City of Fae

“Why are we here?”

“We’re running out of places to go.” Reign dropped his hood and tossed the hotel keycard onto the desk. “We’ll be fine here while Warren replenishes his draíocht reserves.”

The prickly ancient fae would be feeding and, although it was necessary, unease crawled across my skin at the thought of what he’d be doing a few doors down. Reign had said he was careful not to bespell his victims, but I didn’t trust Warren to be as thoughtful.

Two queen-size beds dominated our boxy hotel room. I drifted to the window and opened the curtains. Outside, the waters of Victoria Dock glistened beneath a weak October sun. The docklands of London’s East End had undergone a huge regeneration project in recent years, and where once goods had been craned from ships on the Thames, now luxury apartments and five-star hotels lined the water’s edge. If I stood on my tiptoes, I could just make out the twelve yellow steel masts supporting the millennium dome structure in the distance; the venue for Reign’s concert. The brochure in the hotel foyer said each mast represented the hours on a clock face, due to the prime meridian passing through the structure. Time was fast running out for me. Seeing it with my own eyes reminded me how close Saturday was.

“Are you okay?” Reign asked.

Arms crossed, I didn’t turn, but blinked at Reign’s ghostly reflection in the window. “I’ll be fine.”

He shrugged off his coat and ruffled his hair before dropping onto the bed, hands laced behind his head, lithe body relaxed. I watched his reflection, taking in the sight of Sovereign without him knowing. I hardly knew him, really. But in the days since we’d met, my world had changed. No, that wasn’t strictly true. Before we met, my world hadn’t existed. Did I owe my life to him? I had to wonder what went wrong on the Chancery Lane platform. Why didn’t I kill him, as I’d been designed to do? I distinctly remembered my concerns about a job that wasn’t real, and how he’d intrigued me … The near unconscious rock star fae. I’d wanted his story. It was all I’d cared about, to begin with. Perhaps the queen made a mistake. Whatever magic she used to create my past, she’d made me too real. Too authentic. That fake past became important to me, more so than my mission to kill Reign.

“It happened when we touched,” he said softly.

I jumped, roused from my thoughts by his voice. “What did?”

He turned his head, expression so neutral it had to be forced. “When we first touched on the station platform, I stole your draíocht, and muddied the queen’s control over you.” Lifting his gaze, he peered at the ceiling. “Fae don’t usually trade draíocht. It’s like a tug-of-war, ultimately pointless. When I took yours, thinking you were human, I drew the queen’s draíocht into me and broke her spell; not all of it, or I might have unraveled you right there on the platform.”

“Unraveled me? What does that even mean?” I turned my back on the windows and faced him. “Reign, I …” My voice caught. I swallowed, or tried to, but a wedge of emotion clogged my throat. I couldn’t fall apart. Not yet. When this was over, when Saturday came and went, when we tried to stop the queen, failed or succeeded. Only then could I drop to my knees and cry my eyes out. But not yet. I had to keep it together, just for a little while longer. Even if I wanted nothing more in that moment than to crawl under the covers and hide from a world I didn’t belong in.

I lifted my gaze slowly and found Reign watching, fae eyes bright with understanding. It was too much. I turned to face the windows. Shutting him out, drilling the dregs of strength through my limbs. I would not fall apart in front of him. If I shattered, here and now, I might never recover the pieces of myself.

He didn’t mention the emotion he must have seen on my face, and I was grateful for that. “The draíocht here,” he said. “The magic we harvest, the residue of it in your world, it’s weak. But when the queen feeds, she takes the weakened draíocht into her, turning it dark, and powerful. That changed draíocht is in you. The queen, and … and the hound; those things aren’t part of this world. Neither are you.”

I swallowed, and jumped on mention of the hound, watching his reflection closely. “The hound … What is it?” He didn’t respond, didn’t move, didn’t even blink. I waited, but the silence dragged on. Leaning back against the window, I tried his tactic of attempting to stare the answer out of him, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He focused in the middle distance, thoughts far away. “Reign, is it one of your many talents?” I inquired lightly, hoping to lift the mood, just a little, enough to get him to open up.

He rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand. “You’re unique, y’know. Constructs don’t have feelings or think for themselves.”