Agent Donovan grunts. “It always surprises me when they bleed red. You’d think it would be green or purple.”
“Yeah,” Pain chimes in.
My back aches. I’ve never experienced this kind of suffering before, this sort oftorture. But the pain itself isn’t enough to crack me; it’s what that limp gossamer wing represents. There’s no going back now. No lie, trick, or story will make this better. Donovan knows what I am. He has cause to investigate further. And if I don’t find a way to distract him, he’ll keep digging deeper into my identity.
Soho Lane has an address on her passport. That address is owned by another identity that owns another property. And if he keeps digging, he’ll eventually discover my daughter’s existence. That can’t happen. Not until she has a chance to run. The chips are down. My options are few. The best way I know to keep him focused on me and not on my papers is to cooperate.
“Sophia Larkspur,” I blurt. My real name feels strange in my mouth but then it’s been sixteen years since anyone has called me by it.
Donovan lowers his ear toward me. “Hmmm? What’s that?”
“My name is Sophia Larkspur. I’m a pixie,” I say through gritted teeth, my face wet with snot and tears.
He rolls his lips. “Disappointing. Just when things were getting interesting, you cave. Ah well, I guess we’ll have to play another day.” He turns his head and commands some worker outside my field of vision, “Get her cleaned up and bring her to my office. We start tonight.”
* * *
An hour later,I’m sitting on a folding metal chair beside Agent Donovan’s desk. I’ve never been a religious fairy, but if the goddess does exist, I pray she protects my daughter. I’ve done everything in my power to protect her myself. We’ve prepared for this event. Our home is rented under an alias, and the last name she uses for school is a different one altogether. But there are ways, undoubtedly, for them to find her. Things I’ve missed. I comfort myself by remembering she’s a smart girl and I’ve taught her exactly what to do in this situation. All she has to do is follow through.
I can’t take my eyes off Kiko. Donovan’s set my lucky cat on top of a stack of file folders like a paperweight. Does he intend to keep her? I frown at the thought. As far as I know, she’s one of a kind. The little arm that beckons you is made of blue iron, the only element on earth that can drain a fairy of their luck. But unlike Donovan’s cuffs, designed of solid blue iron to both drain and neutralize a fairy’s luck, the rest of Kiko is jade, a gem exceptionally suited for storing luck. Normally, I use the arm to siphon off a small amount throughout the day and store it inside Kiko for later use, when my own reserves are low.
I know she’s empty at the moment, but my fingers still itch to steal her back, if only for the comfort of having something familiar in my hand. She’s been with me a long time. My personal good luck charm, figuratively and literally.
“I’m going to take the cuffs off,” Donovan says. “I need you to have a little juice for what we’re going to do tonight. Just know that if you direct any of that luck toward anything other than the task at hand, I’ll gladly put you back on that table. Every agent in this building has enough blue iron in their blood to take you down five times over. Understood?”
Poker makes you an expert at reading people. Donovan isn’t bluffing. The reason I had trouble reading him at the table is precisely because he’s a psychopath with zero empathy and a penchant for violence. I see now that his nervous newbie act was believable because he’s a hunter who’s mastered baiting his prey. He knew it would make me uncomfortable and cause me to spend my luck to try to force him out of the game. He did it on purpose to drain me. Make me easier to catch. I could respect it if he wasn’t such a twisted twatwaffle.
I nod. “Understood.”
He removes the heavy blue-iron manacles. As soon as they are off me, I draw a deep breath in relief as my luck bubbles in my veins again, weak but there. I close my eyes at the pleasure of it.
“Let’s start with pictures. I’m going to show you a crime scene. You will answer my questions. We’ll go from there.”
What now? Pictures? Crime scenes? He grabs a manila folder from under Kiko and flips through it. With the hint of luck in my veins, my thoughts race for a means of escape. My gaze lands on the gun hanging from Donovan’s hip.
“Iron bullets,” he says, not looking up from the contents of the folder. “Don’t even think about it, Ms. Larkspur. I’ve been doing this a long time. It won’t work.”
I fold my arms over the scratchy material covering my chest. “What is this, burlap?” I squirm uncomfortably. The orange jumpsuit chafes, especially against my back. I’ve managed to retract my wing, but the wound hasn’t healed.
“I ask for barbed wire, but they keep sending me these,” Donovan says heartlessly. Goddess, he’s a prick.
“Why do you hate fae so much?”
“Who says I hate fae?”
“If this is how you treat people you like, I don’t want to know how you treat those you don’t.”
He leans back in his chair and straightens his tie. “First of all, you’re not people. You’re fae. A creature. Not human.”
“Creatures are people too,” I mumble.
“Second, you are not just fae. I happen to like fae as an occasional diversion. I’ve spent a few weekends at the Dragonfly.”
The Dragonfly is a club in Dragonfly Hollow, the part of Devashire open to humans. Total meat market. Humans who go there are typically hoping for an exotic sexual experience with a pixie or satyr, which means Donovan likes to get freaky. Gross. “Then why the torture?”
He bobs his eyebrows. “I like the torture.”
I swallow and feel the blood rush from my face.
