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I flushed, recognizing Eucilla’s voice in an instant. She stood inside the foyer, flanked by the horseshoe staircase, emerald studs glinting in her three-pointed ears. Her implacable gaze remained on the three of us for a heartbeat before Constable Cade muttered an apology and ushered me inside. Derrick trailed behind, his frown prickling over my skin while Cade relayed the pertinent information to their Lieutenant.
“We have reason to believe Montgomery Leslie is a sluaghna.”
Eucilla’s sharp eyebrow elevated, but she didn’t respond.
“Their magic is outside the spectrum the CEB usually deals with,” Derrick said. “Which is why we haven’t been able to translate the runes on his victims.”
“And why we haven’t been able to track him. Sluaghna don’t leave traces in the aether when they’re done,” Cade said. “They consume both the soul of their victims, and the magic it takes to do it.”
“Leaving precisely nothing for us to follow,” Eucilla said. “Yes, I’m familiar.”
“You’ve faced one before?” Derrick asked, and I thought I detected hope in his voice, but the Lieutenant shook her head.
“No. But my father did,” she said. “Their magic blends so seamlessly between the worlds they can’t be detected either Earthside or in Fairy. What proof have you got?”
At this, Cade and Derrick looked at me. Not entirely prepared for all the attention, I swallowed and stammered, “There were vines that attacked the safehouse.”
Eucilla waved my words away. “Sam informed me of the vine attack. Many warlocks can manipulate vines, Miss Grayson. What makes this a sluaghna?”
Her brusque manner was somehow comforting, and I was able to concentrate and clarify. “They’re the same sort of vines that I saw in the aether covering the third floor of this manor. And there was a creature in the aether with me while I was drugged, I remember it.”
Hearing it out loud I could see how flimsy it was. I had been drugged; how could I know for sure? What if I hallucinated the whole encounter?
I shivered and rubbed my arm.
“Interesting that you can see the vines when none of us can,” Eucilla said.
Cade cleared his throat. “The drugs probably helped with that.”
We turned to face him, and he went on; “When I found Nora she was heavily drugged. The concoction they gave her was both magic and mundane, quite clever, really. Or at least Sam says so.”
Eucilla hummed a response, her attention still fixed on me. “I suppose that explains why someone would attack the safehouse to get to her. If the drugs showed her something she wasn’t meant to see, they would want to silence her. But I still do not understand where we come up with a sluaghna.”
“Her soul has been leeched,” Cade said. “There are marks at the base of her skull that can be seen in the aether if you look.”
At this, Eucilla gestured for me to turn. With a lingering glance at Constable Cade, I did so. The movement brought me face to face with Derrick, who tried giving an encouraging, apologetic smile that I fought to ignore. Slender, cool fingers lifted my hair, sending a cascade of gooseflesh over my arms. I closed my eyes and quietly waited for the inspection to be over.
“Where is Montgomery now?” Cade asked.
“Uknown,” Eucilla said, but her voice was thoughtful and distant and I could imagine her squinting into the aether, eyeing my skull for signs of the creature.
“What do you mean, unknown?” Derrick asked.
“He was gone before Gretchen arrived,” Eucilla said. “It looks like he was interrupted mid-feeding. Congratulations, Miss Grayson, you’re the first person to survive a sluaghna attack in centuries.”
My hair was dropped and I turned back to face Cade and the dracken, not at all sure I wanted that praise. Then again, the alternative was to be dead.
“This complicates things,” Eucilla said. Then her gaze flicked to Constable Cade. “I do not like when questions outnumber the facts we know, Constable. Someone has been helping this thing survive here, it’s high time we found out who.”
“Of course, Lieutenant,” said Cade, looking altogether grim and determined.
“I’ll have Gretchen bring Ms. Maureen into the study for interrogation. Mariana Telvinni has been less than helpful beyond telling us Delilah has a glass factory out in Castile,” Eucilla said.
“That’s not on any of Maureen’s books,” Derrick said with a frown.
“A private venture, it would seem,” Eucillla said. “Leading to the logical conclusion that Delilah wished to inform her groom prior to the wedding.”
“But you don’t believe that.” I said, recognizing the telltale slanting of the woman’s gaze.
