While I hadn’t been to my apartment in a month, it was still mine. Grace wasn’t going to let me out of my sublet early.

We returned to the building and climbed the stairs. I went to unlock my deadbolt and—

My key wouldn’t turn. I jiggled it, took it out, and then put it back in. After another try, I handed Gabriel the key.

He tried with the same result.

“Grace changed my locks?” I said. “Seriously?”

“At the very least, I’ll threaten to sue her. Which doesn’t help us at this moment.”

He handed back my key and took picks from his inside pocket. When he fiddled with the locks for longer than ten seconds, I knew there was a problem.

“Fae locked,” I said.

He arched his brow.

“No,” I said, “I’ve never heard of such a thing, either, but if you can’t open it, there must be a supernatural explanation.”

He tried again, but it was obvious from his expression he was making no progress.

“Okay, now I’m curious.” I looked along the hall and then pointed to the door next to mine. “That one’s definitely unoccupied.”

I suspected most of the apartments were empty, having never caught more than whispers in the hall.

I tried the handle of the neighboring door. Locked. No deadbolt, though, which should make it easy to open, but once again Gabriel’s picks failed to work their mojo.

“Fae locked,” I said. “Another apartment mystery we need to investigate.”

A couple of months earlier, Ricky had opened a door on the first floor, looking for TC, and gotten a blast of arctic air. When Grace caught him, though, the door had been locked. We hadn’t had a chance to check it out since—Grace kept it guarded, and I wasn’t of a mind to piss her off.

“We can either go talk to Ida or shower at your place,” I said.

Gabriel studied the door, and I could tell he wasn’t really listening, too intent on this challenge. He tried his picks again. As he was positioning them, he gripped the knob and…

The door creaked open.

I laughed under my breath. “How does one open a fae-locked door? With a fae-blood hand. Seems you’ve got the touch after all. We’ll see if that works with my apartment, but first, I’m curious about what’s in this one.”

I slipped through into a pitch-black hall. I could see the apartment beyond, furnished as mine had been.

The blinds were pulled, and as soon as Gabriel closed the door behind us, the apartment went dark. He reopened the door enough to find the light switch. He flicked it. Nothing happened.

A thump sounded in the hall…and the door slammed shut…without Gabriel touching it.

“Okay,” I said as I looked around the darkness. “I think that’s a sign to get out now.”