Court of Dreams (Institute of the Shadow Fae Book 4)

by C. N. Crawford

  His hand stroked down my back, and he leaned in for another kiss.

  I felt as if the mossy earth were reaching up to keep me here with soft forest hands. Was this place enchanted, or was I overcome by the seductive magic of being with Ruadan?

  In either case, Ruadan broke the spell by pulling away. “We have to get back to London.”

  I knew what he meant without him spelling it out. By this point, the Shadow Fae could be dead.

  I sighed and sat up, frustrated to find that my only viable piece of clothing had been ripped in two. “I don’t suppose there are any stray nymphs around here we could steal clothing from? I’d rather not reunite with my long-lost family with my fanny on display.”

  He rose. “So particular. I may have to rethink our marriage plans if you’re that high-maintenance about everything.”

  The smile on his lips stopped me from throwing a clump of moss at him.

  “I’ll be back in a minute with some clothes for you,” he said. “And while I’m off, we need to figure out how to discreetly approach the church. We know that the demons are waiting for us there. As soon as we return, they’ll try to rip us apart again. If we portal in, they could be waiting for us with swords before we even breach the surface. We need to enter discretely. Then, we have to get past the shadow demons and break through the bonds of shadow magic to get to your father without anyone knowing, in the broad daylight.”

  “You make it sound hard or something.” I stood, slipping into my underwear. I’d wear a stolen dress, but stolen knickers were a bridge too far.

  I closed my eyes, envisioning the layout of Smithfield Square. Any portal we opened nearby would be an obvious red flag. We might as well arrive with flashing lights, screaming Hey demons! Come rip our wings off again! Fresh World Key skin for you!

  Unless there were something else for them to focus on….

  I bit my lip. In the daylight, everything was a million times harder. There were a few shadows cast by the buildings and trees, but we’d have to be fast as lightning if we wanted to go undetected. I’d had a hard time finding the shadows in the chaos earlier. That meant knowing exactly where to jump ahead of time, with no time for scanning the horizon.

  I chewed my lip, trying to visualize Smithfield Square. I was pretty sure there was concrete on one side, like a building of some kind….

  The crunching of leaves pulled me away from my thoughts, and I looked up to find Ruadan crossing toward me with a black dress in his hand.

  “You didn’t have to kill anyone, did you?” I stood, pulling it from his hand.

  “No,” he shrugged, still glowing wildly. “I’m an incubus. It’s not that hard to charm a dress off a nymph.”

  I glared at him.

  “What?” he said. “I got you the dress you asked for.”

  “Fine.” I pulled it over my head. “I had some thoughts about our plan. We need to create a distraction while one of us shadow-leaps over to the doors undetected and breaks through the shadow magic.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “That’s what I was thinking. I’ll draw their attention toward me, and I can teach you how to break the bonds of shadow magic.”

  I crossed my arms. “How can you be the distraction? You’re the one they want. They’ll just surround you and Neanderthal Barry will rip you to shreds with iron spikes again.”

  “Again? That never happened.”

  “It nearly happened. The point stands. You’re the target. They’ll come right for you.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t look like me.”

  “How? Neither of us have powers of glamour.”

  “With enough concentration and my newly recharged magic, there’s one form I can take. At least for a few minutes, long enough to create a distraction that will terrify all of them.”

  I frowned. “What would terrify Baleros? He can’t die. He just keeps coming back like a plague of locusts.”

  “With enough power, I can take on the form of my grandfather. Baleros won’t know why Nyxobas has arrived, but a god showing up on your doorstep is never a welcome sight. No one tries to kill a god. You just have to move quickly, because I won’t be able to hold his form forever.”

  “Okay. So we open up a portal at a safe distance, probably in a nearby building where they can’t see us. You come out into Smithfield Square, you do your terrifying god thing. Meanwhile, I shadow-leap toward the church as fast as I can, and hopefully no one is looking at me because they’re all focused on the terrifying god of the void.”

