Page 78
The bus hums underneath me, as I sit in the lounge area with my feet propped on the table. I’m three sips deep into a glass bottled energy potion labeled ‘Witchlight’ that burns like peroxide and tastes like the color blue. Outside, the land looks weird and angular. There are spires in the distance, forests that seem to shift position every time you blink, and the kind of clouds you’d expect to see before a tornado—if tornadoes were made of glass and spite.
Faerie is feeling less and less like some magical wonderland and more comforting by the minute, which surprises me.
I’ve always felt like a square peg in a round hole in Briarvale, and the way people treated me for having ‘defective magic’ made it worse. The kinship with Fer helped me find some measure of peace, and so did the kindness of the man I know now was a ‘faux’ dad. But nothing really soothed the anger in my soul until I met Tier, and then my other mates one by one. Accepting them as I settled into my job at Cocktails, moved into a new home, and branched out in the world was just the beginning of my journey in this life, I guess. And being here, while dangerous, is activating this odd sensation of belonging I didn’t realize until the truth was revealed.
Looking around, I note our little domestic bliss arrangement despite the bullshit we’ve been fighting. There’s a faint haze from the blue wards embedded in every window, casting shadows that crawl slowly over the floor and up the walls. Rev’s bus furniture is half disco, half fancy, but all of it is covered in a thin layer of magical dust that never quite gets cleaned no matter how many times Tiernan tries. Fidget’s curled up in my hair, wings tucked and body warm against my scalp, and he makes these tiny, smug ‘pip’ noises every time I shift in my seat. I’d be self-conscious about it if I didn’t love him for that petty, predatory loyalty he has for me.
Not surprising since he was a gift from Khol, who’s the most outwardly possessive of all my men.
The damn magical book is open in my lap. I thumb through pages that were blank yesterday, but now crawl with a shifting script whenever I touch them with a smug expression. Rev told me that Fae volumes are written to power, some to emotions, but this one’s aimed at following a timeline: the more I find out, the more text appears to aid me in the quest. It’s a neat trick, and also a curse, because desire for knowledge is the way you could end up owned by shit in Faerie. At this point, I’m already mortgaged to hell and back by the damn feystag I guess, so what’s one more loan shark if need be?
Across from me, Rev is typing so fast on his phone that the screen looks like a strobe. He’s in full ‘rockstar logistics’ mode while talking to Amethyst about which shops in Ravenhold are the best to pop into, which places have the best light for the press, and whether the online gossips have dropped any new rumors about us since Harvest. His face is animated, but the set of his mouth tells me he’s worried about the confrontation with her when we arrive. I don’t blame him for it; she’s likely to cause a fuck ton of trouble and we’ve got enough on our plate.
But it has to be done in order to remove some shit from our plates, even if it’s just for a short time.
Tier’s propped against the kitchenette counter, also holding his phone as he murmurs into a headset.. He’s wearing all black with a look that, on anyone else, would seem try-too-hard, but on him just seems to enhance his natural badassery. His eyes do a slow, sweep-and-park routine on the bus interior, the door, the windows, and then on to me. Every time I catch him watching, he grins and gives the smallest nod to let me know he’s thinking about me despite the call. I love that he’s so dedicated to us, and I’m grateful for how seriously he takes his job—it’s been a saving grace more than once.
My eyes move over to my vampire, suppressing a fond chuckle as I do. Dezi’s at the far end of the lounge with his feet up, reading documents from the Midnight library we stole upside down—a trick he swears helps with ‘retention of detail’. I suspect it’s is just to fuck with us, or that it’s a habit born of some vampire court torture punishment I don’t want to know about, so I leave it alone. Every few pages, he glances up, scans the room, and then—so smooth I almost miss it—vampire speed runs the entire bus and drops back into his seat. I pretend to sip my Witchlight without noticing it, but the first time I saw it, I noticed him tucking away Louie’s letter and one of the maps we pinched from the council’s forbidden archives. He’s not hiding it from us per se, but there’s something in the way he does it that says he needs us not to know the location.
Less to spill if someone captures and interrogates us violently, I suppose. Must be an old instinct.
The quiet is comfortable, but loaded, like a bar full of regulars after someone just got stabbed. Everyone is waiting for the next thing to go wrong, but nobody wants to be the one to say it out loud. I’m part of that worry, since it’s what’s happened every single place we’ve gone in Faerie to date. But I hope that Revelin is able to get through his favorite parts of this tour stop with less drama in at least one of the courts. He truly enjoys the school visits and being on stage in front of his fans—it’s not purely for fame or money for him. This is his heart on display, and it’s how he’s been able to survive his father all these years, I think.
I tap my finger on the edge of the book, waiting for the runes to slide into focus. I discovered that when I opened it after we got on the bus—this thing now auto-translates for me with touch. There’s a new passage near the spine—one that wasn’t there last time because I just wasn’t ready to see it. It’s a diagram, more schematic than text, but the message is obviously a way to counteract a compulsion spell, if you have the right reagents and enough raw power. I trace the lines with the tip of my finger, and the page goes ice cold, making the glyphs on my hand pulse with light. Fidget whines, then nips my ear, annoyed at the cold spike. I rub his chin as an apology, as I mull over why I might need that.
