Authors: Emma L. Adams
Faerie Magic (32 page)
“I’m sorry, Vance,” I said. “There was no time to bring anyone else in to say the Invocation. It had to be me, even if I died in the process.”
He gave me a brief nod. “I thought so.”
Silence stretched between us again, almost unbearable. I inhaled his scent without meaning to, a warm familiarity settling in my bones. Dammit. Who was I kidding, thinking I could walk away from him like it wouldn’t tear out my own heart? I couldn’t shut my emotions down so the faeries wouldn’t be able to use them against me. Nothing was ever that simple.
“Did—did you take the Invocation back?” I asked.
“It’s sealed where it belongs. We’ve purged the faerie scum who infested the area.”
“And the half-faeries? The ones under the drug’s influence?”
His jaw clenched. “The ones who fought on Calder’s side—the survivors—are imprisoned on half-blood territory. We rounded up the others, but the Chief is still determining which were acting under their own power or not. I suspect Calder’s allies were given the same false promises.”
“What about the necromancers?” I hadn’t seen Frank since I’d woken up. Probably for the best. He’d be busy guiding the new ghosts beyond the veil, anyway.
“They’re fairly busy,” he said, distaste in his expression. “The veil stirred up a number of undead.”
“At least they’re taking some responsibility.” Though from the look of him, Vance appeared to be shouldering most of the supernatural community’s problems himself. Yet he’d come here.
I owed him the truth.
“Vance…” I swallowed. “I didn’t want to tell you, in case you stopped me going after Calder, but this wasn’t the first time I died.”
Quickly, I summed up my experience in Death. My conversations with the necromancer, my antics against Calder as a ghost, and lastly, our confrontation in Death, after Vance had killed him.
Vance looked at me a moment, lost in thought. He seemed abnormally calm considering I’d told him a ghost had threatened to kill him. “Faerie magic doesn’t survive beyond death,” he finally said.
“Normal faerie magic doesn’t,” I said. “But promises… they work in strange ways. You know that’s how I got
my
magic?”
He blinked. “I thought you took it from Avakis.”
“I did, but it’s because we made a vow before we fought.” I’d never told anyone this much detail, not even Isabel. “It’s one of their stupid rules of combat. I said if I won, I’d get to go home. I won, I killed him, and… I guess the only way home was to use his magic, because it passed on to me instead. I used it to open the veil.”
He watched me for a long moment.
“If you want proof, ask the necromancers.” I paused. “Or check the names of their former lords. Lord Frank Sydney. He’s a Guardian now. Anyway… I guess
he’ll
tell me if Calder decides to try anything. But a promise, with that much hate… I can see it enduring beyond death.”
“Then it’s your choice.”
Huh?
“My choice to what?”
“To live in fear or not.”
Ouch. Guess I deserved that one.
“I have a target painted on my head.” I looked him in the eyes. “So do you, thanks to me.”
“I don’t care.” His hands rested on either side of the door frame. “It’s in the nature of the job.”
“I’m marked by Faerie,” I said. “Permanently. This isn’t one guy with a grudge, the entire Grey Vale wants my blood.”
“It’s never stopped you before.”
“It’s stopped me doing a lot of things.” Damn. I didn’t want to drag up any more of my history, especially as I’d had a shitty enough week already. I didn’t have the emotional energy to deal with this. “I like you, Vance, but I’m not the kind of girl who sleeps with her employer. If you want a meaningless fling, go and find someone else.”
A spark grew in his eyes. “I think it’s obvious by now that isn’t what I want. I’ve made my intentions clear, and I’d be more than willing to meet you on your own terms, if you’d let me know what they are.”
“My terms.” I licked my lips. “I’ll think about it.”
He leaned closer, his scent wrapping around me. The stubble on his cheek brushed the side of my face. His grip was warm, strong, and I fell into him like a drowning person onto land.
Vance’s forehead rested against mine. My breaths came out quickly, heart hammering as though it had just realised I was very much alive.
“I take it to mean you won’t object to me taking you out to dinner tonight,” said Vance.
“That sounds—” Awesome. Overwhelming. Part of me was still tired as hell, though the pleasant humming in my limbs was the most alert I’d felt since my brush with death.
A tugging sensation grabbed hold of my body and jerked me backwards. “What the hell?”
My body moved by itself, like an invisible magnet latched onto me, dragging me out of the house.
What the—?
“What’s happening?” asked Vance.
“I have no idea. Some kind of spell—” I yelped as the sensation pulled me off the doorstep, past Vance onto the path. “The place is warded against anything hostile.” And I definitely didn’t have any of the blasted drug left in my system. What the hell was going on?
Erwin the piskie flew past. “You’ve been Summoned, Ivy!”
“What? By who?”
“The Lady of the Tree, wisest of Summer faeries.”
Shit.
“You owe her a favour,” said Vance. “The promise. Right?”
“Dammit!” I yelled, half-running towards the gate. “I can’t fight this. A promise to a faerie is—”
“The most powerful of spells,” Vance finished.
“With awful timing.” I stumbled past the wards, onto the street. Vance followed me. “You don’t have to—” I closed my mouth. His jaw was set stubbornly, and I knew he wouldn’t let me go anywhere, even Death, without a fight.
Maybe even Faerie itself.
I faced the path, Vance at my side, my steps already carrying me towards the vow I’d made. Promise or none, Faerie wouldn’t take me again. This time, I was ready.
***
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Other books by Emma L. Adams
If you like your urban fantasy more on the otherworldly side, with double-crossing and dimension-hopping monsters, you might like
Adamant,
the first novel in the Alliance series.
Ada, a world-hopping sorceress-in-hiding, has a run-in with the Inter-World police force and winds up as the main suspect for murder. The problem is, she had nothing to do with the killing… but Earth’s most powerful organization thinks she did.
If you like the sound of YA urban fantasy with demons and sorcery set in a small English town with a sinister history, you might like the Darkworld series, starting with
Darkness Watching.
If you like the sound of super-powered teenagers fighting inter-dimensional fiends in a post-apocalyptic world, you might like
Indestructible.
About the Author
Emma spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing urban fantasy and young adult novels. When she's not immersed in her own fictional universes, Emma can be found with her head in a book or wandering around the world in search of adventure.
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