“No,” She said. “You have not yet heard this one’s price. Terribly rude to interrupt without hearing the offer in full, would not one agree?”

  “I will counter,” Kita said, though no one was even listening to him anymore.

  Kita was obviously someone who excelled in the physical side of things. He was a fucking unit. But here? In an assembly room full of chairs where we’d just finished Town Hall, with the organizational structure of a speaker, an agenda, and people paying attention like they were supposed to? This was Melene’s stage. Kita was outmatched and everyone knew it. It was sheer stubbornness or the lack of awareness which made him still stay and block my exit.

  I glanced at the dais. The Intellect Transit was heading for the door. I needed to get a move on now. I needed the boons, anything to give me an edge in the trial up ahead. What had been two days was reduced to mere hours.

  “Twelve years of your second born, and two years of your firstborn’s second born,” She said gleefully, weaving her hands through the air.

  Damn it, she was toying with me. Whether to interrupt Kita the Yokai, or to just annoy me, or to give an actual offer, she was biding her time. Meanwhile, I had to catch the Intellect Transit here then find an actual second.

  Kita’s offer was becoming more attractive by the minute.

  Yet, I didn’t want to take his offer to escape the Fae’s clutches. That would be plain stupid. Even without Abigail’s warning, I was getting a feel for how the relationships and peripheral deals revolving around them interacted. Neither offer was attractive, and I wasn’t keen on taking a stance on what kind of relationship I wanted with either of them.

  “Exanguin,” I blurted out of the blue, “What’s happening to him?

  Her entourage froze mid-stride behind her, coming to a dead stop in whatever motion they were doing. It was as if my words had the opposite effect of what was supposed to carry on a conversation, cutting the multiple strings that were being placed and weaved to tell a story. I’d simply meant to change the topic, but I felt the glamour working pause.

  Menele stopped too. Her face was pointed towards the ceiling, haughty chin raised towards it in a laugh.

  When she began moving again, the fae behind her started to as well. But the movements were jerky, like a robot that had repeated a task thousands of times and the gears were too rusted to move any other way. Menele was smoother, her dance becoming less flamboyant and more subdued.

  Kita stayed very quiet behind me. For a being of his size, he could breathe real quiet.

  “This one wonders why the fate of one of our own matters in this engagement,” Menele wondered out loud. Not a question, but more of a statement.

  “Call it curiosity. Can’t say we’re strangers, not after I beat him in a contest of Wit and Might, back to back,” I said and tried for a smile that I saw the preternaturals do often; one with teeth. I was sure they did it to scare me. Maybe it’ll work on them. “This one wonders if your education would make him more of a challenge next time.”

  “Careful,” Wol said but it was too late.

  I’d been trying to steer the conversation away from the topic of seconds and into something else. The only other thing I could think of was Exanguin. Fortunately, it worked. Menele didn’t seem interested in continuing the conversation at all.

  Unfortunately, she took a step forward and it was with startling realization that I learned the fae woman was taller than me.

  The butterfly wings in her eyesockets began to flutter, joined by other insectoid wings –veiny, clear, wings that buzzed horrendously. She towered over me, casting a shadow and contorting her body at sharp angles that could not have been done with a mammalian spine.

  My mouth was on a roll now, my brain kept sending orders to keep talking because it didn’t know what else to do.

  “Is that yoga?” My laugh came out too weak to be casual.

  “This one wonders,” She spat, rotten teeth fumigating the air between us with sourness, “what you are trying to imply.”

  “Careful now,” I repeated Wol’s warning, directing towards Menele. Simultaneously, I was tying to maintain eye contact while trying not to stare into the holes where the insect wings were sprouting. “I heard this place was neutral ground. And there sure are lots of eyes here.”

  She froze. Some of the buzzing stopped.

  Oh, everyone remaining in the assembly was doing anything but watching, pretending to be absorbed in their own side conversations. But I knew better. I’d been the very topic of those pretend-conversations many a times. I knew the feeling of being talked about and the center of attention by heart.

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  “If you do not mind,” I said slowly, pretending I was backing away from a rabid dog. “I’m going to go now.” I nearly turned around but decided to hold out the metaphorical olive branch, “Does this one have your leave?”

  Menele had shrunk down to her normal height, her fingers returning to normal appendages not exoskeletal claws. She folded her arms. “This one gives you leave.”

  “Kita? Could I consider your offer? But I can’t give you an answer now.”

  The yokai rumbled in assent.

  I didn’t waste a second in walking away from the Fae and Yokai, beelining straight towards the door next to the dais where the Intellect Transit and others left.

  “That was close,” I said, crossing the distance halfway. “Dangerous.”

  Wol was right besides me. “Yes, but all things considered, not a bad maneuver.”

  “I just remembered everything you told me. How the Fae rely on glamour to hide truth, or build up lies. So I hit her with the hardest truth I could think of. Exanguin,” I said. “It backfired.”

