Then the Dark King smiled, as friendly as any client, and said, “Good day, Saunders.”
Absently, Irial ran his fingertip over the ring he wore, imagining a future that held promise instead of more challenges to face and indignities to endure.
Tam
Back in the quiet but cramped space she rented in the Quarter, Tam felt as though she’d lost the last moment of good sense she had possessed. She given a gift to a faery. A Dark Court one at that. Faeries were all dangerous, but none so much as the ones that belonged to the court that thrived on violence and lust.
And after a lifetime of watching them, she had a good grasp of which court a faery belong to. This faery moved with such sensuality that he might very well be darkness made flesh—and she’d offered him a gift.
“I’m a fool. That’s what I am,” she said to herself. There was no one else in her rented home. No creatures. No people.
Here, she was more separated from nature than anywhere she’d ever lived. There was nothing natural here—unless she counted the insects or the rodents that scurried outside. The street where she had made her home was the nicest she could afford. Tall iron grates covered the windows of a few adjacent buildings. Her own window had several twists of rusting iron that made the room appear more like a prison cell than a home, but those same bars were the barrier that kept the fey out of the building.
Except the strong ones.
Except faeries like Irial.
Tam wasn’t sure who he was in the faery hierarchy, but he was strong.
He could visit me here.
The thought of Irial in her home did strange things to her pulse. Wise women didn’t allow such thoughts. Tam had normally considered herself wise. That was why she’d moved to New Orleans. She’d considered a smaller city, but the countryside was littered with the fey and small cities had far too much country. What Tam could figure was that the fey were weakened by too much iron—and cities with a lot of steel had plenty of that. The houses they chose were wood, stone, and brick. Things of the natural world seemed to be the right fit for creatures of nature. She couldn’t blame them. Truth be told, she liked the same. In her heart of hearts, Tam would prefer a life in the country, but she couldn’t risk it.
Because I’m afraid I’ll slip up.
That was the thing, the challenge before her. The faeries weren’t any more threat to her than the rest of the people who passed her day in and day out. The problem was that she saw them as they truly were. That alone changed everything. If they were horrid, monstrous in every way, she might be able to trust her willpower and resolve. They weren’t, though.
There was one, a lady that seemed like vines crawled across her body, who looked nearly human. Tam had marveled at her. If not for the way her feet seemed to barely touch the earth and song seemed to rise up through her skin, Tam could almost think she was a human girl.
Almost.
Others were truly monstrous. She’d watched a kelpie slash at a man alongside the river, driving its hooves into the man’s flesh until the dirty water looked like red paint had spilled over it. Blood and body were gone then, taken to the depths of the river by those fey hooves.
Another, a beautiful creature with a voice that sounded like a thousand crows in pain, pretended to be mortal. She let strangers kiss her, touch her, not for a coin but for what men thought to be free. Those same men withered and weakened, as they grew addicted to the touch of a woman they’d never see again. No food, no drink, no touch would satisfy them. They starved on the banks of the river where most humans would assume that they’d fallen prey to opium or drink or some other illness. No one guessed that they were faery-struck.
Only Tam.
In the wrought iron-draped heart of the city, there were fewer fey things, but those who did walk there were deadly in their ways, too. Marvelous, too.
And Tam didn’t want to be like the starving men at the edge of the Mississippi. She was already fairly smitten by the dark faery.
When she stepped outside that next morning, Tam was determined not to think of Irial. He wasn’t truly her guardian angel—or even her guardian devil. He was something far worse. He was the sort of monster that she ought never address, or watch, or offer tokens of affection. She’d made a mistake, but that was that. It was once. She was done with foolishness.
Resolutely, Tam made her way into the area where ships might toss freight trash, hoping for some bits of metal she might turn into jewelry. She could buy metal, but sometimes she got lucky and could repurpose found rubbish into salable art. She was not going to watch invisible men.
“Hello?” a melodic voice said.
She looked up, and every thought, every word she knew fled. There stood the very same guardian monster she was trying to forget. This time, though, Irial wore a glamour to seem like a mortal man.
He stood along an iron fence as if the toxic metal were simple stone, and worse still, he’d put himself squarely in her path. Irial was clad in yet another fine suit and hat as if he were a regular gentleman. Irial had a beautiful carved walking stick that looked older than any she'd seen; the patina made it glimmer like polished stone. As if that weren't enough, he carried himself with a confidence that even the richest of men lacked.
She needed only mortal eyes to see him. In her path. Touching iron.
Tam resisted the urge to draw the sign of the cross. Instead she said, “Sir? Was I in your way, then? I’m sorry. I’ll just—"
“No.”
“No?”
“Don’t leave,” he said, voice offering all the things that she feared. Interest. Kindness. And he looked like a debauched angel as he stared at her.
He met her eyes. He smiled. He stared.
Tam looked away.
He glowed faintly, as if hot coals burned inside him, as if he were a beacon. Maybe without the Sight, he was merely a beautiful man, but to her, his human guise only highlighted the truth: he was something else, something more than human.
"Were you looking for me?" His voice now rang with the sweetness of forbidden fruits, and Tam had to take a steadying moment before glancing at him.
"Why would I be? I don’t believe we’ve met, sir."
“Indeed.” His mouth curved into a smile, and she was reminded that she wasn't clever enough to meddle with a faery. Even if he hadn't glowed like some holy object made flesh, Thelma would know what he was. No human moved the way a fey creature did.
Years ago, she swore not to marry, not to risk passing on this curse or gift that allowed her to see a hidden world, but the task was easier than she liked to admit. No man drew her attention, sped her pulse, the way the faeries could. And no faery had made her tremble in fear and interest as Irial was doing. If she believed in soulmates, she’d think she’d found him. If that were true though, what did it mean that her soulmate was a monster?
Run.
Do not speak to him.
Do not linger here.
But here he was, bold as you please, walking past a new iron fence with curling fleur de lis and watching her, talking to her.
This is dangerous. She knew that.
It wasn't just that Irial was fey, but that he was pretending to be human, hiding so much in his dress and voice, aiming to deceive her. And there was no reason that Thelma should be of interest to Irial--unless he knew she had the Sight.