by Cate Corvin
I put my hand over my mouth for good measure as he practically dragged me towards the bathrooms.
The strobe lights of Myrage did actually make me want to be sick now, like my head was full of blazing, pulsing beams. I realized what it was Silke had handed to him.
“My phone,” I gasped, and I felt him pressing it down into the front of my dress.
“Don’t fucking puke on my shoes,” he snapped, still dragging me, and my heel caught on a loose floorboard, almost twisting my ankle around.
Instead of stopping, he just jerked me loose despite my gasp of pain.
I’d never wanted to kill someone so badly before.
The bathrooms were near the top of the stairs, and I thought about just throwing myself down them to get away, but Robin had my back.
I could’ve cried with relief when I heard his sharp voice. “Cress?”
Fionn stopped dead, holding my leaden body upright.
Robin, still wearing Rory’s face, was nearly to the top of the stairs, his glamoured eyes blazing with fury.
“Rory,” I whispered, unsure if I’d actually said the name or imagined it.
“This is your brother?” Fionn asked me stiffly, and I somehow managed to nod. Fionn’s eyes jerked back and forth between us, and an expression close to fear crossed his face, there and gone.
He shoved me towards Robin, almost causing me to flop right down, but Robin caught me.
Robin snarled a curse low in his throat, wrapping his arms around me tightly, but Fionn tossed back his hair with a flick.
“Your sister wouldn’t stop begging to come party with us, but she’s a fucking lightweight. You can clean up her puke.”
With that, he turned on his heel and strode away, like he’d done nothing more than take out the trash.
“I bet he’s never taken out the trash in his life,” I slurred.
“What?” Robin tilted my face upright, examining my eyes. My pupils must’ve been huge, because his lips tightened. “Ah, fuck.”
Unlike Fionn, he didn’t drag me down the stairs. He was strong enough that he picked me up like a bridegroom, carefully carrying me down and through the strobing lights of Myrage.
I buried my face against his shirt, taking deep breaths and trying to think clearly, but it was getting harder by the moment. All I could really concentrate on was the feel of Robin’s arms, how he carefully maneuvered so he didn’t run me into anything, and how those maneuvers felt oddly like being on a boat, rocking back and forth and making my head spin.
I knew we were outside when I felt the cool, salty air coming off Acionna Harbor, washing away the stink of sweat, faerie fruit, and Fionn’s shitty cologne.
Well, truthfully, the cologne had actually smelled pretty good, but I’d forever associate that scent with complete assholes.
Robin knelt down, sitting me on cold stones. My head lolled forward onto my chest.
“Briallen, I need you to drink this.” He raised my head, cupping my cheek gently.
It was impossible to tell if his hands were warm or cold. “I can’t feel you, Robin.”
“I know,” he said gently. “Open up.”
I knew I needed to drink it, but whatever he’d put in front of my face smelled bitter and awful.
“Ugh, no.” I tried to bat him away, but my hand wouldn’t move. It just laid there in my lap.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he murmured, still crouched in front of me. “Come on. Let’s get this out of you.”
I glared at him mutinously, or I thought I did. There seemed to be three Robins around me, all of them blurry at the edges.
“Hard way, then. You’ll thank me later.” He shoved a vial in my mouth and tilted it, forcing my head back.
All I could think of was the human girl’s head tilted back and remaining there like a poseable doll.
I coughed and sputtered, shoving him away, but he pinched my nose shut. “Swallow it or so help me…”
I vaguely remembered that Robin was dangerous, and also my boss, and that I should probably listen. I swallowed the bitter potion, almost gagging.
It hit my stomach like ice, spreading through me in creeping tendrils. I shivered violently on the step, and Robin took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders with a sigh. “I’ll miss that jacket.”
My head was starting to clear rapidly, even though I was so cold it hurt. I clutched the jacket tighter around myself.
“Why?” I tried to ask, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I puked.
“That’s why,” he said grimly.
