Page 44 of Glimmer and Burn (Unity #1)

He turned to her, heart on his sleeves. “After last night…smothering it just didn’t seem so tempting anymore.” A puff of pleased pale pink wafted through her bolder colors. Pride swelled in his chest at having caused it.

“Oh,” Miranda said, her voice timid for the first time since he’d met her.

Devin cleared his throat, brushing off his confession by adding, “The Sight can be a blasted pain, though. I’m not used to it.”

He turned away, because if he didn’t he’d continue this entirely ill-timed conversation and there was still a sister to save.

They took separate routes toward the targets, to better avoid detection.

The street was full of enforcers coming and going to various tasks, but these two held back, lingering far from the others.

Overworked or just exhausted, it left them vulnerable.

And even with their greater strength, he and Miranda had no trouble muffling their screams and pulling them quickly behind a stack of shipping crates.

In seconds, Miranda’s enforcer was unconscious. Devin had grappled for a moment, almost allowing his target to cry for help if not for a quick hit against the enforcer’s windpipe. Now able to get a proper hold, a few more minutes passed before the enforcer’s arms went slack.

The enforcers wore cowls and masks to obscure their faces.

Devin easily removed them, revealing two fae with body proportions that wouldn’t quite align with Miranda or himself.

Miranda grabbed the smaller of the two and started undoing the jacket.

She had to roll the sleeve to compensate for the longer limbs.

Devin undressed the larger of the two, but fae women tended to have narrower builds and this one had less muscle definition than him. Miranda held a hand over her mouth to suppress her laughter as he fought to get himself into the jacket.

“Yes, it’s very amusing,” he said, tone droll as he twisted to do up the buttons.

The material bunched and sagged in places, squeezed in others, his body type was too human and too male.

With an ungraceful sigh he fixed the cowl over his head and secured the mask.

Hopefully, no one would scrutinize his attire too closely.

Neither of them bothered with the pants or boots, their own clothes matched well enough.

“You’ll have to stuff your hair into the head covering,” he said, motioning for her to turn around. She did, but as soon as he pulled the first pin of her hair free, she rounded on him.

“What’re you doing?”

Devin lifted her wrist and set the pin in her hand. “Hold this. I’m fixing your hair.” He gently spun her again and freed the rest of the pins before twisting her hair into a few braids and repinning it so it would fit under the cowl.

When he finished, he could see the question before she asked, and he said, “My mother didn’t have a maid, just a son who hadn’t the heart to refuse her when she wanted to look like the Ladies in the park.

I’m out of practice, so it wouldn’t do in a ballroom, but it’ll keep your hair flat inside the hood. ”

“Is that how you learned to dance?”

The question caught him by surprise as they lifted and dragged the bodies further away from prying eyes. They were secluded enough hidden behind large stacks of shipping materials, but it was best to be on the safe side.

“My mother wanted to be part of human society. I assume that was the appeal of my father, but they never married and invitations to ballrooms don’t include addresses in the Fells.

But yes, she had taught me the proper dances.

” He kicked the lid off a shipping crate and inspected it.

There were remnants of whatever foul-smelling cargo it had once carried—likely a crate leftover from a fishing trolley—but the enforcers would fit.

“She sounds—”

Devin heaved a body into the shipping crate. “Hers is a sad story, Mira. Best to leave it for the moment.”

“I’m sorry, I just meant that…it seems like she loved you. And you loved her.” Miranda heaved the other enforcer into the crate and set the heavy wood lid back on top.

“I did,” he said, “And she did, in her way.”

“Is she gone?”

He set another crate on top, trapping the pair inside, before finally meeting Miranda’s eyes. She wanted so desperately for him to have a mother who would climb a building to rescue him. But that wasn’t his reality. His mother loved him, but it hadn’t been enough.

Between the heartbreak from his father, the loss of her family, and slow iron contamination over years her ability to function eroded away, leaving Devin alone and wondering why he hadn’t been enough. He didn’t hate her, but he also found it hard to forgive her.

