Page 33 of Tragic Ink
Dead Walter stared up at us, and the full weight of the glamour resettled over his features before he took off at a full sprint. Rhys moved to follow, then stopped just short of the window that led to the fireescape.
“Why aren’t you going after him?” Iasked.
He didn’t look up as he slid his phone out and started typing. “We need to know more about who and what we’re dealing withfirst.”
He had a good point, but still, letting a dead man run off through town didn’t seem like the smartest play. I eyed Rhys warily as he keyed in a few lines and sent a message. “You want to call thepolice?”
“Yes, but first, I want to reach out to my police contact to see if he can dig up anything else on Dead Walter. Then we’ll go see someone at the Court. Maybe one of them can tell us anything about that glamour we justsaw.”
“And in the meantime?” I asked, already impatient as he set his phone aside and leaned against thecounter.
“Wewait.”
“I thought you said we weren’t safehere.”
“We’re safer than roaming the streets until we know more. If Walter wanted a fight here, he could have had it—and the element of surprise. Instead, he ran. I think we should lay low here until we know what our next moveis.”
“Fine.” I sighed, resigning myself to sitting around for a bit when all I wanted to do was run outside and chase Walterdown.
“Tell me about Walter’s othertattoos.”
“Walter doesn’t have any other tattoos,” I saidslowly.
Rhys looked over at me. “Well, Dead Walter does, but they have a lot more magic in them then that hellhounddid.”
I frowned at that. If Dead Walter was really an Unseelie fae, and he was covered in magical tattoos that I certainly hadn’t given him, that meant I wasn’t the only one with thisability.
“Do you think he found my mother?” I asked. “That he made her give him thosetattoos?”
“No.”
He sounded sosure.
“How do you know?” I asked. “If he already has magic tattoos, he had to get themsomewhere.”
“If something had happened to your mother, I would have heard, trust me. Besides, if he wants you badly enough to risk coming here, glamoured or not, it means he needs your gift. It means he doesn’t have it already. I think those tattoos were done by witch-magic. They felt different thanyours.”
“Different how? What did they look like?” Iasked.
“I only saw one of them clearly. It was an azurite stone.” He hit send and slid his phone away again before responding. “Azurite is a divination stone. It would... possibly allow him to see past the shields you have. To find you—if he knew what or who he was lookingfor.”
“What shields?” Iasked.
“The mistletoe.” He nodded to the room around us. “And the cedarwood.”
“The cedar wood’s a shield?” That was news to me. Then again, hadn’t that letter from my birth mother mentioned cedar wood? Most of my furniture had been a gift from Aelwyn, but I didn’tthink—
“It protects your house. Aelwyn spelled it to work against fae. Especially anyone not from HavenwoodFalls.”
“Oh.” I blinked,stunned.
Rhys’ theory made sense. If the azurite tattoo had allowed him to pick up on what I really was, he would have ended up at Aelwyn’s for sure. Between her energy and mine, that house was laced with fae magic and enough cedar wood, or shielding, to make it clear we didn’t want to be found. I swallowed the lump in my throat, blinking back hot tears as I realized Aelwyn really had died because ofme.
Rather than dwell on that here, now, under Rhys’ sharp eyes, I forced myself to focus on what Rhys was proposing about theazurite.
“Wait.” I blinked. “You think he came through one of the portals? But wouldn’t the Court have sensedthat?”
“They would. They have,” he amended, looking only slightly guilty as he admitted, “I got a text from my contact yesterday morning. There was a breach a few days ago that they still haven’tidentified.”
