“It? I’m talking about a young woman, uncommonly beautiful. She was watching the house for me, but she’s vanished.”
“There was a fae, though it took animal form most of the time. It attacked me.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” he protested, but then he stopped. Would she? Or was she trying to eliminate the threat before I came and exposed myself? “We thought you were an assassin, but I only instructed her to watch unless you acted. Did you take her prisoner?”
Darla snorted. “I don’t take prisoners. I did what was necessary.”
His mouth went dry. “You killed her?”
“Killing one of the fae is easier said than done. I disabled her and left her in the alley. When I checked again later, she was gone. Most likely she recovered and returned to her proper place.”
“She didn’t,” he told her firmly. “Her family is now looking for her.”
“The fae don’t concern themselves with kin.”
It was Will’s turn to struggle with his irritation. “This one does. She’s my aunt. If I can’t find her, bad things will happen.”
“The accord protects us, wizardling. Don’t they teach you the basics in that fancy school of yours?”
Already irritated, Darla’s condescension was too much for him to accept. “Unlike some, I know that the accord isn’t eternal. History moves, and the possibility of the accord coming to an end is a very real possibility. I’ve been dealing with the fae for years now. If I tell you bad things will happen, you would be wise to reconsider what you think you know.”
“I have shown you patience only because you spared my life yesterday, but my life does not belong to me, so do not expect gratitude. Stay away from the house or I’ll show you the difference between thinking and doing.” She turned, raised the hood of her cloak, and faded into a blur.
Will watched her go, and after a second he saw a second change: Darla’s turyn shifted in a subtle way, and he felt a faint strain as he concentrated on keeping his eyes on her movement. What is that? he wondered. It wasn’t a spell, and though the cloak was obviously enchanted, the magic it produced seemed limited to the chameleon effect. Is she using wild magic of some kind?
His thoughts distracted him enough that he lost sight of the Arkeshi, and only by concentrating and paying close attention to her heart-light was he able to spot her again. Whatever it is, it makes it hard to look at her, he realized, and greatly enhances the effect of the cloak in the process.
“Is she really gone?” asked Tiny uncertainly.
Will nodded. “She’s across the street, standing to the right of the front gate to the house.”
“You can see her?”
“It isn’t easy,” admitted Will. “I have to focus on the light produced by her body’s heat, but even that is tricky since she’s also doing something that makes it hard to look at her.”
“I have no idea what you just said,” admitted Tiny. “What do we do now?”
“It won’t help anything if we start a brawl with Laina’s bodyguard. We’ll set up over here,” said Will. He glanced behind himself. They were standing near the front gate of another lord’s home, though he hadn’t looked into which nobleman owned the house. There was only one light visible through the windows, the same as it had been the previous night. Will reasoned that whoever owned the estate probably wasn’t in residence at the moment. Most nobles maintained country estates where their lands were and city houses in the capital for when they needed to come to court. In all likelihood the owner was currently at his other home. There would still be a small staff, though, or at the bare minimum a lone caretaker if the lord planned to be absent for an extended period of time.
Will stared upward, then leaned in to whisper in Tiny’s ear, “The last time I saw one, it came from the roof of this building. If they do show up tonight, they’ll most probably come jumping down from this place or one of the other nearby houses. I want you to put your back against the wall and do your best to pretend you don’t exist. The less you move, the harder it is to spot you.”
“I’m supposed to be the bait,” pointed out Tiny.
Will nodded. “Yeah, but if we make it obvious it won’t work. From what I’ve learned they have a keen sense of smell and they may have other senses we don’t know about. They may spot both of us, so I’ll stay close, just a little better hidden over here to your left.” Will moved over to the gate and stepped back into the alcove where entrance was slightly recessed. One thing he had learned from hiding and shifting his senses through different forms of light was that—physical cover trumped everything else. Even if the vampires could somehow see through their camouflage, it was highly unlikely that they could see through the bricks that hid him from view on three sides.
Tiny leaned back against the wall and did his best to relax, while Will tried to do the same. There were challenges that went along with keeping a nighttime vigil, chief among them being the cold. Although it was spring, the night air was still chilly, and since they weren’t moving, it gradually settled into their bones, bringing with it a dull ache.
Will adjusted his vision until the dim light was enough to reveal the street almost as though it was daytime. He already knew the vampires didn’t give off heart-light, so the only reason to keep that would be to watch Darla. He let it go. It wasn’t practical to keep his vision sensitive to too many different types of light, for it tended to muddle his vision and make it difficult to see clearly. In his present situation, the gas streetlights threw off a vicious glare if he tried to use heart-light, so it really wasn’t worth the annoyance.
He had two spells prepared, a force-lance and a wind-wall, and he kept a third spell, another force-lance, ready in his hand. He had adjusted the parameters of the wind-wall to cover a slightly different area than usual, and he also made the effort to keep his level of turyn uncomfortably high. Normally he didn’t do that, but if he decided to use the prepared wind-wall he wanted it to be fully charged.
Waiting was cold and boring. As the hours wore on, Will fought to stay alert. He had thought the cold would help, but as the monotony wore on, even the dull ache seemed to fade out and he caught himself nodding once or twice. Glancing over, he could see Tiny was also suffering, but the big man’s eyes were always open when he checked on him. What if nothing happens? Tiny might spend the worst two weeks of his life guesting at Will’s home.
Then again, the alternative might be worse.
Chapter 16
When it happened, it was much like he had anticipated, and yet it still caught them off-guard. Hours of cold and boredom had dulled Will’s reactions. He heard the creature move, for he had his hearing tuned to be as sensitive as possible, but having sharp ears was no cure for monotony. It might have even made it worse. Being able to hear every tiny scrape and bang, every leaf blowing across the road, had dulled his attention.