Page 27 of The Midnight King
I can’t leave, which means I can’t search for any of the weapons that might have a chance of cutting through the anklet.
I curse loudly, kicking the cold gravel without caring that I’m bruising my toes. The only thing I’m wearing at the moment is the damned anklet, and I’ve never hated it so much.
Someone is coming toward me, silhouetted by the light from the lampposts flanking the drive. I recognize the silhouette, the outline of the pointed ears, and the sauntering gait. My Faerie godfather is a fool to show himself out here.
I race toward him, and he opens his arms as if he expects me to run into them. But instead I grab his shoulder, turn him roughly around, and march him back toward the house.
“What are you thinking, walking out in the open?” I exclaim. “What if someone sees you? They’ll tell my stepmother, and then she’ll—” I break off the sentence. I don’t know what she would do if she found out I have a Faerie’s favor. Nothing good, that’s for sure.
“What if someone seesme?” he says. “What aboutyou? Jogging along stark naked, with those luscious breasts bouncing around—”
“That’s a compliment,” I snarl, pushing him through the front door. “I get another favor.”
He grumbles, but he conjures a fluffy pink robe for me without being asked. I forget to be angry with him for a second because the softness of the robe around my body is so comforting.
“Thank you,” I say, slightly mollified. “But don’t go outside again, please. Or if you do, take another form.”
“Like this?” He transforms into a naked green-skinned creature with arms like branches and fingers like vines, with flowers growing in its mossy hair.
“Fuck no. Something normal.”
“Of course.” And he turns himself into Gilda.
I recoil instinctively, stumbling back into the narrow table by the front door and knocking off a vase. It shatters, but I’m still backing away, and I step on a shard before I can stop myself. Pain punches through my fear as the sharp piece of porcelain slices into my foot.
Instantly the Faerie switches back to his usual form. “God-stars, I didn’t mean to… shit. I should have made you some slippers—why do I always forget the shoes? Let me see it.”
“I’ve had worse. Can you conjure me a bandage or something so I don’t track blood everywhere?”
He produces a strip of cloth, and while I wrap up my foot, he mends the vase and makes the blood on the floor disappear.
“Must be fucking nice,” I mutter. “Fixing everything with magic.”
“It can’t resolve everything,” he replies. “And it takes energy. As I told you, my energy reserves are lower than that of most Fae, since I have human blood.”
“You said your father is Fae and your mother is human? Are they together?”
“Yes, she has lived in Faerie for decades. My father says it’s his love that keeps her young, but the truth is that humansdon’t age in our realm—or if they do, the process is far slower than it is here.”
“So why not stay in Faerie with your family?” I ask. “Why come here, to this miserable mess of a world?”
He crouches in front of me and takes over with the bandage, tightening and tying it. “I like to help people. I serve in areas where the Fae are revered or at least accepted. It’s safer that way for someone like me, someone with limited powers. I’ve been serving humans in need for about thirty years now.”
“And how old are you?”
“Fifty-three.” He rises and holds out his hand to help me up.
My impulse is to reject it, but I relent and lay my fingers in his palm. “Do you visit Faerie often?”
“I do. As I told you when we first met, I was born under unusual circumstances, and my mother is god-touched, which means one of her parents slept with a god-star and was granted the Wretched Sight. As her son, I have a few unique gifts, one of which is the ability to transfer between the mortal and Faerie realms easily, whenever I like, and to travelwithinthose realms as well. I can create portals in the air, similar to the mirror I made for you, and I simply walk from one side to the other.”
“Could you get something for me, if I needed it?” I ask.
“Something like what?”
I describe the weapons I saw in the book, the ones that can cut apart enchanted objects. His face falls as I go through the list.
“I know where two of them are,” he says. “One is in the palace back home, and the other is in Unseelie lands. I can get the first one for you, the Void-Star Dagger—but the Wraith’s Scythe isn’t something I can access. The Unseelie kingdom is a troubled place—less so than it used to be, but still dangerous. I’ll see if I can bring you the Void-Star Dagger tomorrow night. Perhaps it will work on the anklet.”