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He tried to shake it from his mind as he pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll wake Grey, and we’ll get out of here. No point in sticking around any longer if they might already know where we’re at.”
Noel’s steps grew heavy on his way over to gently shake Grey awake, his heart squeezing at the groggy mumbling about what was happening. He helped him up, allowing himself to hold onto one of Grey’s sleeve-clad hands after they collected their bags and started out to their bikes. Cy stripped away all the iron they’d used and tucked it away for later. By the time the engines sprang to life and they rolled away, it was like they’d never been there.
He would be lying if he’d said he hadn’t noticed the raven following above them through the fog, or when it perched on a tree branch during their quick break to eat. Clearly Cy had noticed it too from the way she wolfed down her ration and knocked back a long drink of water before saying they needed to get a move-on.
It wasn’t until they arrived that Noel felt more uneasy than he had the entire morning. They hadn’t passed a single source of running water on the way here, and when he reached for Grey after they dismounted, he found he was wearing gloves. Despite how hard he tried not to think about the latter, he clung onto that horrible sensation biting at his nerves that said there was a lack of trust there—a lack of trust, or something far worse that drove Grey to putting those on after being so adamant not to borrow Noel’s when they’d first met. A way of snuffing out one of his lines of direct defense in favor of his wild, somewhat unpredictable radial grasp onto anything and everything.
But Noel kept a firm hold on Grey’s gloved hand as they started into the crumbling structures with Cy leading the way. The obscuring mist and spindly trees made him jump in his skin and half-shield Grey out of fear that spriggans were pulling themselves out of the facets of the stone and wood to reach for something to capture at the order of their fae masters. Grey kept close on his heels when they entered the sanctum: a smaller, more dilapidated shrine with cobwebs around the sacrificial altar.
Cy’s flashlight beam roamed around the recesses of the boxy hall, running it over moth-eaten mats laid out like the rows of benches set up in his hometown’s meeting house. Grey grabbed onto his arm as Noel started into one of the back rooms, where stacks upon stacks of locked crates remained untouched. She jiggled one of the locks and ran her thumb over the dust-coated, green-tinted metal with a hum. The metal bands binding the things together matched that sheen, reminding him of the blade he’d held back in the looters’ crate when they’d tried to sell him his freedom at such a steep price.
“Need a key,” Cy whispered, jerking the beam toward another corner of the room.
Grey tugged on Noel’s arm to get his attention and pointed over to the small set of stairs through a broken-open door. He swallowed. The decision to leave him here with Cy or bring him up into the unknown second story of the building made him queasy, but he gently pried Grey’s hands, as well as his own, away. “Stick close to her, okay? I’ll be right back.”
The hesitant nod that answered didn’t instill much confidence in him, especially with that raven fluttering around nearby, but Grey started for Cy, and Noel headed for the steps. He slid the iron dagger from his boot and kept it at his side during the upward creep to a single doorway around the corner. A desk sat inside, facing an ornate, stained-glass window, where dirt and grime covered every panel.
Filtered, multicolored remnants of dim light through the fog illuminated the entire shelf of trinkets behind the worn, wooden chair. He picked up a glass bauble, turning it around until a sudden sharp caw ripped through the silence. Noel jumped. The orb fell from his hands and shattered on impact as he spun on his heel to find the dreaded creature perched on the ledge outside the window.
“You fucking—” he started, cut off by two pairs of footfalls clamering up the stairs.
“Noel, are you—” Grey stumbled into the room, Cy on his heels.
Caw.
Their heads snapped toward the fair folk’s little alarm bell, and Grey tensed.
Cy gritted her teeth and moved past him. “This little motherfucker,” she hissed, slamming her fist against the window.
The raven fluttered back as Grey shot forward. “You shouldn’t?—”
“This damn bird is going to tattle and sick the fair folk on us again.”
“That doesn’t mean you should do that,” Grey argued. “It’ll just make them more aggressive.”
She scoffed. “I’m pretty sure they’re already plenty aggressive.” She stepped back and glanced over to Noel. “What’d you break?”
He grimaced and looked down to the shards of glass at his feet. “Just some trinket, I think. Looked man-made. I think if there are still keys around to the chests downstairs, my bet is that they’ll be up here.”
“Then let’s be quick about it,” she said, striding over to the other side of the bookcase. “If that flying rat comes back, we might be fucked. Not to mention the fact that everything is relatively untouched makes me feel like there’s something lurking nearby that no one wants to mess with.”
Grey jogged over and started pulling open desk drawers while Noel and Cy scanned shelf after shelf before crouching down and opening up the lower cabinets. That sudden spike of adrenaline sharpened every sense—every part of him acutely aware of Grey’s presence before they bumped shoulders and Noel’s neck heated from Grey’s mumbled apology.
Another set of cabinets flung open and Noel stilled. Tucked inside were several ornate boxes, their lids carved in intricate, whimsical designs that screamed fae-made. He lifted one out and ran his thumb over the inset lock, hissing and ripping his hand away at the sharp sting. When he turned up his palm, a bead of blood welled up on the pad of the offending finger. A second later though, the lock clicked. The entire room halted activity. Cy and Grey’s neck craned as they tried to peer at what he was hunched over. Noel lifted the lid and gaped.
A dagger—one with an embellished handle of twisting faux-thorns and roses blooming around the hand-guard—sat on the plush, crimson cushion within. The blade itself gleamed with that greenish sheen like he’d noted from the other one he’d held all those days ago, but this one… This one was a pristine instrument in comparison.
“Holy shit,” Noel breathed.
Grey reached for his hand, his glove peeled back from his palm to rest against his wrist until the dot of blood receded. The light outside the window shifted, some of the ivy drooping in his trade.
A wonderstruck grin pulled at Cy’s lips as she dropped down next to them and grasped the box lid for a better look. “Damn that’s beautiful too…”
“Yeah,” Noel echoed, slowly closing it again. “Let’s see if we can open a few more of these and find you something just as good.”
Grey took the box, cradling it while Noel and Cy started retrieving leather-covered, wood, and stone containers, each etched with striking faerie designs. Some opened to coins, priceless gems, and vials of mysterious liquids while others refused to yield to their force.
Cy picked up a vial, the midnight-black contents oozing to the top when she tilted it and thousands of glittering specks shone like stars. “I don’t know what the hell this is, but it’ll have to do.”