9
To his credit, Robin didn’t freak out or start sympathetic gagging.
He knelt beside me, holding my hair back as I brought up every last drop of whatever Fionn had given me, even took off his own shirt so I could wipe my mouth and front with it.
By the time the puking had turned into dry heaves and I crouched, still shivering, on the stoop in the alley where he’d brought me, my head was completely clear. Every detail of what I’d seen was still emblazoned in my mind.
And I realized Robin was ablaze with fury, even though he hid it well.
He stroked my back, but his hand was trembling slightly, and the other one was dangling over his leg and locked into a fist.
“I think I’m good now,” I whispered. I was so thirsty I could’ve drunk all of Acionna Harbor and still needed more.
Robin silently stood up, taking my hands and lifting me with him. I expected him to let me go, but instead he looped one arm around my waist, just in case I fell over.
It didn’t feel predatory or aggressive like Fionn. In fact, I would’ve liked the feeling, if I wasn’t a mess covered in nastiness and wearing his ruined jacket.
“Thanks for the jacket.” I said it meekly, having caught the look in his eyes.
Yep. I was in trouble, all right.
He got me to his car, and I balked at getting in. The idea of getting my vomit on the leather seats was absolute blasphemy.
Robin narrowed his eyes. “Easy way or hard way.”
I got into the car and made myself as small as possible.
Robin rounded the car and practically slammed into the driver’s seat. His knuckles were white when he gripped the steering wheel with one hand and tore away his glamour with the other.
Brilliant blue eyes, snapping with fury, met mine. “What were you thinking?” he hissed. “I said to be careful!”
“You said to get into that room and find you proof,” I said stubbornly. “I got into the room—”
“I told you to make initial contact and get his number, I didn’t tell you to take a roofied cup. The ring should’ve warned you. I would’ve preferred that you left entirely, Miss Appletree. Better that the mission was ruined than you get...” He cut himself off and ran a hand over his beard in exasperation, like he was trying to hold back something harsher.
“Will you let me finish? It did warn me, but it was a calculated risk. They weren’t going to let me walk back out without thinking I was too drugged to notice anything weird. I found proof, boss.” I paused. “Well, I saw proof. He had human girls in there. Silke took my phone for obvious reasons, otherwise I’d have brought you pictures.” I buried my face in my hands. “Ah, fuck. I didn’t get his number.”
My first mission, and I’d totally ruined it. I’d let my anger over Brightkin’s transgressions blind me to the one basic thing I needed to do.
“There’s a time to take risks, and this wasn’t it.” The gentle disappointment in his voice was even worse than outright anger. “If you’d been there alone…” He trailed off and shook his head.
Robin started the car and pulled out into the street. A long, tense silence fell in the car, while I watched his taut knuckles on the steering wheel and blinked hard.
“I apologize, Miss Appletree. It was my fault for allowing Sisse to talk me into this arrangement, but perhaps things would be better if we brewed that forgetting potion after all. Working for me involves danger, an
d I can’t willingly put you in harm’s way. I am responsible for what happens to you.”
I sucked in a deep breath, feeling like I’d been punched in the gut. “Fine.”
One mission in, and already fired. And I’d never remember Robin again.
“Let’s do our debrief now.” He didn’t look at me, staring straight through the windshield. “Tell me what you saw.”
My jaw felt painfully tight as I began to speak, telling him about Fionn, and Silke’s pat down, and the apparent animosity between them.
Robin didn’t so much as blink when I described the human girls eating faerie fruit out the prince’s hands, or being turned into a living chalice, but his mouth turned down at the corners a little.
We soon pulled into Thornwood. Too soon, I wanted to work just a little longer.
“And there was a satyr there.” I looked down at my hands, unable to look at Robin’s face anymore. I was so full of shame for fucking up that my throat felt clogged with tears. “He was… well, disgusting is the kindest way of putting it. Greasy, wore a leather jacket, had a red tattoo of a circle of thorns on his chest.”
