Page 29 of Lux

“Don’t call me that,” I hiss. My hands curl in and out of fists. I want to strike him. Need to kill, pummel, and beat something into submission. A bloody pulp.

“She will not last long on her own,” he warns, persistent. “You two picked a dangerous time to visit this city. There are murderers on the loose. A gang of wayward lunaria. Traffickers. Those who ply black magic as their trade. As you saw foryourself, the boneys are stretched thin as it is. Let me help you find her, before it is too late.”

“Liar,” I tell him. “You have your own reasons. Tell me what they are!”

“Fae do not last long in this realm. Their blood is valuable, and as a novelty they are prized by traffickers. Not to mention the fae. If they sent one of their corrupted elders here, it can only mean danger for her. They will stop at nothing to find her.”

The imagery is purposefully cruel, meant to goad me into giving in to him. “You don’t care about her.”

“I don’t,” he admits. But he does care about me. He is sorry. Very, very sorry. Sorrow and regret coat him like stinking perfume. He reeks of both. I can’t take the smell. My nostrils itch. I’d sign over my soul just to get him far away from me.

“Fine,” I snarl. “I’ll sign it?—”

“Here.” He reaches into the pocket of his purple coat and retrieves a silver pen. Extends it to me.

The parchment, however, he holds aloft and partially rolled so I can only see the very bottom of the page.

Regardless, I wield the pen and slash at the parchment. A single bold line is my signature. It’s all the bastard seems to need.

“A pleasure doing business, really. Ellarika, darling, please file this away—” He hands the scroll to the woman, who accepts it with practiced reverence. Carefully she rolls it and reties the string. Once it’s safely hidden in her drawer, she folds her hands over her desk and raises an eyebrow. “Anything else?”

Altaris chuckles. “Well, well we shall need those visas prepared. Make them air-tight in case the boneys get antsy. The other realm will want these two, so we must jump through all the bureaucratic hoops.” He claps.

Ellarika nods. “Done and done. When I’m through, even Jack won’t be able to turn down his nose at these.”

“That’s my darling.” Altaris beams. One could almost miss the pain still lurking in his eyes. That term cut him deep.Liar. Liar.But to what end? He betrayed me somehow, someway. I just don’t remember.

Even so, he gives me a wide berth as he beckons me back out into the night-shrouded street, where streetlights fail to displace the impenetrable sheath of darkness.

“I know you’ve had a very busy day already,” Altaris says as he starts down the road in some random direction. “But there is one last detour we must make. Before we can find your little creature, thing.”

“Niamh,” I hiss. Her name. She went through all that trouble to steal it from her books—I can still taste those memories of hers, how she hunted through pages of text for the right one. How she practiced sounding it out loud as if waiting for the one day when she might say it to another person.Niamh.She fought for that name. Bled for it in vicious scars carved into her back that seemed to never heal. The least he can do is fucking use it.

“Yes, yes.” He waves me off. “Before we can rescue your little darling one, there is one little stop we must make first. Unfortunately, Ginni is a stickler for time, and I am not allowed to bother her during business hours. We must see her only in her‘off time,’ after sunrise. I suppose it’s what I get for letting my darling ones make their own schedules?—”

“No,” I snarl. “No more delays! You said they will come for her.”

And alone, she makes for easy prey. Perhaps they’ve found her already?

“Patience,” Altaris warns. As if he knows me. As if he can see into the chaos of my mind and make sense of the anger and hatred there. As if he knows what it feels like to have a hole in your soul where a monster squatted and pissed in for decades upon decades. Only to one day have that reeking spot empty and vacant. Niamh alone can fill it with sweet words and gentle touches.

I need her back.

I’ll…

I’ll lose what little is left of my goddamn mind without her here.

“I promise I will get her to you,” Altaris says. “Safe and sound. You have my word on that.”

His word. What use is a fucking word? I want to scoff. Refuse. Then I look him in the eye and see the truth lingering there. The power lurking there. He means it, this one promise.

In this boring, mundane world, his word is law, worth more than Cassius’s piles of silver.

Worth enough to wait.

For now.

CHAPTER 14

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