Pale Queen Rising (9 page)

“What did you get yourself into, Roxie?” I ask. I try to keep my voice firm yet comforting. Seeing as I grew up with Mab as a role model, I’m not so good with that last part.

She cries harder. All I can do is watch her and wait for her to collect herself. It’s cold, sure, but I’m not here to offer comfort. I’m here to collect debts.

Finally, with a very unbeautiful sniff, she collects herself enough to look up at me and wipe the tears from her eyes. Her mascara is magic—it doesn’t smudge in the slightest. Somehow, she makes distressed look glamorous. Once more, she doesn’t take her eyes off of me, and this time I resist looking away. I’m not going to give in to my own whatever this is—attraction or magic or whatever. Even if she is looking at me like maybe a girl covered in blood is right up her alley.

“A few months ago I was trying to make my way in the world. You know how it is for a young singer.”

I don’t, but I don’t say anything. I don’t want her to stop talking; she smiles a little when I nod.

“I was working bars and nightclubs and waiting tables on the side. Anything I could do to get by. Anyway, I was drinking one night after a show. All of five people in the bar, and that was the second week running where I couldn’t bring in a crowd. So there I am, having my one free pity drink, and this guy comes up to me. Says he heard me sing and liked what he heard, and I told him he must be crazy or have bad taste because no one else thought so.”

She takes a deep breath and bites her lip before catching herself.

“I guess it’s kind of cliché, you know? He asked if I loved singing, if I wanted to make a career out of it, and I said yeah, I’d do anything for it. I didn’t think much of it at the time. He was well dressed, didn’t seem like a creeper, and besides, what did I have to lose? It was my last gig and I figured I was going to have to give up my dream. And then he grabs one of the cocktail napkins from under my drink and slides it over to me.

“
I can give you all that,
he says.
Everything you ever dreamed. Just give me your autograph and I’ll make you a star.

“I laughed at him. Right in his face. But you know what? I figured why not—it’s not like he can do anything with an autograph. So I grabbed a pen from the bartender and signed my name. Next thing I know he’s folding it up and dropping it in his pint. He raised the glass and we toasted and I remember thinking it was strange, because he downed the whole damn thing and when he slammed the glass down, the paper was gone. I figured he actually was just a creep with some weird fetish, but he left right after that and I forgot all about it.”

My gut drops an inch with every word. I know this story all too well. Too many mortals have gotten caught up in shit like this, especially now that no one believes that faeries or magic exist. They make a silly wager with a stranger, and a few days later their house is on fire or their family’s murdered because they didn’t uphold their end of the bargain they’d forgotten about entirely.

I’m pretty certain the creatures of Faerie are assholes at heart. They love nothing more than screwing over humans, especially if they can get a good deal and a bit of Dream out of it. Because no matter their breed or social standing, any deal with a Fey is binding. Permanently. And no amount of begging can change it. The only thing the victim can do is continue bartering. Which, spoiler alert, never works out in the mortal’s favor.

“So let me guess,” I say. There’s an untouched bottle of beer on the table, so I grab it and pop off the cap with my teeth. I glance at Eli in that motion—he’s watching the entire interaction with a little grin on his face. “You woke up the next day and were headlining.”

Roxie nods slowly. The beer’s warm and practically impotent; I grew up on faerie wine—
that’s
some powerful stuff. Right now, I’m mostly drinking for the effect.

“Precisely,” she says. “I don’t even
get
the paper, but there it was, slipped under my door. And an hour later there’s five strange men in my apartment, saying they’re my band. I thought I was going insane. Tried calling the cops but the line was dead and they said they weren’t there to hurt me. Asked if I remembered anything about last night. And that’s when the guy showed up, the one from the bar.”

“Did you get a name?” I ask. “Any defining features?”

She shrugs. “He was Caucasian. Wore sunglasses and a nice suit.” She glances at Eli when she says this.

“Don’t look at me,” he says. “I’m not Fey. I was happily sunning myself in hades.”

“Nothing else?”

“No,” she replies. “He came into the apartment and told me that this was my band, and he gave me my tour schedule and said I was now in his employ. I asked what he was talking about, and he said this was what I’d asked for: I was going to be a star. So long as I did what he asked, I’d be famous.”

She shakes her head.

