“Leslie,” he said. His voice was still gravelly, but he couldn’t help it with Brother Wolf so close.
She took a step away from him, caught herself, and stepped forward again. He could smell her fear, but she was not giving in to it, which was what he had come to expect from her.
“Fill me in,” he said. “Let me help.”
Marsden and Leeds came up and Leslie relaxed fractionally. She nodded at them and then turned to Charles.
“We came here investigating a report that Ms. Jamison filed about unicorns and dragons, and a green man in her garden. Most of it was a false report, camouflage for the truth that there was a green man in her garden. The deal was that if we found the green man, he gives us three true answers.”
“First, it isn’t a green man.” Charles looked at the bland man without favor and pretended not to notice that Anna had moved close to him as soon as he stopped moving and was pressed up against him. You didn’t reveal your mate’s weaknesses before the enemy. He couldn’t kill it until Leslie discovered if it could help them find Amethyst.
“Woodland fae, a tree man, related to the green man. Wearden, the old Anglo-Saxons called them. I have no idea what he calls himself. One of the lesser fae, which doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. Just not as dangerous.”
The fae curled his lip up and hissed at Charles.
“Okay,” Leslie said.
“Ask a question that requires a broad answer,” Leeds said. “Don’t use yes-or-no questions. Oddly enough those are pretty easily fouled up.”
“What—” The fae leaned forward, just a little. But it cued Leslie in and she rephrased it. “Leeds, please explain that. Yes-or-no seems pretty cut-and-dried to me.”
“Take the question every husband dreads.” Leeds looked at the fae and then back at Leslie. “You know, the one about if pants make you look fat. A fae could say ‘No,’ which you would take to mean that you don’t look fat, when in fact he means ‘The pants don’t make you look fat, your extra weight makes you look fat.’” Leeds cleared his throat and a flush rose up his face. “Not that you do look fat. It was just an example.”
Leslie grinned at him but said, “Okay, thanks.”
“Before you start, I can tell you some more things about this wearden to help direct your questions,” Charles told her. “I am absolutely certain that this is not the fae who stole the child. He smells wrong and I doubt he has the ability to make a fetch as convincing as the one that took Amethyst Miller’s place. He’s the wrong kind of fae to have that sort of magic. The lesser fae’s magic is very specific. He doesn’t have the power to get Chelsea to kill her children, either. He is here because it is hard for the tree-tied fae to move. Those who could were moved into the reservations early on.”
“Do you—” Leslie glanced at the fae again. She cleared her throat. “I don’t mean to be giving orders, but they are better than questions under the circumstances. Given that he is tied to this place, tell me if you think he will know anything about our quarry. Please.”
Charles shrugged. “The chances are pretty good; fae gossip like everyone else.”
“Right.”
A woman ran out of the house. She was older, Charles thought, but in impressive shape for a human of her age. In one hand she held a camera with very big lens attached.
“Can I take photos?” she asked as she ran up to them, out of breath. She was looking at Anna, but she did not specify.
“Yes,” said the fae, his voice suddenly mocking. “You can take photos, Katie, but I fear you may not. You’ll have to ask the wolves.” He looked at Charles and smiled. “That is question one. Two more.”
The woman’s face paled as she took in the whole tableau. “I screwed things up.”
“Leslie, ask your questions,” Charles said when it looked as though they were going to get bogged down in extraneous conversation that might include more irrelevant questions.
“I’m so sorry,” said the stranger, but she subsided when Charles shook his head at her.
Leslie took a deep breath and then ran with it. She described in detail what they knew, told the fae about the missing girl, about the attempt to force Chelsea to kill her own children. She added a bit that she and Anna must have discovered, about an attempted kidnapping almost forty years ago. She didn’t talk about the other things, the ones they weren’t absolutely certain were related to their fae, the teacher who hanged herself or the car accident.
“My first question is, then, what exactly do you know about the fae who kidnapped Amethyst Miller and left a fetch, a changeling, in her place?”
The fae half shut his eyes, searching for a way out. It probably didn’t matter to him how much he told, except that fae didn’t like giving their secrets away.
“Once upon a time there was a High Court fae,” he said finally. “Now, the fae of the High Court, they are great ones for stealing human children and teaching them to fetch and carry, to work and to give life to the below lands. This one, this one maybe loved children too much, or maybe the twist happened sometime during the very long time it took Faery to fall in the Old World. His kind take children, but this one, this one, he loved children, stole them from the humans and turned them into his toys until they died and he had to replace them.”
The fae looked around slyly. “Humans are such fragile things. It was a hobby for him, but when the magic fell and rose and fell again, it took that part of him and twisted it into a geas such as we low fae must follow but usually the powered fae, like the High Court fae, do not.” There was glee in his voice, though his human facade was still bland and doll-like. “So now he must have a child for his collection. He keeps them for a year and a day and then consumes them entirely, at which time he has to collect another. He feeds on the change that time brings upon them, see?”
He looked at Anna and smiled. Charles felt a rush of magic and put a hand on his mate’s head. She raised her head and growled at the fae man, showing him her fangs.
He can’t pull that trick on me twice. Anna’s clear voice rang in his head. Justin is dead. If the fae wants to wear his face, that is just fine.
Rage, squelched earlier, rose like a phoenix. Brother Wolf would kill this one without a twinge of conscience. Not that wolves regretted much. Regret, like guilt, they mostly left to their human halves. He veiled his eyes because he knew that they had lightened to wolf amber from his own human dark brown.