Page 6 of Cold Curses

A few feet past the spillage, I saw her. The queen of the fae was at the far end of the room, slumped against a wooden column, her arms banded around it as if it were a flotation device in a magicalsea. Her tangled strawberry red hair half-covered her face. Her pale skin looked gray, and her magic spilled an unnatural fog across the floor. I ran to her, dodging bodies and overturned cups, holding my scabbard so it didn’t bounce against my leg.

“Claudia,” I said sternly. The tower shuddered, tossing portraits and mirrors off the walls and snuffing some of the hundreds of candles that lit the room. I managed to stay upright, but we had to do this fast. I didn’t want to be plunged into darkness and trapped in the remains of a fairy tower.

“Claudia,”I said again, and this time put glamour behind it. It was a vampire’s secret weapon, from a time when blood had to be coerced from humans. I wasn’t sure it would work on her—not when her magic was older and stronger than mine—but she jerked her eyes to me.

“Wine,” she said, a request, and released her grip on the post to grasp at an overturned chalice.

“No more wine,” I said, and kicked the chalice away. She didn’t want the wine, but the magic it contained.

Another quake. Stones crunched to the ground outside, the concussions coming faster now. Whatever the fairies had done had begun to tear apart the castle they’d so meticulously constructed—and to bury us with it.

“When you’re out of time,” Connor said, striding quickly to us, “you go for a classic remedy.” Before I could object, he emptied a wooden bucket of water on Claudia’s head.

I cursed and jumped back, anticipating a nasty counterattack from a woman who was a flaming narcissist on her better days.

Claudia blinked through a curtain of water and hair, eyes wide and confused. Then she swallowed hard and climbed to her feet, the diaphanous gown clinging to her form.

“The wine,” she said. She swayed and put out a hand to steadyherself. I think she meant to grab the post again, but the tower swayed like a sapling in the wind, and she caught only air.

Stomach lurching at the shifting floor, I reached out and caught her before she stumbled. I hoped the contact wouldn’t trap me in her magic.

My skin buzzed with it, but the glittery edges were gone now. The water had managed to break the spell on her.

“Snap out of it,” Connor demanded, “and them, too, or you’re going to bring the entire tower down on top of us.”

Claudia lifted a dripping hand toward the table, as if to send magic toward it. But before she could, acracksplit the air as stone succumbed to the magic’s pressure, and a section of the wall across from us disintegrated, stone and plaster crumbling to reveal the dark of night outside.

I faced the nightmare possibility we’d all be buried in rubble, but Claudia steadied herself, threw out her hand again. Magic swept across the room; as it traveled, the remnants of food and drink evaporated as the scent of overripe magic dissipated. The rumbling stopped, leaving heavy and cold silence in its wake.

With their magical chains broken, the fairies began to shift. They began to rise and move toward their queen. Claudia stood straight now, brushed a hand through her hair, which dried and fluffed into soft curls. Then that hand trailed the length of her body, drying skin and fabric, clearing her eyes and putting pink back into her cheeks.

She glanced at Connor, shirt still wrapped around his face, the rest of his torso bare. And her gaze lingered, followed the descent of abdominal muscles into the top of his jeans, then over to the black tattoo:Non ducor; duco.

Loosely translated:I am not led. I lead.

The lust in her eyes quickly surpassed the fading fairy magic.

“Mine,”I said quietly, drawing her attention back to me.

It came slowly, her gaze, as if I’d interrupted her perusal of a new fairy confection.

“Lady,” said one of her fae, a tall man with brown skin, long braids pulled back at the temples, and a fierce look in his eyes. And that look was directed at us. “Need we address the threat?”

“We aren’t the threat. We’re the first responders.” I looked at Claudia. “What happened?”

“Power. More than I’ve felt in many seasons.”

Literal fairy empowerment was the last thing I needed right now. “The pulse of magic that happened when the sun was up?”

She inclined her head.

It took big power to affect the ley lines. The demon wards drew on them for power, and in return the wards helped regulate the lines’ transmission. Roger had said the wards were fine, so how had this happened?

“Where did it come from? What did it?”

“There is only one source,” she said. “The ley lines.” She crossed her fingers to form a triangle. I presumed that was meant to symbolize their intersection over Chicago.

“Please explain,” I said, losing patience.