren’t quite asking, yes, they were like that when we arrived. And yes, I arrived at the same time Dugan did. He didn’t kill anyone. I’m guessing the rumors that we were looking for Lunabella reached the wrong person and they didn’t want us questioning her.”
“And the other one?”
Falin didn’t look at me as he shrugged. “As they say, three can keep a secret, if two are dead.”
Right. So then our visit to the summer court had spurred both deaths. My stomach clenched at the idea. We were indirectly responsible. Of course, she wouldn’t have needed to be silenced unless she was complicit with the murders, so that fact did mitigate some of the guilt.
“Who is the second body?” I asked, because I didn’t want to turn around and try to find the second head.
“Jurin. He was winter court.”
“And you’re thinking conspirator, not another victim?” That might explain how the killers had gotten into the court.
Falin didn’t answer, his body still tense, watching the woods. My own hand moved to my purse and the dagger stashed within. Nothing in the moonlight moved beyond the soft swaying of trees.
We hadn’t been in the woods long. Assuming Lunabella and Jurin had been attacked at the moment Dugan’s shadow cat freaked at the edge of the woods, we had missed the murderer by mere minutes. Which meant the killer could still be close.
Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Nothing moved in the darkness of the woods. Unlike Falin, I couldn’t remain on full alert when it appeared nothing was out there. Which didn’t mean I put my dagger away, but I did relax slightly, my thoughts circling back as I considered the scene beyond the huge redwood.
“If this was about silencing conspirators, killing them would be a horribly stupid way to prevent a grave witch from questioning someone,” I whispered, chewing at my bottom lip. “I mean, if you guys are right about the scene at the winter court being a trap for me, then the killer or killers still at large know I can question a corpse.”
“Look at the bodies again.” His voice barely carried, and I doubted anyone lurking could have heard. He still had both of his long daggers drawn, watching, waiting.
Looking at the bodies again was something I really didn’t want to do. I’d seen enough. Lunabella was headless. I’d seen that. Jurin, well, I hadn’t technically seen whether his head was attached or not. Maybe they both had other wounds too that I hadn’t spotted with my first quick peek, but that wouldn’t matter.
“Science and capability of speech at death really have little to do with a shade’s ability to answer questions.” Which he knew; he’d seen me raise shades from bodies in far worse condition.
He didn’t answer as his head swung around, eyes narrowed. He took two steps forward, blades bared.
“Only me, Knight,” Dugan said, seeming to melt from the shadow of the tree. Two shadow cats bounded out beside his legs.
“Anything?” Falin asked, lowering the blades but not sheathing them.
Dugan shook his head. “Whoever did this is long gone and left no trail to follow.”
“I don’t suppose your cats can identify who killed Lunabella and Jurin?” I asked, looking at the two shadows.
I thought at first they were identical, but then I noticed that one had more substance. It was shadow and it was more at the same time. The way the second mirrored the one with substance, I realized it was the shadow’s shadow—however that was possible. So maybe not cats, but cat. The cat sat, and the shadows on its face writhed until big green eyes opened in the featureless darkness.
It blinked at me.
If it grinned, I was leaving.
Dugan glanced at the cat, and then at me. “She might be able to. But cats aren’t bloodhounds, and there is no discernible trail to follow to narrow down in which court to look. Basically our suspect pool is the entire population of Faerie. They won’t all gather in one place again until the next revelry.”
True.
“Now, once we have a suspect . . .” He shrugged.
“Why didn’t you attach a shadow to Lunabella that could speak?” Falin shot a disparaging glance at the shadow cat. The shadow in question narrowed her eyes at him. “That would have been far more useful.”
“Because it would have violated the truce? We are fortunate I had Ciara follow her or these bodies wouldn’t have been found until the Spring Equinox, at the earliest. Considering how far we are in the woods, maybe they wouldn’t have been found for centuries.”
And likely they weren’t meant to be. It didn’t matter if I could question the dead if the bodies were sealed in an inaccessible part of Faerie. But now our suspect was dead. Well, there was definitely one other unusual character.
<
br /> “I have a suspect,” I said, pushing off the tree.
“The golden-cloaked fae?” Falin asked, but when I nodded, he frowned. “The problem with that is that we have no idea who he—or she—is, or in what court we might be able to find them. So our suspect pool is still all of Faerie. Unless you know?” He glanced at Dugan.
The prince shook his head. “I noticed that he was watching Lunabella, so I kept an eye on the gold-cloaked figure, but I never saw more than a hand. Certainly not enough to identify or even narrow down a court.”
Great.
“Now what?” I asked, because the festival site had to be clearing out by now, and once a fae left, they couldn’t return. Which meant we might very well be alone with the dead bodies, and no help was coming.
Or the killer could still be lurking.
The thought made my hand tighten around my dagger again. Of course, I had the Winter Knight and the Prince of Shadows at my side. If the killer was lingering, he—or she—would need a small army to stand a chance. Though he had apparently managed to dispatch two fae extremely quickly and vanish without a trace, so maybe I wasn’t giving the killer enough credit.
“The queen will have to be informed, but per tradition she would have left as soon as she announced the revelry complete,” Falin said, his eyes sweeping the woods around us one last time before he released his daggers. He didn’t sheathe them, they just weren’t in his hands anymore. Neat trick. “Lunabella’s body will need to be returned to the court of light.”
Which meant we had to move the bodies.
Falin stepped around the tree, heading toward the bodies. Dugan followed close behind.
How do I get myself into these situations? Crime scenes were not supposed to be my place. I much preferred the morgue or a nice cemetery.
I stepped around the tree.
There was so much blood. Maybe the fact that it had mixed with the snow made it spread. Or maybe I just wasn’t used to seeing two bodies completely bled out. I mean, who would get used to something like that?
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