Maeve’s wings flared, essence spinning through the membranes in blues and reds. Pressure built against my face, and an electric static prickled against my shield. Maeve’s face sharpening with clarity as all else fell away in a haze. My shield was no defense against her probe, her face swimming closer. She slipped inside my mind like a manic thief, rummaging through my thoughts with abandon. Images and memories flashed, people I had known and loved and hated. The stream of memory tossed me about.
I retreated before her onslaught, fled to the inner regions of my mind. I touched a spark of essence within me, a brilliant core of light and power. The darkness was gone, no longer barring me from my inner self, no longer hiding the core of my being from my reach. I found my soul. I wrapped my will around it, bound my mind to it like a mighty fist, and thrust Maeve out.
Essence surged through me, an electric thrill as every nerve ending in my body fired at once. My body ignited, brilliant flows of golden light and power coursing through pathways long lost. Connections joined, strengthened, and merged, building within me. Tears sprang to my eyes. I was free of pain. I was free of the darkness and the pain. I was free. My abilities churned inside me with renewed life. I was whole again. I was a druid again.
Maeve crouched against the far wall, utter shock on her face.
“Game’s over, Maeve,” I said. This time, I knew it with a clarity beyond doubt. She couldn’t touch me anymore.
She recovered, the haughty pinch of condescension slipping back onto her face. “You’re not half the druid you once were.”
Bergin Vize’s face arose in my mind, his face in the darkness as he made his ultimate sacrifice. He gave up his life to me, so that our soul would heal as one, two halves rejoining after a century of separation. “Is that supposed to be a bad joke?”
A harsh sound of derision slipped from her. “How coarse you have become, how disappointing.”
Memories fluttered through my mind, still fragments, unsorted vestiges of the past. I wasn’t quite sure who I was once, but I doubted I was any more patient than whoever I used to be. I stood. “I’ll be going now.”
“No, you won’t. I will have what I demand,” she said.
I created a sending in my mind, marveling at the ease of something so simple after so long. I cast it out, calling to Eorla for help. Maeve tilted her head, no doubt sensing it, then smiled as the sending shredded in the air. I shot a burst of essence from my hand into the ceiling. The masonry cracked and shed to the floor, exposing glass sheathing.
“The room is shielded,” she said. “No one will hear you. Now, let’s sit and discuss the matter.”
I needed to draw essence from something organic, but the sterile room offered nothing. “Now you want to talk? My how your tune changes. So civil now that you need cooperation instead of coercion.”
Maeve resumed her seat and leaned on her hand as if bored. “Sit.”
I snorted. “Shall I beg, too? Roll over?”
The spear glittered in my mind, its spark warm against my body signature. Its power seemed unlimited, a sliver of the Wheel of the World itself. Meryl had said to me once that she didn’t think anything could prevent the spear from going where it desired. But Maeve had shown she could pull it away from me without effort. She knew how to use it better than I did. That didn’t mean she had complete control of it.
“Sit,” said Maeve. She was calm, used to her orders being followed.
I stepped toward the empty chair facing her, acting as if I was going to comply. With the snap of mental command, I called the spear. It blazed in my hand, there and not there, a thing of solid light and essence. Startled, Maeve thrust out her hand, a moment too late, as I threw the spear. It punctured the glass even as it vanished and appeared in her hand.
She leaned back, clutching the spear with her own power. I wasn’t going to get it back anytime soon. “It matters not. This compound is well guarded. I have no fear of whatever rabble you summon if they even live. The area from which you were taken has been neutralized. There is no one left.”
I sat facing her, my mind racing for options. “And you’re proud of that? For that alone, you convince me not to cooperate at all.”
“Then I will flay you alive and keep you alive until you give me what I seek,” she said.
A vibration shuddered through the room, subtle at first, then steady. I cocked my head, listening to the tension of essence in the air. “I think some rabble has arrived.”
She flicked her hand. “It is being dealt with.”
