*Whispers of Faerie: The Price of Secrets*

The pounding bass lines seeped through floorboards and veins alike, filling *Nox* with its thundering heartbeat. Flickering neon danced across the private booth in the club’s shadowy VIP gallery, tracing the silhouette of Kinsey Valen as she watched the elf seated opposite. Smoke curled from her lips, coiling in patterns almost as intricate as the swirling tattoos covering the elf’s slender wrists. Every so often, strobe lights caught the purple constellations etched into his skin, giving away the otherworldly shimmer beneath.

Kinsey had seen elves before—at least, what passed for elves since the night the world broke open and the supernatural came crawling through the cracks. None, however, were quite like this one: ancient beneath his beauty, danger curling around him like wind-borne fog. Tonight, his cheekbones were high, his eyes ringed with exhaustion and defiance. A faint phosphorescent sheen glistened at his temple, and when he coughed, it sounded more like glass cracking than a human throat.

She suspected he was dying. But not from anything any mortal physician could name.

He watched her now, eyes a shade of green Kinsey had seen in rain-soaked trees and sometimes in dreams—the kind whose secrets you never quite woke from. She wanted to help him, damn it. But she was mortal, bounded by breath and blood. Elvish curses weren’t in her wheelhouse, not even close.

Still, she had contacts. The supernatural world gravitated to her like moths to unsettling flame. Kinsey dealt in secrets and favors, and Nox was both her castle and the cross she bore—for a price, almost anything was possible.

She tensed when the elf—he’d called himself Faelan—reached out with long, cool fingers and tucked a stray strand of black hair behind her ear. His touch lingered, sending a charge skittering across her scalp. Kinsey opened her mouth, licking lips suddenly dry, the words tangled and heavy in her throat.

“Don’t,” she managed, though she didn’t pull away. His smirk was almost fond, though nothing about him suggested he had much love for mortals or their foibles.

Faelan’s knuckles trembled as they retreated, and Kinsey saw how thin his hands had grown. Whatever was eating at him, it was burning fast.

She stood up abruptly, pressing her palms flat against the smooth onyx tabletop. “Give me a minute.”

She moved through the crowd—mercurial, commanding. The regulars knew her: the bartender, shape-shifting Ashley, gave her a lazy salute as she mixed herself a gin and tonic, the ice clinking mournfully. She splashed whiskey, peaty and dark, into another glass. Swirling the drinks, she returned to the booth, sliding the whiskey across to Faelan.

“I’ll help you,” Kinsey said, her voice low as she sat across from him again, holding his gaze. “But I want something first.”

He arched an eyebrow, tipping the whiskey to his lips with a hand that almost didn’t shake. “Let’s hear the price.”

“My sister, Leila—she’s missing. Disappeared two weeks ago. No note, no phone calls, nothing.” Kinsey’s nails bit crescents into her palm. “I’ve searched all the usual places, talked to all my friends—witches, shapeshifters, vampires. Someone’s hiding her, or worse.” She took a steadying breath. “You have connections, Faelan. Ways I don’t. You help me find her, and I find a way to lift your curse. I’ll ask every witch on the block, every demon who owes me a drink.”

Faelan’s jaw clenched. “And if you don’t?”

Kinsey hesitated. Then recklessness flowered in her chest—a dare, fencing off her heart. “If I don’t, you do what you want with me.”

He inclined his head, sharp and predatory—accepting, challenging. “Very well, mortal. I accept your bargain.” His eyes glimmered, and despite herself, a strange pull twined around her. Attraction, sure—Kinsey had always liked her men a little dangerous, a little other—but also, a premonition: if she played this wrong, it’d cost her more than just her pride.

“That’s settled, then,” Faelan murmured, raising his glass in salute.

Wordlessly, Kinsey rose and strode to the window—floor-to-ceiling, black-tinted, overlooking the intoxicating chaos of the club. Bodies writhed and swayed to the music, seekers losing themselves in strangers’ arms and corners dark enough for secrets—or sin. Down below, desperate couples rutted in hidden alcoves, oblivious to everything but each other and the bright oblivion of tonight.

