Stiletto Page 5

  “You know that’s a little above my pay grade, right?”

  Alec nodded again. “I was hoping you could put us in touch with you-know-who.”

  She’d been expecting this, and it was clear she didn’t particularly like it. She stared at him for a long moment with her chin on her hand, and finally sighed. “You know how expensive that’s going to be.”

  “I also know what a sucker she is for high fashion.” Alec jerked his thumb at me. “This one works at Carnelian. We can probably get our hands on a Nelly Hunter original.”

  Nancy’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Okay,” she said slowly. “That might work. Maybe?”

  “We’ve got to try.”

  “Yeah, I guess you do.” She stood and crooked a finger at us to follow.

  I looked to Alec, who shook his head as if to say wait and see. Nancy led us to a door that I’d assumed led to the garage. She held a hand over the lock, then flipped her hand over and back.

  In an instant, the lock was gone, and a horseshoe-shaped handle had taken its place. Nancy used it to pull the door open, and a gust of cold air blew out at us from a staircase leading down to darkness.

  “After you,” Alec said.

  I held my breath and stepped down into the shadows.

  11

  Each step down felt colder and darker than the last, until finally I moved forward again and was met only with flat ground.

  Somewhere at the top of the stairs, Nancy clicked a pull-chain. A dim light flickered on.

  “Sorry,” she called. “Couldn’t find the stupid string.”

  She trotted lightly down the steps after us. We’d come down into an unfinished basement, full of bins of holiday decorations and abandoned toys. She walked briskly across the space and opened a door on the far side, which led to a cement stairwell that seemed to lead right back up to the house’s backyard.

  It seemed like a roundabout way to get there, but I kept my mouth shut and followed Alec. The night air hit us immediately, but it wasn’t as cold as it had been earlier. It wasn’t damp, either. I turned to ask Nancy what was going on, but she only whispered, “Good luck” and shut the door behind us.

  “Come on,” Alec said.

  He held out a hand, and, in the near-blackness, I took it. We walked carefully up the steps to what I assumed would be a lawn, and then I stopped dead.

  It was a lawn.

  And it couldn’t possibly be in Portland.

  A small patch of grass spread out in front of us, and then the grass turned to a trail of dirt lined with scrubby brush. And beyond that, sending its balmy breezes up to where we stood at the top of a hill, the ocean glittered in the moonlight.

  “Excuse me, what?” I said, turning to Alec. And then I kept turning, because Nancy’s house was gone. Instead of a comfortable suburban home, we appeared to have just emerged from the cellar of a building that seemed to be all arches and marble columns. “Where are we, exactly?”

  “Nancy’s basement leads to lots of places,” he said, then ordered me to hush. He seemed to be listening for something.

  I bit my lip and gestured frantically at him instead. After a moment, he waved at me to follow him down the dirt path. I thought it was heading to the ocean. But then, not too far down the hill, the path diverged, and he turned right.

  The sound of flutes reached me, and then the bushes cleared, and the path opened to reveal a marble pavilion full of light and music.

  “Don’t look surprised,” Alec warned me in a low voice.

  “Surprised at what?” I said, but it was too late.

  He had straightened and was heading with purpose to the pavilion and the pools of light it cast on the surrounding gardens. I swore at him under my breath and ran to catch up.

  People were scattered inside and around the pavilion—not just humans in flowing dresses, but other creatures as well. There was at least one demigod, recognizable by the sheer perfection of his sculpted muscles and his crown of golden curls, and a few naiads in flowing blue gowns, and several nymphs all dancing in a circle. These last were being observed from a pile of cushions by some satyrs who seemed thrilled with the view.

  Near the center of the pavilion, on a dais covered in silk cushions, a woman lounged with a goblet of wine next to her. She was holding court, and everyone around her seemed slightly angled toward her as though they hoped to catch her attention or wanted to be ready if she needed anything.

  I’d seen the way people behaved when the Faerie Queen entered a room, and this felt the same.

