Chapter 4

4

U nfortunately, I had to leave my sword at the castle. At first, I voiced—very loudly—my many objections of this. Last time I'd forgone the sword, terrible things had happened. But the team made excellent points. I, Moira Talmhach, was playing a very particular role tonight, and that role was this: I was a rogue fae on the run from the king on the hill. I'd been living anywhere I could find. If I had a weapon, it wouldn't be a fancy golden sword. So a couple of pocketknives were all I had.

I stood on the cobblestone street, staring up at the pub's sign swinging in the brisk wintry wind. The "no occupancy" display was lit up in the window, and every table in the pub was packed. There were a couple of empty stools at the bar itself, manned by a familiar bearded bartender covered in tattoos.

The streets were fairly quiet, though a few passersby strode past me on their way home or to a less-crowded pub. I knew I looked alone and a little lost, but I was anything but. The rest of the team was strategically placed throughout the area, watching from windows or lurking beneath lamp posts, pretending to wait for the next bus. Lugh waited back at the castle, protecting his spear just in case.

With a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and pushed inside. The little bell jangled loudly as I entered the warmth of the packed pub. The bartender glanced up but barely gave me notice as he turned back to the pint he poured from the tap. I minced my way over to the bar and slid on top of a stool.

After a moment, he shot me a quick look. "What'll you have?"

"Just a water, thanks. I'm here to talk to you about your ad."

At that, he stiffened and finally settled his eyes on me. His face remained impassive, but emotion churned in his eyes. Then he flicked his gaze around the room before sliding a coaster across the sticky bar top. "Sure. When it's a wee bit quieter. Why don't you have a drink while you wait? It's on the house."

I opened my mouth to argue, but he was already halfway through pouring me a pint before I could voice my objections. "I'm not really here for a beer—"

"Just take the damn drink," he said in a low growl before wandering away to greet the newest patron at the other end of the bar. With a sigh, I took a sip, and the amber liquid warmed my belly .

I continued to take small sips of my ale as I watched the bartender work. I hadn't brought my phone either, just in case. There was too much incriminating information on it, and if the bloke was doing his due diligence, he'd ask to check it. He'd want to see my call history, my texts. I could have deleted it all, but then my phone history would look suspiciously empty. Better to claim I had no phone at all—I'd been squatting, according to my story. No phone wasn't much of a stretch after that.

He didn't really seem like a mastermind manipulator of supernaturals, though. He just seemed…well, normal, really. As he poured a rum and coke for a woman with salt white hair, I took a quick sniff of the air. I'd always been able to pinpoint supernaturals and their particular magic just by looking at them, but if that managed to escape me somehow, I could definitely scent them.

And this bloke smelled one-hundred percent human.

So why was he putting together a team of supernaturals to take down King Lugh?

The minutes stretched into hours. Slowly, as the clock ticked toward two o'clock, the pub finally began to empty until there was no one left in the room except me and the bartender. He'd brought me a couple more drinks over the course of the night, never saying a word.

He grabbed another glass, took it over to the tap, and filled it with water. Then he rounded the bar and joined me, perching on the stool beside mine. "Here's the water you wanted."

I lifted my brow and took the glass. "Thanks, though your service is pretty terrible. It took about four hours to get this thing."

He gave me a slight smile. "Sorry ‘bout that. I just can't talk about this business in front of so many people. They won't get it, and I don't want to scare anyone off. It'd be bad business. Rent isn't cheap in Old Town."

I set the glass beside my half-empty beer. "Because they're humans, and you're looking for supes."

He winced and flicked his eyes across me. I'd donned a pair of faded blue jeans, a thick flannel shirt with a hole in the sleeve, and a pair of black boots. I kind of looked like a lumberjack. A homeless one.

"I take it you're a supe if you answered the ad, but you sure don't look like one."

"I'll take that as a compliment." I sniffed and lifted my chin, trying my best to play the part of a scorned, angry fae. If I were on the run from Lugh, I probably wouldn't be too fond of supernaturals, either.

"Huh." He grunted, drawing a hand across his beard. "Well, tell me your story, then. Who are you? How'd you find the ad? And why did you answer it?"

I took a long sip of water to give myself time to think. We'd gone over all of this at the castle, but I needed to be careful or I'd set off alarm bells .

