“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The fae’s gauntleted hand slammed against the side of Patrick’s face, snapping his head around hard enough to make his ears ring. Bruising heat coursed through his jaw, blood filling his mouth from where he’d bitten through his tongue. Patrick spat out blood and wiped a trickle off his split lip with the back of his hand.
“Queen Medb is expecting you, Patrick.”
The winter cold had nothing on the ice that poured down his spine. “I never gave you my name. Get it out of your mouth.”
The fae’s smile was thin and mocking. “There is no secret the Queen of Air and Darkness does not know, and that includes names.”
Patrick had to wonder if they knew his real name, the one he’d been born with, and whether Medb had learned it when he was born or if Ethan had told her. Both possibilities made him want to drink until he could forget.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know yours.”
The fae didn’t offer it up, not that Patrick expected him to. Tonguing at his teeth to make sure they were all accounted for, if a little loose in spots, Patrick spat out some more blood right between the fae’s feet.
“Your hospitality is shit,” Patrick said, slurring the words a little.
The fae pulled a pair of silver and onyx bracelets from the leather handbag hanging from his belt. They pulsated with a sickly feel of magic, feeling like salt in a wound the way it grated against Patrick’s shields.
“Your hands, or your companion will be a guest here, always,” the fae said.
“Patrick, don’t,” Wade said, his grip tightening on Patrick’s arm. “I can fight them.”
Patrick glanced over his shoulder at Wade, not seeing the dagger anywhere. Patrick wasn’t about to ask where it’d gone, trusting in Wade’s thieving ways to keep it safe when he couldn’t. Wade, for all the stubborn clenching of his jaw, still looked like a scared kid in Patrick’s eyes.
“You shouldn’t have to,” Patrick told him, in as kind a voice he could manage while backed into a proverbial corner by the enemy.
Patrick extended his hands, even though he didn’t want to. The fae snapped the silver and onyx bracelets around Patrick’s wrists and—
He went numb.
Foreign magic sank into his skin, down to his bones and soul, fighting against the shields Persephone had layered into his body over the years. Patrick drew a breath that tasted of metal but nothing else. The world dulled around him, sound an echo in his ears rather than all encompassing. The winter chill lessened to something he didn’t think much about, which Patrick knew was dangerous, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.
He couldn’t reach his magic.
The binding was subtle in its makeup, sinister in its application, and Patrick had to force down his fear. He shoved it down deep, relying on old SERE training to find his balance again in the face of a crippling situation. He needed to not panic, because his life wasn’t the only one on the line.
The bracelets shrank down until they sat flush against his wrist before twisting and moving up his forearms as if they were vines. Patrick’s hands spasmed when a hundred tiny needles pricked his skin at the exact same time. He scratched at the twists of silver and specks of onyx, but they couldn’t be dislodged.
“You smell different,” Wade said, his voice no louder than a whisper in Patrick’s ears. He had a feeling that wasn’t really the case.
“Magic,” Patrick muttered, struggling to concentrate against a sudden creeping exhaustion that weighed him down. “Not mine.”
“Yeah, I can smellthat.” Wade tugged at Patrick’s arm. “What if I eat them?”
“The Red Caps will probably give you indigestion. Remember what I said about food offered by the fae and not eating it?”
Wade grumbled something Patrick couldn’t make out. Most of his attention was focused on the fae lord who had bound Patrick’s magic. Concentrating was going to be a problem. Having to work harder to hear and see everything around him was going to give Patrick a headache before too long.
The fae lord turned on his heel and walked away. “Bring them.”
Several Red Caps stepped forward with a menacing look on their ugly faces, hefting their axes in big, scarred hands. Wade’s grip tightened painfully on Patrick’s arm. Patrick didn’t say anything. He merely pulled Wade forward, their feet crunching through the snow as the Red Caps surrounded them, with the fae lord leading the way.
Patrick pressed a hand to his chest, fingers rubbing against the wool of his sweater. He could barely feel it, and his arms seemed weighed down by the silver and onyx bracelets that had effectively muzzled his magic. The exhaustion weighing down his body was as much a kind of shackle as the bracelets.
Patrick knew it was all in his head, that the fae magic embedded in the bracelets was causing the muffled dullness between his brain and body, and the rest of the world, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.
He hated not being able to react to a threat in a quick manner, and that was the corner he was backed into.
