Regardless, I should ask. If nothing else, Vlad does not want Grant further embroiled in the Hunt’s activities, and a new tattoo might distract him from all that is happening.
Speak of the devil… My phone rings as I reach a crossing and I answer, waiting for the light to go green.
“We have found them.” Vlad’s voice is clipped, urgent. And quiet. He does not want Grant to overhear.
“Who? Where?”
“The high fae,” Vlad says. “There is a pub in Camden. They run it, from what I have been told. Run fights with fae and other supernatural creatures.”
“Fights?” I frown. The green man appears and I cross the road, increasing my pace once I’m on the other side. “What do you mean?”
“I will explain when you get here. How far are you?”
I glance around. “Half an hour?”
It is still light out, so if Vlad intends to come with me, we are not inthatmuch of a rush.
“Very well,” he says. “I will inform you of the rest when you get here.”
Three hours later, we are both watching a small alley in Camden that is far darker than it should be. A glaistig guards it, eyes scanning the shadows, but I’m certain she hasn’t seen us, since both of us are using our blessings to hide.
“Do you think they’ll know if we go into it?” I mutter, referring to the deep shadows I cannot see through. No doubt they’re a security measure, though I don’t know if that means we’ll get lost in them.
Maurice won’t be back in London for a few days, and I understand the need for haste—one high fae on the loose is bad enough, so two is worse—but perhaps we should have waited.
“Uncertain,” Vlad replies. He is the dictionary definition of focus, gaze never wavering from our target. “There is one way to find out.”
“A dangerous one.”
He lets out a quiet hum. Is he thinking of calling the Huntsman? Of warning Grant? He cannot want to leave his turn behind.
“Come along,” he says, and I scowl at his broad back as he pushes off from the wall and strides across the street.
The glaistig does not stand a chance, and she is not without power herself. But Vlad has vampire speed along with his blessing, and he knocks her unconscious before she can do more than widen her eyes in surprise.
I glance up and down the street as he carries her body out of sight, not risking putting her in that alley of shadows. Though I think the shadows are beginning to disperse some now, which might mean they were part ofhermagic, and that the fae we are truly after might have nothing to do with it at all.
“Remember what I said,” Vlad says, and I nod, tugging on my blessing, pulling it in deep.
Of everyone in the Wild Hunt, I have the most tenuous grasp on the magic the Huntsman gave me. Magic flows easily for Maurice, of course, since he was a witch even before he was a vampire; itwantsto be a part of him, the way it used to be.
Rook and Saide were fae before they were bitten, and I’m not sure they ever took magic from the Huntsman at all. Vlad and Jeremiah are both vampires, were humans in life, and have worked hard to wield what they’ve been given.
Paxton has not been with us much longer than Grant, though he, at least, is a fully fledged member.
I think even he finds fae magic easier to use than I do.
Still, I corral it into my core, into that still-ragged space where something else used to sit. Vlad watches me, absolutely unreadable, but I think he is reaching for it—after a moment, he nods and pulls his own magic in with nothing more than a flick of his fingers.
We step into the darkness together.
It is heavy. Suffocating almost because when I glance back, it has swallowed me whole. My heart begins to race, even as I concentrate on moving forward, one foot in front of the other. I cannot see Vlad. Cannot hear him, cannot sense him.
What if he is not here at all? What if I have fallen into some other plane or through the veil itself? I don’t know what waits on the other side. None of us do. Maybe this is it. Maybe there is nothing for me to see.
I take another cautious step and light floods my vision, alcohol and smoke, sweat and blood invading my nose. Vlad is already at my elbow, steering me over to the bar.
The fae behind it, a clurichaun, wears no glamour, and their long, pointed ears twitch as they scoff. “You all right?”
