Invincible Read online

  “Very well,” Graus Claude said with his usual brusque efficiency, the effect somewhat ruined by his ridiculous appearance. “Move swiftly and brook no delay until you are safely ensconced within the wizard’s protections. Make the necessary inquiries and depart with all due speed—the less you are seen or your whereabouts known, the better off we shall all be.” He rocked on his haunches. The bed frame groaned in a poor parody of his throne back in the brownstone. “It is simply a matter of time before we are discovered and for once, time will not be bent in our favor. I will attempt to place any necessary plans into motion while you are away.” One clawed hand flowered open. “Give me your phone.”

  “What?” Joy said, scandalized.

  “Your phone,” the Bailiwick repeated. “I know for a fact that you have my number, and I do not wish to leave any further evidence of my having been here by delegating my instructions using your home phone.” He frowned, but continued politely. “I am attempting to maintain your thin illusion of familial normalcy here, Miss Malone. And I do so for both our benefits.” She still hesitated. Without her phone, she felt disconnected from the world. Naked and vulnerable. Graus Claude looked unimpressed. “The phone,” he growled. “Now.”

  She dropped it in his hand. He’d sounded absolutely paternal.

  “Grab your things and let’s go,” Filly said, giving Joy a merry slap on the back. “Before he next sends you to bed without supper!”

  * * *

  Joy walked down the familiar path to the C&P, pausing to glance up at the streetlamp. The glass had been replaced since that night she’d been chased by the bain sidhe, before she’d taken an unexpected trip to Ireland and watched Ink’s mischievous trick with the milk. Her smile at the memory faltered. Having Ink out there somewhere, thinking the worst of her, made her footsteps sound extra loud to her ears. Especially when Filly walked so silently beside her, eyes scanning the landscape, hand on her hilt.

  “You sure you can’t pop us any closer?” Joy said, squeezing the strap of her purse. “It’d be a lot less risky.”

  “So you say,” Filly countered. “I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever your resident wizard uses as a deterrent for unexpected visitors. From what I can tell, wizard’s magic loathes other magic. Best announce ourselves graciously and walk in on foot.” She flashed a smile and widened her blue eyes. “Besides, you have nothing to fear—I shall keep you safe while your lover dallies elsewhere!”

  Joy groaned. “It’s not the dallying that worries me.”

  “Oh?” Even though her attention was on the walkway, Filly’s voice curled with interest. As one of the Folk, she couldn’t help being as curious as a cat. “I’d heard the name ‘Raina’ became tiff-worthy only recently.”

  Joy stopped, flushing. “Who told you that?”

  Filly grinned. “The wind.”

  “The wind ought to learn to keep its mouth shut,” Joy grumbled. Filly laughed and pushed her forward. Joy allowed herself to be dragged down the path, if only to keep moving. The trees looked harmless, the shrubs moved with the breeze, but everything felt malevolent—like eyes and ears were behind every leaf’s shadow, watching her, studying her, biding their time. Graus Claude was right: she had to get to Vinh’s quickly, get in, get out and get back home, safe behind wards. She hoped her last-minute call in to work begging for a recovery day from her trip wouldn’t cost her her job. Of course, she hadn’t managed to hold a job for more than a month since February, when she’d first met Ink. “It was...a misunderstanding,” she muttered, fishing for her scalpel. Holding it made her feel better. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “Fine.”

  Filly shrugged. “Fine.”

  “Better than fine—one might say, excellent,” Ladybird said as he stepped out into the path. The drug lord grinned wildly, doffing his plumed pirate hat. “I do so love being right.” Behind him a posse of creatures emerged from the ground, the trees, the folds of a flag; a few fell from dangling branches while others zipped out of thin air. Ladybird adjusted his brim. “Fetch her.”

  Joy jerked back with a gasp.

  Filly leaped forward with a battle cry.

