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

deception. Exactly what I least needed.
    I shrugged, rearranging my hair, casual as you like. “I have a loud-mouthed talking piskie living in my flat. You pick up a few things.”
    “Really.” He framed the word more like an incredulous statement than a question.
    “Yes.” He wouldn’t get any more answers from me if I could help it. “Any ideas where I can cast the spell? I don’t want to draw any more faeries to the Swansons’ house. We need to get the changeling’s location first.”
    “I have a field set aside for spellwork.”
    “You own a field?” It wouldn’t have surprised me by this point.
    “The mage council does.” He led the way down a side street which ended at an old car park. Beyond were several dilapidated buildings and what looked like a football pitch. This part of town must have been abandoned after the invasion, though I didn’t see any obvious marks left by the war. Not more than shattered windows and overgrown gardens, anyway. Maybe everyone who’d lived here had been evacuated as a precaution. It was close enough to mage territory to make me pause and wonder if they hadn’t suffered losses in the invasion, too. I’d never asked one about it, for obvious reasons.
    I shoved my own memories away and concentrated on not slipping in the mud stirred up around the field from the recent rain. Lord Colton strode up the slope without so much as getting his fancy shoes stuck in the mud. Actually, his shoes appeared to have been doctored with some kind of mud-repelling spell, because they remained black and shiny even as we reached the field. Jesus. Talk about over-preparing.
    I definitely wasn’t jealous by the time I’d pulled my boot from the sticky mud for the tenth time, nor when mud splattered the already stained legs of my jeans. They were barely washed-out blue by this point, and probably held together by sheer willpower. I yanked my boot free from the mud and glared at the Mage Lord when he turned around, presumably to see what was taking me so long. I kept my gaze on the old field instead.
    The scorched remains of spell circles marked the dead grass. A faint burning smell lingered in the air, tickling my nostrils, but it was the aftermath of witch magic, not faerie.
    I found a free spot and set up my own spell while Lord Colton watched. I hadn’t reckoned on him witnessing this, and it came as no surprise when he raised an eyebrow at the small container of blood in my hand.
    “What’s that for?”
    “The changeling’s blood.” I’d been scared to death of spilling it, actually, but this seemed the safest way to be rid of the stuff. I could hardly believe the changeling had left it lying around the Swansons’ house. “It was all I could get. Blood’s the most accurate method of using a tracking spell.”
    He grunted, looking displeased. The mages didn’t deal in blood magic, for some reason. Maybe because necromancers did. I leaned over the faintly outlined circle and sprinkled the blood onto the cracked soil, then dropped the container in after it. Every trace would be gone when the spell finished. No evidence.
    Blue light flared up along the circle’s edge as before, but this time a tingling sensation ran through me as blue tendrils wrapped around my hands. Images rushed through my head, of places I recognised.
    I knew where the creature was.
    “Crap,” I said. “It’s hiding less than a mile from here. Near the Swansons’ house. If we set up a trap somewhere in the area, we can lure it away and catch it.”
    “Why not here?”
    “We’d have to wait for it to pick up the scent.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Are you that desperate to get away from me?”
    “Yes.” No point in hiding it. Hell, I wanted the whole case over with as soon as possible.
    “How flattering,” he said. “You don’t sugar-coat your words, do you?”
    “I’m a mercenary,” I said. “We’re not known for eloquence and sophistication. Fine. I’ll set up the spell. Wow me with your