It seemed silly to spend my last hours alive cleaning, but for some reason I didn’t want to leave my mess of broken glass and lotion. I grabbed the roll of paper towels from the kitchen and headed to the bathroom. When I opened the door to the bathroom, I was startled to find a person inside. There was a short man, only about four feet tall with a long white beard and a green flat cap. A Luten.

  “Thank you,” I said to him.

  He didn’t look up from his task or respond, and I recalled stories of helper faeries running away when they were discovered. Not wanting to bother him if he was shy, I took a step back out of the bathroom and let the door swing partially shut.

  “My pleasure, miss.” I heard him say back.

  His response gave me confidence to say more to him. I was hoping to ask him if he knew anything about a Lutin buying knives from the fortune teller shop, but as soon as I pushed open the door again, he was gone and so was the mess.

  Jack had been sulking on the couch, but drew himself up while I was readying myself to leave.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To The Wind in the Willows.” It felt funny saying it loud.

  He nodded and sniffled. His nose had turned red as if he were about to cry, but then he wiped his face and stood straight. “I didn’t think you wanted to go looking for Pete?”

  “I don’t, but we can make it look like that’s what we’re doing. My guess is that Lilith will be there, and she will have evidence on her person for Queen Mab when she shows up to kill or banish you or whatever.” My mind was racing with the possibilities, so much that I couldn't be concerned with the dangers involved. I pulled my damp hair back into a high ponytail.

  “Right, no biggie, just the Queen of the Fae coming to unmake me. Nothing to worry about,” Jack said while biting his nails anxiously.

  “So, if Lilith has the evidence on her, maybe we can steal it from her before Mab gets there,” I said, hoping Jack would follow my line of reasoning, “We should also talk to Pete, I suppose.”

  We went down the side stairs to the front of the building. The hazy sky was finally beginning to lose some of the light that had been unabashedly burning my skin all day. I asked if Jack wanted me to book a ride on my phone, but he insisted we get a cab. Many Fae were opposed to a lot of modern technology. It made me wonder how Lilith was acting as an ME and if the number she gave me was her cellphone.

  While we waited, I admired the nearby townhouses. There was a pastel pink one next to a yellow one; each had decorative plants hanging from intricate metal terraces that reminded me of ivy climbing a building. The bright shutters and flat roofs were nothing like the houses in New England nor the other places I had visited. I barely noticed when a familiar woman with long dreadlocks came out of the front door of the pink house and dragged two large bags of luggage down a flight of stairs. It was, Madam De LaClare.

  When she saw us standing on the corner holding our hand up for a cab, she turned to head back into her apartment. Unfortunately for her, her suitcase had other plans. It popped open and a mess of clothes along with small animal skulls and jewelry toppled to the ground.

  Instinctively, I rushed over to her to help her collect her belongings.

  “No, no, no. You two can keep your distance,” she said.

  I stopped a few feet from her, but I couldn’t hide the fact that I was happy for the chance meeting. “Hey, I was just wondering a few things about the Lutin that bought those knives. How did he pay for them? Did he say he was getting them for anyone in particular or for a certain reason? On that line, had anyone else bought those knives recently? Would you recognize the Lutin if you saw him again?”

  She dropped a scarf into her bag with an exacerbated expression. “Look, I’ll answer your questions, but then you gotta leave me alone. I hadn’t sold any of those knives in months until that Lutin bought ’em up. He didn’t talk, just pointed at them and handed me exact change. I gave ’im the whole box and he was gone. And yeah, I’d recognize him, but I’m not stickin’ around.”

  “Going somewhere?” Jack asked.

  “I’m getting out of town, and you should too,” she said while crumpling her clothes and jewelry into the cloth suitcase until it was about to burst again.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “The Merbeing is comin’ and with it, great calamity. I saw it in my vision,” she said while gazing off into the distance.

  “Merbeing?” I tried not to show any amusement at the name. “Why is it coming and what does it want?”

  “You with the questions! It’s comin’ cuz it’s being summoned,” De La Clare said matter-of-factly as if I should have known. “All it wants is destruction. To devour everything. I wouldn't be here come morning if I were you.”

  As she said this, a cab pulled up. She pushed past us and heaved her bags into the trunk before hopping in. “Get out of town, while you can!” she yelled from the window as the cab drove away.

  “I’d say that was weird, but it just seems par for the course on this case,” I said to myself more than to Jack.

