A Trick of the Shade by Stephanie Caye

Author:Stephanie Caye [Stephanie Caye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SC Smith
Published: 2023-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

23

“Joshua?” I gaped at him from the platform floor, gasping half in pain and half in surprise. Trying to find words in the messy attic above my eyes, I stammered, “I thought you were dead.”

He snorted a short, bitter laugh. “No.”

“Not unless you’re really bad at it.” Fuck, had I said that out loud?

He extended both hands but I hesitated before taking them. This guy—this well-dressed, smooth-talking guy—was the man who’d knocked up my mom and split. The Faerie who’d given me the power to walk up walls. Was I supposed to thank him or punch him? Where did we even start?

Behind us, one of Miranda’s henchmen groaned. That answered my question: we started away from here.

Joshua gripped my fingers tightly and supported me while I hauled myself up onto my left leg. The movement jostled my injured knee enough to make me gag at the surge of pain. Through that misery, I still flinched when Joshua slipped an arm around my waist to keep me upright. He helped me up the stairs from the platform and to the relief of an escalator.

“You look good,” he said. “Aside from the injury. How old are you now?”

“Twenty-five.”

That made him sigh. My mom had started giving me that sigh years ago, the disappointed if you’re getting older that means I’m getting older sigh.

“How did you recognize me?” he asked.

“You look like Miranda.”

“Then she’s aged poorly.” The amusement in his voice gave way to bitterness.

After helping me hobble out of the métro station, Joshua barely had to lift his hand before a white sedan with an unlit plastic topper pulled up to us at the curb. I’d expected they’d all be full already in the snow flurries.

I eased in carefully to keep from bumping my knee too much while he kept a hand on my back and one under my elbow, steadying me.

Then he slid in beside me and told the driver, in a suddenly clipped, professional voice: “Hospital, please. Emergency room.”

The driver’s eyes flickered to me in the rearview mirror, then shifted up to check the traffic behind us. He swung into the street and we were on our way.

As soon as the car was moving, Joshua held his hand out flat against the front seat. The seat seemed to shimmer. I hoped it wasn’t my vision. “What did those idiots want?” He spoke at a regular volume, leaning back.

Noticing when my eyes snapped to the driver, he said, “He can’t hear you. I’ve put up a barrier.”

“What if he talks to us?”

“He won’t. He’s forgotten we’re here. Only remembers the destination.”

“Neat trick.” The calm revelation of a spell that manipulated our driver’s mind made me uneasy, but to be honest, it wasn’t my primary concern. “Where’d you learn it? Same place you’ve been the last twenty-five years?”

“In the Bie’lelhii.” He switched back to English to translate, “The Land of Shades.”

“Somebody finally pull ‘em?”

“That’s . . .” He gazed at me a moment under the passing streetlights, as if working out the words.

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