Page 98 of Fallen Court

“I look scary—and still they can’t help but come closer,” he said with a glance of deep satisfaction. When it was clear I hadn’t taken his meaning, he clarified further. “It’s you they want to see.”

“That’s…not true,” I spluttered.

“How do I look right now?” Lach said, helping me step off a high curb—something made surprisingly difficult when I couldn’t see anything within two feet of my shoes.

“I thought we’d already established that you are disconcertingly hot for someone rocking a snout.”

He lifted my hand to his lips, his glamoured fur tickling my skin as he kissed it. “It’s not just tonight. It’s not just how beautiful you are. You command every room you enter.”

Something raw crept up my throat. I didn’t know what to say to that.

He seemed to know what I was thinking—something that had been happening more and more. “You don’t have to say anything. Just accept that I’m telling the truth.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence, jogging a few blocks to head into the heart of the neighborhood. The deepening twilight cast long, angular shadows over the roofs of the mansions and down their wrought iron balconies. But it was the ancient oaks that stole my breath, even though I’d seen them a hundred times before. On either side of the street, their branches stretched like long arms, joining together like the gnarled hands of old friends.

Tonight, the houses themselves seemed equally alive and somehow restless, as though if I looked away and then back, each one would be in a slightly different place. The children spilling past the open gates onto the sidewalk didn’t seem to notice.

The grand old dames of the Garden District loomed like sentinels, their facades adorned with enchantments that made me gasp. Floating jack-o’-lanterns bobbed on invisible currents, glowing with an ethereal fire, at the Italianate mansion on the corner. Across from it, ghostly apparitions danced across the porch of a Greek Revival, disappearing through its tall, mullioned windows. And tucked behind an iron fence on the large lawn of a gabled cottage, a group of skeletons stirred a bubbling cauldron with their own bones.

On a nearby porch, a willow witch sent a swarm of chittering bats swooping over a group of awestruck children. The tiny creatures veered and dove in a complex aerial dance, their echoing sonar guiding them unerringly.

I found myself staring. “How…how can they get away with so much blatant magic use?”

He chuckled. “Clever spell-work and the candy-induced blindness of Halloween. The enchantments are layered with glamours that make everything look just slightly less implausible to mortal eyes. They see wires and speakers and animatronics—things they can rationalize.”

“I must be getting better at seeing past glamours, then, because none of that looks fake to me,” I murmured.

Lach was curiously silent at that, but the slight tightening of his hand over mine made me wonder. Shaking off my unease, I let him lead me up one of the long paths toward a towering gothic revival mansion, which was currently crawling with zombie butlers so realistic, a pit opened in my stomach.

“Do you want to get some candy or just keep walking?” he asked.

“Definitely candy.” I grabbed the bucket from him and started toward the house. That was what tonight was all about, after all.

The porch of the grand mansion was alive with jack-o’-lanterns, their sharp-toothed grins flickering with red light. A male witch towered between them, passing out treats, but his smile faded as I marched up to him. His eyes strayed toward Lach, and his lip curled. So much for his costume. It was clear the witch recognized him.

“I can’t believe you have the gall to show your face here, Gage,” he said, once the pitter-patter of little feet had faded away. In the twilight, his eyes looked like small black beads buried at the base of his large nose.

“New Orleans is my city, Ambrose. I show my face wherever I please,” Lach replied, his tone cool but not unkind.

“For now,” Ambrose shot back, words laden with something more than warning. It tripped something in my brain, and I found myself slowing before I reached him.

“Careful,” Lach said, his voice lethally soft, as he moved to my side on the walkway. “That sounded perilously close to a threat.”

Unease coiled in my stomach like a sleeping serpent. I touched Lach’s arm. “Maybe we should call it a night. Trick-or-treating seemed like a fun idea, but…”

He shook his head, his eyes never leaving the witch. “Get your candy, Cate.”

I held back a sigh as they glared at each other. At least masculine posturing wasn’t reserved purely for fae males. Witches could be dicks, too.

Ambrose didn’t bother to look at me as I took the final few steps and held out my bucket with a weak “trick or treat.” He dumped a handful of candy into it. He’d probably poisoned it on the spot just for me. I turned so quickly to leave that I nearly tripped over my skirts. Grabbing Lach’s hand, I yanked him toward the property’s gate. “Let’s get out of here.”

But he didn’t rush away. He took his time—no, he freaking swaggered all the way to the street.

“Make sure you really shake your ass for him,” I muttered.

“I’m not hiding in my own city. Not anymore,” he added. “I don’t care if assholes like that have a problem with it.”

“What changed?” I asked as we moved away from Ambrose’s frosty aura. “You used to avoid being seen in the city.”