But it was just an ordinary brooch. It certainly didn’t have the ashes of this shapeshifting creature’s mother embedded in it. It was just an onyx stone surrounded by silver scrollwork, just as Horst had described. There was no magic there.
If that was Quill’s plan, I was as good as dead.
“Mortal, I don’t have all day,” Quill said testily, holding out her hand below me. “And frankly, you look like you don’t have more than a minute or two left, so chop-chop.”
My fingers struggled to follow my brain’s commands, but I managed to reach into my pocket and pull out the very ordinary, very non-magical brooch. I was in no shape to toss it to Quill. The best I could do was let it slip from my fingers and hope she caught it.
Her hand moved faster than I would have imagined possible—or maybe I was at the point where I was just seeing things—closing over the brooch before it could hit the ground.
“I don’t feel my mother here,” Dirchan rumbled. “What trick are you trying to pull, Piper?”
“You don’t feel your mother because your idiot friend put a cloaking spell on it,” Quill said. “Just give me a moment to remove it.”
Her lips moved, and I could feel a trickle of frigid air rising from her closed fist. There was a flash of light in a truly stomach-churning shade of purple, and then she opened her hand. “Here you go, puppy,” she said, tossing him the brooch.
“Dirchan,” Horst shouted. “I have your brooch. Let Glory go immediately or I will destroy it for good.”
The snake unloosed its coils without warning, and I would have fallen gracelessly to the floor had I not been caught in a strong pair of arms.
Unfortunately, they were Quill’s and not Horst’s, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Quill looked like she felt the same way, dumping me onto my feet as quickly as she could. “You owe me for that one, too, mortal,” she said.
I sucked in a lungful of air, rubbing at the raw skin of my throat. “I didn’t ask you to catch me,” I said. “So I can’t owe you anything.” I wasn’t sure how the fine print of fae interactions went, I had to assume there were rules.
She sighed. “It was worth a try,” she said, brushing her dress to remove whatever mortal cooties she thought I carried.
Dirchan, meanwhile, shrank back to his human form so quickly I could almost believe I’d imagined that he had been a snake. He snatched the brooch from Horst’s fingers, his face blurring between his true knife-edge form and the bland mask I’m pretty sure he wore most of the time. “Mommy,” he whispered, bringing the brooch up to his cheek.
Where hesnuggled it.
Horst’s face was still pale, but he was rapidly sliding back into his normal self. “So, Dirch, we’re all good then?”
Dirchan’s face snapped back to his haughty, cruel persona, and he fastened the brooch carefully onto the collar of his cape. “Steal from me again, Piper, and there is nothing that can save you.” Then he spun on one heel and stalked out of the cat area. I heard a door slam, and the air itself brightened as the shapeshifting monster walked out of our lives.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“It was great to see you again,” Horst called after Dirchan. “All the best to your family.” Then he bent at the waist, hands on his knees while he breathed deeply for several beats before straightening up.
“Quill,” he said. “Thank you. Truly.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, my hands—and voice—still shaky from the oxygen deprivation. “That was just a regular brooch. Why did he believe it was his mother?”
“Quill did...something.” Horst looked to the Unseelie queen, one eyebrow raised. “Some kind of masking spell, right?”
