Grave Witch

Holly shook her head. “Big case landed on my desk yesterday. I’m doing research for the DA, and I’m slammed, but I’ll see you tonight. Have fun.”

I closed the door, because short of begging her to come with me, I had nothing more to say. Now that I was standing outside the Eternal Bloom, I was seriously wishing someone else was going in with me. But I was here, I was going in, and I was going to learn what Ashen knew about fae glyphs. I hitched my purse higher on my shoulder and marched up the steps.

Beyond the main door was a small receiving room—too small, as the bouncer on duty was a troll. He stooped despite the nine-foot ceiling, his knuckles dragging the floor beside his bare blue feet.

“Please check all iron items,” he said, his deep voice booming in the confined space.

I considered what I had on me. My car keys might have contained iron, but they’d been stolen with the car.

I had the dagger on me, but it was fae-wrought, so not iron, and the troll hadn’t said anything about checking weapons.

“No iron,” I said, smiling.

He nodded his large hairless head. “Please sign ledger.”

I looked around. No ledger. I did remember there being a podium the last time I came here. The troll watched me and frowned, his two lower tusks protruding.

He shuffled to the side.

Right. That ledger. The one behind the troll. I scratched my name in the book, overly aware of the large fae breathing down my neck.

“Al-lex Ca-raft,” the troll read aloud. He looked at a clipboard. “You have VIP status.”

He shuffled some more and indicated a door I hadn’t even known was in the room. I frowned.

“No, I don’t,” I said, but the troll only gave me a confused look. “I’m not a VIP here.” Or at least, I didn’t think I wanted to be.

The troll scratched the top of his head with a finger as thick around as my wrist. “Alex Craft. VIP.”

“No, I’m not. Let me in the public part of the bar.”

The troll frowned harder. He looked from the door, to his clipboard, to the ledger, and then back to the clipboard.

He shook his head.

Okay, then. It looked as if I was standing Ashen up. I didn’t like my sudden elevation to VIP. I was getting the hell out of the Eternal Bloom.

I shoved the main door open, storming out of the bar—and plowed straight into someone.

I jumped back. “I’m so sorry; I—”

“No, please forgive me, Miss Craft, for keeping you waiting.” Ashen bowed from the waist. “I am unfamiliar with these streets. I did not mean to be so tardy.”

Of course, if I run over someone, it would have to be my date.

“You’re not late. I just got here myself,” I said, and then immediately regretted it as he smiled and motioned to the door.

“Should we find a table?”

“I, uh …” I glanced back at the bar. “Honestly, I’m having a bit of trouble with the bouncer. Why don’t we eat somewhere else?”

“The bouncer? We’ll see about that.” He pulled out his wallet and wrapped his arm through mine. “I find the green speaks to fae as well as it does humans.”

“Please check all iron items,” the troll said as Ashen pulled open the door.

“No iron on me, my good fae,” he said, and pressed a twenty into the troll’s huge palm. “My lady friend and I would like a quiet spot in which to speak. That won’t be a problem, right?”

The troll cocked his huge head to the side.

“See,” Ashen whispered. Then he pulled me through the very door I’d been avoiding, leading me into the VIP area of the Eternal Bloom.

Chapter 20

“Please sign the ledger,” a small voice said as the door closed behind Ashen and me.

I turned and discovered a small fae, her large wings shaped like those of a luna moth, sitting on the edge of a podium.

“I signed in outside,” I told her.

“The ledger,” she said again. “Name, date, and time.”

I glanced at Ashen, and he shrugged. Okay, whatever;

I’d sign in again. But as soon as Ashen got a look around, I was suggesting a change of venue—earlier if anything weird happened.

The VIP room of the Eternal Bloom was both more and less than I expected. It was certainly populated by more unglamoured fae than the regular part of the bar had been at any time I’d been there. But I guess that made sense.The fae in the public section were on display.

Here they were relaxed. Most didn’t look up as Ashen led me to an empty table in the corner. I accepted the chair against the wall—I didn’t want my back to the bar’s patrons. I watched the fae who’d noted our entrance, but there was nothing malicious about their glances.

