But Gavin’s long since left the bar, and I don’t even have his number to text or call and apologize. We’ve always handled it that way, letting happenstance put us in each other’s way rather than making any attempt to subvert fate.
At least before tonight, when I got his hopes up by luring him here.
It’s probably not as big a deal as I’m making it in my mind. Gavin seemed fine. Maybe a little disappointed, yeah, but I’m sure he’ll be alright.
But I still feel like a jerk.
Even more so when I think of someone else I’ve been treating with less consideration than they deserve.
Someone else who just wants to talk, just wants me to slow the hell down for a minute and give him a chance.
I can’t think about Callum right now.
Outside the bar, the stars are shining brightly above, and the moon is a waning crescent. It’s quiet, only a few other people around, and it gives me too much room alone with my thoughts.
On the walk to my car, I think about everything Gavin told me. About the wielder, about the danger, about how I would very, very much like to know how a human man found himself in Faerie and if he might still be there.
My thoughts are a tangle, moving faster than I can sort through them.
But, if I close my eyes…
The strands of my magick fan out in familiar tendrils.
There, just behind my eyelids, only… not quite. Formless, indistinct, gone if I look at them too long or too hard. A wisp of candlesmoke in the night.
With an idea, a place to start, the very barest suggestion of where I might begin searching, they gain clarity. Pulsing and tangling until they’re almost real, strong enough to let me know what I’m seeking isn’t in this realm.
Gavin’s warnings about Faerie ring in my ears. Callum’s obvious unease with me taking part in the hunt plays on a loop in my mind.
But neither will stop me.
Maybe it should.
Maybe if I were a better person or had even a teaspoon of self-restraint in me, it would.
Right now, though, with those strands tangling tighter, tugging me forward, a picture forms in my mind.
A stone arch.
Swirling ether.
Skeletal trees reaching into a burnt sky.
I open my eyes, and the path in front of me is clear.
12
Callum
Myron’s office is designed with an eye for intimidation.
A wide wooden desk, rich carpets and furnishings, dark paneled walls lined with expensive art. Every inch of the place exudes wealth and power, though for me it’s lost its luster over the years.
In my youth, he seemed to be near to a god, untouchable, strutting up and down the city streets in fine clothing, often flanked by some of the fiercest mercenaries I’d ever seen.
Now, things are different.
“What work do you have for me?”
