“Yeah, I remember, but I didn’t realize you’d be able to feel it as soon as you crossed the border.”
“Of course I can feel it,” Lorien said testily. “It’s like having your insides all bound up.” She flicked her wings as if trying to rid them of the orange dust sprinkling from them.
A low chuckle resounded through Titus’ chest, which I felt as much as heard. “You always know you’ve crossed the border when you’re traveling to an’ from Seelie City with faerie folk. But the binding’s for good reason, Mistress Lorien.”
The faerie dust trailing behind her abruptly changed to a bright shade of melon. “You’re right,” she said contritely. “It’s a small inconvenience compared to the problems they had before it was put in place.”
“What problems?” I asked, craning my neck at a line of buildings in the distance, their mismatched heights glittering white in the sun, proclaiming the imminent arrival of the approaching city.
“Well, it makes law enforcement kind of difficult when prisoners have the ability to blink out of custody. Most officers have the ability to bind a prisoner’s powers with spells. But those individual bindings take constant monitoring and some of the more powerful prisoners were able to escape by waiting for the bindings to weaken during shift changes or other distractions. It was a real problem. So the Seelie Court petitioned the mages of the faerie realm to help them come up with a solution.”
Titus made a disgruntled sound, and Lorien paused in her dissertation to glance at him.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothin’. Just don’t trust mages overmuch is all,” he rumbled.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well, don’t get me wrong, a lot of them have put their cleverness to good work. But they don’t just use spells, mages; they invent ‘em. That kind of power can easily fall into corruption.” He tossed his head.
“But you don’t need to hear the prejudices of an old peg like me. Please continue, Mistress Lorien.”
“Uh, thank you,” Lorien said politely. She cleared her throat with a small, delicate noise. “So it was Lauringer, a relatively unknown mage at the time, who suggested binding the entire city. The highest members of the mage council ridiculed her idea, insisting that such a spell would be too massive and that it would never take permanent hold, if it could even be performed.”
“Why didn’t they just bind the prison?” I interrupted, my eyes still canvassing the looming city.
The buildings all seemed to be made of the same rough white stone, rife with sparkling quartz, and peppered with deep green curtains of climbing ivy. When the sunlight reflected off of them, the effect was magical. Ahead, the median of the main thoroughfare was populated by gnarled, ancient-looking trees. Their branches reached out to shade both sides of the street beneath a thick, leafy canopy.
Lorien grunted at my question. “They tried binding the prison, but it wasn’t any more effective than the individual bindings. It seems that magical prisoners have an uncanny ability to figure out how to escape buildings. And once out, they would blink away before the guards could recapture them.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway,” Lorien continued, “Lauringer ignored the high mages and requested a meeting with the Seelie Court, asking them to give her a chance. That in itself took great courage, because a failure would not only discredit her in the eyes of the mage community, but it would leave a less than stellar impression upon the governing body of the Realm.
“As soon as The Court agreed, she went straight to the center of Seelie City to begin weaving her spell. She gradually moved outward in widening spirals, until the last circle encompassed the outskirts of the city. A huge crowd gathered to watch her progress, probably the whole of the city’s population and then some. It took her a day and a half, and when she finished and spoke the final words of binding, it was as if the entire city held its breath to see what would happen.” Lorien paused for effect.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she answered with a small chuckle.
“What do you mean, nothing?” I snorted in disbelief, my gaze drawn to a handsome black peg as he trotted past.
“I mean, nothing happened. No big bang, no flash of light, nothing. The throng that had watched her in near silence for a day and a half suddenly discovered its voice. Some of them were embarrassed for her, and some of them found satisfaction in her failure. Lauringer just stood there, mute and exhausted. The crowd began to disperse, returning to their daily lives, already beginning to dismiss the name of a little known mage called Lauringer—until a single sprite attempted to blink out.”
“And?” I prodded after a moment.
