Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,101

all day long.” His nose twitched, and something about the combo of the round face and the wide eyes and the rapidly twitching nose reminded me of a rabbit. It made me want to laugh, in spite of everything.

I wondered if that had been the point.

“But the next time I visited,” he continued, “just a few hundred years later, and took out my box, everyone looked at me as if I was mad!”

“It . . . must be frustrating,” I said, because what do you say to that?

“You have no idea. And now you tell me that these”—he regarded his cigarette sadly—“are on their way out, too?”

“They’re bad for your health,” I said, and received an eye roll in return.

“As if humans ever cared about that.” He put it out in an ashtray he conjured up—at least, I was pretty sure that it hadn’t been there a second ago—and looked at me pleasantly. “I was wondering if perhaps there was a reason you sicced an Ancient Horror on us?”

I blinked at him for a second, having been caught off guard by the question, which had been asked in the same genial tone as everything else. “What?”

He regarded me for a moment, and then he nodded. “As I thought. You didn’t know.”

“Know . . . what?”

“That yesterday morning, you shifted an ancient demon into the Shadowland, right in the middle of the marketplace.”

“What?” Pritkin said, suddenly coming back to life.

Adra stopped and considered. “What was the marketplace,” he amended. “As you may have noticed, the damned thing destroyed most of it.”

I looked back and forth between the two men, feeling seriously confused. “Adra, I don’t know what you’re—”

And then I did.

It said something for the way my life worked lately that I’d actually forgotten all about that.

“Oh, shit.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “That’s what we said. Among other things.”

“And how do you know Cassie had anything to do with this?” Pritkin asked harshly.

“Ah, yes, that’s right, isn’t it?” Adra asked him. “Unlike most heirs apparent, you never bothered to attend the meetings.”

“Adra,” I said, but he held up a hand.

“There are safeguards to protect the city. They were needed in the dark times, and were never dismantled afterward due to the number of delicate issues regularly discussed here. Among other things, they do not allow one of the Great Dangers to simply transition in.” He’d been looking at Pritkin, but now he glanced at me. “At least, not without help.”

“How . . .”

I stopped and swallowed, feeling sick. I’d shifted away the creature at the coven’s version of Grand Central Station to protect the people there, without bothering to consider the ones here. I’d been attempting to help, but instead, I’d just passed the buck. How many had paid for it?

“Were there many casualties?” I asked, because I had to know.

“None, as far as I know.”

“None? But how—”

“It was targeting merchandise, not people. The creature appears to have had a disagreement with the family who used to control this world, long ago, before the council settled here. They also had a market, and it seemed to believe that if it destroyed enough of their wares, it would draw them out. However, the council was drawn out instead.” He lit another cigarette. “It was an . . . interesting . . . fight.”

I swallowed some more and decided I didn’t feel well. Relief was warring with guilt, and they were both being put in overdrive by a rush of adrenaline. It was making me want to bolt out of my chair and pass out at the same time, and the combo was making me nauseous.

I settled for sitting there miserably instead.

“I’m . . . really sorry,” I said, because Adra was looking at me, and tried not to wince at how inadequate that sounded.

But he shook his head. “I am less concerned with apologies than with where you found it. We thought we had the Ancient Horrors safely locked away.”

“In a book,” I said, and told them about my shopping trip, which felt like a hundred years ago now.

“A fey released it?” Adra asked when I’d finished. “You are sure?”

“Pretty sure,” I said, remembering the merperson’s otherworldly appearance. He’d been amazing, mesmerizing—like he’d been formed out of the water itself. As if the currents had decided to sculpt something, but couldn’t decide whether to make a man or a fish. He’d been beautiful . . . in a murderous sort of way.

And didn’t that just sum up Faerie perfectly?

“Make that absolutely sure,” I said,