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  The phoenix turned back to the faerie while Bradley stared at Whisker’s glowering head.

  He’s going to regrow that body.

  Another thought struck him.

  Do phoenixes regurgitate like owls? Is there going to be enough left of Whiskers to grow another Whiskers?

  Whiskers tried to snarl without vocal cords.

  I may not have thought far enough through the ramifications of making a troll cat yet.

  Bradley flipped over the head, certain it had tried to bite him. He drew a butane torch from a pocket and set to cauterizing the thing’s neck to prevent regrowing.

  I’ll work everything out before I raise the next one.

  Quiet settled on the alley.

  Bradley turned to find the phoenix back in human shape standing with a foot on each of two elves’ chests. He held blades to their throats, but his seething glower locked on Bradley.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Have we met?” Bradley asked.

  His eyes blazed with light that swallowed Bradley in an instant. “Tell me why you are here.”

  Words tumbled out of Bradley’s lips, starting slow and rapidly growing in haste. He explained the things he saw in the morgue, his identification of troll bone marrow and his idea to reanimate Whiskers. He moved from there to his magic detector and his intent to—like batman—use his incredible, if not totally humble, genius to help the heroes wielding golden magic against the vile blue and red.

  Bradley rubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Did I say all that in one go? Do you have a bottled water or—”

  “You made that little abomination?”

  “Cat.”

  “There is a difference?”

  Bradley shrugged.

  “You combined roadkill with troll marrow to attack me?”

  “No, I wanted Whiskers to attack the others, but it didn’t listen—not that you can ever count on a cat to listen. Maybe I should have tried with a stray dog instead, I mean—”

  “Silence!”

  Tingles washed over Bradley’s skin. When he opened his mouth to speak, the tingles grew teeth. The moment he changed his intent to obedience, warm pleasure welled up throughout his body.

  Bradley pressed his lips together to hold back the tide of words waiting to deluge the phoenix.

  “Do a lot of unidentified bodies come into your morgue?”

  Bradley tilted his head one way then the other.

  “Answer me.”

  “You said to be silent.”

  The phoenix shifted one dress shoe onto an elf’s throat and brought up his corresponding sword. “Answer the question, wafer.”

  The tingling redoubled.

  “It’s not one a day, and it varies greatly, but we get some.” Pleasure washed through Bradley. “Why?”

  A smile edged its way across the phoenix’s face. “You wanted to help me.”

  “Well, your kind. Assuming you’re the gold magic.” Bradley raised the detector. All three colors glowed at varying strengths.

  Could be all the blood on him.

  Bradley tilted the detector forward, sweeping it from elf to elf to verify his detector picked up no golden magic

  A sudden flame blossomed across Bradley’s face. “I’m talking to you. You will show the proper respect.”

  Bradley raised a hand, wiping blood from his cheek. “All right, but you didn’t have to cut me, lady.”

  “Vitae, not lady!” Vitae screamed. “But you may address me as ‘my lord’.”

  “My lord?” A wash of pleasure aborted Bradley’s forming question. “Ooooh, it should rightly be milady, but My Lord is good...really good with me.”

  “Good. Now, my servant, help me bind these faeries and then you can see to my other needs. It’s about time the wafers of this city served in their own defense.”

  14: Crayola Island

  Quayla

  The Arch dumped me onto a deserted island drawn by a six-year-old. I stepped forward, head sweeping the small mound of sand. My foot set down in a gap between thick crayon lines, falling enough to twist my ankle.

  “Holy shit, where are we?” Foxner asked.

  I jerked my foot free and whipped around to find the detective standing in front of two overlapped palm trees formed of brown and the occasional red scribble.

  “Get back through the Arch,” I snapped. “You don’t belong here.”

  “Like it or not, I’m your backup.”

  I rushed her, shoving the mortal through the palm trees. Foxner’s heel caught on an uneven scribble. She fell hard onto her tailbone, but didn’t disappear back into the real world.

  I cursed.