The vibrations increased. Maeve glanced at the ceiling as cracks formed in the glass. Her eyebrows drew together as she built an added layer of protection above us. I had no idea what was going on, but neither did she. “You’re not looking so confident there, Maeve. Why don’t we go see what’s going on?”
She flexed her fingers, tossed a binding spell on me. As it draped over me, I shifted my shield and flung the spell away. Flexing old ability muscles felt good. Maeve ignored me, focusing on the fracturing glass overhead.
The room trembled, the glass ceiling creaking and cracking into smaller and smaller pieces. Fragments dusted down, settling on the barrier spell, drifting through it in slow motion. They hit the floor with a sharp patter, like crystallized raindrops.
The ceiling split with a concussive force of air. Maeve stood, still calm, still holding the spear as the crack widened. The masonry curled upward like a lid being peeled off a can. Dust rained down, obscuring our sight, but I glimpsed patches of night sky and flashes of white light.
With a resounding boom, the ceiling shattered and flew upward, exposing the room to the outside. A brilliant sphere of essence hovered overhead, the shape of a Danann fairy inside it burning bright.
Manus ap Eagan lowered to the height of the room, his muscled frame no longer frail. His face—sunken and worn for three years—had regained its hawklike sharpness, his dark eyes smoldering with red heat. He hovered outside Maeve’s barrier with a wolfish grin on his face.
Nice to see you, Guildmaster, I sent.
And you, Grey. Prepare to flee. This is an extraction only, he replied.
“Release your prisoner, Maeve, and submit to my authority,” Eagan said.
“This is treason, Manus. I shall post your head on my gate,” she said.
“The Seelie Court will know the full weight of your transgressions against me and all our people,” he said.
Maeve reared back to throw the spear. I grabbed it by the end, feeling it slick and electric in my hand. Maeve whirled to face me, and the spear slid toward her. “Do you think you can best me?” she asked.
I tightened my grip, using my body essence. “Not really.”
I was tempted to jump away, but she would come with me. I wasn’t strong enough to fight her alone, and wherever I jumped, I would be alone with her. I raised my hand and let my body become a conduit for the essence from the spear. I shot a bolt of essence at the barrier above us. Eagan matched my bolt with another from above. The barrier rippled and shredded.
Maeve yanked the spear out of my hand and pointed it at me. “Don’t think I won’t kill you. I’ve waited a hundred years for this moment.”
I reached into my mind and saw the sword, burning bright with essence. The air crackled with ozone as I materialized it in my hand. The blade had changed. No longer pure metal, it glistened with essence, the runes illuminated with light. At the base of the blade, the faith stone formed part of the cross guard, the blade itself passing through the heart-shaped blue crystal.
Green elf-shot blasted a gaping hole in the floor between us. Eorla descended through Eagan’s protective shield, her evergreen coat flaring around her. She landed beside me, her skin aglow with emerald light. “You have much to answer for, High Queen,” she said.
Maeve smiled. “I didn’t answer to Donor. I won’t to you.”
“We shall see.” Eorla wrapped her arm around me and swept me off my feet. Maeve fired as we rose through the roof, her shot rocking again
st our shields. She fired again, and we skittered sideways as Eagan returned fire.
We flew above the roofline, rising into a sky lit with battle. Boston City Hall sprawled below us, its massive concrete structure defended by Danann fairies. Archers from the Consortium ringed the brick plaza around the building, raining elf-shot into the confused whirl of Dananns.
Eagan spun around us, his massive wings primed with essence. It was thrilling to see him back in peak form. He hovered above the hole in the roof, staring down at Maeve. This isn’t over, Maeve.
He released a spherical burst of essence that knocked away the Dananns above, and we soared into the night sky, followed by Maeve’s scream of rage.
