Grimm nodded. “You have it. We’ll discuss the matter of your payment when we are done.”
“I know. I’ll do whatever it takes.” I knew that was coming. Nothing is free in life, not even death.
He opened his mouth in surprise and wrinkled his nose. “Marissa, I meant my payment to you. But first we have business to deal with.”
I looked out the door into the dwarf house. “We can’t go out the way we came in. There’s a guard who thinks the house is infected with the Red Death.”
“My dear, this is why I insist you keep up-to-date on your plague immunizations. Red Death, Black Plague, you needn’t fear any of them. Where, may I ask, did you find fleshing silver?”
“My favorite witch.” I held up my hand to show him. “I have the mark.”
He followed the pattern on my hand where the blood had dried to scabs. “Of course you do.”
“Why? Why would she mark me? I don’t have magic, I don’t have scales or breathe fire, I don’t have Glitter. She could have a thousand people, why me?”
Grimm crossed his arms. “The Black Queen is dead, Marissa. I saw her body burn myself, and you have felt her bones with your own hands. I don’t know how she reaches from beyond the grave to do this, but I understand her choice.” He paused, searching for the right words. “Do you know what a handmaiden does?”
“Apply hand lotion? Trim cuticles? File nails?”
He leaned in, and it felt like I was back in training, being taught by him for hours. “Maybe now, maybe here. In her day and age, you would be called my handmaiden.”
I shivered, remembering how the Root reacted to me in my apartment. “I will never be her agent.”
“Of course you won’t. Now let us make ready. I’d like to take you to the Agency.”
“Things didn’t work out so well last time I used a portal.” I glanced around nervously. My blessings had a penchant for breaking glass when they felt threatened.
Grimm waved his hand. “You’re allowed two pieces of luggage, my dear. I’ll bring your pets as well.”
I nodded. The floor under my feet caught fire as green flames burned portal runes into the floor. The world folded in on itself when the portal activated, then grew outward again. We were in Grimm’s office. “We’re going to arm you.” The doors on all the safe boxes clicked open.
I headed for the wall. “Spells. I want the big boys. No more playing with elemental magic.”
“I think not, Marissa. Magic has never obeyed you. Open the third drawer in, twenty-seventh up.” It was a long black case, engraved with writing I’d never seen. Inside were seven perfect silver spheres. “Pick one up.”
I tried, but my wrist looked like a swollen sausage and every time I lifted my arm higher than my waist, streaks of fire ran down my side. “Don’t think I can aim anymore.”
He glanced around the empty room as if checking it for watchers. “Just this once, Marissa, I’ll make an exception.” I felt my wrist pop, and nearly threw up in my mouth as my shoulder wrenched itself right. With teeth gritted, I held on as my muscles and tendons stretched back to the right places. “I wouldn’t get too used to that, my dear.”
I let out the air I’d held in on a groan. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask, I promise.” Now, however, my hands worked perfectly well to pick up one of the silver orbs. I took one in my fingers. It felt like putty on my fingertips. As I held it, it changed, becoming longer, harder. It transformed into a perfect bullet.
“Each of those took fifty years and the blood of a seventh son to make. There’s nothing I know of they won’t kill and let me be absolutely clear on this: I do not want you to be concerned about the cost. Use them to kill anything that gets in your way.”
I knew Grimm ran orphanages and drug recovery houses, but I’d never heard or seen the paperwork for a blood bank. “How’d you get them to volunteer their blood?”
He looked off into the distance. “Volunteer may not be exactly the right term. One does not capture the essence of death with a vial full of blood.”
I loaded the rest of the rounds into a magazine, and slapped the magazine into my gun. “One last problem, Grimm: I can’t bother with a cell phone. Need my old bracelet back.”
“No.” Grimm looked at me over his glasses, his jaw set.
“No?”
“Those bracelets are for employees.” The dais next to his desk glowed, and on it formed a perfect silver circle. “That is one for a partner.”
His words took a moment to make sense, but over the months with Ari I’d remembered what happiness felt like. This was it. Freedom meant being able to go and being free to stay, and that simple choice made all the difference in the world.
“Give me a moment,” I said, and I ran down the hall to the Visions Room. Inside, I waited for it to start, and as the light drained away I looked at my blessings and my curse. The damage was worse than I thought. How the thing had survived I couldn’t say.
“Blessing?” It came forward, glowing. “I’m going to need your help.” I reached out to the curse, and he nipped at me again. “Curse, I want you to come too. You may be a curse, but you are my curse. I claimed you.”
Grimm appeared on the mirror outside. “Marissa, there isn’t much time.”
“Is there ever?”
“You’ll need to get there quickly, and the Agency cars are missing.”
It was about time I got the princess treatment. “You summoned me a pumpkin?”
Grimm rolled his eyes. “I called you a cab.”
Thirty-Two
ON THE WAY over, I brought up a few tiny details I thought Grimm might have overlooked. “Let’s start with where exactly we’re going.” Impromptu worked fine for me. In fact, it was something I did better than planned. The problem with impromptu in a cab was you could run up quite the fare. Also, when there was a fae army heading straight into downtown, it was not the right time to go for a sightseeing tour.
Grimm spoke from the rearview mirror. “Ari is at the castle. Liam is a bit more difficult to locate, since he isn’t wearing his bracelet anymore. Speaking of which, do you like the new one? It should work in Kingdom as well.”
“Fantastic, though I might want one in gold. If you want to find Liam, try looking for a dragon.”
“How obvious, in hindsight.” His eyes lost focus for a moment. “Half dragon, Marissa. I thought I trained you better. Also at the castle.”
“Prince Mihail is working with Fairy Godmother. He knew about the curse. Said he wanted it. Ever heard of someone wanting a curse?”
Grimm waited in silence until I got his point. “A half dragon is something you would have to see to appreciate,” he said.
“Seen him, touched him, got the scale marks to prove it.”
Grimm shook his head. “If a man learned to control that sort of power, he would be worshipped and feared.”
The cab pulled to a stop and I blinked. “Grimm, we at the right place?”
“I’m certain of it.” We were parked outside the castle. The old castle. “Listen to me, Marissa: Within the castle there may yet be paths to her domain. Promise me you will not enter any mirrors.”
“Fine.” I reached for the door and it locked.
“Listen! You have read about the Black Queen and how her lies became truth as she spoke them. Within our domains it is so for the fairy. It is not just material we may bend.”
“Kinky. Now let me out.”
“My dear, this is no joking matter. In her realm, her choices would become yours, her thoughts yours. If you followed her, the person who returned would be only what she made them.”
The door unlocked.
“Ok. Mirrors bad.” I exited the cab, paid my fare, and set off to save my boyfriend, my best friend, and possibly the city. In that order.