“Shit, shit, shit,” I said. I was already preparing my responses, weaving lies like a little spider.
But I never got to use any of them. The moment Naderi stepped into the yard, the angry stripes of scar tissue on her right cheek lending a truly terrifying aspect to her scowl, Creepy the crow went apeshit.
He launched himself into the air as though he had been faking a broken wing for three solid months and began flapping around Naderi’s head at such perilous proximity that his wings stirred the grizzled ringlets of her ponytail. She screamed and covered her head with her forearms, possibly having a PTSD flashback to my siren pal’s talons ripping her face open.
“Stop that!” I yelled at the bird, but its attack had already begun to subside the moment she started screaming. That’s when I realized it wasn’t an attack.
All at once I began to suspect that my reaction to the crow was not entirely paranoia. Its agitation, the way it continued to hop back and forth, its eyes more intent on Naderi than they had ever been on me. . . .
“Brand?” said Naderi to the bird, her arms falling limp to her sides.
“Brand,” I whispered. Her Echo. “What the actual fuck!”
The crow launched itself into the air again, long enough to do a strange aerial happy-dance, but its injury must not have been entirely feigned, because it crashed back down to the ground in a heap.
I watched Naderi’s anger drain away like bathwater; what was left looked strangely vulnerable.
“I knew he wasn’t dead,” she said, and sank to her knees on the patchy grass in her A-line skirt and hose.
For a moment it looked as though the crow was going to let her pick him up, but at the last minute he shied away.
“Something’s wrong with him,” she said, still kneeling. “Why won’t he let me touch him?”
“That is the least of my questions,” I said, happy to skip the interrogation she’d undoubtedly come here to conduct. “I saw Winterglass kill the hell out of the body Brand was using. That should have killed his real body too. He should be extremely dead.”
“I know, I know,” Naderi said irritably. “Caryl tried to explain. The bodies are linked or something.”
“Well . . .” I tried to think back over the whole messy situation. “They’re supposed to be. But this was a rush job; maybe Shock forgot to—” I stopped, my mind racing.
“Who’s Shock?”
“Prince Fettershock,” I said absently. “The king’s son, the kid who made Brand’s facade. Maybe he cut some corners, and when the dog exploded—”
“Too much information, Millie.”
“Sorry,” I said. But my mind was already racing down another track. Shock. Winterglass had been so furious when we’d enlisted Shock to make a facade for a manticore. The boy was important to him.
“Can you get Shock here?” said Naderi. “Can he fix whatever the fuck this is?”
“He might be able to, but . . .” An incredibly talented facade crafter. Someone Winterglass would never abandon, even for Caryl’s sake. Someone who could make fake people.
“But what?” Naderi demanded.
“I have a sinking feeling,” I said, “that he’s not on our side anymore.”
• • •
No matter how much I promised Naderi, over and over, that I’d figure out what was going on, I couldn’t seem to convince her to get the hell out of my yard.
“I’m not leaving without Brand,” she said.
“Well, he doesn’t want to go with you,” I said, scanning the street for signs of Caryl’s SUV. I’d texted her about Brand and told her that we needed to meet with Tjuan immediately to discuss a theory of mine.
“Why would he be afraid of me?” said Naderi. “That makes no sense!”
“Nothing about this makes any sense!” I exploded. “All I know is that you’re chasing him in circles, and if you keep it up, you might scare him somewhere we can’t find him. He’s been living in this yard for three damn months. If you quit freaking him out, maybe he’ll still be here once we figure out how to help.”
At that, she hesitated. “You’ll call me?” she said. I heard her voice catch on “call,” and she was already turning away even before I answered.
“Of course I will.”
She just nodded without turning back, got in her car, and slammed the door.
Caryl showed up not long after she’d left. She didn’t even get out of her SUV, just waited for me with the engine running. I got in, carrying the towels I’d fetched from the downstairs bathroom while I waited. Caryl was still storing her emotions in the construct; it made for very safe driving.
“How did the meeting end?” I said.
“Much as it began,” said Caryl. “Unless we’re willing to consider another king, Queen Dawnrowan will have nothing to do with us. Also, apparently Barker has some sort of file on you that ‘proves’ Claybriar has been tainted by your rebel influence or some such nonsense.”
“Well, great. My walking out in the middle probably didn’t help. But I’m going to fix this. All of this. I promise.” Just as soon as I came up with the tiniest inkling of a plan.
As soon as we got to the motel room, I put the towels beside the sink and tried to dazzle both my coworkers with my deduction.
“I think Shock is working with Belinda, and I think he made a fey look like Tjuan so it could commit that crime.”
Caryl met my brilliance with a flat stare, and Tjuan sat silently by the window, glaring across the room at the fluffy blue towels as though they’d personally insulted him.
“I wish I could subscribe to your theory,” Caryl finally said, “as it would focus our response, but clearly you did not read the entirety of the news story. The police said the weapon was a blue steel revolver; they named the exact model. We can see it in the bare hand of what you claim is a fey.”
“Oh,” I said. “Steel. So the facade wouldn’t have held?” Shit. I clawed at my hair. “But that weapon could be anything. Maybe the fey cast a spell to make it look like steel.”
“Camera, Millie. One cannot charm electronics.”
Tjuan waved a hand irritably. “Anyway. It’s the shooter who vanished,” said Tjuan, “not the victim. He’s a legit civilian. Article says he’s in the hospital, so they pulled an actual damn bullet from him. Cops wouldn’t name the gun if they weren’t sure.”
I sank down onto the motel bed. “What the fuck, then?” I said.
There was a long silence.
“Wait,” Tjuan said. His eyes were still empty.
“What is it?”
