City of Fae

Selecting the correct video I recognized the black-and-white CCTV footage of the Chancery Lane platform and Reign’s prone figure collapsed below the billboard. “This is when I met Reign. Why do you have this?”


“I searched Miles’s desk and found a whole load of suspect items. Evidence bags from cold missing-person cases. Files he shouldn’t have been working on. Old fae cases. That video was on his computer, in a folder marked with your name.”

Missing people. Could Miles have had something to do with helping feed the queen? I searched Andrews’s face as he urged to me to watch the video, but my thoughts snagged on his missing sister. Could Miles have taken her? Fed her to the queen? I didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to give Andrews false hope, or scare him. I hadn’t seen any evidence of anyone being alive in the queen’s reservoir. Maybe it would be better if he didn’t know. “Andrews, I—”

“Watch the video. After your story about getting off at the wrong stop that night, I took a closer look at the footage.”

“You saw through my lie, huh.”

“As I said, you’re a terrible liar. Watch the time.”

The ten fourteen train pulled up at the platform. The train I’d been on. “I know what happens. I was there.” What was this supposed to accomplish?

“Keep watching. Just after the doors open.”

Frowning at the little screen, I waited for the doors to open, expecting to see me step onto the platform. Ten fifteen p.m. And there I was, just as I expected. “I don’t get it.”

“Watch again. Watch the time.”

I did, settling into a sitting position between the basin pedestal and Andrews. “Train pulls in, doors open …” I wasn’t on that train. I blinked, stopped the video, then dragged the scene-selection bar back to when the doors open again. From the angle of the camera, I could clearly see inside the car. It was empty. Nobody got off that train. I was simply not there. The time proved it. One minute the platform was empty, the next I stood there, checking my phone for messages.

They’d told me I wasn’t real. Miles had alluded to it. The queen had outright said it. Warren had flaunted the facts in front of me. I’d gladly attacked Warren, as though possessed, and Reign had moments ago confessed to wanting to use the queen’s construct. But none of those things made me believe, there and then, that Alina O’Connor was a ghost. Andrews’s video on the other hand showed me everything I needed to know. From one second to the next, the world changed. Before ten fifteen that night, I did not exist.

I blinked and bit into my lip, sharp enough to taste blood. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

I turned his phone off and handed it back. “You knew?”

“Since last night. This isn’t okay, Alina. I don’t know what you are, whether you’re human, or fae, or what, but this can’t go unreported. The queen? She’s real. And the fae aren’t what we’ve been told. I’ve suspected as much, for so long … If they can create things like you, what else can they create? We need to look again at the fae and what they’re doing here.”

He was right, but at that moment, I couldn’t get past how he must see me. Everyone knew. Reign, Warren, and Andrews. They all saw the truth. What a fool I’d been. I met Andrews’s gaze. “Do you think I’m a monster?” I asked quietly.

“No.” He looked so genuine, tied to my towel bar, hope widening his eyes. But he couldn’t understand. Nobody would ever understand: I didn’t know who I was.

“Listen to me.” He leaned closer. “Whatever you are, whatever they created you for, it doesn’t matter.” The tip of his tongue swept across his bottom lip. Determination tightened his face. “What matters is now. You know that, right? What you do from here on out is all that counts.”

He made it sound so easy. “How can you say that? The queen made me.”

“So? We aren’t carbon copies of our parents. My bastard of a father went down for armed burglary. The queen’s magic or draíocht or whatever runs through your veins, it doesn’t define you. Or”—he shrugged—“maybe it does; you tell me.”

“No, I’m not like her,” I denied.

“No, you’re not. You’re sweet and funny, and you talk way too much. You arch your eyebrow when you think nobody is watching. You’re smart, most of the time … sometimes. You chew your lip and bite your nails and ask too many questions.” He stopped and smiled his honest smile. “I don’t know what you are, but I know what I see, and that’s Miss Alina O’Connor, who makes terrible coffee.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with my coffee, I just wanted you cops out of my place.”

He nodded toward the closed bathroom door. “Don’t let them define you. You can beat this. I need you to beat this, to help me figure out what’s going on. This isn’t just about you, it’s about the fae, why they’ve lied, and what they want with London.”

He was right. He wasn’t just a pretty face. He actually had the smarts to back up the detective badge. “Ya know, you’re all right, for a cop.”