  Alec approached the woman and was quickly stopped by a naiad.

  “Do you have business with Lady Fauna?” she asked, eyes wide. “It’s a strange hour for visitors.”

  “We are in dire need of the lady’s help.” Alec bowed slightly to the naiad, and, after he stepped discreetly on my foot, I did the same.

  The naiad pursed her lips a little, then shrugged.

  “If it’s urgent, then,” she said and led us toward the dais.

  The woman on the cushions, I realized as we approached, was not a woman at all. The top half of her was an attractive human with dark hair and large hazel eyes, but the bottom half—or at least what I could see of it under the hem of her floaty white gown—was pure goat.

  “I thought satyrs were all male,” I muttered to Alec.

  “Shut up,” he muttered back.

  This seemed like wise advice, so I took it.

  When we reached the dais, Alec bowed deeply, and I followed half a second behind. The satyr woman looked at us like we were a surprising new morsel and bit her lip. Much of her dark hair was piled back in a crown of braids threaded with gold, but some of it spilled down onto her shoulders. She flicked a heavy lock aside.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, in a throaty voice.

  She was kind of sexy, I decided, which was not something I had ever thought I would think about a half-goat.

  “We’ve come to you in an hour of need, my lady,” Alec said.

  She blinked, and I realized she had the slit-pupiled eyes of a goat, too. They unsettled me, but I did my best not to let it show.

  “Have you met a witch named Sienna Hunter?” Alec asked. “She might be known to you by a different name, but she would have come to you asking for magic.”

  Lady Fauna shifted on her pillows. “I know the witch,” she said. “An ambitious young thing, dark hair with red tips?”

  “That’s the one,” I said.

  Her odd eyes focused on me, and she smiled. It was a kind smile, designed to put me at ease. I took a slight step forward.

  “Did she come to see you?”

  “She ended up here eventually.” She laughed, a low sound that traveled easily through the pavilion. “She had plenty of false starts. Tried to ask old Mambres for help, as if he had half the powers she needed, and then went down a rabbit hole at the Agrippa Institute trying to beg favors of the faculty. Enterprising, but clearly hadn’t a clue what she was doing.”

  “What did she want from you?” Alec asked.

  Lady Fauna tilted her head at him, and he wiped his hands on his jeans.

  “We think she kidnapped some children,” Alec said. “We’re trying to figure out how she did it and find her.”

  Lady Fauna’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and her mouth parted into a small O. The others sitting around her perked up a little and turned to her for a reaction.

  “She took the gifts I gave her and kidnapped people with them? Kidnapped children?”

  She seemed delighted by this, or at least entertained. She laughed again, and my hackles rose. It wasn’t a laughing matter.

  Without looking at me, Alec put a hand on my arm. But it wasn’t necessary. Whoever this woman was, she was powerful—and powerful beings, particularly those who weren’t entirely human, didn’t always play by our moral codes. I didn’t like it, but I remembered my training and stayed respectful.

  “We’d appreciate any help you could provide,” I said.

  Sh
e wound a lock of hair around her finger. “I might have what you need. Do you have what I need?”

  I was caught off guard for a second, and then remembered Alec’s conversation with Nancy.

  “I can offer you a Nelly Hun—”

  Alec elbowed me in the side, hard. I winced and cut my eyes at him. The gesture hadn’t even been subtle.

  “Scarlett,” he said, as if he was trying to speak under his breath and was pretty bad at it. “I told you, that’s too much.”

  This was an old game, and it took me only a second to catch on.

  “Alec, we have to get the kids back,” I said.

  “Kids?” Lady Fauna said, sitting up a little more, her eyes wide with interest.

  “Children,” I said. “Witchlings. Sorry.”

  She sank back down.

  “I know, but you know how expensive it’s going to be, right?” Alec stage-whispered. “An original?”

  “I’ll make it work,” I said. “Ms. Hunter likes me. I’m sure I could talk her into giving me a good price.”

  “On what?” Her slitted eyes shifted from me to Alec.