Robin slammed the brakes and the car screeched to a halt. In the shaded streets of Thornwood, it was just possible to make out the brightness of his eyes boring right through me.
“You’re sure it was a tattoo of red thorns?” he demanded.
The tiniest, most minuscule seed of hope sprouted in me. “One hundred percent. He smoked a cigar, and…” I racked my memory for a moment. “I’m not going to repeat what he said about them, but he said he liked nereids. Water nymphs.”
Robin seemed frozen in place, but a wild grin broke out across his face before he schooled himself back into neutrality.
“This is good, right?” I asked, still foolishly nurturing the hope that I wasn’t fired.
Robin hit a button on the console, opening another portal to his underground garage. I closed my eyes as he drove towards the mirror-like opening in the air, and when he pulled to a halt, we were underground.
He got out of the car and came around to open my door, to my surprise. He was walking so fast I didn’t have time to protest when he reached in and took my hand.
“Come on. I’ll make you dinner.”
I was sure I hadn’t heard right. “Aren’t you supposed to be brewing a forgetting potion?”
I sounded petulant even to myself.
Robin looked me over. “We’ll need to have a few discussions about unnecessary risks, but no, you won’t be taking that potion if you don’t wish to, Miss Appletree.”
I exhaled so deeply it was painful, my body relaxing. I’d been so miserably cramped up in the car all the way back to Robin’s house, convinced I was going to be fired and have all this erased from my memories, that I hadn’t even thought about how tense and tight I was.
Thank fuck that satyr had been in there.
“I definitely don’t wish to. So, who’s the satyr, boss?” I was on Robin’s heels all the way up the stairs, so relieved I could’ve screamed.
“You get cleaned up while I cook. We’ll discuss this over dinner.” He stopped in the hall as Sisse fluttered to his shoulder, looking concerned. I smiled up at him, my first real smile since walking into Myrage, feeling light as air.
Robin’s eyes lingered on my face for a brief moment, then he turned away, his jaw tight.
Undeterred, I practically skipped upstairs to shower and brush my teeth several times. The club clothes went in the laundry bin, but instead of forcing me to wear my Fairy Ferry uniform, the wardrobe spit out a pair of black yoga pants and a lavender tee with the moon phases embroidered across the chest, along with a small backpack to put my old clothes in.
The house smelled delicious when I descended the stairs. Sisse caught sight of me from the kitchen and fluttered over, seating herself imperiously on my shoulder.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” she sniffed. “He usually just orders take-out. He never cooks for me anymore.”
I had to bite down on my lip to keep from smiling.
Robin was in the kitchen, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, sauce splattered across his front, and a wooden spoon in hand. He poked at whatever was in the saucepan that sat on a grate.
A blazing little fire salamander crawled in a circle beneath the grate, its scales shimmering blue and red, making little squeaks as Robin tossed the occasional tidbit to it.
I stood in the doorway, watching the display of somewhat hazardous domesticity. “You need an apron,” I told him.
Robin looked up from the sauce and nearly got his fingers nipped by the salamander. He pulled them away with a wince. “Watch where you put those teeth, Cinders.”
I could’ve sworn the little fire Fae grinned as it scuttled to the far side of the grate.
“Have a seat,” Robin said, nodding to the table. He’d already laid it out with two plates and silverware. A much smaller table that would easily fit in my palm sat beside us, along with a thimble for a chair.
Sisse departed my shoulder and settled in as I took a seat, propping my elbows on the table and looping my feet around the legs of the chair. “Smells good, boss.”
Robin poured the sauce over something in a dish and brought it over, followed by several other dishes. There was herb-crusted chicken, baked bread, and little dishes of honeycomb, cream, and berries.
I was a little shocked when he served my food himself before filling his own plate and sitting down.
“So, this satyr,” he said, when I had a forkful of food halfway to my mouth. My stomach, rather violently emptied out, was audibly rumbling. “He’s a slippery bastard. Every time we think we’ve got him cornered, he somehow manages to slither right out of our grip, but he matches the description perfectly. Nereid fetish, slimy, greasy… and a well-known connection in the Sobek Street and Undercity markets.”
