fair share of engineers and hackers and they weathered the fall of our city better than most.
Food and medicine are the hottest commodities. Dublin’s grocery and convenience stores are empty, the hospital and pharmacies ransacked, and we’ve lost so much farm-rich land to the Shades that rebuilding is going to take time. One of the few positive things about having half the human race erased from the planet is that many supplies are out there, if you can survive the long, dangerous trek, filled with Fae and human predators alike, to find them. WeCare was trying to get a corner on the supply market but failed, squeezed out by ruthless competitors.
There are currently three places to obtain food in Dublin, where the prices vary according to whim: Chester’s, the Fae, and the black market. If you ask me, they’re all black. Of course nobody does ask me because nobody sees me because I lay low all the time and I’ve got a boyfriend who isn’t much for talking.
I snort. I just thought of Jericho Barrons as my “boyfriend.” I doubt that cataclysm was ever a boy and he certainly can’t be called friendly.
It’s official. I’m losing it.
Solitude and inaction are unraveling me right down to the core.
Forty-five minutes later I’m on my way back to the bookstore, another wasted day beneath my belt, headed for another thrilling evening reading dusty, crumbling manuscripts. I used to love to read. But I used to read hot romances and great murder mysteries and autobiographies. Now I read one thing: dry, archaic Fae history and legend.
I decide to cut through the Dark Zone adjacent to BB&B, see what’s happening, and make sure it’s still empty. That’ll make me feel better. I may not be able to actively fight, but at least I can keep tabs on one of my enemy’s favorite campsites, ascertain they haven’t come back.
My Unseelie swarm turns with me as I head down a narrow cobbled lane.
Nearly a year ago, my second day in this city, I’d gotten lost in these forgotten, trash-strewn blocks filled with dilapidated industrial warehouses and docks, crumbling smokestacks, abandoned cars, and thick, porous husks scattered all over the place, oblivious to the amorphous danger lurking in the shadows.
When I’d finally stumbled out of danger, or rather into danger of another sort in Barrons Books & Baubles that afternoon, it had been love at first sight—with the bookstore. The owner was another matter. That was war at first sight. I’m not sure much has changed, except that we both really enjoy the war.
Later that night Barrons had come to my rented room at the Clarin Hotel and tried to bully me into leaving. It hadn’tworked. I might have been pink and pretty and terrified, but I’d stood my ground.
I frown and rub my forehead then pinch the bridge of my nose. Something’s itchy in my skull. Something weird just happened while I was thinking about that night. As if there’s a neatly wrapped bundle tucked away in my head and something disturbed it, kicking up dust, drawing my attention somewhere I might never have looked. Thanks to the Sinsar Dubh eternally infiltrating and attempting to usurp my thoughts, I’ve become a pro at navigating the dimly lit corridors inside my skull, sidestepping certain things, packing others deep into the shadows, picking up still more and carrying them into the light.
But this … I’m not even sure what it is.
It doesn’t feel like part of the Book and it doesn’t feel like me. As if someone else tucked a parcel away, taped it up in thick packing blankets, and left it in a small cave where I might never—
“You made oath, pledged détente,” a voice hisses. “This is my territory now.”
My gaze snaps outward and I’m surprised to find myself seven or eight blocks into the Dark Zone. My body is instantly battle ready, my hand on my spear. My wraiths chitter and flock upward to the roofs above, apparently liking the leprous, beauty-stealing Gray Woman no more than I.
Food and medicine are the hottest commodities. Dublin’s grocery and convenience stores are empty, the hospital and pharmacies ransacked, and we’ve lost so much farm-rich land to the Shades that rebuilding is going to take time. One of the few positive things about having half the human race erased from the planet is that many supplies are out there, if you can survive the long, dangerous trek, filled with Fae and human predators alike, to find them. WeCare was trying to get a corner on the supply market but failed, squeezed out by ruthless competitors.
There are currently three places to obtain food in Dublin, where the prices vary according to whim: Chester’s, the Fae, and the black market. If you ask me, they’re all black. Of course nobody does ask me because nobody sees me because I lay low all the time and I’ve got a boyfriend who isn’t much for talking.
I snort. I just thought of Jericho Barrons as my “boyfriend.” I doubt that cataclysm was ever a boy and he certainly can’t be called friendly.
It’s official. I’m losing it.
Solitude and inaction are unraveling me right down to the core.
Forty-five minutes later I’m on my way back to the bookstore, another wasted day beneath my belt, headed for another thrilling evening reading dusty, crumbling manuscripts. I used to love to read. But I used to read hot romances and great murder mysteries and autobiographies. Now I read one thing: dry, archaic Fae history and legend.
I decide to cut through the Dark Zone adjacent to BB&B, see what’s happening, and make sure it’s still empty. That’ll make me feel better. I may not be able to actively fight, but at least I can keep tabs on one of my enemy’s favorite campsites, ascertain they haven’t come back.
My Unseelie swarm turns with me as I head down a narrow cobbled lane.
Nearly a year ago, my second day in this city, I’d gotten lost in these forgotten, trash-strewn blocks filled with dilapidated industrial warehouses and docks, crumbling smokestacks, abandoned cars, and thick, porous husks scattered all over the place, oblivious to the amorphous danger lurking in the shadows.
When I’d finally stumbled out of danger, or rather into danger of another sort in Barrons Books & Baubles that afternoon, it had been love at first sight—with the bookstore. The owner was another matter. That was war at first sight. I’m not sure much has changed, except that we both really enjoy the war.
Later that night Barrons had come to my rented room at the Clarin Hotel and tried to bully me into leaving. It hadn’tworked. I might have been pink and pretty and terrified, but I’d stood my ground.
I frown and rub my forehead then pinch the bridge of my nose. Something’s itchy in my skull. Something weird just happened while I was thinking about that night. As if there’s a neatly wrapped bundle tucked away in my head and something disturbed it, kicking up dust, drawing my attention somewhere I might never have looked. Thanks to the Sinsar Dubh eternally infiltrating and attempting to usurp my thoughts, I’ve become a pro at navigating the dimly lit corridors inside my skull, sidestepping certain things, packing others deep into the shadows, picking up still more and carrying them into the light.
But this … I’m not even sure what it is.
It doesn’t feel like part of the Book and it doesn’t feel like me. As if someone else tucked a parcel away, taped it up in thick packing blankets, and left it in a small cave where I might never—
“You made oath, pledged détente,” a voice hisses. “This is my territory now.”
My gaze snaps outward and I’m surprised to find myself seven or eight blocks into the Dark Zone. My body is instantly battle ready, my hand on my spear. My wraiths chitter and flock upward to the roofs above, apparently liking the leprous, beauty-stealing Gray Woman no more than I.
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