Court of Night, page 1
part #3 of Institute of the Shadow Fae Series
Court of Night
Crawford C.N.
Copyright © 2018 by Crawford C.N.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Acknowledgments
Also by Crawford C.N.
Chapter 1
I stared at the gruesome offering, bile rising in my throat. Someone had nailed a human arm to one of the exterior doors of the Institute—driven the spike right through the palm, onto the wooden door.
It smelled like a fresh kill. Sticky blood oozed down the severed elbow, dripping onto the pavement. Frowning at it, I clutched the straps of my bug-out bag. Touching severed body parts wasn’t my favorite way to spend the day.
And yet I had to move the thing, because behind the hand, a blank piece of paper hung on the door. A note, probably? Given the method of delivery, I could only assume it was important, and probably not something nice like a thank-you card.
Grimacing, I pulled at the nail. My stomach churned at the faint slithering sound it made, my hand brushing against the cold flesh. Thick blood coated the tips of my fingers. When I had pulled the nail all the way out, the arm fell to the pavement with a wet thud.
I snatched the paper and flipped it over, finding a letter scrawled in blood.
As I read its contents, my pulse pounded in my ears.
Arianna,
Tomorrow night, deliver Ruadan to me. He should wait for me outside the Institute’s gate, unarmed and wearing iron cuffs. Fail, and London will suffer the Great Mortality once more. In case you think I don’t possess that power, I’ve already started with a small population on the Isle of Dogs.
I’ll wait till nine at night tomorrow, then everyone dies.
And Arianna, my darling. If you fail me, I’ll let everyone know what you really are. How long will you survive, then?
Love,
Baleros
My stomach dropped, and my hands were shaking so hard I could barely rip the note into pieces.
No one could see this letter. No one.
Frantically, I tore bits off the paper. One piece after another, I shredded it.
I’ll let everyone know what you really are.
Fear had gripped my throat. What if someone glued the scraps back together? I shifted my bug-out bag off my shoulders and rummaged around until I found a lighter.
Should have started with the burning.
Crouching on the ground, I brushed the bits of paper into a small pile over the stone, then held a flame over them. I had a hard time igniting them, and I burnt my thumb.
It wasn’t enough that he’d stolen an entire mist army from the Institute. It wasn’t enough that he’d imprisoned Ruadan’s mother, the Queen of Emain. None of that was enough power for him. He had to have everything, didn’t he? He had to have it all.
Baleros’s twenty-third law of power: Use terror to control your subjects.
He knew me well enough to understand what would terrify me: the truth. What if Ruadan saw this?
I stuck my burnt finger in my mouth, sucking on it. Then, I leaned down again toward the small pile, igniting it from the top. A tendril of smoke curled around me.
Baleros might have a flair for the dramatic, but my old gladiator master did not make idle threats. If he said he was going to kill people, he meant it. If he said he’d reveal the truth about me, he meant that, too. He wanted the World Key on Ruadan’s chest, and he wouldn’t stop until he got it.
Pieces of paper stuck to my blood-smudged fingers. What, exactly, was the Great Mortality? Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like a wonderful time. It sounded like a lot of death.
Still, I’d give up my own arm before I handed over Ruadan in chains. Not only had I grown attached to the giant, brooding demigod, but I wasn’t about to present Baleros with all the power he wanted in the form of the World Key.
I exhaled. I had only a few more pieces to ignite, now, on the cobbles. I singed my fingers again and cursed under my breath.
“What the hells are you doing?” A deep voice sent my pulse racing.
Slowly, I turned to find to find Aengus glaring down at me. As one of the Institute’s most powerful Knights, his steady, green gaze sometimes unnerved me. Plus, he didn’t really like me.
“What’s the problem?” I tried to keep my tone light. Nothing to see here, folks.
“You’re crouching next to a severed human arm,” he said. “Burning tiny scraps of paper. I’d venture to say it’s not a typical way to spend a Tuesday morning.”
I rose, trying to smile. Stick as close to the truth as possible. “I found a note along with the arm. I didn’t want it to create more panic than necessary.” The panic, in this case, was my own, but Aengus didn’t need to know that. “The humans in this city have been freaking out for weeks,” I added. “Baleros has been terrorizing London with his army. No reason to make them panic anymore.”
“What did the note say?” He wasn’t letting this point go.
“It was from Baleros, of course. We have until nine tomorrow night to hand over Ruadan in chains, or Baleros unleashes the Great Mortality. And apparently he already started on the Isle of Dogs.”
“Bloody hells. If that’s true, we need to contain that.”
“I know.” I clenched my jaw. “What exactly is the Great Mortality?”
“It’s the plague that killed scores of people in Europe several times over. The Black Death, some people call it. How the hells is he capable of this magic?”
