Chapter 1
“He’s here to kill me.”
I stared at the image reflected in the scrying mirror. The assassin stood aboveground: a beautiful fae with sun-kissed skin and hair the color of flames. Death had arrived in one handsome golden package. Within an hour, he would have a knife to my throat. Twenty minutes later, my dead body would be swinging from the bough of a hawthorn tree.
Gina stood next to me in our cluttered shop, her hands in her pockets. “Don’t overreact. Americans are always overreacting about everything.”
I chewed my gum and blew a pink bubble. It popped. “I’m not American.”
“You sound American. And anyway, the whole point of living literally underground is that the assassins can’t find you, right? He doesn’t know where the trapdoor is. We’re fine.”
“Maybe.” A pulse of fae magic made me shiver. His power was intensifying.
The fae assassin had about a dozen blades strapped to his body. The only thing stopping him from killing me was that he had no idea how to find us.
“How do you even know he’s here for you?”
“Because he’s directly above our shop, and I’m the only illegal supernatural in this part of London.”
Gina blew one of her dark curls out of her eyes. “I’ll tell you what, though; he does look bloody terrifying.”
“Yep.”
I should have known this would happen.
At some point, the assassins came for all us supernaturals. They hunted down the witches and fae, the demons and shifters. They delivered death from glamoured palaces. Only the assassins—the elite fae--were allowed to use magic.
The rest of us? We hid in tunnels, pretending not to exist.
Pacing on the earth above our shop, the assassin pulled out his sword.
My breath quickened, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “I need to stop him before he finds us.”
“Can you do some kind of magic from here?”
“I don’t think so.” I rushed for the spell books anyway. I wasn’t wealthy enough to have books of powerful spells—nothing for making armies burst into flames or reaping souls out of bodies. I had many agricultural spells that had no point whatsoever in modern London, and a really nice book of curses, but those generally took a long time to get going.
I pulled it off the shelf anyway, flipping through the pages as fast as I could. At the back, many of the curses had been damaged by water, but I found one that could turn someone’s thoughts into gibberish. Not the best spell in a life-or-death situation, but maybe it would confuse him enough that he’d just wander away, no longer able to remember why he’d come.
“I’ve got one,” I said, hope blooming. “I’m going to make him go insane.”
“Good. Just—don’t aim it at me.”
I began chanting the spell, but the ink smudges over the words made it hard. I wasn’t sure if I was reading the spell correctly. Then, to my horror, the letters rearranged themselves on the page, until they made no sense at all. I whirled, finding that the books around me now all had gibberish writing on the spines.
I hadn’t made him go insane. I’d made the books go insane. Son of a gun. I’d have to fix that later. “That didn’t work, Gina.”
“What else do you know?”
I slammed the book shut. “I mean, I can make him hear music. I don’t think that will scare him away.”
“It’s worth a shot. It would be creepy.”
“Guess I’ll try anything right now.” I crossed back to the scrying mirror.
Standing before it, I closed my eyes, singing Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball in my eeriest voice. The sound wended through the enchanted glass, all the way to the warrior above us. This was Gina’s favorite song—at least the way I sang it. When she got upset or couldn’t sleep, I sang it to her like a lullaby. I’d been doing that since I found her on the streets two years ago—when she was only fourteen, living rough. She’d been with me ever since.
But singing Miley probably wasn’t going to scare the killer away. After a few verses, I let the song fade out.
The intruder still stood above us, gripping his sword.
“It appears he still wants to kill me,” I said. “Probably more violently, after that song. I’m going to have to face him head-on before he kills us both.”
“I have an idea,” said Gina. “How about you just—don’t go above ground? We’ve got Pot Noodle and custard creams in here. That’s basically all we need for at least two days. And there are zero fae assassins inside the shop, so that’s a win for staying in here.”
I lifted my sea-green eyes to her. “He’s not going to go away.”
“He might. Don’t be such a pessimist.” She stared at the mirror again. “Wait, he’s writing something on a piece of paper. Maybe this is a good sign. He’s open to communication.”
“I know you like to see the best in people, Gina, but I don’t think the armed assassin is a nice person.”
“Maybe he’s seen you around and he’s here to ask you on a date. You could use one. Look at his big manly arms! And you’re both fae, right? He’s a fae, you’re a fae. You both have magic. Perfect. You’ll have beautiful fae babies.”
My gum was losing its flavor. “We’re both fae, but we’re not on the same side here, Gina. My magic is illegal, and his isn’t. He’s going to snap my neck in a hasty execution, and then he’s going to drink beer in a castle to unwind.”
“Or maybe he’s lonely? You know, a bit of romance might help you enjoy life a bit more, maybe a walk by the Thames at sunset, get a Cornetto from the ice cream van. Get you out of the ol’ dirt hole a bit more.”
Gina was a people person. I was not.
“I like our dirt hole,” I snapped. “It helps me avoid people, and particularly men. Also, I prefer the term natural earthen domicile to dirt hole.”
“There are nice people out there. Even men. The old man who works at Pizza Express gave me a free meatball yesterday.”
Gods have mercy. It was fairly clear to me at this point that Gina did not understand the gravity of the situation. “But this man is not here to give me a free meatball. He’s here to cut my head off. Do you get where I’m coming from with my concerns?”
In the scrying mirror, the fae held up the paper. In perfectly formed, elegant letters, he’d written: Aenor, Drowner of Islands, Surrender or Die a Painful Death.
I spat my gum into the trash. “Well then. Doesn’t he seem like a catch? I’ll just put on my best dress for when I let him murder me by the Thames after our Cornettos and meatballs.”
“Shit.” Her forehead crinkled. “Drowner of Islands? What’s that about?”
“No idea. Swear to gods I never did that. But it’s an amazing nickname, isn’t it? I might adopt it.” I pointed at the scrying mirror. “Look at that sign. Do you see it? Not only is he threatening to kill me in a painful manner, but he did a weird thing with capitalizing all the words. That alone tells me he’s the worst sort of psychopath.”
“Is that blood on his sword?” Gina asked, apparently no longer charmed by him.