“This I’d like to keep.”
If I’d thought he would share what he learned I’d have let him; after al , I could always recopy the runes. But he wouldn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. I shook my head and extended my hand farther.
Corrie took another step back. “No. I’m keeping this.”
“What would you like to trade for it?” Falin asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
Corrie looked down at the page. His eyes glimmered with either greed or lust—it was hard to tel which, but whichever demon he struggled with also had to contend with his prejudice.
Prejudice won.
The old witch tossed the page toward us. “I don’t trade with Faeries.”
with Faeries.”
That settled that. I picked up the paper, folded it, and then left.
Chapter 17
We spent the rest of the afternoon—and the remainder of my gas tank—searching for the kelpie’s “thundering gate.”
We drove down as many riverfront roads as I could find and walked the riverside areas of two of the three parks that butted up to the Sionan. By the time we left the second park, dusk had fal en dangerously dim and I squinted at the shadows merging my blue car with the asphalt. I blinked, keys in hand. It had gotten dark fast. You couldn’t tel by the weather, but winter was on its way, and the days were growing shorter. Which meant fewer hours I could be out and about.
“Want to drive?” I asked, turning toward Falin.
“You can’t see?”
“Maybe I’m just being nice.” I tossed my keys in his direction. I heard more than saw him catch them as I headed for the passenger door. “Just be nice to her. And obey traffic laws.”
“Of course.” I could almost hear the smile in his voice.
Since I couldn’t see much of anything anyway, I closed my eyes, just a blink. Or so I thought. When I opened them again, Falin was parking the car. I stretched, reaching for the door handle. Then I stopped. The air didn’t resonate with magic—we weren’t in the Glen, which meant he’d taken me somewhere other than home.
“Where are we?”
“My apartment. We won’t be here long.” He slid out of the car, but leaned back in when I didn’t move. “I need to pick up some supplies.”
up some supplies.”
“Supplies?” I had the suspicious feeling he meant things he would need in order to move into my loft for a few days.
When I stil didn’t emerge, he walked around the car and opened my door. “I need an extra gun and ammo, for starters. You’re being targeted and I’d prefer to be prepared.”
I didn’t have any response for that. His help had been indispensable this morning, but he was injured. He needed to rest, not fight magical constructs. Besides, I wasn’t exactly comfortable with his jumping back into my life and playing white knight. On top of that, I wasn’t sure I could trust him. Caleb seemed convinced that Falin was here on the Winter Queen’s business, and I wasn’t positive he wasn’t.
What is his agenda?
Falin led me into the large brick apartment complex, and we rode the elevator to the seventh floor. At his front door, he hesitated, his hands moving to his pockets but not reaching inside them. He sighed, his shoulders sagging with the soft sound. When he looked up again, he gave me a weak smile.
“Wait here a moment,” he said, and walked to the door next to his. He knocked.
It took his pounding on the door several times before the music in the apartment muted and a woman in her early twenties answered. She wore her hair in a messy ponytail, brown strands escaping around her face. A long blue streak of paint decorated one cheek where it must have transferred from her paint-stained hands when she’d brushed her hair behind her ear. She scowled when she opened the door, but when her gaze landed on Falin, her features softened, her eyes widening as she smiled.
“Falin. Hey. Long time no see. I was starting to worry,”
she said, wiping her hands on the thighs of her overal s.
“Please, come in. I’l , uh—” She glanced at her paintcovered fingers. “I’l just clean up. You want a drink or something?”
something?”
“Actual y, Tess, I locked myself out of my apartment. Do you stil have my spare key?”
“Oh, yeah. Of course.” She opened the door wider to motion him inside, and for the first time her gaze landed on me. She froze, the door hanging half open. “Oh. You have company. Let me get you that key. I’l be right back.”
She shut the door and I glanced at Falin. He stared at the molding above Tess’s door, his thumbs hooked in his belt.
When the door opened again, Tess handed him a smal box.
From where I stood, the heavy wards draping the box were obvious, as were several nasty spel s set to trigger in the event of tampering. I shook my head, and huffed under my breath. The box had been coated in a classic massproduced pandora-trap charm.
“You got ripped off,” I told Falin.