All That Glows

Twenty-Four

In the darkness, the city takes on a different personality. Lovers who strolled in the sunshine retreat to their hotels and flats, replaced by snappy, sparkly strangers who roam the sidewalks in herds.

I lean against a brick wall, taking it all in. Several flushed, swaying boys eye me as they pass. A few even catcall. I cross my arms, resisting the temptation to give them a zap. I must save all of the magic I can tonight, conserve all of the energy I managed not to spend on my date with Richard—I’ll need it for the hunt. That’s the reason the mortals can see me at all.

I spot Breena almost a block away. She’s wearing her sequined dress, the one that shines like polished pewter. I glance down at my own wardrobe choice: a slim, black dress touched up with lace. Without my skirts I feel close to naked.

The men see Breena too. They throw more yells and whistles her way, but she charges forward without a glance.

“Maybe being visible was a mistake,” she mutters as she draws up next to me and digs through her clutch for her habitual lipstick.

“If we use veiling spells it will alert the soul feeders,” I remind her. “Besides, it’ll be slow-going through the crowds if we’re invisible.”

My friend’s lips pop scarlet as she applies her lipstick. “Are you sure one of them will be here?”

“This is one of the largest nightclubs in London. Even if Jaida and Cari aren’t here looking for food, there’ll be someone who can lead us to them.”

I stare at the club’s entrance: a large, ebony door set in a wall of worn, lamp-lit bricks. A queue of mortals winds down the sidewalk—the few faces at the front bathed in a wave of neon lights from behind the dark door.

Tucked away beneath all this flash and flare is an unmistakable flavor of magic. There’s at least one huntress behind those black doors.

I start to step across the street when Breena’s arm shoots out, clamps my shoulder.

“I’ll take the lead,” she says with all the decisiveness and authority of those extra one hundred years. “I don’t want you doing anything rash.”

My face must betray how I feel about her tone, because Breena stares dead into my eyes. “I’m doing us both a favor, Emrys.”

I wait until she’s fully turned to release the brunt of my glare.

We cross the street, weave and thread through the crowd like swallows in flight. Thanks to Breena’s tiny, almost unnoticeable spell, the club’s bouncers are quick to let us in. The nausea hits immediately. I sway under the influence of the blinding lights and soul-rattling notes. Breena stumbles under the sudden wave of sickness, lurching into several well-dressed men in the process.

“Keep it together,” I mutter to myself. The music’s wasp-buzz bass is so loud it drowns out even the sounds in my head. I nearly wretch under the intense blare of technology, but after this afternoon’s purge there’s nothing in my stomach. The sickness snakes through my limbs instead.

One of the men grabs Breena by the arm, steadies her. She stares, her eyes darting back and forth between the man’s hand and his face.

“Easy there.” He has to yell above the music.

Breena nods her thanks and edges away, like a beast eyeing some untested power.

“Are you okay?” I holler into her ear. She flinches at the extra volume, but doesn’t move away from me.

How can the soul feeders stand this? The question leaps from her eyes into my thoughts.

I think back to the Darkroom, when Breena had been the picture of togetherness. Is this club really that much worse? Or have we Frithemaeg become that much weaker in such a short span of time?

“They must eat well. Save your magic,” I warn her. “At this rate we’ll need every ounce we can get.”

Breena nods. Her face is pinched together in fierce determination. The sickness won’t get the best of us. Not yet.

We push farther into the club, past the forest of elbows and whipping hair. Fleeting rainbows of neon dazzle our eyes and frenzied notes become everlasting inside our ears. I fight a path to the edge of the dance floor, where there are fewer chances of being thrashed in the face.

“This place is huge!” Breena’s voice fights a losing battle against the dance track. “She could be anywhere!”

My closed lids don’t do much to block the flashing lights, but they do make it slightly easier to concentrate. The taste of magic drips around us, honey thick, more viscous than it was in the doorway. I open my eyes, look to where it’s strongest.

“This way.” I point to the right, my finger forever disappearing and resurrecting beneath the throb of strobe lights.

We follow the wall, pushing past the dozens of beached dancers. The club goes on, rooms stretching into themselves, all packed with the silhouettes. We pass through three whole segments before the magic becomes unmistakable.

“Where are you?” I mutter, look over the dance floor.

It’s as if all of young London is crowded in this series of flashing rooms. Even with my magical senses, the place is so crammed with the salt and sweat of humanity that picking out an immortal seems impossible.

Breena’s fingers wrap cold around my arm. I look back to see her lips moving, forming words I can’t hear, but understand. “Over there.”

She’s pointing deep in the shuddering shadows, by a curling wrought-iron staircase. It winds all the way up to a shallow balcony. There are no dancers up there, only loungers, taking advantage of the long row of leather chairs. A familiar twinge shoots through my nerves as I review the balcony’s residents. Something’s up there, watching the crowd. Waiting.

