“You moronic knob,” she hisses. “I’ll make sure you regret this.”
“You and what army, sweetheart? Oh, and I almost forgot to ask you a very important question. How’s your ass?”
I can feel the shock in her silence.
“Her ass?” whispers Needle.
“I stuck her real good in the ass last time we met.” Slaughter and Grisly snicker, and I roll my eyes. “With a knife, you twats, not my dick. And she gave me this.” I lift my shirt and reveal the scar on my side.
The night I fought Devilry, I had to seek healing from Cobble, a healer of questionable talent and weak magic. I’m too new to the city’s crime network for more reputable healers like Witch to even deign to speak to me, so I have to make do with the incompetent ones—hence the scar. I rather like it, though.
“My ass is just fine,” replies Devilry in a haughty tone.
“Perfectly smooth and round again, I’ll wager. Witch’s work?”
“Of course. She’s the best healer in the city. Always makes time for her favorites.”
“How nice for you.” I take a detonator from my pack and toss it lightly in my hand, an action that makes my crew’s eyes widen with terror. I’ve told them the devices are extremely volatile, when in reality they’re perfectly tame if the safety latch is on.
“See you and your pretty ass soon, love,” I call.
“Don’t count on it,” she replies.
With a grin and a flick of the latch, I tossthe bomb.
6
I turn off the sound before Ravager’s bomb explodes, and I don’t stay to watch him blast a trench to reroute the lava. I’m fairly sure the moat is deeper than he thinks, and that his strategy is going to be far more complex, time-consuming, and dangerous than he anticipates. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll blow himself up, along with his men.
While they were navigating the lightning-filled chasm, I set a number of traps throughout the keep, on both the first and second floors. But it didn’t feel like enough, so I came back up to the observation room to look for a list or record of the artifactsthat are stored in this place. I need more weapons and obstacles to help me hold off Ravager’s gang once they reach the keep.
After several minutes of knocking on the walls for hidden panels and rummaging through the cabinet, I discover that the long table has a concealed interior cavity. Its surface is actually a lid that, when lifted, reveals a shallow rectangular compartment. Inside is a detailed map of Annordun with four distinct sections—the basement and the three main floors. Some areas are marked with glowing red lines or circles and lots of brilliant dots.
Through experimentation I determine that the glowing red lines and circles represent shields, either across doors or around artifacts. The bright dots are the Fae orbs of light that provide illumination throughout the fortress. With a touch I can deactivate or activate the shields, and I can dispel the little light orbs, though the orbs don’t return once they’re eliminated.
Most of the doors on the upper floors of the fortress don’t have active shields across them, but more of them are lit up in the subterranean level.
I’ve never seen any technology like this. It goes beyond the usual style of Fae spellwork that I’m familiar with through Maven. How does it work? What type of energy source powers it?
My curiosity is so strong that I actually crawl beneath the table and look up at the underside—which, to my astonishment, is a mass of multicolored crystals with tiny black vines and roots threading around them. There are moonstone mushrooms, too, and bright red jewels. The aesthetic is rather like the Doras Álainn, which doesn’t make sense. The Doras Álainn was supposedly crafted by Fae-Hunters. Why would there be a control device of a similar style here in Annordun?
Unless everything I know about the Doras Álainn is wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t made by the Fae-Hunters at all.
Weeks before Wringer told me about Annordun, he gave me the tip about the Fae-Hunters and their hiding spot. That same day, he also gave me a book for Maven, at the back of which were several pasted-in pictures of artifacts, including the Doras Álainn.
He’s been unusually helpful for the past couple months, giving me valuable data without raising his prices. He has always claimed he doesn’t like danger, and that’s why he doesn’t go after treasures himself. He prefers to deal in secrets and rumors.
Lately Wringer has also been more polite in the way he addresses me—almost courtly, in fact—and I began to wonder if he has developed a romantic liking for me, despite the fact that he’s two decades older than I am. So I didn’t question why he gave me such juicy information without demanding a bigger cut.
In hindsight, though, it’s all rather suspicious. When I get back to Belgate, I’m going down to South Hive to have a talk with him and find out exactly where he’s been getting his latest bits of gossip. It’s odd that it has been so Faerie-focused. Could he have a Fae friend who is selling him secrets? Is this entire scenario part of something bigger, a conspiracy that I don’t understand? Is someone using the Javelins to accomplish a secret purpose?
The idea unnerves me. I don’t mind running jobs for people, but I like to be hired, fair and square, with clear terms set up front. I like to have all the information, and I hate feeling like a pawn.
But I don’t have the luxury of worrying about conspiracy theories at the moment. I need to slow down Ravager and his crew, and to do that, I’ll need to set up more traps.
On my way out the door of the observation room, I pass one of the lower pedestals and spot the monster from thesubterranean level. It’s prowling past the room that contains Drosselmeyer’s collection.
Cautiously I twist the top of that globe. I stay perfectly silent so the monster doesn’t hear me, and I listen to its ponderous footfalls, its loud breathing.
