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The door screeched as the sunlight grazed his face. God, he wished it would warm his soul the same way Grey’s hug had, but it remained surface-deep on the way back to the bridge—to the building beside it where Cy stopped with a small bag. She dumped it out on the ground, sending coins and trinkets rolling every which way.
“This is all I could find. Some of its iron, some of it might be.”
Not a single item laying there was a decent enough item to trade though.
“What did you find?” she asked, her gaze drifting to his empty hands and his jacket, like he might’ve tucked some magical weapon within that would save their skins.
He had, but the weapon was him. It wasn’t like she’d see that though, not with all the chaos surrounding a fight he’d rather extinguish for the sake of someone he barely knew and someone who held nothing but fear from how the world had chewed him up and spat him back out.
“I… didn’t find anything,” he said, even sounding distant and distracted to himself.
Cy’s nose crinkled. “Are you okay? If you’re having second thoughts about this plan?—”
He opened his mouth to spill it all, but before he could manage the first word, the pounding of soles against the pavers cut him off. They turned to Grey running toward them, something clutched to his chest.
When he skidded to a stop, he was panting and holding it out for them to examine. “I found something we can try to trade for more time.”
Sure enough, in his hoodie-covered palm, rested a crystalline shard. The undulating smoke trapped within shifted from pinks to blues to purples around the edges, uncertain of what to settle on. A piece of soul glass: a mirror that displayed one’s inner-most desires like pinning a heart to their sleeve. Something wielded as a weapon by the fair folk to lure in victims and rip them apart piece by piece until the glass turned black. A cry for death.
Noel pulled a glove from his pocket and tugged it on, his pulse hammering in his throat as he took the faerie treasure.
Cy’s breathless awe hitched as he started past her to the bridge. “Wait, what are you doing?”
“Making a trade.”
Running followed on his heels, both Cy and Grey immediately flanking him. He flinched when Grey grabbed his sleeve. “Let me do?—”
He ripped away. “Grey, you’ve done enough. More than enough. I know you believe you’re the cause of all these problems, but the truth is that we all are. You shouldn’t beat yourself up for that.”
“But what if she doesn’t take it?” he asked, that one clear, dark eye searching his in a way that could’ve melted Noel into a puddle.
That overwhelming urge to give into selfish wants here and now almost won out until the shard threatened to pierce the fabric of his glove. “I have another idea. Just leave it to me.”
Noel started across before any of them could talk him out of it, including himself. The uneasy silence consumed everything around him as the pink-eyed fair folk pushed off one of the trees lining the path and grinned.
“Come to face me?”
He swallowed, stopping at the edge. Noel twisted the shard in his palm, keeping his other hand at the ready for his knife if all else failed in either of his two bargains. “I’m offering to trade you this to let us all go.”
She quirked an eyebrow and reached for it.
He jerked it away. “To let us all go for today since I’m sure you’ll be back in five minutes if I don’t make that abundantly clear.”
A twisted chuckle escaped her lips. “Clever thing you are…” Those pink irises danced with malice. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a challenge. Every macharomancer before you has been all brawn and no brain.”
Noel bit his tongue, seriously doubting that. If anything, she was trying to feed his confidence so he’d slip up faster. Perhaps she actually believed that, but what else could someone like himself do in their domain besides fight for their lives?
“Do we have a deal?” he asked, his grip on the glass tightening to stop himself from trembling.
“Deal, little fox.”
He held it out, and she plucked it from his fingers. With a whistle, her barguests slunk from the bushes, and she turned to lead them away.
“I look forward to our hunt,” she called over her shoulder. “Maybe you’ll live longer than a day.”
35
NOEL