Kinsey pressed a palm to the glass, watching the way it smeared her reflection. The disguised monster she’d become. She watched as the world blurred into abstraction: sweat-slick limbs, parted lips, the pulse of desire and hunger. All she’d built, under threat. All she could lose.

Behind her, Faelan’s chair scraped as he joined her. His breath ghosted along her ear, oddly gentle. “You care for your sister, deeply.”

Kinsey snorted, not trusting herself to look at him. “Leila’s all I have. I’ve always looked out for the people who belong to me. Even when it comes with a price.”

Faelan hesitated. “Bravado won’t save us, Kinsey. If your sister’s gone where I think, you’ll need more than nightclubs and clever deals.”

Kinsey’s heart hammered. “So—where is she?”

He handed her a scrap of vellum, a scent of burnt sage curling from it. Names, scrawled in a tongue she didn’t recognize. “The Court of Mirrors,” he murmured. “Faerie. And not the pleasant bit. Your Leila’s in over her head.”

Kinsey gripped the glass so hard she thought it might shatter. “You’ll take me there, then.”

Faelan smiled—wolfish, otherworldly. “I’ll open the door. After that, it’s your bargain to keep.”

***

That night, Kinsey phoned Sorcha, a witch who specialized in curses and breaking them—her old college roommate, and someone she owed more debts to than she could count.

“Forget the usual hexes,” Sorcha said, assessing Faelan after she arrived, her eyes narrowing. “Elven king’s curse, by the feel of it. You need an artifact—the Silver Comb. Otherwise, he’s a goner.”

“Where is it?” Kinsey demanded.

Sorcha winced. “Last I heard? Traded to a vampire prince named Mikael. He keeps it as a party favor.”

So that was it—a rescue, a heist, a dance through Faerie, just to save someone Kinsey should hate. Already the lines of obligation blurred between her and Faelan. She could do this, she told herself, not noticing how close he stayed when they navigated the flux and tides of magic, not admitting how his presence steadied her frayed nerves.

The days blurred: Kinsey bartered entry, Faelan called in debts. In Faerie, the mere name “Valen” seemed to open a few jaded eyes, but earned more snarls than favors. Mikael’s penthouse was iron-riddled and full of beautiful people with sharp teeth; Kinsey played her role, smiled as she slipped the Silver Comb from a distracted fae’s purse, and didn’t flinch when a vampire’s nail traced her wrist, hinting there would be a price.

Leila was in the Mirror Court, dressed like a princess but hollow-eyed, held in thrall by glamour. Faelan and Kinsey fought their way through tricksy courtiers and flesh-hungry hounds, Kinsey smashing a bottle over a goblin’s head with unpracticed fury.

In the very end, when Kinsey dangled the Silver Comb and dared the faerie lord to name his price, it was Faelan who paid—one memory slipped from his mind, offered willingly, a glimpse of kin lost in golden fields. Kinsey watched his face when the memory left him. Watched him stumble, ancient and afraid.

But they pulled Leila from the Court, eyes wild but unbroken, and in the comfortless dark before dawn, Sorcha used the Silver Comb to work her magic. Faelan fell to his knees as the curse unspooled from his frame, shivering, then gasped—whole and healed, finally, but with a fragment of his past forever missing.

Kinsey stood nearby, arms wrapped around her trembling sister, and stared at the elf who was no longer quite a stranger. “You’re free,” she said, voice hoarse. “So am I.”

Faelan rose, the dawn light painting his cheekbones gold. “A promise kept, Kinsey Valen. I will remember you—except,” and here, a flicker of pain, “for the memory I’ve lost. But I suspect it was worth the trade.”

She could have kissed him, then. Instead, she watched the world bloom into color as Faelan melted into the crowd, the club waking up to another day, secrecy thick as sunrise. The cost had been great, and the dance not yet done—but in Nox’s shadowed hallways, Kinsey knew she would have done it all again.

For once, even surrounded by monsters, she didn’t feel alone.

This story was generated by user billy.bello with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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