“Calloway’s mom thinks if I’m allowed off my leash, I’ll chew on her furniture.”He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice.He didn’t try.“Don’t think she’d want me dirtying up her kid’s soul.But you guys, it’s all favors, right?Calloway could’ve offered a favor.”
“Not all favors are equal.”Declan had scooted closer, pressed against Antonio from thigh to ankle.It helped.
“Unseelie get a bad rap.”Aultyr had moved onto a bagel with the same calm.“Still, your guy,” and he nodded to Declan, “has pull.Connections to Gates.Information.Favor’s worth something, then.The kid?He’s got nothing to offer.”
Aisling was no longer beaming around the table.Her expression was troubled.Troubled on a banshee was appropriately terrifying.“What, exactly, is the cost of my son’s life?”
“Allotment.Irrevocable unless the House falls.No one’s said which House.Harke’s trying to find out.”
This was all above Antonio’s pay grade, or it would be except Declan was his… They hadn’t actually put a word to it.Boyfriend?Partner?Guy he’d slept with once and hoped to sleep with again?His bond, anyway.He’d given his soul to him.Held Declans in turn, petals inscribed with ink and lit with flame.
So, maybe, exactly his pay grade.“What the fuck is an allotment?”
“Property.Land, like this place.Unless the kid or his mother came into some power no one knows of, they don’t have the pull to offer one.”
“Aultyr,” Aisling’s voice was softer than Antonio had ever heard it.Shocked and a little shaky.“You turned down an allotment.An irrevocable allotment.”
Which must be a bigger deal to a fae than Antonio could follow, because the barghest wasn’t looking at her, and Declan was staring at the guy like he’d grown a second head.
“Voids and starshine,why?”Declan asked, his wings tucked close and his grip tight.
“You were my first job.Lost thing for information.Never expect me to sing for free.Haven’t tried to spin lies from truth to me.Not about to take against your family without you turning cloak first.”The barghest’s eyes flicked to Aisling, then Antonio, and who could say what he saw but it felt likeeverything.“You follow.Yeah?Difference between surviving and a snake.Nothing owed from the past except there being a past, separate from the favors shit.”
“Yeah, I follow,” Antonio answered.“Doesn’t get you far to get a reputation as a snake, either.Then the only people who’ll deal with you are other snakes.And they eat their own.”
“No one would be shocked, me turning cloak.Changelingslie,see?”Aultyr said with a shift of his shoulders that might have been a shrug.“Pesky human upbringing and all.Not worth it, just to get eaten by other snakes.Not when Eithne’s making bagels.”
Probably, Antonio should try one of the damned bagels.He doubted he’d taste it though, his mouth dry and the thought of more killers coming after Declan, comingforhim, making him want to heave.Declan’s hand, steady on his, was the only thing in the room that felt real.And Aultyr was still talking.
“You want to live, best bet is to go back to the human world.Hole up somewhere safe.Let Harke’n me figure out who’s pulling the strings.”
“What good would going back do?”Antonio could at leasttryto think “That’s where they came after us last time.”
“Logistics.Wisps can find where other wisps have been,” Aultyr answered, working on stripping another orange.“The kid probably found Florian's trail and set a trap.Easy.Faerie makes it easier.Unless you're a certain sort or have a specific warding or magic, just a thought and you're there.Use a Gate.Only way to track a Gate is get their permission or ask a barghest.”
The barghest sitting at the table didn’t smirk, but Antonio had the feeling that the expression was there, somewhere, hidden behind his eyes.
“I had arranged for you to meet with a contact of mine today.One who might have some information regarding unusual bids for the Council.The seelie love a precedent.”Aisling pursed her lips.“Though I suppose Zyr won’t be upset over a lack of visitors.”
“We know that the Council isn’t in on the whole kill Declan and give me to Calloway plan?”Antonio heard himself ask.Like this was a perfectly normal conversation.“Bo says they play dirty.”
Bo had said a lot more than that.
“Could be,” Aultyr answered, flat as ever.“More reason to get out of Faerie if they are.”
“I doubt anyone would attack us on Zyr’s lands.”Declan fixed his gaze, eyes pale blue and worried, on Antonio.“I would prefer to discuss this, just you and I, after breakfast.Decide our next steps then, together?”
“Yeah, alright.We can talk about it,” Antonio answered.Because it meant something, Declan asking.
“Well, that’s settled for the moment, then,” Aisling said.
Settled, she said, just like that, and Aultyr was eating a damn bagel.Christ, even Declan seemed more concerned than scared.Fuck all of this.Fucking fae.
“Why am I the only one freaking out about this?”
“Should there be an attack, they won’t be focused on you,” Declan said.“There is the threat of Calloway, but I worried last time you were to be harmed.”
“There areassassinshunting you,” Antonio shot back.And the anger was just a cover for the fear.It didn’t help.So he put it away and added, softer, “Youcould be hurt.”
