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Once the RIU was done, members from the Fae Guild would come to test for charms and spells. They always found the remnant of a spell, usually one that would allow the killers to get away, and perhaps more importantly, one that was designed to degrade over time, so that the bodies would be found.
But what good did that do? The Guild could identify a charm, but they couldn’t prevent another one from being created. And the black market was alive and well in his realm.
The woman who’d been cleansing his uniform completed her task. She rose and patted Malik’s shoulder. “The Goddess’s blessings on you, Mastyr.” She then moved slowly down the steps, weeping anew.
One of his lieutenants, Evan, flew in, his expression somber. “Came as fast as I could from the north. We found three Invictus pairs. Took care of them.”
“Three?” Malik’s realm had the fewest Invictus incursions of any of the Nine Realms. That there had been three sounded an alarm inside his head.
“Yes.” Evan nodded. “I thought it strange as well.”
The last thing Malik needed was a sudden arrival of wraith-pairs into his realm. He had enough problems with The Society hunting down and murdering innocent citizens.
Evan dipped his chin in the direction of the front door. “How bad is it?”
For a few seconds, Malik numbed out again as the images once more flowed through his mind. He couldn’t speak.
“Malik?”
He shifted his gaze to Evan. “It’s never been worse. Two little boys. A family of four elves. Don’t go in there. They were tortured. Forensics is doing its thing anyway.”
Evan had young children. As though struck at the back of his knees, Evan dropped suddenly to sit on the porch, his long Guardsman legs angling down three steps. “Shit.” He covered his face with his hand.
The door slammed open and the RIU agent stalked out of the house, his face ashen. He didn’t respond when Malik called to him. The tall fae, renowned for his ability to track serial predators, walked up High Street, refusing to answer questions thrust at him by the village inhabitants. He disappeared around the bend, not looking back.
Malik understood. But the sight of one of his toughest agents coming apart just as Malik had, shifted something inside him. Something had to give. He’d been putting off a critical decision for a long time now, hating what needed to be done. But this execution had ended the debate.
A troll, driving a horse-drawn cart, drew close to the porch. “That cursed family had wraith-blood and got what they deserved.” He spat and plied his whip again.
Some cheered the troll’s harsh words, while others booed and shouted protests against half-breed hate-speech.
And this was what caused Malik the most despair — that his realm was divided. A large number of his people hated wraiths with a passion because of the Invictus, while others believed that innocent wraiths, unaffected by Margetta the Ancient Fae, should be tolerated and accepted like any other realm-person. It was Margetta who turned wraiths into a killing force.
But as the troll and his cart disappeared down a side lane that led into the forest, Malik knew the time had come to make a significant change, and one he’d hoped to avoid. He would get the Sidhe Council to agree to a mandate, commanding the removal of every last half-breed to Swanicott Realm for all of Ashleaf. Swanicott had one of the few protected wraith colonies in the entire Nine Realms and the mastyr there had offered Malik the opportunity countless times to take in his endangered half-breeds.
The death of the twin elven boys had finally finished off his last resistance to relocation as a solution to the divide in his realm.
He basically had a terrorist organization working inside his realm, and he didn’t have the ability to uncover the principal organizers and bring them to justice. He’d never believed in relocation as a solution, nor did his vast number of supporters. But unless he saved the several thousand realm-folk who carried wraith-blood in their veins, he would face decades of exactly this kind of murder.
And there was one other issue that needed to be addressed.
Willow.
He thought about what he’d done just before dawn and how he’d let himself get distracted with his longings for Willow. Maybe if he hadn’t let his guard down and finished up his nightly patrols with a visit to her favorite pool, maybe something would have alerted him to the ter
rible events here in Birchingwood.
Maybe he’d been distracted, maybe not. But if there was the smallest chance his pursuit of Willow had interfered with his proper managing of Ashleaf, then he needed to find some way to end his obsession.
And just as these thoughts passed through his mind, suddenly, he felt Willow’s presence. In response, his heart started pounding hard in his chest.
Scanning the crowds clumped all along High Street, he finally caught sight of her at the edge of the forest. She had a soft glow around her that meant she’d covered herself in a fae charm, just as she did when she went shopping in the various villages.
And as had happened the first time he saw her at market day in Cherry Hollow, and every time he’d seen her since, he felt stunned by the sight of her. She wore a pair of jeans and a tank top against the warm September day, and her red wavy hair hung free about her shoulders.
She was so beautiful that something inside his brain started sending flashes of lightning that traveled to every part of his body. Some realm part of him knew her, recognized her as more than just a woman he wanted to take to bed. Was Miriam right? Did he need to take a serious look at what was really happening between himself and Willow?
He forced himself to take a breath, then another.