“And you know what? That night, I was. We were
sold out.
That night, and for every gig after. Fans poured out of the woodwork and after just a week we were on the road, traveling America. I had no clue where it was all coming from and I didn’t care. The moment I took to the stage, I was a star.”

“So when did it go south?” I ask. It’s not enough for Fey to make horrible deals with mortals—they like to get hopes up, make their victim think they’re on top of the world. Right before sending them crashing to the ground.

“Last week,” she says. “He showed up again. We were in Vegas, taking a day off, and he comes up to me while I’m at the pool. Sits down, orders himself a drink on my tab. Doesn’t say anything else for a while. Then he asks if I’m enjoying myself. I said yeah, it was great. And he just responds with,
good. Because you’ll be doing it for a while.
”

Eli shakes his head at me, in what’s clearly a
stupid mortal
gesture.

“I ask what he’s talking about and he doesn’t answer. Instead, he hands me a tablet with a doc opened on it. It’s saved as ‘Roxie’s_Contract’ and I start scrolling through it. And under the section titled ‘Duration’ there’s just one line:
For Life.
I actually laughed when I read it. I looked at him, but he wasn’t smiling. He was just sipping his drink and watching people swim. He said it wasn’t a laughing matter. I would perform until the day I died. And if I tried to cut my contract, he’d send someone to cut me apart.”

I glance around to the dead band members. Well, this definitely wouldn’t look good to whoever drafted the contract.

“Are you sure you can’t remember anything about this guy, anything the band might have said about who employed them?” I ask. “Anything at all. We need a lead.”

She shakes her head, and that immaculate pin curl falls out and bounces by her cheek. It would be cute, if we weren’t surrounded by dead bodies.

“They never said anything,” she mutters. I can’t tell if she sounds lost or pissed or some cold combination of both. Maybe that’s why I feel for her—I know what that’s like better than most. “They only appeared when we were going onstage and they didn’t like small talk. I tried to get them to tell me something about the guy who hired them. Anything. But they wouldn’t. Said it was my problem, not theirs. They were just doing their job and collecting Dream.”

“Well then, my dear,” Eli says, sliding to standing. “I’m afraid we’ve hit the end of our discussion.”

“Wait,” I say.

“What? She’s a dead end. Emphasis on
dead.
Now we kill her and I go to dinner and you do whatever you do after you finish a job. Take a bath or something.” He grins. “I might even join you when I’m through.”

I ignore the pass and stand. “We’re not killing her. Not tonight, at least.”

“Why? Don’t tell me you’re attracted to her. The allure’s just whatever enchantment her contract granted her. It’s not real.”

Again, I ignore him.

“She’s bait,” I say. I walk over and hold out my hand. She looks at it, but doesn’t take it. Smart girl—she’s learned not to freely accept help anymore. But I can’t help the small curl of regret that unfolds in my stomach; a part of me wants her to trust me, wants her to take my hand without hesitation. I force the thoughts down. I’m not her savior. I’m just not about to kill someone who seems innocent. Not until I know the truth. I drop my hand and shove it back in my pocket, pretending I don’t feel slighted. “Whoever made that contract is going to come after you. And they’re linked to whoever’s stealing Dream.”

“How can you be so sure?” Eli asks. “Any Fey could be the buyer. It might not be this evil third monarch. For all we know, Oberon’s trying his hand at the music industry again.”

“Oberon doesn’t deal in the shadows like this, and besides, if he was pulling this much in, he’d be holding it over Mab’s head. So whoever this is, they’re new. I highly doubt it’s coincidence.”

Eli sighs. “Fine then. But I’m going to eat.”

“Whatever.”

He turns and bows low to Roxie. “It was a pleasure meeting you.” Like he wasn’t just threatening her life. Then, with a pat on my shoulder as he passes, he leaves. Roxie and I stay there in silence, the only sound the rain pattering down on the roof.

“So you’re not going to kill me?” she finally asks. I’m impressed by how calmly she says it. All traces of tears are gone. She holds her head high and shoulders back, like any answer I give will be met with the same stoicism. Another point in her favor.

“Not tonight. Come on, I need to take you somewhere safe. Before whoever did this to you comes back.”

“I thought you wanted me as bait.”

“I do, but not right now.”

She still doesn’t move.