  “If we make it through the night, I guess we’ll have to survive the dreaded Merbeast,” Jack said in an overly dramatic way while wiggling his fingers to add effect.

  “You don’t believe what she’s saying?” I asked.

  Jack gave me an incredulous look. “You do?”

  “Here’s the thing. The locals tell tales about the Rougarou, and there’s a Pooka who’s been running around looking like a monstrous rabbit, and there’s probably a wolf Pooka around here too. Then there’s stories about vampires, and we’ve been dealing with a Leanan Sidhe who basically does the same things as vampires.” While I said this, another cab drove up to the corner.

  “I’m not following,” Jack said, causing me to wonder if he was being dense on purpose.

  “Maybe there’s something to this Merbeing thing?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Psshhh,” Jack said before giving the bar’s address to the cab driver and hopping in.

  The cab swerved down unfamiliar streets, and I could see NOLA’s night life was starting to wake up. Musicians were taking to the corners, and groups of young folk were getting off of work to make their way to local eateries and bars. As we continued on, the businesses grew more sparse. There were fewer shops and more trees. In an open lot, a night market was starting up. Artists were setting up their tables with lights strung around them.

  Eventually we made it to the outskirts of the French Quarter. We were passing by a thick iron gate surrounded by stone walls that I realized was the entrance to a cemetery. The graveyard looked very different from the ones I was accustomed to. It was filled with little stone mausoleums for as far as the eye could see.

  Without prompting, Jack explained, “Due to all the flooding, they can’t bury people. They put them in those mausoleums, and it’s so hot they get cremated quickly. Then they put the next one in the same building. Whole generations of families.”

  At first, I thought the whole thing was grim, but on contemplation, it did seem like a tidy way to dispose of bodies. It would also be easier to pay your respects if all of your family was in one place. Still, the rows and rows of mausoleums provided an ominous backdrop for the ride to our destination.

  We finally stopped in front of a dark building with an old painted sign like one out of a period Western reading “The Wind and the Willows.” Jack paid the cab driver before hurrying around to open my door. He took my hand and placed it in the crux of his arm while we walked up to a large man who stood in front of what I assumed was the doorway. It was hard to tell, since the entire wall was painted a dark brown color and there were no visible windows.

  The man was impossibly big. He had the height of a professional basketball player but the width of a linebacker. There was no doubt in my mind that we were dealing with a troll. Although he was using a glamour to obscure his tusks, I could tell from the way he spoke that there was something hindering the movement of his mouth.

  “Jack Frost!” the troll practically roared, in a slavic accent. “You owe me new shirt.”

  “Ah yes, apologies Dunker,” Jack said, “As you can see, I have a companion here tonight…”

  “Last time Jack’s here, he’s so drunk from Faewine, he’s freezing pipes while he vomit in toilet. Boss Badger, he tell me Jack has to go, so I pick him up and blech, all over favorite shirt.” The large man extended a hairy hand out to clap Jack on the back a little too hard. “You look better now. Got a lady and no more self-pity, huh?”

  I was impressed when Jack took the heavy blow from the troll without flinching or getting knocked forward. “I’ll be sure to reimburse you,” Jack said through gritted teeth.

  “No worries. Jack and I go way back. He’s good guy underneath. His heart’s not as cold as rest of him,” Dunker said, “Come in, Jack, no messes tonight.” But, just before he put his hand on the door, he turned and added, “You’re a bit underdressed, no?”

  “Oh, right, I almost forgot.” From underneath his sweater, Jack pulled out two mardi gras masks. Although both were black with silver accents, the mask he handed me was a cat and the one he had for himself was a jester with a long nose and bells hanging from its head. He was clearly amused with himself.

  “How did you get these?” I asked, since I had only just referred to him as a jester before we left and he called me Mab’s cat earlier that day.

  “A Fae must have some secrets.” The jester mask covered his full face. His blue eyes shone through as he drew his forefinger up to the mask's lips in a playful pose.

  I followed his lead and put the mask on as well. Although I could see well enough through the large eye holes, it wasn’t comfortable. My breath was already circling back into my face and making it steamy. I doubted anyone would be able to discern what I was saying with the mask over my mouth.

  But, as Dunker dragged the heavy door open and loud music flooded out into the streets, I realized the mask was the least of my concerns in that regard. I was amazed at how well the building had been dampening the sound. Jack practically swept me from my feet when he hooked my arm with his and held tightly. He leaned down to my ear so I could hear him.

  “No matter what happens,” he said, “don’t let go.”