43
From the roof of a brownstone building on D Street, I watched thick smoke roll into the night sky toward the east. True to her word, Maeve’s troops had rampaged through the Weird, destroying whatever fell in their path. From Fort Point Channel to Blackhawk Terminal, the air burned an angry orange. Fire-engine lights flickered in a few spots, but not many. The city was protecting vital service locations like the power and sewer plants. It had no choice. The destruction was too widespread. The wind shifted, bringing an acrid stench with it.
The sword had shrunk back to its dagger shape. I held it flat against my palm, staring at it, wondering at the path it had taken to arrive in my possession. The faith stone encased the base of the blade, a cold light burning in the heart-shaped stone. It lit the runes inscribed on the blade, soft blue glimmers that resonated with power and memory.
Despite its beauty, it made me feel shame. The sword and the stone belonged together. Together, they were something greater than their individual parts. Together, they formed the image of the document Meryl found in the Guildhouse archives. Meryl hadn’t been trying to kill me. On some unconscious level, she had understood that the two wards needed to be joined, and Nigel’s compulsion had tried to force her to do it.
I focused my thoughts on a mote of essence in my mind. I visualized Meryl’s body signature, wrapped the sense of it around my thoughts, and pushed them out.
I didn’t understand, I sent. I colored the sending with earnestness and apology.
She answered immediately. We both screwed up. If you can forgive me for almost stabbing you in the head, I guess I can forgive you for your anger about it.
A door opened and closed behind me, a brief flash of light sweeping across the roof. Eorla came up beside me, taking in the view. “I’m surprised to see you smile while looking at this.”
“Not that. Just the way life happens,” I said.
Eorla surveyed the burning skyline. “She shows no mercy.”
“Like any true fanatic,” I said.
“Her forces are massing. They’re going after the consulate soon,” she said.
“He saved my life,” I said.
She peered at me, curious and expectant.
I held up my left hand so she could see the gold band. It was Vize’s ring—our ring. When he died in the Gap, his essence transferred into it and bound itself to my flesh. “Bergin saved my life.”
Eorla hugged herself, looking away from me. “Where is he?”
I took her elbow and made her face me. “Under the Guildhouse. He saved my life, Eorla. He said to tell you thank you for everything and that he died with hope.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “He once said to me that if he had to die for his cause, he would rather die in hope than despair.”
For the second time, I took her in my arms to comfort her over the loss of someone she loved. Vize’s death was without grief for me, yet I didn’t have the satisfaction I thought I would. He went and screwed that up for me by saving my life. He was dead, but he was part of me. I was satisfied in a detached way but not glad.
The blare of a siren startled us apart. The sky overhead had become a smear of black and gray rippling in the wind. A vague sensation draped over me, an essence of a profound nature, wild and untamed, yet constrained by a force of will. Shapes were moving in the shadows of smoky clouds, enormous beings striding across the sky. “What the hell is that?”
Eorla pointed toward the Weird, her hand trembling. “There. Over there.”
The siren blast was coming from the top of the warehouse that housed Yggy’s bar. The old civil-defense horns were going off. I didn’t think they worked anymore, but that wasn’t what made me shiver. Heydan stood beside the siren tower, his head reaching almost to the top, almost thirty feet tall. He glowed white with power, facing the city. He leaned on the tower with his right hand and held a sword in his left, pointing toward the center of the city. The figures in the sky above him gathered together and moved toward downtown.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“He calls the Old Ones to battle,” she said.
“That’s good. We can use the help,” I said.
Eorla turned toward the door. “You mistake me, Connor. It’s the end of the world.”
44
I waited in a room with no windows but two doors, both closed. I wasn’t in the mood to see outside anyway. When Eagan had ferried me across the city, I had seen the extent of the destruction. We had flown along the edge of it, dipping and diving among downtown city streets to elude our pursuers. More than once, we had flown through smoke and fire. The room stank of it because we all stank of it.
Eorla entered with a glamoured Dylan. They placed documents on the table and sorted through several vials of glow bees as reports flowed in from across the city. Dylan looked a little the worse for wear, his uniform torn and covered with dirt and soot.
