Ink Exchange Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’d removed from the dead faery’s body when he arrived. It had, though: a simple mortal bullet had killed her.
    “Irial?” The beansidhe had bitten her tongue until blood seeped from her lips to drip down her pointed chin.
    “Ordinary bullets,” he murmured, turning the bits of metal over in his fingers. In all the years since mortals had begun fashioning the things, he’d never seen one of his own dead from them. Shot, yes, but they had healed. They’d always healed from most everything mortals inflicted—everything but severe wounds made by steel or iron.
    “Go home and wail. When the others come to you, tell them this area is off limits for now.” Then he lifted the bloodied faery into his arms and walked away, leaving the beansidhe to begin keening as she ran. Her cries would summon them, his now-vulnerable Dark Court faeries, bring them to hear the awful word that a mortal had killed a faery.

    By the time the current Gabriel—Irial’s left hand—approached mere moments later, Irial’s winged shadow had spread like a pall over the street. His ink-black tears dripped onto Guin’s body, wiping away the glamour that still clung to her. “I’ve waited long enough to address the threat of the Summer Court’s growing strength,” he said.
    “Waited too long,” Gabriel said. “Keep waiting and war comes on their terms, Iri.”
    Like his predecessors, this Gabriel—for the name was one of rank, not birth—had always been blunt. It was an invaluable trait.
    “I’m not seeking war in the courts, just chaos.” Irial paused at the stoop of a heavily shuttered house, one of the many such houses he kept for his faeries in whichever cities they called home. He stared at the house, the home where Guin would be laid out for the court’s mourning. Soon, Bananach would hear the news of Guin’s death; the war-hungry faery would begin her interminable machinations. Irial was not looking forward to trying to placate Bananach. She grew less patient by the year, pressing for more violence, more blood, more destruction.
    “War is not what’s best for our court,” Irial said, as much to himself as to Gabriel. “That’s Bananach’s agenda, not mine.”
    “If it’s not yours, it’s not the Hounds’, either.” Gabriel reached out and brushed Guin’s cheek. “Guin would agree. She wouldn’t support Bananach, even now.”
    Three dark fey came out of the house; smoky haze clungto them as if it seeped from their skin. Mute, they took Guin’s body and carried her inside. From the open door, Irial could see that they’d already begun hanging black mirrors throughout his house, covering every available surface in the hopes that some lingering darkness would find its way home to the body, that some trace would be strong enough to come back to the empty shell, so Guin could be nurtured and heal. It wouldn’t: she was truly gone.
    Irial saw them in his street, filthy mortals with so much lovely violence he couldn’t reach. That will change. “Find them, the ones who did this. Kill them.”
    The previously blank space around the oghams on Gabriel’s forearm filled with scrolling script in recognition of the Dark King’s command. Gabriel always carried out the king’s orders with the intent plainly writ on his skin—to intimidate and to make clear that the king willed it.
    “And send the others to bring some of Keenan’s fey for the wake. Donia’s too.” Irial grinned at the thought of sullen Winter Court faeries. “Hell, bring some of Sorcha’s reclusive faeries if you can find them. Her High Court’s not good for anything else. I’ll not sanction a war, but let’s start a few fights.”
     
    At nightfall Irial sat on his dais looking out at his grieving faeries. They squirmed, paced, and wailed. The glaistigs were dripping dirty river water all over the floor; several beansidhes still keened. The Gabriel Hounds—in their human guise, skin decorated with moving ink and silverchains—joked amongst