Read Online Sixty-One Nails: Courts of the Feyre by Mike Shevdon - Free Book Online Page A

looking for a gift for someone and she had the ideal thing for me except that when she searched for it, it wasn't there. Some very light fingers were pilfering her stock. She knew they weren't the run-of-the-mill thief as this wasn't the first time things had gone missing from under her nose but she had not found a way to prevent it from happening. "
    "And you helped her."
        "I placed a simple ward on her stall making it uncomfortable to steal from her, then spread the word that if I caught the thief, I would have the price of the thievery out of their hide." She smiled a grim smile and for a moment there was something predatory there. "Couldn't you just have them arrested?"
        "The Feyre live outside of human law and human law enforcement. There are no Fey criminals. If you've done wrong, you've done wrong. Fey justice, when it is served, is immediate and personal. If someone transgresses against one of us then that one has the right to satisfaction, in blood if necessary. It is our way. "
    "Your way, you mean."
        "No, I meant what I said. It is our way whether you like it or not, and it is a way you will learn if you want to survive. Others will not make the allowances for you that I have."
        "I hadn't noticed you making allowances for me."
        "That's what's worrying me. Here, we're going down." Blackbird made for the entrance to Covent Garden underground station and waltzed through the barrier without validating a ticket. I fumbled for my card, then waved it at the machine and followed her. "How did you do that?" I indicated the barriers where the attendant watched people passing through but had completely failed to notice Blackbird walking through without a ticket. "Do what?"
        "You just walked through the barriers without paying."
        "The barriers aren't meant for me," she explained as the lift door opened. Thankfully at that time of day most of the people were coming up in the lift, not going down and we had the lift car to ourselves.
        "So you just walked through the barriers because you thought you could? Everyone else has to pay. "
    "I don't, though, do I?" she explained, as if I were a two year-old.
        I found myself trying to argue with the obvious. I had just watched her walk through the barrier, so I knew she could do it. If the reason she could do it was because she thought she could then perhaps that was reason enough. It occurred to me that there was an underlying arrogance to the Feyre. They believed they were privileged and because they believed it, they were. It was an arrogance I was familiar with amongst human beings, especially at senior levels within companies, but it translated to the Feyre well enough.
        The lift reached the bottom and the doors rolled open to the empty corridor. Blackbird exited and I followed her out and towards the platform, except that she swung right after the lifts. I followed her into the passage that joined the platform entry and exit passages. She halted outside a door marked Staff Only – No Entry. "Here we are." She tapped on the door and entered. "It said Staff Only," I pointed out, in case she hadn't noticed. "I know. It's to keep people out. "
    "Should we be in here then?"
        "No one comes in here unless they're entitled to, trust me. And if they did, they would regret it." Inside we took the spiral stairs leading down. A little way down, a passage led off to the base of the lift shaft but the steps spiralled on down. "Where does this lead to?"
        "I think it used to be a service tunnel, but it's been adapted for other purposes now. Here we are." The stairs ended in one of the circular tunnels that are common on the underground, except that this one looked as if it hadn't been used in years. The floor was smeared with something dark in places. Worryingly it looked organic in origin, as if something had decomposed there and left a stain.
        Blackbird passed me