The tension returned to my body, and I gripped the steering wheel hard. “What exactly did you see me doing that was so terrible?”
“I saw you standing over a body, bathed in blood, and pulling out someone’s heart. A human heart. Not even a demon worthy of fighting.”
“That’s, that’s…” Entirely possible. “I’m sure I had a good reason.”
In the early days, when I’d first arrived in Victorian London, there were some bad men around. Men who killed prostitutes and poor children. I’d been there to clean them up.
But I could see how it looked bad. I had to wonder why he’d let me live at all. A rogue fae, covered in human blood.
“Until that point,” he added, “I was sure you were as noble and strong as your mother.”
I felt my heart squeeze. “Why were you so devoted to my mother? You’re a demigod—why defer to a fae queen?”
“Your mother killed someone I loathed.”
“Who?”
“Your father.” His blue eyes opened a crack, and he looked at me.
“Ah, yes. Lots of people hated him. That was her favorite bedtime story for me. It was how she put me to sleep every night. A lullaby, then the story about the time she murdered my dad.”
“I want to hear it.”
I sighed. I knew it by heart, so it wouldn’t even distract me from my death grip on the steering wheel. “On her wedding day, she dressed in beautiful gossamer, with a crown of pearls and cockleshells on her head. Just before the ceremony, my father showed up to find her.”
Sometimes, when I talked about the old days, my accent shifted back. I lost the American twang, started to sound a little Cornish again.
“She was madly in love with my father: Gradlon, the King of Ys,” I went on. “So she was happy to see him, even though it was bad luck before the wedding. She was pregnant with me, already showing. Except he wasn’t there for love. He’d already found a new lover—a younger and prettier one. A richer one. And he didn’t want a child anyway. What if I took his throne one day? What if I was a boy? So he put his hands around my mother’s throat, and he tried to take off her head with his bare hands.”
Silence filled the car for a moment.
“But my mother killed him instead. She cut his heart out with a dagger, and left it on the banquet table, where it dried out. She left his bones there, as well. She took his crown, his armies, and ruled Ys. She presided over the golden age of Ys—the best art, the most prosperity. And she never took off her wedding dress, stained with his blood. She raised me with one lesson burned into my mind. Don’t trust anyone—but especially don’t trust men. At the time, I thought she was mistaken. But when I got to London in the 1800s, I saw things that would make even your blood curdle.”
Lyr was listening attentively.
“And that’s how I knew my mother was right. There are wolves all around us. Wolves who’d kill you as soon as they got the chance.” And that’s why I’d be keeping the dagger as close to me as possible. Because sometimes, the wolves were very beautiful indeed. “And why did you hate my dad so deeply? Besides the fact that he was a psycho?”
But Lyr didn’t answer. Instead, he closed his eyes, seeming to retreat into himself. Pretending to sleep, perhaps.
I stared at the dark road ahead of me. The more we talked about the old days of Ys, the more I longed for my former powers. That long-buried hunger was stirring again, the lust for power.
Yesterday, I hadn’t known the Athame of Meriadoc existed. Now, I wanted nothing more than to possess it, to feel its power charging my body.
I passed about ten gas stations, a few factories, but I wasn’t going to find a human habitation as long as I stayed on the main road. So after a half hour of driving, I turned off the main road.
The buildings in this town all looked alike—square and concrete apartment buildings. Balconies jutted beneath small windows, and laundry hung from them in the open air.
I drove slowly along the road. Some of the windows had metal grates over them to keep out burglars. Humans cared about security, but they were often careless. If I was patient enough, I’d find someone who’d left a door or a window open.
I rolled along the street slowly, scanning the balcony doors for open just a crack.
A car pulled up behind me, honking frantically. Apparently I was driving too slowly.
I cursed under my breath and took a left, hoping that I’d suddenly turn onto a street with a dark, comfortable home and an open door.
Instead, I found the next best thing.
On the right side of the road, construction had stopped for the night on a tall apartment building. Now that was as perfect as we were going to get. No doors to stop us.
I rolled over the rubble outside, pulling up next to some rows of concrete blocks. There wasn’t much light here. In a ground-floor apartment across the street, a TV glowed blue through one of the windows, and a streetlight flickered above us.
A woman stood outside the apartment, smoking. But her eyes were on the ground, and she wasn’t paying any attention to us. She flicked her cigarette, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
I touched Lyr’s leg to wake him. It took a moment for his eyes to open, then he stared at my hand on his thigh.
I yanked it away. “Good. You’re still alive. I found us a spot to rest and heal.”
He frowned at the empty building. “It will suffice.”
“Great, because we don’t have tons of options.”
The car door creaked when I opened it, and I winced as the glass in my rear tore at my skin. I tugged up my damp dress as I stepped out of the car so I wouldn’t trip on it, ragged as it was. I looked over my shoulder at my backside, and I saw blood streaking down my thighs where the glass had ripped my skin, staining the blue fabric. The bloodstained gown reminded me of Mama.
I grimaced as I started hobbling into the building. How was I going to deal with the shattered-glass-in-my-bum situation? I could heal myself reasonably well, but not until I got the glass shards out.
When I glanced at Lyr, I saw that he was in much worse shape than I was, and the gash across his shoulder had split open a bit. The black bullet hole still marked the center of his chest, just over his heart. I felt an unwelcome sense of guilt for shooting him.
Before we crossed through the empty doorway, I glanced back across the street. The smoking woman still wasn’t paying us any attention. A bruise darkened the skin beneath her eye.
Wolves…
I turned away from her, crossing into the chilly building. I didn’t see a man around, but if I had to guess, someone she loved had hit her. Or someone she used to love.
In over a century, I’d met so many human women on the streets. So many like Gina, trapped in terrible lives. I tried to make my shop a refuge for them. Sometimes they moved on to another guy. Sometimes they stayed with me. But human lives didn’t last long.
I hugged myself as we crossed toward a stairwell in the darkened building. Never let your guard down, Aenor. Don’t believe the beautiful lies that spill from the lips of beautiful men.
Talking about Ys had stirred up memories of my mother. It was like she’d come alive again, and she was whispering in my mind.
We climbed a few floors of the concrete building. Lyr was practically dragging himself up the stairs, trailing blood at an alarming rate, but he didn’t complain.