  “Don’t do it,” Alec said softly.

  I turned away from him and faced Lady Fauna. “A Carnelian Hunter original,” I said defiantly. “Carnelian is a rising house in Glimmering Portland that recently dressed the Faerie Queen, and I have it on good authority that they’ll play a role in Dior Miller’s wedding party, too.”

  “Whose authority?”

  “Nelly Hunter’s, I said. “I work there as an apprentice designer.”

  Her eyes lit up with hunger, and I took another small step forward.

  “The value of a piece designed by Ms. Hunter has skyrocketed in the past year.”

  “I’m aware.” Lady Fauna licked her bottom lip and caught it between her teeth. She held up a hand, and one of her servants passed her the wine goblet. She took a long drink, staring up at me the whole time. “What kind of item?”

  “A scarf?” I said. “I might be able to swing a blouse.”

  “Cocktail dress.”

  I opened my eyes as though she’d said something shocking. “Cocktail dress?” I spluttered. “My lady, all I need from you is information.”

  “That’s the most valuable thing anyone can possess, isn’t it?” she said sweetly. She blinked up at me with those strange eyes and shifted her cloven feet a little on the pillows. “You mortals are living in an Information Age, from what I hear.”

  “I told you not to offer,” Alec muttered loudly.

  Lady Fauna shot him a sharp look, and he stared down at his feet and shuffled back and forth.

  I met her eyes. “Let’s say I can get you a dress. What kind of information does that get me?”

  “Oh, all of it,” she said. “I’m a very generous woman.”

  I hemmed and hawed for another moment, and Alec warned me that it would eat up my savings, and I insisted the information was worth it.

  “It’s not up to you,” I finally barked, and he shook his head at me but waved at me as if to wash his hands of the whole affair. I turned to Lady Fauna. “It’s a deal.”

  12

  Lady Fauna leaned forward and held out a hand covered in delicate gold rings, and I shook it. Her skin was warm and dry against mine, and I caught a faint whiff of her scent: sandalwood perfume and something warm and musky. One of her gold bracelets slithered off her wrist and onto mine, spun around my arm a few times, and went back to her.

  Deal magically sealed, she snapped her fingers, and two of her servants hurriedly reshuffled pillows on the dais. One of the naiads waved to me, offering a seat. Alec and I settled across from the lady, and servants offered us trays of grapes and goblets of wine. I picked at the grapes as she spoke.

  “She came to me asking for glamours.” Lady Fauna took another sip of wine. “She said there were people she needed to hide from. You, I presume.”

  She gave us both a sharp look, and I nodded.

  “She’s my cousin. We were raised together,” I said. “We know all of each other’s glamours. She didn’t want to be recognized.”

  That explained why the shadow spell Roux had performed had been hazy around the face. The spell captured the essence of the witch, and the essence only. I knew the glamours of everyone in my coven; each of us had a style all her own that was as recognizable as a musician’s sound or an artist’s brush strokes, a signature that revealed us to one another no matter how skilled we became at the subtle art of changing our appearances. Sienna had been right to turn elsewhere for a disguise.

  “I crafted her several new appearances,” Lady Fauna said. “I’m skilled at that sort of thing. It’s why magicians like me so much, I suppose.”

  “You aren’t a magician?” I blurted.

  There was a long, awkward silence. I felt Alec cringe next to me, and then Lady Fauna and her attendants burst out laughing.

  “Aren’t you the sweetest little thing?” she said.

  I tensed up. I wasn’t a sweetest little thing and hadn’t been accused of being one for the better part of two decades. She put a hand to her chest as if she could barely contain the hilarity.

  “Lady Fauna is a goddess,” Alec muttered.

  “You might have mentioned,” I hissed.

  “We were on a deadline,” he said.

  Lady Fauna laughed even harder at this and had to take another long sip of wine to calm herself down.

  “Oh, you’re too much,” she said, once she’d caught her breath. “Goodness, child. It’s a wonder you found your way here.”

