Spin the Shadows (Dark and Wicked Fae #1) - Cate Corvin Page 0,45
TVs in the bars were playing the footage of the latest Ghosthand murder again, with Oriande Snowdrop breathlessly regaling listeners that no nights were safe now.
The news seemed to have the opposite effect on Avilion’s usual revelers. Instead of hiding in their locked houses, the nightlife was vibrant and alive now.
“When did Oriande show up?” I asked, catching a glimpse of her perfectly made-up face through another window.
“Right after we got you out of there.” Robin glanced at the reporter with a look of distaste. “I didn’t think you’d want your face plastered all over the network.”
It would’ve completely busted my cover as Robin’s agent, so it was for the best that he’d dragged me away from Jack Frost before the news anchor showed up.
One of the bars’ double doors was wide open, and I caught a brief snippet of Oriande’s precise words. “—discovered by a Lesser Fae who was unavailable for questioning after the Seelie Garda released her—”
I wondered how much Robin had to do with that unavailability.
We didn’t stop to eat until we were on the verge of crossing into the outskirts of Mothwing Falls.
Robin tugged me towards a pair of tall wooden doors. “Have you ever been to Rosetta’s?” he asked.
I glanced at the menu posted by the door, the neat script curling across old-fashioned parchment, and my eyeballs just about bugged out of my skull. “Uh, no. This isn’t exactly in your average bike courier’s budget.”
My boss just gave me a faint smile. “It’s in the Garda agent budget.”
He pulled one of the doors open and held it for me. I hesitated for a brief second before stepping inside. He had promised dinner was on him, after all.
The inside of Rosetta’s was painted in shades of scarlet, and all of the furniture was polished dark oak. A brownie greeted us at the door, long ears flopping over the sides of his chef’s jacket. He had eyes like a puppy, deep, liquid pools of chocolate.
Robin produced a fold of bills from his pocket. “A private table, please,” he asked.
The brownie’s face crinkled into a polite smile and he bowed before leading us through the main room.
There were several alcoves walled off from each other, with a small table set in each. Robin pulled out my chair for me, and I ignored the faint flapping of the pesky butterflies that refused to vacate my stomach.
It sort of felt like being on a date. Except there was no way I would actually use that word in Robin’s earshot.
“Thanks,” I muttered, wishing I’d suggested just grabbing a quick burger from the much cheaper MacElfin’s instead. It wasn’t really fair to compare them, but Ioin had never held out a chair for me even when we were dating.
Of course I’d managed to find myself a boss who I’d like to be dating as much as I liked working for him.
Robin sat across from me and the brownie laid menus in front of us. The top of his fuzzy little head barely reached the table.
I ordered mushroom pasta and Robin went for a steak and an entire bottle of red wine. The label was written in Old Norse, the runes indecipherable to me.
“Boss…”
Robin looked up from pouring me a glass, brow raised in expectation.
“Jack said he did some digging on me.” I swallowed hard. The dark thought had been buzzing in my head since I’d spoken to the Unseelie fixer. “Is it… is it safe to assume you did the same?”
I wondered if Robin knew about Pomona, or my failures as a dryad of the Golden Grove. It was the sort of thing I wouldn’t have wanted him to read in a file, considering it was my story.
He lowered the bottle to the table. “To a certain degree, yes.” His blue eyes seemed even darker in the low light of Rosetta’s, the color of the ocean at midnight. “Criminal records, prior visas… the sort of things that might have prohibited me from offering you a more permanent position.”
“Oh.” I wrapped my fingers around the stem of the wine glass like it was a lifeline. “Did you read anything… anything personal?”
Robin was looking me full in the face, but I stared down into my wine glass, at my rippling reflection in the dark violet liquid.
“No.” He drank and looked back at me. “Only the necessary things.”
My breath of relief was silent. So he wasn’t taking me under his wing out of pity or a misplaced sense of charity.