  “They are weak to rawness. Crudeness, directness, base things, anything that chips away the glamour they weave. You were right to employ that method,” Wol said, “ You are becoming rather good at dealing with the Fae.”

  “But she was more complicated than Exanguin, wasn’t she?”

  “She was leagues above Exanguin, my Practitioner. But it was also her own theatrics that allowed you to get her angry. My guess? She wasn’t upset at all. She was simply playing the part that you forced her to play.”

  “Wait a second, you mean to tell me she let me go?” I really didn’t like that notion.

  “I mean to say you entertained her enough to earn the leave,” Wol said.

  Crap. “Do you think she’ll remember me?”

  “Yes,” He said simply. “Everyone already does.”

  “Jesus, I have enough enemies already without the Fae getting on my tail. Exanguin was annoying enough.”

  “The Fae have long lives. If you are lucky, she’ll come after your children or their children.”

  That did not make me feel better. “What was up with the other fae surrounding her? The poses, the theatrics of it all. It was like she was pretending this was all a play.”

  “She is most likely an exile like Exanguin, or on a temporary leave to gain strength. What she’s doing is probably a mirror of her own court dynamics.”

  “She’s playing princess and castle with the kids because she’s homesick? It’s all pretending with them. Is anything real with them?”

  “Pretending for them is real to them,” Wol sighed. “You have encountered Exnaguin. Were his beast forms any less real than his true form?”

  “No,” I grit my teeth, “She’s so freaking creepy, Wol. I'm surprised she didn’t grab a basketball and break out into a random song number.”

  He didn’t say anything to that.

  When I reached the door, one of the pigeons flew down and perched on a nearby chair. The wing covered its head and the avian head transformed into the head of a little girl. But just like before, it was a little off, like a non-human tried to draw a face using just their memories. Lipless mouth, noseless nostrils, mismatching eyebrows, and eyes that were too flat –I resisted the urge to look away.

  “She waits!” It cooed. “Inside! Be welcome!”

  I opened the door and went in.

  Through the door was a long stretch of hallway with doors that probably led to private waiting rooms for all the important people that did things like City Hall. It looked a lot like school. Instead of waiting inside the many rooms, the Intellect Transit and Rosefinch were waiting right by the door.

  The Wickerman wasn’t here.

  “Oh, don’t fret, Mageling. Inty has your precious little toys."

  “Jain Shin Hallow, I was waiting for you.”

  The Intellect Transit and Rosefinch Valstein cut a striking pair.

  The Intellect Transit was a monster on all accounts. The wings covering her were patterned with mottled gray and slightly shimmering purple-green resembling that of her children, pidgeons. I knew that the body beneath had four stumpy naked legs resembling unfeathered bird limbs. Her skin would be pink, flabby, and at times, possessing the odd pidgeon eye. But I also knew that the Intellect Transit had a code of honor, which I’d yet to see the limit of. She was the one who’d dealt most honestly with me yet.

  Well, I had my suspicions.

  Rosefinch Valstein on the other hand was what anyone would call an ethereal beauty. Her looks were out of this world. She had the skin of moonlight, and pale opaque eyes that made promises that should never be said out loud. Her dress was cut low in the front, and high in the thighs; revealing that there were zero imperfections that the mortal eye could see.

  But she was the opposite of the Intellect Transit. Conniving, manipulative, and kind of a slob, if I was being honest.

  I wondered if either of them would agree to my second. I squashed that thought immediately.

  I stared for a second longer, half-dazed from the glamour-filled conversation with the Fae. “I think I completed your task.”

  The Intellect Transit’s wings trembled, and some of the beaks on her face sang. Once more, I was deeply, and sincerely terrified on a level that I didn’t know was within myself.

  “But there’s something you should know.”

  “Little magelings and their ‘buts’,” Rosefinch rolled her eyes. She had one of those folding asian fans in one hand, and slapped it against the other. “Out with it.”

  “It wasn’t an eldritch creature that I found, but a daemon that had been possessed by eldritch madness. I know the distinction is fine, but I thought I should point it out nonetheless.”

  The Intellect got my meaning immediately. “You are saying that whatever being you succeeded in binding might not be the creature I presumed I was sending you to bind.”

  “That’s correct,” I croaked. “And uh, there’s another. The daemon got away.”

  Rosefinch shook her head. “Typical.”

  “But I did bind the eldritch creature.”

  The Intellect took a sudden step forward and it took even more courage than I had facing the daemon not to step away from her. “Truly?” A dozen different beaks asked at once, and I had to lean against the wall or I would’ve crumpled. “You? A practitioner less than two days awakened? You succeeded?”

  “Yes. Would you like to see it?”

  “That was our deal, Jain Shin Hallow,” She said.

  This was where it was going to get tricky.

  “I uh, I accidentally bound it into a… personal belonging of mine.”

  “I am prepared to make the proper reparations.”

  Wol sighed, “The item is a permanent part of my practitioner’s arsenal. He went through his Third Eye ritual with it.”

  “What he said,” I added quickly.

  The Intellect didn’t answer for a long time.