by Cate Corvin
Ah. So that was why she’d called.
I should’ve known better.
“Well, I love it here.” I made myself smile, so she’d hear it in my voice. “I have a great job, and friends.”
Pomona sounded cautious when she spoke again. “Do you still work for that awful satyr?”
No. I work for a dangerous man with eyes like sapphires, who sleeps in my bed and pretends I’m a stranger the next day. Oh, and he likes to put me in situations where death is a reasonable expectation.
“Yeah, I’m still with Fairy Ferry. Most of my friends are there, too. Numa’s not that bad.” The lie tasted bitter in my mouth. “I could stay here for years. There’s so much to do.”
“Oh.” Was it my imagination, or did my mother sound relieved? “So, dear… your visa expires in a few months.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Well… the Grove council was wondering when you were planning to return.”
When. The word had the slightest, careful stress on it, as though she’d wanted to say something else, something like… if.
My mouth twisted, but the sick feeling was fading. I’d enjoyed my night with Robin, and I knew he had too, and that would have to be good enough.
Emotions wouldn’t be my weakness. I’d finally found something that called to me, that spoke to my soul: subterfuge, deception, and lies, all done in the name of something good. I’d lie and steal and even kill if I had to, if it meant getting those girls out of Brightkin’s hands.
I wouldn’t let my feelings for Robin destroy that. I fit with him perfectly, even if it was only as his agent, because his mandate spoke to me.
And then there was a tree. The first one I’d ever grown that no one would cut down for being an atrocity.
I bent down and straightened the comforter, tugging it flat. “Well, I was thinking about staying in Avilion and getting a permanent resident ID. I feel really good about it, actually.”
I heard Pomona suck in a sharp breath as I tossed the pillow back in place.
“Briallen… you know I love you, don’t you?”
A pang of heartache went through my chest, but only a small one. A year ago, the relief in her voice would’ve been too much to bear.
Now it was only a small cut, one that would heal over clean.
“I know. I love you too, Mom.” I smiled, a real one this time. My chest felt light, like I’d exhaled a cloud of burdens and guilt and left my insides clean. “But I don’t think I’m cut out for life in Emain Ablach. I’ve found a real calling here.”
“Well, if you’re sure…” She paused, and barreled ahead. “I can have your things sent there, Briallen dear.”
“I’d like that.”
I tossed my dirty clothes in a basket and sat on the bed. The smell of Robin’s cologne was still woven into it, enveloping me like an embrace.
“I’m glad to hear you’re doing well. Well, I’ll go inform the Grove of the new plans.” She sounded so bright and happy. “Kiss kiss! I’ll talk to you again soon, darling.”
“Love you,” I whispered, and hung up.
Emain Ablach could finally wash its hands and roots of me. I took a breath, staring up at the ceiling, and exhaled.
There was no pain, no burden crushing my shoulders beneath its weight, only a tinge of sadness at how quickly the island had released me from its grasp. Fae always said the branches of Emain Ablach didn’t easily release what they loved.
In my case, they were willing to gnaw their own branches away to be rid of me, the bad apple, but for once I felt perfectly at peace with it.
Somewhere far below me, in an inverse world of mist and stars, there was a knotted, twisting tree, and its petals glowed against the night sky.
It would be a tree for lovers, for people who always felt lost and craved a home of their own. Whatever mysterious fruit it grew, I knew the ones who ate it would taste my hopes and dreams.
My roots were here now. This was my home.
I got up and began slowly picking my photographs of home down from the walls. There were photos of trees, and me and my dark-haired mother, some of the sky over Emain Ablach.
None of them were of me and friends.
I stacked them carefully and reverently in my hands, then slid them into a box in my dresser.
When I was done, my walls were bare, but they didn’t look empty.
They looked like a blank slate, waiting for something exciting and new.
21
I didn’t see Robin for another two days.
By the time I got a text telling me the break was over and it was time for the next round, I was practically jumping out of my skin to do something.
