A Shift in Fate, page 2
“The devourers were gone by the time the supply wagon got there. No one who is still alive saw them. We only know they were devourers because of the bodies left behind. All drained of magic.” Pele stopped pacing and looked at me before pacing again. She paused after a few steps, clearly unsure how to proceed. Unease ran through me. Pele was never this rattled.
“What else? Might as well keep this fun train moving along,” I said lightly.
“We’re pretty sure the devourers were fae-like. Or at least able to take that shape.”
Every part of me stilled. “How? How do you know that?”
“There were tracks leading out of the village. They walked on two feet. And they wore shoes. The children never saw them because there were no windows in the basement they were hiding in, but they heard them talking. Arguing about something. The language they spoke was fae.”
“Are you sure?”
Pele nodded. “Translation marks react differently when it's the same language but a different dialect. It was an older dialect of fae but definitely fae.”
“Like the boy,” I murmured as I thought through the implications. “Did they find the child?”
“We’re not sure. He wasn’t with the other children in the basement, and they did not find his body anywhere else. Based on the argument the devourers were having when the children overheard them, it seems like they didn’t find him, at least at the time of the attack. It’s been over two months since the village was destroyed, and there have been no further sightings of the devourers.
“All travel out of that fae realm has been severely restricted. We don’t know how the devourers got into that realm, but the most likely way is that they used an existing gateway. Assuming that is how they entered, it stands to reason that’s how they planned to leave.”
“Devourers don’t plan. At least nothing like this. Many of them are skilled hunters and they’ll plan attacks and ambushes, but this is well beyond that. They don’t plan how to travel between realms while posing as fae. And none of them speak.”
“We both know that’s not exactly true.”
My eyes locked onto Pele’s as her words hit me. “I’m not one of them,” I growled.
“I’m not saying you are. But you do have devourer magic,” Pele pushed. “Maybe whatever these things are is something similar to what you are.”
I rolled off the bed and grabbed my robe off the back of the bedroom door and stalked out into the living room. I pulled the silk robe on and lashed the belt across my waist as I stood in front of the windows and watched the waves crash ashore.
Pele came to stand beside me but said nothing. I’d hidden my magic from almost everyone my entire life, including Pele. But I’d told her everything recently. About my ability to tear open gateways in any realm despite that fancy spell crafted by the fae and daemons to protect their realms against Cataclysms. And I told her about my devourer magic that manifested as pale blue flames and allowed me to consume the magic of others. At first, Pele had been both shocked and scared. Not of me, but for me and what would happen if my secrets were to get out. Devourers were killed on sight by the daemons and fae.
I glanced at Pele. “Any ideas why they were after the child? This all seems odd. A powerful sidhe child appearing out of nowhere and then being attacked by a band of fae-like devourers that no one has ever encountered before? I feel bad for the kid and I’m pretty curious about these devourers, but should I get involved in this? The sidhe must be crawling all over this. I’ll have run-ins with them, and every time I encounter them is just another chance they’ll figure out what I am.”
“I told you I needed a favor,” Pele murmured.
I snorted. “This is a bit more than a favor.”
“The sidhe are hiding something. My father’s always suspected the fae knew more about the devourers than they’ve ever let on. Honestly, I always thought he was just paranoid. But I’ve uncovered some odd things over the years, and a lot of shit has been going on in the fae realms recently. Something big is coming. And I think this child might be at the center of all of it.”
Pele reached out and gripped my shoulder. “You need to find the child, Nemain. And you need to hide him from the fae when you do.”
“Are you insane?” I stared at her in disbelief. “That is a death sentence. I thought we were trying to figure out how to keep me alive. Not get me killed faster!”
“Hear me out.” Pele held her hands up in a calming motion. “You just need to keep him safe until we figure out exactly what is going on. If the devourers made it into the fae realm through one of the existing gateways, they likely had help from a fae. There might be some shift taking place in fae politics right now that we don’t know about. If we deliver the child to the wrong party, we’d be helping them do whatever the hell it is they’re trying to do. I need time to figure this out. And in the meantime, I need someone I can trust who is good at finding lost things to locate the damn kid. Once we figure out what’s going on, we can barter for your freedom with the fae and daemons. If we can tell them about your magic and get them to agree to never come after you, the warlocks will no longer have this hold over you. This could be your chance at having a truly free life.”
Tentative hope rose within me as I rubbed my forehead. Jinx and Magos would not like this. Although it would be kind of funny to watch their expressions as I explained all this to them. Their heads might literally explode. “Is one of the Queens making a play against the other?” I asked.
“I don’t think so.” Pele pursed her lips, and her eyes grew somewhat distant, as they always did when she was thinking through possibilities. “They rarely agree and occasionally take swipes at each other, but they are sisters and love each other. That’s not to say they’re not involved, though. This could be a coup against the both of them.”
“Great,” I said dryly.
“Figure out who is coming with you and bring them to my office, and I’ll give you the rest of the information, plus any leads I have. Make sure someone stays behind to watch the vampire brats. I don’t want them left alone here.”