“Look,” I say. “You don’t have to trust me. I wouldn’t either, honestly—you might live longer if you don’t. But if you stay here, you’ll either be dead or roped into a new contract before morning. You can’t run from the Fey.”

“So where are you taking me?”

Oh, I don’t want to be doing this . . .

“To the one place you can be moderately safe. Winter.”

She raises an eyebrow. Right, she thinks I mean the season.

“It’s a kingdom. In the faerie world.”

“So . . . to save me from the Fey, you’re taking me to a place where I’ll be surrounded by them?”

“Something like that.” I glance to the door. Whoever drafted that contract will be here soon—they’d have felt the death of the band members immediately. “Now come on, before they get here. We can discuss the intricacies of faerie politics later.”

“I don’t go home with girls when I don’t even know their name,” she says. There’s definitely a hint of a grin now, and it’s too forward a statement to think it’s just me. Maybe this wasn’t such a bust of a night after all.

“Claire,” I say. I begin fishing around in my jacket pocket. The one without all the knives.

“And how are we getting to this other world, Claire?”

It sounds so silly when she says it, like she can’t believe it even though her band members are currently dead and lying in pools of multicolored blood. I pull out a piece of chalk and hold it up with a grin.

“Magic, of course.”

Then I turn and start drawing a portal on the back of her bus door.

Mab is going to kill me for this. She hates it when I bring pets home.

Six

Roxie’s clearly been dealing with some supernatural shit.

She doesn’t seem at all perturbed by the chalk portal I draw on the bus’s wall, nor does she freak out when she steps toward it and finds herself standing in my study back in Winter. About the only thing she does to reveal any surprise is shiver. I can’t blame her—she’s not wearing anything beyond that leopard-print dress, and that was definitely made for sweating it out on a stage. I flick a wrist and fireplaces roar into life. There are two in the study, each with a lintel carved to resemble a crouching griffin and roaring dragon respectively. Warmth immediately floods the room, but I know it’s a relative term when living in the land of eternal winter.

“I should have let you grab a coat,” I mutter, suddenly remembering just how messy the rest of my space is. The study’s about the only place that’s sacred to me, at least in terms of cleanliness. “Wait here for a moment.”

I head into the living room. There are clothes all over the place, and I sadly have yet to get Mab’s jewelers to craft me an Amulet of Cleaning or something awesomely useful like that, so I pull the college bro maneuver and run around, tossing bits of clothing into piles, throwing blankets on said piles, and trying to make it look like this place doesn’t double as a frat house. (And no, I’ve never been to college, but I’ve taken down enough Fey on college campuses to know what they’re like.)

Then I run into my bedroom and do much the same, though in here at least there’s less clothing and more weaponry. As for getting Roxie something warmer . . .

I rush over to my cabinet and throw it open. She’s a lot curvier than I am, but a bit shorter, so I grab a velvet nightgown and some soft, stretchy pajamas that will hopefully do the trick. When I head to the study to meet her, she’s already in the living room, examining one of the many weapons racks along the wall.

“I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you,” I say. Her hand hovers a few inches from a large bastard sword, the blade of which is a sickly acidic green. If that doesn’t scream
poison
,
I don’t know what does.

She drops her hand and turns, looking at me suspiciously.

“What did you say you do for a living?” she asks.

I walk over and hand her the clothes.

“They should fit,” I say. Then, “And I didn’t say. I’m an assassin.”

“So you use these. To kill people.”

I shrug. “Mostly. Some are just for show. Spoils of war and all that. That bastard sword’s a bitch to try and wield.” She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell that’s because she’s holding back.

“Are you judging me?” I ask. I almost laugh. “I just saved your life and you’re judging me?”

“I never said that.”

“Yeah, but I can tell you’re thinking it.” And I usually can, too—part of Mab’s training was learning how to read emotions. Mortals are ridiculously easy to figure out. Well, most of the time. Maybe it’s the enchantments she’s wearing, but Roxie doesn’t give anything away.

“I highly doubt that,” she says. She takes the pajamas from me and slips on the nightgown. I hate to admit how good she looks in it, like some housewife pinup. I half expect her to smile and ask
What are you thinking now?
but instead she looks back to the weapons and bites her lower lip. “So you’re an assassin. Of faeries.”

“And for a faerie,” I say. “My mother is the Faerie Queen.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Something like that. But a little more scandalous.”