Every day that passed was another day that Brightkin could’ve abducted a human girl and stuffed her throat with faerie fruit and evanesce. I’d never been so eager to put on a tiny dress and a new face.
If it was the last thing I did, I was going to take this bastard down.
I pedaled hard to Thornwood, ditching my bike behind the wall and pushing the back door open. Robin appeared at the end of the hall, his collar undone, sleeves pushed up, and hair looking like he’d continually run his fingers through it for the entire two days I’d been gone.
“Wow.” I eyed him critically, dropping my backpack on a deep green velvet chair. “You’ve seen better days, boss.”
His bright eyes ran over me from head to toe before he yanked them away. “Thank you so much, Miss Appletree.”
Despite my still-simmering anger over his refusal to acknowledge what was now referred to as ‘that night’ in my head, my heart did a happy little dance at the dry tone of his voice. I’d missed that.
“I’m just keeping you firmly grounded.” I sank into the chair on the opposite side of his desk. “Did you take a break, too?”
He shook his head and sat down opposite me, still studiously avoiding looking directly at me. “No. Enjoy your date with Mr. ap Nudd?”
I blinked at him. I’d never thought to ask Gwyn for his full name. Gwyn ap Nudd. I liked the way it rolled off my tongue in my imagination. “It was great. He took me on a tour of Annwyn and the Unseelie lands.”
Robin raised an eyebrow just a touch, the corner of his mouth tightening. “That’s nice.”
Was that jealousy?
“It was nice. I planted a tree there.” I thought wistfully of my beautiful, twisted tree. “Sobek Street is an entirely false representation of what the Unseelie Court is really like.”
“That’s because even the Unseelie Court doesn’t want them in there.” Robin tapped a few keys on his laptop.
“I could see that.” If I was Queen Nicnevin, I wouldn’t let Calder in, either.
I waited patiently, trying to read an upside-down paper.
Sisse was nowhere in sight to cut the tension between us with her ill-timed innuendos. I needed to do something before the stilted conversation made my brain melt out of my ears. I’d never felt so awkward around Robin before, not even when he’d first caught me.
This was where I was meant to be, and that night wasn’t going to ruin it.
“Boss.”
Robin looked up, searching my face. “Yes, Miss Appletree?”
I resisted the urge to blurt out something stupid as a cover. “You know I love working for you, right?” I made myself hold eye contact, ignoring the heat I felt rising on my cheekbones.
It was impossible to read his expression. “It’s my hope that you enjoy it.”
“Well, I do.” I swallowed hard, almost choked on my own spit, and pushed ahead anyways. “I don’t want anything that happened between us to mess this up, and I don’t want it to be awkward, either. I want things to be like they were. You’re an excellent boss, and if you’ll still have me as an agent, I’m in. I can be a professional.”
I only tripped over three words. Pretty good, all things considered.
Robin’s blue eyes were shadowed. I’d run my fingers over the chiseled planes of his handsome face; why couldn’t that have g
ranted me the ability to read his emotions there, too? “I know you can be, Briallen.”
It was the first time he’d said my first name since that night. I held back a sigh of relief waiting to explode out of me.
“I have no intention of losing someone destined to be an excellent Seelie agent.” He closed his laptop with a sharp snap. “If things have seemed awkward, forgive me. That’s my fault; I’ve never crossed the lines of propriety with an agent before.”
My ire rose at his new, brisk tone.
Bounds of propriety, my ass.
“I was just as culpable,” I forced myself to say. It was true, at least.
“Regardless.” Robin looked away from me again, his mouth downturned. “As your employer, it’s my job to stay in the lines. I won’t cross them again.”
A taut, painful beat passed between us. Never again?
I wanted him to cross those lines. I wanted him to tear those lines up and lay new ones, lines that boxed Briallen in with Robin.
I didn’t want to relegate that night to the distant shores of memory, but I also wanted to stay.
