Page 102 of Lunar Desires
I saw two doors, but only one was open. I took that one, finding Jonathon on the bed as before, a pink stone sitting on the mattress, the air cloyed with the stink of rotting flowers.
Three lanterns hung from the ceiling, bathing him in a circle of anemic light, the rest of the room hidden in darkness.
I heard the fae woman breathing.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Shuffling feet, followed by a few seconds of heavy breaths. “To talk. To show you something.”
I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Like your face?”
She tittered. “Patience, witch. The time will come for us to meet.”
Yes. I looked forward to the day I could stick a screwdriver in her eye. “What do you want to tell me?”
“Many things, but tonight I’d like to tell you not to concern yourself with this useless pile of gnome shit.”
“Gnome shit?”
“I take it back. Gnome shit serves a purpose. Not this thing.”
Jonathon let out a whine, his eyes rolling in his head.
“He has been careless, Sweetvoice,” the fae continued. “I warned him to think before he acted. Yet his stupid desperation got the better of him.” She sighed as Jonathon whimpered again. “He promised me moonlight.”
Anger slithered through me. “Moon?”
She laughed again. “The Moon, I should say. My apparent path. The one I smell on your body.”
I cracked my knuckles. “You’ll never lay your hands on him.”
Path. The blue figure referred to Riley as a path.
Shit. What if she was the blue figure, wearing Daniel Croft’s features?
“This cretin was wrong,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
More laughter. “All in good time, my sweet-voiced witch. For now, I will give you a gift.”
Silence followed for a few beats before she spoke again.
Man, I wanted her dead. Fuck the answers. She meant harm, offered dangerous stones to dangerous men. End of story.
“I gave him great power,” she finally said. “And he squandered it. He is nothing but a charlatan, an irrelevant fool I misplaced my trust with.”
I kept quiet, making mental notes as she spoke. Maybe she’d reveal her identity by mistake.
“I told him to be smart. I told him to care for the stones. To rein in his murderous intentions. At least for now. But he almost killed you. He almost killed—” She laughed. “My tongue is too loose.”
Before I could press her to continue, Jonathon rolled onto his back. No, was forced onto his back. Shaking, his arms by his sides. He stared up at the ceiling with terrified eyes, his mouth hanging open.
“What I will tell you, Sweetvoice, is this pathetic man came to me in desperation. Stinking of rotten magic and the faint trace of The Moon. Filthy, full of promises. And I took pity on him because of my, to be frank, equally pathetic situation. Yet it is always the same with these men. Always meek to begin with until you give them a hint of power.”
I heard the drawing of a blade, metal scraping on leather.
“What—”