Lorien grinned widely. “At that moment, a tremendous shockwave of power swept across the city, rattling the windows of every building and leaving a burning afterimage of magelight upon the eyes of everyone who saw it. Lauringer collapsed to the ground, and the sprite who had tried to blink was nearly stunned out of the air. Lauringer had done it, although it took her almost a month to recover from the expenditure of power.
“From that point on, no one disputed that she must be the most powerful mage alive. She could easily have become the head of the mage council, but their ridicule had left a bad taste in her mouth. She helps the community when called upon, but other than that, she mostly keeps to herself.”
“Wow,” I commented faintly. I realized that I sounded preoccupied, but I was fascinated by Seelie City. My eyes were attempting to soak everything up faster than my brain could process it.
We had reached the city proper and I was trying to figure out why there seemed to be a profusion of alarmingly massive anthills between each of the white stone buildings. Not to mention that the streets were scattered with other pegs—with and without riders such as myself. And a colorful haze filled the air, which I quickly realized must be faerie dust residue from the multitude of faeries flitting about. Other than that, it seemed a pleasantly clean and orderly city, albeit with more trees and foliage than any human city I’d ever seen.
“You have quite a knack for story-telling, Mistress Lorien,” Titus complimented in his rumbling bass. “Do you have any other questions about our fine city, Mistress Sydney?” he asked me over his shoulder.
“Um, yeah actually,” I replied, my eyes still drinking in the surreally familiar environment through which we passed. Somehow I had expected it to appear more alien. “What are those huge anthill things between all the buildings?”
Titus snorted in soft amusement, while Lorien peered confusedly between two buildings as we passed. “Anthill things? I don’t see any…wait…those aren’t ant hills, they’re faerie mounds! Lumbering human,” she muttered in affront.
“Well how am I supposed to know? What exactly are faerie mounds?”
“They’re like apartments,” she replied in a sullen tone. “Seelie City is populated by all sorts of folk, from your size to mine. Sizes of living accommodations, therefore, vary as well.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I said, taking note that some of the buildings had entrances only large enough to accommodate a human child. “But I’ve read myths that said faeries lived in giant oak trees. Where did they get that?”
Lorien rolled her eyes at me and sighed. “A tree is a living entity. Wood nymphs, or dryads, will live in certain trees—but they’re more like spirits. They can manifest a physical form if they choose, or become insubstantial and morph into the tree itself.
“If a sprite and a dryad are friendly, we’ll sometimes heal their tree if it develops a blight. That’s probably where the rumors associating faeries with trees began. But you try living in a tree—it’s not the most stable of environments. Although, certain petrified tree stumps do conceal the entrances to our homes.
“We prefer to live in natural caverns beneath the earth. The closest ones are beneath the mountains we just came from, but they don’t extend this far, so the sprites who work and live in Seelie City build faerie mounds. They’re a bit like above ground
caverns, supported by rock beneath the earthen exterior.”
I inspected a mound more closely and realized that beds of tiny flowers surrounded it, some even beginning to grow up the packed dirt sides. A group of sprite children, probably a little older than Obie, suddenly shot out of the opening at the top of the mound. The mismatched troupe raced down toward a patch of large toadstools growing in the shade of one of the buildings. They began jumping up and down on the spongy caps as if they were trampolines, giggling and using their wings to gain height.
I smiled and shook my head as they passed out of sight. “So, where do pegs live?” I asked Titus.
“We live in the open fields beneath the skies, little human, wherever our wings can carry us,” he replied in a deep rumble. “But entertaining as it has been, I believe my part in your lesson for the day is over. Here we are.”
Titus came to a stop before an official-looking white stone building. Large silver letters posted above the entrance labeled it ‘Seelie City Police Station’. He lowered himself to the ground so that I could climb down, my fists again bunched in the long hairs of his mane to keep from falling. I looked up in time to see Lorien sprinkle an oddly lumpy, blandly colored dust over his wide nose.
