snazzy red sports car stood out among the more workaday vehicles like a cardinal in a flock of pigeons . . . at least until he took the first corner and disappeared, leaving the reek of smoke and rotten oranges in his wake. The smell of magic can cut across almost anything else, and since every caster has their own magical “taste,” it also serves as a signature of sorts. The scent confirmed that I was following Simon Torquill and not some paid double. Which was good to know, except for the part where I’d lost the man.
Swearing, I grabbed the pot of faerie ointment off the seat beside me and smeared it around my eyes until it started running down my cheeks. The car reappeared ahead of me in a hazy outline, like I was seeing it through water. “Won’t be losing you again, you asshole,” I muttered and pressed down on the gas.
Don’t-look-here spells are trickier than true invisibility; Simon’s car was still there, and the drivers around him avoided it automatically, making him safer from traffic accidents than he would have been without the enchantment. People—mortal people—saw him; they just didn’t acknowledge it. At the same time, anyone with a drop of fae blood couldn’t see him without outside assistance. It was a nice piece of work. I might have admired it, if it hadn’t been interfering with my job.
It was almost unfair. My own abilities barely extend to a few charms and parlor tricks, while the man in front of me was causing an entire city of humans to act like he wasn’t even there. That’s Faerie’s genetic lottery for you. If you’re a pureblood, you get it all, but if you’re a changeling, well, I hope you have good luck with that.
Simon turned the wrong way down a one-way street, taking advantage of the semi-invisibility I didn’t share. Swearing again, I hauled my own car into a hard left, beginning a pacing maneuver along the next block. As long as I didn’t hit any traffic lights, I’d be able to catch him at the other end. I wasn’t going to let my liege down. Not today, not ever. I’m not that girl.
Luck was with me, along with a working knowledge of the San Francisco streets. Simon’s car shot back into view a quarter block up ahead. I eased off the gas, dropping back several cars to keep from rousing his suspicions. I needed Simon as relaxed as possible. There might be lives riding on it. Two lives, to be specific: the wife and the daughter of my liege lord, Duke Sylvester Torquill, twin brother of the man I was following. They had vanished without a trace three days ago, from the middle of Sylvester’s lands, where the security was so tight that nothing could have touched them. But something had, and all signs pointed to Simon.
Even if Sylvester hadn’t been my liege, I would’ve taken the case because of the people involved. Duchess Luna was one of the sweetest, most egalitarian women I’d ever known. And then there was their daughter: Rayseline Acantha Torquill, also known as Raysel. As the presumptive heir to one of the largest Duchies in the Kingdom of the Mists, she could easily have grown up more spoiled than any human princess. Instead, she grew into the sort of little girl who’s always up a tree or down a hole, a magnet for mud, queen of worms and frogs and crawling things. She laughed like she’d just invented laughter. She had her father’s signal-fire red hair. And damn it, she had the right to grow up.
Simon sped up. I did the same.
As far as Cliff knew, I was working a standard abduction case, just another deadbeat dad who took off with the kid when he got the wrong end of the stick during divorce proceedings. My work for the Courts had been dwindling since Gilly was born, but it was still there, and I’d had a lot of practice hiding it. Maintaining a business as a private investigator made it easier. I could explain almost anything by saying that I had to work, and a lot of the time, it was the truth. It’s just that sometimes my cases were more Brothers Grimm than
You don’t get knighted for nothing; it’s a title you earn, either through long service or by having a set of skills that someone really wants to have at their disposal. I’ve always had a talent for finding what I need to know, and when that came to Sylvester’s attention, he grabbed me, saying there were worse things than having a detective on the payroll. I go out, I find out what’s going on, and I let the knights who earned their titles in battle take over. I’m not stupid; I don’t engage. What I am is good at what I do.
One trace turned into two turned into two dozen, all pointing straight to Simon Torquill. He was renting a room in downtown San Francisco, paying cash on a daily basis. It was located on the Queen’s land, even, with no local regent or fiefdom to confuse the issue. Maybe that should have been a sign that something was wrong; after all, Simon was supposed to be a big mover and shaker in the local fae underworld. He should have known how to cover his tracks. I didn’t even think about it. I was too fixated on bringing Luna and Rayseline home.
