I stepped in front of him and heard the woman collapse behind me—his hold on her snapped. His gaze dropped to mine and that heat set me ablaze. “Spare her,” I whispered. Whoever this fae was, whatever his past held, there was one way I could placate him. I closed my right hand into a fist as generations upon generations of saru had done, touched it to my chest over my heart and dropped to one knee. “Please.”
His head tipped, eyes narrowing. He leaned closer, seeking something deeper inside my gaze. The intensity of his glare reminded me that, in his world, I was a lesser thing. I was human, a creature made for the fae and their whims. Long ago, long before legends, they had given us the gift of life. Without the fae, my species wouldn’t exist.
I bowed my head, exposing my neck. Traditionally, the pose invited a blade to end my life, but it meant more than that now. I was bowing to him, subjugating myself, acknowledging his status above me. After every battle, trembling and covered in blood, I had bowed to them. Again and again and again. That woman’s life was my battle now.
He moved around me. I snuck a glance and saw him crouch beside the fallen woman. At his touch, she stirred but didn’t wake. He turned his head and caught me watching. What he was doing was no minor illusion. Whoever he was, he wasn’t just another fae. He had the power to make people and worlds bend to his will.
I touched the comms tucked safely in my pocket.
I had to tell Kellee everything.
Chapter 16
My basement was wrapped in illusion. I’d suspected as much, but now that I knew what he was capable of, I also knew he could make me see and believe almost anything. Bizarrely, the collar nullified both my magic and the worst of his. He could manipulate what I saw and heard, but not my thoughts. Suddenly, I was in no hurry for him to remove the collar.
After he’d set the woman at her desk and given her dreams of fantastical things, Larsen had escorted me back to the basement, his stern fae face rigid, his body perfectly controlled. He shut me inside without meeting my eye and left. I waited a few minutes and then reapplied the comms and set about walking the corridors, speaking Kellee’s name, hoping there was one spot where the signal would get through. I had assumed I was below Arcon, but I could have been on the top floor. I might not even have been in Arcon. That worked in my favor. I’d assumed the comms would never work and given up trying. Now I had hope.
“Kesh!” Kellee said. The signal crackled, but I’d heard him.
I pressed my hands to the walls of one of the nondescript rooms and bowed my head, hoping the signal held. “Kellee?” Please hold. Please be there.
“Yes, Kesh…”
Relief flooded through me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed this to work. An odd exhaustion rolled over me, tiredness like that of a thousand lifetimes. I wasn’t alone.
“Finally,” Kellee grumbled, audibly relieved. His voice sounded gravelly and monumentally pissed off. With no other distractions, I heard all the tiny nuances, including the touch of a growl. “Where have you been?”
I smiled. “I’ve been busy.”
“I saw. Sharing canapés with Larsen.” The comment was meant to sound light, but he didn’t quite pull it off.
I’d missed him. How long had I been stuck in Arcon? Hearing him now, it seemed like forever. I wanted to see his secret smile when he believed I wasn’t looking or he thought he knew something I didn’t. I wanted to rouse that beast in him and study its movements. It was irrational—this want—but I needed it to cling on to. Like hope. Hope was always irrational, wasn’t it?
“Kesh?”
“Yes, I’m still here. I was just thinking…”
“It’s about time you started.”
I closed my eyes and imagined the marshal here with me. In my head, he stood behind me, half smiling like he knew I would come around to his thinking eventually. I’d been so alone. I hated how I ached for company—a fault left over from Faerie.
“This is so much worse than we thought,” I said, softly. What if Larsen knew I was talking with Kellee? It didn’t matter. I needed this or else I would lose my mind in this maze of illusions. “He’s insane but in a way that makes him dangerous. And he knows, Kellee. He knows who I am.”
A pause. “Has he hurt you?”
Something in my chest hurt. Not my heart. Guilt? “No. Not really. Not like he’s capable of.” I swallowed, moistening my throat so the words didn’t choke me. “He’s been away from Faerie too long. He sees something of his home in me… I think he knows what he should do, but he’s torn. I think he’s hiding here like I was. But he’s been here a lot longer than me. He knows things the fae shouldn’t know. He knows about tek. He knows… He did something to my friend. He’s different from the fae back… back home.” Admitting where I’d come from was easier than I’d expected. If anything, it was a relief to say it.
The signal crackled. I straightened. “Kellee?!”
His voice faded.
“Kellee…!”
“I’m here… I was testing the limits of the signal. I’m in a building across from Arcon. Any farther and I lose you.”
I fell back against the wall and closed my eyes. “You have to find out who he is.” My voice shook. He would hear the trembling and know how much this was killing me. “He has power, a lot of it. So far from home for so long, he shouldn’t have any at all. Ask Talen.”
“Talen?” Kellee balked.
“He might know who he is or suspect. I need a name to know who I’m dealing with. As I am now, I’m stumbling around in the dark, trying to pick a fight with something that could be harmless or might kill me with a flick of his fingers.” Or worse. I already suspected Larsen was the latter kind. But a name would seal it.
“All right,” he reluctantly agreed. “But give me more to go on. I don’t even know what he looks like as fae.”
“He has warfae markings. The generals were marked in the wars. Those with more marks killed m—”
“I know what they mean.” His frustration and anger simmered through the signal. “Aren’t most older fae marked that way? I need something unique to him. Something Talen might recognize.”
What would Kellee think of my marks? The death of his people was likely long before my time, but the marks—rewards for slaughter—had remained the same for countless centuries, perhaps millennia. I could never let Kellee see mine. “All right, I’ll get something for you to take to Talen.”
We fell silent, but the signal still held. The suffocating quiet closed in, waiting to smother me when he was gone. “Kellee?”
“Yes, Kesh.”
“Can you… can you just talk?”
“—what?”
“Please.” I don’t want to be alone.
“No, I said… about what? What do you want me to say?”
“Anything.” The single word came out in a rush.
“All right.” He cleared his throat. “Do you know how hard it was to get invited to the Arcon party? I had to track down a guest and steal his ID. The guy never saw what hit him. He woke up hungover, with no memory of attending the party.”
I smiled. “You stole his ID. That’s not very marshal-like.”
“The law doesn’t seem to apply around you.”
“Kellee…” I wanted to ask him to stay, wanted to ask him if he hated me for who I was, wanted to ask if he thought we would both walk away from this unscathed. But I couldn’t speak the words. I didn’t know him. He didn’t really know me. I was desperate, I knew that. At some point, Larsen would decide what to do with me, and it would all be over, one way or another.
“You keep saying my name.” He chuckled. “I’m not going anywhere. What do you want to know?”
Do you hate me like I hate him? I couldn’t ask him, so I said instead, “How was your day marshaling?”
He told me how he had helped subdue a protest against water rations outside one of the Halow embassies. A few days ago, he’d caught an armed thief in the sinks and brought him in before the guy could sell his stolen goods. He’d returned the items to their rightful owners. He talked about his work, about others in his department, friends he had, the normal life he led. I crouched against the wall and listened to the sound of his voice. It was nice—too nice. Larsen would return, and I had to get him to talk.