“I’m too pooped to pop right now,” I admitted. “At least and carry anyone else.”
In fact, I wasn’t sure I could carry me. Spatial shifts were a heck of a lot easier than the time variety, but they still took energy. Which was why I planned on taking the elevator up to my suite, to rest and eat something more substantial than a few bites of pork.
But I had a question first.
“I have a question,” I told Fran?oise, who was attempting to corral the hats.
She looked up, and the Grecian gown she was wearing slipped off one shoulder. It was the go-go version, with a too-short skirt and a plunging neckline, because Augustine knew how to get male customers into a woman’s clothing store, yes, he did. But it looked good on her, like the elaborate updo her long, dark hair had been woven into, held in place by thin bands of silver.
She matched the shop, which I’d last seen dressed up like a circus tent. Now it was marble-floored and ionic-columned, with swags of diaphanous gauze draped here and there and pastoral murals covering the walls. Augustine was really going all out on this goddess thing, wasn’t he?
“About zee chapeaux?” Fran?oise asked.
“No, about zee fey—I mean, about the fey,” I said, bringing my attention back to her. “You lived with them for a while, didn’t you?”
“Too long,” she said grimly, probably because it hadn’t been voluntary.
“But you know them pretty well, right? Better than most?”
I really hoped so, since my options were kind of limited. There weren’t a lot of experts on the fey, especially the light variety. Their world had a habit of consuming any unwanted visitors and spitting out the bones. Not that Fran?oise had been unwanted. She was the kind of immigrant the fey welcomed with open arms.
Literally.
“Zey kidnapped me,” she said bitterly. “I was a slave. What does a slave know?”
“More than I do. And I need to.” And I guess something in my tone got through, because she looked at me from under a rack, where she was trying to reach a rogue hat.
“What ees wrong?”
I glanced around again, but the only people nearby were the mother and child, and they were busy watching the drama with open mouths. I squatted down beside her and lowered my voice. “I don’t have that much time,” I said quietly. “But I need to know everything you can tell me about their weapons.”
“Zere weapons?”
“Not the everyday stuff. The special ones.”
She frowned. “What special ones?”
I glanced around again. “It’s only a theory, but I saw a weapon, a staff, that . . . Look, the gods fought all kinds of wars when they were here, right? With each other, with demonic monsters, even with humans. The legends all say so.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “Oui?”
“Well, if you have a war, you have weapons. And if you read the old stories, they’re mentioned pretty regularly: Artemis’ bow, Thor’s hammer, Zeus’ thunderbolt—”
“But zee gods, zey are gone now.” She looked over at the Graeae, who had just dealt with Augustine the same way they had with his clothing—by sticking him onto one of their backs. That left his long legs flailing around in the air, and his mouth yelling obscenities that, thankfully, were not in English. She sighed. “Most of zem.”
“Yes, they’re gone. But their weapons might not be.”
“I don’t undairstand.”
I switched the ICEE to a new hand, so I could gesture around. “When the gods were kicked off earth, it happened fast. Like really fast. If it hadn’t, they would have been able to throw off the spell banishing them, or kill the one who had cast it. Right?”
Fran?oise nodded. She knew as much about what my mother had done as I did, since she’d been there when I found out. “Oui, c’est ?a, mais—”
“Fran?oise, they were banished almost immediately.”
“Oui?”
“So maybe they didn’t have time to pack.”
She blinked at me, the hats suddenly forgotten. “Zen zere weapons . . . you sink zey might ’ave left zem ’ere?”
“I think they might have left them in Faerie,” I corrected. “It was a fey lord that I saw running around with one. And since we’re facing the return of a god . . .”
“Eet would be nice to ’ave one of zere own weapons to fight heem with.”
I nodded. “Look, I know it was a long time ago. But time runs differently there, and the fey live a lot longer than we do. And if something was left . . . well, they would keep it, wouldn’t they? Prize it, even? They always seem to be fighting—”
“Zey are always fighting zee Dark Fey,” she corrected. “And zey do not need godly weapons for zat. Still . . .”
“Still?”
Her forehead wrinkled some more. “I did not know much of zere language when I first arrived, and I was just a slave. And zey do not tell stories to slaves. But zee man who bought me, he liked to claim zat he was descended from zee gods.”
“Did you believe him?” Because it didn’t look like it.
She scowled. “Non, I do not believe. I do not theenk he was descended from any god, unless eet was from Zeus’ cochon.”
“Cochon?”
“Ees peeg.”
It took me a second.
“His pig?”
“Oui.” Fran?oise nodded decisively. “As I say, peeg.”
I smiled. “And what did Zeus’ pig tell you?”
“Eet ees not what he say, but what he ’ave. A banner that his father carried into battle. A great battle, when zee fey say, zee gods fought beside zem. But zee gods, they whair already gone by zen. . . .”
“But maybe some of their power wasn’t.”
She nodded.
“Did you hear of any unusual weapons while you were there, even rumors? I need to know if any still exist, and if so where they are now. And who has them.”
She shook her head. “I was not looking for a way to fight, but to flee. But I could ask zee Dark Fey.”
“The ones here at the hotel?”
“Oui. Zey do not like to talk about zee past, but eef I tell zem eet is for you . . .”
“Would that help?”
She looked surprised. “You treat zem with respect. And you helped zem—zey do not forget zat. Few ’ave ever bozered.”
“Then ask them about the battle, and the staff. It was called the Staff of the Winds. For a while, it was the personal weapon of the Blarestri king.”
“Zee Sky Lords,” Fran?oise said, her eyes widening slightly, the way everyone’s seemed to when they talked about the leading group of Light Fey.
“That’s what I was told. I don’t know for certain that the staff was a leftover godly weapon, but if it wasn’t, it should have been. And where there’s one, there might be more. I need to know if they’ve heard—”
“I want a picture,” a childish voice interrupted, and I looked up to see that the little ballerina had reappeared at my side.
“Not right now, sweetie.”
“No. Now!”
I sighed. “I told you, I don’t work here.”
“But you’re the corpse bride,” she insisted, “and I wanna—”
“I’m not—”