Mahogany and Teakwood

Chapter 10: Lily

in blood and tears, a thousand times

we rise against, we'll always hold the line

of reckoning

It was after 2AM when Virgil finally heard the scrape of a key in a lock.

He'd long since changed out of his vampire costume, all enthusiasm for celebrating Halloween having faded into worry. The candy bowl sat abandoned on the table, still half full, even after Virgil dropped entire handfuls of Milky Ways into the bags of the few trick-or-treaters they'd gotten after Logan left.

Nic raised his tired head, tail still thumping, and slid off the couch as the door opened. Virgil let out a long sigh of relief when Logan stalked in, looking no worse for wear than when he'd left. The half-faery rubbed the dog's head as he toed off his shoes, and startled when he noticed Virgil.

"You did not need to wait up." Logan dropped his keys in their basket on the counter separating foyer from kitchen.

"You really expected me to sleep?" Virgil asked sardonically. "What did you find?"

Logan's teeth flashed as he sneered, but the expression faded as he took off his coat. "Absolutely nothing of note."

Virgil raised an eyebrow. "Trollshit."

"Not even that." Logan's lips twitched in a brief smile. "Come, Nic, it is past your bedtime."

"Logan!"

Virgil uncurled from the couch and followed, grumbling as his joints protested after sitting still for so long. Once Nic was settled in his crate, Virgil planted himself on the edge of the half-faery's bed.

"Don't leave me in the dark again," he said. "What happened?" He wasn't trying to be rude, but he was tired, keyed up, and done with surprises.

Logan sat in his desk chair. "We broke into the theater easily enough; Hunter is skilled at such things," he began.

"'We'? Who's Hunter?"

"The person on the phone," Logan explained. "He too is a changeling, a shapeshifter, with the additional ability to sense faery magics and to discern what manner of faery left them behind."

Hear that, Virgil? Instead of you, Logan brought along a useful changeling.

"Is he a Grimm?"

Logan shook his head. "Unaffiliated. He has worked for various Grimm chapters and Smile murders, but he prefers his own company."

Jealousy thrummed through Virgil's veins. "Sounds like I'd like him."

"You might. Perhaps I will introduce you if the opportunity arises."

Logan, as usual, was either unwilling or unable to detect Virgil's sarcasm.

"The new gap was deserted," Logan continued. "We encountered only a single faery after we went through: a Fireesin who was all too willing to talk."

"They always are." Virgil thought back to the Fireesin he'd seen in Arcadia: ugly, hunched creatures, with patches of coarse brown hair all over their bodies. They were solitaries; friendly, usually not very bright, and Court Fae often used them as messengers.

"This one claimed allegiance to a Cassedaga Autumn Court, and said the gap was moved here because his Monarch felt the area needed one." Logan's lips twitched into a fierce smile. "I froze the ground to make him nervous, and he was quick to explain how his Court believed the human city of DeLand to be unclaimed."