I nodded. “I have no idea. But you can put ‘dying of the Plague’ in your agenda book for tomorrow night unless we can kill Baleros between now and then.”
He narrowed his eyes. “We once had a gorta here, guarding the gate, but you killed him. Do you know how hard it is to find a good gorta?”
“Quite hard, I imagine, or we’d already have one,” I replied. “Why are we talking about this right now?”
“Because we have no gorta. No guard on duty. No witnesses. You burned the letter. Now, we have only your word to go on. How convenient for you.”
Ever since I’d stabbed Ruadan and run off with the Institute’s lumen crystal, Aengus had been a bit frosty. Apparently, he frowned on violent assault and theft.
I crushed the ashes into the cobbles with my foot. “I don’t know what planet you’re coming from, but I don’t think there’s anything convenient about dying from the Plague, Aengus.”
And with that stinging rebuke, I strode through the Institute’s blood-smeared door, leaving Aengus behind with the severed arm.
Standing outside The Spread Eagle, I took a long sip of Maker’s Mark. Tension gripped my body. Pigeons cooed in the bridge that arched overhead, their calls slowly drowned out by the rumbling of a train.
A reckoning was coming to the great city of London—and I had my own personal reckoning in store. Baleros was the only one in London who knew the truth about me, and he’d hold it over my head as long as he was alive. Blackmail I couldn’t ignore.
It had been twelve hours since I’d found the note. During that time, Ruadan had sent out most of the knights on a mission to hunt down Baleros. He’d kept only two behind: Aengus and me.
So far, no one had reported anything useful. All we had was bad news: the plague outbreak on the Isle of Dogs had been confirmed.
As far as we could tell, Baleros had been moving from one place to another, never staying in one spot long enough to get caught. The last place we’d tracked him to was an apartment in Barbican. He’d left only a half a pack of cigarettes and a box of cereal, and the cloaked knights had zoomed off after him to the next location.
In my case, tonight, I’d left the cloak at home. I was undercover in an ordinary pair of leggings and a sweater.
Once upon a time—like, two weeks ago—the Shadow Fae were the only ones wandering around London in cloaks. I mean, who else would do weird shit like that?
But now? There were these other cloaked people. Cloaked people who pushed people into oncoming trains, then jumped after them. In the Institute, someone had started calling them jackdaws because of their dark gray and black cloaks, and the name stuck.
Who were they? We didn’t know. But the rest of London? They had a pretty good idea. They saw cloaks, they thought Shadow Fae. Simple as that.
In other words, someone was framing us, and I had a strong hunch it was Baleros. Maybe—just maybe—one of these jackdaws could take us to their leader.
I touched the lumen stone around my neck. A gift of magic from Ruadan—one that would help me move around fast if I found one of these cloaked men.
From the pub windows behind me, a piercing song floated through the glass. A woman was singing karaoke—or, more accurately, screaming it. Alanis Morissette, over and over.
I frowned at her through the fogging class. Bloody hells, woman. Just download a dating app and move on.
Footfalls turned my head, and my heart sped up at the sight of Ruadan prowling toward me. Dark magic curled around him. The edges of his broad body seemed indistinct, like a photograph shot out of focus. But he still stood out to me, those violet eyes like a beacon in the night. Even with his fuzzy appearance, I felt acutely aware of every one of the thickly corded muscles under his dark clothes. Every movement of his called to me—the breathing, the purposeful gait—precise and focused under the fog of his magic.
As he stepped closer to me, he began to look sharper. The distant streetlights washed over his perfect face. His serene beauty belied the ruthlessness underneath. I sipped my drink.
When he reached me, he leaned against the wall. This close, his magic vibrated over my skin, making my toes curl. His magic was disturbingly addictive.
“Hello, Grand Master.”
“What have you found?” No greetings, just right to the point.
“I haven’t seen any of the jackdaws yet, but I will. They stick near the Institute, and they usually linger around this overpass. I’ll see one soon.”
“What did the note say?” Ruadan asked.
Oh. So he’d been speaking to Aengus. “I already told your mate. It said we needed to hand you over by tomorrow night, or Baleros will unleash the Great Mortality. That’s the Plague.”
“I know what it is. What else did the note say?”
I’d been hoping to skip over that part. I took another sip of the whiskey. “What makes you think it said something else?”
“You burnt it.”
I was a terrible liar, so I decided to stick with a simple statement of fact. “You still don’t trust me.”
His dark magic stroked my skin, a subtle reminder of his overwhelming power. It had a primordial feel to it that made my spine straighten.
He took another step closer, his muscled form looming over me. “I can hear your heart race when you get nervous. And your cheeks flush.”
I knew exactly how to throw Ruadan off.
I licked my lips. “How do you know that’s nervousness and not lust?”
