Page 6 of Deadly Maiden

Then I cross that out, tear out the page, burn it.

I reread the earlier diary entries to be sure I haven’t given away the location.

How careless I have been to allow this risk.

I have disgraced myself as a result of my consumption of alcohol. Is this depression I see before me in the shaking of my hand? I am above such petty mentality. I am not kin to minor and mortal fae.

I shall dispose of my bottles…or those of the lesser vintages.

Year Ten

Law enforcement for the Aos Sin is a fairly easy job for me. Obeying orders is the hardest part. I am big enough to throw around any fae and am immune, or poorly vulnerable, to most magic…barring darkthings. Fuck the darkthings, whatever those are. Only the golems carrying the town on their backs would outmatch me. The job takes me away from Bollingham, though the path the town takes often intersects with where I must be.

If I were not a dragonshifter, I’d be annoyed at how the law is biased toward the rich. A young fae stole a loaf of bread due to starvation. They are hanging him tomorrow.

I watched the hanging. I’ve killed but that was just…

The pay is not enough. Not for doing things like that.

Wyntre is still a young and magikless female child.

Every five years should be adequate?

Year Fifteen.

Nothing new. Just older. Though I am not, I admit, seeing all the minor details of her life.

Year Twenty.

Or in a month it will be twenty. The enforcer beat came close enough that I could check on her early in this mìos cycle. She has turned into a beautiful specimen of a fae female. Long blue hair, lithe body, and long legs… Non-shifters show their powers by this age, if they have any. Boys are sniffing about her.

She is prettier than most, this much I will give her.

This. Is. Stupid. Why am I doing this? For nothing?

Today, I saw her bandage a puppy’s leg to help heal an injury then kiss its head. This is not the dark necromancer sign I am looking for.

I stare at the page where I wrote those rambling words. The parchment is browning due to the book’s age. Foxing, this is called. Old books are worth a considerable amount if one collects the right ones.

I tried healers for myself and gained a nothing result.

I tried many things, crazy things. My one comfort is collecting.

I tap my quill on the page, leaving ink blots.

I have an underground cellar stocked full of rare vintage wines, one for every year going back a hundred years—round numbers are good. Also there are boutique beers.

I lift the quill from the page and close the book, sinking into my squeaking chair that no doubt intends to collapse under my weight when I least expect it…and into awareness of where I sit. Behind me is my owned living space of two rooms above theTusked Woorak.This city, Langordin, is on Bollingham’s trade route and the location has been convenient.

My rooms are crammed full of selected books and magazines, choice weaponry from every kingdom, warrior art, and collectible statues of the Best Mages. On a higher shelf resides the urn of Orish’s ashes. They aren’t really ashes.

I had to scrape those off him with a knife. He has set solid, and the rain and weather barely erode his corpse.

The one thing I haven’t collected here is cats and coins. My True Hoard has those. Coins, not cats. Though I have considered cats, they are difficult to shelve.

I’m jarred into a memory of Orish.

The zigzag cracking of his hide, the bulging of his throat and eyes as the darkthings funnel into him. Red fissures glow impossibly black as he drops from the sky, spinning slowly. The silent scream in my head. Disbelief burrows in, ripping wounds in my mind.

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