  The first fighters clashed together, exploding in a crash of spittle and spray. Filly punched one beaked face, hooked an imp around the neck and levered herself, delivering a solid kick to a hairy yeti chest; the sasquatch doubled over, pawing at its matted green fur. With a twist, Filly flipped the imp over her shoulder and used its wing as a shield, clamping the membrane together and trapping a clawed fist between bones, wrenching it swiftly with a sideways snap.

  Ladybird grinned.

  Two flying pixies, shag-haired and sooty, circled Joy, armed with wicked-looking pikes the size of fondue forks. A grizzly thing approached her with lazy, loping strides—a boarhound on two legs with bandoliers of daggers crisscrossing its blue-gray chest and knobby clubs hanging from the scrappy belt on its hips. It looked intelligent and dangerous as it snarled at her scalpel.

  “Donne prathiea toun de mallabra,” he said in a low growl. “Drop it, girl, or you might get hurt.” The hunter spread his scarred arms in an exaggerated gesture. “We’ve only come to escort you back to the Hall. The Council wishes to have words with you.”

  She should have said something brave, but the words dried up on her tongue.

  “Just talk,” the boarhound said. Both pixies leveled their weapons. Joy raised her scalpel and bent her knees.

  There was the crunch of bone breaking, a high shriek and another “HA!” as Filly tore past, a blur of vambraces and finger bones. A horned black rabbit flopped onto the grass. A multitailed fox tumbled end over end, teeth gnashing and snapping. A cloak of mist with floating eyes settled over the melee like a blanket. Filly grabbed both its eyeballs and slammed them together. The thing wobbled and dissipated.

  Joy squeezed the scalpel. Filly’s bravery fueled her own. “Duei nis da Counsallierai en dictie—”

  The boarhound barked out a laugh. The pixies tittered. “You’ve got guts, girl, I’ll give you that, but the Edict won’t spare you this time.”

  The pixies swarmed forward in a blur of wings, weapons pointed directly at her eyes. Joy inhaled sharply. They couldn’t blind her—not now! Not when she was one of them! Or did they suspect her already? Did it show? Did they know? Joy gagged on a tight knot in her throat, imagining her tongue turned to stone.

  The pixies said something low and menacing, barely more than an angry drone. The eelet in her ear was useless for Air Folk speech, it was only good for Water, but she understood the threat, if not the specifics. She backed up warily. Panic rippled under her skin like sweat in reverse.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  A crimson sleeve came from behind her and folded gently across her throat. A voice hissed in her ear. “Let me elaborate.” Ladybird’s voice hinted at giggles and malice. “These hirelings want to kill you, but I was here first.”

  Ladybird tightened his grip. A fine spray of spots pulsed along the edge of his profile, black against a glossy, chitinous sheen. His plumed hat pushed against her ponytail. Sparkling rings flashed on his fingers.

  “Miss me?” the drug lord whispered like a song. “I’m flattered. I confess, I’ve spent a great many nights thinking about you!” He pressed her against his chest, grinding against her hip. Joy flinched against her trapped throat. “Did Ilhami tell you, my little Turkish thief, what I said would happen if we crossed paths again?” His exhaled breath was smoky-sweet and it shuddered against her ear. Her insides clenched. She missed the angry thump of her heart. “Ah, but such pleasures will have to wait,” he said. “There are those who would pay quite handsomely for such a rare, pretty bird to be delivered—” he squeezed and Joy gagged “—safely into the Council’s waiting arms.” He nuzzled the side of her face. He smelled like crude oil and c
loves. “I may not be good at math, but I can divide a bounty by one!” He slipped a length of gold chain from around his wrist like a magician’s trick. “What say you, Nightingale? Ready to take a spin?”

  Joy flipped the scalpel’s handle and brought the blade down, slashing quickly across his arm. It bit through the crimson greatcoat, and hot liquid gushed over her skin. She wrenched out of his elbow and spun into the boarhound, who grabbed her shoulders, surprised. Ladybird held his wounded arm, grinning like a demon.

  “Blood for blood, eh?” he cackled, and took a long lick of his forearm, painting his tongue red. The drug dealer’s eyes yawned. “Mmm. Needs salt.”

