Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City Read Online Free Page A

head, setting long dark curls bouncing. They gleamed red under the light of the massive chandeliers. Now that I knew who she was, I could see the resemblance to her brothers in the dimples and the smile. The dark hair was her own, though—both her brothers being blond—and the angled grayish green eyes made her face more exotic than either of theirs.
    “No, I wanted to meet you.”
    Definitely trouble
. I fought the urge to move backward. Retreat would be futile with the bar at my back anyway. “Why?”
    “Because everyone else in my family has.”
    “Not everyone,” I said. “I haven’t met your sister . . . Hannah, isn’t it? Or your mother, other than in the receiving line earlier.” I hoped it would stay that way. Mothers didn’t approve of me. I didn’t resent them for it. After all, I rarely approved of me either.
    “Well, now you’ve met one more of us.” She took another sip of her champagne and studied me over the rim of the flute. “You look concerned.”
    “Did I mention I know your brothers?”
    “So?”
    “I’m not the sort of man your brothers want you talking to.”
    That got me a dimple flash and another nose wrinkle. “My brothers don’t tell me what to do.” Her head tilted and her smile widened. “Or rather, they try to, but I ignore them.”
    I ignored my desire to smile back at her. No good could come of it. “Really?” Not many people found Simon and Guy ignorable. “How do they like that?”
    “Not very well. They seem to think I’m still sixteen.”
    “How old are you?” She obviously wasn’t sixteen or she wouldn’t be at the ball. It wasn’t a debutante sort of affair.
    “I’m twenty-three.” She shook her head. “If they had their way, I’d still live at home. Hypocrites, both of them. They were both Templar novices at seventeen.”
    “It’s different for boys.”
    “You sound like my mother.”
    “Sometimes mothers make sense,” I said, more because it seemed the right thing to say than because it was anything I believed. What did I know of mothers? Mine was hardly a stellar example of maternity, but Saskia didn’t need to know that. Better she thought me boring and left me alone and I didn’t find myself being hunted down by Simon and Guy.
    I looked past Saskia to see if I could spot Holly. She was still standing where she had been earlier and she raised an eyebrow at me as I caught her eye. I lifted my hand to wave at her, our long-standing “come save me” signal.
    The movement made my coat sleeve fall back and for a moment my chain flashed into view.
    Saskia’s smile died. “Why do you have an iron chain around your wrist?”
    I smoothed my sleeve, hiding the chain from her sight. “How do you know it’s iron?”
    “I can tell.”
    “From one look?” I doubted it. It was only a glimpse, after all, and one dark metal chain looked much like another.
    “I’m a metalmage . . . an apprentice, at least. It’s iron.” She looked confused. “But you’re half Fae, aren’t you? Like Holly? That must hurt.”
    I’d known that, somewhere in the back of my mind. Holly must have told me. I tried to reconcile the young woman in front of me with my mental image of metalmages—which consisted largely of forges and flames and grime. It didn’t work. “Some of us aren’t affected by iron. Like Holly.”
    “Holly’s immunity is pretty rare. Are you saying you have it too?” It was her turn to sound disbelieving.
    The lie stuck on the tip of my tongue, caught there, perhaps, by the pain in my wrist where the chain bit. Luckily I was saved from answering by Holly’s arrival.
    She looked from me to Saskia and back, eyes narrowing as they met mine. I kept my face carefully bland. After all, I was innocent in this particular situation. Saskia had sought me out, not the other way around.
    “I see you two have met,” Holly said.
    Saskia nodded. “Fen was just telling me how the iron around his wrist doesn’t hurt him.”
    Holly’s eyes