I’m saved from his intense scrutiny when his phone rings. “This better be important,” he barks, and I can picture the person on the other end of the call cringing. No one would interrupt him now if it wasn’t important. That security guard in the hall could barely make eye contact. “Fine. Yeah… Mmm-hmm.”
Seven’s jaw hardens. “We’ll be right there. Yeah, she’s here with me.”
He slides his phone back into his pocket. “That was Godmother. There’s been another murder.”
ChapterNineteen
True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table; luckiest is he who knows just when to rise and go home. — John Hay
There was a time in my life when Seven was the center of my world. I loved him in a way that’s only possible when one’s heart is new, unbroken, and unjaded. The pedestal I put him on was tall, and I would have changed anything and everything about myself to make him mine forever. All that has changed now. My heart isn’t new. It’s been broken before… by him. And although I realize it wasn’t exactly his fault, a cracked vase pasted back together never holds water the way it did before it was damaged.
So why am I tempted to allow myself back into his arms?
It’s clear he wants me, and hell, I want him. I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t. But the difference between teenage me and thirty-four-year-old me, is that now I know my worth. I deserve better than to be treated like a pet, a lesser being meant to be happy with clandestine moments behind closed doors. I’ve survived things Seven couldn’t imagine. I’m perfectly fine alone; I’m resourceful and smart. More importantly, I’m a mother, and I know Arden is always watching. I’m not ever going to exist for the pleasure of a man, any man, no matter how lucky or rich. No way. Not even for a little while.
It’s just after ten when Seven and I arrive at the scene of the crime, tension still painfully thick between us. “I thought you said it was supposed to be right here.” I scan the cobblestone near the back of the park, not far from River’s Tavern.
“It is.” Godmother’s voice comes from in front of me. There’s a snap, and I see her standing beyond a shimmering wave of purple. I step forward, through the concealment spell, and she snaps her fingers again. The murder scene appears where before there was nothing.
When I see the body, I can’t help but gag and turn away. The victim isn’t human—she’s a pixie—and the state of her corpse turns my stomach. There’s so much blood. The stench of death hangs thick in the air around us.
Everything about the scene repels me. Unlike Arden, I never wanted to be a doctor or an investigator or any other career that involved bodies, blood, or bodily fluids. My dreams were of running my own business, far away from anything like this. I never had the stomach for horror movies or hospitals. I cover my mouth with my hand and try to think happy thoughts.
Seven appears in front of me. His voice is low and soft as he asks, “You okay? If this is too much, you can go. I can show you pictures later. It might be easier.”
I open my mouth to tell him I’m okay, but I never get the chance.
“She’s staying,” Godmother says in her deep, resonating voice.
“I guess I’m staying.” I flash him a half smile, then take a deep breath before turning around again.
It’s not like I’m some delicate flower. I left Dragonfly at only seventeen and lived on the street, pregnant, until I could luck my way into a job and then a closet that called itself an apartment. I saw things out there, drug users who fell asleep under the same underpass as I did and never woke up, prostitutes beaten by their pimps and left for dead. This brutality seems harsher here though. Blood seeps into cobblestone under a flickering gas lamp crafted to look like a mason jar filled with fireflies. The dichotomy catches me off guard. Gods, just behind us is a neighborhood of pastel mushrooms.
Whoever did this has shattered some last vestige of my childhood I didn’t even know I was clinging to. There should be no safer place than Dragonfly Hollow. But evil is here, death is real, and no one is safe.
“Her teeth are gone,” Seven says. “And half her rib cage.”
I swallow down bile and really look at the victim. It’s the left side that’s missing and something else. “Her heart’s gone too.”
Godmother grunts and reaches for a red box that looks like it should hold an assortment of chocolates. She selects a brightly colored paper tube that reminds me of the sugar candy humans call Pixie Stix, tears off one end, and scatters the contents in the air. The yellow powder swells like a cloud and then settles over the scene. Footprints appear on the concrete that were not there before. Gigantic footprints. Both Seven and I inhale sharply. They’re weirdly shaped, skeletal, and they end at the eight-foot privacy fence that forms the boundary of Wonderland. On the other side of that wall is forest, beach, the lake, and the wall.
“Yissevel,” Godmother says through her teeth, her fists clenching.
“It can’t be.” My gaze darts between them. “Can it?” The unseelie have been locked away for centuries. If they’d found a way through the wall, there would be a hell of a lot more death and destruction than just one human and one pixie. Yissevel isn’t just any unseelie. No one could miss this monster.
Seven tips his head back and looks from streetlight to streetlight. He points toward one with a black glass dome embedded in the design. I wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t pointing at it. “There’s a camera. I’ll have to go to the security office to see what it captured.”
Godmother waves a hand dismissively. “Go. I’ll determine time of death and try to identify the victim.” She pulls a vial of silver liquid from her box.
At Godmother’s words, I realize that I’ve been avoiding the victim’s face. I’d taken in the scene, but a part of me hadn’t wanted to see this pixie as a once living, breathing person. I might be able to identify her. Her head is rolled to the side, and I step around the body to get a straight look at her face. I grab my stomach, instantly chilled through. I know who this is.
“That’s Phoebe Willowbark.” I feel breathless as I look between Seven and Godmother. “She went missing the same day Michael Murphy was murdered.”
No one says anything for what feels like a full minute. “How do you know this?” Godmother’s normally large dark eyes become slits.
“A pixie I met at the Dragonfly tonight told me about her when I asked her about Michael.” No need to get River involved in this mess. I pull up the family’s page on my phone and show it to them.
Godmother darts a glance toward Seven. “Why did I not know that a pixie went missing on the same day Michael Murphy was murdered?”
