“Why, Alex Craft, I didn’t expect you to answer,” Lusa Duncan said from the other end of the phone, and I groaned, already regretting answering.
“I’m a little busy right now,” I told her, the operative word that made the sentence not a lie being little.
“I’m sure you are. Rumor has it you were just spotted heading into Central Precinct. Have you turned yourself over to the police?”
“Would I be answering the phone if I was in police custody?”
“A valid point.” But she sounded skeptical.
I started to tell her I had to go when a thought occurred to me. “Lusa, you didn’t report that I was in Central Precinct, did you?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that you might have a sound bite airing in a few moments.”
“Do not broadcast that,” I said, hearing the smallest note of desperation in my voice and hating it.
“If you give me an exclusive I might be able to delay—”
I hung up on her.
“We have to go,” I said, standing with my still half-full mug of coffee in one hand and my phone in the other. Which meant no hands on the purse that had been in my lap.
It fell to my feet, the contents making clinks and clunks as they spilled onto the floor. I swore, kneeling down, but without being able to see, my knee landed on my wallet and I had to straighten again. I couldn’t see, my stuff was everywhere, and I couldn’t even figure out where to put the cup of coffee I couldn’t taste to enjoy.
I heard Tamara lower herself to the floor with a long exhale of breath, and I knelt again, not landing on anything, but still unsure what the hell to do with the items already in my hands.
I must have looked as frantic as I felt because Briar said, “Craft, calm down. What’s going on?”
“Lusa is about to announce on the news that I’m here. That means the crazy necromancer you put on my scent, the one who already laid a killing trap for me, will know where I am. So I think it’s time to leave.”
“And go where, Craft? Sit behind your broken door and hope the nasty necromancer doesn’t show up before you can see again? The wards on this building are better than at your house, plus, you know, the whole police force being here. Oh, and let’s not discount that you’re better off under my protection. Besides, you’re the bait, remember? We want him to come after you.”
I clenched my teeth, biting back the urge to tell her exactly where she could shove her protection, but she wasn’t completely wrong. Granted, I was planning to go back to the castle, not the house, and with any luck, there was enough of Faerie at the castle that I’d get at least partial vision back immediately. Still, the wards had been breached once, and my front door was held together with duct tape. There wasn’t a whole lot stopping someone from searching the house again, and maybe finding the door to the folded space this time.
“Al, why is your door broken? And what’s this about a killing trap?” Tamara asked, concern lacing her voice.
Right. There was no avoiding the subject again.
“Briar decided to use me as bait to get the necromancer out in the open. He or some of his walking corpses broke into my house and my office.” I left out the bit that personal items that could be used as a focus had been stolen.
From where she still knelt beside me, picking up the scattered items I couldn’t see, Tamara reached over, her hands gripping my shoulders. “Are you okay? Of course you’re okay, you’re here. But you know what I mean. Geez, you’re cold.”
“Warmer than I was earlier,” I said, lifting the mug to drain the last of the contents so I could put it down without spilling it.
She dropped her hands from my shoulders to take the mug, which was a relief. Tamara was one of my best friends, but I wasn’t what people would call a hugger, especially when I was blind and feeling vulnerable.
I felt around for my purse and shoved my phone inside it. Then I tried to take a tactile inventory of the contents. As I felt around, I concluded that Tamara must have gathered nearly everything already. The wallet that was somewhere near my knee was missing, but I felt almost everything else. As I started to pull my hand free, my fingers brushed against something I couldn’t identify. I tried to keep my purse fairly organized. With blindness as an occupational hazard that was bound to happen a few times a month, it was good to be able to grab exactly what I needed and know what anything was in an instant. This, though, was definitely not something I typically carried.
I pulled it free, letting my fingers feel what was obviously some type of microsuede fabric around Rianna’s magical signature. The tracking charm. Holding it on my palm, I could feel the strong pull toward Remy’s body a room away, but there was a second, faint tug leading off in another direction.
I was so surprised I almost dropped the charm.
“Uh, change of plans.”
“Now what?” The annoyance in Briar’s voice made me glad I couldn’t see her expression.
As answer, I held out the small bag containing the tracking charm. She lifted it from my fingers, but she didn’t speak immediately. Her boots were almost completely silent, only a soft shush of sound letting me know she was moving. The door opened, and I frowned.
“Did she just leave?”
“Yeah,” Tamara said, but Briar was back a moment later.
“Okay, I give up. I followed it to Remy’s body. There is no other trail.”
“Are you sure? There was a second trail just two moments ago.” I held out my hand for the charm. As soon as she plunked it onto my palm, the magic in the charm attuned to me and I felt the strong tug toward Remy’s body and a faint one leading somewhere else. “It’s there, faint but there.”
The charm vanished from my hand so quickly that Briar must have snatched it.
“No. No, it’s not. Do you feel a trail?”
“I—” I started, but Tamara touched my arm.
“She was talking to me.” Her voice was soft, not reprimanding, just clueing me in to what must have been expressed through body language that I couldn’t see. Louder, Tamara said, “I feel a well-constructed spell but only one trail.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
“What about you?” Briar said.
Who? I could guess she didn’t mean me, but I hadn’t heard anyone else enter.
“One trail,” Falin said, and I could almost hear the apology in his voice. He must have followed Briar back in after she’d followed the dominant trail to Remy’s body, but that didn’t explain why no one else could feel the second trail.
Falin placed the charm in my hand again. I still felt two trails. I didn’t waste any more breath trying to convince anyone I could feel the second trail. Everyone in this room knew I was fae and couldn’t lie; either they believed me or they didn’t.