by Alex Rivers
“Take it easy.” He said. “None of us realized. We’re up against some truly devious psychos, Cass.”
I swallowed hard, more determined than ever to slit Siofra’s throat.
Chapter 29
Somewhere above my head, a bird chirped cheerfully, the sun shining through the white clouds in the sky.
The usually reliable London weather was failing me. My thoughts churned like dark and furious storm clouds, while the November sky beamed like summer over the Highgate Cemetery.
My feet crunched over the leaves on the path as I crossed to Gabriel’s grave, clutching a bouquet of lily-of-the-valleys. I crouched by Gabriel’s stark, granite stone, brushing a few leaves off the base. Then I lay the bouquet in front of the stone, my eyes stinging. A destructive spiral of thoughts coiled through my skull, cataloging our losses, the trials that lay ahead of us.
The Seelie army’s attacks on Cingeto’s Fortress were intensifying. Once it fell, the Seelie would swarm into Trinovantum, killing everyone in sight, taking complete control. They’d hunt the Unseelie in London, leaving a wake of destruction in their path, human and fae.
Nerius was gone, and Branwen was severely injured, or worse. We’d lost our best warriors in the ambush. Maybe lost the support of Lord Balor when we’d failed to reclaim his arsenal. The dream of the Republic hung together by mere tattered threads at this point.
There was only one way forward. And as I stared at Gabriel’s grave, I tried to think of the best way to explain it to Roan. He was going to hate the idea, but I had a feeling Gabriel would have understood.
When I heard heavy footsteps crunching over the gravel, I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
“You followed me here?” I asked.
The sunlight washed Roan in gold, sparking in his green eyes. “I was worried about you. I could feel your turmoil from miles away.”
I smiled sadly. “Right. Of course you did.”
He glanced at the gravestone. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Do you want some time alone?”
I shook my head. “I was going to come find you. We need to talk.” For some insane reason, I wanted to have Gabriel here to back me up. Gabriel would understand. “The Seelie are coming. Our army can’t hold them back. There’s no way to win. We need to run.”
His features darkened. “Run?” He repeated the word as if it were in a foreign language.
“There’s no other way.”
His gaze bored into me. “There is always a way.”
“There isn’t. Not this time. And there are too many dependent on me. I am the head of the Weala Broc Court, and I need to protect the terror fae. The best way to do that is to get them the hell away from the Seelie, out of London. We need to run. Need to hide. I hashed this out with Alvin. There are places we can hide in Scotland, Ireland, France. There are other fae who live there.”
“No.”
“We lost, Roan!” I raised my voice. “We don’t have an armory. The Republic is falling apart. Our bag of tricks is empty.”
“Cassandra.” He took a step forward. “Listen to me. You’re not thinking this through.”
“I’ve thought about this plenty.”
“I can feel the guilt clouding your thoughts.”
Defensive, I crossed my arms defiantly. “And what would I feel guilty for?”
“You feel responsible for falling into Siofra’s trap. For not noticing that Branwen was merely one of Siofra’s mindless reflections. And you blame yourself for Nerius’ death. None of it is your fault.”
I fell silent for a moment, my gaze flicking to Gabriel’s grave. Hadn’t we seen enough death already? “It’s not just their deaths. There was Drustan, and Lannosea, and the others who died there. And all those who are going to die if we don’t run.”
“I know how you feel.”
I wiped my hand across the back of my cheek. “No, you don’t.”
“I do.” His features softened. “I’ve been there. Centuries ago. You think the best way to protect is to run. I think it’s to stay and fight.”
“How so?” I swallowed, waiting for him to explain. The sun began to dip below the gnarled cedar trees, the shadows creeping over the cemetery like long fingers.
An amber haze clouded his eyes. “When Ogmios crushed my father’s rebellion, we ran,” he said. “My mother, my sister, and I hid with my uncle, York Taranis. Alvin’s father.”
I could feel the sorrow emanating from his body. “Ah.”
“York convinced me that we could trust him. I was wrong. He turned us in to the king in exchange for clemency. The king stripped him of his court and name, but let him go in return. Which was much better than what the rest of us got.”
