She lifted a shoulder. “I’ve been reading more since you’ve been gone. I’ve even got a card for the Cadogan House library.”
“How did you get a library card?”
“I’m a friend of the House,” she said dryly. “Supernatural parentage has some advantages.”
“Doesn’t that violate the magic ban?” I asked.
“We aren’t talking about magic,” she said, hopping off the stool and emptying her cup. “We’re talking about murder and a friend of mine. Why do you think I’m painting that mural?”
She walked to the kitchen counter, plucked a key fob from a silver bowl, looked back at me with a dare in her eyes. “Are we doing this?”
I tapped fingers against the granite. I shouldn’t have been considering it. I don’t want this blowing back on my parents.
But I thought of Tomas, of blood spilled at my father’s House. I thought of Riley in his sad gray scrubs and the desperation in his eyes. And I thought of the future. If the perpetrator was willing to kill at Cadogan and frame a good man, what else were they willing to do? How could I just stand by?
“This has to be low-key,” I said, decision made. “No snark, no sarcasm. We just ask polite questions. I’d really prefer the Ombudsman not hear about this.”
Lulu winced. “Shit. I forgot about that—the deal with Cadogan House.”
“I think I have an out there,” I said, and told her my theory.
Her whistle was long and low. “Your dad is not going to like that—you not being an official Cadogan vampire.”
“No, he is not. And the Ombudsman might not buy it. So we need to be really, really careful.” And when it came to supernaturals, even “really careful” could go bad.
I tried to figure out how to politely phrase the next question without expressly mentioning her magic avoidance. “If things go bad, can you take care of yourself?”
“I’ve been learning Krav Maga. And there’s also this.” She moved to a narrow door, pushed aside a broom and mop that tried to escape, and pulled out a black duffel bag. She brought it back, put it on the counter, and unzipped it.
“Damn, Lulu.”
It was filled with weapons, mostly bladed. Sheathed knives. Throwing stars. Handguns. Even a wakizashi, a smaller sword carried by samurai as a companion to the longer katana.
“Dad taught me a few things,” she said.
I’d forgotten Catcher had been an expert, had given my mother her first katana lessons. From what I knew about him and his particularity where weapons were concerned, I didn’t think he’d approve of Lulu’s Everything in the Duffel Bag method of storage.
She pulled out the wakizashi and a handgun, then rezipped it and put it away again.
She belted the short sword expertly, checked the handgun expertly to see if it was loaded, then slipped it into her pocket. “Ready to go.”
“I can see that.”
“One thing,” she said, then held up a finger. She pulled a sticky note from a pad on the counter, scribbled something, and stuck the note to the refrigerator door.
I stepped closer to read it. GONE TO QUESTION FAIRIES, it read, then listed the date, followed immediately by, IF NOT BACK IN 24 HRS PLZ RETRIEVE BODIES.
“You’ve also gotten more morbid in my absence.”
“I dwell in darkness,” she said flatly. “The ravens are my minions and the moon my master.”
“I know I haven’t lived in Chicago for a while, but do you really think we can just drive right up to the castle and ask for an invite?”
“We’ll find out,” she said, then looked down at the cat. “Eleanor of Aquitaine, guard the door. We’re going hunting.”
THIRTEEN
Calling Lulu’s vehicle a car was too generous. It was, at best, a caricature of a car. A soup can rolled onto its side, with pasted-on tires that had more in common with doughnuts than road-ready wheels.
“An Auto could be here in minutes,” I said with a grimace.
“Autos are corporate; corporations lie.” She unlocked the door, began to wedge her way inside. “It’s small and it’s ugly, but it runs on used cooking oil. Zero Waste, remember?”
That explained why it smelled like peanuts and fried chicken. I folded myself—origami style—into the front seat. “No point in paying for aesthetics or space.”
“Exactly.”
She hit the ignition, which I assumed released a snack to the hamsters under the hood.
I hoped to god we wouldn’t need a getaway car.
* * *
• • •
The moon was nearly full, only a fingernail of shadow along the edge, and it cast an eerily strong glow over the gravel where we’d parked across the street from the fairies’ home.
When they’d followed vampires, shifters, and sorcerers into the public sphere twenty years ago, they’d bought an unused tract of land in South Loop along the south fork of the Chicago River. The strip of land had been an empty lot for years. They’d built a fence around the property and a castle in the middle.
A narrow path of crushed white stone led onto the grounds beneath an arched gate in the iron fence. At the end of the straight drive was the dark stone wall of the castle. There were round, crenelated towers at each corner, square towers at the midpoint of each side, and a gatehouse in front.
“You have to go through the gatehouse to get in,” Lulu said. “The courtyard’s behind that—it’s called a bailey—and it circles the building that holds the living quarters. That’s called the keep. There will probably be a lot of guards.”
“You really looked into this fairy-castle thing.”
“I’m nosy. We could skip the steel,” she said, looking down at the wakizashi in her hand. “Reduces the odds of the OMB finding out about it.”
“No weapons is not an option. We both go in with what we can carry. And are people really calling it that?”
“OMB? Yes. Fewer syllables.”
“I don’t approve.”
“Color me shocked.”
“Let’s go,” I said, casting a final glance at the moon. Not even full, and it was still nearly bright enough to read by. We wouldn’t exactly be making a secret approach; they’d see us coming up the path. But maybe that would make them feel more secure about our visit—and less likely to freak out.
My chest tightened when I considered the possibility the monster would show itself on this little field trip, which was already a bad idea. But there was nothing I could do about that now.
“Elisa?” she asked, as we walked down the path.
“Yeah?”
“Why are you really doing this?”
I looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“I know this is risky for you. Why are you doing it?”
“Because he was nice to me, important to you, and part of the Pack. That makes him important to me.”
She blew a breath through pursed lips like she was working to control tears. But she held them in.
“You know you don’t have to do this, right?”
She looked at me, then looked away, chin set. “My family and friends are magic. Saying no to it—” She paused, as if searching for words. “It’s hard. I don’t regret avoiding magic. But I regret the other things I have to give up because of it, because I’m afraid of what I might do. Of that damn slippery slope.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.
“Someone needs to help him, and right now, I can be that someone. I owe it to him. And I’ve given up so much that I owe it to myself. Just to see.” She looked back at me and smiled. “I’m glad you’re back, even if for just a little while.”
I smiled at her. “Let’s go talk to some fairies and try not to get killed. ’Cause this is a really bad idea.”
“Yeah,” Lulu agreed with a smile. “But at least we’re getting out of the house.”
* * *
• • •
The grounds were quiet, the lawn immaculate and rolling, the stone crunching softly as we walked toward the gatehouse and its enormous doors—two halves of a twenty-foot-tall arch, with black hinges holding them in place.
There was magic here, a faint buzz that left a chill in the air. I wasn’t sure if that was castoff from the accumulation of the fairies themselves, or because they’d magicked this building just as they had the tower.