Keeva arrived next. I hadn’t seen her since she let me escape the safe house. I had doubted her, but she stood with me in the end. I resisted the urge to smile as our eyes met because there was nothing to smile about after her sacrifice. She placed a brown binder envelope on the table. Stone-faced, she unwound the string holding the binder closed and removed a sheaf of documents. She pushed them toward me. “Callin won’t be coming.”
I pulled the papers toward me. “Is he all right?”
“He’s still in AvMem, but he’s weak. We didn’t want to risk his coming here.”
“Risk? What risk?” I asked.
“Look at the documents, Connor,” she said.
The top sheets were index forms, categorizing the rest of the paperwork. Reports were organized like Guild case files, but without any official markings. They referred to people whose names I didn’t recognize. My name jumped off the page on the first case. It was a record almost a decade old, an elf arrested for attempted kidnapping—my attempted kidnapping. I remembered some of the outlined events, but I had no recollection of someone’s trying to kidnap me. The next case was similar, this time an Inverni fairy charged with attempted murder—my attempted murder. Case after case showed more of the same: attempted murder or kidnapping; stalking; conspiracy to commit murder. All of them listed me as the target. The problem was, I had no idea about the history described, as if a parallel series of events occurred that I knew nothing about. They were all filed by the same Guild agent over the ten-year period.
“Who is Shadow?” I asked.
“Callin,” Keeva said.
“He’s Shadow? But he was….” Cold realization swept over me. Callin had been kicked out of the Guild for insubordination and failure to perform over a decade ago. His firing had coincided with my return to Boston and the break in our relationship. I cleared my throat. “What was his assignment?”
Joe popped into the air. He hovered over the table, holding the stone ward bowl like a host trying to decide where to put food on a crowded table. He winked, placed the bowl in front of me, and sat next to it. Essence shimmered in it, a soft swirl of blue and white that swelled in reaction to the people in the room.
Keeva frowned. “You. I was his handler. He was personally responsible for stopping seventeen assassination attempts.”
“Well, I helped on three of those,” Joe said.
“I don’t understand,” I
said.
Keeva glanced at the other closed door with annoyed hesitation. “You needed protection. We provided it.”
“Protection from whom?”
Eorla and Rand had stopped talking to listen to us.
“Maeve. Donor. Anyone you ever pissed off, which is pretty much everyone,” she said.
I shook my head. “I am so lost.”
The other door opened, and Eagan entered, the Eagan of my youth, strong, healthy, and fully in command. He took a seat at the table and gestured at the binder. “You are the linchpin in a long-term strategy, Grey. The dwarf Brokke had a vision. He foresaw another war for dominance among the fey. He predicted that certain people might be able to avert the war. You are one of those people. We took it as our duty to keep you alive.”
“We?”
Eagan glanced at Keeva. “Your partners were informed. We’ve had someone guarding you at all times.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“Because Brokke said your knowledge would turn events for the worse. It’s what ruined Bergin Vize. He became obsessed with the vision,” Eorla said.
“Vize tried to start the war,” I said.
Eorla nodded. “He thought if he challenged Maeve to act before she was ready, he would undermine her ability to succeed.”
I looked at Eagan. “You stopped me from killing him at the nuke plant. You could have prevented all this bloodshed.”
Eagan shook his head. “I had to stop you. Vize hadn’t made his full turn for the worse then. We didn’t know which one of you to pin our hopes on. One of you could have died. Neither of you was ready.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Eagan nodded his head. “Brokke said success would come from humility. Neither of you had that then.”
And Vize never learned it until too late, I thought. “Who else knows about this? Briallen? Nigel?”
Eagan shook his head sharply. “We could not risk it. Brokke saw what the knowledge did to Vize. He said we had to be more careful than he was with Donor’s people. Briallen’s loyalties are too often obscure. Nigel will always blindly follow Maeve. In fact, I am deeply concerned about his hand in these current events.”
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