Wisps of her silvery blond hair-normally a straight, silken sheet-curled from her tight, long braid, the streaks of amethyst, sapphire, and rose splattered with some dark, oily substance that reeked of metal and ammonia. And summer had only just begun.ĭanika didn’t just look like she’d been rootling through the garbage. Rolling her eyes, Bryce yanked open the front door, getting a face full of heat so dry it threatened to suck the life from her. Lehabah didn’t answer, presumably drifting back downstairs to guard the books below. “You don’t like her in here,” Bryce amended, her amber eyes narrowing toward the archives door and the tiny fire sprite she knew was hovering just on the other side, eavesdropping as she always did whenever someone stood out front. She gritted her teeth and withstood it, still unused to the sensation even after a year of working at the gallery.įrom the other side of the deceptively simple metal door to the archives, Lehabah warned, “Jesiba doesn’t like her in here.” The enchantments on it hummed against her palm, slithering like smoke over her freckled golden skin. “Yes, Lehabah.” Bryce wrapped her hand around the front door’s handle. The building’s unadorned sandstone walls belied the latest tech and grade A spellwork that kept it operational and preserved many of the books in the archives below.Īs if merely thinking about the level beneath Bryce’s high heels had summoned her, a little voice asked from behind the six-inch-thick archives door to her left, “Is that Danika?” Even with her sharp half-Fae hearing, she couldn’t make out much beyond the iron door save for the occasional banging fist. With no exterior windows, the gallery’s extensive surveillance equipment served as her only warning of who stood beyond its thick walls. “You’d know if you ever picked up a book, Danika.” Glad for the break in what had been a morning of tedious research, Bryce smiled as she rose from the desk. She wiped at it with a filthy hand, smearing the black liquid splattered there. “What the fuck does rootling mean?” Danika hopped from foot to foot, sweat gleaming on her brow.

Tucking a strand of her wine-red hair behind a pointed ear, she asked into the intercom, “Why are you covered in dirt? You look like you’ve been rootling through the garbage.” Seated at the desk in the modest gallery showroom, Bryce smirked and pulled up the front door’s video feed. A heartbeat later, a female voice barked, half-muffled through the steel, “Open the Hel up, B. The heavy metal door to Griffin Antiquities thudded with the impact of the wolf’s fist-a fist that Bryce knew ended in metallic-purple painted nails in dire need of a manicure. Which meant it must be Thursday, which meant Bryce had to be really gods-damned tired if she relied on Danika’s comings and goings to figure out what day it was.

House of earth and blood series