A Little Night Muse. Jessa Slade

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      Chapter 3

      Adelyn stood between the strange beings known as Bunco and Wolly while the human known as Josh Reimer—he had given her this information freely, as if he didn’t know that names carried their own secret force—went to find what he called the main water valve turnoff. Maybe in the sunlit world, giving words to everything diluted the power of naming.

      The dog and horse stared at her suspiciously. She knew Wolly was just a dog because she had tried to impose the verita luna—the Second Truth—on him. Even in her weariness, her musetta powers should have roused him to his alternate shape had he been a wereling, but he only sneezed. And the mere horse—sadly lacking both a spiraling horn and wings—sidled from her, putting one big hoof in the middle of her phae gate.

      Adelyn scowled at the ruined mushroom ring. She had used up all her spoors getting this far. She had jumped from the coastal side of this place known as Oregon, to the pointy mountain in the middle, following the signs of fleeing phae. While the ocean and the mountain had a certain rough charm, this place was just desolate, cold and stark and ugly. The memory of the phaedrealii’s intricate dances and sumptuous feasts made her eyes prickle with frustrated tears that threatened to freeze on her cheeks.

      She lifted one ruined slipper to kick the last standing mushroom, but stopped herself. She had no way to return to the phaedrealii—no way to get word to Raze—until the mushrooms released more spores. Just as well, the Hunter and his sylfana hadn’t been here. She needed a few days to get her harvest and her bearings.

      The human—Josh, she reminded herself—reappeared from around the house. He retrieved the gun from beside the door where he had left it and came toward her.

      She swallowed hard.

      Not that she feared his gun. It was steel, not iron. And he was no Hunter that she should fear him, gun or no. But something about his steady gaze and unfaltering step made her heart double its pace. She was too tired from her ordeals to maintain a thick glamour and had only blurred the preternatural edge of her beauty. She wanted him to tell her about the missing phae, not contemplate odes to her eyeballs. She’d had entirely enough of odes.

      Still, she had the sense he was seeing more than she might like. That muddy-colored gaze of his—neither blue nor green nor brown under the shadowing brim of his hat—seemed too perceptive for a mere mortal, despite the faint clouding of a scar in his right eye. Perhaps he had a trickle of phae blood in him. That would explain the strands of gold in his sandy hair, seeming to beckon her fingers to run through the thick, ragged locks. And that would also explain why the missing phae were comfortable in this land of small, bitter, ugly valleys.

      She supposed the Hunter and his paramour weren’t exactly missing. They had fled. And she had been sent to return them. The reminder of the vizier’s charge made her shift uncomfortably, her feet cold in the thin slippers on the icy ground. Every phae should want to be back with the court. Even if some—musetta among them—might occasionally venture into the sunlit world, they belonged in the phaedrealii, not wandering among sharp-eyed humans like this Josh who might bring the iron back.

      He reached around her to slide the gun behind the horse’s saddle. “You ready to go?” When Wolly barked, he smiled at the dog before returning his gaze to her. “Where are your things?”

      She resisted looking down at the remaining mushroom and lifted her satchel in mute explanation.

      “No boots even?” Josh shook his head. “Never seen a woman travel so light.”

      If only he knew.

      He swung up onto the horse in a fluid move she didn’t quite follow. Then he reached a hand down to her and waggled his fingers. “C’mon.”

      She stared at his big, wide palm and those long, strong fingers. With a reluctant sigh, she slid her hand into his.

      The shock of her musetta powers seeking a target rattled through her again, weakening her bones. But he hauled her up with the strength in just one arm and sat her across his lap. The front hump of the saddle pressed her close to the human. To Josh.

      Oh, he was so warm. She hadn’t realized how the cold had sunk in until his radiant heat surrounded her. For days now, she had been loosing her powers in this world that seemed endlessly hungry for the touch of her magic. She longed for the phaedrealii where—she couldn’t believe she was willing to admit—she was nothing special. Her head bobbed wearily, the warmth and the rocking of the mere horse lulling her.

      “You never told me your name.” His voice rumbled through his chest, intimate with their forced proximity.

      “Adelyn.” The truth escaped her lips before she could censor it. A sliver of shock pierced her. Why had she told him that? Did his voice have a power over her?

      No, he was a simple human. He couldn’t use her name against her.

      “Adelyn.” His tone was soft, soothing. “Pretty. Does it mean something?”

      “No.” Agitation made her twist upright. “And I ask you not to share it with others. I prefer not to be known.”

      “Fine by me. This is a good place for people who want to get away.”

      So Vaile and Imogene and the other escaped phae must have discovered. Adelyn had never wanted to get away. Fleeing had been forced on her unfairly.

      “I meant to ask you,” Josh said. “How did you get here? I didn’t see a car.”

      “Oh, I just...dropped in.” Adelyn gestured randomly, using the misdirection of her hand to pull a bit of the swirling mist around them to cloud his mind.

      “Just dropped in,” Josh echoed obediently. A fleeting note of disbelief canted his tone upward, and she cursed her lack of experience with stubborn human males.

      She needed to occupy him with other things. “Have many more like me come here?”

      He shrugged. “I’ve seen a few of the Hunters’ friends when I run stock through here. Vaile says he’s happy not to mow.”

      Adelyn forced herself not to scoff. So the Hunter disguised himself as a good neighbor by letting cows tromp through his fields? How...worldly of him. “Where do these friends go, after they leave here?”

      “Back to Hollywood, I suppose.”

      The phae had their own holy woods, but none of the runaways would be welcomed there. Not anymore. Was Josh hiding more than he was saying? Out here in the world, she was uncertain of the strength of her musetta power to inspire him. Maybe she just hadn’t found the right incentive to unlock his secrets. She had to find it and, through Josh, find the Hunter, if she wanted Raze to lift her exile.

      Josh was scanning the valley—as if there was anything interesting to see—so she used the moment to study his face.

      Even the ugliest phae had a certain undeniable intensity that compelled the eye. Josh had none of that. And yet...

      Maybe the simplicity of him stunned her. What sort of СКАЧАТЬ