Spin the Shadows (Dark and Wicked Fae #1) - Cate Corvin Page 0,66
and permission to use their faces.”
“Oh, no way.” I glared at where I thought he was and heard a chuckle from the driver’s side.
“Over here, Miss Appletree.”
I adjusted my glare accordingly. “None of that, sir. You hired me, now you’re stuck with me. I’ll do the nymphing around here, thank you very much.”
“And you do it very well.” He opened the door and got in. “Besides, a few more of these glamour medallions might’ve actually broken my bank.”
I followed suit, and Robin appeared, holding the silver medallion in his hand.
He took a second medallion out of another of his many suit pockets; this one was smaller, made of clay formed around a ring of onyx.
“It’s dirt.” I glanced at it with incredulity.
“Not just any dirt. It’s the dirt a demi-goddess of illusion was sacrificed on. Very expensive.”
Robin pushed Calder’s hair into the clay, smoothing it into the packed mud so it would stay in place. “That should work. Are you ready, Miss Appletree?”
He looked up at me, eyes piercing.
“I’m ready.” I gripped my own thighs, squeezing them as I thought of all the ways this could go wrong.
“If we’re fortunate, we find the proof we need tonight.” Robin started the car, still watching me. “It could be dangerous. I don’t expect you to follow me.”
I set my jaw. “Try me, boss.”
As he pulled away from the curb, a little smile curved his lips.
“What are you smiling about?” I asked suspiciously.
Robin glanced at me briefly, still smiling. “You. I haven’t had a Fae so eager to be an agent in… well, many years. We’ll just say that.”
“You know me well enough by now. I like to live an exciting life.” I shrugged one shoulder. “Finding body parts, getting blackmailed, tripping over murder victims, taking up with the Wild Hunt… all in a day’s work.”
Robin’s smile faded as quickly as it’d appeared. Fuck. Of course I had to go and mention the Wild Hunt right when we were starting to feel normal again.
Even so, there was a giddy butterfly in my stomach that kept screeching over his obvious jealousy of Gwyn.
Shut up, butterfly. I want to date him, not make him jealous.
He parked near Myrage and fastened the clay amulet around his neck. A second later, I was looking at a perfect approximation of Calder, down to his red barbed-wire tattoo and leather jacket.
I made a face at him. “Thank the trees I don’t have to look at that all the time.”
Robin-Calder made a face back and waggled his tail. “What about me? I’m the one who has to wear it.”
He had Calder’s rough Undercity accent down to a T. It was a little eerie, to be honest. “Does the voice come with the glamour?”
In a perfect, rolling Elvish accent, Robin said through Calder’s mouth, “No. I just studied until I thought my ears would bleed.”
I stared at him. “This is too weird. It doesn’t even look natural coming out of his mouth.”
Robin smiled. “That’s because it’s not.”
I opened the car door and stepped out into… ice. Sobek Street had been warm, but the little alley in front of me was so cold my breath puffed out in a cloud.
I held back a groan. “Jack.”
22
As soon as I said his name, it was like I could see him.
He smirked at me, hands in his pockets, leaning against the alley wall. “Hello, Briallen. You look awfully wet today.”
I tugged on my pearl neckline, scowling at him. “Comes with the territory. Like you’ve never dressed up as anything weird.”
Jack tilted his head, his white hair falling in one pale eye. “I once had to spend an entire week wearing the glamour of a sluagh,” he informed me. “It was much less pleasant than pretending to be a girl.”
I slammed the door behind me and caught him looking at my green legs. “Don’t tell me you have a nereid fetish, too?”
What was it about Jack Frost that made me so damn prickly? I wish I could’ve said it was his pristine white suit, or the knowing look in his eyes when he watched me, or even the obvious rivalry between him and the boss I was loyal to.
But it wasn’t. It was that he’d seen an outcast the moment he laid eyes on me, and instead of rubbing it in, he’d offered an alternative explanation. The kind of explanation a younger, hurt, and lonely Briallen might’ve wanted to hear.
Different, but not defective.
“They’re too cold and damp for me,” he said pleasantly.