by M. A. Grant
“No, Mother,” I call back softly. “But all shall be well regardless.”
Protecting Smith is worth any cost. Eventually the pain will fade and he’ll be safe, even from me.
Until they find him. Until they realize he’s broken the spell...
I struggle against the thought that disrupts this memory, but it’s too late. The darkness floods back and takes me under.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Phineas
Sue and Herman follow me out of the car and down the street. Sue continues her pleas, despite my staunch refusal to listen. “Finny, we shouldn’t be doing this. Let the Pantheons handle it. They’ve opened an investigation. They’ll find him.”
The sun has nearly crept below the horizon. Overhead, the streetlights flicker, their halogen buzz nestling gently into the white noise inside my head.
“It’ll take too long,” I argue. “You know how much red tape they’ll face. We need to find Roark now and the ley line can help me.”
“You don’t know that! Search spells require finesse and delicacy, which the ley line has never been able to do. Besides, you look like you’re about to combust.”
She has a point. The air around me shimmers, but I’m not putting off any heat. The ley line and I are in sync for the first time and its strength pours into me. I wish Sue and Herman could understand how it feels. How invincible I’ve become. Nothing can stop me. Nothing will stop me from getting Roark back.
“It’s been almost twelve hours,” I remind them.
Where Sue’s been arguing about the safety and thought behind my actions, Herman’s focused on the logistical problems.
“How are you going to find him?” he asks again. “Which spell are you going to use?”
I couldn’t answer him in the car and I still can’t answer him now, although the way the ley line starts vibrating as I hurry toward the spot where Roark was taken seems proof enough that at least it has a plan. I’m okay with winging it. Like Roark said, I’m shit with spells. This is all about instinct.
The ground is scuffed. I give the ley line some room and it pushes out of me, scouring the area. So much in that tiny space. The grass stretching up out of the dirt. The seeds lying dormant in their cases, scattered here and there. Insects, worms, creatures stirring above and below. Everything, everything at my fingertips—
Him.
Three dark speckles in the dust. Roark’s blood. Probably from the blow to his head. He was injured. I press my fingertips to them and the ley line bays like a hound, flinging itself forward. It wants me to let it loose. It wants to hunt and chase and find Roark. It wants to rub against his glamour because nothing else in the world feels as good, and it wants me to be happy. All it’s ever wanted is for me to be happy.
“I can find him,” I whisper to no one in particular.
The ley line hums its agreement. We’ll find him. Bring him home. Protect him.
I glance over my shoulder as I stand. “I’ll call when we’re safe.”
Herman reaches out, confused. “How are you going to—?”
I close my eyes and give the command the ley line’s been waiting for. “Take me to him.”
That immeasurable void. Speed and heat. Rivers and streams and creeks of energy crisscrossing the earth. Pathways lighting up like fireworks.
Roark. Focus on Roark.
Tell me what he is, the ley line whispers. So many places to look.
It hurts to answer. I piece together fragments. Cold and heather and fresh—
I stumble and nearly fall on my face. Wind cuts at my back and thick gorse tangles at my feet. A slow turn confirms my suspicion.
Nothing but sky around me. The valley below is hidden by a blanket of dense clouds skating over the dark fields. Craggy rock juts this way and that on the meandering path to the peak. I glance up and am met with a multitude of stars sparkling and blinking in an inky blackness.
“Why am I on top of a mountain?” I complain.
There’s no sign of Roark. A momentary lull in the wind sends the fragrance of freshly crushed plants up. It’s almost perfect, only missing that heady note I’ve only ever smelled when my face is pressed to his skin. The pieces are right, but the combination isn’t.
The ley line nudges my hand. Try again.
“Okay,” I mutter.
Roark. Roark. Roark is...
Feathers and bright eyes and wildness—
“Son of a bitch!” I howl when my nose slams into a tree branch.
I flail for balance, blinking away blinding tears of pain. Huge trees loom around me, weighted with heavy branches, silent sentinels keeping watch while the moon rises and dapples the forest floor with its light. Overhead, a shrill call cuts through the silence.
I try to rub the pain away. “Ravens. I had to think of ravens.”
This time, I’m faster than the ley line, already trying to organize my thoughts into something coherent.
When I’m dunked back into that current and feel myself breaking apart, I don’t go with the first things that pop into my head. Instead of focusing on a tiny piece of who Roark is, I focus on his glamour, on the low, sweet pull when it brushed against me, when I could finally see its weave and knew that there was something hidden beyond it. I nudge that toward the ley line, along with all the memories of his skin and his eyes and his hair and his smile and those quiet moments alone in our rooms when there was nothing between us but air—
The overwhelming rush eases and the blazing golden energy that had been hurtling past me slows.
Oh, you want him, the ley line says.
Yes. I want him.
Here.
The room drowns in shadow, except for the tiny pool of light in the center, which I find myself standing in. The acrid bite of rust and fouler things is accented with the sickly sweet odor of drying blood. My nose still throbs from my last mistake and now my eyes burn from the harsh light. But as the blinding spots fade, I make out the slumped form in the chair before me.
