“Oh.” I shook my head. Everyone knew better than to eat faerie food. One bite of food or sip of wine would addict a mortal for life—she would never be able to eat anything else, as regular food would turn to ash on her tongue. Even if someone had the willpower to leave Faerie, she would eventually starve to death. There were talks about importing regulated faerie food for those who accidentally became addicted, but making fae food available outside Faerie increased the risk that mortals would come in contact with it. Currently there were very few cases of addiction, but it was also very difficult for mortals to get into Faerie, so the chance for accidental exposure was minimal.

I was half fae. Did that give me a fifty-fifty chance of being addicted? I glanced at Rianna’s mug.

Her thin fingers wound around the mug, dragging it closer to her side of the table. I didn’t think she was aware of the motion. She believes I can claim land in Faerie but is unconvinced I can eat their food? I felt a smile crawl over my face, but I knew it wasn’t a happy one. I wasn’t about to take the chance of getting addicted anyway.

“Will you come to Faerie?” she asked. “See if the land responds to you? If it does, you can align to a court so the holdings move there.”

“Whoa, slow down.” I threw up my hands. “I don’t want to claim Coleman’s holdings. They can rot for all I care. And I’m certainly not going to align myself with a court.”

Rianna’s frown stretched across her face, and if possible, her shoulders slumped further. “Al,” she said, her voice just above a whisper, “I’m part of Coleman’s property.”

Chapter 8

I blinked at my former best friend and roommate. “I thought you were freed when Coleman died.” I’d seen the silver chain dissolve from her throat.

“From his compulsion, yes. But from Faerie?” She shook her head. “I’m a changeling. Four years passed for you, but I have lived in Faerie hundreds of years, danced with the fae, eaten their food and drunk their wine. I’m not mortal anymore, not truly. Like them, I’ll never age, never die, but only while I’m inside Faerie.”

“You can’t ever leave?”

She shrugged. “I can take short trips as long as I’m careful. If I leave, the magic of Faerie will protect me except for the moments surrounding dawn and sunset. Those are the moments between, when the world is changing, and all but the strongest Fae magic fails. If I were caught outside of Faerie in the moments when magic fails, all the years I’ve seen would catch up with me and I would turn to dust.” She shuddered and Desmond nudged her stomach with his muzzle. Her hand dropped to him and clutched the thick fur at his nape. “But back on topic. A changeling can’t own anything or align with a court. If I had just wandered into Faerie, I could be claimed by any court, but since I belonged to Coleman, I now belong to his heir. While possession of his property is in question, I am untouchable—theoretically—-but there is no one to enforce that status, and no court will help me.”

“So you want me to come to Faerie and claim you?” The words tasted bad in my mouth. “That’s crazy. You’re a person. You’re my friend.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m a changeling. And I’m in trouble.”

“I—” My protest died in my throat when Desmond’s head snapped up. He lunged to his feet, his lips curling away from his rust-colored teeth as he stalked around the table.

I whirled around, my hand moving toward the dagger hidden in my boot even as I turned. Me, paranoid? Probably.

A woman who looked human, though she may have been glamoured, stopped three tables away. Her eyes widened as Desmond planted himself in her path, and her hand froze in front of her body, as if caught in a motion between reaching and blocking. Then, shocking the hell out of me, she dropped into a curtsy.

“I mean no harm, sir barghest,” she said without rising.

Desmond went silent. So the overgrown dog likes ladies who curtsy. But even though his growling stopped, he didn’t move from the woman’s path.

“Is there something we can help you with?” Rianna asked, her hands disappearing in her sleeves as she spoke. When they emerged, I caught the glint of metal. A dagger, maybe? Clearly I wasn’t the only paranoid one. Of course, it’s not exactly paranoia when the monsters really are chasing you.

The woman straightened from her curtsy. She looked about ten years older than me, with wide, blunt features that made me suspect she was a changeling, not a fae. It wasn’t that she was unattractive, just more handsome than pretty. She smiled, her wide mouth softening her face with the expression. “Actually . . .” Her focus moved to me. “I think you already have. You’re Alex Craft, aren’t you?”

In my experience, it was rarely good when people I didn’t know recognized me. Still, it wasn’t like I could deny I was me. I nodded.

“Oh, I thought you were.” She pressed her palms together, her smile spreading. “I saw you on television and was sure I recognized you. You were the one who stopped the eternal dance. I know you were.”