His muscles tensed.
I took one step closer, nearly touching him, and an electrical charge buzzed between our bodies. “You seem very in tune with my physiological reactions. There’s something very appealing about that.”
His eyes darkened. I shivered as his magic dragged the temperature down.
My jaw tightened. It didn’t seem my flirting had worked to distract him. “Look, Baleros knows things about me. Things I don’t want anyone else to find out. He’s blackmailing me. We give you over, or he tells everyone. That’s why I burnt it.”
There it was—the truth. As much of it as I was willing to tell.
“What things?” His commanding tone set my teeth on edge.
Another sip of my whiskey, and I let the silence hang over us. Then, I narrowed my eyes. “Like you don’t have your own secrets. You hardly speak. I’m sure there’s plenty you haven’t told me.”
Ruadan looked away from me, his eyebrows furrowed. Then, he nodded. I was dead on with the “you have secrets, too” theory.
“Try to report back to me within an hour. If the jackdaws don’t lead to anything, we’ll track him another way.”
Ruadan started to turn back to the Institute, but the pub door slammed open, and he froze. The heartbroken karaoke singer stumbled outside, and Ruadan turned to her. Rivulets of mascara ran down her face, and her lipstick had been smeared over her chin. She sloshed a bit of white wine out of her glass.
Ruadan stared at the drunk woman, who was singing quietly to herself. His eyes darkened, body going completely still.
I took another look at the woman. She was beautiful, sure. Big blue eyes, full lips, rosy cheeks. But apart from that, she seemed like an ordinary human—nothing remarkable or stare-worthy. She wiped a hand under her nose, then sniffled into her wineglass.
Ruadan’s gaze was locked on her. A faint hint of violet glowed off him. His magic seemed to be intensifying, pulsing in delicious waves that skimmed over my skin.
Pleasurable as it felt, it seemed he’d forgotten all about me, his eyes black as voids. Then, he closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. Was he smelling her? What the hells was going on here?
Chapter 2
I crossed my arms. “You were saying I needed to report back,” I said, my voice unnecessarily harsh.
The black snapped out of his eyes, and he turned his violet gaze to me. The air seemed to glow around him, and the drunk woman simply swayed, staring at him like she was transfixed.
“It’s just like I said,” I added. “We all have our secrets, don’t we?” I turned to the woman. “Can you piss off, now? It’s not safe out here. Shadow Fae all over the place.” Was I being a bit territorial? Perhaps.
She nodded, her eyes still on Ruadan, then pulled open the pub door again and disappeared inside.
Before I could say another word to Ruadan, darkness billowed around him, and he was gone.
I surveyed the empty street. There hadn’t been many humans around in the past few weeks. Not since Baleros had begun his recent reign of terror with his own growing army.
A couple rounded the corner—middle-aged, but dressed from head to toe in piercings and leather. As they walked, I tuned into their conversation.
“Should we really be out so close to the Institute?” the woman hissed. “The Shadow Fae might murder us.”
There it was again. All it had taken was a few black cloaks to confuse the entire city of London.
The man glanced over his shoulders. “Keep it down, Lucy. They could be anywhere.”
My plan was simple: find one of the cloaked buggers, then hurt him until I found out more. If my hunch was right, the jackdaws were connected to Baleros. We’d find him, imprison him, demand to know where Ruadan’s mother was. Then we’d kill him.
Or, at least, that’s how it would all work out in my head.
But things were never that easy, were they? And why weren’t there any jackdaws around here tonight? It was like they were avoiding me. Or avoiding something.
I sniffed the air, and a faint, earthy scent hit me. Mossy and dank—a fae smell, but an unfamiliar one. Older than most fae, and a bit more coppery. It smelled of death. I slid my glass onto the windowsill. Maybe this was what they were avoiding.
I started walking north, and as I reached an empty intersection, a blur of movement sent my pulse racing. I turned, catching a glimpse of a woman crossing toward a narrow alleyway.
There she was—the fae I’d scented. She reeked of death.
Just before she disappeared into the alleyway, she turned to look at me. Immediately, I could tell I’d been right about the fae thing—long, metallic talons; rapid, animalistic movements. When her eyes met mine, my pulse quickened. Her skin was the color of bone, and a dress hugged her body, its leather the color of dried blood. Long, black hair hung down her back, and her eyes had the blue-gray hue of a murky lake. She opened her mouth, and for just a moment, a forked tongue snaked out. Then, she pivoted, marching onward.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but this was a lead worth chasing. An ancient, powerful fae like this one wasn’t an everyday occurrence.
I pulled a knife out of my bug-out bag as I walked, wishing I’d come armed with a sword instead. It’s just that swords tended to ruin the whole ordinary human undercover vibe.