I rolled my eyes, and Pele swatted my arm. “Oww,” I said and rubbed the spot she’d hit. Blood welled over a few scratches from her claws. They’d heal in seconds, but still. “When are we leaving?”
“Tomorrow. You leave tomorrow.”
2
I looked around the living room, making sure I had cleaned up everything after my play time with Pele. Wouldn’t want to scandalize poor Magos. If Pele hadn’t asked me for that damn favor, I probably would have done so just to provide some entertainment. But now all I could think about was what Pele had asked of me and how I would explain it to Magos. Specifically, the part where he couldn’t come with me.
Unlike Mikhail, Magos didn’t exactly get along with sunlight. It wouldn’t kill him right away, but it was incredibly painful for him to be in it and it would weaken him greatly as his magic tried to heal the constantly burning skin. Besides, someone had to stay behind to monitor the vamp kids.
I sighed and glanced at the clock. Just past midnight. It could be hours before Magos and Mikhail returned. Mikhail would come with me, whether I wanted him to or not. Jinx would come as well. I didn’t know about Luna. Her magic was coming back, but it was still unpredictable, and she still couldn’t remember her past. For all we knew, she had pissed off someone powerful in the fae realms and would be in danger there. I was reasonably sure we could convince her to stay and help watch over the kids. So far that left me traveling with a grumpy grimalkin and an annoying vampire. Ugh.
“Who else could I bring?” I wondered aloud as I absently tapped my fingers on the granite countertop of the kitchen island. We would need to move fast and be able to defend ourselves if the devourers found us. Or if we had a run-in with any fae who might have a bone to pick with me for any number of reasons. When you’ve been around for a few centuries, you gather some enemies along the way. I certainly did at any rate.
A thought came to me, and I walked over to the large mirror that hung in the living room next to the hallway. One large body length pane of glass made up the center of the mirror with another piece on top and two narrow pieces running down the sides. Thick wood carved with glyphs framed all of it. The glass piece on the right side had several glyphs running down it, each a dull blue. I tapped the third one down, and it glowed brightly. The piece of glass in the center darkened slightly as it became cloudy. I waited for a few minutes. He probably wasn’t home. If he was, he’d either be in his shop downstairs or in his office, and it would take him a few minutes to answer.
I was about to reach out and tap the glyph once more to cut the connection, when the mirror cleared and revealed Eddie.
Swiping his long, dark blond hair out of his face, Eddie grinned at me. “Hey, bestie. What’s up?”
“Bestie?” I grinned back at him. “That’s a new one.”
Eddie’s odd amber eyes looked over my shoulder as he surveyed the room behind me. “Eh. I was hoping Mikhail was there. Seemed like the kind of thing that would annoy him.”
“Probably.” I snickered. “You busy? I got something to ask you, and it’d be better if I explained in person.”
He refocused on me with a curious look. “Just finished up a sale and don’t have anything else planned. Come on by.”
“Be there in ten minutes,” I said and tapped the glyph.
Eddie faded away, and the mirror returned to its normal state. After strapping my favorite short swords onto my back and loading up with a few other weapons, I scribbled a note to let Magos know where’d I’d gone and left it on the counter.
Eight minutes later, I parked my Yamaha on the street outside Eddie’s shop. Eddie had keyed the ward to me months ago, so I could pass through easily, and he’d left the door unlocked, as usual. I passed by the small kitchen and the living room, heading down the hallway. Ignoring the door on the left that led to his bedroom, I went through the doorway on the right into the office. That was where I always found Eddie.
I carefully stepped around the piles of books and papers stacked haphazardly on the floor. “Still trying to find something from your realm?” I paused by the desk and peered around him to see what he was studying. It looked like a ledger of some sort. I didn’t recognize the language and couldn’t read any of it.
Leaning back in his chair, Eddie rubbed his face. “Yeah. Pretty sure it’s another dead end.”
“Sorry,” I said quietly and tried very hard not to glance at the painting that hung behind his desk.
Of the woman with fiery red hair and bright emerald green eyes. Eddie had helped me when the warlocks had been in town trying to capture me. During that time, he’d learned about my ability to open gateways to any realm and had sworn a blood oath to never tell another soul in exchange for one thing—opening a gateway to his home realm so he could rescue his love. Under normal circumstances, I’d be able to open a gateway there even though I’d never been there before by using his connection to it.
But Eddie had been exiled, and whatever spell they had cast to exile him had cut off his connection to his home realm. Without some connection to it, I had no way to open a gateway there. Usually it wasn’t that hard to find something from a realm, but whatever realm Eddie was from was locked down tight and he was having a hard time finding something from there. Since he hadn’t told me anything about where he was from, I couldn’t help him in his search.
If he didn’t find something soon, I was pretty sure I was going to die of curiosity.
I had no idea what Eddie was. No one did. He’d shown up in town a few months before me and opened up a shop of rare books and artifacts. He’d built up enough of a reputation that Pele vouched for him as someone who could find your ingredients and other spell casting supplies on short notice, which is how we’d met and eventually become friends. But even after hanging out with Eddie these past few months, I still knew little about him. Emerald Bay was a small town, and I wasn’t the only one curious about him. New theories and rumors were swirling around constantly.
