Page 5 of Cold Curses

“Whoa.”

“Lis?”

“The whole world is ice cream right now,” I said. “If this is how they see things, makes you wonder how they ended up being so mercenary.”

For a moment, I let the world be candy colored and sparkling. Then, with a sigh of regret, I stood up and breathed rhythmically, something I’d learned practicing yoga. I did so until the magic dissipated enough to have the colors normalizing again. At least until the prone fairy let out an enormous belch, which sparkled in the air and spilled more magic.

“They’re magic drunk,” Connor said. “I see glitter everywhere.” His eyes changed color, shifting gold to blue as the magic brushed him. “Heady,” he added, and reached out an arm to steady himself.

I grabbed him as he swayed. “Do you need to wait in the vehicle?”

He shook his head, stubbornness settling into his face. He wasn’t one to back away, and certainly not with alpha magic running through him.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and walked a few feet away, putting space between him and the prone fairies.

I took photos of the fairies for the Ombuds; it felt intrusive, given they were unconscious, but if we’d found the source of the magic pulse, Roger needed to know.

The image on my screen blurred as a tremor shook the ground. But that wasn’t the only problem. Above us, the tower shuddered.

“Earthquake?” I asked when the world stilled again.

“Magic,” Connor said. “A lot of magic.” He pulled off his shirt, abdominal muscles clenching with the motion, and for a very fast moment, I thought things were about to get magically sexy.

Then he wrapped the cloth around his face to make an impromptu mask. Smart. Not sexy, except to the extent that he had bared his sculpted abdomen. Which wasn’t the point.

“Will that help?” I asked.

Connor waited a beat, blinked a few times. And then his eyes cleared. “Good to go.”

“Apparently.”

I added “sensitivity to inhaled fairy vapor” to the list of things I knew about my future husband. And then I walked toward the tower, future husband beside me.

* * *

The tower was the heart of the castle, and it opened into a great hall with a rush-strewn floor and oversized hearth.

There were more fairies here—maybe a dozen—and all silent, all unconscious. Some in chairs at the long wooden table; some snoring near the fire.

The magic was thicker inside the building and doubly hard to avoid. But when another tremor shook the ground, I knew we’d have to risk it. If the residual magic tumbled the tower to the ground, it would take out all of us. So we either fixed the problem, or we evacuated a lot of drunk fae. I didn’t like the odds that we could accomplish either of those on our own.

We took one of the curving staircases to the next level, where Claudia’s throne room was located. We stepped over three fairies on the way, one of them snoring softly, the other two with glazed and vacant expressions.

The magic grew stronger and more potent as we rose through the tower, so each spiral of the staircase felt like we were moving deeper into a whirlpool.

We reached the throne room, with its high ceilings and gloriously colorful tapestries, and found the center of the maelstrom. Magic roiled like waves here, and I had to shift some of my energy over to the task of ignoring it. Monster, who wasn’t keen on fairies, helped where it could.

A trestle table in the middle of the space was loaded with food. Succulent meats glistened beside tall cakes so delicate that they might have been made of cobwebs and lace. Steam wafted from roasted vegetables, and silver chalices of ale were still topped by foam.

And it all smelled of overripe magic.

“Elisa.”

It wasn’t until Connor put a hand on my arm that I realized I’d been moving toward the buffet. I dug my nails into my palms until they stung, which helped me ignore the magic, because fairy food and drink were notoriously dangerous. It was a common trap for unwary humans, as any classic fairy tale would tell you. And this felt like the trappiest trap of them all; the table all but sagged with magic.

“Thanks,” I said, and dragged my attention from table to plank floor, where fairies lay sprawled or sat against walls, most with mugs in hand, the ale dripping to the floor into sticky puddles.

The building quaked around us, this time hard enough to send platters tumbling to the floor, ceramic splintering as it struck hardwood. The detritus included an entire tray of roasted turkey legs, now scattered forlornly on the floor.