Free Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) by D.L. McDermott

concern.
    “I’ll make it down on my own,” said Miach.
    “I can carry you,” said Elada.
    Miach had no doubt that Elada would. His loyalty was absolute. If Miach had ever doubted it, all his reservations had fled the day Elada had rescued him from the mound. The first Fae to escape their earthly prisons had not been great sorcerers like Miach but right hands like Elada, warriors without magic of their own who were used to fighting in tandem. The Druids had bound them with strictly physical means, and being physical Fae, they had broken free.
    But the strength of the Druids did not lay in arms. It lay in magic, especially in the power of voice that the Druids had studied from the Fae—studied, and surpassed all but the greatest of Sídhe sorcerers.
    Without a sorcerer to aid him, in order to free Miach, Elada had braved a temple mound teeming with Druid magicians and faced terrors of mind and magic almost beyond imagining.
    Elada would climb the iron stairs for Miach today, if Miach ordered him to do it. And then they would both be poisoned.
    “Just send the boys, my friend,” said Miach.
    He needed to draw power—life—from living things. Trees, grass, flowers, anything to halt the degenerative process going on in his body, the death, cell by cell, of his vital organs. Even then he would be weak and vulnerable for hours, possibly days, after contact with that much iron. There was no avoiding it.
    And he was damned if his grandsons were carrying him down. It wouldn’t help much anyway—there were two flights of pure iron. They would have an effect on him just being that close to his body. And there would be no avoiding the dust, which was poisoning the whole stairwell by now. More than enough to finish him, he expected.
    As his Fae opponent must have known. Miach had no doubt now that this unseen enemy had learned that Helene was under the protection of another Fae and that he had cased the building thoroughly and made particular note of the iron stairs.
    Miach knew something else now as well: this Fae had human followers—or mixed-breed offspring—who could handle cold iron. But if this unnamed Fae had thought that iron alone would stop Miach MacCecht, he had miscalculated. Miach was going to be iron sick, there was no doubt. For longer than he would like, probably.
    And then he was going to find this Fae. Find him, and kill him.
    • • •
    H elene woke up on silk sheets.
    No, not sheets. Silk upholstery. Smooth and cool. Stuffed with down and horsehair. Molded to her body. Angels flew overhead.
    She closed her eyes. When she opened them, the angels were still there.
    Helene sat up. She was in Miach’s library. She recognized the embossed red-leather walls, the dark wooden bookshelves, and the rich neoclassical furnishings, all silk damask and carved mahogany. When she swung her bare feet off the sofa, her toes touched a soft Persian carpet. It felt delightful.
    “Don’t get up too quickly,” someone said. It sounded like Miach.
    She ignored him and stood. The room started to spin, and she reached for the sofa arm to steady herself. Helene tried to remember how she had gotten there. She recalled being in her office, Miach drawing the symbol on her shoulder, sitting at her desk checking the new exhibits calendar, and then . . . nothing .
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “Your Fae persecutor summoned you to the parking lot. By way of the roof.”
    Miach’s voice was coming from behind her. Helene turned to discover him sitting in a chair in front of the window with a blanket over his shoulders, looking out at the water. She couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded different, slightly raspy, less resonant.
    “I don’t understand,” she said.
    “Your attacker compelled you to leave your office, ascend through the galleries to the top floor of the museum, then climb to the roof and throw yourself off. You had reached the parapet by the time I caught up with you. I was forced to knock you out