“Craft.” A voice said, piercing the darkness. “Craft, can you hear me?”
A stinging pain flared along my cheek. I flinched, or tried to, but my eyes were already closed and something cold and hard was behind my head. No, not just my head. All of me.
Another sting—someone slapping my cheek.
I pried open my eyes, but couldn’t see anything beyond the contorting mix of colorful energy swirling in front of my face. To make matters worse, grave essence clawed at me from all sides, threatening to overwhelm me as the chill searched for a place under my skin.
Squeezing my eyes closed against the chaos, I focused on my shields. Whatever had just happened, it had blown through my outermost shield. Not good. Concentrating hard, I imagined my barrier growing to an impenetrable wall once again. As the gaps closed, the cold wind tearing around me died, the grave moving farther away. When I opened my eyes again, the room was eerily black, but then it had been before I . . . what? Fainted?
“What the hell just happened, Craft?” Jenson asked at the same time a woman asked, “Are you okay?”
“Not sure,” I said, answering both.
My brain felt thick, like my head had been stuffed with cotton. I struggled to a sitting position, releasing an embarrassing grunt with the effort, and the room spun around me. Pulling my knees to my chest, I groaned, and pressed a hand to my forehead. What had happened?
I groped blindly for the gurney so I could steady myself and stand, but then I froze, palm inches from where I guessed the parked gurney sat. The skin across my hand tingled painfully, like electricity was jumping from the metal.
“Hey, Jenson, what is the iron content of stainless steel?”
The detective’s answer came slow, like he wasn’t fully following why I asked. “Pretty high, but it’s an alloy.”
Which, by his tone, I took to mean it shouldn’t have the same effect on fae as pure cold iron. It was universally known that iron was the most effective weapon to use against the fae. What most humans didn’t know was why. I’d recently discovered that iron interrupted the magic between a fae and Faerie. Short-term result was usually sickness. But a long-term severing? Death.
I flexed my hand without closing it on the gurney. Pain shot along my skin, and I pulled back. The steel might be an alloy, but it was definitely affecting me.
The two women I’d heard in the hallway were in the room now. I didn’t recognize their voices, and I wasn’t about to push the topic of iron when I was trying my best to pass for human. Scooting farther away, I staggered to my feet, the effort leaving me dizzy and breathless.
“You gonna make it?” Jenson asked. He stepped closer until I could feel him hovering, but he didn’t offer me a hand.
I nodded, sucking down air like the oxygen content wasn’t quite enough to sustain life. What is happening to me? I didn’t know, but if I had to guess, I’d bet it had something to do with Faerie.
The two women were talking softly, too quiet for me to make out what was being said, but I could guess my untimely swoon was the topic. I hated being blind, and the added confusion of having passed out in the middle of the morgue didn’t help. Frustrated, I cracked my shields. My physical eyes were currently useless, but with my shields cracked, my psyche looked across the planes. It created a confusing jumble of realities splashed with colors and pitted with decay, but I could see enough to navigate.
It also made my eyes glow with an unearthly light. Strangely, no one gasped or stumbled back, which was the typical reaction to this particular trick. That was a refreshing surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. Then I remembered the necklace I wore. It was a fae-wrought chameleon charm, bound to me with blood magic. Unlike a witch-made perception charm that would allow me to control exactly what people saw—but would have to be targeted and would burn magic quick—this charm simply made people see what they expected to see. I needed it on a daily basis to prevent people from noticing that my skin shimmered—it was a fae thing and as I hadn’t figured out glamour yet, one I couldn’t control. It apparently also masked my glowing eyes. No one expected to see it, so they didn’t. Definitely an added benefit.
It took me several blinks to work out the mess of information my psyche had turned into a type of sight, but I was getting rather used to seeing across planes, so after only a moment, I scooped my purse from the floor and turned to Jenson.
“We were going somewhere?” Because I still needed him to sign paperwork, and I wasn’t letting him slip away until he did.
Jenson shot a glance from me to the two morgue techs who were both watching us. Then he nodded. “Let me put Mr. Watts away and we can grab a coffee.”
That sounded like a plan to me.
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