City of Shadows (18 page)

The
fae weren't designed to hide, to be pushed into the shadows. All I need do is remember Reign's words, and look at Shay now. They weren't meant to live here. It wasn't their fault, but that didn't change anything.

Around me, the broken bits of Under took on a new significance. Kael and the FA had an impossible task. How many fae were in London? Hundreds—thousands. And all of them restless, angry, and the worst Faerie had to offer.

“Are you living down here?” I asked.

“No, it's not safe. I'm staying with some others. There's ten of us in a flat near Leicester Square.” She laughed suddenly. “We have little money. I can't stand behind a checkout and scan items for hours, Alina. Look at me. I can't be like the people here.” She lifted her head and blinked quickly at Under's curved ceilings, seeing London beyond. “Some of us, like Reign, worked at blending in. They each had lives, and now that means nothing. People on the street call us things, bad things …” I was about to tell her I was sorry, but when she lowered her head, she squared her shoulders and said, “Do you know how easy it is for us to kill them? They think that because we look pretty, we couldn't possibly be dangerous.” Her eyes narrowed. “They have no idea.” A smile slashed across her baby-pink lips. “You understand that; I see that you do. I'm not safe to be around people. None of us are. It's a terrible mess.”

“There must be support. Haven't the government—”

She laughed bitterly. “Your government, it pretends everything is fine, just as long as the FA keep us scared. The mayor and the general shake hands and smile for the cameras. But it's not fine. Believe me, I hear what the fae are saying. The group I'm living with hunt together. They're preying on the homeless, for now. So nobody notices. But that will change. More are joining them. Some visit bars, and
they
bespell people, then steal from them. Money. Other things, bad things. We lost our identity to live in harmony here. We adopted new lives, new faces, and now we're losing those too.” Her eyes softened with regret. “We're as restless as the beasts in these tunnels. As restless as the hound. There's a reckoning coming.”

“Kael must know what's happening. I'll talk with him.”

“And Reign? Will you talk with him?”

I wanted to help Reign, but I had no idea how to or if I could reach him. “Where is he?”

“I don't know. I haven't seen him since …” She looked at the room and her lip quivered again.

“Okay, let's get you out of here.” I scooped up her box of trinkets. “Is there anything else you want to take with you?”

“Nothing. There's nothing left.”

After dropping off Shay's items and receiving frosty glares from her fae roommates, I returned to FAHQ, my head full of Shay's warnings. I'd told her I'd speak with Kael, but any hope I'd once seen in her eyes was long gone. She'd looked as hollow as I felt.

She'd begged me one last time to help Reign, and I'd promised I would. Making more promises I wasn't sure if I could keep.

Was Kael doing anything to help his people? Was he even aware of the crisis developing under his nose?
London isn't ready for the truth
… More than ever, I needed to corner him somehow. Make him tell me what was really going on. He'd
never
answer direct questions, I had to find another way to get him talking. Him training me
was
the only way.

But by the time I'd returned to FAHQ, Kael was nowhere in sight. I checked his war room, the lounge, the training hall. Nothing. And nobody seemed to know where he was either or they didn't want to tell me. He'd known I'd be looking for him as soon as I returned with news of Under, so why wasn't he here?

I strode through the corridors, steps swift and impatience broiling beneath my skin with every second. What if my going back to Under had been a means to get me out of the way while he went off and did whatever the hell he got up to.

I rounded a corner and came eye-to-chest with a warrior. A steel grip circled around my arm, probably with the intention of stopping me from falling, but I shook it off. “Hey!” It was only when I looked up, I realized it was Samuel frowning back at me.

He noticed my hand slip to my dagger and arched a brow.

“Where's Kael?” I snarled.

“On patrol.”

He was eyeing the daggers again, and it occurred to me that he might be wondering if I planned to stick my blades in the general or him. “He had me report to Under,” I quickly explained, crossing my arms so I wasn't tempted to touch the blades. “And now I can't find him. I heard some things … about the fae, and I … wanted to talk with him. Now he's gone—again, and I …” I couldn't tell Samuel what was really on my mind.
Help me find Becky. Help me discover the truth.

