Anointed by Blood (Unbinding Book 1) by Edith Ryder

Author:Edith Ryder [Ryder, Edith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edith Ryder
Published: 2022-06-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Neave was nervous. Witches weren’t allowed in the Goblin Market, and the goblins upheld the rule fiercely. She was disguised as a fairy: her red hair covered by a black scarf, rolled-up newspaper stuck to her back to imitate the way many fairies taped their wings.

The market was deep underground. It had many rooms, connected together by thin, twisting tunnels, tunnels so long and with so many forks that Neave knew she would have been trapped on her own. Jack navigated them easily, avoiding the caged animals of the Horse-Trading Hall—species Neave had never seen, with giant snakelike fangs, and fur cast in every color of the rainbow—ignoring the trestle tables filled with human fingers, bat wings and vials upon vials of blood. As they walked past, she couldn’t help but twitch her fingers, relieved all ten were still attached.

Jack stopped to buy something. Neave waited for him by the entrance to one of the three tunnels that connected to the main cavern.

Everything illegal traded in the magical world went through the Goblin Market. It would be here, if anywhere, that someone would know what had happened to Lachlan’s heart. Still, Neave found it difficult to keep her nervousness from showing itself on her face. She wore a forced smile, hoping it looked like she was enjoying herself, when secretly she was dying to be above ground, where the air wasn’t cold and stale, and where the light didn’t come from a chandelier made of bones. It was the thought of Lachlan’s empty face that kept her there, and the promise of what they would learn.

They’d taken precautions. Neave’s costume wouldn’t hold up under close inspection. She felt the cool metal of the aura jammer vibrate against her throat, no larger than a one-pound coin, plated in black chromium. She prayed it would shield her from discovery. Just as Lachlan had taught her how to see an aura, Jack had tried to teach her how to shield it, but seeing was easy; shielding was harder. She hadn’t been able to do it.

An aura jammer was an electronic device that jammed aura signals at the same frequency as radio waves. The way her aura looked now, not its usual rich pink but a burnt brown that crackled in the light, was typical of a jammer. She worried someone would pick up on it, but Jack had assured her that in the frenzy of the auction, no one would notice.

“You really think they’ll know who stole Lachlan’s heart?” she whispered as he approached, his hands full of something he quickly stuffed into the inner pocket of his leather jacket.

“If the goblins don’t know, no one will.”

He lowered his head, crouching as he stepped into the tunnel. Neave could stand upright, but Jack had to hunch as they moved underground. Hampered by poor vision and Jack’s gait, it took them at least twenty minutes to reach the auction room.

The tunnel opened onto a flat platform, where Neave, Jack, and the other eighty or so darkly clad guests stood.

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