Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(115)

“His majesty said you’re not to talk to her. Not tonight,”

she said.

The figure stood very stil for a moment; then the front of the cloak split open and a hand emerged. It was a smal hand, somewhere between the size of a child’s hand and a teenager’s, and the soul beneath shimmered with just a hint teenager’s, and the soul beneath shimmered with just a hint of yel ow. Human. He reached out as if he would touch me, and the harpies swooped between us, their wings spread as they squawked.

I stumbled back, away from the flutter of massive wings, and Falin was just as suddenly in front of me, passing PC

to me as he drew his blades. And then, as fast as the squabble had started, it was over. The harpies folded their wings, stepping back, and the cloaked figure was gone, presumably back whence he had come.

Why doesn’t Nandin want his people talking to me? Or perhaps it was the planebender in particular.

I didn’t have a chance to ask. Not that the harpies were likely to tel me even if I did. The hawk-feathered harpy used the claw at the joint of her wing to pul a circular handle, and the wooden door swung open.

The suite they showed me into included three rooms, two of which were each as large as my entire apartment and more opulent than my father’s mansion. The hawk-feathered harpy walked Falin and me through the whole suite while the raven-feathered one waited at the door.

Once we’d seen the entire suite she turned back to me.

“Do you need anything?” she asked and then eyed my completely inappropriate bal gown. “Clothing? Food?”

“I’m good,” I said, and then glanced at Falin. He shook his head, which was fine with me. I’d rather not accept any gifts from the fae, and my goal was not to eat while in Faerie—which meant I hoped I found Hol y and the accomplice soon.

The harpies nodded and then left without a word. It wasn’t until the door shut and I heard it latch that I realized there was no doorknob on the inside. Falin and I were locked in the suite, the rooms our cage. While it might have been the nicest prison I’d ever seen, a gilded cage is stil a cage.





Chapter 33


PC had thoroughly investigated the suite to his own satisfaction and curled up in the very center of a bed that looked big enough to sleep ten, but I was stil pacing. I’d told Falin the basics of what I’d learned since he left me at his apartment. I didn’t tel him everything—the shadows in the room whispered, and I was afraid they listened too—but I told him about Hol y and the gist of what the accomplice was attempting. Then it was my turn to demand some answers. “So why are you here? In Faerie, I mean. I was more than a little shocked to see you at the winter court.”

“If you stop pacing, I’l tel you.” He patted a spot on the bed beside where he sat on the edge.

I didn’t join him. If I crawled onto that bed I’d end up asleep. Hel , I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t fal fast asleep stil standing, but I wanted to talk before I surrendered to sleep. I did stop pacing, though, forcing myself to be stil .

“I might have shocked you, but you scared the hel out of me.” He stood and walked across the room to join me, since I wouldn’t go to him. “I returned to my apartment and, wel , I imagine you know exactly what I found.”

The aftermath of the gryphon attack.

“The police and the FIB were already there. At first I thought they’d already grabbed you and shuttled you away to Faerie. When I learned they hadn’t, I went out searching for you. I spent most of the night searching any spot I could think of that you might go. Where were you, by the way?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I replied, which was probably true, but again, with the shadows whispering in the corners, I didn’t want to reveal too many secrets, even in the corners, I didn’t want to reveal too many secrets, even if these secrets belonged to my father.

“Wel , sometime after midnight I returned to your apartment and these wooden blocks flung themselves at me. Then a pen lifted itself and started scratching out letters.”

“Roy.” He’d actual y managed to find Falin and get a message to him. Of course, it sounded like it was the wrong message. “So if Roy told you I’d been nabbed by the skimmers, how did you end up in Faerie?”

“It took him thirty minutes to write ‘ Alex kidnap,’ and once he got that far, I just assumed . . . Incorrectly, apparently.”

Falin looked away.

“It worked out,” I said, and shrugged, but the movement went off course somehow and ended up a slight sway.

“Come on, let’s get some sleep,” Falin said, his arms moving to mine to steady me. “You can’t save the world if you fal over from exhaustion.”

I let him lead me toward the bed, but as we walked I muttered, “I’m not trying to save the world. I’m just helping my friends and—” I cut off as we passed a large ebony desk. In the center of the desk sat a five-inch dagger with an ornate hilt. A dagger that looked suspiciously like my dagger, which I’d last seen when Caleb had dropped it in the hal way of the winter court. I shrugged off Falin’s hands and moved to the desk, the sight of the dagger pushing back my exhaustion, at least a little. “How did this get here?”

The dagger buzzed lightly as I picked it up. It was definitely my dagger.

“Any number of ways,” Falin said, looking at the blade from over my shoulder. “It’s enchanted. This is Faerie and things move unexpectedly. The dagger likes you. Maybe a combination of al that. Maybe something else entirely.”