Page 91 of What Fools These Immortals Be
“It doesn’t,” I say, mostly because I have no idea what I’m going to do. I would go to the clan, but with Njáll still missing… I need to find him. I might be a weaker vampire than I was earlier today, but I am still a vampire, and an old one at that. I know a lot about the fae. “We weren’t friends before this, Vlad, no matter what your turn might think.”
Vlad glances behind him again as though he’s afraid Grant will pop up and shout at him for a second time. “Did you ever wonder why we were told not to turn anyone?”
I shrug and regret it when pain radiates down my shoulder and arm. “Not really.” The urge has never struck me, and I sincerely doubt it ever will.
“I know Grant is… different,” Vlad says. “To other vampires, I mean. I don’t know if that’s why we were told not to do it.”
“What are you thinking then?” I ask.
“That we’re not supposed to be as tied together as we are. Which makes it strange that he would do this to you at all.”
I shake my head. I can hardly think. Exhaustion is nipping at the heels of the pain still coursing through me, and if this is the last night of good rest I’m going to get for a while, I’ll gladly take it.
“Maybe it is,” I say, “and maybe it isn’t. But I know one thing to be true.”
“Which is?”
“It really is not my problem anymore.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Njáll
Itisnotthefirst time I have been locked in a cellar. It is not even the first time in the past twelve months, and that realisation almost makes me smile.
Almost.
I do not stop pacing, breathing in cold, damp air as I ignore the stares I am getting from the fae shackled to the walls. I cannot help them to get free. The shackles are iron, which weakens them, and spelled, so I cannot use strength to tear them from the brick. The same goes for the door—I can make it halfway up the stairs before I am violently thrown back down them, and afterbreaking a couple of ribs and my arm, I have decided to give up on trying to brute force my way through.
Reijo is down here. His fur coat is gone, and he shivers in a blush pink flapper-style dress, watching me warily. There are four other fae, too, though I don’t think any of the others are selkies like he is.
I tried to speak to him when I first arrived. He just stared at me, looking terrified, and shook his head, angling his body as though he was trying to get as far away from me as possible.
The one thing I don’t understand is why I’m not chained. Well, no. I don’t understand whyI’mhere at all, being as I’m not fae, but beyond that, why am I not locked up?
I suppose I will find out. I do not rest throughout the day, though I feel the pull of the sun, and by the time it sets again, I stop and watch the stairs, wondering if I can take anyone who comes down them by surprise.
No such luck. The door swings open about an hour after sunset, and Augustine clomps lazily down the first three steps.
Is that where the magical barrier ends, or just where he feels safe? I admit I did not carefully test it. I was full of rage when I first woke up.
“Well, well, crai. It looks like you’re stuck in a precarious situation.”
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask. I don’t want to die, but I don’tfearit. I don’t know a vampire who truly does. We’ve all done it once before, after all.
“No,” Augustine says and drops down another step. “No.”
He has a fae with him—the selkie I met at the pub yesterday. She watches me with none of Augustine’s malice and a sensible amount of wariness, by my reckoning. I risk a glance over at Reijo, and the look of utter contempt on his face tells me that he recognises her.
Oh, shit. Was she the selkie Maurice and I were looking for in the first place? My stomach twists. Oh, I will never hear the end of it when I—
IfI make it out of here.
“What do you want then?”
Augustine glances at the selkie woman, then back up the stairs. He shivers. “Our master would like to speak with you.”
Ourmaster. I’m surprised at that, what with the mark Tamesis’ meddling left on Augustine, but I suppose he views this fae—because it’s the high fae, isn’t it, the one we’ve been chasing—as a being much more powerful.