"You're human," I replied. "Exactly how much do you know about the supernatural world?"

He snorted. "Far too much if you ask me."

"So you know about how the Court system works, right?" I asked, shifting on my stool to face him. "You know what being a solitary fae means?"

Understanding dawned in his eyes. "Ah, you're a wee solitary. That explains things. Let me guess. The hill king is trying to force you to join his Court, and you don't want to."

I tried not to register my shock. It was one thing for him to know what a solitary fae was—a fae without a courtly home—and it was another for him to understand that, historically, the royals of the fae courts hadn't wanted any solitary fae out there in the world. They'd wanted full control of everyone.

Things weren't like that anymore, but this human clearly didn't know that.

"He's tried to capture me several times," I explained. "Once, he managed to trap me, along with several others. I escaped but he killed the rest."

Total fabrication, of course. Lugh would never do such a thing, but I had to convince this bloke that I was on his side. That I had good reason to go after Lugh.

The bartender nodded slowly, as if this information didn't phase him one bit. "Sounds about right."

I cocked my head. "What's this about, anyway? Your ad wasn't very specific."

"Specific enough to get you to come here. "

"I'll give you that," I said, thinking fast. "But that still doesn't explain why you put out an ad asking for supes. Something about a spear? What spear?"

I figured he would expect that a rogue, on-the-run fae wouldn't know a damn thing about Lugh's spear. And I was right.

"You let us worry about that," he drawled.

"Us?" I glanced around the empty pub. "You mean there's more of you?"

He pressed his lips together and went silent. My heart pounded in my chest, and I dug through the conversation, trying to find something I'd said that had tipped him off. He'd seemed to buy my story, and I'd only asked questions anyone else would have.

"You aren't the first supe to answer the ad," he finally said.

I fought back the urge to exhale in relief.

He continued, "We need more than just one supernatural to pull this off. If we both agree to let you in, you'll be joining a team for the mission."

"I guess that shouldn't surprise me," I said. "That castle is pretty impenetrable."

"We won't be storming the castle." He slid his hand into his pocket and extracted a cell phone. "You seem okay to me, even if you are a wee bit cranky."

Cranky? Me? Never.

I arched a brow. "If you aren't storming the castle, then what are you doing? "

"I can't tell you that," he said quickly. "It's not up to me if you can join."

"Wait." I pressed my palms flat on the sticky bar top and leaned toward the human. "You aren't the one in charge of this whole thing?"

He snorted, shook his head, and grinned. "That's what you thought? I'm flattered, but no. I'm just screening supes for the boss."

Disappointment and irritation battled for dominance inside of me. Bartender Bloke wasn't going to give me the inside scoop after all. He wasn't the one in charge. Someone else was. We should have realised. How could a human wrangle a group of rag tag, angry supernaturals whose powers were far greater than his?

The answer was, he couldn't.

"So who's in charge, then?" I tried.

"Sorry. Can't share that, either." He pushed up from his stool and walked behind the bar, refilling my pint glass one more time. "I'll tell him about you, but it's up to him what happens next."

"Great," I said dryly. "I love waiting."

"Don't worry," he replied with a wink. "You'll get your revenge on the king on the hill. You're everything he wants in a supe. I just have to ask one more thing, and then you can go."

"What's that?"

"You've been here before, and you pretended like you were human then. You asked for a room but ran the hell out of here after you eavesdropped on some supes. What was that all about?"

Damn. I'd hoped he hadn't remembered.

"I was on the run at the time, just like I am now," I tried. "They were fae, the supes who were in here then. From the sound of their conversation, I thought they were working for Lugh. Hell, I thought they might be trying to track me down."

He gave a slow nod, as if convinced. "All right, that makes sense. Give me your number, and I'll have the bloke call you. He should be in touch soon if he wants to meet."

I rattled off the number and slid off the stool, trying to come up with a way to stall. I'd hoped to find answers here at A Knight's End, but I'd only found more questions. Who was this mysterious supernatural after Lugh? It wasn't Nemain from the sounds of it, but that didn't mean it wasn't someone powerful.

I'd hoped tonight's mission would be the end of things, but I was quickly realising that this was only the beginning.