“Remember the wraith that murdered Tamika? Qualm. Dame Belinda brought it to that meeting.”
I tried to think back. “Yeah. And?”
“I think the body had iron shackles on.”
Caryl snapped her fingers. “Qualm’s facade was possessed, not enchanted. Possession isn’t spellwork, so iron doesn’t disrupt it. We kept running into that problem.”
I got to my feet, excited. “So if a facade of Tjuan were possessed by a wraith? By fucking Qualm maybe? Who’s operated a human body before and might have a grudge?”
“How many wraiths were in that book that Barker walked away with?” said Caryl.
“Three hundred sixty-four,” I said, suddenly feeling less excited.
“Decent army,” Tjuan said darkly.
“But she doesn’t know their names,” I said. “Only Brand knows them.”
“She wouldn’t need their names,” said Caryl. “If she has King Winterglass on her side, he can compel them; they are his subjects. Perhaps more concerning, if the wraiths are no longer bound, anyone who has ever been possessed by them could potentially act as a Gate for them to reenter this world. They’d be bound to that body, but could still do a great deal of damage. We need to make a list of anyone who may be currently possessed.”
We both looked at Tjuan.
“No,” he said. “Even if you don’t think I’d be aware, which I absolutely would, King Winterglass specifically ordered mine not to possess anyone again during his reign. He didn’t even put in ‘unless I say otherwise.’ I was there, I remember. That one’s not coming near me again.”
“Naderi, though,” I said with a sinking feeling. “She might have had one sitting there dormant inside her the whole time I was just talking to her.” I frantically tried to remember what all I’d said to her.
Caryl sighed and rubbed at her forehead. “I shall do my best to make a list of potential possession subjects and distribute it to anyone who may encounter them. But to return to the subject of Tjuan’s doppelganger, King Winterglass could have commanded any one of those wraiths to possess an unlinked facade. We know it has been done at least once before, with Qualm.”
“And his son happens to be a brilliant facade crafter,” I added.
“But how’s that kid meant to have made a perfect facade of me?” said Tjuan. “The fey have to get the image from a human mind, right? Nobody in that camp has done much more than glance at me, and the thing on the news looks exactly like me, even to me.”
“I may have an idea about that,” Caryl said hesitantly. “But it verges on conspiracy theory.”
“This is Dame Belinda we’re talking about,” I said. “She had Vivian kill everyone who knew about your abduction. Please tell us your conspiracy theory.”
“Blood magic,” said Caryl. “We use blood to sign the contracts, yes?”
“Yeah. I kinda wondered about that.”
“DNA, for a human, has a similar effect in arcane processes to a fey’s true name. It is binding.”
“But it just binds me to the stuff in the contract, right?”
“Yes. But . . .” She looked uncomfortable. “There is blood left over. They take more from you than is needed for one signature.”
“Yeah. I remember. What happens to it?”
“We seal it in arcanely prepared vials and send it to London for processing.”
“Processing,” I said, making air quotes. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I was told they go into storage somewhere, as a fail-safe. If employees go missing outside the perimeter, the blood can be used to locate them. This much is fact; I have seen it done. This knowledge was leaked, and has led some disgruntled employees to speculate that blood could also be used to summon humans or to compel obedience in any way that a fey’s true name can be used.”
“I doubt it,” said Tjuan. “Belinda would be jerking all our strings to make us dance at this point, not fucking around with facades.”
“Without knowing how blood magic works, or doesn’t,” said Caryl, “I can’t speculate. But she does have your blood, and with your genetic material it seems plausible that at the very least a wizard or warlock could ‘read’ it in order to create a perfect mental image of you that Shock could use in his spell crafting.”
“Why Tjuan?” I said. “The fuck’s he ever done to her?”
“I was standing right there when we rebelled, Millie.”
“So was I! So was Alvin and Caryl!”
“DNA,” said Caryl calmly.
“Right,” said Tjuan. “Millie’s wouldn’t show anyone what she looks like now.”
“Mine wouldn’t recreate the whole of me, either,” said Caryl. “Only the part that is human.”
“And Alvin’s DNA would be female,” said Tjuan.
“Holy shit,” I said.
Tjuan tried for a slight smile, but it was ghastly. “So I got the short straw.”
“What do we do?” I said. “How do we stop this?”
“This is all just speculation,” said Caryl. “I’d need to talk to a crafter to see if it is, in fact, even possible to create a facade of someone from his blood, and if so, if it could be tracked and caught. But unfortunately all the facade crafters are attached to one High Court or the other, and the sidhe control both Courts.”
I blew hair out of my eyes. “I think—I think I could get Shock here.”
Tjuan lifted a brow. “Are we not assuming he’s the exact one that did this to me?”
“He doesn’t know we know. And there’s a situation at Residence Four; he screwed up with Brand. If I tell him, if I act like we’re friends and like I’m worried he’ll get in huge trouble for his mistake, maybe he’ll sneak over here to sort it out. And then we can . . . I don’t know, hog-tie him and beat the truth out of him?”
“Millie,” said Caryl. “He’s seventeen.”
“If he’s old enough to frame my partner for murder,” I said, “he’s old enough to get punched in the face a few times.”
“No punching,” said Tjuan firmly. “But we can find some way to get him talking, I bet. How would we even get a message to him, though? His dad’s not going to help us here, and it’s not like the Crown Prince of the Unseelie High Court carries an iPhone.”
“Maaaaybe,” I said, pulling out my own phone and sifting through my various junk apps. “Maybe not. He’s at a boarding school in Hong Kong, and I don’t know what the hell kids use over there.” After a moment’s searching, I found what I was looking for, turned the screen toward Tjuan. “But he sure loves the hell out of Snapchat.”