Olan hopped on my shoulder, it was disconcerting to have something walking on you when you can’t see. “No,” he said. “But, that makes six.”
“Why don’t the police have a theory?” I tried to keep my mind away from focusing on the image of Real Folk bodies strewn everywhere in an orgy of retaliation.
“There are too many differences. You know the humans love their patterns. Two people were poisoned. One strangled. One had their throat cut. One was stabbed, what about the person in the park?”
“Stabbed,” Lionel said.
I could see a pattern forming. “How long do you think we’ll have before they see the pattern, or something else that will lead them to Real Folk?”
I heard the kettle boil and then Edrinda asked, “Why do you think it’s someone from the Real Folk?”
That was a good question. Why did it feel like there was no argument to that? “I guess it feels like too much of a coincidence. We stop Fionuir and humans start dying in quantity.”
“It could be a coincidence.” Lionel didn’t sound like he believed his own theory.
“I would guess we are two weeks away from someone figuring out it’s not a human. They won’t be coming to that thought easily. If we find them and stop them…” Olan stopped speaking.
“Quinn,” a voice called from the door. “Quinn Larson.”
“There’s a fairy at the door,” Clarence called. “You want me to send him away?”
“What tribe?”
The visitor shouted in answer, “I’m a rose Fairy. You have Princess Elizabeth here.”
I hoped this was good news. Maybe the last bit of good news I was going to get for a while. “Lionel, go check him out, if he seems harmless, pass him though wards.” I gave Lionel the words to open the protection.
We couldn’t keep talking about the murders with this fairy near so I listened to the conversation at the door. “What do you want with Quinn?”
“I want my wife back.” I could imagine his chest puffing out.
“Why do you want her back? You could have protected her before, why should we give her to you now?” Lionel was doing a good job of screening this guy.
“It is not easy to go against the whole tribe. But now, babies are quickening. She is forgiven.”
“What is your name?”
“Diablo. I am called Diablo.”
“Step back,” Lionel ordered. Then I heard murmuring sounds. “Come in.”
I heard running feet scurry down the hall. “Quinn Larson, where is my wife?”
“We’ll give her back to you, but she is very weak. Do you have food?”
I heard a gasp. “No, I didn’t know she wasn’t eating.”
“She told us that your tribe had forbidden her food,” I said.
“No, she was shunned. She has not eaten?”
I hated to think that I was going to be the one to break it to him, but if I had known the starvation was her idea, I would have called her bluff and fed her. “She is in my workroom. I have her under a suspension spell; do you know what that means?”
“Yes, like death but not permanent.” The fairy’s voice trembled.
“She will need to be fed as soon as the spell is removed and she will be weak until she has eaten three or four times.” I rose. “Someone help me get downstairs and we’ll deal with this right now.”
“But I have no food.” Diablo sounded like he was going to cry.
“I do. Edrinda, are you still making tea?”
“I am. Do you want a cup?”
“Yes, but right now I need the honey, the dark one. A jar of that and a spoon, please.”
I felt the jar being pressed into my right hand and spoon slipped between my fingers on the same hand. “Who’s going to help me?”
“I’ll do it.” Lionel grabbed my elbow. “I can help if you need me to do any of the spells.”
I chuckled. “No, this is one I can do from memory. Come on, Diablo, you can give her some honey.”
I muttered some restriction spells to keep Diablo from seeing the important parts of my workroom and we went down. I had Lionel take me to Princess’ couch and put me at her head. Reaching out I drew the blanket off her and touched her skin. It was too cold for me to feel comfortable about her state of health.
“She is so thin,” Diablo whispered. “How did she get so thin?”
“She didn’t eat. It doesn’t take long for you fairies to fade.” I reached out carefully and found Princess’ forehead. “Lionel, open the honey and put some on her lips. Then give the jar to Diablo.”
I felt him move beside me. “Done.”
I pushed away the worries about dead humans and the possible repercussions and concentrated on the elements of the release spell. I ran my finger from her hairline down to the tip of her chin. When I finished I thought the words to undo the spell.
She breathed in and coughed. I felt the brittleness of her bones under my fingers. “You can eat now.”
Princess looked at me and licked her lips. Then Diablo nudged my arm aside “Babies are quickening. We will have a baby as soon as you are strong enough.”
“Lionel, put her in my room, in the bed. They can stay there.”
While Lionel took the fairies, I felt my way to the stairs and back up to the kitchen, where I found the others still muttering over the news. Lionel joined us just as I sat on a stool. I wasn’t planning on sitting here talking all day. “So, what are we going to do?”
“If we can find out who’s doing it, maybe we can stop it in time?” Lionel didn’t sound like he believed his own plan would be a good idea.
“There isn’t a lot of time,” Olan said.
“Well, I can’t just sit here and talk,” Lionel snapped. I heard his stool scrape across the floor and the sound of his pacing.
Edrinda sighed. “The boy’s plan is really the only option. Unless someone can figure out how to turn time back and stop the murders in the first place.”
“It’s Fionuir.” Lionel’s voice was filled with certainty.
“We don’t know for sure, but it’s a good guess.” I didn’t want to shut down his confidence.
“No,” he said, “It’s her. I saw her in that abandoned house across the street. She just killed another human.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I hear a chirp and a clatter of armor. I guessed Olan and Clarence had run for the door. “Come on wizards,” Edrinda shouted. “Let’s not lose her.”
Edrinda didn’t concern herself with gentleness when she grabbed my elbow. I almost tripped over my own feet at the speed she pulled me along.
The door slammed shut a second after I hit the bottom step. “Stop,” I tried not to gasp out the words. “I’m not going to be able to run like this.”
Edrinda came to a stop and I felt her pulling me back. “We don’t have time, Quinn.”
“You won’t have time if I fall flat on my face. Let me hold your arm. Good. Now I can follow you, rather than feel like you are pushing me.”
We ran across the street and I felt the ground change beneath my shoes. We were in the overgrown yard of Mrs. Yeardley’s house. Or rather of her ex house. She’d gone into a retirement home and whoever was looking after her affairs was letting the house go to ruin.
“Around back,” Olan called to us. “She’s cutting across the yard.”
“Lionel can you hide the body?” I called out, hoping he was in earshot.
“I have a spell that will make it look like a rhododendron bush,” he said.
“Good enough, we can deal with it later. I just don’t want the police finding it.” Having a body so close to my house was too dangerous.
We got to the back yard of Mrs. Yeardley’s house and I heard branches breaking at the far end. “Is that Clarence?”
“Yes, he’s just gone through the fence.” Edrinda slowed slightly. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to barge through the bushes.”
I gave her arm a squeeze. “I’m not waiting here, lead on.”
“Okay, Lionel, you push the bushes away and we’ll come through after.” The next thing I knew, I felt branches scratch at my arms.
“In that building over to the right. It doesn’t look like a house.” I heard Lionel say. “Clarence just went through the back door.