  Foxner cursed right back, aiming her profanities at me.

  “Anima?”

  No response emanated from the silver feather.

  No Arch, no exit in sight. We’re trapped.

  I cursed some more, scanning our surroundings.

  Spirals of dark blue and green crayon surrounded us as far as the eye could see.

  “Where are we?” Foxner said.

  “Faery.”

  “What?”

  “The Land of Faery, realm of the Sidhe. A place you absolutely don’t belong.”

  “What’s that over there?”

  Little mounds of drawn sand trailed through waves identical to clouds except in color. At the end of the stepping stones, the smiling orange sun reflected off the glistening surface of what looked like actual water.

  Before I could answer, Foxner marched out over the water on the little mounds. Her foot slipped.

  I lunged forward to catch her.

  Before I could, the detective’s foot came down on a blue spiral and stopped. Foxner frowned, stomping on the scribbled blue swirls. “It’s solid.”

  “Great, it’s solid,” I strode past the mortal toward the reflected sun. “Don’t hit your head on a cloud.”

  I came to where the sun reflected off a wide rippling pool. Unlike the blue squiggles, transparent waves let me see through the surface along a descending staircase.

  I squeezed my essence, pressing it until I couldn’t compress my core any further. I glanced back at Foxner once more. “You should stay here. I mean it.”

  “I can go anywhere you can,” Foxner said.

  “Are you sure?” My body and possessions shifted back into water. I eased down onto the first step. Tepid water surrounded my leg with a strange hugging sensation. Undulations mimicked a giant esophagus trying to swallow me. Unease rippled my gut, but there didn’t seem to be any taint in the water.

  After several steps the stair turned in a lazy spiral. Halfway through my first downward turn, I spotted movement above. Foxner ducked her head in the water, cheeks puffed.

  In a flash, two creatures that crossed seaweed-green octopi with a young woman seized Foxner and pushed her out of the water. I sprang upward through the water to rescue her, but dark blue squiggles closed over the pool, blocking out the smiling sun.

  I attacked the squiggles with a karambit, but the blade didn’t so much as scratch the crayon even when I reformed the blade with serrated teeth. The holes between the squiggles were far too small for me to squeeze between them. There didn’t seem to be any way to get back and help Detective Foxner.

  I’m trapped. Then again, I was probably trapped the moment I stepped foot onto Crayola Island.

  With up not available, my only hope to help the detective and escape the trap seemed downward. I resumed my descent, but kept my karambit extended and ready for anything. I slipped my senses outward, feeling the strange water to allow for an early warning, but the water around me resisted infiltration.

  At long last, my stair ended on the edge of a sunken mermaid grotto. Huge clams nestled in piled coins and sailor’s casts offs. Ornate artifacts and even a cockeyed golden throne filled the expansive depression.

  I scanned the seabed, looking for some indication whether or not I was meant to keep going or enter yet another trap.

 
If I can’t move through this unless it lets me, I may never be able to return to the surface.

  I eyed my knife.

  I won’t be imprisoned here.

  Doubt crept in behind thoughts of violence to undermine my determination. If the surrounding water kept me from moving, I’d be hard pressed to end my current life.

  one giant clam opened. A cascade of bubbles shot out of its mouth. They spread across the grotto beneath my feet like a carpet. Bubbles popped against one another, transforming froth into a widening bubble of air.

  A pale woman stepped out of a passage at the back of the clam’s throat. Her dark, damp hair floated in the gentle turmoil. A silver circlet bound hair against the crown of her head. The tiara featured a disk of mother-of-pearl on her forehead with a teardrop sapphire embedded in its center.

  Her melancholy smile rose to meet my eye. Wordless gestures beckoned me to the canted throne.

  I hesitated.

  If I was trapped, stepping down into the grotto couldn’t worsen my situation. I scanned my surroundings once more and stepped onto the bubble carpet.

  The first step dropped me enough to force my stomach into a short freefall. I hit water once more, but cool, loose water unlike the tepid esophagus that had swallowed me whole.

