Grave Dance

Where could a girl with a newfound tendency to merge realities, a ghost, and a small dog go to hide? Well, there was one option, though I hated considering it. There was one place no one in his right mind would ever look for me. I pulled out my phone and called my father.

I huddled under the sheltering wings of the granite angel that had stood overlooking a cemetery three blocks from Caleb’s house for the last forty years. The statue protected me from the casual onlooker, but I could peek out to see the gate and a bit of the road beyond. It seemed to take a lifetime before I heard gravel crunch under tires and saw a black Porsche with mirrored windows roll to a stop outside the small cemetery gate.

I wished I could have sent Roy to check out the driver and make sure it wasn’t the FIB or one of the skimmers, but he hadn’t been able to enter the cemetery. The gates of a cemetery were meant to keep the dead inside, which also effectively kept ghosts trapped if they entered. He’d headed out to check on Bell’s activities—and maybe actually get an address this time—so I was on my own. Well, let’s hope for the best.

I hopped down from my perch, my legs protesting after being curled against my body so long. I ignored the pins and needles as I turned and collected my purse—and the dog currently sleeping in it. Then I made my way around the grave markers toward the car.

The Porsche’s doors clicked, unlocking as I approached. I still couldn’t see who was inside, which made my hair stand on end and my scalp feel a little too tight. If it was in fact my ride, I’d be happy about the heavy tinting, but if it wasn’t . . .

The passenger door popped open. “Get in the car, Alexis,” a crisp voice said.

I blinked in surprise, recognizing the voice. I hadn’t thought my father would come himself.

My father and I didn’t exactly get along. I’d like to say it was nothing personal, but that would have been a lie. It was very, very personal.

I’d spent most of my life believing he hated me because I’d been born a wyrd witch, and wyrd witches, especially wyrd children, can’t hide what they are. I didn’t fit his image of the perfect norm family he’d built. Then a month ago I’d learned he was one of the Sleagh Maith, the nobles of Faerie, and it made me reevaluate everything I knew about him. The end result? I’d decided he was playing at something bigger and further stretching than I even wanted to know, and I wasn’t interested in being a pawn in his game. Continuing with the status quo of ignoring each other’s existence had seemed like a good plan. Until the fae forced me to go home crying “daddy.”

“I thought you’d just send someone,” I said as I slid into the plush leather seat and pulled the door closed behind me.

“Not for this.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“How are you, Alexis?” he asked as he pulled the car away from the curb.

I didn’t answer, but just sat studying his profile. My psyche was apparently now touching both a plane that accepted glamour and one that didn’t because I could see both the glamour that made him look like the clean-cut, just past fifty, respectable politician who walked around Nekros as governor and a leader in the Humans First Party and the face he hid under that glamour that appeared only a few years older than me and featured the striking bone structure of the ruling class of fae.

But from which court?

There weren’t many Sleagh Maiths in the mortal realm. They were the royal blood of Faerie. Oh, they’d been front and center when the fae came out during the Magical Awakening, as they were humanlike and beautiful—at least by human standards—but of the openly fae, aside from some figureheads and some movie stars, it was rare to see Sleagh Maith. Unglamoured, at least. I guess there was no telling how many were in hiding. But now that I thought about it, I didn’t know any independent Sleagh Maith—except, hopefully, my father.

Okay, way to think myself nervous. “You are independent, aren’t you?”

My father looked over at me. “No.”

Crap. Why hadn’t I thought of asking him that before I asked for his help? I hadn’t been paying attention to where we were headed, but now that I glanced outside, I realized we weren’t going toward the mansion he called a house.

“Let me out of this car.”

“Sit down, Alexis, before you dump that poor dog on the floorboard,” he said, and I noticed that the purse, with dog, in my lap was teetering. A lot. “I am not winter court, nor do I care what that impetuous and selfish queenling has to say.”

“Oh?” Tell me how you really feel, Dad. But he couldn’t lie, and there hadn’t been much wiggle room in that statement. I sank lower in my seat and clutched PC to my chest. “What court are you, then? And if you aren’t winter court but you are aligned, how are you here? I thought court fae had to move with their courts.”

“Typically,” he said, but didn’t expound on the answer.