“Sure thing, boss.” It was amazing how casual I sounded around the lump in my throat. “It’s settled, as far I’m concerned. So what’s the plan with Calder?”
Robin ran his fingers through his hair. I wondered how long that had been a habit for him. “Apparently, he learned absolutely nothing from his last venture with nereids, because he’s been searching for them recently. I’ve pieced together as many of his messages with Brightkin as possible to be able to reliably imitate his speech, and if I’m reading into this correctly, the prince is beginning to develop a paranoia of being watched.” Robin’s smile was cold. “We’ll exploit that.”
“And we’re kidnapping him first, right?” I chewed a fingernail. Robin looked like he wanted to pull it out of my mouth.
“We’ll reprise our last plan, with a few little additions.”
I groaned and dropped my hands to my lap. “Aww, I have to be a hooker again? When do I get to wear a cool suit with secret weapons?”
Robin just shrugged, hiding a smile. “It’s a tried-and-true method.”
An hour later, I was wearing a new nereid face, this one tinged with pale green and studded with seed pearls. My false ID read Lyssa Lightsea.
Robin hadn’t bothered to get dressed, wearing his usual dark suit. He held a silver medallion, shimmering with pent-up magic.
“What are we going to do about his Dullahans?” I asked, trying not to scratch an itch on my back. The pearl-woven mini dress was not the most comfortable thing I’d ever worn.
“Corpseroot powder.” Robin held up a small vial full of a dark red powder before he tucked it in his suit pocket. “It won’t kill them; we might want to question them later. But they’ll be unconscious for the time it takes us to gather Calder and reinforcements to collect their bodies.”
I nodded, the pearls in my hair clicking together. “Fuck. We should’ve just taken Calder the first time I had him knocked out.”
Robin gave me a wry smile. “His absence for over a week would’ve been noted by Brightkin. There was one common thread in their communications; Calder never made the meeting arrangements. Trying to impersonate him while simultaneously behaving out of character would’ve tipped off Brightkin too early.”
So we’d had no choice but to wait an entire week for this Myrage meeting. I filed the information away for later; learn to bide your time for the right moment, Briallen.
“Honestly, if this idiot goes for another nereid after what happened last time, then he deserves whatever’s coming to him.” Even as I said it, I knew the odds were very good that Calder would be all over me in seconds. Satyrs were ruled entirely by their raging hormones.
“He deserves it all,” Robin said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.
I wondered if I’d someday find a pair of little chopped-off satyr hooves fertilizing Robin’s backyard.
He drove us close enough to Sobek Street for us to get out and walk, but as I shivered on the sidewalk, he pulled the silver medallion over his head and tapped it.
It was like he’d pulled a veil over his head, turning him slowly transparent until I couldn’t see him at all.
“Robin?” I whispered. A warm hand touched my shoulder.
“Right here,” he said, his breath touching my ear and making me shiver again. “I’ll be with you the entire way, Miss Appletree.”
Damn. I’d called him by his first name, and the usual address of my last name made it feel like a rebuke. “Just making sure.”
I turned towards Sobek Street, ignoring the wolf-whistles of the Solitary Fae as I made my way to the Undercity door.
The Skin Market clearly never slept; it might’ve been evening outside, but down here in the endless dark, the lamps were always burning.
I tried to walk like I was meandering, but every fiber in my body was vying to move with purpose. Calder was here or at home, and I was eager to see him knocked out cold.
I came across the little bastard at the edge of the Skin Market, just inside the tunnel leading to his house.
He was still wearing the leather jacket and looked cranky as he looked over the Market’s offerings. Maybe he’d actually learned a lesson about inviting strange nereids home…
But the satyr’s eyes landed on me and lit up.
I smiled and strode forward, letting my hips sway. Vanora Pearlwave had been standoffish and nervous, but in the car, I’d decided that Lyssa Lightsea was bold and ready to take what she wanted. It was becoming much easier to adopt a new personality while wearing a mask over my real face.
