Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,64

I had to reduce my natural pace since the man walked so damned slow. It was as if nothing in the world could make him want to rush.

“You’ve known Rowena a long time?” I said after several minutes of silence as we cut across the large open area in the center of the park.

“I saw her born,” he said, and then smiled a little. “She was my student for a time. She loved watching the stars with me.”

“You’re an artist?”

For the first time, his features crumpled a little as he looked over at me. “Of course.” He said this as if that was the only thing he could possibly be. His face smoothed out again like glass and his voice returned to its dreamy state. “She spent years drawing vines and curling leaves, trying to breathe life into her art.”

“Are you an elf?”

“No. My people are called Lorialets.”

“Fey?”

“Not really,” he said with a slight shake of his head as he paused at the edge of the sidewalk. He looked both ways and waited for one distant car to pass us before he continued across the street. “But we prefer to be with the fey. They understand us.”

“I’ve never met a Lorialet.” But I had heard of them. I had thought they were a faery tale, a crazy myth. Lorialets were also called Lunatics, but with the current connotation of the word, I didn’t think he’d take the other name as a compliment. Lorialets were supposedly the children of Selene and Endymion. They were moon gazers, dreamers, poets, musicians, and seers of the past and future.

“There aren’t many of us.”

“Because of the Towers?”

He paused in the middle of the sidewalk and tilted his head a little to the side in thought. “No,” he slowly said. “There were never many of us to begin with, and the Towers have never taken much interest in us.”

I could guess why. Every time he spoke, his voice was soft and distracted, as if his mind were only half on where he was at and what he was doing. He’d drive any warlock or witch insane within a few minutes with his slow, plodding ways.

“Will the queen keep her word and not allow Rowena to come to harm?”

“She has no plans to physically harm our little Rowena,” he said on a sigh.

His choice of words didn’t reassure me.

“At the moment,” Lori continued as he stopped in front of a large two-story home of dark red brick with black shutters, “our lovely queen is telling Rowena who you are getting the mint from.”

“You know whose house this is?”

“Oh, yes. Her name is Demoiselle Noire de Gruchy and I think you will find her quite interesting.”

“I don’t care about this lady. I need to get back to Trixie,” I said in a strained voice, glancing over my shoulder toward the gazebo. Regardless of what Lori said, I didn’t trust the queen.

“You should definitely care,” Lori said. I looked back at my companion and there was something in his eyes as he glanced from me to the house that made me pay attention to my surroundings.

A cluster of magpies roosting on the roof and in the trees in the little front yard had grown silent the moment we stopped before the house. I could feel all their eyes trained on us, watching and waiting. The house looked like any other, but there was a faint tang of magic in the air. It was old, as if years of magic use had settled into the earth and danced on the wind like particles of dust.

Lori sighed and frowned. “She will not be pleased with me,” he muttered to himself as he reached inside his trouser pocket. He pulled out a little glass vile with a cork stopper and handed it to me. “Dab a little on each eyelid. Quickly. Do it now.”

I pulled out the stopper and sniffed the liquid. “Dandelion water?”

“Yes, please hurry.” Despite the intensity of his words, his tone retained its usual dreamlike quality.

I spread a little over each eyelid, smearing it in so that it didn’t drip into my eyes. Blinking a few times, I shoved the stopper into the bottle and handed the vial to Lori. As I looked around, I found that everything looked . . . exactly the same. Dandelion water was supposed to help you see through glamour and keep you from being ensnared by the fey.

“Nothing has changed,” I said.

Lori smiled and gave his little shrug. “I am as you see