I stepped back into the entry, letting the door swing shut, and studied it. Safe? Wel , I wouldn’t describe Faerie as safe for anyone, but the fact that he said it felt wrong did concern me. The door was some sort of portal to another place—it might not be safe for Roy. Hell, it might not be safe for me. But that was another story.
I thought back. I’d seen a ghost, or at least a spirit, in the Bloom before. Wel , actual y I’d sort of created a ghost when I’d jerked the spirit from a dead, animated body of a when I’d jerked the spirit from a dead, animated body of a slaver’s pet grave witch. “I’ve seen ghosts in there,” I told Roy, leaving off the rest of the story.
“Yeah, but did the ghost leave?” He stepped back, farther from the door. “It feels like a cemetery gate.”
That wasn’t good. Cemetery gates kept ghosts—and other, rarer forms of the dead—locked inside. Even newer cemeteries typical y had a ghost or two, the older ones many more, though the ghosts rarely started their spirit-life in the graveyard. Like some sort of spirit roach motel, the ghosts could enter the cemetery, but they couldn’t leave.
While Roy might get annoying once in a while, I definitely didn’t want to get him stuck in Faerie.
“Okay, stay here,” I said, and realized the bouncer was studying me, his bushy red eyebrows drawn together and his pipe in his hand.
“Lass, talking to invisible faeries isn’t uncommon here, but I happen to know none are present.”
In other words, he thought I was crazy. I gave him a tight smile.
“Ghost,” I said by way of explanation, and the little man squinted as if that would help him see the spirit among us. I ignored him, turning my attention back to Roy. “I shouldn’t be long. If I’m not out in an hour or two . . .”
I trailed off. If I wasn’t out soon, what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t come after me, and unless he tracked down another grave witch—and last I’d heard, the closest one not in Faerie was over a hundred miles away—he couldn’t communicate with the living. A ghost real y was terrible backup.
I didn’t finish the sentence. With a quick wave good-bye, I jerked the door open and let myself into the VIP area of the Eternal Bloom.
I signed another ledger inside the door, again printing careful y. The attendant, a sour-faced fae with long, careful y. The attendant, a sour-faced fae with long, donkeylike ears and cloven feet, nodded, taking the pen from me and shooing me farther into the Bloom when I would have dawdled in the doorway.
The Eternal Bloom hadn’t changed since the last time I was here. The giant tree growing through the floorboards and blooming with an impossible arrangement of shimmering blossoms dominated the center of the room, its large limbs spreading to form a leaf-and-flower-fil ed canopy over the tables in the bar. I didn’t stare at the tree long—it had nearly entranced me last time.
In the far corner, a new fiddler had taken the place of the one whose strings I had severed to halt the eternal dance.
A smal cluster of dancers spun around him, but not yet a third as many as I’d freed during my last visit. I could just barely hear the lively jig the fiddler played over the murmur in the bar, and I moved farther away so I wouldn’t be drawn into the dance.
The crowd in the bar boasted a mix of the grotesque and the beautiful. While some of the patrons either stil wore their glamour or were, in fact, human, many were very obviously fae, other. Smal , large, winged, floral, too-manylimbed, too-few—they were a dizzying display rarely seen on the streets. While the fae had announced their presence and needed mortal belief, they kept their own counsel more often than not and had no interest in becoming sideshows—not that I blamed them. I let my gaze move quickly, not lingering long enough to cause offense as I searched for Rianna. I spotted her at a smal round table at the very back of the room.
She stared at her drink as I approached, never glancing up. Her note had said she needed my help, but she didn’t appear anxious, and certainly not fearful as she sat in the crowded bar. If anything, she looked dejected and worn down. Her narrow, slumped shoulders were thin under the drab gray gown she wore and her skin was pale, sickly. If she was in danger, I would have expected her to be she was in danger, I would have expected her to be watching the other patrons, to glance nervously from person to person as she scanned the room, or at least to glance at the door once in a while, looking for me, since she’d asked me to meet her here. But she didn’t look up from the wooden mug in front of her, not even as my approach put me only tables away. Of course, maybe she didn’t have to
—she’d brought a guard dog.
The huge black dog stepped around the side of the table when I approached. The thick hair on its back stood up, and it glared at me, its black irises ringed with red as if splashed with blood. A low growl tumbled from behind rust-colored teeth.