  “You have the lumen stone, so you’ll be able to whisk through completely undetected. You have the shadow route mapped out in your mind, right?” he asked. “Because you won’t have time to pause and scan for them.”

  I blinked. “Shadow route?”

  “Where all the shadows would be falling at the time we arrive.”

  “I … was there a tree?”

  He stared at me, probably trying to ascertain if I was joking.

  “I know there was a building of some kind,” I added. “Probably several. Look, I was in the middle of being beaten to death by demons, so I failed to stand around memorizing shadow placements for possible future use. My mistake.”

  “Okay. We’ll work on that. I’ll open a portal into a building on Cock Lane.”

  I smirked at that, then hoped Ruadan hadn’t seen the twitch of my lips. A thousand-year-old fae prince probably didn’t titter at the word “cock.”

  “Do you know the Golden Boy of Pye Corner?”

  I opened one of my eyes. “Is this a nursery rhyme?”

  “There’s a statue on the corner of that building—a chubby little boy made of gold that the humans stuck there because they foolishly believed the great fire of 1666 was a punishment for gluttony and not the result of one of Emerazel’s temper tantrums. Close your eyes.”

  I did as he said. He touched my temple, and the image of the golden boy statue blazed in my mind. Now, I could remember seeing it. I could picture the whole street corner—the brick and stone and the fat golden statue. “Okay. I’ve got it now.”

  “We’ll open the door of that corner building, below the statue. The sun will be casting shadows on the left side of Giltspur Street. From there, you’ll shadow-leap toward the square.”

  With his hand on my temple, he talked me through each shadow—each tree, every dark corner beside the ancient hospital, and the shadows cast by the tombs in the churchyard.

  Now, I had a clear shadow route in my mind, and I’d be able to traverse it almost instantly.

  I opened my eyes. “And once I get to the church door? How do I break through the shadow magic?”

  “You need to use the power of a god and meld with the magic.”

  “Good. Okay. How do I use the power of a god?”

  He slid a silver ring off his pinky and slipped it onto my finger. As soon as he did, his magic spilled into me. I shivered at the intimate feel of a god’s power in my body.

  “My magic is imbued in this ring. Freshly charged, linked to Nyxobas. He’s the one who created the barrier on the church. I could feel it. When you get to the shield, you have to meld with the magic there. You’ll slip into the void for just a moment as you do. Make sure you stay grounded. Focus on your feet.”

  “On my feet?”

  He nodded. “Focus on their connection to the ground. It will keep you in our world. It should only take a moment. A fraction of an instant. Envision the barrier breaking apart.”

  Even with Ruadan’s soothing magic billowing around me and racing through my body, my shoulders were growing tenser. Everything hinged on what happened after we opened that door into Smithfield.

  Everything.

  And the truth was, I had no idea what I’d find once I opened those church doors. I’d been imagining throwing the doors open to find my father locked in a cage. I imagined that he needed us to simply free him, and he’d burst forth from the church and save us all.

  But who the hells knew what we were real
ly up against? What if it was more than Nyxobas’s magic trapping Adonis in the church? Gruesome, disturbing possibilities were spiraling through my mind.

  Ruadan brushed a strand of my lavender hair out of my eyes. “What are you thinking, love?”

  That we’ve been pursuing my dad this whole time, and what if he’s not the answer we’ve been hoping for?

  I filled my lungs with the forest air. “That I will rip the throat out of anyone who tries to hurt you. Anyone.” I blew out a long breath. “Also, that I’ve sobered up, and I’m all out of whiskey.”

  “You don’t need it.”

  “Except, without it, I might kill everyone if I have to let the death angel out.”

  “You won’t.”

  “That’s sweet.” I pulled him toward me in a hug, and I murmured into his chest, “But you just think that because you’re blinded by love.” I twisted his magic-imbued ring around my thumb. “Since you agreed to marry me, I’ll just consider this our engagement ring.”

