Valiant (Modern Faerie Tales 2)

"I don't know how to get those things," Luis said, his voice breaking.

Val stared at them both, then at the wall and the dusty blinds. "Forgive me," she said.

Ravus turned to her, but she couldn't wait for his answer. She tugged at the cloth, ripping down the curtains, and the room flooded with light. Dust motes danced through the air.

"What are you doing?" Luis screamed.

Val ignored him, rushing to the next window.

Ravus pushed himself up on one elbow. He opened his mouth to speak, but his skin had already gone to gray and his mouth froze, slightly parted, words silenced. He became stone, a statue made by the hand of some twisted sculptor, and the smeared blood turned to rubble.

Luis ran to where she was ripping down more drapes. "Are you crazy?"

"We need time to stop Mabry," Val shouted back. "He won't die while he's stone. He won't die until dusk."

Luis nodded slowly. "I thought I could—I didn't think of the sunlight."

"Ravus can weave the crown for Dave himself when he wakes up. That was what you asked him about, wasn't it?" Val picked up Tamson's sword, shining so brightly in the sunlight that she could not look at it directly. She held the hilt between the palms of her two hands. "We'll find Mabry and then we'll save them both."

Luis took a step back from her. "I thought magic swords weren't supposed to break."

Val sat down cross-legged on the floor, letting the sword rest across her knees. The crack was visible underneath the glass, but when she ran her fingers over the surface, it was smooth.

"Mabry said something about being an agent in the Unseelie Court."

"A double agent." Luis spun the ball on his lip ring with his thumb and index finger as he considered. "And she was looking for poison."

"The faeries in the park said Silarial had come to see Mabry. They thought Mabry had some evidence. Maybe they made some kind of deal?"

"A deal for her to poison someone?"

"Okay," Val said. "If Silarial knew Mabry had been responsible for the poisoning of the Seelie exiles, then she really had Mabry over a barrel. She'd have to do whatever Silarial said to save her skin. Even go back to her own court and kill someone."

"My brother poisoned them, didn't he?" Luis asked.

"What?"

"That's what Dave did for Mabry. He poisoned all those faeries so it would look like Ravus was behind their deaths. What she did for Dave was tie me up in her house. That's what you meant when you said Silarial is responsible. You mean she orchestrated it, but someone else did the poisoning."

"I didn't mean that. We don't know that."

Luis said nothing.

"I'm surprised you care," Val said, frustration and fear making her snap. "I didn't think you would think killing faeries was all that big of a deal."

"You thought I was the killer, didn't you?" Luis turned his face away from her.

"Of course I did." Val knew she was being cruel, but the words poured past her lips like they were living things, like they were spiders and worms and beetles eager to get out of her mouth. "All your talk about faeries being dangerous and then, oh look, they're getting killed with rat poison. If you'd ever guessed Dave was the poisoner, what would you have done? Would you have really stopped him?"

"Of course I would have," Luis spat.

"Oh, come on. You hate faeries."

"I'm afraid of them," Luis shouted, then took a deep breath. "My dad had the Sight and it made him crazy. My mom's dead. My brother is catatonic. I'm a one-eyed fucking bum at seventeen. Faeryland must be a nonstop party."

"Well, then, break out the champagne," Val said, walking so close to him that she could feel the heat of his body. She swept her hand around the room. "Another one of them's dead."

"That's not what I meant." Luis turned away from her, the light washing the color from his face. He walked to Ravus's body, reached out a hand to touch the stone, and then pulled back as though he was about to be burned. "I just don't know what we can do."