She unlocked the door. The room on the other side was . . . startling. The walls were gray stone, unornamented save by racks of metal shelving that I instinctively shied away from, even though they gave no sign of being iron. Some sort of rough gray-brown carpet was used to blunt the floor, which was made of the smoothest stone I had ever seen. I blinked down at it, almost more amazed by the fact that she’d been able to find a granite slab this size than by the unexamined wonders packed onto the shelves.
Boxes, bins, and crates of things I didn’t recognize stood everywhere. Many of the boxes were made of some sort of stiff white paper with strange words scrawled on the side in thick black ink.
“They really have kept you sheltered, haven’t they?” asked Li Qin, not unkindly. I still flinched, having almost forgotten that she was there.
I turned in her direction, aware that my eyes were bulging in my face but not quite able to make myself stop staring. “What do you mean?”
“A changeling your age should recognize most of the things in this room. Hell, a pureblood your age should recognize them. These are common things. Everyday things. The sort of things children are exposed to. They’re not doing you any favors by making it impossible for you to blend in with the world outside that tower.”
“I don’t think it’s your job to judge how much I’ve experienced,” I said stiffly. “You wanted me for something.”
“That’s true, I did,” said Li Qin. “Follow me.”
She led me deeper into the room, and the door swung shut behind us. Nothing in there was familiar except for her, a Duchess walking with all the calm, arrogant assurance of her kind, and so I kept my eyes on her, seeking comfort in what I knew.
“Another of my finders is a Gean-Cannah changeling who prefers to keep the two halves of their life entirely distinct.”
“I didn’t realize Gean-Cannah could make changelings,” I blurted.
Li Qin glanced back at me, sympathy in her expression. Sympathy for who? “They’re not supposed to,” she said. “They’re technically shapeshifters, but as they always look close enough to Daoine Sidhe to pass if they want to, Fair Titania spared them when she purged the rest. The fully fae among them can transform their bodies at will. The changelings have two entirely distinct entities sharing their bodies, and transform at sunrise and sunset whether they wish it or not. They can share information between their halves, but they don’t have to. Terrie and Alexander have chosen to live as individuals who happen to share an apartment and never see one another. Terrie works the night shift at a local computer company, with my consent, and tithes her wages to the Duchy; we do keep the major customs here. Alex prefers to roam a bit, and spends his days hunting for bargains and scrap sales. Human companies form, get a budget, spend it on whatever strikes their fancy, and collapse, leaving people like us to pick through the remains. Other companies frequently don’t want what’s left behind. Some say it’s because it’s been used, and they demand the best. Others seem to worry that things which belonged to a company that failed to thrive might be cursed, might carry that company’s bad luck with them when they find a new home.”
“Do you not worry about curses?”
Li Qin shrugged. “I weave luck. If any of these things were actually cursed, I’d feel it, and could pick it apart before it had a chance to impact us. These things are just that: things. Interesting things, often, things I’m glad to purchase once Alex sniffs them out for me, but things all the same.”
“What does this have to do with my being here?”
“Alex’s latest find was a storage unit in Fremont that was flagged for sale after its owners stopped paying the upkeep,” she said easily. “I acquired the lot, and expected nothing but a few interesting novelties. What I found, though . . . what I found was a mystery.”
We had reached the back of the room. Li Qin motioned me to wait as she opened another door, revealing a smaller, less cluttered room. This one was very cold, frigid air pumping from boxes in all four corners, and there were no shelves. Instead, a black rectangle about two feet tall and almost cubical sat in the middle of the floor. Thick cords snaked out of what I presumed was the back, connecting to small white panels at the base of the two farthest walls. The side toward us was brushed gray metal, ridged with long, thin openings and topped with a circular black button whose outline was glowing faintly red.
“Behold the mystery,” said Li Qin.
I frowned at the box. “What’s so mysterious about it?” Besides literally everything about it, I added, silently.
“I’ve heard the Dóchas Sidhe are supposed to be blood-workers to rival the Daoine,” she said. “You tell me.”
Her tone made me bristle, feeling belittled even though she hadn’t said a single untrue thing. I shrugged, fighting the urge to glare. “Maybe so, but I’ve never been trained in blood magic. I don’t know the first thing about blood magic.”
“Ah.” If Li Qin was disappointed, she didn’t show it. Instead, shrugging, she began to circle the box. “Close your eyes and reach for the presence of magic. You know it’s here. You can find it.”
“We’re inside your knowe,” I protested. “All I’m going to find is a headache.”
“They really didn’t . . . All right. Humor me.” Li Qin stopped circling to look at me. “Try closing your eyes and searching for magic. If you don’t find it, or you find a headache, we’ll stop. I’ll buy you dinner at someplace nice out in the human world, so you can feel like you’ve really had an adventure, and then we’ll call Sir Etienne to come and take you home. But if you do find it, the mystery will start to make sense to you. Go ahead. Give it a try.”
Great. The Duchess of Dreamer’s Glass was a major weirdo, and I was stuck with her until I tried her ridiculous party trick. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on “reaching for the presence of magic,” whatever that meant. I smelled the cider and smoke of Father’s spell, which soothed my nerves. On top of that was the cedar smoke and lime scent of Etienne’s magic, and—
And I paused. How could I tell them apart? No one had ever told me that Etienne’s magic was cedar smoke, but there was no question now that I was really thinking about it. His magic was cedar and lime, and Father’s was waxed whitebeam smoke and mulled cider, with all the complexity that implied. What the hell was a whitebeam? I didn’t think I’d ever even heard the word before, and the shock of it was almost enough to make me open my eyes before I caught myself and kept reaching. I still wasn’t sure how that was supposed to work. Apparently, “reaching for magic” was a fancy name for sniffing the air.
My own magic was layered under both of theirs, cut grass and copper. I could smell black tea and white hydrangea lingering nearby, vital and fresh enough that I assumed it had to be coming from Li Qin. The constant flow of fresh cold air was pushing all the scents down, muddling them. But under Li Qin’s magic, faint and almost static, like it was frozen in time, was something else. Something sweet and sharp at the same time, the scent of the moment before lightning struck during a storm. I turned my face toward the scent and opened my eyes.
I was looking directly at the black box.