Wild Knight (Midnight Empire: The Tower #1)(54)

Neera relaxed. “I think they’re gone.”

“But where?” Kami asked. “We can’t let those things roam freely around the city. They’re too dangerous.”

Neera looked longingly in the direction of the club. “We need to regroup. There’s no point in chasing them down without a plan.”

Kami eyed me. “You don’t always have a plan. What do you want to do?”

“I agree with Neera.”

Neera flashed a triumphant smile. It wasn’t every day I chose a side that wasn’t Kami’s, but in this case, I couldn’t throw caution to the wind or the wind would kill me.

Kami’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I guess this means no club.”

“Afraid so. I’ll tell you what, though, we can go to a pub where it’s quiet enough to talk and have a drink.”

Her blue eyes glowed with hope. “Really?”

“You’re still paying,” I said.

“Done.”

“Beefeaters is the next block over,” Neera said. “I know the bartender.”

“Sold.” I started forward, eager to put Holborn behind us. I’d had my fill of surprises this week.

Once we were settled in a booth with a pitcher of ale, I told them what I knew.

“Korriganes?” Neera asked. “How?”

Kami glanced between us. “What are they? Never heard of them.”

“They’re fairies,” I told her.

Kami snorted. “There’s no such thing.”

I shrugged. “I thought they were only stories, too, yet here they are.”

“Why wouldn’t they have come out after the Great Eruption?” Neera asked. “There’s been no record of them in recent history. Why now and not a hundred years ago?”

I tapped my fingers on the edge of the glass. What else did we know about them? Nine Celtic fairies. Shape changers. Deadly breath.

“Are they inherently evil?” Kami asked.

“Is anything inherently evil?” The question rolled straight off my tongue.

“Vampires,” Kami shot back.

A month ago I would’ve agreed with her. Now I wasn’t so sure.

I tried to remember what else my mother taught me about these particular fairies. “They’re also healers. They can cure disease or repair wounds.”

Kami dumped half my glass into her empty one. “They weren’t going to be healing any of us, I can tell you that much.”

“They seemed ravenous,” Neera added.

She was right. They reminded me of the animals when I extracted them from the holiday home.

An idea spawned. “What if they were ravenous?” The pieces fit. If the Korriganes were stuck elsewhere and unable to get here until recently, unlike other creatures that manifested during the Great Eruption, it made sense that they’d arrive out of control. If you’re starving and intent on survival, you’re not going to function on a higher level, the kind that involves healing and nurturing. You’re going to give in to your baser instincts.

Neera seemed to follow my train of thought. “Where have they been all this time?”

I was still stuck on why now after all this time? If a portal opened, where was it and how did it open?

Neera beat me to the idea. “Could be a summoner. Some ambitious witch bit off more than she could chew.”

“You think those were hitchhikers?” Kami asked. She didn’t seem convinced. Not that I blamed her. I’d heard of a single creature piggybacking through a portal, but nine seemed a bit much.

“Maybe someone summoned them specifically,” Neera offered.

“Why? What purpose do they serve?” Kami drained her glass and proceeded to pour the remaining ale from my glass into hers.

“You know how magic users can be,” Neera said. “They only want to see whether they can. They don’t stop to think whether they should.”

“It would take more than one magic user to summon the Korriganes,” I pointed out. “A whole coven, maybe.” And only if that coven was extremely powerful and filled with summoners. Summoning was one of the rarest magical skills, which was one reason I kept my abilities quiet.

“But how would they have gotten the spirits here?” Neera asked. “They can’t conjure the Korriganes out of thin air.” She swiveled to face me. “Can they?”

I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t entirely sure. “I’ll have to look into it.”

Kami groaned. “What are we supposed to do next? Interview every coven in the city?”

That plan wasn’t feasible. It also omitted too many other magic users from the sample. It didn’t have to be a coven; it was just the most likely. All in all it seemed like a waste of resources. On the other hand, I didn’t have a better idea.

“What else is there to know about them?” Kami asked. “They change shape, but they’re not shifters in the same way as a werewolf.”

“That’s because they’re spirits of the wind,” I explained. “They use the air around them to change forms. Different magic.”

“Then could they have been brought here by elemental magic?” Kami asked. “There are a lot more covens that specialize in air magic than summoning.”