Page 45 of Beneath the Cursed Veil

Meera hesitated. “They started a few years ago. After the first time I visited Faerie.” She slowly lifted her eyes to meet mine. “You?”

I nodded. “Four years ago. They were on and off the first year . . .” I trailed off, seeing what she would say.

“Then it was almost every night,” she muttered.

Despite my raging hard on, I wasn’t cutting this conversation with her short. Not when she was finally willing to talk. I retook my seat in the armchair, put a pillow on my lap, and rested my elbows on my knees, fingers clasped together.

“And it never occurred to you that I might be real?” I tried to keep the accusation out of my tone. On a logical level, I knew it wasn’t fair to hold it against her. Hell, everyone assumed I was crazy for the last couple of years. Even my own familiar. Yet, I couldn’t help the slight frustration that was there.

She narrowed her eyes. “You do realize that people have dreams all the time, and it doesn’t make them real?”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Do you realize how unlikely it is to dream of someone you’ve never met foryears? Always the same person. Always the same face.”

“I never saw your face when I dreamed of you, but your voice was always the same. I thought I made you up,” she argued defensively.

A thought occurred to me. “How old are you?”

“What?” Her brow puckered in confusion. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

I sighed. This woman. She was going to drive meinsane. “I’m fifty-eight. I’ve been around long enough to know that this isn’t normal.”

“I’m twenty-five,” she answered quietly. I nodded, suspecting as much. She was old enough to think it was odd, but not enough to realize just how much.

“Have you even gone through the passage?” I asked, referring to the time in a fae’s life when immortality kicked in. Until that point, we aged just like humans. For most fae, it was around thirty. Some were younger, but I had a suspicion that wasn’t the case here.

Meera confirmed it with a shake of her head. “I don’t even know if I will. Only part high fae, remember?” I had no doubt in my mind she would. If she were this powerful before the passage, she would be a force to be reckoned with across the nine realms after. Something told me she didn’t want to hear that.

“Small fae do too.”

“I don’t know if I’m small fae,” she replied. “I only know I’ve got some high fae because I have persuasion. I might not even be half. I might be half human for all I know. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t have any other characteristics. I can lie. I can’t glamour. I don’t—” Her mouth snapped shut, as if she just realized how much she was revealing. Meera’s gaze narrowed again.

“I haven’t compelled you since I brought you here,” I reminded her. “You would know if I had.”

“I still don’t understand why not.” She didn’t sound bitter, only confused.

I shrugged. “I told you, I’d rather get to know you. I’m not going to force you to tell me anything.”

“Outside of Damon?”

My shoulders dropped. “The situation with him . . . it complicates things.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Meera snorted. “I really was going to find him and bring him back. That was my plan before I even apprehended him, but then I saw you and everything went to hell in a handbasket.”

“You were going to find him, yet you don’t know where he is,” I said slowly. While she admitted she could lie, I had compelled her to tell me his location when we were in her apartment. This didn’t add up.

“I–” She broke off, biting her lower lip. I could tell she was debating something. I waited, giving her the chance to work through it. She took a couple minutes before finally saying, “I have an ability that lets me find things.”

“Things?”

“Anything,” she corrected. “I assumed it was just objects but then I got the job to take the prince. Turns out it works for that too. I was planning to complete the contract, then turn around and find him again.”

“You told me you wouldn’t have accepted the job if you’d known it was for a person. So why did you finish the job? Would they have been after you if you didn’t?”

“Not exactly.” She sighed. “I don’t know how much I can tell you.”

“That’s not in the contract?”

She shook her head. “There isn't a fine print. It’s magical. When I take a job, it activates. From that point I’m obligated to complete a job. I also can’t talk about the job. That includes what I’m after, where I’m going, where the drop site is, who my broker is, or anything that could reveal another party involved.”

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