changeling chronicles 03 - faerie realm (14 page)

“Possibly. The Lady of the Tree confirmed what we know. The killer’s tapping into the talisman, and is probably a Sidhe lord. An exile. She as good as said the sword can only be handled by someone with a Sidhe’s magic.”
Meaning me.
Hell, maybe
that
was why she’d picked me, because anyone else who tried to pick up the sword would die. Though I somehow doubted she’d told me to find the talisman for the good of humanity. “I think
she
wants the sword, but god knows why.”

“The Sidhe haven’t yet noticed it’s missing?” Vance’s forehead creased. “It’s not right. I might not have experience dealing with the Sidhe, but the idea of them letting a powerful talisman disappear and failing to notice… No. The Sidhe are far too fond of their power to give it up, if I’m to believe everything I’ve been told about them.”

“Yeah. I know. So you think she’s lying?” I didn’t believe her act for a second, but as far as I knew, faeries like her couldn’t lie.

“Perhaps. I can’t say I know the specific rules of the fey-kind. They seem changeable.”

“That’s because they
are
changeable,” I said. “In Faerie, they can’t lie but they can mislead. Here in our realm, though, I don’t know. Not like I can ask any of them. Even if one of them told me they can only tell the truth,
that
might be a lie.”

“No,” said Vance. “But there must be another way to pry the truth from her. She’s playing with your life.”

Didn’t I know it. “I don’t get the link with the shifters at all. There
must
be one, though. Two people murdered by magic most half-faeries can’t use seems calculated to get our attention.”

“I agree,” said Vance. “I’ll give you permission to keep investigating, but please tell me before you decide to cross the veil again. I meant what I said.”

“Which part?”

He released a breath that sounded like a sigh. “One day I might be too late to save someone. I won’t let it be you.”

I gaped, not knowing what to say. “I’m not helpless.”

“You can’t fight
death,
Ivy,” said Vance.

“I’m not fighting it. I’m just experimenting a little… that’s a joke,” I added quickly, as his eyes flashed.

“Even Lord Evander knows better than to meddle with arcane forces. Your magic… you need to learn to control it.”

“Then I need to talk to someone who understands it,” I said. “Or better yet, I need to speak to a necromancer. I
can’t
be the first. They must have more information.”

“If they do, it’ll be restricted. I doubt they’ve dealt with your variety of magic, anyway. The veil has been around since the dawn of time, as far as anyone knows. The first time anyone heard of the Grey Vale was twenty years ago, at the invasion. Their books are much older.”

“Damn.” So much for that. “Okay. Have you any more ideas about our next move?”

“Aside from the shifter murders, we need to search out possible places the talisman might be hidden. Did the Lady give you any clues?”

I hesitated. “I think I know what it is, even though I don’t know
where
it is. And… she wants it. I think she’s acting in her own interest, not the world’s. I managed to get away from her, but she was holding back. She hinted that my magic works best in Faerie, and so does the talisman.”

“Does she know about the Grey Vale?”

“Must do. She spoke to Calder…” I trailed off. “She can’t be lying to get me to take her back into Faerie, can she? I’ve already proven I can cross into Death without needing to mess up the veil. But she’s already been to Faerie.”

“Which part of Faerie?” Vance’s expression sharpened. “She didn’t specify when she said she’d gone back.”

“She said she got her immortality back when she went into Faerie,” I said slowly. “Shit. You’re right, but the Grey Vale isn’t exactly friendly to Summer faeries like her. If she’d gone there in her old state, she’d have been eaten alive.”

“Unless she found a talisman.”

My mouth parted in surprise. “You’re thinking the same as me?” If she’d gone to the Grey Vale, and found the talisman… but again, if that was the case, why would she have come back here? Or had someone stolen it from
her?

“I don’t know. You tell me.” He gave me an assessing look, as though wondering what was going through my head.

“Only if you tell
me
one of your secrets.”

Vance frowned at me. “This isn’t a game.”

“I’m dead serious, Vance,” I said. “I know you didn’t mean everyone to find out about my magic, but the Lady knows far too much. I learned the hard way that it’s not always worth holding back information. Suppose the shifters are linked to this somehow?”

