“Where you’ll be shot dead before you leave the dock.” He closed the bag and hid it beneath the counter again. “You’ve been alone a long time, Kesh Lasota. You don’t need to be alone any longer. Tell me what you’re running from. Let me help you.”
What was I running from? Another life, another girl, just like me. She lived in my memories and in Sota’s databanks. She was a slave, a killer, a hero to a people that weren’t hers. She was everything Kesh Lasota was not.
I swallowed and touched the ghost of an old scar on my neck, long ago surgically removed. “The fae aren’t gone.” Just saying the words felt like laying land mines. Like any second, the truth would explode, killing me, the past, and the marshal too.
The marshal was no longer laughing. The beast behind his glare stirred, lifting the fine hairs on the back of my neck. A flicker of fear darted through my chest, tightening old instincts. My whip was close, but so was Kellee.
“I know,” he said, grinding out the words. “That’s why I’m helping you.”
Chapter 9
I told Kellee about the message, about Sota’s eighteen seconds, about the fae I’d failed to chase down. He listened without interrupting. I told him about Larson, about Arcon, and about Merry. The more I told him, the more I wanted to spill all my secrets to this man I hardly knew. But some secrets were too dangerous to spill.
When I was done, hours had passed and my voice had grown hoarse. Marshal Kellee now knew everything there was to know about the messenger, Kesh Lasota.
He poured two drinks and set them down on the table between us. The apartment lights were still dimmed, and from outside, the occasional flare of light would wash across us both, highlighting Kellee’s thoughtful expression.
I picked up my glass, folded my legs under me on the couch opposite the marshal’s and waited for him to say something. I didn’t even care about the silence. I liked it, in fact. Air filters hummed. There was no clanging or groaning from stacked containers. No shouts from too-close neighbors. For the first time in a long time, I almost felt safe. Almost. But a very real and obvious threat existed here. The marshal. I’d told him what he’d wanted to know. Now all I had to do was wait and see what he did with that information, what he did with me.
He leaned forward and picked up his drink, but he saw me watching and lowered the glass. “Crater met with a marshal from my station. A day later, Crater’s dead.” Now he took a drink, downing the contents in one. “The marshal he met with is missing.”
“You think Crater implicated Arcon in something?”
He swallowed. “There have been other… events during the past year. Marshals quitting for no reason. Some out of character incidents… I don’t know who to trust.”
I knew exactly how he felt. “But what made you think any of this was fae related?”
“You mean besides the rifle, which is clearly modified for fae use?” He leaned back and stared into the middle distance, perhaps seeing the past in the room with us. “I told you I wasn’t always a marshal. I did some mercenary work. And before that…” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Let’s just say you and I have more in common than you would believe.”
I doubted that. If he knew who/what I was, he’d probably kill me without blinking—or try to.
“There’s someone who can help us. I think… Well, he’s…” Kellee winced. Something in those memories was obviously unpleasant. “He’s a fae expert. If we tell him what we know, he’ll tell us whether it’s possible. Might even help us…”
“Help us do what exactly?”
“Stop them.”
“I… I just want Sota back.” I took a drink to moisten my suddenly dry mouth. Stop the fae? No. One messenger and a marshal wouldn’t be enough to stop them—if they planned on returning.
“I figured you were many things, but not a coward.” He smiled, testing me.
If he meant his accusation to hurt, he had me all wrong. “I’m just a messenger. What can I do? If you want to get yourself killed, go right ahead.”
“Just a messenger?” He stood, set his drink down and retrieved his coat. “Right. Of course you are. A messenger who escaped a warfae and carries a magic-enhanced whip. That’s not all you are, is it…?” He collected my coat and stood over me, holding the coat out. “But sure, I’ll play along with your little fantasy—for now.”
Fantasy? I snatched my coat and tugged it on. “Where are we going?”
“To get answers.”
A black rock loomed in the shuttle window, growing larger by the second, until it swamped the screen, blotting out everything else. Up close, it glittered with antennae and surveillance masts. We approached a beam jutting from the surface—the dock.
“What is that place?” I asked.
Kellee adjusted the shuttle, keeping us level with a line of green indicator buoys.
“A prison.”
The rock had to be at least fifty miles across and just as deep. Kellee had told me this place didn’t appear on any official chart. Looking at the barren, isolated rock, I asked myself what crimes someone would have to commit to be sent here. “How many people do they keep in there?”
“One.”
One?! “All that prison for one prisoner?”
“Yeah…” Kellee adjusted the shuttle’s flight, bringing us closer to the dock’s mouth.
“And this one prisoner is your source?” I tried and failed to keep the alarm out of my voice.
“I didn’t say it would be easy to get answers.”
Once we had docked, Kellee flashed his badge and guards waved us into the narrow rock-lined tunnels. The marshal asked that we not walk through the scanners, and reluctantly, after a few v-coins changed hands, he got his wish. He chatted with them, all small talk and easy smiles. Everyone recognized Marshal Kellee.
Finally, after our confusing parade of small talk between chamber after chamber, we were escorted into an enormous space. The heavy door clanged shut, sealing us inside a chamber so big the glow from the lights didn’t touch the walls. Every boot scuff or rustle of clothing was eaten by the emptiness.
At the cavern’s center, lit from all corners by powerful floodlights, stood a container-sized, metal-lined glass cage. And inside, head bowed, long, fine silvery hair spilling over one shoulder, stood a male fae. I froze, boots glued to the floor. A thousand memories came crashing in. He looked exactly the way I remembered the fae to be. He even wore the tan leather garments of most scouts, cladding his body from neck to toe. They didn’t wear armor, relying instead on speed and agility to outmaneuver their enemies. It made them vulnerable up close—but only if you survived getting within melee range. But this one didn’t look vulnerable.
Kellee approached the glass and metal-framed wall.
It’s not enough. The cage, this prison… not enough.
The security, the isolation, the whole damn rock—it wasn’t enough to hold him. And yet there he was. Trapped.
Slowly, he lifted his head. Violet eyes shone from behind his silvery bangs. “Hello, Marshal.”
The voice was everything I loathed. Honey and silk, a sweetness so seductive it hurt to hear it. Instincts clawed at me to run. To run and keep on running to the far corners of the three systems. But another part of me, a stronger, defiant part, wanted to move closer, to hear that voice again, to let his luscious tone wash over me, through me. I measured my breathing—slowly in, slowly out—and calmed my thoughts. This was his prison. Not mine.
“Talen,” Kellee greeted. He stopped a foot from the glass and tucked both hands casually into his pockets, his demeanor that of someone who had dropped by to visit an old friend.
“It has been a long time since your last visit,” Talen commented, hiding an accusation beneath those words.
“Has it? I hadn’t noticed.”
The fae’s right eyebrow twitched. The movement was tiny. Most would have missed it completely. But I knew what I was looking for. The marshal’s words had hurt him. This fae cared.
Talen leaned outward and peered around the marshal’s shoulder. His intense gaze pierced the shadows, spearing into me. “You have brought me a guest.”