I rarely shielded with more than my bracelet and my mental shield of living vines, but now I had no choice. I squeezed my eyes closed and forced my focus inward—at least as much focus as I could summon. Outside my wal of briars I visualized a second wal enclosing my psyche. This wal I saw as a bubble of unbroken mirrors, the reflective surface deflecting the feel of magic.
As the bubble solidified in my mind, the roar of magic As the bubble solidified in my mind, the roar of magic dul ed and then fel away into eerie magical silence. I always felt blind, deaf, and dumb when I shielded this hard and completely cut myself off from the ebb of the world around me, but for now, it was better than being overwhelmed.
“Alex!”
My eyes flew open at the sound of Falin shouting, and shouting extremely close to my ears.
Falin stood with his face so close to mine that our noses brushed. The warmth of his palm pressed against the back of my neck, and I realized it wasn’t new warmth, but that he must have been standing there like that for some time. He must have been cal ing my name for a while too. When he saw my eyes open, he let out a breath of relief, and the warm air rol ed over my skin. He stepped back and my gaze snapped to the gun in his hand.
“Were you planning to shoot something?” I smiled as I asked the question.
He didn’t smile back. “Was it a trap?”
“What?”
“A trap? Did we walk into a trap? What happened? You went completely unresponsive.”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “No trap. Just a nonsensitive col ector showing off his trove. Where did Corrie go?”
Falin pointed at the hal , but he didn’t move, and he stared at me several more seconds before he final y holstered his gun. Then, apparently satisfied that the danger had passed, he headed for the hal . I fol owed, my steps slow and heavy. We found Corrie in a bedroom that had been converted into a library. He sat at a round table in the very center of the room, my page of runes directly in front of him and stacks of oversized and irregular leather-bound books piled around him.
“Where did you find these?” he asked, his nose buried in a grimoire with pages so thin and weathered that he used a tool instead of his fingers to turn them.
tool instead of his fingers to turn them.
“Did you hear about the magical y constructed beast that attacked pedestrians in the Quarter?”
Corrie looked up and squinted at me. “Oh, you’re that girl.
Yes, I recognize you now.” He rubbed a finger against his chin, making the loose skin jiggle. “How interesting.”
He pushed away from the table and scurried to one of the bookshelves. “Where are my manners?” he said as he hauled a book with a cracked leather spine off the shelf.
“Take a seat. I made tea.”
I’d have preferred coffee to tea, but as I saw where his finger pointed, I realized it wouldn’t have mattered what he served. In the center of the table sat a black iron kettle and three deceptively delicate teacups on saucers. Iron teacups, of course. Where did he even find these things?
His book thumped on the table and Corrie grabbed the kettle. He poured the tea and passed out cups as if we were dol s gathered at a child’s tea party. I gulped back the nausea clawing at my throat as he pushed a dark saucer into my hand, and I set it on the table as soon as possible.
Falin held on to his cup and saucer, his gloves apparently shielding him. When Corrie turned to walk back to the other half of the table, Falin bumped my leg with his. I met his gaze and he lifted the mug and shook his head. The message was clear: Do not drink.
Not that I’d planned to in the first place.
“How is the tea?” Corrie asked, sipping from his iron cup with his pinkie crooked. He didn’t look at me when he asked, but at Falin. And he more than just looked at him—
he watched Falin, waiting.
Falin obediently lifted his cup, but he stopped before it touched his lips and blew on the steaming liquid. “Stil too hot for my taste.”
The old witch set his cup down, the iron making a horrid skritching noise as the cup ground against the saucer.
“You’re fae, aren’t you?”
Falin stared at him for several long heartbeats, his Falin stared at him for several long heartbeats, his expression unchanging. “Yes.”
“Ha, I knew it!” Corrie jumped to his feet. “Get out of my house. You’re not welcome here. And you.” He turned to me. “Were you knowingly associating with a fae or were you tricked?”
I blinked at him. He’d asked two questions with opposite answers. I picked one. “Yes.”
“Good girl. Wait . . . which is it? Did you know he was fae?”
“Yes.”
Corrie’s face flushed with color. “Then you’re a fool and you can get out too. Both of you. Now.”
Falin and I exchanged glances and then both pushed back our chairs, letting the legs scrape on the floor as we stood. The irony was that if I’d been ful y human I could have lied, and probably avoided being kicked out. But I wasn’t.
“What are you waiting for? Get out.”
“My runes,” I said, holding out my hand for the paper.
Corrie snatched it off the table, clutching the page between his wrinkled hands. He glanced between it and us and then stepped back, pul ing the page closer to his chest.