  We walked into a room that was painted completely black—the walls, the ceiling, the floor, everything was black. No light was escaping the window shutters. My grip tightened on Jack’s arm when the thick door slammed shut behind us. Chandeliers hung from the tall ceiling illuminating the room with a shimmery glow. To the right there was a large dance floor full of masked patrons moving to the bombastic blast of horns. All of the musicians wore skeleton masks on the top half of their faces. The lead singer, who sang in a raspy voice, was decked out in a top hat and coat of a circus ringleader. On either side of the stage there were identical ladies up in the air twisting through big hoops.

  Around the dancefloor were raised platforms with tables for people to watch the dancers and music while enjoying their drinks. In the center of the stage was a runway, where a performer was currently juggling knives. If the crowd was cheering for him, I couldn’t hear. All of this along with the red and yellow striped curtains made me feel as though I had entered into an underground circus.

  Without giving me much time to take in the surroundings, Jack pulled me to the left side of the room where a round man was wearing a button up shirt and suspenders. I could see the muttonchops sticking out from either side of his badger mask. He deftly slid drinks down the bar when a Lutin put a finger up to request one. I began to realize there were many Lutins, with their long white beards and short stature, rushing around serving the patrons.

  “Hey, Badger, I got one for the back,” Jack yelled and slapped what looked like gold coins on the bar.

  Badger scooped up the coins and eyed me for a moment. “You sure?”

  I suddenly felt even more uncomfortable than when we had entered. When a bunch of the Fae got together in one place, I never saw any good come of it. Badger motioned to a curtain on the other side of the bar. Although I didn’t like the looks of it, the ring Jack put on me would provide some protection, and he knew the bar better than I did. I had no choice but to go along with him. It would have been nice if he had given me a heads up about what we were walking into.

  On the other side of the curtain there was a narrow hallway which led to a similarly narrow, winding stairwell. With the music slightly dampened, I was able to get a word in to Jack.

  “What is this? Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The most likely place to find Pete and Lillith, gambling, betting on humans for sport,” Jack said while we continued up.

  My mind flashed back to the people-fighting ring I had broken up, and I was instantly furious. “What? I thought the Queen wouldn’t allow that kind of thing.”

  “The Queen doesn’t want us murdering humans openly. She has no problem with the Fae using humans for amusement,” Jack said. Then he added, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  His words may have eased my anxiety if I hadn’t witnessed him almost fainting at the sight of a cockroach.

  At the top of the stairs was a wooden door with black metal designs that looked exactly how I pictured a door in a fantasy castle. Opening it revealed plants as far as the eye could see. Trees, hedges, and colorful flowers in planters. It was an enormous rooftop garden. Tables and chairs surrounded a pool in the center. Due to the tables and tall planters blocking off sections, it was impossible to tell how large the area was.

  The view from the roof was as incredible as the rooftop gardens. The city skyline of NOLA could be seen, the skyscrapers and historic buildings aglow with their evening lights. Jack guided me around several tables of masked people drinking and playing cards. I had the uncomfortable feeling that all of them were watching us as we made our way past them.

  When we got closer to the pool, I could see it was a lap pool with three different lanes painted into it. On the outskirts, there was some sort of ruckus going on. Several folk were shouting and waving gold coins in the air. Inside the pool, three people were racing one another in the nude. As I watched, I realized there was something wrong with the pool, the water looked a little different, a bit murky and there were objects floating in it. At first I thought they were plastic bags, but when I saw one of the racers throw himself against the wall to avoid it, I realized they were jellyfish.

  The onlookers on either side of the pool drank margarita-like drinks out of angular glasses and laughed at the poor fools swimming. Others walked by taking bets. I soon realized these were faeries taking bets on if the humans would make it to the other end. A jellyfish sting was not only painful, but it could also be deadly. These people could easily drown or go into shock.

  The young woman in the center ducked under a jellyfish. It narrowly missed her, but her skin was already red from a previous sting. The man on the other side was screaming in pain and clutching the wall.

  “We have to stop this,” I whispered to Jack.

  “And how do you presume we do that?” Jack asked. “They volunteered to do this.”

  “Why would anyone do that?” I asked.

  “Paper money, drugs, all manner of fleeting objects,” Jack said.

  We kept moving. One Fae we passed guffawed as a human was stung and shook his body imitating the reaction. I felt sick to my stomach, but Jack was right. Even if I convinced the Fae to let the humans go, the humans were there by choice.