Scattered Magic (The Sidhe (Urban Fantasy Series) Book 1) by S. Ravynheart, S.A. Archer

Slowly, Jhaer rose to his knees. What his eyes beheld wrenched his heart. Where the Mounds once formed great hills above the majestic home of the Sidhe now lay only an enormous crater. A few bits of magic still flickered. The ground rumbled now and then as large chunks fell into their final resting places far below. His home, the home of all Sidhe… gone. Destroyed. He’d warned them of this and the end had indeed come. It had come crashing down hard.
    And for what? The Seelie’s insatiable lust for power? His body numb. His heart, his very soul, defeated. Jhaer surveyed the crater around him and found what he expected. No one. No survivors. If not for his mastery over the element of earth, he too would be buried in this mass grave. Turning from the devastating sight, he limped away.

Chapter Twenty-Two

    The ruins of Meán Oíche were easy to miss. The hedges lining the winding roads formed a wall of foliage higher than the roof of her car. The break in the brush for the access road was hardly wide enough to drive through, as her scraped-up paint job attested to. London left her car in the shadow of the tower.
    Her blazer was a bit much in the heat of the day, but she wasn’t going in without her gun holstered under her arm. Maybe it was the curse that made her feel more vulnerable than usual, or maybe the ease with which Rico had disarmed her that had her questioning her luck-to-skill ratio. The fey were not human and she couldn’t anticipate them the way she could humans and parahumans. In this line of work, what you didn’t anticipate could get you killed. The curse was a case in point.
    London glanced up at the arrow slits and caught the glowing glint of eyes before they blinked away. The Ghille Dhu inhabited the ruins, if they could be called ruins. She’d seen a flicker of what was hidden by the Glamour. Beneath the disguising layer of magic, the opulent décor would overshadow the collections in Buckingham Palace. London knocked on the open wooden door that appeared to hang on rusted hinges, aware that nearly everything in this place was an illusion.
    “Bain?” She called out into the gloom. They were not skimping on the Glamour this time. Not a careless flicker of the magic gave away the true appearance. It put her on edge. Last time she’d been here, they hadn’t closed her out so completely. “Bain Greim? You remember me, don’t you?”
    The prince of the Ghille Dhu had entertained himself with his bratty antics last time she visited the tower. This eerie silence crept over her nerves as threateningly as a dog’s growl. “Come on, Bain. I know you’re here.”
    The scuttling sound of claws and scales against stone came from above. London searched the shadows overhead. As the creature hung upside down from the rafters, its huge eyes glistened wetly. Humanoid in basic anatomy, the thing was skeletal thin. Arms and legs half again as long as a human’s and oddly jointed so the knees and elbows angled backward like a mosquito. The flesh, as best as she could make it out, was a nearly black green. The ears pointed a full hand span above the top of its bald head. The rows of teeth it bore in its gaping mouth were needle sharp and inches long.
    Show… No… Fear…
    London drew her gun. Two-handing the grip she aimed it at the creature. “I brought gold,” she told it, voice steady. Precious metal loosened his tongue before, but this time Bain didn’t even blink at the mention of it. Bain used Glamour to appear human before. This time, not so much. More like the fey equivalent of “get the hell out… or I’ll eat you.”
    The creature made a slurping noise as if he was salivating. It blinked those huge, snow globe eyes at her. With a tilt of its head, London knew it was planning to attack.
    The thunder of her gunshot shattered the silence. Too late. Bain blinked out, teleporting away.
    Where he went was no mystery. The impact between her shoulders sent London sprawling. Her elbows suffered the brunt