I didn’t exactly get a hero’s welcome. I was now considered a traitor again.
When I’d reached them, they stood in a half circle, their weapons pointed at my heart. Bo, the lanky fucker, thought he’d make himself a new Shadow Lord. He revealed how I’d blackmailed him. He told them Galin and I were secret lovers, and that I’d pressed a knife to his throat and threatened to kill him if he told anyone.
He told the Night Elves I’d abandoned them to join the High Elves, that it was my fault we lost.
That sealed my predicament. I was supposed to disappear for good. So, I’d packed my bags and waited.
I recalled Skalei, then threw her at my door again. Thunk.
By consensus, I’d been banished to Midgard.
I glanced at the door, hoping Galin would visit a final time. When I went into hiding in Boston, absolutely no one would be able to find me. Not even him.
It was after 1 a.m. Disappointment slid through my bones. I thought that if he could have, he’d have created a portal by now to find me.
I pulled open the door to my room just a crack and looked out into the dark hallway. I wondered if they’d taken Galin to the dungeons or simply locked him in his room.
I moved into the hallway, keeping to the shadows. What I needed was an informant.
I heard a cough, and ducked into a shadowy alcove just as a guard walked by. He passed, and I slipped up behind him and pressed Skalei to his jugular.
“Feel that steel?” I whispered in his ear. “It’s cold, right? I’ll warm it with your blood if you don’t answer my questions. Now, nod to show that you understand me.”
I felt him shaking as he nodded.
“Good. Now, where is Galin? Answer me quietly.”
The guard gave me directions in a tremulous whisper.
When he’d finished, I wrapped an arm round his throat, squeezing to deprive him of just enough oxygen. I wasn’t going to kill him, but I wanted him out for a while. He struggled in vain for a minute or so before going limp, and I dragged his unconscious body into a room, out of the way.
Then, quietly as possible, I followed the guard’s directions to Galin’s quarters.
I’d expected Galin’s door to be locked, but instead, it was wide open. That didn’t seem promising.
“Skalei,” I whispered.
Moving quietly, I crept inside. His room was a disaster. His bed torn apart, his pillowcases cut open, books strewn everywhere. There was no sign of the prince.
Quietly, I shut the door behind me and started searching the room, but I just found more destruction. I began to poke around, flipping over books, looking under the blankets. What had they been searching for? Some sorcery thing, probably.
I stepped into the trashed bathroom next. What I saw stopped me in my tracks.
With black charcoal, someone had written F-word A on the mirror.
What in Hel?
My eyes lingered on the mirror. What exactly did F-word A mean? Why not just write Fuck?
But maybe it wasn’t some vandal guard who’d written that. What if it had been written by Galin?
What if it was a message?
F-word A. I looked closer at the A. There was something more beyond it, a part of another letter. A sort of vertical smear. Which would make the full phrase, as written, F-word Al.
It could be a message to me, and Galin had been interrupted while writing. F-word Ali. That had to be what he’d been trying to write.
What in Hel does that mean? Fuck Ali? I couldn’t see him censoring his own mirror-swears if he really wanted to express rage.
“F-word Ali,” I said under my breath. “F-word Ali.”
I paced around Galin’s quarters, muttering to myself. What was he trying to tell me? A warning, maybe?
I tried to envision what had happened. Someone had come to his room, and he’d known he only had seconds to send a message. He’d grabbed charcoal and written on the mirror. F-word Ali—only he’d been cut short.
Maybe his message hadn’t been a warning; maybe it was some sort of instruction.
F-word. That’s what he wanted me to know. What F-word could he have been referring to? Fuck was out. Friend? Frog? Fluffy?
But even as my mind raced through the possibilities, the answer was crystalizing in my subconscious. Galin had used a special magic word to hide his home in Cambridge. It had started with F.
I racked my brain trying to remember what it was. It seemed like ages had passed since I’d