“So that makes you a faerie, too?”

If I were being dramatic, I’d take my blade and cut a line in my palm to show her I bleed red, but that’s a little too Hollywood for right now and besides, she probably wouldn’t get it.

“No. I’m mortal.”

“So how are you . . . ?”

I flop down on the sofa and grab a bottle of bourbon from the table. A snap of my fingers and two tumblers appear. I fill one with a few fingers and hand it to Roxie. She shakes her head, so I fill it to the brim and drink half in a gulp.

“I was stolen,” I reply. The bourbon won’t kick in fast enough to make this conversation bearable, but at least I can swim in the taste.

“Stolen?” She sits on the other sofa and curls her legs under her.

“Stolen. At least, that’s what I assume. Mab won’t tell me much about it.”

“Who’s Mab again?”

“My mother. The Faerie Queen. Shakespeare’s muse.”

“Right.”

“Anyway,” I continue, downing the rest of the bourbon, “I quickly learned that I didn’t fit in here. I mean, it was pretty obvious—I had to sleep, for one thing. And I aged. I think I was ten when Mab finally told me she wasn’t my true mother. That’s honestly how the conversation went, too:
That was a good kill, love. And you should know you’re not truly my daughter.
She wouldn’t tell me anything else. So I dropped it. I learned early on with her that trying to fish out information is impossible.”

“So that’s been your whole life? Training and killing? What about, I don’t know, human things? Like friendship. Or—”

“Or love?” I cut in. I know where this is going. “Not really. I had what you’d call a ‘fucked-up childhood.’”

She laughs to herself. “Haven’t we all?” But she doesn’t press the subject. Instead, she leans over and grabs the bourbon and pours herself a three-quarter glass. Definitely my type of girl.

“You know,” she says, “for being some heartless assassin, you don’t seem half bad.”

She’s been holding my gaze the entire conversation, but the moment she says that, she glances away. Is she flirting with me? And for that matter, am I flirting back? The alcohol is slowly kicking in, and I feel warm for what feels like the first time in days. I’d kill for another bath—literally—but there’s still work to be done.

“Thanks,” I reply. “But you really haven’t spent any time with me.”

She looks back. “From what it sounds like, that will change. I mean, I’m sort of a wanted girl, aren’t I?”

“You are.” I can’t help it—with the warmth of the bourbon and the warmth of the butterflies, I let myself grin. I so want to hop over to that sofa and put an arm around her and kiss her neck. If this were any other situation, any other seduction, I would have. But for some stupid reason, I don’t want to sleep with her. I don’t want a one-night stand. I want to keep her around.

“Anyway,” I continue, before this can veer into territory I might regret—which again is strange, as I don’t usually regret any of my actions, “I have some more work to do before calling it a night. You can stay here for now. We’ll figure out something more comfortable tomorrow. You okay with the sofa?”

She nods. I can tell she’s a little disappointed, but I don’t trust myself around her. Which is yet another strange situation, because I definitely shouldn’t be trusting
her
right now. She’s still a suspect.

“Okay then. I’m going out for a while. The bathroom’s through there and there are snacks in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
Fridge
might be a misnomer. It’s more an icebox, with a literal chunk of enchanted ice. But she’ll get the drift.

I force myself to standing and turn toward the door.

“Claire,” she says softly.

I pause. Why does my heart leap when she says it? Maybe I should eat something—it’s the only explanation I’ll admit to myself for why my brain isn’t responding to any of this properly.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for saving me.”

“Of course. I try not to kill unless ordered to.”

Which is why I’ll talk to Mab tomorrow. Otherwise you won’t be thanking me for long.

I close the door behind me and lean against it, trying to collect my thoughts. Roxie shouldn’t be here. She should not be a part of this equation. Having her here in my room makes no sense; neither does leaving her alone. If she were a normal fling I’d have my way with her and get it over with like all the other boys and girls and playthings in between. I have a job to do, and she’s getting in the way. If I were thinking straight, I’d send her back home and use her as bait to find her employer. I shake my head.

“Get ahold of yourself,” I mutter.

I turn to my door and run my hand along the doorframe, funneling a small amount of power into the magic embedded in the stone. Glyphs flare to life under my fingertips, and I feel the magic race through my room, sealing off all the exits, rendering any magic used inside moot. It’s a dangerous magic, but I made it so only I can trigger it—otherwise I know Mab would use it against me. Hell, she’s the one I learned it from as a kid. Had to keep me in line somehow.

