Page 8 of Avalon Tower

Except the fugitives are frozen in place, not moving.

“Aleina,” I mutter through clenched teeth, “wave at the damn dragons. Look happy.”

After a second, she starts waving, a rictus grin stretching her lips. Then others follow suit. The dragons glance our way, then turn their heads in disinterest. My chest unclenches.

“Okay, folks, the tour continues,” I shout, my heart in my throat. “Come on, we still have a lot to see on this glorious day.”

I lead them up toward the winding stone roads, and the dragons recede into the distance. My pulse is roaring, and I can hardly breathe. I turn back to the demi-Fey. They’re scared, all looking to me for guidance, and—

Hang on. There’s one missing. That blonde woman I’d grabbed by the hand earlier.

“Where’s the woman who was with you?” I ask Aleina urgently, trying to recall how she looked. “Um…the one with the golden hair and the green skirt?”

Aleina blinks and turns around. She looks at one of them and says, “Ei-fo Vena, le-an chuaigh sí?” Where is Vena, did she get lost?

He shakes his head helplessly and answers in Fey that he’s not sure. She was there just a few minutes ago. He thinks she might have run.

You’ve got to be kidding me. “Okay, wait here,” I say.

I hurry up the road by the restaurant, searching for Vena on the narrow lane. When I turn a corner, a shimmer of green draws my attention. She’s there, racing up a winding road. I take a step after her, then freeze.

Two Fey soldiers round a corner, and they’re marching toward her. I slip back behind the corner, watching from the safety of a stone wall. Fog curls over the stony street.

One of the Fey draws a sword. The wind picks up his white-blond hair, toying with it. His dark, velvety cloak billows behind him. He’s speaking in Fey, but I can’t hear exactly what he’s saying. She looks so tiny there, dwarfed by the colorful buildings and the imposing Fey soldiers.

She’s shaking her head, trying to tell them that she doesn’t understand what they’re saying, that she can’t speak the Fey language. I chance a step forward. I can tell them she’s on my tour. Sorry, officers, those tourists would lose their heads if they weren’t attached—

The pale-haired soldier swings his sword. A crimson spray spatters on the nearby wall. She topples onto the street, blood gushing down her green skirt.

I gasp and slink behind a corner, tears springing to my eyes. The world feels unsteady beneath my feet. Shit, shit, shit! Are there no laws here? Southern France is supposed to be unoccupied, but apparently, the Fey can kill in the streets, without a trial, or even a good reason.

I risk a look back, but don’t see anyone following me. My breath is ragged in my throat. Either the soldiers didn’t see me or they thought I didn’t look like much of a threat.

I walk down to the beach, the image of her murder playing on a loop in my mind. She didn’t look much older than me. And it was the way she collapsed, just folding onto herself…it all seemed so casual. A lazy swoop of the blade, an arc of blood. A job done.

I clamp my eyes shut and bite my lip. The seaside air no longer smells fresh. It feels like I’m inhaling brackish rot. My lungs whistle as I inhale. I’m running out of breath, and this could be a panic attack or my lungs collapsing. Probably both. My airway is narrowed to a single point.

I focus on my senses and the feel of the ground beneath my feet to calm myself and ignore the seaside scent of decay. I smell thyme and brine, the faint whiff of lavender. I feel the kiss of the breeze against my skin.

My chest is practically caving in. From my handbag, I pull out my inhaler. Two puffs. Within moments, my airways start to open.

I shove the inhaler back into the bag and hurry back over the brush, onto the sand. I shield my eyes and find the group huddled on the beach.

“Where’s Vena?” Aleina asks.

My heart clenches. I can’t lie to them. “Dead,” I say. I can’t let them linger for someone who’s never coming back, or they’ll end up bleeding out, too. “We have to go.” Raising my voice, I call out in French, “Okay, everyone! Let’s continue our tour.” The cheer in my tone borders on hysteria. “We need to get to the docks, where the French navy fought the large sea serpent.”

I walk forward, then glance over my shoulder and motion for them to follow me. Aleina’s eyes shine, and she follows me resolutely. The rest follow suit.

I lead them across the beach, and the sun dips lower in the sky. Twilight stains the clouds with red. As I plod along, I try to keep a smile plastered on my face, though my body is trembling like leaves in the wind. I take them on a grim procession into a network of alleys, a spiderweb of cobbled streets that spread out over the seaside town. While I rattle off random historic facts, my mind is still on Vena. It was the ease with which the Fey soldier had swung his sword, like a bored teenager swinging for a baseball. I’ve seen a few dead people before, but they were all at funerals, neatly in their coffins. Never a murder. Never such casual violence.

Wrought iron fences and brick buildings crowd the road. As dusk darkens the sky above us, I lead the demi-Fey up the hill. “As you can see, the gutter runs through the center of the road, a relic of the medieval era…”

I know no one is listening, but it doesn’t matter. I keep going, trying to look casual.

Between buildings, we get glimpses of the sea and the coils of mist from the veil. The fog seemed like a fascinating curiosity when I first arrived. Now, it’s horrifying. All of this is horrifying.

Sweat trickles down my temples. There’s no one around, so I drop the tour guide act—until I catch a glimpse of Fey soldiers at the bottom of the hill. We’re close to the veil here, and it hums in my ears.