Free Pickup Styx by Liz Schulte

Time was no longer a luxury. I patted her shoulder once more. “I have to go, Edith. Do you think you could—”
    “Keep vigil? Of course.”
    Frost eyed Edith from her chair, seeming to sense the power in the old witch. I smiled a little. “Edith, this is the necromancer, Frost. Frost, meet Selene’s grandmother. Frost is the only one who can bring Selene back. Make sure she doesn’t leave.”
    The two women stared at each other, and the air filled with hostility. At least if they were focused on each other, neither would want to harm Selene further. It wasn’t a comforting bright side, but it was a bright side nonetheless. “I’ll be back,” I said, both as a promise and a warning.
     

     
    The forest at Southbend was young. It still had a vibrant essence, and if I had time to stop and listen, I was positive I’d hear the trees stretching toward the sky. However, I didn’t have time.
    “What’s so important I had to come right now, Sebastian?” I asked when I heard his distinct footsteps behind me.
    “We need to release the bodies.” He walked past me, and I followed. We went deeper into the woods and stopped in a thickly forested area.
    “The Gemini were killed here.” He pointed to the ground where two blanket-covered bodies lay.
    I looked around. “Here? Are you certain?” Gemini weren’t typically in forested areas, but there could be exceptions.
    He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me levelly. “The water nymph was killed over there.”
    Another stark-white sheet lay on the ground next to a thick patch of trees. None of this made sense. “But there’s no water source for miles in any direction.”
    “Do you still think this doesn’t need your attention? What made these fae leave their habitats? What took the Smaragdine elves?”
    I walked around the area. Again I sensed nothing amiss specifically, but the crimes were strange—I’d give him that. “How did they die?”
    Sebastian uncovered the nymph. “Strangled and this insignia burned into the back of her neck—just like the others.”
    It was a symbol I knew well: a simple circle with the tree of life surrounded by thorn bushes—my family’s crest. I let out a slow breath. “My father.”
    “It would appear so.”
    “We have to find him.”
    Sebastian nodded. “There have been no sightings. He seems to have vanished.”
    My father was old and powerful, but even he couldn’t make himself invisible. “What about the Smaragdine elves? Have any of them been spotted?”
    The grim crease between Sebastian’s brows said it all. He thought they were all dead. My insides went cold at the thought of an entire community of people disappearing.
    “How could Father have done all of this on his own?” I tried to imagine ways he could have pulled something like this off to undermine me but came up with nothing. I shook my head. “He couldn’t. He had to have help. There’s always a weak link.”
    “There is a possibility we haven’t considered. What if it isn’t your father?”
    I tilted my head back. Several species had no love lost with the fae races, and some of them actually could be invisible. “You think he might be dead too?” I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one hand, my father had tried—and would continue to try—to kill Selene, and possibly me, so long as he was living. On the other hand, he was my father and I loved him.
    “You know as well as I do what the disappearances could mean,” he continued.
    Sebastian was referring to the fact that elves disappeared when they died. There would be no bodies to find if they were all dead, but the question remained: how had the killer slaughtered everyone at once without leaving some trace and without starting a panic? “What about the insignia?”
    He shrugged. “A piece of jewelry isn’t a hard thing to take.”
    “That’s assuming he wasn’t wearing it when he died—if he died.”
    “Did he always wear it?”
    “I have never seen him without