“Have you heard the latest rumor about yourself?”
Eddie cocked his head and looked at me with a crooked grin. “I think I’d make a fantastic half-daemon prince.”
“The daemons have no princes,” I said wryly.
“I know.” Eddie laughed. “I’m pretty sure it was a bunch of young daemons who started the rumor.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” I straightened a pile of papers on his desk that was close to joining another less fortunate stack on the floor. “So . . . not a half-daemon then?” I asked casually.
Eddie snorted.
“Oh, come on! Give me something,” I complained. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to hang out with you when you smell so freaky?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. “What do you mean?”
“You smell of fire and ash.”
“I burn a lot of incense in the shop. It clings to the skin,” he said smoothly.
“I don’t speak of your body. Your soul. Your soul burns.” I looked at him.
Eddie went still, and something swirled in his eyes for a moment and then was gone. “You can read souls?”
“Family gift from my mother’s side. I only got a drop of her power. She could tell everything about a person. What they were. If they were good or bad or somewhere in between. Their deepest and darkest secrets were always laid bare to her. It was one of the reasons we always lived far away from others. She didn’t like most people. Unlike her, I only get a taste.”
Eddie said nothing and remained utterly still. Most of the time, Eddie looked harmless. He liked to crack jokes. His hair was shaved on the sides, and he wore black jeans and punk band T-shirts. But sometimes I saw a glimpse of what was underneath. Whatever the hell Eddie was, he was a predator, and he packed some weird powerful magic. In all my years and all my travels, I had never come across anything like him. I looked at the woman in the painting. “Does her soul smell of fire and ash, too?”
“Yes,” he breathed and then stood up and left the office.
I watched him go and turned back to the painting, studying the woman’s features once more. “I’ll help him find you again,” I promised her and left the office.
Eddie was slumped at the kitchen table, a bottle of cheap whiskey in front of him. I thunked down in the chair beside him, turning so I could sit comfortably with the swords still on my back.
“Good,” I said and grabbed the bottle of whiskey. “We’re going to need this as I tell you about my upcoming adventure.”
The whiskey burned my throat as I slammed a shot back after filling in Eddie on what Pele had told me. His face had grown more serious the longer I spoke, and he was staring at the table. I poured two more generous shots and slid a glass to him. He grabbed it without looking and raised the glass to his lips, drinking it down in one swallow.
“I think it’s time I came clean with you about something.”
“That sounds ominous,” I replied.
“I never told you how I found you exactly.”
“You said you heard rumors about someone who was good at finding things in other realms who worked through a daemon contact.” Tension swept through me and bled into my tone. Eddie and I had become close friends these past few months, and I had trusted him with a lot, even though he had kept some secrets from me.
“I did, and that was true enough. You’ve built a solid reputation over the years as someone who is good at finding lost things. With Pele managing your gigs, no one was ever in a position to ask questions about how you accomplished what you did.”
I kept my mouth shut as my heartbeat sped up.
“I knew of you before I ever heard the rumors of the work you do through Pele.”
A muscle ticked in my cheek. “How?” The word was more a command than a question.
Eddie poured each of us another shot of whiskey. “When I was first exiled and thrown into the human realm, I traveled around trying to find a way back. At first, I hoped I could find a fae or daemon I could bribe to open a gateway for me. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, I looked for other options. My magic allows me to pull memory echoes from objects that have magic or have been used by strong magic users.”
“That explains why you run a shop full of rare artifacts and books,” I observed. “I’ve heard of others who can tell what type of magic something has by touch. I’ve never heard of someone being able to pull memories from an object, though.”
“It’s a common talent among my kind. Sometimes artifacts have enough magic themselves to store memories. Excalibur, for example, was wielded by humans who had little magic, but the sword itself had so much magic that I can see almost its entire history. Even during times when it wasn’t wielded by anyone.”
My eyes lit up. “Do you have Excalibur?”
“No, but I know who currently does.” He gave me a sly grin.
“Meh. That’s not as cool.”
“Whatever. During my time traveling around, I came across a dagger that contained some intense memories from the person who wielded it.”
“Who wielded it?”
“Did your mother ever speak of her sisters?” Eddie asked.
“They died before I was born.” I shook my head. “I was named after her older sister, Nemain. Her younger sister was Badb.”
Eddie nodded. “I know little about the sister from which you get your name. She died not long after they fled their home realm. But Badb isn’t dead, Nemain. She’s very much alive in the fae realms.”
“Not possible.” I said firmly and crossed my arms over my chest. “My parents would not have lied to me about this.”
“Sorry.” Eddie shrugged. “But they did. I swear to you that Badb is alive.”
I stared at the center of the table and processed this information. Once I got past the shock of Eddie’s declaration, denial immediately rose up. But as much as I wanted to believe Eddie was wrong, he never was when it came to stuff like this. Did my parents lie to me and Cian? Or did they not know my mother’s sister was still alive? Eddie was staring at me from across the table, patiently waiting for me to accept what he’d just told me.
