Page 17

“Up through here to the next level,” Graves said as he pulled out his phone. Kierse was surprised to see that it worked. When she pulled out hers, it had no signal.

A handful of straggling humans stumbled in front of them toward the stairs.

A pair of goblins stood on either side, one with another giant axe on his shoulder and the other with a big black club across his chest. A box of goblin fruit rested at their feet and one of them kicked it toward the lumbering group.

“Pay for some fruit and eat to move up the floor,” one goblin grunted.

The humans jerked forward, handing off whatever cash they had and grabbing a fruit each out of the basket. They half crawled up the stairs as they brought the fruit to their mouths.

“Eat,” the goblin snapped at their group.

Graves flashed his coin. “We have leave of the market.”

“Don’t fucking care. Eat or leave.”

Graves’s eyes went from thundercloud gray to nearly black as he straightened to his considerable height.

It was easy to find his cool demeanor endearing when they were alone together.

Sometimes she forgot that he was actively terrifying.

“Say that again,” he said in a deep rumble that shook their bones.

The second goblin glanced warily at the first. These seemed like lowly guards compared to the ones at the gate. It was unclear if they were even really guards or just civilian goblins who had enterprised themselves into a side-hustle.

“I said that you have to pay and eat to take the stairs,” the first goblin snapped back, too stupid to be afraid.

It happened in an instant. The first guard swung the axe threateningly but inexpertly at their group.

He came within an inch of Graves, who jerked out of the way at the last second, only succeeding in pissing Graves off more.

The second guard panicked and lunged at Kierse with his club.

Kierse deflected it on instinct, but she felt like her forearm was going to shatter.

“Shit,” Kierse gasped. “Can’t we just pay them?”

Niamh wrestled the second guard to the ground, trying to maneuver the club out of his hand. “We aren’t going to eat the fruit.”

Graves had the axe now and used it to bash the first guard in the head. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. Footsteps sounded behind them, as if reinforcements were coming.

“Knock him out, Niamh,” Graves snapped.

Niamh snarled at him, but it was Kierse who dealt the blow that knocked the final guard unconscious. Niamh stood, breath slightly ragged, and she hauled the goblin away from the stairs.

“Bloody business. This never happens when I need specialty herbs.”

“The market always throws some sort of bullshit at us,” Graves said. “Let’s just take the stairs before more of them show up.”

Kierse couldn’t agree more. So they started climbing. She couldn’t help but admire the stairs, especially as their style changed from an Irish stone to a dark reddish brick. Her arm still ached, and she tried to hide it as they climbed, but Niamh noticed.

“I can fix that for you.”

“When we’re safer,” Kierse said. “I can still hear goblins behind us.”

It was true. She’d thought the farther they climbed, the safer they would be, but it seemed the reinforcements had discovered their unconscious brethren and were giving chase. If a horde of goblins caught up to them, they were in for a world of trouble.

The stairs had changed again to a modern concrete. They had climbed high enough to be in the cloud line—or what Kierse had assumed was a foggy cloud, but what turned out to be a barrier of some sort between the Dublin she had left behind and the next city on the wheel.

Kierse stepped off the stairs onto familiar pavement.

Her heart stuck in her throat at the sight of the sleek city gleaming before her.

A version of Manhattan, with its characteristic brownstones and fire escapes.

Humans and monsters bustled through the metropolis at a relentless pace.

Their clothes were mostly black and inconspicuous, but some were outrageous and unique.

The air somehow even smelled like the city.

Home.

She swallowed back the lump of longing in her throat. She had missed New York more than she could possibly explain. While she had come to love Dublin, it wasn’t home, would never be in the way that New York was. Even if the will-o’-the-wisps had come from Ireland, New York would always be hers.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Graves murmured at her side.

“I didn’t realize how much I missed it,” she confessed.

“It’s waiting for you to come home.” Their eyes met across a New York City street as they had so many times before. “As am I.”

She had to turn away from the intensity of him. He made so much more sense in this environment. But she was still too tangled up in him to know which way was up or down. Just like being inside this indescribably strange, spoked wheel of a market.

The rumbling of footsteps broke Kierse from her reverie. She could see the goblins coming up the last few stairs.

“Fuck,” she hissed.

“That’s them!” a goblin roared. “Get ’em.”

“This way,” Graves said and then took off.

They weren’t the only people cutting through the New York streets, but they were the only ones being chased by a horde of goblins.

They barreled through monsters and people alike, running through a stand of goblin fruit and pushing aside performers who got in their way.

Kierse was thankful that the goblins chasing them were brandishing knives, axes, and clubs, and not heavy machine guns like the ones at the entrance.

Yet another indication that these weren’t official guards, but some lesser, unsanctioned group.

“How are we going to get out of this?” Kierse gasped.

She was grateful for her Fae strength. She’d been fast before, but now she could outpace the goblins. She didn’t know how long she could keep it up.

“I know a place,” Graves said.

And he did seem to know these streets better than the ones in Dublin. Which made sense, considering he was the warlock of New York City. He’d probably been to the New York entrance of the market more times than the Dublin one, especially once he’d been banned from Dublin years ago.

“Here. In here,” he said, wrenching open a door.

They burst through, and Niamh slammed it behind them.

Then they were running again. A few seconds later, the door opened, and a cacophony continued to follow them through the twists and turns of the market.

Kierse would have been entirely lost without Graves directing them.

It might look like her city, but it wasn’t her city.

They fled down a narrow alley and through an open, unwatched back entrance into an unlit warehouse—or were they backstage in some underground cabaret? Graves turned sharply, still running confidently in the dark…and then a woman screamed as they burst out onto the stage where she was performing.

“Excuse us,” Kierse said with a wave.

They barreled back off stage left between the curtains in the wings.

The squawks from the audience as the goblins appeared on stage behind them would almost have been humorous if they weren’t still being hotly pursued.

However, the crowd and performers had slowed the goblins down enough that their trio finally had a lead. If they could just…get out of sight.

“This way,” Graves said. He opened another door into a darkened room and stepped aside for Kierse and Niamh to follow him through, then eased it closed, throwing a heavy bolt.

They all held their breaths as they listened for the goblins.

There came the grunts and clanks of the troop careening into the hallway outside, then a pause.

For a moment, they could hear snuffling as the goblins tried to figure out where they had gone.

But then their pursuers continued on, barreling past in their haste.

Kierse blew out a heavy breath. Niamh doubled over, panting. Graves dusted the dirt off his shoulders from the chase.

“That was fucking close,” Niamh grumbled as she straightened. “We could have negotiated before violence.”

“Did they look like the kind of goblins who were going to negotiate?”

“You could have tried before bashing their brains in!”

“I’ll remember that next time I want to be incapacitated…”

“Enough,” Kierse said. “We made it through. That’s all that matters.”

“I hate the market,” Niamh grumbled.

“So say we all,” Graves agreed.

“How do we find the bookkeeper from here?” Kierse asked.

“We’ll backtrack to the bar. I put out a feeler for a contact I have in the market. He’s going to meet us there.”

Kierse eyed him skeptically. “Someone you trust?”

“Not exactly.”

“Who does he trust?” Niamh asked.

Fair point.

“Lead the way.”