Once I know Roxie’s safe and secure, I turn and stalk off down the hall. I know Pan will want to chat, and I definitely know Mab will expect a debrief. But they’re both used to my nature—I’ve never been the most talkative after a hit. At least my years of being a hermit have helped with something.

The joys of living in an enchanted castle are many, but the main one is the ease with which you can escape. Getting around inside? Tricky as sin. But getting out is cake.

One door later and I’m outside, in one of the many back alleys that stretch out from the castle wall like a spiderweb. I can’t get Roxie out of my mind as I head toward the bar. I try every trick I’ve been taught, every meditative practice and mantra. I even try jabbing my finger with a dagger to focus on the pain. But it doesn’t work. As I trek through the cold streets of Winter, all I can think about is her curled up on my sofa, her changing into my pajamas, her wondering what’s to become of the rest of her life.

I should be focusing on the job at hand. On the logistics. Someone out there is clearly funneling Dream, and they’re not afraid to be bold in their strokes. They’re infiltrating our usual sources and creating new ones—big hitters. So whoever this is isn’t interested in hiding. They want to make an impression. They want to show they mean business.

I should care. I should be worried. Or plotting. Or actually giving a shit about who is behind all of this. But I don’t. I can only think about Roxie. And as everything else in my life feels like it’s falling apart, I can’t help but admit that I like it.

The Lewd Unicorn’s pretty dead for this time of night, not that any of the other bars along the strip are faring any better. Now that I know just how dire Winter’s resources are, I can’t help but feel a sort of desperation here—the need to forget what you can’t afford to waste. I wonder how many of the citizens here are actually feeling the pinch, or if Mab’s keeping up a lavish air right up to the very last drop of Dream.

In any case, the regulars are still there, all lined up at Celeste’s bar. The place has a cozy sort of feel to it, as cozy as you can get when your building materials are ice and onyx. Everything in here is smooth black stone laced with veins of crystal and silver. From the bar to the floor to the twisted columns supporting the ceiling, it all glitters like a disco paradise. Purple light comes from icy chandeliers that drip from the ceiling, but even that light is mainly there to cast shadows for Winter denizens to hide in.

Celeste perks up the moment I step in. You’d think that for a glowing ball of light she’d be a shit bartender, but her skills are renowned throughout Faerie. She’s simultaneously mixing a cocktail and pouring some draft Dream as I walk up to the bar—she uses some sort of telekinesis, which makes the bar look like it’s haunted when she’s really slammed.

“Claire!” she calls out, hovering toward me. “How’s it going?”

“Royally,” I reply. Which is shorthand for
royally screwed.

“That good, huh?” she asks. Oddly for a tiny ball of light, she doesn’t have one of those Tinker Bell helium voices—it’s deep and sultry and sounds exactly the opposite of what you’d expect. As with all things in Faerie, appearances are deceptive.

“That good.”

I settle onto one of the stools and cross my arms, resting my forehead atop them. The bar top doesn’t smell like stale alcohol—it smells minty, almost.

“Well then, you definitely need a drink. On the house,” she says. I don’t look up at the clink of glass, nor do I glance at the patrons on either side. I recognize all of them, and like me, they’re often at this bar because they don’t want small talk, unless it’s with Celeste.

“Make it a Daydreamer,” I mutter.

The glass stops clinking.

“Seriously?” she asks. I can feel the regulars staring at me, or maybe it’s just my imagination.

“Seriously,” I reply.

“Okay. But you know what happened last time.”

“Only because you told me after,” I say, grinning into my hands in spite of myself. Apparently it had involved dancing naked outside before picking a fight with a brood of vampires. And then trying to make out with one of them.

A few seconds later there’s the familiar clink of glass on onyx, and I look up to the tumbler sitting before me. It’s the rich amber of bourbon, but there’s something else dancing inside of it, a thread of blue and purple that glows but never coalesces.

As I said, she keeps the bourbon especially for me. The Dream is top-shelf shit. Combined, the two pretty much guarantee that Roxie will no longer be on my mind. I’ll be flying. Maybe literally.

“Do you need to talk?”