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“What do you want, Maddie?” came the brusque feminine reply.
“Hi, Marta,” I said cheerfully. “Did you have time to look into the artifact for me?”
As a current member of the Magical Artifacts Retrieval and Research Institute, Marta had access to their database of Fae artifacts.
As an ex-member of the Magical Artifacts Retrieval and Research Institute, I did not.
“No.”
“Aww,” I cooed. “Are you sure?”
“I sent you an email.”
Her email had contained three lines, all of which I already knew because she had copy-pasted them from my text.
Artifact name: Flower of Dreams
Magic type: Dreams
Status: Missing
Fae artifacts were objects imbued with Fae magic, and they always took some kind of payment to activate. In this case, once the magic inside was activated by a Fae or part-Fae, the artifact would gift a wonderful dream for a night but induce several horrible nightmares in return.
Artifacts’ effects ranged from the very dangerous to the mundane, and it was the Institute’s job to find and retrieve the dangerous kind. There was a thriving underground Fae artifact market that dealt with powerful items—a market I was kind of adjacent in given my current position as an independent artifact hunter.
Not that I’d ever find dangerous items without giving them to Aidan, my boyfriend and head of the Institute.
I might be squatting, but I had principles.
“No mention of the previous owner?” I asked, full of disappointment. In my experience, old owners accounted for a big percentage of artifact thieves once they realized they wanted their shiny back. Not that I had that much experience, mind, but I had been at this for three months, and that was a long time in the artifact world.
“I have my own missing cases, Maddie,” Marta said. “Would you like to become one?”
“Did the file say which Fae made it, at least?” I asked, still hopeful.
“Goodbye.”
The call ended, and I hopped off the chair. Tying up my straight brown hair like I meant business, I looked at the murder board I’d created on the wall by taping a few blank pages together. A drawing of the missing artifact occupied the middle, with the current owner’s name written under it and three suspects underneath—distant cousins who were aware of the world of Fae magic.
The Fae lived in a humongous cavern under the surface, leaving the surface to unsuspecting humans and part-Fae like me. Occasionally, artifacts made their way to the surface, even if the Fae did not. They preferred to live in their world, where magic was alive and plentiful, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t access the surface through portals—self-made or created by others.
And speaking of self-made portals from Fae to the surface, a familiar pool of inky black goo began to form on one of the gray cement walls of the office.
Usually, I only received two kinds of visitors—Greenie, my Fae hound companion, or Lord Velei, the very powerful Fae Lord who was currently sponsoring me through the meticulous use of blackmail and grocery funds.
But this pool of goo—also known as a self-made Fae portal—was a little different from the kind they usually produced. Much smaller.
I approached to take a better look. It looked like the same kind of goo, but just to make sure, I poked it with my phone. It had the same oily rubbery consistency.
A small hand stuck through.
I jumped back, barely restraining myself from throwing my phone at it.
The hand’s fingers wriggled.
Okay, this was new.
I poked the hand with my phone.