She bit her lip regretfully. “I’d give you more for all your help, Master Titus, but I’m afraid that’s all the oatcake spell I can spare. Otherwise I won’t have enough to pay for Sydney’s ride back. You’ve been so kind to us. Allow me to do something else for you. If there’s anything that’s been paining you, I could heal it,” she offered.
“Not to worry, Mistress Lorien, the spell will be fine,” he replied in a kindly voice as he rose to his feet.
“Please?” she entreated.
Titus was silent for a moment. He seemed to be struggling with his pride. “Well,” he said finally, “I suppose my back left hoof has been troubling me a bit of late. Probably just a stone bruise, but maybe a little healing wouldn’t go amiss.”
Lorien was already at the site of his complaint, gently sprinkling a fine silvery dust over the area. He lifted his heavy rear leg, gingerly stamping his foot into the ground, an expression of satisfaction spreading down his long face.
“Why thank you Mistress Lorien. That did the trick right nicely.”
“Nothing to it,” she said, sounding pleased.
“If you have need of me again, just ask any of the pegs. They’ll know how to reach me. It was nice to meet both of you ladies—pleasure to serve.” He nodded as he began to trot away.
Lorien and I echoed our gratitude and turned to enter the police station. I automatically prepared to hold one of the glass doors open for her, then noticed that she had already flown through another miniature door high in the wall. I smiled faintly as I pushed open the door designed to accommodate someone my size, and was assaulted by a chaotic rush of sound.
A harried little man with dark, wizened skin and a grizzled, brown beard sat on a high stool behind a long counter. He was surrounded by haphazard piles of papers. A distinguished-looking older gentleman stood before him in a tailored suit, quietly arguing about something. His hand gestures were an elegant enforcement of his dispute. But the volume of the many voices spilling from the unseen room beyond prevented his words from reaching my ears.
He glanced over at us as we entered, his fiery green eyes piercing me from a maturely handsome face, framed by salt and pepper hair, and sporting a neatly trimmed goatee. Three small, gold hoops pierced his left ear. The corners of his chiseled lips raised slightly when he saw me, but I found no comfort in his semblance of a smile. His attention only rested on me briefly, but it made me feel like an insect being pinned for study.
Lorien darted in front of me, trailing red dust as she motioned me to a seat in the far corner. She flew closer to whisper in my ear, “That’s King Moab, ruler of the death djinns. Please Sydney, just sit here quietly and don’t say a word. I’m going to try to sneak past Galen, while he’s occupied with the king, and find Agent Sparrow. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
My stomach lurched at the discovery that I was sitting several feet away from the king of the death djinns. Lorien disappeared into the chaos of the room beyond and I was left alone with the morbid desire to gape at him. I realized that something about him reminded me of Balthus, and I wondered if I could learn how to recognize death djinns by sight. Now that would be a useful skill, especially for someone in my position.
The door to the back room suddenly flew open and out stormed Sparrow, cursing under his breath in Gaelic. My heart fluttered and I resisted the urge to jump up and run across the room to him. He looked angry, and exhausted, and sexy as hell. His tie was pulled loose around his collar and his white button-down shirt was rumpled, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to expose the tattoos inked into his tanned forearms. One of them was pulsing with a yellow glow. Lorien whizzed out after him, her wings dropping purple faerie dust.
“Ah, Agent Sparrow. Just the man I wanted to see. What is the meaning of this attack against my people?” King Moab’s voice was calm and refined, but his words created a tension so thick he might as well have drawn a weapon.
My eyes widened as I watched the lines of one of Sparrow’s tattoos expand and go blacker into stark relief against his skin. When he spoke, his tone held a composure that belied the fury radiating from him.
“King Moab,” he nodded. “My apologies for your wait. I’m afraid all I can tell you at the moment is that we have charged several members of your tribe with the possession of unaligned souls—which as you know, is a very serious offense. I assure you that this is not meant to be an attack against your people, and that only those found guilty will be punished.”