“Hello, handsome,” I purred, running my deep green fingernails over Calder’s shoulder. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You have?” Calder stared up at me, round-eyed, and I held back a wince. Had he learned? Maybe I’d laid it on a little too thick. “Oh. Right. So you’ve heard of me?”
Crisis averted. Naturally, he’d take my words at face value, the little narcissist.
I leaned over him, letting him look down my pearl dress. “Of course I have. You’re Calder, everybody knows you.” I giggled and let my nails glide gently over his hairy chest. “I’m a big admirer.”
He puffed his chest out. “Well, I’ve got a very important meeting to get to—” He even waggled his eyebrows, the smarmy little ass— “But… I could make a quick exception for you.”
“Lovely.” I offered my hand and let him pull me down the tunnel, not even looking at the Dullahans as I passed them. They were beneath Lyssa’s notice.
Calder’s guardians followed us through the tunnel, and after we’d passed several dark bends, I heard the first thump of a body hitting the stone floor like a sack of bricks.
“The fuck was that?” Calder muttered, spinning around. The clop of his hooves echoed down the tunnel, overshadowed by the sound of the second Dullahan hitting the ground. “Balfour? Dubh?”
There was no answer. I smiled as Calder wheeled around and stared up at me, suspicion and horror filling his eyes. “Did you do this, you cunt?”
I waved my fingers. “Good night, asshole.”
A puff of red smoke filled the air in front of Calder’s face. The satyr gasped in surprise, filling his lungs with the dust… then choked, sneezed, and stumbled over. A sharp crack echoed when his horns hit the ground.
He was drooling before he even knew what hit him.
“Nice, boss,” I said appreciatively.
Robin let out a low chuckle, then picked up the satyr and threw him over an invisible shoulder. Within moments, Calder had also faded from sight, enveloped by Robin’s powerful invisibility glamour.
“Back through the Skin Market, Briallen. Meet me back at the car if we get separated.”
“Is that likely?” I asked, picking my way back along the tunnels and stepping lightly over the unconscious Dullahans. They were sprawled in an undignified pile in a puddle of oily water.
“He’s… hefty, we’ll sa
y that. I might need to find a clearer route unless I want to smash through the place like an invisible battering ram.”
“Point taken.”
I plunged back into the Skin Market with a satisfied smirk, like I’d just gotten the richest, quickest client in the place. Nobody batted so much as an eyelash as I passed through.
The streets were much darker when I emerged, and when I got back to the car, it was still empty.
I leaned against the brick wall, giving passersby a jaded gaze. We were close enough to Sobek Street for it to look natural and normal. Every odd once in a while I hissed “Boss?” under my breath.
I didn’t get a reply to that for nearly fifteen minutes, when the trunk of Robin’s car suddenly popped up. The entire vehicle tilted when he dropped Calder’s dead weight into it.
“Took you long enough,” I muttered.
“I had to take an access tunnel,” he said, not even out of breath. “The market was too close-quarters. I hit two selkies upside the head with his hooves and almost started a fistfight.”
I choked back a laugh as Calder’s head jerked to the side: Robin’s invisible hand was plucking clumps of hair from his head. “Are you sure Brightkin won’t see through this one?”
“First, I paid a princess’s ransom for this next glamour, so it’d damn well better work. Second, it’s much less likely with Calder’s physical essence to power it,” he said. It was weird, talking to a disembodied voice. “Having a piece of the face I’m wearing makes the barrier much harder to penetrate. Worst case, if he senses something, I tell him I received a protection spell. They have a similar signature.”
“Good thinking.” I shifted in place, my feet already aching from the super high heels.
Robin shoved Calder further into the recesses of the trunk, then slammed it shut. “I apologize for all the short dresses, Miss Appletree. You know… I suppose I could’ve just paid a few nymphs for their hair and permission to use their faces.”
“Oh, no way.” I glared at where I thought he was and heard a chuckle from the driver’s side.