  “So you made Sienna some glamours,” I said in a measured way.

  She covered her mouth, which did nothing to dampen her last tiny giggle. “They’re all tied to rings. Little white ones, made of limestone. They’re delicate, sort of soft and doughy-looking. New ring, new glamour.” She picked through a tray of grapes and seemed to be thinking. “There was another one,” she finally said. “Another glamour. Not for her face, but her voice. She wanted a very particular spell.”

  Lady Fauna nodded at one of her attendants, who scurried away and came back a moment later carrying an old, heavy book. Lady Fauna dropped the book onto her lap and paged through.

  “This one,” she said, tapping a page covered in spidery writing. “A spell to make the voice soft.”

  I glanced at Alec, who seemed as confused by that as I was. Lady Fauna glanced up.

  “Not soft, exactly,” she said. “The whole charm is built around siren feathers.”

  “It made her persuasive?”

  “Yes, extremely.” She ran a finger down the list. “I think I worked that one into little chalk pellets for her. She said she was looking for a ‘magic pill.’ That was the best I could do.”

  “So she didn’t come in and kidnap the children,” I said. A lightbulb had gone on, and I said the words before I’d had the chance to think them through. “She lured them out. She spoke to them.”

  “I suppose she might have,” Lady Fauna said with a small shrug. “Why not?”

  I dropped a grape I’d been rolling between my fingers back onto the plate. “That’s that, then,” I said. “Mystery solved. Where is she?”

  Lady Fauna raised her eyebrows at me again, and I realized by the way everyone around her grew silent that I’d spoken too loudly or demanded too much.

  “I need to find the children,” I said more quietly. “My lady.”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea where Sienna is,” Lady Fauna said. “She paid for spells. We aren’t exactly friends.”

  The naiads around her tittered.

  “Can you help me find her?” I asked.

  She hesitated a long, delicate moment, and impatience warmed my skin.

  “I’ll pay you for that, too,” I said. “Another cocktail dress.”

  “An evening gown.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  She seemed startled—she’d expected me to negotiate—but agreed. We shook again, the bracelet winding its way across our sk
in, and then she sat upright on her cushions.

  “Give me one of your hairs,” she said.

  I plucked one out, and she held it up to the light of a lantern, as if she could see through it. After a moment, she gestured at Alec.

  “You, too.”

  “Me?” he said. “I’m not related to Sienna.”

  “Nothing to do with it,” she said. “You’re a werewolf, aren’t you?”

  He looked cornered, but she only blinked at him.

  “I recognize your posture,” she said. “I have been around the block a few times, sweets.”

  Carefully, he pulled a hair from his head and handed it to her. She held this one up to the light, too, muttering to herself.

  “That werewolf nose is very useful in spells like these,” she said. “So that’s a cousin, a bloodhound, and—”

  She plucked one of her own long, dark hairs and pinched it together with the other two.

  “Me.”

  We watched in silence as she gave the ends of the hairs to a naiad next to her to hold, and then she began braiding. She hummed to herself as she worked, which didn’t seem to be part of the spell, and when she reached the end of Alec’s russet strand of hair it grew and lengthened to match the two dark ones. By the time she had finished, the cord had grown thick and strong, more as if it were woven from strands of thread than human hair.

  Lady Fauna pinched the ends together, and they singed as they melted, filling the air with an acrid odor. She bit off the excess and handed the cord to me.

  “Follow this.” She tilted her head, and her strange pupils seemed to dilate a little. “She’s in a green meadow,” she said dreamily, then her pupils snapped back to normal and she stared sharply at me. “If this doesn’t lead you to her, I can’t help you.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” I said, and Alec echoed me.

  “So when will I get the goods?”

  “By this time next week,” I said. “I’ll have them delivered.” I glanced around. “Where are we?”

  “Ancient Rome,” she said. “One perfect day.” She spiraled one of her fingers through the air. “I have it on a loop.”

  I thought about this for a moment. “Maybe I’ll deliver it myself.”