Grave Visions(83)

Great. Well, that was something, at least. And it freed me up to focus on finding the alchemist. “Must be nice having minions,” I muttered, and then swung my legs over the side of the bed. I was still in yesterday’s jeans. I shuffled across the room to my dresser, but found my pants drawer empty. I glanced at the pile of dirty clothes beside the dresser. I hadn’t done my own laundry since Ms. B decided she was going to be my personal house/office brownie. Now that she was back in Faerie, I was apparently out of clean clothes. I looked down at the clothes I was already wearing. They were likely as good as any of the other dirty clothes. I turned back to Falin. “Didn’t the queen forbid you from discussing the case? What did you tell the agents you sent to the Bloom?”

He frowned at me. “I’m the winter knight and the lead agent for the winter court’s FIB. I tell my agents that I want them to find and detain two fae, they don’t ask me why.”

Right. “So now what?”

“Now you eat some food. I made breakfast, but that was earlier. You’ll have to nuke it.” He pointed to the fridge. “Then change. You smell like a campfire.”

Apparently these clothes aren’t quite as good as any of the others. I seriously needed to do laundry.

He didn’t add anything else to the list, so either his plans extended no further than getting me fed and cleaned up, or he didn’t want to tell me, which likely meant he’d decided I was getting too weak and was considering taking me to Faerie. I needed a plan, and now.

“I think we should head to the floodplains,” I said as I grabbed the plate loaded with waffles, eggs, and sausage.

Falin looked up, his expression questioning.

I dug my phone out of my back pocket, pulled up the notes I’d jotted down yesterday while reading the enchanted book of folklore, and then slid it across the counter to Falin. “In most of the stories, Jenny Greenteeth is described as a water hag. She traditionally lives in bogs and swamps and drowns naughty children who come too close to the edge of the water,” I said between bites of food. “The floodplain isn’t exactly a bog, but it’s the closest Nekros has to her normal habitat. And it would certainly be easier to search than looking for Tommy Rawhead, who folklore asserts traditionally lives under stairwells.”

Falin looked less than convinced, but what did we have to lose?

• • •

I popped downstairs to talk to Caleb before we left. He told me that the independent fae were full of gossip about the possibility of the Winter Queen losing her court, but no one would admit to having seen the two bogeymen. “Would admit.” Those were the words he used.

I repeated as much to Falin, and his lips twisted into a smile I’d never seen on him before. It was darker, sadder than a smile deserved to be, and it made him look like a stranger. “Well, maybe they need someone else to ask the question.”

“Are you planning to threaten the fae in the floodplains?” I asked as we walked toward his car.

He didn’t answer, but stared straight ahead.

I sighed. I was not exactly sanguine about the idea of threatening local independents for not volunteering information. It was a bullying move. One the courts used quite a lot, and a reason I didn’t want to join the courts. I remembered what Caleb had said when I first asked him to talk to the independents for me, about me having too many ties to the courts. I cringed. This would certainly cement that perception. I hated it, but I was also very conscious of my own ticking clock, the number of bodies Glitter was piling up, and the fact that Falin and I couldn’t search the entire floodplains ourselves. We’d have to talk to some of the local water spirits.

The drive stretched on in strained silence. The last time I’d visited the Sionan Floodplains Nature Preserve, I’d found a pyramid of dismembered feet. To say it wasn’t one of my favorite places was an understatement. Besides, I still didn’t have any appropriate footgear, and my thigh-high, wedge-heeled boots weren’t made for trucking through the muck.

But what choice did I have?

I pocketed my cell before opening Falin’s glove box to stash the purse. My gaze caught on the first-aid kit Falin had used so liberally the day before, and I glanced at him, realizing his movements had been much smoother today. The small lines of pain around his eyes were absent as well. I knew he couldn’t be completely recovered, but damn, he did heal fast.

Falin parked in the gravel. Then we both headed into the tree line. At least we hadn’t had the rainfall of a few months ago, so for a sometimes–swamp land, the paths we were following were fairly dry.

“How should we go about this?” I asked as we reached the trail.