Someone shouted at me to stop. Someone else barked to call the law. Will they send Kellee?
“Kesh…” Larsen hissed, accusing or begging.
Yes, beg. Beg like all the others did while your kin’s cheering filled my head. The scent of citrus spiked the air. His power leached out of him. His illusions wouldn’t save him. I squeezed tighter.
The lights went out.
Darkness flooded the corridor, and with it came a rush of citrusy magic.
“Kesh…” Queen Mab whispered in my ear.
Larsen bucked. My grip slipped. He twisted. Fingers snatched my arm, yanking me toward him. I searched the dark for her, already knowing it was a trick, a terrible hope used against me. But if there was a chance she was here…
Larsen hauled me to my feet and pinned me against a wall. The solid weight of him smothered me, hemming me in. Darkness blinded me while a wall of male fae blocked my escape. People shouted. Movement stirred the shadows. I stilled. My thoughts slowed. Larsen’s racing heart beat so close to mine.
Larsen’s short breaths tickled my ear. “Very good, Wraithmaker. Now let the entertainment begin.”
Larsen wasn’t weak. The trick he had pulled in Arcon’s corridors, the darkness, the voices. Her voice. That took substantial magic. He had a source—somewhere. But it was impossible outside of Faerie. Wasn’t it?
After my failed attempt to kill him and his odd enjoyment of the whole incident, he shut me in the basement. I immediately tried the door he closed behind me, only to find it opened into yet another empty room. I tried all the doors. All empty rooms. I wondered if the basement was an illusion too. One I was trapped in.
I jogged the corridors, and then ran them until sweat glued my clothes to my skin. When the food and water stopped coming, I stopped exercising, needing to conserve my strength.
He hadn’t left me this long before.
I smashed his glass—the same glass he had left for me in the beginning—against the wall and instantly regretted it—knowing he had left it there for exactly that reason. I counted the pieces where they lay and waited for the anger to wane.
At least Kellee knew I wasn’t here by choice. He must have seen the collar. But what if he acted on it? What if he confronted Larsen? The fae had already killed Kellee’s people. Larsen would finish the job.
I paced back and forth in my room.
Think. I knew how to push Larsen’s buttons. He didn’t want to hand me over to the Fae Courts. He said he was keeping me for entertainment, but he’d also said he suspected me of working for them. Handing me over would expose him, and he didn’t appear to want that either. I had to figure out a way to use what I knew. Attacking him in the hallway had been foolish, but I’d learned a few things. I knew he had a reserve of power. I also knew he wanted me to fight him, either because of my reputation or to get revenge for the death of his queen. The fae loved to draw out their vendettas. Courtly families warred for years behind closed smiles and veiled threats. Mab had liked that about me. She had told me I was simple, meaning it as a compliment.
So, he wanted to play a game.
I was good at games.
My coat, draped over the back of the chair, caught my eye. I picked it up and rummaged through its pockets, finding nothing. Turning it inside out, I did the same again. Nothing.
With a frustrated growl, I walked the corridors. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, all were smooth. The motion-sensing tek that controlled the lights were locked away behind immovable panels. If I had access to them, I could strip the units down and remake them into useful tek.
I threw my coat on, ignoring the torn flap, and slid down a wall to tuck myself in a corner. The table was still there, bolted to the floor, surrounded by broken glass.
Not so long ago, I’d stood behind Queen Mab’s right-hand side. If she could see me now, she would laugh. The Wraithmaker could easily endure a few days in isolation. This was nothing. But I wasn’t the Wraithmaker anymore. I’d seen to that when I killed her. I wasn’t Kesh either. And I’d been taken from my home too young to know who I’d been before the fae. I had a saru name from before. That was all. No memories of my home, no memories of my parents. Just a name. It was all I had that was completely me before the fae corrupted me.
I buried my hands in my coat pockets and rested my head back against the wall. I would find out what Larsen wanted from me and I’d give it to him. I’d make him think he controlled me, owned me like the fae owned all saru, and then he would talk. He would tell me his name and his reason for being here. And he would tell me what Arcon was hiding. When I knew all his secrets, I would break them open the way he had broken Sota open. I would reveal the fae to the humans, and he would pay. Nobody would come to save him. Not this far from Faerie.
My fingers touched a small tile of cool metal. I picked it out of my pocket. My home-built comms. Larsen had missed it. Would it work? Quickly, I pressed it to the skin behind my ear. “Kellee?”
The silence dragged alongside the hopeful race of my heart.
“Kellee?” I asked more softly, realizing any chance of the signal reaching me here, below Arcon, was remote. Please answer. I don’t want to be alone.
“…Kesh.”
The signal was so weak I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined hearing my name. I pressed the comms harder into my skin. “Kellee?” Please…
And waited.
A heartbeat. Another.
I didn’t hear the voice again.
“Kellee,” I sighed. “If you can hear me… you can help me now.”
Chapter 15
I waited, listening to Larsen’s soft footsteps coming down the corridor behind the closed door. The door to my room opened inward. He would have to reach in, his forearm exposed. I’d waited a long time, stewing down here. But now was the time to test him.
The fragment of glass dug into my palm, seated firmly. Its triangular point glinted.
The sound of his approach fell silent right outside the door. I held my breath.
The handle dipped.
The door swung open. I swept in, stabbed the point into his arm and slashed upward, splitting dark tattoos and tearing open a vein. Bright fae blood, as scarlet as his favorite human tie, splattered his clothes. Speckles splattered my face. He roared and lashed out, intent on backhanding me against the wall, but I ducked the swing and jabbed the stubby glass blade into his side.
“Is this what you want?” I hissed, pressing in close. I drew the weapon back to strike again, but he slammed his forehead down onto mine in a very un-fae-like move and shoved me backward. He didn’t pursue but stood in the corridor, a stream of blood running down the jagged cut on his arm, spilling from his fingertips.
I wiped the blood from my cheek, tasted it on my lips and beckoned him forward with my finger. “Should have worn bracers.” The fae often did back home. Bracers protected their forearms and hid weapons. He’d forgotten that. What else had he forgotten?
He looked down as though noticing the gash in his arm for the first time. “Are you done playing games?”
When he faced ahead, he smiled, telling me I had him pegged. He wanted this. Fuck knew why, but I’d give it to him.
He stepped into the room. “You can do better.” The flesh on his forearm pulled closed, self-sealing the wound. Only the blood remained. His perfect skin hadn’t even scarred, unlike mine.
“Come closer and we’ll find out.”
One more step, bringing him within arm’s reach. He watched me closely, waiting for tells, for any sign of what my next move might be. Wild predators watched their prey with that same patient glare.
I tossed the bloody piece of glass at his feet. “Take me to Sota.”
Irritation briefly tightened his smile, twisting it downward.