“
He'll be back,” Samuel finally said, his stance relaxing now that I wasn't about to free a dagger. “Until then, come with me on patrol?” It was worded like an order, but he'd added a questioning lilt at the end.

“Kael … I should wait.”

“You're armed and ready, clearly. Kael can wait. We lost a good warrior last night. I could do with your help.”

Help me.
I rolled my lips together and sighed through my nose. He waited with that infallible fae patience. He'd lost a warrior, and given Shay's warning about the rogue fae hunting in packs, my time would be better spent on the streets than waiting on Kael. I
was
ready for a fight, and rattling around the big house wasn't going to help.

“Fine,” I grumbled.

Chapter Fifteen

We walked toward Covent Garden's Seven Dials. I could see the pillar ahead; where seven roads diverged to the one central point. Cobbled streets glistened beneath a rain shower heavy enough to drive the crowds inside.

“Why's this place called Seven Dials if there are only six?” I asked. Samuel had been quiet since the drive from FAHQ. I couldn't stand it any longer. He clearly liked painfully tense silences; I did not.

He looked at me like I was an imbecile, and then lifted his gaze to the pillar ahead. Six dials clearly crowned the top. His violet eyes narrowed a fraction. “You're right.” He said it like my being right was more shocking than the fact Seven Dials was only made up of six. When he looked back at me, humor sparkled
in
his eyes. “And I have no idea. But I'll be sure to find out and let you know.” The humor now lifted his lips too. “You've more questions. I can see them in your eyes.”

I had all the questions. But only one thing I really wanted to know right then. “Are you okay? I mean, after the lytch …” His smile faded, and the humor vanished. “Kael was clearly worried. And I …”
I was too
, I wanted to say, but he'd quickened his stride and glared into the murk, his barriers building around him.

We turned down a narrow alley where the period townhouses huddled together. Rain hissed on the sidewalk, and I feared I'd have to endure another half hour of excruciating silence.

“We lost Grace.” The rain had plastered his hair to his face, but it didn't seem to bother him. I watched a droplet roll over his cheekbone before he finally swiped it away. A weariness dulled his eyes. And it wasn't anything to do with the downpour.

“I'm sorry.” I didn't know Grace, but I'd seen her with Nyx. The two of them had been close.

He nodded once, acknowledging my words, for what they were worth. “She was cut off from the group, cornered and killed by a rogue group of fae.”

I didn't know what to say, and I found myself thinking of Shay's warning. Of how things were changing. The fae and the world they came from wasn't designed to be shackled by laws. “How's Nyx?”

Samuel winced, and didn't reply. The attack must have been brutal to kill an FA warrior.

A barbed knot of guilt twisted inside. I'd been on the other side of the FA ranks and dealt a few FA their final moments. That fact hurt more every day.

Samuel
went on to explain that the nightly patrols were getting worse. Tension strummed through London's streets. More fae were breaking the rules, and finding FA daggers in their backs after numerous warnings.

“We could really use your help out here,” Samuel added. “Kael believes you'd make a powerful ally, once you harness your potential. We need it. We need you.”

My stride tripped a little. I hid it, and instead watched a small group of people spill from a bar, pull their hoods up, and scoot quickly into another bar. The FA needed me, or a version of me? The version that
devoured
.

We strode on, silence descending between us once again.

“My family were killed,” he said flatly. “It's my earliest memory.”

I came to a stop outside a store selling beads and shook water from my hair. An awning shielded me from the rain, but Samuel still stood in the downpour, immune to its chill. I blinked up at him while thousands of questions sparked inside my thoughts.

“I don't even know why,” he continued, scanning the street. “The elders ordered the Hunt to kill us, and so they did. They came for me last.”