  I righted myself and turned to face the woman with a karambit ready. The woman raised her hands. Her placating gesture dragged the hems of her sapphire and silk skirt up by loops tied around her fingers.

  The ceiling of air plunged downward into the grotto, whirling around me as it pushed the water against the grotto’s walls.

  “Would you care to sit, Aquaylae?” Magic underlay the dry woman’s dulcet voice. The notes caressed my ears with soft touches of carefully wielded steel.

  “Where is Judith?”

  With a gesture, a still submerged giant clam opened. Bubbles streamed out between the shell’s curved lip, but a single large bubble clung onto the bed of mollusk flesh like a pearl.

  Judith knelt within the bubble, eyes widening as she recognized me even in my watery form. I crossed the distance and thrust my arm into the watery wall to grab Judith. A hard current knocked my hand away.

  “In the name of the Undying Light, I command you to let her go at once.”

  Pale, coral lips curled. “All things in due time. First, you owe me your thanks and the debt that comes along with them.”

  I raised my knives. “How do you figure that, Sidhe?”

  Judith’s sudden yell cut off with a gurgle.

  I whipped around.

  Water poured into the bubble, submerging Judith.

  “I like you, Aquaylae, but I do not tolerate rudeness.”

  I reached out into the water, willing an air passage through the wall to Judith. The water refused me. I tried harder, putting all of my will behind the effort.

  “Return her air.”

  “Say please.”

  Judith held her mouth and nose below bulging eyes.

  “Please,” I blurted. I softened my voice in response to the woman’s hard expression. “Please let Judith breathe.”

  A corner of the other woman’s mouth curled. “She can breathe if she wants, just not air.”

  Frustration wracked me.

  Judith’s cheeks puffed out trying to hold in her breath.

  “Please take the water away and let Judith breathe air.”

  Bubbles filed the clamshell, joining into a single sphere big enough for Judith. She held her neck, choking and gaping against the clam’s fleshy foot. Before I could thank the other woman, the clam shell closed, forcing Judith to crouch prone.

  “Now that I have your attention, I will accept your thanks.”

  “Who the hell are you?” I demanded.

  “Interesting choice of words.”

  “What do you expect me to thank you for?”

  The woman held up a sapphire and celestial silver shard.

  That’s a piece of shell from my egg!

  “How did you get that?” I asked.

  “I’m the one that shattered your egg, dear. If I hadn’t intervened, he would have used it to kill you before delivering them all to me.”

  “He who?”

  “A seventh son of a seventh son, drowned by terrified, ignorant wafers because of a ‘witch’ who escaped their pyre in the form of a giant watery bird.”

  I recoiled.

  My heel caught on a conch shell, but I caught myself. Even without falling on my tail, my mind reeled. The attack on my Shield, the stolen eggs, everything going on was retribution against me.

  My choice, my failings, I brought all this onto us.

  My arms wrapped around my chest by reflex, but I returned them to fighting positions. “Give me Judith and the eggs, now.”

  “Oh, dear, you should never threaten someone stronger than you. Especially, if you don’t have all the facts.” She tapped a finger against her smile. “Still, I like your spirit.”

  I sprang at her.

  Waves from either side of the grotto crisscrossed to slam into me. Watery fingers held me like a toy in toddler’s hands.

  The woman shook her head, tsking sounds escaping her lips. “Aquaylae, Aquaylae, this is getting us nowhere.”

  “Fine,” I snapped. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

  “I’ve been called many things: rebel; principality; sword maiden; and lover. You’re going to help me reclaim all that I lost as punishment for saving a seventh son you tried to murder—when your cowardice bestowed my newest name: The Exiled Lady.”

  “I’m your prisoner, at least let Judith go,” I said.

  “What would keep you from just killing yourself?”

  I opened my mouth to give my oath not to commit suicide.

  “Oh, right,” the Lady snapped her fingers with a smile. “It really doesn’t matter if you die. By now, he’s taken your nest and employed your essence.”

