The Eighth Court (The Courts of the Feyr - By Mike Shevdon Page 0,10

her eyes I knew she was seeing me as a lightless hole in the world. A song hummed in my veins, a long note, low and loud, calling to me. I could feel tendrils of darkness, spreading from my hand under her clothes. Her eyes went wide. She screamed again, uninhibited, kicking and thrashing in my grip. “They came and took it! Some men. From a company. They took it away!”

I held back the tide rushing into me, gritting my own teeth against the flood that pressed for release. “When?”

“A little while ago. For pity’s sake!” she squeaked.

“Who took it?”

“Some men. They’re replacing it with a newer one.”

“How long?”

“Fifteen minutes. Twenty maybe?”

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” she wailed. Tears were running down her face. There was the certain knowledge in her eyes that I would kill her. A small part of me believed her. A small part of me wanted to, but she was telling the truth.

I released her and she collapsed like a sack of sand onto the floor. Her head lolled to one side. I forced back the wave of power and let the magic fade. Looking down at her, I wondered what was becoming of me. There were some things ordinary people weren’t meant to see and she’d just come very close to dying. Looking at her made me think of the stories that Claire had told us when we first met. She’d said that not everyone who dealt with the Feyre walked away unscathed, and I was beginning to see why. I needed to get better control of myself. I had almost killed her for no other reason than she wouldn’t give me what I wanted. That was what Raffmir would do, and I would not let myself sink to his level.

I squatted down in front of her. Her eyes were not focusing. She was in shock. Fifteen or twenty minutes maximum, she’d said. They’d only just gone – for a moment I wondered what would have happened if I’d walked in on them while they were cutting the safe loose.

If I left her where she was, someone would soon notice her. Perhaps they would call an ambulance or a doctor. It was more than I could do for her. I’d already done too much. Whoever had been here, they had a heavy safe containing the horseshoes, the nails and the two knives from the ceremony. Fifteen minutes with a heavy safe in this warren of a building.

There was every chance they were still here.

I jogged down the corridor, swerving round someone emerging from an office with a pile of folders, nearly knocking them off their feet. “Don’t run!” they called after me.

Ignoring them, I paused only to look through the windows into the courts along the hall. They had a safe, now where would they take it? Not into court. Out the front door? No, I would have encountered them already. They could cloak themselves in glamour but the safe would remain as it was. The iron inside it would protect it – that was why it was there. The iron in it should prevent them carrying it, so where were they? They must have found a way to counter it, to mask the nature of it.

Reaching the end of the corridor, I stopped. There were numerous stairways, up and down – difficult to get a heavy safe downstairs. If you were fey you couldn’t hold it with the knives inside it. Someone else was moving it. They must have human collaborators. It was the only way. Sprinting around the corner, I slipped between two gowned barristers in conversation. They shouted after me, but I was already past. There were display cases left and right – somewhere close there must be a goods lift. Somewhere, but where?

I rounded a corner and was presented with more corridors. I was running out of time. I could run around this maze all day and never find them. There must be a better way. My eyes settled on a small red box on the wall – fire alarm. Crude, yet effective. Now I was thinking.

Using the heel of my hand, I smashed the glass. Immediately sirens echoed down the corridor. There was a moment’s pause while everyone wondered whether it was a false alarm, and then they began moving. I kept ahead of the crowd, searching for misfits, the odd ones out, allowing myself to be shepherded towards the exits with the rest. Once outside I watched the doors, but no