By Fairy Means or Foul: A Starfig Investigations Novel(24)

“So, tell me about your tattoos. I hear humans like to mark up their skin.”

He jerked liked I slapped him. Apparently he wasn’t the only one asking awkward questions.

“Why do you want to know?” He clamped his teeth on a piece of the jerky and proceeded to shred it like an angry ghoul. I appreciated a creature who used food to convey emotion.

“Dunno. Just curious, I guess. It’s not something fairies are able to do.” I shrugged, but we both knew it was a deliberately casual gesture. He’d really piqued my interest. What was the big deal about a tattoo, anyway? Just ink on skin, right?

He continued chewing, giving me the definite stink eye. After he swallowed and washed the jerky down with a slug of water from the skin, he tilted his head in a gesture I was coming to realize meant he was using that brain of his to come up with something to distract or mollify me.

“Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll tell you all about the tattoos if you tell me why you don’t want to talk about your wings.”

I crunched down on the jerky, chomping as vigorously as he had a moment ago. Nosy human. We continued eating in silence.

When we finished, I packed up the water skin, then sighed. “I don’t like to talk about it because I can’t fly.”

“I don’t understand. You have wings, don’t you?”

“Yes.” I wanted to leave it at that, but I could see Quinn wasn’t going to let it rest. I spun around, hiked up my tunic and concentrated. A moment later, gossamer wings not much bigger than my hands sprang up.

He sucked in a harsh breath.

“Oh. Yes, I see.”

Was that mirth I heard in his tone? A low rumble escaped my chest.

“No, no, I’m not laughing at you,” he said in a soothing voice. “I’m just surprised. I never would have expected . . . I mean, they’re lovely . . . I mean—”

“I get it. It’s funny. Big, dumb half-fairy with tiny, useless wings.”

“You’re hardly stupid.” He paused. “We all have things we’d change if we could.”

“How so?” My wings vanished and I lowered my shirt.

Quinn tugged at his collar and slowly drew it away from his skin so I could see his tattoo better.

I exhaled harshly, the air squeezed from my lungs. “Son of a banshee, you’re a witch.”





8





“I’m not a witch,” Quinn snarled. “For one thing, witches are women. Last time I checked, I had a dick.”

“But your markings . . .”

“Wizard.” He sighed like I was the biggest idiot, and at that moment I had to agree with him.

“A wizard?” Wait a second. Human males were distinctly non-magical creatures. “There hasn’t been a wizard in—”

“—A thousand years. Believe me, I know.”

“Y-you’re a wizard?” I couldn’t believe it. A real, live wizard.

“Stop looking at me like that. I’m not a wizard. A thousand years?” He cleared his throat, his chin jutting. “Talk about a cliché. I should have realized then it couldn’t be true.”

“But your markings say—”

“Look closely. The tattoo isn’t complete.”

I took him at his word and scooted closer until he was within easy reach. I tilted his chin, ignoring the way my fingers tingled at the touch, and peered at the markings. “You don’t have a familiar.”

“That’s right.” He closed his eyes, his expression pinched.

“So you are a wizard, then.” My voice came out a little awed, but wow. A wizard. “You just need a cat or something to access your powers.”

“No.”

“No?”

He slid away from my touch and for some reason my dragon didn’t like that one bit.

“You misunderstand. I don’t have a familiar. Not just at this moment, but ever. As in, I’ll never bond with a familiar. When I did my final trial, I didn’t match with any of the familiar types.”

“You’ve lost me.”

He sighed, his movements jerky and harsh before he stuffed his hands into his armpits in an attempt to stay still. “There are five familiar types: cat, dog, raccoon, ferret, and rabbit. I didn’t match with any of them.”

I chuckled. “Rabbits, really? Witches—I mean, wizards—use rabbits to channel their powers? They just seem so . . . fluffy and cute. Harmless.”

He leaned in, his chin tipped at that defiant angle I was coming to appreciate.

“Thanks for laughing at my life. Glad it’s a source of amusement for you.” He poked me in the chest. “And for your information, rabbits are by far the most powerful of the familiars. If you see a witch with a rabbit familiar, you can kiss your ass goodbye.”

While I wanted to take a moment to process the idea of a cute, fluffy little critter kicking some serious magical ass, I forced myself to focus on the rest of Quinn’s words. “So you don’t match with any of them?”

“Ding, ding, ding. Give the guy a prize.”

“You don’t need to be so pissy,” I grumbled.

“Pissy? You think I’m being pissy?” Quinn’s voice dropped to a register I’d never heard before. “You think I have no reason to be upset? You’re right, dragon. My gosh, it was so great being identified at four years old, being ripped away from my family, going through years of arduous training, not growing up like other kids, only to get to the last trial and fail miserably—”