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“Phew. Great. Perfect. Even if you can, appreciate the discretion buddy. Second, pretty sure you were supposed to be protecting me. As I have just come from a torture session and then being used as a tool to proxy murder someone, I think we need to have a conversation about what protecting is all about. I hate to say it, big guy, but you’re sort of sucking at this job.”

Offended, Goose raised his head, a small bag in his mouth. A slow, whining snarl was given as he padded over to me and spat the bag into my lap. A disgruntled huff was given, and he sat down before me, waiting.

“Gifts won’t fix this, Goosey. I need you to sort of step it up. I’m getting my ass kicked by these Fae bastards, and I’m not above bribing you. No more disappearing into the shadows. Okay, bud? I need you by me. I thought I could trust The Raven, but I don’t think I can even trust myself around him anymore. So, I need you to help me out, okay?”

Goose tilted his head once, then again. Without warning, he leapt up, his paws resting on my shoulders easily. The great shaggy shadow head pressed into mine in what I could only translate as some sort of acceptance and apology.

I dug my hand into his fur and scratched him. His fur glided past my fingers like the morning mist in an arctic forest, thick yet ephemeral. Tiny water droplets made of black ink remained on my fingers when I pulled them back.

“Thanks, big guy.”

I turned my attention back to the pouch and wriggled my finger into the throat to dislodge the cinch. Within was a small horde of beads, each casting the faintest of glows, like a glow stick that had returned home at the bottom of a purse after a long rave. I pushed them around with the tip of my finger, tiny static shocks snapping at my tips as I did so. “Pretty sure these are boon beads, Goosey. And it looks like a lot of folks owe The Raven. A ton of them from the Bandrui too. Though we’ve seen how well those little stars worked, didn’t we?”

Goose snorted and pushed away from me, snatching the bag by its drawstrings and tucking it back in the drawer before dashing to the door and pawing at it.

“Yep, I think it’s time to, Goose. Been a few minutes since he left. If they were curious and coming down to check that the door was closed, it’s been done, and they’re gone, I think. Whatcha think, big guy?” I asked, making my way toward him.

Goose evaporated. His smoky body leaking under the door until all but the very least bit of it remained, pooling in a swirl that seemed to be holding onto a crack in the rock. By the time I made it to the door, Goose was reforming on my side, his long whip of a tail wagging happily.

“Okay. Goose. Unsettling, my friend. Un. Settling. But I’ll keep that in mind. Real useful. I take it there’s no one out there?”

Goose chuffed and pawed at the door eagerly.

I hesitated.

I didn’t know where I was going, when I’d be back, or if I ever would be. My gaze turned to the room and pored over every little detail, memorizing it. I returned to the desk, tidying the gloves, and set them on the shelf with the others. I was tempted to nick something, to slip some memory of him in my pocket and take it with me. I was so tempted to keep something of his that my eyes seemed desperate to find some small meaningful thing, but it all seemed meaningful. All of it was precious, but none of it was him.

As much as he made me bristle. As much as I wanted to lash out at him every time I saw him, I wanted even more for him to stay. Every time his back turned and he walked away from me felt like a knife wriggling deeper into my soft belly. I hated that he had put that dagger there. I hated that he twisted and pressed on it with such ease, without even seeming to realize it. It made me want to push him away even more. Maybe if he finally stayed gone, I could forget the way my skin sizzled the few times he touched me or the way I fell into his eyes.

Goose’s jaws wrapped around the edge of my shirt and pulled, knocking me against the wall. “Fuck! Fine. Jeez, can’t a girl get a little moody without her dog reprimanding her?”

His only response was to huff and look pointedly at the closed door.

I slipped into the dark corridor and found the torch with ease, letting the door close softly behind me. My eye traced over the craftsmanship of the ironwork that covered the door. Even in the brutality of what these bars would do, the Fae had sought to make it beautiful. It was a perfect representation of everything they were, twisted, grotesque—covering over their wickedness with a beautiful veneer. I kicked at it. There was no true reason why. I just let all the hatred I had built up over the weeks and untold months flow out until a small chunk of the layered leaf litter that adorned the edges of the wicked prison gate fell with a clatter. I huffed, catching my breath before snatching the piece up and shoving it in my pocket. It wasn’t a great weapon, but it would do.

The metal stole the heat from my body, and I could feel it sucking and pulling at my thigh through my barely padded pants. It was an unsettling feeling to have the warmth of your body fleeing.

The ghost lights were easy to coax down. A simple little hum of the bits of a lullaby that I didn’t remember learning about a willow tree by a river and the little lights detached themselves from the ceiling and hugged the stick I was pretty sure had come from Green Man’s own body. Most torches had pitch and linen wrapped around them, usually with burnt bits. This was a freshly cut, plain-as-anything-else stick.

Goose bound up and down the corridor, sticking his head into the blackness of each tunnel, until he finally settled on one closest to us, a few feet deeper into the narrowing of the hallway.

I followed him, not exactly wanting to be alone in the dark, even with the ghost lights hovering and following along.

Chapter 31

Ifollowed Goose into the winding tunnels and caverns, crouching and crawling in some places. I assumed that a creature of shadow who tried to have at least one of the ghost lights in his fur so I could find him among the lurking dark knew more about this place than I did. It was a better plan than wandering about in the pitch black, hoping that I found whatever it was I thought I was looking for.

There was something deeply unsettling about the idea that while I might be following Goose . . . What was Goose following?

After what seemed like hours in the dark, we slithered into a wider part of the tunnels. The floor beneath my feet was level, and it felt almost like set mason and stonework beneath my slipper-covered feet. I turned around, trying to get my bearings. The ghost lights cast a soft pale-blue light over everything and only pierced the black a few feet away.

“What is this place, Goose . . . ?” I asked with a growing sense of danger lurking around me.

The shadows here were not just deep and hungry. These shadows seemed to be alive and malignant in their skulking. They skittered from the soft blue lights and ducked behind what looked to be an old console table.

A drawer in the center of the traditional greenwood-style table sat open and askew on its track. A quick look into it yielded an old fire steel that was coated in a near inch-thick layer of grey dust.

“Little lights, if you take a rest on the ceiling and return to me, I’ll sing you another song.”