Stone Blood Legacy

by Jayne Faith

  “And how did this Jasper Glasgow learn this information?” she asked, her voice heavy.

  “He didn’t really say,” I said.

  “Do you think he would speak to you again, if you were able to contact him?”

  Jasper had wanted my help. He’d seemed convinced that the two of us could somehow avert a war between the Duergar and the Stone Order. I seriously doubted that and had said so, but his plea meant he probably would be open to a conversation.

  “I believe so,” I said.

  She went to the door and called in one of her assistants.

  “We must send a message to Jasper Glasgow at the Duergar palace,” she said. “Tell him Petra Maguire wishes to speak with him.”

  Remembering the intensity in Jasper’s golden eyes, I wondered how he’d react to the message. And how he’d respond when he discovered that the matriarch of the Stone Order didn’t think his claims were crazy at all.

  With a slightly queasy feeling in my stomach, I realized I was most likely getting myself even more embroiled in Faerie politics. Possibly starting down a path of doing exactly what Jasper desired—helping to form a bridge between our two realms, to try to unite us to face a larger, more dangerous enemy. One that I’d thought only existed in legend.

  Chapter 2

  THERE WERE NO wires that connected the Fae kingdoms and territories. Distances and locations in Faerie didn’t operate in a way that made it possible to string phone lines through this side of the hedge. Most palaces and strongholds, like our fortress, had been modernized with local networks and devices that could be plugged into them, but without things like Wi-Fi, cell towers, or the ability to hardwire phone lines over distances, we had to resort to archaic methods of long-distance communication.

  That meant relying heavily on messenger ravens. Not Great Ravens, like the giant bird I’d ridden to escape the Duergar palace for the second time in as many days, but regular-sized ravens similar to the ones that lived on the Earthly side of the hedge. They were incredibly intelligent birds who had a system of doorways of their own, portals they used to pass from one realm into the next, which made them very swift messengers.

  If relations had been better between the New Gargoyles and the Duergar, I was sure Marisol would have sent me in person. She might have even tried to summon Jasper to the fortress. But in the past couple of weeks, I’d stolen Nicole from the Duergar, put King Periclase’s bastard daughter Bryna in the fortress jail, and nearly killed the Duergar king’s brother. If I dared step foot in the Duergar realm, I likely would have been met with a bouquet of swords pointed at my throat. If anything, there were probably Most Wanted posters with my face plastered all over Periclase’s kingdom.

  Marisol’s assistant dispatched a raven immediately with a message to Jasper, and I expected the Stone Order’s monarch to dismiss me while we waited for a response. But she seemed to have other ideas. She sent another assistant over to the kitchenette to prepare tea and then gestured at me and Maxen to sit down with her by the fireplace.

  I stifled an impatient sigh. Tea with Marisol. Oh, goody. Well, I might as well try to get something useful out of it.

  “My mention of the Dullahan didn’t seem to faze you much,” I said quietly to Marisol. “Neither did the return of the Tuatha. I’d like to know why.”

  Her eyes unfocused for a long moment.

  “I’ve heard whispers,” she said, matching my low tone.

  She waited for her assistant to serve tea and then move away before continuing. I held my crystal saucer and teacup with my still-bloody hands. Marisol, to her credit, didn’t bat an eye at the dried blood on my skin and clothes, not to mention the fact that I probably smelled absolutely delightful after working out in the training yard with Nicole and then battling the servitors.

  I glanced at Maxen. He hadn’t seemed too shocked at what I’d said, either.

  “I know the Tuatha are real, or once were, anyway. But I thought the Dullahan were just scary characters in stories,” I said.

  “When something has been gone long enough, it fades into legend,” Marisol said. “But that doesn’t mean the legends didn’t begin as truth.”

  A shiver passed over my scalp and down my spine.

  “But why would the Tuatha come back only to sic the Bone Warriors on us?” I asked. “What the hell did we do?”

