1
Maybe my priorities were all out of whack, but the first thing I noticed when I checked my phone was that my boyfriend hadn’t texted me good morning.
The second thing I noticed was that the screen of my ancient Dandelion+ was cracked. Somewhere between the dwarvish fire-ales and the thornberry cocktails, my poor phone had suffered the consequences of my inebriation.
Then I clicked on the scarlet headline topping the news in all caps: GHOSTHAND KILLER STRIKES AGAIN IN ACIONNA HARBOR.
Like I said. Priorities. Out of whack, not that they’d ever been in whack to begin with.
The victim was no one I knew, but I still felt a shudder of sympathy for the dead Fae. Last night my selkie roommates and I had hopped all the bars at the edge of Mothwing Falls, which bordered Acionna.
We could’ve walked right past the serial killer stalking the streets of Avilion and never known it.
Ioin, my human boyfriend, had been with us. The twin selkies, Clove and Tarragon, didn’t really like him, but I’d convinced them he should be there to celebrate their collective birthday.
I frowned at my busted phone. By now, news of the Ghosthand’s tenth kill would’ve spread all over Avilion like wildfire, but…
There were none of the usual texts from Ioin. Not a good morning, a good night, or even the usual reminder to meet at the bakery before work.
Another blurry memory came back to me.
Ioin sliding a glimmering thornberry cocktail to me, but his eyes were on the nereid bartender’s lightly scaled cleavage.
A frown had creased Clove’s brow before he pulled me into some gossip about the kelpie who’d just moved into the apartment next door, and then I’d forgotten all about Ioin’s wandering eyes.
I glanced at the headline about the latest murder one last time before shutting my phone with a decisive snap and heading to the bathroom. The Ghosthand never targeted humans. Ioin was probably just sleeping off his own hangover.
There was no way I could be late. First off, my boss would kill me, and second, I needed the job.
I had only six months left on my residency visa. If I wasn’t gainfully employed when the time came, the Seelie Court wouldn’t even bother considering me for a permanent residency.
I threw the phone on my bed and plunged into the shower, scrubbing up in record time and even taking a few seconds to apply mascara around my gold-tinged brown eyes.
There. Now I looked only half-dead instead of entirely dead.
Then it was time for the emergency stash in the back of my medicine cabinet.
Our downstairs neighbor was an elderly human hedgewitch named Carabosse, but she was Mothwing Falls’ secret treasure. I’d bet my ass she could whip up a hangover cure that could top anything the royal Seelie Court healers could do.
I uncorked one of the tiny purple bottles and threw back a shot of oily liquid that tasted like violets with a hint of earthy mushroom. Within seconds the tension in my neck had faded and the headache was a distant memory.
“I’m never drinking dwarven ale again,” I muttered. “Not even for their birthdays.”
I tied my mass of wet dark curls into a high bun and went looking for my work clothes.
Well, what passed for work clothes. For the girls working at Fairy Ferry, ‘work clothes’ meant shorts so short the creases of our asses showed, and little pink shirts embossed with the swirly FF logo tied up under our breasts.
Oh, and my least favorite part. The fake, glitter-covered pixie wings. Which were nowhere to be found in my bedroom.
I jammed my feet in white sneakers and went sneaking down the hall. The twins’ door was cracked, and I peered in to see Clove sprawled across his bed, his pants only halfway off and shoes still on.
Surprisingly, there were no muscle-bound kelpies or satyrs sprawled alongside him.
The twins had somehow left a trail of destruction behind them: damp sealskins thrown in a pile on the floor, one sock draped over a lamp, an empty bottle of pixie vodka upended in a houseplant.
I found Tarragon in the living room, face down on the couch, snoring loudly, and wearing my pink pixie wings. Silver glitter had wafted off the mesh and coated his dark skin.
“Hey,” I said, groaning as I rolled him over. The selkies were all lean muscle, but they were still heavy as hell. “You’re going to stretch out the straps, you jerk.”
Tarragon cracked one sea-blue eye open and managed a lopsided smile. “But it’s my birthday.” The poor guy was still slurring.
“Yesterday was your birthday.” I managed to wrestle the wings off him without popping the straps. “When you wake up, go help yourself to my medicine cabinet.”
He muttered something indecipherable, his eyes already closing again.
I pulled a blanket over him. “Sleep tight, Cinnamon.”
No response. He was truly conked out.
I looped the pixie wings around my shoulders, picked up their sealskins and hung them up neatly so they wouldn’t complain about wrinkles later, and locked the door behind me on the way out.
The sky over Avilion was flat and pearly gray. Genuine pixies darted back and forth over the buildings in Mothwing Falls, already delivering early-morning messages.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to scratch behind the pointed ears of Carabosse’s friendly little cat sìth.
There was something about today that made me feel… wary. Like the universe had an unpleasant surprise in store and all my mental hackles were up.
The fairy-cat purred and twined around my legs, following me to the back of the little whitewashed building where my Fairy Ferry bike was locked up. It was my own bike, but my boss Numa had required me to have it repainted in glittery pink to match my wings and shirt.
Carabosse was already outside, taking out a bag of trash.
Being human, her face was lined with wrinkles, and her long, steel-gray hair was always tied back in a braid. She liked to wear dresses with lots of glittering patchwork and fringe.
“Rain today,” she announced. That was Carabosse’s typical greeting: an assessment of the weather instead of a hello.
“Good morning!” I unchained my bike and wheeled it around. “Hopefully it holds off.”
She picked up her cat sìth and gave the sky a dirty glare. “Don’t count on it.”
I shrugged. “Optimism over realism?”
Carabosse leveled that glare on me.
I jumped on my bike and waved, speeding away into the street.
Twenty seconds later, the sky opened up and a torrent of rain poured over me.
Just a perfect day. A hangover, a cracked phone, and now a spring downpour.
The lights of Web and Peaseblossom Bakery were already lit in the distance. I wiped the rain out of my eyes, and pedaled forward, rolling the bike onto the sidewalk.
Then I caught sight of a familiar figure through the rain and raised my hand to wave. Ioin’s bright green coat was like a beacon. He was waiting outside by a low stone wall.
Maybe he’d broken his phone, too.
A pretty sylph floated out of the bakery, clutching a white paper bag.
He turned to the side, his lips quirked in a little half-smile as he spoke. His arms reached out and wrapped around the sylph. Her gold hair floated around her head like a cloud despite the rain, reaching out to caress Ioin’s cheek.
My bike slowed to a halt as my heart dropped somewhere near my stomach.