My chest tightened when I considered the possibility the monster would show itself on this little field trip, which was already a bad idea. But there was nothing I could do about that now.
“Elisa?” she asked, as we walked down the path.
“Yeah?”
“Why are you really doing this?”
I looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“I know this is risky for you. Why are you doing it?”
“Because he was nice to me, important to you, and part of the Pack. That makes him important to me.”
She blew a breath through pursed lips like she was working to control tears. But she held them in.
“You know you don’t have to do this, right?”
She looked at me, then looked away, chin set. “My family and friends are magic. Saying no to it—” She paused, as if searching for words. “It’s hard. I don’t regret avoiding magic. But I regret the other things I have to give up because of it, because I’m afraid of what I might do. Of that damn slippery slope.”
I reached out and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.
“Someone needs to help him, and right now, I can be that someone. I owe it to him. And I’ve given up so much that I owe it to myself. Just to see.” She looked back at me and smiled. “I’m glad you’re back, even if for just a little while.”
I smiled at her. “Let’s go talk to some fairies and try not to get killed. ’Cause this is a really bad idea.”
“Yeah,” Lulu agreed with a smile. “But at least we’re getting out of the house.”
• • •
The grounds were quiet, the lawn immaculate and rolling, the stone crunching softly as we walked toward the gatehouse and its enormous doors—two halves of a twenty-foot-tall arch, with black hinges holding them in place.
There was magic here, a faint buzz that left a chill in the air. I wasn’t sure if that was castoff from the accumulation of the fairies themselves, or because they’d magicked this building just as they had the tower.
The door on the left opened before we could knock. A male fairy in black fatigues looked through. His hair was dark and straight; his body tall and lean. His eyes were dark jewels among his pale, angular features.
“You are a bloodletter,” he said.
“I am,” I said. “She is not.” No need to get into the details about Lulu’s magic if she wasn’t using it. “We’d like to speak to Claudia.”
“Claudia does not commune with bloodletters.”
“Okay,” Lulu said, “then how about you answer a few questions?”
The fairy shifted his gaze to her, his movements methodical and his face expressionless. “You do not have permission to encroach upon our land. And yet you seek to ask us questions.”
“We have come peacefully to your door, and we have questions to ask,” I said. “If you don’t want to answer them, we’ll leave. It’s that simple.”
He looked at me for a moment, and then the door slammed with enough force to blow the hair back from Lulu’s face.
“Friendly,” she murmured, but didn’t take so much as a step backward.
Magic began to pepper the air and my heart began pounding in response, adrenaline beginning to flow. I could feel the monster stirring, a moth drawn to flame.
Not going to happen,I warned it, and pushed down against it. It was like trying to ignore an ache, trying to flex a muscle in spite of it. You could still move, but the pain didn’t go away. And the monster didn’t, either.
“If I’m mortally wounded,” she whispered, “you have my permission to change me. But make sure I get a good room in Cadogan House.”
“Third floor has the best views,” I said, flipping the thumb guard on my katana.