“What do you want to know?”

“How your family’s linked to the shifters. Why they hate you, and why they think your grandfather betrayed them.”

Vance’s mouth thinned. I swallowed my pride and prepared to back down.

“Fine,” he said tonelessly. “The shifters and the mages had as little to do with one another as possible before the invasion. My grandfather knew that, but he attempted to adapt and live with them when he married my grandmother. After my grandfather died, his two surviving children—my father and his brother—were quickly inducted into the Mage Guild when they came into their powers.”

I stared a little. “Two… surviving children?”

His gaze turned downward. “I did say shifter and mage abilities are a lethal combination, especially without the proper training. There was an incident. A family argument got out of hand. Everyone died except my father and his youngest brother, who was a small child. Afterwards, the other shifters shunned the Colton family and called them bringers of bad luck. Considering the invasion happened right on their turf, they might have been right.”

Already, I regretted asking. I hadn’t known I’d drag up such a deluge of bad memories, even if they weren’t Vance’s own.

“The invasion forced every supernatural group out into the open,” Vance continued. “But beforehand, the witches knew the Sidhe were coming. They gave us enough warning that the magical communities would be exposed, and the shifters bargained with the mage council for places of safety, choosing to hide from the Sidhe rather than face the enemy. My uncle went into hiding, and he wanted my parents to do the same. My father disagreed. He believed the Sidhe could be reasoned with.” His eyes flashed. “He was wrong. Every mage who confronted the Sidhe lords died.”

“I—and you?”

“I was ten, younger than most mages are when they come into their powers, but I’d already started to show signs of my ability. I was in a hideout away from the Ley Line, along with the mages who couldn’t fight. There were six layers of security outside. The Sidhe blasted the wards down and killed everyone in the hideout.”

“How did you survive?” My voice was hardly a whisper. Shit. This was far worse than I’d imagined—and damn, did I regret letting my curiosity get the better of me.

“My powers reacted in self-defence, destroying most of the house and reducing it to rubble. The Sidhe thought they’d killed me.”

“You were buried alive?” Holy hell on Earth. I’d never figured he’d got
that
close to the Sidhe.

“The one surviving Mage Lord ordered a sweep of the city for survivors. I was lucky they found me.”

“No shit.” My legs felt weak. I didn’t have a clue what to say. I wanted to give him a hug, and simultaneously beat the shit out of every faerie who came within a mile of me.

“I saw over the veil,” said Vance quietly. “I saw them take her.”

“Your sister?”

“The veil was visible to everyone,” he said. “Faeries walked out of nowhere, crossing realms in the space of a second. Ghosts roamed the streets, attacking the living. And magic went haywire. Faerie contains so much more magic than our realm, and it rendered mage wards useless, no matter how powerful. The survivors either hid underground or got lucky.”

“Or got kidnapped.” I swallowed, eyes burning at the flood of memories. I’d experienced all of fifteen minutes of the invasion. The real event had lasted a day and a half. That’s how long it took for the faeries to overturn a significant part of the civilised world.

Vance nodded. “The necromancers hid. So did my uncle and all the shifters who agreed with him. The other mages either fought against the Sidhe or spread throughout the city to protect citizens. One Mage Lord survived, the eldest. His magic was waning, so he opted to protect as many people as he could rather than going into battle. His actions saved many lives.” He indicated a portrait on the wall I hadn’t noticed before. In fact, a row of them lined the wall behind the piano. “Lord Rickard. He rebuilt the city with the help of the new council. But the shifters harboured a grudge. The mages couldn’t stop the side effects of the invasion any more than they could prevent their own kind from dying.”

“And the shifters hate your uncle because he hid, then came to live on their territory even though he’s not full-blooded? Is that the big deal? Aside from this crap they believe about your family?”

“Essentially.”

“Didn’t know Henry was that much of a dick.”

Vance’s mouth pulled. “The Mage Lords haven’t necessarily been kind to shifters in the past. We make the laws, and shifters in beast form posed more of a risk to the public than any other group. We had to act fast to prevent them from exposing other supernaturals.”

