Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)

“I thought I volunteered.” Claire was a scion of one of the oldest magical houses on Earth, one that specialized in the healing arts. She’d been working at the auction house only because of a dispute over her inheritance, which had left her on the run from a greedy cousin. Before then, research had been her specialty, and lately, she’d been experimenting on fey plants, hoping to find something that would help my condition.

“That’s different! I know what went into everything I sent you. It was safe—”

“And ineffective.”

She frowned. “Anything could be in there. I have no idea what ingredients Pip used. The recipes differ widely from family to family, which is why you get so many varieties of this stuff. And Pip never left any notes lying around.”

“More’s the pity.”

“You don’t get it, Dory. Drugs—and this can definitely be classified that way—often have a cumulative effect. Even the fey experience some mild side effects over time—”

I laughed. “Mild for them, maybe. I’m not a fey.”

“That’s my point! This is a controlled substance on Earth because it brings out latent magical abilities in humans. Before it addicts them and drives them insane!”

“I’m not human, either.”

“You’re half.”

“Which is why I’m careful.”

Claire’s eyes narrowed; something must have come through in my tone. “What have you been experiencing?”

“As you said, some mild side effects.”

“Like what?”

“Heightened memories, mostly. With sharper sensations, Dolby surround sound, the works.”

“Like hallucinations?”

“Like heightened memories, Claire. It’s no big deal.”

She didn’t look convinced. “And you can control them? You can snap out of these memories whenever you want?”

“Yes,” I said easily. “Now, do you want to eat, or do you want to lecture me some more?”

The look on her face said this wasn’t over. But her stomach growled, momentarily overruling her head. I flopped onto the love seat, passed around oyster pails, paper plates and chopsticks and we dug in.

“God, I missed this,” she told me a few minutes later, her mouth full of chow mein.

“What?”

“Greasy human takeout.”

“They don’t have the equivalent in Faerie?”

“No. They also don’t have TV, movies, iPods or jeans.” Her hand ran over the threadbare denim covering her knee. “Damn, I missed jeans.”

I laughed. “I thought you’d like being waited on hand and foot—”

“And having servants follow me everywhere, and having to dress up every damn day and having everybody defer to me but nobody talk to me?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah. It’s been great.”

“Heidar talks to you, doesn’t he? And Caedmon?” Heidar was Claire’s big blond fiancé. Caedmon was his father, the king of one branch of the Light Fey.

“Yes, but Heidar’s gone half the time, patrolling the border, and Caedmon’s holed up in high-level meetings deciding God knows what while I’m supposed to hang around and, I don’t know, knit or something!”

“You don’t knit.”

“I’ve been so bored, I’ve been thinking of learning.”

“Sounds like you need a vacation.”

She chewed noodles and didn’t say anything.

I tugged off my boots and chucked them by the door, enjoying the feel of the smooth old boards under my feet. They’d absorbed a lot of heat through the day, and were giving it off in steady warmth that contrasted nicely with the cooler air. A few moths fluttered around the old ship’s lantern overhead, which was swinging slightly in the breeze.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I finally asked, when Claire had finished most of her whiskey and still hadn’t said anything.

She’d been staring out at the night, but now she shifted those emerald eyes to me. “How do you know anything is? Maybe I decided to take that vacation.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“You keep odd hours sometimes—”

“With no shoes, no luggage and no escort?”

She frowned and gave it up. “I don’t want you involved in this. I only came this way because I didn’t have a choice. The official portals are all guarded since the war.”

“The ones we know about,” I agreed.

“I mean on the fey side,” she said, as if it were obvious that her own people would be trying to prevent her from leaving.

“Okay, back up. You came through the portal in the basement—”

“Because nobody knows about it. Uncle used it to bring in his bootlegging supplies, so he kept it quiet.”

“And you needed to slip away unnoticed because ...?”

“I told you, I don’t want—”

“I’m already involved,” I pointed out. “You’re here. You’re obviously in some kind of trouble. I’m going to help whether you like it or not, so you may as well tell me.”

“I don’t want your help!”

“I don’t care.”

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