He looked away as he answered, “She was gone long before she died.”

Miranda’s arms came up around him suddenly and her head pressed into his back.

He was still for a moment, both caught off guard at the gesture and wanting to crumble into her.

Her arms stayed as she maneuvered around him, her face now buried in his chest and he caved, returning the embrace and fearing he wouldn’t be willing to let it end.

Miranda pulled away, the whole exchange lasting less than a minute, yet she’d shaken years of repressed trauma free.

“Cordelia first. Talk later, but…I figured there was time for a hug,” she said, as her arms eased away from him and they could no longer risk touching or they might give themselves away.

Devin took a breath, rattled and disquieted, but somehow lighter.

Graves’s warehouse bordered the Great Sea, just one in a long row of identical buildings only set apart by the number above the door. No one questioned them as they approached or when they slipped into a line of enforcers entering the building through a bay door.

Once inside, they were assaulted by an acidic, chemical smell with an undercurrent of rot.

Here, there were various workers whose faces weren’t covered.

Workers stacking boxes, or tallying with clipboards, or packing crates.

There was a flurry of activity, as if they were trying to get a lot done in a short window of time.

The ground floor was a single open level and the ceiling rose up to the rafted roof.

But dividers and stacks of crates obscured their view and gave the effect of rooms and separated spaces.

Above were a series of open walkways that crossed above their heads to allow workers open access to the levels below.

An open storage platform spanned one corner and a walled off office in another.

Devin followed Miranda’s gaze, searching for her mother through the vented slats on the roof. Lady Wilde shook her head. Cordelia wasn’t in view from above.

“We need to go up,” Miranda whispered. “I’ll bet anything she’s in that office.”

“Agreed. If we walk like we know where we’re going, we shouldn’t be questioned,” Devin said.

They chose a path and tried to make their search for the stairs look purposeful.

There were several sets of stairs but once inside the network of ‘rooms’ it was hard to see the entire upper floor and get their bearings.

The first path led to a dead end, and before they could turn around a line of enforcers forced them to duck into the closest room to avoid notice.

Miranda lingered by the entrance—there were no proper doors—and listened for the retreat of footsteps.

Devin’s newly returned awareness shifted his attention to the room. Unease crept up his spine. Dread lay stagnant in the air like a fog.

This room was against one of the outer walls, the other sides delineated by crates on one side, the other by shelves, and another by cages.

The cages appeared empty, sized to hold larger animals, and the barred doors were left ajar.

Against the crates were a series of desks littered with equipment.

Test tubes and beakers, stacks of papers, pens and cutting instruments.

On the shelves were endless rows of vials, all empty. Waiting.

Devin’s focus was drawn to the wall of cages and the single latched door near the bottom.

A red tube snaked from the bars, ran along the wall and into a carafe on the desk.

An aura, the faintest shade of desolation he’d ever seen, was more like a void than a glow.

The color was so dismal his Sight couldn’t find a name for it, but the feeling seeped into the room, seemed to reach out to him with clawed, weakened fingers, dragging him down into the source’s despair.

It was a Winter Fae talent to sense Death, but no one could mistake the heavy presence of Death that waited in the cage, biding its time.

“Mira…” He reached for her, but her focus was elsewhere.

Devin remained frozen, trying to find the will to take a step, to lift an arm.

“These are the same drawings, the same notes from Graves’s desk.” She picked up a sheet of paper and then crumpled it in her fist. Anger began to emanate from her, flickering waves of red hot anger.

He followed it, allowed her bold, vibrant colors to lure him into taking a step.

“Devin?” She left the desk, meeting him in the middle of the room, and when her touch reached him he heaved in a breath like he’d been drowning. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

He fell into her, taking the support. “The corner,” he growled, motioning with his chin.

Her eyes followed the motion, but she shook her head. “What? There’s nothing there.”

“You can’t see, but there is most certainly a soul in that cage.” He twined his fingers with hers. “May I use your hand for a moment?”

She nodded, though confusion creased her brow.