Free Faerie Magic by Emma L. Adams Page B

message: Did the killer mention anything about underground battles during the questioning? I assumed someone had asked for the murderer’s account of what happened, before the Mage Lord had skewered him.
    No response came.
    I really needed a drink. A night at the Singing Banshee sounded like heaven right now. Never had I needed to be around ordinary, imperfect humans so badly. Except that’s not where I was going tonight. No, I intended to check out these Trials. Just to spy, not to interfere. The disguise had melted away, and I didn’t want to waste all Isabel’s ingredients in case I needed to use it again.
    With all other options gone, it looked like I had no choice but to do some snooping around over at the Trials.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    Please, please don’t let this be a mistake.
    I crept through the alleyway, inhaling the sickly scent of garbage mingling with something rotten. At first, it smelled like a dead animal, but then a familiar undercurrent joined it. The smell of decaying magic, tinged with the coppery smell of freshly spilled blood. Darkness shrouded everything, faint moonlight dimmed by clouds.
    Pausing behind the squat red-brick building, I crouched underneath the windowsill, frowning. I hadn’t seen any half-faeries use the front door, so there must be a hidden entrance. This had once been a mechanic’s shop, which seemed a hell of a weird place to hold an underground faerie tournament. But the smell—and the lingering traces of blue smoke around the back—signalled this was where I needed to be.
    Well. Where I probably shouldn’t be, if I had any kind of sense.
    Isabel had given me a cloaking spell she’d thrown together, but it was like the cheapskate’s version of an illusion. It blurred me around the edges and turned me into a human-shaped silhouette if I dialled it up high enough. Good for hiding in shadows and poorly lit areas, bad for hiding anywhere else. I twisted the band on my wrist, turning the spell’s settings up to max, and my body went blurry around the edges. Not quite invisible, but good enough for me.
    Tendrils of blue smoke clung to the damp bricks. A glimmer caught my eye, and when I looked closely, the outline of a door appeared, shimmering. Gotcha. My Sight probably wasn’t as strong as a faerie’s, but I could see through most glamours.
    I reached to touch the door and it solidified, opening to reveal a staircase. I paused. Clearly, nobody was watching this one, but there might be an ambush lying in wait. Still, the stairs were dark, cloaked in shadows. The illusion would turn me virtually invisible unless I walked into a spotlight.
    Unfortunately, it also made it damned difficult to climb downstairs. I took them slowly, squinting in the dim light cast by the faintly glowing magic around me, but I didn’t dare use a spell. Of course I was properly armed this time, but even magic wouldn’t spare me from a broken neck. Luckily, the stairs ended soon enough, and an equally dark corridor beckoned. I froze as lights sprang to life along the walls, but they cast plenty of shadow. Like a spy, I edged down the corridor towards the sound of voices.
    A pair of blue-painted wooden doors lay open, revealing a room the size of an auditorium, with a big space cleared in the middle of the floor. Kind of like a night club, except nobody was dancing. Crowds mingled around the edges, sipping cocktails in neon colours, but the bare space in the floor’s centre remained empty.
    Had to be an illusion. The building I’d walked into was tiny. But then, every single person in this room was faerie-kind.
    I slipped through the shadows around the room’s edge. There were at least a couple of hundred half-faeries in here, but I didn’t see who might be running the place. All were dressed as though going to a fancy dinner, which made the few who wore armour stand out. I counted a few of them, including a tall, handsome faerie warrior