I looked around, unsure what was real and what was glamour. The unadorned wooden walls were probably real enough, but I wasn’t sure about the tables and chairs, which had been crafted with such skill that no metal screws held them together. Glamour was a belief magic so strong it reshaped reality. The basic principle was that I saw a chair, I felt a chair, and thus reality agreed there was a chair. My gaze landed on an ancient tree growing through the floorboards in the center of the room. There isn’t a tree growing out of the bar from the outside. I looked up. Branches created a false roof to the room, starting twenty feet above my head. And between the branches, I caught the glimmer of stars.

“That can’t be real,” I whispered, staring. Has to be glamoured.

“It looks quite real,”Ashen said, and I glanced at him.

His eyes glowed pale green in the dim bar.

“You’re using grave-sight?”

He smiled. “I find the world a more fascinating place when its corruption is fully revealed. Don’t you?”

If I hadn’t known I could see through glamour when I used my grave-sight, I’d have thought he was crazy. Now I wondered if he wasn’t hinting at more than he was saying.

A dangerous thing to admit in a bar filled with fae. To be sure, I edged deeper into the double meaning. “So, I take it you’re not a fan of the pretty lies.”

He inclined his head, which I took to mean we were talking about the same thing. He could See, too. Could all grave witches? Or was that why only the two of us had been able to detect the spell on Coleman’s body? I added it to the list of growing questions in my mind.

“I imagine that is where the bar got its name,” Ashen said, nodding at the giant tree. “Amaranthine. How lovely.”

I looked at the large flowers far above our heads. They glowed softly, swaying in a breeze I couldn’t feel. As I stared I thought I caught an exotic scent perfuming the air. I inhaled. Definitely flowers. It was a sweet scent that filled my mind with moonlight and laughter.

“I wouldn’t stare at the flowers,” an old woman whispered as she walked by our table.

I ripped my gaze away, and the scent faded. Flowers.

Flowers almost enthralled me. I opened my mouth to thank the woman, but the words died on my tongue as I got a good look at her.

She was bent with age, but she wasn’t human. Her puffy skin was so fair, it was translucent. Not like a ghost’s translucence, but as though her skin was only a thin membrane wrapped around a dark hollowness inside her body. She wore a plain black dress and carried a hand-painted sign that read DESIRES: BOUGHT AND TRADED. I recognized the sign. When I walked PC in the park in the Magic Quarter, I’d occasionally see her sitting on a bench, holding that sign. She’d always been glamoured to look much more human at the park.

I nodded to acknowledge her warning about the flowers, and she smiled, flashing the toothless hollow space behind her lips.Then she and her sign moved on, searching for an empty table.

“I don’t think this place is exactly witch friendly,” I whispered, leaning closer to Ashen. “Perhaps we should consider relocating.”

“I am most amazed with this bar,” he said as if he hadn’t heard me.“Look there, in that small area. Do you see the dancers?”

I did. They moved in streams of motion, gliding and twirling in a circular pattern around a fiddler. When I heard the first note of music, I looked away—I didn’t want to get caught the way I nearly had with the flowers.

“They dance the endless dance,” Ashen said, still watch ing. “And none will step out of that circle until the fiddle strings burst and the song is forced to end. Absolutely amazing.” He turned back toward me.“Do forgive me, Miss Craft. I have a special interest in all things fae. I am probably boring you. We are here to discuss the late governor’s body.” He smiled.

“Please call me Alex.Actually, since seeing Coleman’s body, I’ve developed my own interest in fae magic. You mentioned recognizing some of the glyphs. Did your research turn up anything about the spell?”

“No, unfortunately. The layers of spells on that body were intricate and topped with a distortion spell, making it hard to focus on. Quite bewildering.” He looked around. “Can I order you something?”

As if summoned by the question, a fae with cloven feet showing under the hem of her long skirt walked up to our table. She placed two glasses of golden liquid before us. Then she turned to leave.

“I didn’t order this,” I said.

She glanced back over her shoulder, and her goatslitted eyes narrowed. Then she pointed at a nearby table. A woman in a crimson dress sat at the table. She lifted her glass, also filled with the golden liquid.

Ashen picked up his glass, raising it in a silent toast.

I grabbed his forearm. “Are you sure about that?”

He glanced at the glass and shrugged. “It looks okay to me.” He nodded at the woman. Then he took a long sip of the golden liquid. “Exquisite.”

I picked up my glass and cupped it between my hands, but I didn’t drink. The golden liquid looked thick, almost syrupy. What is this stuff? I put the glass back down and looked at Ashen. “So do you know many fae glyphs?”

“Quite a few, yes. I have been studying them for quite some time.”