I lurch toward the stairs, but Breena’s fingers don’t release their grip.

I lead. Her eyes remind me.

The stairs are tricky to navigate. I clutch the iron railing so hard that it leaves a deep red line in my palm when I reach the top. The balcony unfolds—an entire room to itself—crowded with tired dancers collapsed on chairs, their half-drunk cocktails scattered over tiny black tables.

Breena steps in front of me, curls spilling gold into her dollish face. “In the corner,” she mouths.

There, in the chair closest to the ledge, glowing drink in hand, lounges a Green Woman. The fiber-optic blonde of her hair reflects the neon chaos around her. Her face is lax, careless as she looks out on the heaving crowd below. From the taste of her magic, it seems she’s recently fed. She isn’t here to hunt. She’s here to relax.

I watch the lazing soul feeder, my mind scrambling for my next move. No magic. There are too many mortals around. Binding her is out of the question.

“Sit over there,” I murmur in Breena’s ear, and gently push her in the opposite direction. “I’m going to try and talk to her. If there’s trouble, you can come help.”

I move away before she has a chance to order me back. The Green Woman snaps her neck around, pale eyes trying their hardest not to widen as they watch me approach. Her drink shivers against tightening fingers.

“Good evening, sister. Mind if I have a seat?” As I yell I gesture to the empty seat next to her that no human has been brave or drunk enough to claim.

She watches me. Her look suggests she minds my company very much.

I let myself down into the chair, never tearing my stare away from her. Even a crowd of mortals isn’t enough to guarantee my safety from this creature’s magic. Laws of concealment mean much less to those who hunt humans.

“What are you doing here?” Her shout manages to sound like a normal irritated question. The gleam behind her eyes speaks of suspicion and barely contained magic.

“I was hoping you and I might have a little chat.” My fingers drum against the leather armrest in constant half-time beat. “You see—I’m searching for someone—two people actually. And I think you can help me find them.”

Bony shoulders grow rigid beneath the gauze of her dress. Even in the ever-changing light of the club, I can see that she’s paled, lips pressed together in sheer nervousness.

No response.

“They go by the names of Jaida and Cari. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.” I begin to grow slightly at ease. Although she is freshly replenished by her gruesome meal, the Green Woman across from me is younger. I sense the authority growing between us, all of it placed on my side.

“They don’t come here.” Her words are flash and fire. Like bullets. “You won’t find them.”

“Where are they?” I lean closer to the Green Woman, making sure she tastes my magic, what it can do.

She’s silent, but breaks her corpse-like stillness to sip her drink.

“I haven’t even asked your name, sister,” I remind her. “There’s no way they’ll know you helped me. Besides, they won’t really care. All I want is to talk with them.”

“I want something in return.” The final dregs of her drink braid green down her glass, disappear into her throat. “A little bite of royalty perhaps? We’re all dying to know what His Majesty tastes like.”

She’s toying with me, the way a house cat pricks claws into its master’s leg. I know this and still I can’t keep the rage from rising, becoming phoenix and flame in my very core. The thought of her teeth in Richard’s neck, tearing and mauling, is enough to make me want to kill her.

I swallow most of it back. Not for her sake, but because right now, she’s my only answer.

The Green Woman, seeing what just passed behind my thin veneer of human eyes, begins to edge away. I lurch out of my chair and move closer, pinning her into the supple black leather.

“Now tell me, where can I find Jaida and Cari?” Every word leaves me through a fence of clenched teeth. My fingers dig hard into the Green Woman’s skeletal shoulder, wanting to break her.

“Highgate,” she spits out, her lower lip all atremble. “They’ve taken up residence at Highgate Cemetery.”

“Do they ever leave?” I loom, an angel of death over her chair. It would be so easy to just let it all out, unmake her here and now.

“They don’t come into the city. They have food brought to them.”

“That’s not what I asked.” My hand tightens into her. Nails break through skin, creating five crimson moons. “Do they leave the cemetery?”

“Sometimes they go north. There’s a magpie that brings messages—one of them leaves every time it arrives.” A thin film of sweat has sprouted on the Green Woman’s forehead. For all the pain in her shoulder, she hasn’t cried out.

“And what happens when they return?” I ask.

But the Green Woman shakes her head lightly, begging me not to ask any more. Blood seeps down her arm, carving crooked trails through snowy skin. I pull my hand away, see the redness of her under my fingernails. This is all the information I’m getting from her tonight.

No magic, I tell myself. Keep things simple. Walk away.

I ease past the chair, keeping my stare on the Green Woman. Resentful slits of eyes glare back, betraying the withered ugliness beneath. Her killing face.

I turn and look for Breena in the darkness, searching through the line of pale, moonlike faces. A knife-sharp cry jolts every fine, ginger hair on my body. Magic shreds the air around me with its sick electrical current. I whip around and crouch by the closest lounge chair.