Crap. Being recognized as someone who had caused trouble in the Bloom probably wasn’t a good—or safe—thing. The woman’s excitement grew when I didn’t dispute the claim.

She rushed forward, sidestepping Desmond. The barghest growled again, but the woman had already reached our table. She threw her arms around me, and if she’d had a weapon, I would have been dead. Instead I found myself in an emphatic embrace.

“Uh.”

“Thank you,” she said. The top of her head ended at my shoulders and her cheek felt blistering hot where it pressed against my bare arm. “I was caught in that dance for six hundred years. You freed me.”

At her words, a balance between us shifted and whether she realized it or not, the debt she owed me became a very real obligation. I ignored the feeling. I wasn’t about to start collecting favors from strangers. I patted her back awkwardly.

“Don’t mention it.” Really. As in please be quiet. I glanced over her head. Several patrons had turned our way, listening.

I extracted myself from the woman’s hug gently, trying not to be rude but anxious to reclaim my personal space. She released me, but she didn’t back off.

“I’m Edana. I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.” She nodded an apology to Rianna. “But I had to thank you when I recognized you. I can’t believe you managed to free everyone from the dance. And you talk to the dead as well, don’t you? The newscast I saw featured you with a ghost. It looked like you were holding hands, but I didn’t think the living could interact with ghosts and shades. How did you pull that off?”

“I . . .” I didn’t have a good answer for that, especially since most grave witches couldn’t. Of course, if she’d been in that circle for six hundred years, I had no idea how much she knew about the changes since the Magical Awakening. “I have an affinity for the dead.”

“But—” she started, but was interrupted as two men approached the table. Well, two male fae.

Whereas Edana appeared human, the two newcomers were undeniably fae. The first had skin the texture of bark and wore a twisting vine of mistletoe in place of clothing. The second stood only three feet from the ground. He had eight spindly legs but a surprisingly humanoid head on the top of his insectlike thorax. Behind him, I caught sight of a curved stinger as long as my forearm on the end of a thick scorpionlike tail.

Desmond’s growl rolled soft but menacing across the table. He’d planted himself between the fae and Rianna. I was apparently on my own.

“You are the one who s-stopped the endless-s dance?” the scorpion fae asked.

I gulped. The two fae weren’t the only ones waiting for my answer. Conversation had all but ceased in the bar. Why do I get a feeling not everyone is going to want a membership to my fan club?

“There were extenuating circumstances,” I muttered, dropping eye contact.

“You shouldn’t interfere with situations that don’t concern you,” the mistletoe-clad fae said, stepping forward and making my gaze snap up to him. “Many of the dancers were imprisoned in that circle for a reason.”

But not all. I knew for a fact that some were tricked into joining the festivities and some simply stumbled in by mistake. Not that I was going to say any of that. Arguing with the two fae wouldn’t win me any points and I wasn’t about to apologize and indebt myself to anyone if I didn’t have to, so I remained silent.

My heart crashed in my chest, each beat harder than the last as the silence dragged on, but slowly the sound of murmured conversation picked up around us again. The two fae stared at me a moment longer, and then without another word they turned and walked away. The mistletoe-clad fae sat at a table with two thorn fae, and the scorpion fae joined a cluster of goblins gambling on a dice game in the back corner. They just wanted to issue a warning?

I sank into my chair, relief making my hands shake enough that I shoved them in my lap. Edana had slipped away at some point during the conflict, so it was once again just Rianna and me at the table. Well, and Desmond. Not that I had any delusions of privacy—there were definitely ears turned toward our corner.

“So . . .” I said, tugging on the cuff of my glove. I wished I had something in front of me—food, pen and paper, anything at all—to focus on. But I didn’t. I just had Rianna sitting across from me, watching me fidget.

“You’re not going to come to Faerie, are you?” She phrased it as a question, but her voice betrayed her lack of hope.

I cringed. I’d had enough of Faerie for one day. Besides, I couldn’t claim ownership of Rianna. “You’re my friend. I can’t claim you as property. It’s weird and wrong.”

“So you’d rather someone else who is not my friend and who may see me only as a tool, take over?”

Okay, when she put it that way, it was the lesser of two evils, but . . . I released a deep breath, letting the air drag out of me and take with it the panic fluttering in my stomach. But nothing. I couldn’t let someone else, someone who wouldn’t have Rianna’s best interests in mind, walk in and make her a slave again. The least I could do was see if Faerie recognized me as the heir to Coleman’s holdings. If it did, I could try to figure out a way to free Rianna.