“That’s a little Shakespearean,” Nick muttered.
The ruse worked, and the door cracked open. I glared at Damon. “You know why we have come. Show us what you have taken.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Damon said. His eyes bounced between us like he was a horse scared by a snake. “Just, uh, give me a sec?”
He scrambled for something beside the door and drew out his keys. Shivering, he made his way toward the elevator. I hoped we wouldn’t have to get into a car with him. I had a gut feeling that he would keep the body close, though. It was a lot more valuable than what he’d had in his storage unit, and there were a lot more people who would report him if they saw a dead body, fae or not.
When we got to the bank of elevators, he pressed B. Nick’s hand brushed up the back of my jeans through my glamour. Pushing his finger up under my shirt, he touched it to the exposed skin right above my belt. When I looked at him, he was blushing, the color a deep blue on his green cheeks.
Oh.Oh. The last time I’d shown him what a glamour was, he hadn’t been into it. But me pretending to be the stereotype of a fae was apparently something he could get into. Interesting.
In the basement, there were separate storage units for each apartment. At his own, Damon’s keys trembled against the lock. Eventually, he got the key in and opened the door.
The coffin took up most of the narrow space.
“This is… this is what you want, right?” Damon asked.
I gave him a slow, serious nod and then let out a soft shriek just to see him jump. “This is my kinsman. You have killed my kinsman?”
“No!” Damon said. “No, no. I didn’t have anything to do with his death. I just took the body, I swear.”
“Your face is that of aliar,” I said, putting as much fae as I could into the words. “You will continue to steal our things, what is ancestrally ours.”
“No, no,” he promised. “I won’t deal in fae stuff anymore.”
He was trembling again. I approached the coffin and walked around it as though checking for something.
“You would sell my kinsman,” I said, turning to Damon.
“No, I swear on my mother’s grave,” the liar said. “I wouldn’t.”
I drew air in through my teeth. “You swear on your mother’s still beating heart that you will not steal another of our gifts and sell them?”
Damon swallowed, surprised that we knew his mother was still alive. “Yes.”
“I find this acceptable,” I said. Glancing at Nick, I raised an eyebrow. “What say you?”
Nick inclined his head, his expression blank.
“See that you remember your promise. The consequences will be dire if you do not,” I said. “Now leave us.”
Damon moved so fast I expected to see dust in his wake.
Nick approached the coffin standing beside me. A burial shroud covered it. The fabric was woven with thread so fine it looked as though the weaver had made it from light itself. Magic infused every stitch, making it shimmer and shine when I drew it back from the head of the coffin.
The body inside the glass coffin was perfectly maintained. I wasn’t sure how.
I had never seen a dead fae before. He was small, smaller than me, and his coloring looked like he was from the Spring Court. I couldn’t tell how long he’d been dead. Whatever was keeping him looking like the day he’d died was the best spellwork I’d ever seen. For all I knew, he could’ve been dead for a hundred years or a week.
“How did you know this would work?” Nick said.
“Because no matter how many fae artifacts he had, he wasn’t a professional.” I pointed at the body. “This was the biggest haul he’d ever had. All the rest of the stuff in that storage unit was small time, but this was his first big score. He didn’t know any better than to keep it close.”
Squinting at me, Nick said, “I don’t understand.”
“I know a few black-market people,” I said, “and if any of them had an item like this, they would’ve kept it as far away from themselves as they could have until they sold it. This pawn shop dealer I know has a secret back room where she keeps all her stuff. I think it’s a pocket realm or some alchemy trick, but either way, she knows not to keep important stuff with her because there’s always the chance?—”
“That the fae would come for it?” Nick said.