I took my first bite of food and just about died of happiness. “You cook really well, you know that?”
“Thanks.” Robin wasn’t eating, though. He stirred his food around his plate, poking at it with the tines of his fork, watching me from the corner of his eye.
I wondered if he’d cooked just to get something in my stomach before sending me home. “Sorry, go on.”
“He goes by the name Calder. His business enterprises have been quiet for the last few years, but he’s just been laying low with both Seelie and Unseelie Garda tailing him. The good news is, he’s the perfect route into Brightkin’s activities. We’ve got records on Fionn; he’s a social climber, fifth in line to the throne and unlikely to ever see it. Essentially a bottom-feeder clinging to Brightkin, hoping for scraps.” Robin stabbed a piece of potato like it had offended him. “But Calder. Now that’s where the real trail is. If Brightkin is procuring human girls, Calder is most certainly in on it, and likely knows where they’re coming from and being kept.”
I was watching Robin as he spoke. When I looked down, I’d completely cleared my plate without realizing it, and tiredness was finally starting to hit me.
“So we lure him out.” Robin put down his fork, his sensual mouth set in another frown. “I’d prefer not to put you directly in harm’s way again, but harm is an inherent risk in this line of work.”
“I put myself in that spot, boss. I knew what was in the drink.” I stifled a yawn behind my hand. “If it makes you feel better, I have no intention of accepting a drink from Fionn ever again. Or being that reckless.”
Robin nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on my face again. “Look…” He shifted, distinctly uncomfortable. “I apologize for yelling at you. You took a heavy risk, but without it, we wouldn’t know Calder had made ties with Brightkin. I’d just prefer if next time…”
“I don’t get myself roofied?” I suggested. “Yeah, me too.” A scowl contorted my face. “How many nymphs does he do that to? He was so casual about it. This wasn’t a one-off incident.”
The icy look that Robin sometimes got came into his eye. “It’ll be taken care of.”
I immediately pictured the severed foot in his backyard. “Oh, my trees. Are you going to kill him?”
Anyone else would’ve looked at me like I was crazy for even suggesting it. Robin’s expression was utterly level. “Not kill him, no. He’s too high in the Gentry to murder outright. But perhaps he will wish for death by the end.”
A shiver went down my spine, but still, I was happy to hear that. Fionn had done worse to others. “You’re one scary man, boss.”
Robin seemed to realize he was glaring. He ran his fingers through his hair and released a breath, looking away. His next words were a little awkward. “You’re tired, Miss Appletree. Would you like to sleep here?”
I thought of the little bed upstairs that was technically mine to use as I wanted now, but I wanted the comfort of my own bed, my woven comforter and snoring roommates. It wasn’t as good as sleeping next to a warm someone who would just hold me tightly all night, but it was better than adjusting to a new and unfamiliar room.
“No. I’m going to head back home.” I stood up to clear my plate. “My roommates will lose their minds if I stay out all night.”
Robin made me put the plate down. “I’ll get this. Your roommates— Clove and Tarragon O’Callaghan?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Been stalking me recently?”
Robin raised one back. “Consider it your mandatory background check.”
I bullied him into letting me help clean up anyways. Standing side by side and washing the dishes with the help of a giggly little water sprite who blew bubbles at my face, I had that odd sensation of domesticity and comfort again. I’d never felt so comfortable even with Ioin.
“I can give you a ride home.” Robin practically blurted the words.
I didn’t look at him, keeping my eyes on the bubbles in the sink. The sprite winked at the sight of my pinkening cheeks. “No, it’s okay. I need to bring my bike home anyways.”
“It’d fit in the trunk, Miss Appletree. I’d prefer to drive you.”
I shook my head. “It was nice of you to make me dinner, but I can find my own way home. Unless the Ghosthand is out tonight.”