“Anything new?” Revelin asks, not looking up from his phone.
I frown at the book as I reply, “A counter spell for compulsion. It requires six ingredients that don’t exist outside Faerie—I think—and a level of subtlety I haven’t leveled up to yet. It’s good to know, but I don’t like the implication that it revealed itself because I’m going to need it.”
“Good to know for who?” Khol says as he comes out of the back room. I didn’t even hear him come in, but he’s wrapped in a blanket that looks like a dead Mothman. The first thing he does is fix a mug of coffee that smells like someone drowned an entire sugar factory in it, and then he joins us by the table. He looks much more rested than when we got on the bus, and it makes my insides hum happily. “Unless you’re planning to rebel against the royals now, in which case, fucking go for it. I’m always game.”
“Shut up, asshole,” I say petulantly. “You know damn well I can’t do that yet, and we’re being very careful about violence until necessary so we don’t violate shit with stupid royals. I’m not saying we can’t fuck someone up if need be, obviously, but we have to be able to make the case for it in the public opinion. Otherwise, we’ll ruin our perception as better people than those morons.”
Tiernan grunts. “I’m prepping for disaster, but hoping for ease. I’d rather know if they’re going to send assassins or if it’ll be another trial-by-bullshit, but that’s not possible. Ravenhold’s got a lot of history with the royals in Court, according to my team. It’s basically the ‘capital’ of Midnight even though the city named the capital is a completely different one. The proximity to the castle has made it more important, they say.”
My mouth opens to reply, but it closes when I look at Revelin. He’s gone still for a moment as his fingers hover above the screen and his expression tightens. “What?” I ask.
He sighs. “Crowd concerns at Ravenhold. Several important members of the government expected to be present at the welcome event. May cause a slight hiccup in the schedule, and the directive from the monarchy committee highly recommends sticking to the schedule. Might cause issues with amount of places visited, as they also recommend avoiding public spaces after dark, and not accepting gifts from locals, only dignitaries.”
Those motherfuckers are trying to control his tour by releasing stupid shit to the management.
“Because we’re so known for following protocol so far? That woman is an idiot,” Dezi says, his tone dry as dust. He doesn’t look up, but I know he’s considering everything from draining her and leaving a husk in a closet to things that would bother him to alleviate this burr in our saddle. “They’re warning you about public appearances, but the real threat is behind the stage. It has to mean there’s some sort of resistance or rebellion working in that city. It’s why they don’t want us accepting ‘gifts’. As if a prince wouldn’t have people clearing that shit, anyway.”
Khol snorts as he sips his black coffee like it’s nectar. “I say you tell the bitch to fuck off, Pricklypants. When we get there, we do what we always do—make our own decisions, look dangerous, and kick people’s asses if they screw with us. It’ll be even more fun now that Sassy is so sparkly—like a disco murder or something.”
If I didn’t love him, I’d stab him myself.
“I want her to think we’ll comply until I can speak with her privately. Then, while I’m doing that, one person can sneak off at a time to get the supplies or whatever we need for when we go looking for clues from the feystag. If Amethyst is watching too closely and is pissed, it might cause some real issues. I’m not sure how stable she is now that she hooked up with the groupie girl.”
The mention of the feystag makes me wrinkle my nose. It’s damn riddle is why we’re still doing this, other than Rev’s love of his fans. For all I know, the bastard will be waiting for us in Ravenhold, or maybe it’ll send another messenger with a puzzle. I have no idea, and I don’t even want to speculate. So I close the book and lean back, letting the Witchlight do its thing. “We need a plan that gives us an edge when we hit Ravenhold. Besides Rev, what can we use to distract her?”
Tiernan hangs up his call, walking over to drop down beside me. “I now have a full layout of the town. There are four main districts—the historic core, residentials by top and bottom tiers, and the business necropolis. There is local law enforcement, but they stick to the fancy parts of town—historic and wealthy residential. The places we’ll need to get supplies from will be in the less patrolled ones.”
Revelin grins, teeth bright in the blue ward-light. “If I keep Amethyst and the government goons busy in the fancy parts, you guys will be able to peel off and explore the others. Right?”
Before anyone can answer, Khol is on his phone looking for supply shops or weapons dealers in those areas. “We should do supplies in Ravenhold. Then, when the royals expect us to go straight to the Commons for the performance, we detour through the necropolis. If anyone’s tailing us, we see them coming. We’ll work on the clue shit and whatever else is thrown at us as we go. The other cities will be glad-handing and music-only if we don’t find hints from our antlered friend.”
Dezi finally stops reading his papers, setting them on the table. “That's a do-able plan. We’ll need to ensure all attention is focused on the prince and the witchling when one of us splits, so it is less noticeable.”