  She shook her head. “Oberon only knows.” Over the rim of her tea cup, she let out a short, humorless laugh. “Actually, Oberon himself may not even know.”

  Oberon was one of the Old Ones, a Fae so long in the world many considered him god-like. But he wasn’t a god. The Tuatha were actual gods, preceding even Oberon, Titania, and the other Old Ones. The Tuatha De Danann had left the Old Ones in charge of Faerie, so the tales went.

  “Even if Oberon did know, it wouldn’t do us much good,” Maxen muttered with uncharacteristic irritability.

  He was right. Oberon had disappeared before my battle with Darion. It was pretty clear from Titania’s foul temper that they’d had one of their epic quarrels. If anyone knew where Oberon had gone, they weren’t talking.

  “Could there be a connection between the servitors and this rumor about the Tuatha and the Dullahan?” I asked.

  I sipped from the cup for the sake of appearance. The tea was surprisingly good—full-bodied and very earthy. Probably a cup of the expensive mushroom stuff Marisol loved.

  “I don’t know,” Marisol said. She stared at a point on the floor, her gaze again losing focus for a moment.

  My hand paused, my cup halfway between my lips and the saucer. I didn’t like that, Marisol not knowing. The stone monarch always had answers, even if she didn’t share the exact details. I flicked a glance at Maxen. He was watching his mother, too, and his face reflected my own unease.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked, his voice low.

  She inhaled through her nose. Her gaze sharpened and swung first to him and then to me.

  “We’ll see what this Jasper Glasgow has to say,” she said. “And I’ll reach out to my contacts in other kingdoms to see what they know.”

  She stood, went to one of her assistants, and began dictating instructions for more ravens to carry messages.

  I looked around the room, suddenly feeling just how small the Stone Order was. My people, the New Gargoyles, had carved out only this space in the stone fortress for our territory. We were a new Fae race and hadn’t yet had the time or wealth to establish ourselves deeply in Faerie. Or rather, Marisol hadn’t yet done so—saying “we” was presumptuous of me, seeing as how I usually tried to give Stone Order affairs and Faerie politics a very wide berth. That had been easy when I’d had an apartment and a job on the Earthly side of the hedge. Since I was back inside the fortress, not so much.

  “You’ve got to ply Jasper for more,” Maxen said to me. “He likes you, so just be friendly with him. But don’t make any promises.”

  I slanted my gaze away from him and lifted my cup to my mouth.

  “Petra?” Maxen said, drawing out my name in a warning tone.

  I looked across the room, as if the conversation between Marisol and her assistant were so fascinating it absorbed all of my attention.

  “Petra.”

  “What?” I asked innocently.

  “Did you already enter into a binding agreement with him?” he asked, and it almost felt like old times between us. Our mutual freeze-out seemed to have lifted, at least temporarily.

  “I didn’t really have a choice. He helped me escape the Duergar palace. Twice, actually. I was there to rescue one of our changelings, remember?” I asked pointedly, trying not to sound defensive but not really succeeding. “I was doing a service to the Stone Order. At the cost of my Guild job, I might add.”

  “Yeah, the first time,” Maxen said. “The second time was all your doing.”

  Okay, so maybe things weren’t warming up all that much between me and Maxen.

  Suddenly, he snorted a laugh that he quickly tried to muffle against
the back of his hand.

  “What?” I said again.

  “Only you would end up in a binding agreement with the Duergar king’s bastard son. The very king who was calling for your head.” He peered at me. His words were probably meant to be teasing, but his expression and tone weren’t particularly lighthearted. “He obviously kept the agreement from his father. Jasper really must have an interest you. More so than I realized.”

  I lifted my gaze upward, annoyed at what he was implying. “Let’s just drink our damn tea,” I muttered.

  I didn’t like the look on his face. It wasn’t jealousy, but he certainly seemed to be thinking hard about something. A few seconds of awkward silence passed, which only heightened my irritation.

  “You seem to have an interest in Nicole,” I said evenly, purposely repeating his phrasing.

