CHAPTER ONE
STREET LAMPS REFLECTED OFF THE DAMP PAVEMENT , making tiny orange moons, and I careened down the sidewalk after my grushound, Anwynn. I was athletic, but I wasn’t a hundred eighty pounds of mostly muscle, and I certainly didn’t have four legs. My breath fogged the air in front of me.
“Hey!” someone called from the other side of the street. “There are laws about letting your dogs run around, asshole!”
This. This was what I got for taking off the damn leash.
I muttered to myself as I ran, in a fair approximation of Anwynn’s gravelly voice. “Let me off the leash, she says. Oh, I’ll be able to track the sprites much more easily, she says. I’ll keep a low profile.”
Low profile—how could I think that was possible with a hound as big as a small pony running through the streets of Portland? I suppose desperation can lead to big ideas, but it can lead to bad ones, too.
I seemed to be falling into the latter category more and more.
I’d been chasing down these sprites for the better part of a month. Okay, so chronically souring milk wasn’t in the category of world-ending problems, but people had started noticing, and my job as the only legal Changeling in the world was to keep people from noticing. I had to get the sprites back through a doorway and into the Fae world soon; otherwise I’d be finding the Arbiter in my living room, and he might have more than just unkind words for me. I couldn’t remember word-for-word the oath he’d made me swear in order to grant me legal status, but it had something to do with keeping the Fae and mortal worlds separate, or my life would be forfeit. Blah, blah, blah, do this or die. You know, the usual.
“Anwynn,” I hissed, and saw her ears prick. I opened my mouth to issue her an order, but she turned her head to the side.
“Trail’s going cold, Nicole,” she huffed back at me. “We slow down, I lose it.”
And my Fae hound was talking in the middle of Portland. I whooshed past someone whose eyebrows had risen so far they looked in danger of becoming part of his hairline. People everywhere knew a few truths: dogs didn’t talk, magic didn’t exist, and there certainly wasn’t another, hidden world pressed against theirs.
“Fine.” I ground my teeth together and found a fresh burst of speed. Tall buildings gave way to shady trees as we passed the Lloyd Center Mall and moved into Irvington. Fewer people walked the streets here at night, which was good, because this wasn’t my subtlest undertaking.
At least I wasn’t fighting a Fae Queen in front of Multnomah County Jail. Life takes some weird turns, sometimes.
I drew even with Anwynn and hoped running with her instead of behind her would mean less accusatory glances. I checked around us for people. “How much farther, do you think?”
“Beats me,” she said. “But sprites are quick.” She slowed to a jog for half a moment, sniffing the air. “We’re closer.”
And then she was off again, and some poor mother on a lawn clutched her child closer as Anwynn passed.
“Some people are afraid of dogs,” she yelled at me as I ran after the grushound.
“Yes, sorry!” Because what else was I going to say? “Your milk keeps going bad because of sprites and I need to catch them”?
Being one of the Sidhe living smack-dab in the mortal world isn’t as fun as it sounds.
We turned onto a quieter street, and then Anwynn really got her legs beneath her. She stretched out like a horse on the track, reminding me of only two short months before when she’d chased me . We weren’t exactly friends now, but I was glad we weren’t enemies.
A row of large trees lay at the end of the street, from behind which I could barely make out a football field. Grant High School.
Damn sprites. Had they tired of going from home to home and decided to hit a bigger target? I’d bet the little critters would get quite a lot of amusement out of watching a bunch of hapless teenagers chug
STREET LAMPS REFLECTED OFF THE DAMP PAVEMENT , making tiny orange moons, and I careened down the sidewalk after my grushound, Anwynn. I was athletic, but I wasn’t a hundred eighty pounds of mostly muscle, and I certainly didn’t have four legs. My breath fogged the air in front of me.
“Hey!” someone called from the other side of the street. “There are laws about letting your dogs run around, asshole!”
This. This was what I got for taking off the damn leash.
I muttered to myself as I ran, in a fair approximation of Anwynn’s gravelly voice. “Let me off the leash, she says. Oh, I’ll be able to track the sprites much more easily, she says. I’ll keep a low profile.”
Low profile—how could I think that was possible with a hound as big as a small pony running through the streets of Portland? I suppose desperation can lead to big ideas, but it can lead to bad ones, too.
I seemed to be falling into the latter category more and more.
I’d been chasing down these sprites for the better part of a month. Okay, so chronically souring milk wasn’t in the category of world-ending problems, but people had started noticing, and my job as the only legal Changeling in the world was to keep people from noticing. I had to get the sprites back through a doorway and into the Fae world soon; otherwise I’d be finding the Arbiter in my living room, and he might have more than just unkind words for me. I couldn’t remember word-for-word the oath he’d made me swear in order to grant me legal status, but it had something to do with keeping the Fae and mortal worlds separate, or my life would be forfeit. Blah, blah, blah, do this or die. You know, the usual.
“Anwynn,” I hissed, and saw her ears prick. I opened my mouth to issue her an order, but she turned her head to the side.
“Trail’s going cold, Nicole,” she huffed back at me. “We slow down, I lose it.”
And my Fae hound was talking in the middle of Portland. I whooshed past someone whose eyebrows had risen so far they looked in danger of becoming part of his hairline. People everywhere knew a few truths: dogs didn’t talk, magic didn’t exist, and there certainly wasn’t another, hidden world pressed against theirs.
“Fine.” I ground my teeth together and found a fresh burst of speed. Tall buildings gave way to shady trees as we passed the Lloyd Center Mall and moved into Irvington. Fewer people walked the streets here at night, which was good, because this wasn’t my subtlest undertaking.
At least I wasn’t fighting a Fae Queen in front of Multnomah County Jail. Life takes some weird turns, sometimes.
I drew even with Anwynn and hoped running with her instead of behind her would mean less accusatory glances. I checked around us for people. “How much farther, do you think?”
“Beats me,” she said. “But sprites are quick.” She slowed to a jog for half a moment, sniffing the air. “We’re closer.”
And then she was off again, and some poor mother on a lawn clutched her child closer as Anwynn passed.
“Some people are afraid of dogs,” she yelled at me as I ran after the grushound.
“Yes, sorry!” Because what else was I going to say? “Your milk keeps going bad because of sprites and I need to catch them”?
Being one of the Sidhe living smack-dab in the mortal world isn’t as fun as it sounds.
We turned onto a quieter street, and then Anwynn really got her legs beneath her. She stretched out like a horse on the track, reminding me of only two short months before when she’d chased me . We weren’t exactly friends now, but I was glad we weren’t enemies.
A row of large trees lay at the end of the street, from behind which I could barely make out a football field. Grant High School.
Damn sprites. Had they tired of going from home to home and decided to hit a bigger target? I’d bet the little critters would get quite a lot of amusement out of watching a bunch of hapless teenagers chug
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