  There was a mellow crump noise and the clawed hands on her arms loosened. The boarhound fell boneless behind Joy’s ankles. Filly popped the clasp and whipped her cape sideways; the net of fine finger bones caught both pixies and tossed them to the ground. She was body-slammed by two burly elves sporting multiple piercings. Filly struggled, then backslapped her forearm, knocking them flat.

  “Run!” the horse warrior shouted. “Run now!”

  Joy spun around, but Ladybird cackled and whipped his gold chain around Joy’s throat, yanking her backward and catching her arm.

  “Well, this was fun,” he said, tipping his hat with a bloody hand. He spun the end of the gold chain in a humming circle. “We’ll have to do it again, sometime! Until we meet again, ást!” Filly charged, but was tackled by a wall of bodies. She screamed in defiance as Ladybird winked and stepped back. Joy dragged her feet against the sidewalk. Giggling, Ladybird lifted her bodily over the breach.

  Between one flash of the gold chain and the next, they were gone.

  SEVEN

  THE GOLDEN CHAIN whipped from her throat, serrating her skin in a sharp, thin rash. Joy rubbed her neck, swallowing convulsively. Even before her eyes cleared, she knew where she was—the shade of the light, the smell of the air, the angry mumbling surrounding her, which shattered with one bitter cry.

  “Now we see what happens when our desperation for progeny eclipses our reason!” Sol Leander’s voice rang through the Grand Hall. The sound of his voice slapped her ears as she stood on the smooth, central dais. “This changeling has brought nothing but chaos and ruin since she was first allowed to retain her Sight and dally with the Scribe.” Joy’s eyes focused on the flat hand stabbing in her direction. The Council members mumbled among one another, some of them still wearing their gala finery. The stands behind her were packed with every creature imaginable. She wondered if Ink was somewhere in the crowds. A hot, tight coil of dread twisted her insides as she felt everyone’s eyes on her.

  Ladybird bowed crisply, doffing his hat and collecting a small bag from a dryad on his left before making a smug-faced escape. Joy watched him take the bounty, vaguely wondering what she was worth.

  Her secrets. Her power. And the whereabouts of her friend, Graus Claude.

  The Bailiwick’s chair was empty. Sol Leander was on his feet. Maia frowned but said nothing as the leafy dryad whispered something under its breath. A shape stalked along the back of the dais, plunging the jeweled walls into shadow as it passed. It prickled something inside her.

  The rap of a gavel brought a muttering silence. Bùxiŭ de Zhēnzhū presided over the Council in humanoid form, but there was something of the dragon in his long mustaches, which twirled alongside his face in the nonexistent breeze. “The indiscretions and indignities of the one known as Joy Malone are far too numerous to list, exacerbated no doubt by her continuing loyalty to her mentor, the Most Honorable Councilex Claude.” His head undulated sinuously over his shoulders; hints of scales flashed along his throat. “However, these crimes must be weighed against the immeasurable gift she has brought to our attention by freeing the Twixt of its unknown enslavement under the Amanya spell, restoring the knowledge of our beloved monarchs and kin.”

  “Which she has abused by absconding with the Bailiwick!” Sol Leander sputtered. “A crime of epic proportions and in direct defiance of the Council, our laws and the very rules regarding sovereignty by proxy set into being by the King and Queen themselves!”

  There was a roar at the Tide leader’s pronouncement. Joy looked around for an ally among the bleachers, but Ink, Inq, Filly and Graus Claude were all far away. She didn’t even know whether Ink would try to help her if he were here; his withdrawal still felt like rejection, like she’d failed him once again. Joy clenched her teeth and her fists against the din. Her enemies far outnumbered her friends here.

  Sol Leander flicked his sparkling cloak of galaxies and sat down. Joy spied Avery just beyond him, standing by his master’s side. The young courtier, aide to the Tide, was expressionless as stone. Only the feathers of his cloak moved. He would not even look at her.

  Crap.