  Employed my essence?

  Cold washed through me. “Then you don’t need to imprison Judith.”

  “A very good point.”

  The clam holding Judith opened. The Asian woman’s eyes locked onto me. The bubble around her disintegrated into a thousand tiny bubbles.

  “What’re you doing?” I struggled against the hands imprisoning me.

  “I’m curious,” the Lady said. “How many atmospheres can Judith’s body take before she’ll admit to caring?”

  Judith’s gurgled shrieks knifed into me—a quick, deep stab gone in a moment. Blood seeped out of her mouth as her lifeless body settled onto the clam and the shell closed over her.

  The Lady sighed. “I thought twenty atmospheres would crush her like a soda can, not just collapse her ribs into her lungs for a few moments of excruciating pain.”

  I turned away from Judith, icy fury focused on the beautiful woman before me.

  Just you wait.

  Detective Foxner

  Sabrina put another round into the closest octopus woman. The creature bared lily pad green teeth and hissed. In the water both their tentacles combined with their prehensile hair offered the creatures rapid propulsion. Escaping the water onto the crayon squiggles meant to be water hadn’t provided safety until Sabrina retreated from water’s edge.

  Mint faces contorted in hatred as their evergreen lips parted to hiss. The crayon landscape seemed to give them trouble. They scuttled across the sea in fits and starts, noises burbling from them in sounds vaguely reminiscent of ‘genie’ over and over.

  They spread out around her, forcing Sabrina to retreat. She picked her shots, but so far bullets between their eyes had only encouraged temporary retreats and more hisses.

  One to Sabrina’s right scuttled forward, waving braids striking like a snake. A knot of braid thrust with a short knife of sharp stone too grey to be obsidian.

  It sliced across Sabrina’s shin. Ferocious agony shot up her leg, then died just as suddenly. The injured leg folded under her.

  Some kind of paralytic. Think.

  Sabrina
shot the thing to give her more time. In groups to surround and armed with some kind of toxin to hobble their prey, the things could’ve easily subdued her and dragged her under water to drown or dismember. The confusing part was that they didn’t seem intent to seize her.

  She scrabbled away from them without the use of one leg.

  Blue squiggles gave way to long tan strokes.

  A glance oriented Sabrina. A squiggle of grey and white hung low over one of the palm trees. Normally, the green frond never could have supported her, but normally she’d never have considered escape by climbing atop a cloud.

  She pointed her retreat around the trees, hoping to use them as cover as she climbed the rearmost.

  Faeries on either side darted forward in a cartwheel of tentacles. They boxed her in, but the third held back.

  Sabrina shot the one on her left and rushed to take advantage of its retreat—except it didn’t retreat. It rushed in, whipping armed braids at Sabrina.

  The sudden onslaught drove Sabrina onto her knees in a rushed crawl toward the trees. Sabrina’s heart rose to fill her throat. Neither the thing on her left nor the third leapt in to ambush her. They closed, keeping on the pressure but didn’t take advantage of her vulnerability.

  They should’ve jumped me. What gives?

  The hair along her arms rose, performing the Wave up her limbs and onto the back of her neck. She looked up, realigning her escape climb. A flat blackness filled the space between the trees.

  They’re not trying to capture me. I’m being shown the door.

  Sabrina’s eyes flit to the water where Quayla had descended. If she let the creatures herd her back into the real world, she’d be safe, but the phoenix would be alone.

  Like her or not, I’ve never abandoned a partner before. I’m not starting now.

  The octopi women could kill her, but they didn’t. If someone’s orders kept them at bay, it was possible she could get back to the water if she got past them.

  Sabrina shot the one in front of her and threw herself to her feet, intent to rush past it. The bleeding leg held—about as stable as the legs of a newborn foal. She dropped her magazine, losing it between the squiggles and replacing it with her last. An octopus woman rose up in a wide almost spider web splaying of tentacles, hissing teeth and sharp hair, cutting Sabrina’s rush short.