I frowned at his profile. I admittedly didn’t know enough about fae, but it really irritated me that people kept breaking the rules I had heard. I noticed he also didn’t tell me which court he belonged to—which theoretically, I also belonged to. Except Faerie acknowledges me as unaligned. I knew the fae inside Faerie were born into courts. They could change, but initially they belonged to the same court as their parents. So did Faerie not realize I was his daughter? Is he that deep in hiding?

“Does your court know where you are?”

“Alexis, I do believe that is the most intelligent question you’ve asked all night.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”

I was surprised when that statement earned a smile, and not the one he gave to voters, but a grin that made his hidden fae face look mischievous. “Very good, Alexis.”

Deep hiding it is. “So how do I hide what I am?” “Right now? You don’t. Your fae mien is undergoing a kind of metamorphosis.”

Great. I guess I should be happy I hadn’t woken as a cockroach.

“Tell me, Alexis, did you inherit in Faerie?”

The question switched gears so fast it caught me off guard. “Should I have?”

“It is a simple enough question. You destroyed the body thief. Did you inherit his holdings?”

I stared straight ahead, not making a sound. After a couple of moments, my father chuckled under his breath.

“You have finally learned the value of silence.” He sounded strangely pleased by that fact. “Now I must decide if I know you well enough to decipher your silence. Perhaps you are silent because you are so uncomfortable with your fae nature that you do not wish to admit it. Or perhaps you didn’t inherit and you still possess the desire to earn paternal approval so you do not wish to tell me. Or perhaps you simply do not trust me.”

That almost got a reaction from me. Almost. I did not seek George Caine’s approval. But I managed to keep my face completely clear as I stared out the window at the world flying past. We were in a part of the city I didn’t venture to often. You can’t have a truly old portion of town with a city that has existed for only fifty or so years, but we were now in what was left of the original norm homes built after the space unfolded.

“What are we doing here?”

“I am here to drop you off. You are here to get some rest.”

He turned onto a street filled with narrow, one-story houses built so close together you could reach out your window and touch your neighbor’s flower box. The whole neighborhood was in need of a refresh-and-repair charm—or at least some paint. My grave-sight didn’t even make the houses look that much worse than reality. We turned into the driveway of a dingy gray house, and my father cut the engine.

A Porsche is really going to stand out in this neighborhood. I could imagine the neighbors looking out windows, but when I climbed out of the car, I found myself staring at a double image. A Porsche was underneath, but a boxy monstrosity with two different colors of dull paint was what the rest of the world was seeing. Glamour. When did he do that?

I looked up and found myself staring at a stranger. I was no longer with the governor of Nekros, but an older man in his mid-seventies with a bent back and a limp as he walked. Of course, under that image was the fae. My mouth went dry. How did I know this fae even really was my father?

Actually, I did know he was. He acted just like him. But still, it was creepy to see him turn into someone different.

“Don’t dawdle,” he said, limping his way up the drive to the front door.

I wonder if he changed what I look like, too?

I expected him to drop the glamour once the door closed behind us, but he remained an old man. “Here is a key in case you decide to leave—though I don’t suggest that course of action. The wards on the house will prevent tracking spells from locating you as long as you are inside. I’ll stop by in the next few days to check on you. In the meantime, I have a brownie who tends the house. He’ll provide you with anything you need.” He stopped and turned his head toward the back of the house. It was built shotgun style, the front door leading to the kitchen, then a combo den/living room, then a hall with a couple of doors along the walls and a back door at the end exactly parallel to the front door. “You heard that, Osier—whatever she needs.”

No response came from the old house, but that didn’t seem to surprise or upset him. He turned back to me, and I looked around the kitchen. All the appliances looked like they’d been new in the same decade as the now decrepit house.

“Have you owned this house all these years?” I knew from the face he hid that my father had once gone by the name Greggory Delane, and had been the governor of Nekros back when it was first named a state. He’d been openly fae then, one of Nekros’s few fae governors. Fifty years later he was part of the Humans First Party—the thorn in the side of witches and fae everywhere. Go figure.

My father shrugged. “On paper? No. I’ll check in on you.”

The ancient hinges of the front door squealed as he let himself out. I caught the door before it could close.