“Roark?” I whisper.
He can’t be alive. There’s too much black blood, too much angry, blistered skin showing under the ripped and shredded fabric of his clothes, too many links of chain wound round him. An unblemished palm lies facing up on the arm of the chair, its whiteness a horrifying contrast to everything else.
He shudders and his head lists back. One eye opens, a glassy chip in the midst of the matted hair and clotting cuts. The ley line settles back in me, murmuring over and over, Ours.
“Roark,” I say again, because there’s nothing else to say.
He laughs.
“Dammit, Roark!”
Locks are clipped in place throughout the lengths of chain. Livid red marks—raw burns—glow over his pale skin where the iron touches him. He hisses every time I jostle them in my futile attempts to get him free, which only makes my hands shake more.
It isn’t until I try to shift the length of chain biting into his neck that I’m close enough to hear what he’s whispering over and over.
“You’re not real...not real...”
My hand clamps around the back of his neck, my fingers buried in his hair. It’s wet. Sweat. Blood. I’m not sure.
I drag him forward until our foreheads butt against each other, hating that I’m probably hurting him where his skin’s bruised and cut open. But I keep him there, pressed against my skin until he’s forced to open his eyes and look at me.
“I. Am. Real,” I growl, emphasizing each word by tightening my grip.
“Can’t be,” he gasps.
I kiss him, pushing a trace of the ley line into that contact. His breath catches and when I pull back, tears slip down his cheeks, cutting pale purple lines along their way.
“I’m real,” I repeat. “I found you. And we’re leaving now. Understand?”
The nod’s too loose, like his neck can’t support his head any longer. I pull my hand away and peer over his shoulder. A mass of chains awaits.
There isn’t time to search for
a key or a tool to help me get these off him. I don’t know where his captors are, but I doubt they’ll leave him alone for long.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
Again, a nod that makes my stomach flip from its weakness.
I kneel at the back of his chair and take a tight grip on the largest cluster of chains. I press them together between my hands and close my eyes. The cable of power deep in the earth waits patiently for me. I reach out and snag a tendril of it.
In my head, I weave the flaming wire around the links of Roark’s chains. In and out, in and out, over and over until the iron glows with power.
“Finn?”
Damn, I’ve never heard his voice so reedy. My gut churns and I swallow down bile when I notice I’m kneeling beside a puddle of blood.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, refocusing on the chains. A deep breath and I tug on the ley line. It’s more than happy to oblige.
Pure, clean fire licks up through my design, hottest where my hands press the chains against each other. The metal begins to glow, a soft reddening that gains strength.
Roark makes a pained moan as the iron heats. Something in my chest cracks in response and the ley line reacts, pushing a wave of living fire into me, into my hands, trying to help me so his pain stops faster.
The chain links melt, transform to a bright white, vaporizing where I touch them, even as the other links nearer to his flesh stop heating. Cutting off the ley line’s power is harder than I’d expected, like running a sprint and trying not to act winded afterward. The remaining lengths clink with the music of surrender as they drop from Roark to the ground.
His head tips back and his lips part in a silent groan.
I stand and reach for him. “Come on.”
He doesn’t fight me when I tuck his arm over my shoulders and try to get him to stand. Instead, he slips bonelessly in my grasp. The shift of his weight leaves me clutching for a better hold. Eventually, I keep his arm over my shoulder with my right hand and pin his hip against mine with my left arm wrapped around his waist. We’re almost to the door when he comes to enough to try to help me.
Years of mandatory first aid ricochet around my head. He’s in pain. He’s probably lost blood. Shouldn’t I be worried about shock?
The ley line keeps pressing against his glamour, but Roark doesn’t reach back. If anything, his glamour flickers in and out like static. It’s too weak, a flimsy soap bubble instead of the armor I’m so used to. Even Roark can run out of magick, but if he’s disconnected from Mab and she can’t adjust for that flux of power...
I tighten my grip on his waist. “How many were there?” I ask, hoping it will keep him awake.
His head lolls as I try the door. “Three.”
It’s locked. A moment later, I lift my hand from the molten metal. It gives and I push the door open, wincing when it creaks loudly through the cavernous silence of this building. Outside Roark’s tiny room, the halls are better-lit, industrial construction lights strung so the walkways are easier to navigate.
I pitch my voice lower, my lips brushing his ear as I ask, “How long have they been gone?”
He gives a raspy chuckle. “Not sure.”
“They left you here like this?”
His good eye—the one that isn’t swollen shut—opens and takes me in with dark amusement. “The torture was supposed to last longer than this.”
“They tortured you?”
“Yes.”
Each step becomes a careful shuffle forward, an attempt to stay quiet even as I push the ley line out farther, searching for his kidnappers or an exit or anything that could help us. “Why would they do that?”
He doesn’t answer the question. Instead, his knees go out. I struggle for a moment before giving up and lifting him into my arms. He slumps against me, lips moving, but his words too soft for me to make out.
“What, Roark?”
“Finn... Your oak tree... If there’s room under it...”
I grit my teeth. “I’m not burying you on my family’s farm because you’re not dying.”