  He blinked rapidly a couple of times. Ha, I’d caught him off guard.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his tone mild.

  “You’re making a point to interact with her. Is that really you, or did the Queen Mother order you to make nice?”

  His face clouded, and he clinked his cup a little harder than necessary onto his saucer. He seemed on the verge of a response when Marisol rejoined us.

  She looked at me. “You’re dismissed. The concierge has a message for you. Not from Jasper Glasgow yet, obviously, but you might as well see who it’s from.”

  I inclined my head, and ignoring Maxen completely, I set down my cup and saucer on the tea service tray and left Marisol’s quarters.

  It was a relief to get out of the small, windowless rooms—and away from Maxen’s scowl. He and I had known each other since we were kids, and over the years he’d more than hinted about his interest in a deeper relationship. But we both knew we weren’t on the same path. He was destined to bend to Marisol’s will in a strategic arranged marriage. And he knew I had zero interest in such a future, even if she would have approved me as a match. Which she wouldn’t. I’d never taken his overtures too seriously, and we’d managed to remain friendly. Until recently.

  The flurry of activity throughout the fortress had calmed somewhat, but men and women from the battle ranks seemed to be stationed at every turn, and pairs of them patrolled the corridors.

  When I reached the marbled lobby area, I turned to a window off to the side, the sort you’d stand at to buy movie tickets on the Earthly side of the hedge. The concierge desk was a hub of information and assistance in the fortress. It was also the place where messages from outside the fortress were held for distribution. The man behind the counter went to a row of small boxes at the back wall, retrieved an envelope, and passed it to me through the window.

  I turned it over, and noticing it was sealed—both in the regular sense and with a wax seal and an additional application of a wisp of magic—but not with Fae magic. This message was sealed with human magic from the Earthly realm.

  Magic seals allowed a message to be opened only by the intended recipient. I slipped my finger under the chunk of wax and popped it open.

  Inside was a note written in an unfamiliar scrawl. The first line caught my interest immediately.

  Today’s your lucky day. You’ve been assigned to help a human merc track down her mark in Faerie, and you’ll earn half the bounty. More important, this will be your only route to reinstatement with the Guild. Contact Gretchen within the hour. Don’t screw this up.

  There was a phone number written at the bottom, and the note was signed by my Mercenary Guild boss, Gus.

  I perked up at the possibility of earning some side cash. I was saving for when Marisol released me from my obligations to the Stone Order so I could reestablish myself on the other side of the hedge. Cash flow problems had been part of what landed me in the fortress, but I planned to get back to my life as a vamp hunter for the Mercenary Guild as soon as I could.

  I wracked my brain for a moment, trying to put a face to the name Gretchen. Then I remembered—she was a Guild merc about my age or a little older. Decent level of magical ability.

  This happened sometimes—a mark would find a way to take refuge in Faerie, and if the merc assigned to the bounty wasn’t Fae, the merc was shit out of luck on the assignment. Or, the merc could find a Fae to help.

  The cash would be good, but I wasn’t sure how the hell I’d fit in a merc job around everything going on in Faerie. I was at Marisol’s mercy, especially since I lived in the fortress full-time.

  I went to the main fortress entrance, intending to go out and cross over to the other side of the hedge where my cell phone would work, but a couple of guards blocked my way.

  I recognized both of them from my graduating class.

  “Guys, come on,” I said. “I just need to make a call. It’ll only take a minute.”

  “We’re on lockdown, Petra,” one of them, a muscular woman, said. “You know what that means.”

  I was just about to try to pull rank as the Stone Fortress Champion, which I was still, if anybody cared to remember, when someone called my name.

  I turned to see Emmaline, a young Order page, hurrying toward me. She’d served as my attendant during a trip into the Duergar realm and my squire when I battled Darion. Still a student in her last year of school and battle training, she had dreams of buying a sword like Mort and working for the Guild. In some ways she was a younger version of me, but infinitely more refined than I’d been at her age. Or than I was now, for that matter.