  He leaned down and picked a dandelion from behind me. “No, I’ll make one.”

  “A wreath of wildflowers. Of course.” I plucked it from his hand, then twirled the dandelion stem between my fingertips. I brushed the soft yellow tip against his nose. “Give it to me once we’ve chained Baleros in iron.”

  Chapter 31

  Dripping with icy portal water, we stood in an old stone building at one of the corners near Smithfield. The gods’ magic from the ring electrified me.

  Ruadan looked back at me. “I’m going to cloak myself in the form of the night god now. In his true form, Nyxobas has a dizzying effect on people. Like vertigo. You might want to avert your eyes. I’ll stride into the square, and then you need to leap into the shadow route directly after me. Do you remember it?”

  “Yes. I remember it exactly.”

  “Good. Look away as I transform.”

  I stared at the floor as the temperature plummeted in the room, and tendrils of shimmering dark magic snaked in whorls and eddies around us. He’d told me not to look, but I stole a quick glance at the form before me—a black cloak, perfect features pale as moonlight, hair coal-black, eyes gleaming with silver. Shivers rippled over my body, and I was overcome by a disturbing sense of trespassing. The real face of Nyxobas was something I was never meant to see. Looking directly at him was a violation of a kind—and a strangely addictive one.

  Ruadan was right—I did feel as if I were standing at the edge of a cliff, and that I wanted to throw myself over the edge, to lose myself in a vast nothingness. I forced myself to tear my eyes away from him, and he swept out the door.

  Now, Liora.

  It was time. Everything hinged on the next few minutes, and my pulse raced out of control.

  I resisted the urge to stare at Nyxobas’s strange, star-cloaked beauty again, and I stared at the shadow across the street—my target.

  My pulse roared in my ears. Cold shadow magic whispered through my blood, made more powerful by the ring Ruadan had given me. I mentally melded with the shadow by the old hospital walls, and I leapt.

  From there, I was already on to my next target—a shadow beside a tree within the square—then the next—the darkness at the exact spot where the Scottish rebel William Wallace had been eviscerated nearly a thousand years ago. I refused to let myself look at Ruadan, but I was vaguely aware that shadow demons were literally crawling from their hiding spots, prostrating themselves before their god.

  With the demons’ attention occupied, I leapt to the gate before the church, peering through the hole to the churchyard. Then, my final leap—to the shadows in the arched doorway of the ancient church. My heart was a wild beast as I made the final leap to the church door, where shadow magic glistened in dark waves. I stepped into the barrier, melding with it—just as Ruadan had told me to.

  And just as he’d said, vertigo dizzied me. For a moment, I felt myself plummeting into the depths of the void.

  Questions spiraled in my mind. Was I really here at all, a superhero with a stunningly hot lover? A girl who thought she was destined to save the world? Was that actually realistic—or was it more likely that I’d gone mad on the dirt floor of Baleros’s cage after all his mind games?

  It was obvious now. I’d imagined it all.

  When Baleros had locked me in the dark iron box, I lived a million fantasy lives. This was just one of them.

  How stupid to think I’d ever leave the iron box. And Ruadan was so perfect, the only explanation was that I’d dreamt him up. I was here again, trapped in an iron box. I’d be here forever.

  Now that the fantasy world had been ripped away from me, the weight of my grief was so crushing I could hardly move. I was frozen, unable to move a finger or a toe.

  There had been no Ruadan, no Institute, no special powers, no love, no mission to save the world. I could see nothing now except the inside of the iron box, and it burned my skin. I was here always and forever, Baleros’s discarded toy.

  I felt my soul ripping in two.

  No. No. No.

  It had to be real—I had to be real. Focus on my feet. My aching feet in the stupid high heels that came from the satyr and his stupid giant dick—

  My consciousness ripped back out of the void, and I was standing in the church entryway again, certain that almost no time had passed at all. Just a hummingbird heartbeat. Merged with the shadow magic, I envisioned the shield shattering—and it did, like dark glass around me.

