There’s one here, in the no-man’s-land between the warehouse district and the seedier residential area. Mostly tumbledown houses, bars, and keno parlors. But there’s the echo of a site, here also.” She indicated a spot along the shore. “On the beach in Southie. It’s faint, but I can still feel it. And then one that’s very strong, right here.”
Her finger landed in the middle of the blue water. Tiny islands were dotted like beads on a string across the harbor. A difficult anchorage, riddled with treacherous shoals. A perfect hiding place for a sorcerer’s lair.
“That,” he said as he tapped the watery spot on the map, “belongs to the Fae we are looking for.”
“That’s an empty spot in the middle of the harbor.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s an island the mapmakers have been glamoured into overlooking. See how well-protected it is. No ship would try to pass that way, no matter what the chart says, because it’s surrounded by impassable shoals. But we wouldn’t have any better luck finding it than your mapmakers, unless we had permission.”
“From whom?”
“Whatever Fae sorcerer controls South Boston.”
H e insisted on carrying her back out to the car. Beth didn’t like the way he kept telling her to save her strength, but she didn’t ask what for. She suspected she wouldn’t like the answer.
The pain in her shoulder was constant and it hurt to breathe, but she tried not to think about it. It could not possibly last forever. She only had to endure it a little while longer. Until they found the Fae sorcerer.
He settled her in the passenger seat, buckling the seat belt over her thick woolly blanket. He’d wandered around the apartment while she’d worked, thumbing through books. She’d wondered what he was doing when he’d disappeared into the kitchen, but now she detected the soft fragrance of cardamom and the sharp scent of cloves clinging to his skin. There was something strangely reassuring about it, a sense of connectedness between them that made her dare to hope she would come through this okay.
They drove through the darkened streets and over the new bridge, past the giant post office and the Gillette sign. She didn’t know Southie well. A few of her friends had moved there for the cheap Victorian houses and access to the beach, but they all lamented the crime in the area. A few had been mugged; others had experienced break-ins. The neighborhood’s gentrification had been incomplete at best.
They turned off Broadway, leaving the shops and streetlights behind, and Conn dimmed the headlamps. She had no doubt he could see perfectly in the dark.
Southie never looked particularly salubrious during the day, and the ruinous wasteland here of truck yards, abandoned industry, and empty warehouses looked even worse at night. The squalor was a distraction. She closed her eyes and let that familiar feeling grow in the pit of her stomach. The proximity of the ancient. Fae magic. Growing stronger. Normally she enjoyed it, savored it. The feeling had an almost erotic component to it, lush, and when she finally arrived at the epicenter, climactic.
“Stop here,” she said.
The car rolled to a gentle halt. She was grateful for that, and for Conn’s solicitude: when he’d carried her up and down the stairs and his smooth driving now. Any jolt or jar sent agony shooting through her whole body.
She opened her eyes. “Great.” A street of burnt-out, empty warehouses with one lone sign of habitation at the end of the block: a decrepit, single-story bar, clinging like a barnacle to the side of a boarded-up factory, windowless save for the barred grille in the door, lightless save for the neon BEER sign squatting on the roof. Three tall men lounged outside with the casual elegance of waiting predators.
It was not a safe place. A woman alone would never set foot in there. Even with Conn, the thought terrified her. “It doesn’t look safe,” she said.
“That’s because it belongs
Her finger landed in the middle of the blue water. Tiny islands were dotted like beads on a string across the harbor. A difficult anchorage, riddled with treacherous shoals. A perfect hiding place for a sorcerer’s lair.
“That,” he said as he tapped the watery spot on the map, “belongs to the Fae we are looking for.”
“That’s an empty spot in the middle of the harbor.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s an island the mapmakers have been glamoured into overlooking. See how well-protected it is. No ship would try to pass that way, no matter what the chart says, because it’s surrounded by impassable shoals. But we wouldn’t have any better luck finding it than your mapmakers, unless we had permission.”
“From whom?”
“Whatever Fae sorcerer controls South Boston.”
H e insisted on carrying her back out to the car. Beth didn’t like the way he kept telling her to save her strength, but she didn’t ask what for. She suspected she wouldn’t like the answer.
The pain in her shoulder was constant and it hurt to breathe, but she tried not to think about it. It could not possibly last forever. She only had to endure it a little while longer. Until they found the Fae sorcerer.
He settled her in the passenger seat, buckling the seat belt over her thick woolly blanket. He’d wandered around the apartment while she’d worked, thumbing through books. She’d wondered what he was doing when he’d disappeared into the kitchen, but now she detected the soft fragrance of cardamom and the sharp scent of cloves clinging to his skin. There was something strangely reassuring about it, a sense of connectedness between them that made her dare to hope she would come through this okay.
They drove through the darkened streets and over the new bridge, past the giant post office and the Gillette sign. She didn’t know Southie well. A few of her friends had moved there for the cheap Victorian houses and access to the beach, but they all lamented the crime in the area. A few had been mugged; others had experienced break-ins. The neighborhood’s gentrification had been incomplete at best.
They turned off Broadway, leaving the shops and streetlights behind, and Conn dimmed the headlamps. She had no doubt he could see perfectly in the dark.
Southie never looked particularly salubrious during the day, and the ruinous wasteland here of truck yards, abandoned industry, and empty warehouses looked even worse at night. The squalor was a distraction. She closed her eyes and let that familiar feeling grow in the pit of her stomach. The proximity of the ancient. Fae magic. Growing stronger. Normally she enjoyed it, savored it. The feeling had an almost erotic component to it, lush, and when she finally arrived at the epicenter, climactic.
“Stop here,” she said.
The car rolled to a gentle halt. She was grateful for that, and for Conn’s solicitude: when he’d carried her up and down the stairs and his smooth driving now. Any jolt or jar sent agony shooting through her whole body.
She opened her eyes. “Great.” A street of burnt-out, empty warehouses with one lone sign of habitation at the end of the block: a decrepit, single-story bar, clinging like a barnacle to the side of a boarded-up factory, windowless save for the barred grille in the door, lightless save for the neon BEER sign squatting on the roof. Three tall men lounged outside with the casual elegance of waiting predators.
It was not a safe place. A woman alone would never set foot in there. Even with Conn, the thought terrified her. “It doesn’t look safe,” she said.
“That’s because it belongs
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