  The gavel banged again patiently. Bùxiŭ de Zhēnzhū’s reedy voice was calm but firm. “At this time, we are concerned only with those particulars as they might pertain to the Imminent Return.”

  “To that end, now that we are all in attendance, let us discuss the matter plainly.” The Low Air Seat, a ruby-lipped fairy with twin spears, glared down at Joy. “We, the Council, have reason to suspect that you, Joy Malone, willingly and with knowledgeable intent, removed the locks securing the door between worlds. Is that correct?”

  What else could she say but the truth? “Yes. I’m sorry, but—”

  “And did you witness what lay beyond the door?”

  Joy sighed. Her breath echoed in the sudden silence. “Yes.”

  Murmurs gained volume, like a trickle before a flood. “And did they acknowledge you?”

  Behold the Destroyer of Worlds. Joy swallowed. “I’m sorry—” and she was. That much was true. “I don’t understand what you—?”

  “Did they acknowledge your presence?” the dryad asked slowly.

  “Oh,” Joy said, relieved. “Yes. And they—”

  Noise filled the Hall as everyone started shouting and pointing, waving arms and wings and wands and staves. The Council Head banged the gavel, but it was lost in the uproar. Maia’s face had gone ruddy with shouting, spittle flying from her rubbery lips. Joy watched the thing lurking closer, slipping like a whisper between the gaps between seats. It glared from the shadows and wore a black, hooded cloak. Joy’s stomach curdled with fear.

  She raised her hand like a child in grade school, patiently waiting to be called on, staring intensely at the teacher, praying that he’d see.

  “—and that makes her the courier, does it not?” The last speaker shouted at full volume, surprising itself in the sudden silence. Joy’s fingers tingled pins and needles. Was that true? Did being the first to see the King and Queen make her and Ink the new couriers? If so, then...

  Bùxiŭ de Zhēnzhū inclined his head, tacitly acknowledging his position and admonishing further interruption. The Grand Hall stayed respectfully silent.

  “You have something to add, Miss Malone?”

  It was worse knowing that her voice would carry perfectly throughout the Grand Hall for everyone to hear. “Yes,” she said, and took a deep breath. “I saw them. I saw the King and Queen of the Folk.” The Council Head held up a hand to forestall any person from interrupting her words. “And I saw an army—a vast army that rushed the door.” She hoped that she was making sense; that she could make them understand. “That is why we left the Bailiwick,” she said, thinking of Ink. She could picture him hauling her to safety, pulling her out of Faeland, pressing her against him, safe in his embrace. She felt his absence like an ache. “That is why we ran.”
r />   Silence had a flavor now—sharp and tinny and taut as wire.

  “An army, you say?”

  The voice dripped from the bulbous droplet that hung above one of the chairs. Joy had never seen the face of whoever occupied the Low Water Seat, but Graus Claude once told her it was a Leviathan and that the crystal held the shape of him, which was larger than the entire Hall. Joy could only nod. A few of the Council members exchanged glances.

  “It verifies her claim,” the fairy said, crossing her bare ankles.

  The androgynous High Fire Seat leaned forward, its crystalline body snapping with tiny pops and cracks. “Nonsense,” it hissed like a fissure of steam.

  “It’s fallacy.” Sol Leander sniffed.

  Maia snapped, “It’s proof!”

  The Council Head looked interested, his curiosity piqued. “How?”

  Councilex Maia grinned. “They’ve been waitin’ for the courier to bring word,” she said. “I say we let her! It suits the conditions o’ their Return an’ will get them here all the quicker.” Her dark eyes twinkled as she rotated in her chair. “Them’s the rules.”

  The dryad groaned. “After the last disaster—”

  “Stay in the now, please.”

  “If she really qualifies, then—”

  “You’d let her go?”

  “You’d keep the others from their Return?”

  “She’d have to be the one—”

  “—cannot fathom a worse—”

  “The attack proves my theory,” Sol Leander insisted, gesturing emphatically in her direction. “They recognize her for what she is.”

  Fear stabbed Joy’s gut. Was he right? Did they know what I am? Are they all after me?