The King's Leash (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 7) Read Online Free PDF Page A

birds so nervous they’d expired on the spot.
    We came within a couple blocks of Queen Anne Hill, a steep neighborhood full of parks, tony houses, and the occasional intrepid biker who wished to test their mettle and calves on the steep incline.
    Merlin and I crossed the street and stepped onto the grounds of the Seattle Center. It was home of the space needle and a huge fountain, among other things. I hadn’t been back here since the night Merlin and I had come here in search of Lila and Adam. Back when I didn’t recognize him. When I didn’t know my own heart. I slipped my hand into his and held tight. Together, we walked through the bright green grass full of modern sculptures and glass edifices.
    Merlin stopped when we came to a concrete path that led into the heart of the center. “This may be close enough to Queen Anne to be considered the base of the hill,” Merlin said.
    I nodded as he took out a cigarette case from his breast pocket. He opened it to show one long and slim cigarette within.
    I raised an eyebrow.
    “I think you’ll like this spell.” He took out a silver lighter and lit the cigarette. He inhaled and then let out a plume of white smoke, and then passed it to me.
    I inhaled the smoke laced with a locational magic that filled my lungs and quickly spread through my body at the rate that air moved through my bloodstream. I exhaled and handed the cigarette back to Merlin.
    We passed it back and forth until it was smoked down to the filter. Both of us buzzed with the spell’s magic. On the grassy field we stood in, colored lines of footsteps appeared, all in different hues. Aura-colored, I saw, as a man walked by, leaving aqua-blue footsteps in his wake. The well-traveled concrete path we stepped onto was even more colorful.
    “Interesting,” I said, looking upward and tracking a seagull that left a white path behind it. “And how does this help us find the faerie entrance? It’s a bit confused.”
    “One imagines the faeries do not like people coming to their door. We look for the place with few footsteps.”
    “And dark purple footsteps, leading outward,” I added. The man who had entered my store this morning and started this day’s diversion had an aura that was a rare enough color that it should stand out. I did like the spell, and how it would take some time for us to find the faerie door. I was having a good time with Merlin.
    We watched the ground and walked around the old armory. The wide path was full of musicians and the odd performer, as well as food trucks and the aroma of coffee. We passed whining children arguing with their tired parents, and kept our gaze ever downward on the colored lines and footsteps leading in every direction.
    I glanced behind us and saw we left our own trail as well. Merlin’s was an emerald green: a solid and satisfying color. Mine was a fire-colored red.
    On the far side of the sat the strange edifice of the Experience Music Project, a vanity museum made by one of the city’s newly anointed billionaires. The outside of the museum was made of a dozen different and strange materials, some of them iridescent, others in bright and shiny hues. It had always struck me as garish. I looked away from it.
    I stepped away as well, and Merlin did the same.
    I almost didn’t notice what was going on. I stopped and tugged Merlin to a halt. I pointed.
    “Oh,” Merlin said. “Clever. Not so much a dread spell, but a move-away and dislike spell. Subtle.”
    “Indeed. It knows not to draw attention to itself,” I agreed.
    We both studied the spot near the museum that had no footsteps around it. The empty spot was centered around a set of stairs that led to a round door at the bottom. The door was painted a startlingly bright pink. The only footsteps upon the spot were dark purple ones, heading out from it.
    Merlin squeezed my hand. “I was rather hoping it would take longer than that.”
    We walked down the stairs, passing through a bevy of repellent spells.