Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(10)

I’d merged planes of reality before, but last time—wel , actual y, the only other time—I had been in a private residence. A private residence that happened to belong to the governor of Nekros. He was a big mover and shaker in the Humans First Party, an anti-fae/anti-witch political group. The governor also happened to be my father, and ironical y, fae, but neither of those facts was common knowledge. He must have paid a considerable amount to keep the events surrounding the Blood Moon quiet, and neither my very short arrest nor the fact that an entire suite of rooms in his home now touched multiple realties had shown up in the papers.

I didn’t personal y have the required money or influence to hide a patch of merged reality in the center of the Quarter.

Especial y not with a street ful of witnesses, the media already arriving with cameras out and recording, and a whole slew of legal alphabet soup on the scene. So I did the only thing I could: I avoided questions about the tear.

Or at least I tried.

“Miss Craft, why am I not surprised to see you here?” a sharp female voice asked.

I cringed, and then tried to hide the reaction as I turned.

“Agent Nori,” I said to the FIB agent I’d had the displeasure of meeting the day before. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Doubtful, but I need your statement. Tel me what happened here.”

“My friends and I were finishing dessert and talking about our day. Everything seemed normal enough. Then I noticed the fae who threatened me at the swamp. He was watching me. I pointed him out just before we heard the screaming.

We al looked in the direction of the sound, and that was when we saw the beast. It came from somewhere up the when we saw the beast. It came from somewhere up the street.” I pointed to where the cars were being cleared from the road. “I lost sight of the fae in the panic that ensued.

Several witches tried to conjure against the beast. My friend Hol y threw a firebal at it, and the beast charged her.

When I disbelieved in the construct, it vanished.”

“It takes a hel of a lot of conviction to destroy a ful y autonomous glamour.” She frowned at me, her dark eyes searching my face. When I didn’t say anything, she continued, “So, what can you tel me about that?” She pointed at the hole in reality.

I forced a casual shrug. “Maybe something to do with the beast?” It wasn’t a lie. It was a question.

Agent Nori’s frown etched deeper, the movement tugging on her high cheeks. “Do you make a habit of disbelieving glamour, Miss Craft?”

I’d have liked to say no, but there was photographic proof from a month ago that showed me walking through furniture and candles at a crime scene. In my defense, I hadn’t been able to see those glamoured objects, not even as hazy outlines like I’d seen with the beast. “I don’t go out of my way to do it, if that’s what you mean.”

“And do tears into the Aetheric appear anywhere you disbelieve glamour?”

“No.” At least I could answer that one definitively.

Agent Nori stared at me a long moment, as if trying to decide if I was lying. Or maybe she was trying to determine if I was capable of lying. Fae couldn’t—though they could bend the truth until you’d swear up was down. At the floodplain, Nori had hinted that she knew I had fae blood.

Now she appeared to be weighing how much sway it held over my words.

She must have reached some conclusion because after a moment she said, “The ABMU has a charmed disk in evidence. It looks like witch magic. You are aware that fae rarely use complex charms?”

I nodded. By “rarely use” she actual y meant that most I nodded. By “rarely use” she actual y meant that most couldn’t use witch charms. The Aetheric resisted something about the fae nature. When I used my second sight, I could see the magic bend away from their very souls.

“Knowing that,” she said, “you stil insist that the attack was committed by a glamour?”

I faltered. I’d disbelieved the creature, not dispel ed it.

That fact indicated that its form was held together by glamour. But, it was undoubtedly a magic construct. When I didn’t say anything, her gaze moved past me.

“I’m sure I’l see you around, Miss Craft.” She walked away, and I let out a relieved breath.

Relief felt premature as a pair of heels clicked a fastapproaching tempo on the sidewalk behind me.

“Alex Craft, a moment of your time,” said a perky, and far too familiar, voice.

I didn’t turn. Not immediately at least. I recognized the voice: Lusa Duncan, the star reporter of Nekros’s most popular news program, Witch Watch. And if I knew Lusa, there was a camera pointed at me right now. Taking a deep breath, I pasted on my professional smile and prepared myself to face the press.

She pushed her mic at me as soon as I turned. “Word in the Quarter is that the police have cal ed you in to consult on the Sionan floodplain foot murders and that the FIB is now involved. What can you tel us?”

Is that seriously what the news guys are calling the case? Not that it mattered—my answer was the same.

“No comment,” I said. I gave a quick nod to her cameraman, whose name I stil didn’t know, though I’d seen his face often enough over the last few months that I probably should have known his name as wel . Then I tried to duck around Lusa.