“Are they as delicate as they look?” she asked.

I almost smiled, and then didn’t feel like finishing it. “No, Detective, they aren’t. They’re much stronger than they look, and incredibly fast.”

“So we aren’t looking for a human?”

“I didn’t say that. I said that physically humans couldn’t do this, but there is some magic that might help them do it.”

“What kind of magic?”

“I don’t have a spell in mind. I’m not human. I don’t need spells to use against other fey, but I know there are stories of magic that can make us weak, catchable, and hurtable.”

“Yeah, aren’t these kind of fey supposed to be immortal?”

I stared down at the tiny lifeless bodies. Once the answer would have simply been yes, but I’d learned from some of the lesser fey at the Unseelie Court that some of them had died falling down stairs, and other mundane causes. Their immortality wasn’t what it used to be, but we had not publicized that to the humans. One of the things that kept us safe was that the humans thought they couldn’t hurt us easily. Had some human learned the truth and exploited it? Was the mortality among the lesser fey getting worse? Or had they been immortal and magic had stolen it away?

“Merry, you in there?”

I nodded and looked at her, glad to look away from the bodies. “Sorry, I just never get used to seeing this kind of thing.”

“Oh, you get used to it,” she said, “but I hope you don’t see enough dead bodies to be that jaded.” She sighed, as if she wished she wasn’t that jaded either.

“You asked me if the demi-fey are immortal, and the answer is yes.” It was all I could say to her until I found out if the mortality of the fey was spreading. So far it had only been a few cases inside faerie.

“Then how did the killer do this?”

I’d only seen one other demi-fey killed by a blade that wasn’t cold iron. A noble of the Unseelie Court had wielded that one.