Read Changeling on the Job: A Changeling Wars Novella for Free Online Page A

seemed to form a part of the hillside itself. They twisted around and over one another like a mass of hibernating snakes. At the base of the tree trunk, two roots had parted, a dark hollow between them, leading into the hill itself. There, on the ground, was the man’s bag.
    The man himself was gone.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    I COULD TELL FROM THE WAY THE BAG LAY crumpled among the leaves that he’d emptied it. I poked at it anyway, the way one does at a crab or a spider. “Is his scent on it?”
    Anwynn sniffed it. “No. He handled it with gloves.”
    I leaned over her and peered into the darkness between the roots. A gust of cold air tugged at my hair. The cave smelled of rotting leaves, pools of still water, and moss-covered rocks. I couldn’t say exactly why, but I didn’t want to venture into the darkness. “What’s that?”
    “Gloves,” Anwynn said dryly. “Surely you’ve heard of them? You put them on your hands. Sometimes they’re made of leather, sometimes they’re made of cloth, sometimes they’re made of rubber.”
    I gave her a long, silent stare, putting my hand in the jacket pocket that held her leash. “The hole.”
    “Underhill passage,” she said quickly. “The Fae sometimes use them to travel between realms. Maps tend to be proprietary, kept within the family. Passages are a maze and often littered with trolls.”
    “So a bad idea,” I said.
    “Bad. Terrible.”
    I flipped the stone in the air, watching the way it glittered as it fell back into my palm. I remembered what the merchant had said. A daemon geas. It didn’t sound good, whatever it was. Grian was gone, Dorian’s family hadn’t secured the top spot amongst the Fae families yet, and it seemed that desperate bids for power might now be a thing. I gave Anwynn a sideways glance. She was a royal pain sometimes, but I had the feeling that the servant and master relationship didn’t sit well with her.
    And I did still have a sizeable chunk of savings. I held the stone to my nose and sniffed it, trying to smell what Anwynn had. For the barest moment, I thought I detected something below the warm, oily scent of my hand. “You know what this stone is. Tell me, and we’ll talk about the television.”
    Her ears pricked, and for the first time since I’d bonded her, she looked a little like an actual, normal hound. “It’s not a stone,” she said. “It’s the petrified heart of a kelpie.”
    I nearly dropped it. I’d just sniffed the thing. “Is it rare?”
    “Quite rare. Kelpies are nasty beasts. I’d be surprised if he could find another in the marketplace.”
    I dropped the heart into my pocket and rubbed my palm off on my pants. “Good. Then he’ll want it back. Now let’s find that unicorn-purified water and get out of here.”
    “I’m afraid you won’t find any unicorn-purified water here,” a voice said from behind me.
    I whirled, my sword in hand before I could remember reaching into my pocket.
    Dorian leaned against an empty booth, arms crossed. If I’d stood out like a sore thumb amongst the Sidhe in my jeans and jacket, Dorian stood out like a broken, gangrenous thumb.  He was dressed in mortal clothes, or his best guess for how mortals dressed, anyways. He wore a tuxedo jacket over a gray T-shirt, a bowtie, and board shorts. Oddly enough, he was wearing the buttery leather shoes most of the Sidhe wore—as if he just hadn’t had enough time to get around to that detail. His blond hair had been pulled back into a tail, and the scent of black pepper hung in the air around him. Though Dorian had helped me defeat Grian, I was certain he hadn’t done so out of the kindness of his heart.
    “Have you been following me?” I asked. I let the sword shrink back to a knife and slipped it back into my pocket. A couple of Guardians, on the fringe of the market, had started in our direction. They relaxed as soon as I put the sword away.
    Dorian shrugged, a movement that he somehow managed to make look graceful. “Only a