He coughs and ashen foam speckles his lips. “I’m the Prince of Air and Darkness. Don’t do well with iron.”
“Then we’ll get you back to the sídhe. Your mom could heal you, right?”
“Sealed.” He hisses when I trip over something and accidentally tighten my arms around him. “No way in.”
“I’ll find a way.”
“Finn—”
“Stop. You don’t get to die until after I chew you out for acting like a pompous ass.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’d better be,” I mutter. “Better start thinking how you can make it up to me.”
He only manages a half laugh before his head drops against my collarbone. If I couldn’t feel the shallow breaths he keeps taking, I’d be too terrified to check whether he was still with me.
Ahead, the scouting ley line flares in warning and retreats back to me. I slow my pace, then stop entirely to wait. When they turn down the hall, I’m ready.
All three of them are there. No ski masks this time. They remind me a little of the slightly monstrous Unseelie, but even rougher, more unrefined, and with far more human features mixed in. They’re a motley assortment, two of them taller, while a third, far shorter, cowers toward the back. Their clothes are worn, threadbare in spots. They all freeze when they catch sight of me.
For a second, I consider giving them a chance to beg for mercy or explain why they did this. For a second, I try to think like Roark and figure out how to keep them alive so Queen Mab can interrogate them and learn who is after her son and how we can better protect him.
But then I see their leather gloves. The blackened iron knuckles they clutch. The delicate lengths of chain coiled at their sides. The meat hooks slid into fabric belts strapped over their chests.
And everything becomes far, far too easy. I smile and before they can even take another breath, I open myself and let the ley line explode down the hallway, directing its course to them alone.
By the time it returns to me and curls protectively around Roark’s unconscious form, there’s no threat left. I walk down the hall. They still stand there at the end, their sightless eyes trapped on the space where I had been standing, their chests frozen in paroxysms of shocked breath. I stop in front of the ringleader.
His face is caught in a twisted snarl and his hand rests on the hilt of a short knife in his belt. He’s as tall as me, our noses nearly even. I blow on his face and he crumbles. His movement stirs the air and the other two disintegrate as well, their ashes hissing softly as they settle into piles that slide over the floor.
I step through their remains and down the hall they came from. It opens into a wider workshop. Moonlight fractures through the few remaining windowpanes and the holes where the roof has caved in. No doors here, just a large bay too buried in debris to open.
I set Roark awkwardly on one of the worktables. His skin’s pallid and clammy, his breathing labored, and no matter how many times I whisper his name, he doesn’t stir.
I have to get him back to the sídhe. I may have plenty of power I can feed him so he can heal faster, but unless I know what I’m supposed to heal, I’m afraid I’ll do more harm than good. I need Mab’s direction.
But he said the way was sealed.
We can find it, the ley line promises.
“Can you take him, too?” I ask while I gather Roark back into my arms.
He’s ours.
There isn’t another option.
Convinced I have the best grip possible on him, I close my eyes and try to center myself. With this new weight, it’s harder. I’m off balance. I’m distracted with worry. Slowly, with painstaking focus, I push the fears and doubts aside and focus on what matters. Roark is here and he’s still alive and I’ll get him home so he can heal and I can have him back.
His home. The sídhe. I don’t remember it well enough, except for the torture room. But there is one thing there I’ll ne
ver escape.
Mab... Unearthly beauty and power and desire and fury. The Queen of Air and Darkness. The creature who haunts my nightmares. The artist who carved Roark into the man I love so desperately.
Ready? the ley line asks.
The world lurches and that glittering web is before my eyes again. I step forward toward the first river and prepare to fall apart, but Roark’s weight tethers my mind and keeps me whole. Reminds me what I’m looking for.
Mab. I need to find Mab.
I let memories of her swamp me. It doesn’t take much. As we pass, whispers and dancing and twirling points of energy rise and fall. Mab is something else. A timeless entity. The ley line knows where those hide. It buoys along until we’re stopped by a veil, a thin, sticky web. Beyond it, I sense a pulsing energy so strong it sets my teeth on edge. It’s cold and familiar and I know she’s right there. The ley line can’t force us through that thin barrier, but maybe, if I try, I could. I reach out a hand and push—
—only to stumble to my knees, nearly losing my grip on Roark, as I land in the center of what has to be the Unseelie throne room, right in front of the queen.
For a moment, I think the ley line must have paused time. There’s not a sound. The milling crowd around us goes stiller than a statuary.
And then everything speeds back up. The fae explode into a frenzy of movement and noise. Mab raises her hand, snarling as she throws a hex toward me. To my left, a redcap guard rushes in, halberd extended.
I hunch my shoulders in a vain attempt to protect Roark, and the ley line explodes around us protectively.
Mab braces herself, hex forgotten. Her dress, a heavy silver tapestry, flutters behind her like mercury.
The redcap is swallowed by a searing white heat radiating outward from behind his ribs. His corpse stands there like the three kidnappers’ did, a pillar of ash. The only telltale sign of his death is the fine trickle of dust spilling from the gaping hole that once made up his chest.