The Green Woman looms in her corner, like a shadow drawn out by a spotlight, eyes blazing in her dead, gray face. Her spell is white-hot lightning in the air between us, searing and tearing. There’s no reservation in her curse. No mercy. This magic is meant to kill.

The countercharm is quick to my tongue, but not fast enough. The terrible force laces through the air like a fast-growing vine, intent on tearing the life out of me. And then it stops.

I blink, at first uncertain of my spared life. There’d been no other magic, no other shield to save my soul. Then I look down and know.

The girl’s body lies close to my feet. Her dress of tangerine silk is only slightly rumpled over bent, milky limbs. Her eyes are open—but there’s nothing behind them. She must’ve walked in front of me, caught the brunt of the blow meant to silence me.

In this moment of reflection passes another chance for me to be extinguished. Fortunately Breena is doing her job. My friend leaps from the crowd, arms outstretched with a spell much quicker and effective than mine. The Green Woman doesn’t even have time to shriek before the flames envelope her. The balcony, so draped in shadows before, is now lit with terrible whiteness. Every corner is exposed. Every flaw on every stunned face jumps into sight. The dead girl glows like a broken angel at my feet.

And then it’s dark again.

Breena glances at me, her eyes wide with nervous energy, and then faces the shocked, motionless crowd. Forgietath slides off her lips and into their minds. Fiftytwo pairs of eyes blink at once as a new reality takes shape in their memories. The girl clutched her chest and fell. A young man gave her CPR, but her eyes glossed over, stripped of life before an ambulance could even be called. A freak accident. Heart failure.

“Come on.” Breena’s words are wavy with fear, or disgust, or both. “We’ve got to go.”

The dead girl’s hand reaches into the edge of my vision, its fingers curled like the petals of a withering flower.

“Let’s go.” Breena’s dress flashes like a sterling signal fire as she pulls me toward the stairs. “Two death spells aren’t going to go unnoticed. We have to get out of here now.”

She’s right. We have to leave before the scene starts swarming with Banshees, drawn by such a fresh passing of souls.

“We have to get to Highgate, before they’re put on the alert,” I call to Breena as we wind back down the iron staircase. With the death of a girl and a Green Woman on our heads, there’s no other choice. We have to go to Highgate Cemetery and collect the information we need before it’s gone forever.

My friend suddenly stops on the last step. I halt as well, nearly stumbling over Breena in the suddenness of our movements. The Fae at the bottom of the steps slowly turns and looks up at me.

“Is it worth it?” Her voice slices through the swell of the DJ’s track.

“What?” I grip the railing extra hard.

“If we go to Highgate—it could be one of us that dies. Is it worth it to you? All of this just for a name?” Breena’s gaze slips up to the balcony, where several screams have already erupted from the crowd.

“This could be it, Bree. We can root out the snake before it strikes. They know where the Old One is.” Dread wells up in my throat. The stranger’s death has changed things. The price is now too high for Breena to pay.

“Would you have done this for King Edward? Emrys, your emotions are blinding you! It’s far safer to go back to the palace and barricade ourselves. Let Mab and her scouts do the dirty work.”

“It’s not safer for Richard!” I snap back. “There’s already been one attack on his life. We can’t afford to wait anymore.”

Breena stares at me hard, the look behind her eyes as immovable as a wall of granite. I return her glare. Another scream from upstairs cuts through our standoff, reminding us that exiting the club is in our best interests. My friend plows straight through the tangled crowd of dancers. I follow, breathing lightly for the reek of alcohol.

Air waves cool and fresh in our faces as we burst out of the club, back onto the street. I trail Breena down the block, out of the hearing of the long queue of mortals waiting to get inside.

“I won’t stop you,” she says as she comes to rest against a lamppost, “but I’m not coming with you. You’re on your own.”

I take a deep breath. “We promised to protect the crown—”

“This isn’t protecting the crown! This is a witch hunt! If you want to protect Richard, go and be with him. No more innocent lives are going to be lost on my account.”

Breeze lifts my hair away from my face, whips it back. Fiery strands wave into the night, flags of no surrender. Everything in Breena, her stance, her eyes, the crinkle of her mouth, tells me this—nothing I say will sway her. She’s leaving.

“I can’t just sit back and wait for the Old One’s final move,” I say.

“Why not?” It isn’t really a question, but a gauntlet thrown on the ground between us to see if I’ll rise to the challenge—tell her what I’m certain she already knows.

“I love him.”

There’s very little change in Breena’s expression. Silence grips her as she takes in my words, ingesting their blunt truth.

“So you’ll die for him either way,” she says finally.

The wind turns, lashing my hair back into my face.

“So be it.” She turns so I can only see the diving back of her glittering gown. “Good-bye, Emrys. I hope the Greater Spirit brings you back alive.”

She drifts up into the night sky, not looking back even once before she disappears into the jagged row of rooftops.