This was the most he'd ever told me about himself. More questions fought to be free, but every time I asked the fae anything, they deflected or changed the subject. It practically killed me to stay quiet, but after a few more of those tense moments, he joined me under the awning, ran his fingers through his hair and shook the water free from his fingertips. “The Hunt is like nothing you've ever seen. They strike fast and slaughter without remorse. The lore claims they're not fae, but something older, something primal.”

I focused on the dimly lit display of beads, not seeing any of them. What must it have been like to be hunted by something the fae considered monsters?

“
I shouldn't have been able to fight them off, I was just a juvenile, hardly old enough to lift a sword.” Crossing his arms, he leaned back against the windowsill but kept his keen eyes on the slow-moving traffic. “I fought them and ran. Kael found me much later, lost, starving, beaten, and weak. I attacked him. He should have killed me for my insolence.”

What kind of world kills its kids?
I stole a glance his way, but he continued to gaze across the street, his mind elsewhere.

“He took me in, put a blade in my hand, and told me it was always meant to be that way. I believed him. I still do.” His lips twitched into a slanted smile. “The death of my family ultimately resulted in my path here, to a world where a bloodline has no standing on how high you can rise. Where I'm respected for my skills with a blade, not the strength of those who came before me.”

I looked at him—really looked at him. His blond hair had turned almost black under the weight of the rain. It was cut just short of brushing his eyes. He'd be the type to cut it all off should it impede his vision. Even now, so close, he seemed so far away. I'd spent day after day in his company, and he'd told me more about himself in the last fifteen minutes than he had in the entire time I'd known him. When I'd pushed questions at him, he'd shut down. Became
guarded;
against me, against the others. And so terribly alone.

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “For telling me that.”

He took my words in, and then shifted against the sill, leaning closer. “You look at us, at me, as though we're your enemy,” he said quietly, as though sharing a secret. “The FA aren't bad, Alina. Neither is Kael. We are what we are. Products of Faerie.”

“I know.”

“
Kael has an impossible task.”

“I know that too, but …” How much to tell him? I wanted to tell him everything. Becky, Andrews, the bespellment and Reign. But I couldn't. Not yet. “Kael has secrets. I don't trust him.”

That crooked, precious smile still played on his lips. “He says the same about you.”

Secrets, it seemed we all had them.

Samuel pushed off the sill and held out a hand. “There's a bar not far from here where the rogue fae frequent.”

I clasped his hand in mine, marveling once more at the normalcy of the touch. He hauled me to my feet, a little closer than I'd been prepared for. His grip tightened. It was only slight, making me wonder if I'd felt it at all, and then he let go and strode out into the rain.

Samuel had spotted one persistent fae offender cruising the bar for his hit of draíocht. The warrior had delivered a quick warning by the point of a blade, stirring the crowd, while I'd watched from the sidelines. Samuel had something of a reputation, it seemed. He certainly had a presence about him, a stalwart commitment to the red-and-blacks uniform.

“They'll see our colors and their first instinct is to run,” Samuel said as we wove through a crowd, this one sparse enough for me not to worry about accidentally brushing up against someone. Although the thought wasn't far from my mind. It seemed my dose of lytch hadn't entirely cured the need pulling on my nerves.

“
I know you can run.” Samuel's sly tone drew my attention back to him. “Let's see how you fare in the field.”

He didn't quite smile, but there was definitely a glint of something in his eyes. Or perhaps that was the subdued lighting. I still couldn't figure him out, and had no idea what he was thinking from one moment to the next. I'd spent more time with him than anyone else in my short life, and yet I still didn't feel as though I really knew him. Like he'd shut half of him away. Now that he'd told me about his childhood, I wanted to know more. A lot more.

Scanning the crowd, my gaze snagged on a well-dressed fae, one I knew well. He'd taken a chunk out of my shoulder. “There.”

“Another two just entered,” Samuel said. The fae immediately spotted us in our leathers and tensed. “Take yours. I've got these two.” As soon as Samuel moved, so did his two fae. They turned right around and disappeared back out the door.