Moab’s jaw clenched beneath his salt and pepper goatee. “This is ludicrous. The death djinns have lived by the terms of the soul contract for millennia. No member of my tribe would knowingly deal in the trade of an unaligned soul. I promise you, our council’s punishment for doing so is far more…unpleasant than anything that would be inflicted by the Seelie Court.”
“Be that as it may, possession itself is grounds for arrest. I will take your words under advisement, and if it is discovered that your djinns were unaware of the illegal status of the souls in question, they will of course be released.” It was impossible to ascertain Sparrow’s opinion on the matter from his carefully modulated tone, but I could guess that he thought the djinns’ innocence unlikely.
“Mmm,” King Moab responded with a razor-thin smile. His gaze sliced to me and I froze. “This is an interesting specimen to find in the waiting room of Seelie police headquarters—a non-magical human with an open contract. I don’t suppose she has anything to do with your inquiries into the legitimacy of the affairs of my people.”
Suddenly King Moab was towering over me. I gasped—I hadn’t even seen him move. “Pretty little thing, isn’t she? Bright, shiny soul too. I could find several uses for this one.”
His emerald eyes burned into me, leaving me cold with fear. A faint whisper began in my brain, dissolving my growing terror and fogging my thoughts. I heard a voice softly murmur, “I wish…” and was horrified to find that it was my own.
“Yes, my lovely, what do you wish?” King Moab urged in a husky purr, gently caressing my cheek and sending unwanted desire cascading through my belly.
“Her business here is none of your own.” It was a growl, low and menacing. The sound tore my eyes from King Moab’s, and I was shocked to discover that it had come from Sparrow.
Lorien positioned herself between me and the king, sooty black dust filtering heavily from her agitated wings. Other than the glowing yellow design, all of Sparrow’s visible tattoos had now thickened into a pulsing, nearly indistinguishable blackness that bled across his skin.
King Moab stepped casually back from me, giving me a slow smile that chilled me to the bone. “I was merely testing her resolve. No law against that. I would be careful if I were you, Agent Sparrow. You don’t want to be accused of allowing your personal f
eelings to cloud your judgment during this investigation. I would hate for you to be reassigned due to any old grudges you might be harboring.”
He faded into a smoky outline and was gone.
Sparrow muttered another harsh string of Gaelic curses and Lorien turned to face me anxiously, the dust from her wings changing from black to purple.
“Are you okay, Sydney?” she asked worriedly.
“I thought he couldn’t just disappear from here like that,” I said in a faint voice.
“He’s a king, Sydney. He has close ties with members of the Seelie Court and standing authorization to do pretty much whatever the hell he pleases,” Sparrow spat angrily.
Lorien’s wings flickered faster for a moment, giving off a high-pitched buzz. Sparrow closed his eyes and sank into the chair next to me. “I’m sorry, Sydney. Lorien’s right. Are you okay? If that bastard enspelled you, I swear I’ll kill him.”
My fingers reached out to soften the tension in his jaw, the desire to taste his lips so visceral that I almost wondered if he hadn’t somehow enspelled me. I jerked my hand away when I realized what I had been about to do. It wasn’t the time or place.
“No, I don’t think he did,” I denied softly. “I think he was doing exactly what he said—testing my resolve. He tried to persuade me to make a wish, but in the end he left it up to me.”
Even if Moab had enspelled me, I didn’t think I would have admitted it to Sparrow at that moment. I fully believed he would go after the djinn, and somehow I didn’t think it would be a good idea for Sparrow to threaten the king.
His blue eyes were searching, but he seemed to accept my answer. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? Balthus is bound to try the same thing. He’s not as powerful as the king, but he’s a close second.”
“We’ve already had this discussion, Sparrow. I need to do this.”
“Dragon dung, Sydney! I’ve had my doubts about this idea from the beginning. And don’t tell me your resolve wasn’t swayed just now—I could see it in your face!” His voice was low and desperate.
A Risky Proposition Page 10
