She narrowed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Don’t be a jerk, Robin.”
He frowned again and bowed his head. “I apologize.”
Still, she needed to be careful with him. The last thing she needed was for Robin to snap because he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—control his own emotions.
But right now, right here in this practice room with its cold lights, with her cold muscles and her achy bones, the last thing she should have to deal with was an immature fae’s feelings.
So she stared. No backing down. No words, either. No way for him to twist up what she did in order to fudge his way into extracting another boon or favor, the way he’d done with the secret about the witch-fire uptake system.
Robin’s entire body stiffened. “You are angry.”
“You asked me to tell you of my hunches. Engaging in an equal sharing of information will help you, Robin.” Sometimes she felt more like his mother than his adopted daughter.
He pranced over to the cut glass doors, and with a swoop of his arm, leaned against a particularly dramatic swan.
“Something happened a month ago,” he said. “Something that disrupted the vampire status quo.” His mouth twisted up. “I’ve heard rumors of gates opening.” His convoluted expression took on a hint of confusion. “Not Heartway gates, so it wasn’t us.” He glanced off to the side as if thinking about it. “The kami have the power to lure in vampires, but they do not interact with other magicals. At all.” He shook his head.
The kami and their various yōkai did, in fact, interact with non-Japanese mundanes and magicals, it just didn’t happen often. It wasn’t about being insular. Why interact with mundanes who didn’t fuel their magic if they didn’t have to? Especially vampires.
“So the good money is on elves.”
Of course he thought it was elves. With the fae, every bad happening was always the fault of the elves. They were still mad about all those Viking invasions. And the fact that every mundane in the Isles with a sensitivity to magic was descended from that elf princess, and not fae royalty.
But Robin was correct; if it wasn’t the fae dealing with their vampire problem, or the kami dealing with theirs, then good money was on the elves.
“The fallout seems to be a shift in power,” she said.
“Hmmm…” he said.
“A shift that has increased the trafficking in magical blood, Robin.” Which definitely did not indicate elves. Elves did not traffic in anything. They were elves. You got what you saw. When they let you see, which they most often did not.
Everything about Robin’s posture said she was correct—the angle of his shoulders, the tension of his neck, the furrowing of his brow.
“I shouldn’t…” He trailed off and made a show of slowly rubbing his face as he looked over his shoulder. “You know about the intel dryads.”
She nodded. “Samhain was yesterday.” Oberon always sent out intelligence gatherers during each of the Eight Festivals. It seemed counter-intuitive, and sacrilegious, but thin veils meant easier spying. And Oberon did like to keep up to date on both enemies and allies.
Robin took her hand. “Come,” he said, and pulled her toward the door.
Chapter 6
Oberon’s actual castle was part granite stonework, part emerged crystal, and part living timber, and it served as one of the anchor points for the layers and layers of interconnected pockets of fae-made lands.
Besides a few stops along the public Heartway transit system, a handful of special locations allowed easy movement out of the fae realms. Most were gateways into the mundane world. Most were mapped. Some were secret and used by royalty. All were used by spies.
The location Robin dragged Wrenn toward sat inside the castle, on a midlevel tier built on top of the intertwined branches of three massive, mighty, east-facing oak trees.
“Why am I here, Robin?” she asked. They’d wound their way through the crystals and onto a boulevard-wide branch of one of the trees.
Robin smoothed his well-tailored uniform. “You are here—” Then he did the same with his luscious black curls, smoothing them away from his cute little horn nubs. “—because the dryads are back.”
The intelligence dryads and naiads sent out would trickle back in over the next few days. Two coming in early didn’t mean anything.
Robin tossed her one of his prissy looks. He leaned close to her ear. “I sent this pair into elf territory.”
“What?” Did the elves really have something to do with their vampire problem? He must have information about the North American enclave who were harboring vampires.
Robin’s demeanor subtly shifted from the more personable body language he used with her to his more standard backstabbing prissiness. Robin flicked his wrist and pranced around while wearing his cute glamour as a way to remind the less powerful who was in charge.
He sniffed, but said no more.
Wrenn understood the hint. By sending intelligence dryads into elf territory, Robin might have crossed lines he should not have crossed and any hint might prick problematic ears.
The elves might be fewer in number than the fae, but they were just as powerful. And elves did not freely show their business, nor their magicks.
There were agreements. Nothing particularly binding—the elves were not stupid enough to make deals with the fae—but they did offer each other respect. No nosing around. No spying. General good-neighbor stuff, which it seemed Robin had decided to ignore, and probably rightly so.
Those vampires harbored by the North American enclave might have bitten the elves on the butt. “Did that video of the little elf girl get Oberon to authorize sending in investigators?” Because one part of this puzzle was understanding why elves harbored vampires. Even minor ones.
The elves had wiped the video off the mundane internet almost immediately, but Robin had still managed to get her a copy, mostly because he knew she’d been trying to get any info she could about the enclave.
Robin screwed up his face in an expression that