  Her lavender eyes were wide. “Lady Lothlorien sent me. She said to tell you that a response has arrived and asked you to come right away.”

  I cast a look at the fortress exit and tried not to curse. I was under a deadline to get in touch with Gretchen. Once again, Marisol was thwarting my efforts at independence, and she probably didn’t even know she was doing it.

  I sighed and tucked Gus’s note into the pouch on my scabbard that held my phone, which was just a useless hunk of plastic and metal on the Faerie side of the hedge.

  “Wouldn’t want to keep her waiting. Let’s go see what the Duergar bastard son has to say,” I said and gestured for Emmaline to lead the way.

  Chapter 3

  EMMALINE PEERED AT me with an expression similar to Maxen’s earlier when Jasper’s name had come up.

  “The message is from Jasper Glasgow?” she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper at the end.

  I glanced around, belatedly wondering if anyone had heard me mention the Duergar man. I really needed to take Emmaline’s example and use greater discretion while I was in the fortress.

  “Yeah, but you don’t repeat that to anyone, understand? Not a soul,” I said sternly. I waited for her to nod emphatically. “Good.”

  I waited until we’d turned a few corners before asking, “Why did you look at me that way?”

  “What way?” Her gaze shifted away.

  “Like you were about to see a preview for the next episode of your favorite soap opera.”

  Her lips twitched, but she managed to hold back a smile. “I apologize, Lady Maguire—I mean, Petra. I didn’t mean to infer anything.”

  “Like hell you didn’t,” I groused.

  She pulled her lips in and bit down on them, clearly trying to restrain a smile or snicker.

  This was just grand. Did everyone in Faerie know there was a spark of something between me and Jasper Glasgow?

  “The note isn’t personal. I contacted him on Marisol’s order,” I said. I slid her a side-eye. “Just so you know.”

  She nodded. “Oh, sure. I understand. Official business.”

  We’d arrived at Marisol’s regular office. Apparently, things had calmed down enough that she’d been freed from her bunker. Emmaline stayed outside while I went into the inner chamber of Marisol’s office. As soon as she saw me, she plucked a scroll from her desk and rose.

  I unfurled the curled paper, its seal already broken. It had been addressed to Marisol, not to me.

  I’ll meet with Petra Maguire alone. The Golden Gate doorway at dusk.


  I turned it over, for some reason expecting more.

  “Short and sweet,” I remarked.

  “You’ll go, of course,” she said. “And come directly back here after. If you’re not back by ten, I’ll take it as a sign you ran into trouble.”

  Her ordering tone irked me, but I had to force myself not to do a little fist pump at the prospect of getting out of Faerie. I could contact Gretchen about her runaway mark, and maybe, just maybe, it would lead to a nice little addition to my nest egg. If Gus hadn’t decided by then that I’d missed the deadline. Well, not much I could do about it. I’d just have to hope he’d let the delay slide.

  “Of course, my lady,” I said formally, not wanting to give her any reason to change her mind.

  She narrowed her eyes at me, and I held what I hoped was a neutral, innocent expression. She gave a slight nod and shifted her attention to a tablet on her desk, and I turned and hightailed it out of her office.

  By the time evening came, I was nearly itching with anticipation to be free of the fortress. I could have used an internal fortress doorway to get to the meeting point. Faerie doorways were portals that allowed us to travel great distances in a matter of seconds by stepping into the void of the netherwhere. Instead, I exited through the front and jumped on my vintage Vespa I’d named Vincenzo, eager to feel the freedom of zipping the scooter down Bay Area streets. The evening was overcast, but at least it was dry.

  When I stopped to gas up, I dialed the number Gretchen had given me. She answered on the second ring.

  “This is Petra Maguire,” I said. “Is the job still available?”

  There was an exasperated sigh. “Yes. But only because I saved your ass. Gus was ready to give it to someone else after an hour went by and you didn’t call. I had to stall him.”