The Sharpest Blade by Sandy Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

ruffles through his dark hair and wraps his cloak around his body.
    “I’m really glad you’re okay.”
     • • • 
    A month ago, fissuring between the Realm and the Earth twice within an hour would leave me disoriented for a few minutes. This time, I’m not even slightly dizzy. That’s definitely a good thing, but it makes me uncomfortable, too. I’m not the same person I was a month ago.
    The other thing that’s making me uncomfortable?
    Kynlee.
    I watch the
tor’um
as she sinks into the passenger seat. Trev and the other fae brought us back to the Vegas gate so I could get my car, and even though she looks semi-innocent sitting there silent with her arms crossed, she can’t be.
    After starting the engine, I ask, “What is it you want?”
    She toys with a tear in the fabric of her seat, not looking at me. “What do you mean?”
    “Why did you fissure me to the Realm?”
    “You asked me to,” she says, like I was asking her to pass the salt at dinner.
    “No, I asked you to call someone who could do it.” My memory is murky, but I’m pretty sure that’s true. “You volunteered too easily. You didn’t even know what a gate looked like. Have you ever fissured before?”
    “Yes,” she says, looking up long enough to throw a glare my way.
    I make a U-turn, then glance at her, my eyebrows raised.
    “Once,” she adds.
    I stare a little longer.
    “Three years ago,” she mutters. “Across my living room.”
    I should so be dead right now.
    “Traveling through the In-Between is dangerous,” I tell her. “There has to be a reason you risked it with me. So, what is it you want?”
    “I don’t want anything,” she says, sinking back into her seat.
    “Kynlee.”
    “I don’t,” she says. “Look, I was just curious. My dad hardly ever talks about the Realm. I wanted to know what it was like. I’ve asked him to take me there; he won’t.”
    “That’s it? Seriously?”
    “That’s it,” she says.
    Great. I’ve aided and abetted a teenage rebellion.
    “Your dad lives in Vegas with you?” I ask.
    “Yeah.” She stares out the passenger window.
    I turn off the highway. “The city doesn’t bother you?”
    “The city?”
    “The tech,” I say. “The city’s tech doesn’t bother you?”
    “Oh.” She rolls her eyes. “That’s why we live here. All the tech on the Strip makes the chance of a fae coming here and finding us practically zero. I get headaches sometimes, but I just pop a Tylenol.”
    I guess she doesn’t have to worry about the tech damaging her magic. It’s already wrecked.
    Kynlee gives me directions to her neighborhood. It’s close to the library, and it backs up to a newly renovated shopping center with a Walmart, a big electronics store, and several clothing chains. By the time I pull up to Kynlee’s house, it’s well after dark. Even though it’s still hot as hell outside, I pull on the light sweater I keep in my car in case the library is cold. My pants are crunchy from the dried blood, but they’re black, and it’s dark. Someone would have to take a really close look to notice the stains.
    “You can go,” Kynlee says, when I get out of the car. “I’m fine.”
    I follow her to the porch anyway.
    “Seriously, I’m fine,” she tells me. “Thanks for bringing me home. See you later.”
    “I want to talk to your dad,” I say, when she opens the door.
    “That’s okay. Thanks. Bye.” Kynlee steps inside. I’m pretty sure she intends to shut the door in my face, but before she does, a man—a
human
man—steps into the entryway.
    “You’re late,” he says, glaring at Kynlee. All I can do is stare. I’d assumed her dad was fae. More precisely, I’d assumed he was
tor’um
. I used to think fae didn’t live in my world—they just visited it and left after they got what they needed—but two months ago I met a group of
tor’um
who lived outside Vancouver. They were living fairly normal, human lives there. In the Realm,
tor’um
are looked down on