Free Faerie Blood: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Changeling Chronicles Book 1) by Emma L. Adams Page A

made me certain the faeries weren’t done with his family yet. It’d be downright irresponsible to perform the tracking spell there.
    Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to one of my usual haunts, because of the obvious presence of the Mage Lord, who walked down the drab streets like he expected red carpets to unfurl themselves before him. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. His black coat made him stick out like a troll amongst humans, only with considerably more visual appeal. I’d planned to go behind the scenes, but then again, the faeries might think twice about attacking me when they saw him. As much as I hated to admit it.
    Though he didn’t appear to have any weapons on him, his coat’s deep pockets might hide anything. More than that, though—his whole manner radiated power. Even without the sword. He moved like a guy who could deck you with one punch, and projected an aura of absolute confidence that made me feel like a kid stumbling on her first day at school. I kept my head high, refusing point-blank to give ground. Equals or not, the job was mine.
    “Whereabouts did you plan to perform the spell?” he asked.
    “Preferably as far from anywhere inhabited as possible.” But also within a fair distance of the Ley Line, otherwise the spell wouldn’t work at all. This was a large part of the reason few people left the town—it was Supernatural Central, no matter how many people had died here in the invasion. Made it difficult to use spells without drawing attention, too, because the line amplified everyone’s magic. Everyone but the mages, who had their own internal power sources.
    Lord Colton indicated one of the nondescript black cars parked near the manor. “I can drive us.”
    I snorted. “Yeah, if I wanted to advertise myself, I’d have you conjure fire and lightning over my head. Trust me, the faeries are smart. If they see the pair of us zooming around in one of your cars, we won’t have a hope in hell of catching up to the changeling. Those little bastards move fast.”
    “Very well,” he said, surprising me. “What, pray tell, is your exact plan?”
    “I track the changeling, then set up a trap to lure it in.” Okay, it sounded better in my head.
    “A trap.” Scepticism tinged his voice. “I thought you knew all about the faeries. Does that include changelings?”
    I looked away, annoyed at the way my skin grew cold and my chest tightened at the mention of the word.
    “I know of them. Like I said, they’re shapeshifters, so I’ll try using the method I’d use on a different shapeshifting fey first. Then I have alternatives.”
    “I take it the changeling was the one who set a trap yesterday?” I felt his gaze boring into me. He knew I’d covered up, somehow—I was sure of it. Hell, maybe Larsen had told him about me showing up at the office with necromantic equipment. Swanson, thankfully, had disposed of the dead rats himself.
    “Yes,” I said, not elaborating. If he knew the truth, why was he questioning me? Necromancy was closer to mage magic than faeries’ was. The only reason the mages didn’t associate with necromancers was that half of them were too creeped out by the idea of animating corpses to want to share an office. Like mages, necromancers had one skill only, except theirs edged towards the dark and creepy end of the supernatural spectrum.
    The Mage Lord continued to watch me as we walked out of the suburban area occupied by houses belonging to the mages, and into a more unsavoury neighbourhood with broken-down buildings on either side.
    I turned to him. “What?”
    “Where’d a witch learn about the faeries? I asked all my contacts for information and most of them don’t even know what a changeling is.”
    “Clearly nobody reads faerie stories anymore.” Though considering most people nowadays had lived one, if they were born before the invasion, I could forgive that.
    “Hmm.” He didn’t believe me. He seemed the type who saw through most