“Still. This is a new world now. Surely working together is more useful for survival in the long run. Even
I
know that.” I edged closer to him. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to cross the veil. Or go behind your back. I thought I could solve this. Without
you
getting hurt or killed.”

When I’d nearly died after saying the Invocation, he’d seen me as a ghost, over the other side of the veil. It must have reminded him of that night. And to add insult to injury, I’d wandered over the veil twice since, and talked about doing it again.

Okay. I get it.

“I know you did,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I left you last night. I couldn’t stop thinking about how those shifters hurt you enough to push you into Death. I wouldn’t let them get away without punishment.”

“I cut them a few times. I get why you did it, but keep showing me up like that and the faeries won’t be scared of me anymore.”

“Destroying your fearsome reputation was the last thing on my mind.” The flicker of a smile touched his mouth, though tinged with a hint of something else. Regret? “I apologise for standing you up. Odds are, I
would
have shifted during our date, and I doubt you’d have found my claws appealing.”

“Hmm.” I impulsively took his hands and flipped them over. He let me, tilting his head questioningly. “Depends if you planned to use your hands for anything important.”

The glint in his eyes turned wicked. “You know… we don’t need to leave the manor to have all the benefits of a date.”

Whoever moved first, I didn’t know. Seconds later, his lips were on mine and my hands around the back of his head, messing up his hair. The taste and smell of him flooded me, sent heat running straight to my core. The tension between our bodies bent and snapped like a magnetic pull. My teeth grazed his lower lip and he made a growling noise deep in his throat.

“Does this mean you still want me?”

“You need to ask? Good god, woman,” he said under his breath. “You’ll be the death of me.”

His hands moved to my waist, leaving a trail of heat through the thin fabric of my shirt. I shuddered at the sensation, not prepared for the shock of electricity through my nerves when his fingers touched my bare skin. Two could play at that game. I grabbed at his sweater and all but tugged it over his head, hands seeking the taut skin under his now considerably rumpled shirt. My jacket disappeared in a rush of air. He’d removed it without even touching me.

“Show-off.”

He smiled against my lips. Dear lord. If he removed all my clothes in the same way, I was gone. He’d be the end of me without any bloody faerie vow—

Two seconds later, his hands were underneath my T-shirt and I’d forgotten all about the faeries and pretty much everything else, too. I didn’t even mind him touching my scars, because it hit me he wasn’t about to stop. His hands grazed my nipples and slid underneath my bra, and I gasped aloud.

“Vance. For god’s sake, move us somewhere else—”

Crash.

Vance’s hands dropped quickly, as did mine. Over his shoulder, I saw Wanda back away. “Another client. I’ll tell him to come back later.”

I jerked upright, trying to act dignified and not at all like I had the Mage Lord’s erection pressing against my thigh.

Vance pulled away from me with more composure than I’d have expected. “Wanda. I’ll be there in a minute.”

To Wanda’s credit, she barely blinked. “You know there’s a glass door over there, don’t you?”

She left. I turned to Vance. “Tell me nobody saw us.”

“I can’t do that. I was… preoccupied.”

No freaking kidding. His shirt was untucked, his hair dishevelled, and he’d never looked sexier. Not fair, universe.

“Go find Wanda,” I said
.
“Does she normally find you making out with employees?”

“No, that’s usually Drake. And it’s more likely to be clients than employees.”

“Really?”

“You haven’t spent a lot of time here, have you?”

“Not yet.”

He grinned, a spark igniting in his eyes again. He kissed me lightly on the lips, then left the conservatory, fixing his clothes as he did so.

Dammit. Foiled again. I glanced around and found my jacket on the piano stool. The smooth bastard. Oh god. I put my head in my hands and sank onto the stool. He was more impulsive than usual thanks to the shift. I had no excuses, except possibly built-up sexual frustration. It’d been a long time since I’d got past the first date stage of a relationship.

The grand piano wore a fine coating of dust, like no one had touched it in a while. Above, stern-faced portraits looked down at me. I moved closer to examine the names. All were called Lord something-or-other. Two had the name ‘Lord Colton’. Both pictures were old—really old. Must be his grandparents.