Simon’s car switched lanes, moving toward Golden Gate Park. I followed. I’d been tailing Simon for three days, and if I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought I was chasing a dead end. But a woman and a little girl were missing, and we didn’t have any other leads.
Finding a parking place in Golden Gate Park is never easy, but luck still seemed to be with me, because Simon pulled into a handicapped spot—the first actual crime I’d seen him commit—and I managed to snake in behind a departing minivan, cutting off three families that had probably been circling for an hour. I kept my eyes on Simon, ignoring the rude gestures being directed toward me.
The don’t-look-here dissolved when Simon emerged from his car, brushing imagined dirt off his pristine suit. Giving the area a disinterested glance, he started toward the Botanical Gardens. I stayed in my car long enough to give him a reasonable head start, then followed.
Simon strolled through the gardens like a man with nothing to hide, even going so far as to pause and admire the ornamental lake, watching the swans that floated on the water like merchant ships on a quiet sea. Just when I was ready to back off to better cover, he started to move again, heading out of the garden and across the plaza. I followed to the end of the path, waiting to see what his destination would be.
He was heading for the Japanese Tea Gardens. I hesitated.
Golden Gate Park is carved into dozens of tiny fiefdoms—some no bigger than a single tree—and their boundaries are rigidly enforced. The Tea Gardens are held by an old friend of the family, an Undine named Lily. I could count on her for backup if I needed it, and there’s never been any love lost between her and the nobility. Maybe more important, there’s only one exit. Simon could get in, but he couldn’t get out.
That was the problem. Simon Torquill had always struck me as an arrogant jerk, and a lot of people were willing to say that he was evil, but he’d never seemed particularly stupid. He had to know Sylvester suspected him of kidnapping Luna and Rayseline and what would happen to him if his brother’s suspicions proved to be true. So why was he walking into a dead end?
If this were any normal case, this was the point where I’d have backed off. I’m not an idiot, and I don’t have a death wish. But this wasn’t a normal case. My friend and liege was crying alone in his hollow hill over a woman I’d known and respected my entire life, and a little girl who braided dandelions in her hair was missing. There was no way I could walk away, not when this might be my only shot at finding them.
I backed into the shadows of the bushes, kneeling to run my fingers through the damp grass. My own magic rose around me, the taste of copper and cut grass hanging in the air until the spell caught hold with an almost audible click. A bolt of pain shot through my temples. Changeling magic has limits, and those limits make themselves clear when you try to go too far. I’d mixed a marsh water charm, spun a human disguise, and now I was casting a don’t-look-here on myself. Put it all together, and it spelled “too far.”
The pain was worth it for the safety of going unseen. I reminded myself of that as I straightened, wincing, wiped my fingers on the leg of my jeans, and followed Simon into the Tea Gardens.
The spell worked well enough that the girl at the fare booth looked right through me as I passed. The tourists aiming cameras at the bonsai and traditional Japanese sculpture did the same. I suppressed a shiver. I had stepped out of the human world entirely, and unless I took the spell down, they’d never know I’d been there.
The paths inside the Tea Gardens were narrow enough that keeping Simon in sight meant following more closely. I shortened the gap between us, trusting my elementary illusions to hide me. The more powerful someone is, the less time they spend looking for small magic. Changeling games are the most primitive of all. I was betting Simon would overlook me completely, because my illusions were too small to be a threat.
Simon walked on for a good twenty minutes before stopping at the base of the arched moon bridge that was the gateway to the fae side of Lily’s domain. I fell back, stepping behind a stunted Japanese maple. I couldn’t risk moving any closer; that would be pushing it, illusions or no. I’d just have to wait. He seemed to be waiting, too, hands in his pockets as he gazed across the water, the perfect picture of a tourist admiring our city. I forced myself to stay alert, waiting for him to act.
“Simon!” called a laughing female voice. He turned, suddenly smiling. I mirrored the gesture, looking toward the source of the voice, and froze.
She looked like just another teenage girl, dressed in skintight clothes, black hair unbound and hanging past
