Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109477 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109477 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Her breathing became heavy as she reached her destination. Her heart pumped at an unhealthy speed. Everything in her said to burst into that stairwell and take two stairs at a time until she reached the bottom. Instead, she forced herself to slow down. She’d put distance between herself and her pursuer—now she needed to erase suspicion. She couldn’t let anyone see her hurry.
The handle clicked softly as she swung the door open and stepped in like she had a right to be there. No one waited on the other side. She paused to close the door gently and quietly before starting down the stairs. No other sounds greeted her. No footsteps or other doors opening and closing. No breathing, even.
The coast clear, she picked up her pace. Her right foot touched down on something sticky. She grimaced as she smoothed her hair. She needed to look presentable. One floor down…two. Still no one entered the stairwell.
She was passing a large white 2 when echoes of a door opening way above reverberated against the walls.
“He didn’t see who it was?” a woman asked loudly. Footfalls—two, maybe three people—clattered against the concrete.
Daisy descended faster.
“Or what it was, no,” a man answered. “A fae creature of some kind, they said, judging by the look of the body. Instructions are still to kill on sight by any means possible. There’ve been too many instances in this realm lately. They don’t know how to stop it.”
She reached the ground level but paused before opening the door, listening for anything else. She hadn’t heard that creatures had been seeping into this realm. Amber’s computer didn’t contain anything about that, not that Daisy had seen. Did the Demigods know and were keeping it from Daisy, or were they in the dark too? If they were…who were the people policing that and so far keeping it quiet?
Her mind spun as the voices disappeared behind the thunk of a closing door. She’d ask Zorn about it. He might keep her in the dark sometimes, but if she asked him a question point-blank, he’d tell her what he knew, or he’d tell her she couldn’t know.
She let herself out of the stairwell, gingerly closing the door behind her, then put on a haughty expression. Her posture screamed important, don’t mess with me. She adjusted her stance and walk so her presence also read bitch. Hopefully people would leave her alone and not notice her lack of shoes.
From the preparations, she knew the layout of the hotel. Turning left would take her toward the lobby. She went right, acutely aware of the cold marble under her bare feet. Various hotel residents were scattered around. Some glanced her way. Only two people looked harder, noticing her hair and then glancing down her body. Based on their huffs and grins, they probably thought she was doing a walk of shame. Great. Whatever helped explain her appearance.
Farther on and the corridor narrowed. Around a turn and past a service stairway, she found her safe haven. The exit.
Her sigh was audible.
Keeping her decorum, she pushed out into the night. Chilled air and silence greeted her like an old friend. A smile flitted across her face. She’d made it. That fae had thrust her into a very sticky situation, and even though she hadn’t specifically prepared for it, she’d still made it.
Something shimmered on the walkway up ahead, hidden in a glamor. The fae’s glamor, to be precise. She knew that beautiful twinkle.
Her stomach dropped when she recognized what was spread out on the ground before it. Duct tape. Three lines of it, each written on with black Sharpie.
Great work getting this far, the first said, with a happy face drawn at the end.
I got you a present, was the second.
Let me know how it works…
Just beyond that was a dagger lying in the center of the walkway, as though waiting specifically for her. The blade was tucked into the most beautiful sheath she’d ever seen, with metalwork in a bending, twisting sort of overlay. Within the loops and circles the design created, stones sparkled and glinted like crystals, glowing a soft turquoise or speckled cerulean blue. The hilt sticking out was wrapped in what looked like supple leather. The blade promised to be a work of art.
She didn’t bother to ponder how he’d known she’d be on this walkway. This was the rear exit, seldom used by anyone but hotel personnel escaping for a cigarette break. Of course someone in her situation—the situation the fae had forced her into—would want to sneak out this way. Understanding how no one had grabbed the knife before her was also obvious. He’d affixed his glamor to it, magic that no one else seemed to notice but her.
What she did wonder was what would happen when she picked up that blade.