  Gods below. That had nearly been a completely disaster.

  Dangerous to give such a damaged person this much power. And that was the problem with me, wasn’t it?

  Still, I had to press on right now, before Ruadan lost the ability to cloak himself. I could hardly breathe as I touched the door handle. I turned the knob, and the door swung open into darkness.

  I breathed in the scent of myrrh, my legs shaking wildly, knees weak. “Dad?”

  Candles alit in their sconces and torches burst with golden light, illuminating the vaulted stone ceilings, the peaked arches and columns around the church. A trumpet song—a dirge—rang out, and my blood froze. Somehow I knew it heralded death. Then, the clopping of hooves echoed off the ceiling.

  On his ashen horse, Adonis rode into the nave. Wings spread out, he loomed over this place of worship like a god. I stared into his pale eyes, flecked with gold, and his cold power hit me like a fist. His midnight wings swooped majestically behind him, the feathers shot through with silver, just as I remembered them.

  I wanted so badly for him to call me “Bug,” but this wasn’t right.

  I couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t the father I expected. This wasn’t the man who’d held me in his lap and told me stories about birds who were bullied by larger birds and then made friends with kittens. This was not the man who’d wiped my runny nose or brought me water in the night. Not the man who’d stroked my hair and told me that monsters weren’t real, even though he knew better than anyone what a lie that was.

  No, this was Thanatos. This was my father as the Horseman. He rode his ashen horse into battle—his companion in the end of the world.

  A powerful ally…. One that you know well.

  It wasn’t Nyxobas. My father was Baleros’s ally.

  I stared at the Horseman of Death. I knew just by looking at him, by the cold look in his eyes, that my father’s seal had broken open. His curse had been released, the real Adonis lost forever.

  I felt my heart breaking right there, and I wasn’t sure it would ever heal.

  Thick, red blood began streaming down the ancient flagstones beneath the horse’s hooves.

  Before me stood an ashen horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hell followed close behind him.

  The wavering light gilded his coldly beautiful features, glinting in his eyes. He looked familiar and alien at the same time, and the contemptuous look on his face stopped me where I stood. A powerful sword hung at his waist, and he unsheathed it, hardly looking at me.

  Sword in hand, he looked s
traight ahead, staring out the church doors. My heart felt like it was about to burst.

  “Dad?”

  My first thought was that this couldn’t be him. My dad wouldn’t just ignore me like this. But I could feel the death magic spiraling off him, and I could smell the myrrh. And worse, I could see the dark magic writhing around his throat—just over the necklace of red rose petals encased in amber that he always wore.

  I wanted to throw up. The curse had overtaken him—the seal had opened, and the Horseman of Death had arrived. And he didn’t even seem to know me.

  Cora’s words returned to me: the prophecy of the gods. I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who rode it had the name Death; and Hell followed him.

  As I stared at him, the monster inside me ached for release. My wings were ready to burst forth from my shoulder blades. He was here to kill, and I had the strongest urge to join him—to just give in to what I really was and to level the whole city.

  I gritted my teeth, and I focused again on my feet on the ground, trying to root myself in the reality of the situation. If the seal of Death had been opened, and if his curse had taken hold, was there actually any hope at all?

  To my horror, I smelled something else in the ancient church, something besides the dark myrrh of my father. The sickly-sweet scent of roses. Baleros had been here. Baleros and the Horseman, working together.

  “Dad?” I called out more desperately, hoping this time to get through to him. “Why are you here?”

  He looked at me but didn’t quite seem to see me, and he slowly guided his horse past me over the worn church flagstones. “Authority was given to me.” His voice boomed off the ancient stone vaults. “To kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

  A sob caught in my throat. This was not the reunion I’d been hoping for. What the hells was I supposed to do now? Our entire plan had hinged on finding my father, and finding him sane.

  My pulse thundered through my veins. We were out of time.