No wonder he resents Alvin. I reached up, gently touching the side of his face. “Roan. It wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s not the end of it. The king imprisoned us. The guards mistreated, abused my mother and sister.”
A lump rose in my throat. “I’m so sorry, Roan.”
“I thought the answer was to run. Again. I was the one who came up with the escape plan, a brilliant way to get us out of Ogmios’ jail. I thought it was the best way to protect my family. We spent nine, ten years secretly tunneling from our cell. We ran.”
I could hardly catch my breath as I waited to hear what happened next.
“They captured my mother first.” He wasn’t meeting my gaze anymore, lost in the hell of his own memories. “I called a storm. I was trying to protect us.”
I shut my eyes, and his sadness seemed to billow around him.
“A storm doesn’t protect. A storm can’t be controlled. I was young, and foolish, and thought the power was mine to use. I summoned all my strength: a whirlwind, hail and lightning. But the thing about storms is you can’t control them. The storm I created killed my sister. Struck by lightning. And when they took us back, Ogmios wanted to make an example of us. By the Danu Fountain in Trinovantum, he tore my mother’s wings from her back, then he executed her while I watched.”
I remembered Roan’s words. What’s worse than burning to death? Watching someone you love burn to death.
I could hardly breathe for his pain, and I did the only thing I could. I wrapped my arms around him, and I whispered, “It wasn’t your fault.”
A deathly quiet had fallen over the cemetery. Even the birds had stopped chirping, as if they, too, were listening for the rest. Right now, with my head against Roan, I heard only the beating of his heart.
“I know what it is to feel guilt,” he continued. “I know how it can cloud your judgment.”
“If we stay, many might die,” I said into his chest. I felt compelled by a wild, unyielding urge to protect him at all costs. Maybe it wasn’t guilt that clouded my judgment but the desperate need to keep him away from danger. The thought of his death terrified me with a dizzying, bone-deep horror like nothing I’d ever felt before—not even when sensing others’ fear as the Mistress of Dread.
He stroked my hair. “If we run, many will die. And without a land to call their own, the Unseelie will fade one by one, until none of us remain. We must stay and fight. The Seelie aren’t invulnerable. If we bolster the forces at Cingeto’s Fortress, we could still stop them.”
I held him tighter, unwilling to risk his life. “We would need some way to tip the scales.”
He ran a hand down my hair again, his touch soothing. “You’re going to tip the scales, Cassandra. I know you can get your dread powers back. We will train. We will—”
“I can’t.” I’d been trying fruitlessly to find my powers again, getting nowhere as I walked around the old London Stone neighborhood. I needed to explain this in a way that would make sense to him. “Imagine going fishing with a rod. It has a line, a hook, perhaps bait. When I used the power of dread, I was the fisherman holding the rod and the line. The London Stone was the hook and the bait. I used my connection to it to summon the fear, to hook it. And then I could reel it in. Without the London Stone, I am a fisherm
an with a rod and a line… and no hook. No bait. I can’t reel the terror in.”
“Then discard the rod,” Roan said. “When I lived in the forest, I caught fish with my bare hands.”
“Perhaps a metaphor wasn’t the right way to go,” I said, pulling away from him.
“What about that power you felt in the streets of London? It must be the Stone, or another like it. We must return to it.”
“It’s not the same. It’s unfocused, all over the place. It pulses strongly and then ebbs away, slipping through my fingers. I can’t grasp it, can’t pull it into myself. I thought maybe I could feel it when I went into the In Between, the mirror realm, but I was too focused on getting out of there to experiment with dread powers.”
“What did you feel there?” Roan asked.
“I just felt a large presence of terror. It had a sort of weight to it, like the heaviness of damp soil.”
“Tell me what else you remember.”
I closed my eyes, shuddering. “Running water. Water…” My mind began to race. “Skulls under water. That’s the symbol of the Weala Broc,” I muttered as a spark of an idea lit in my mind. “It’s a river, isn’t it? The Weala Broc? The Walbrook. It runs underground, not far from where the London Stone was kept.”
“Is that where you felt the power?”
I nodded slowly, a memory blossoming in my mind. The very first time Roan and I had walked the streets of London together, I’d felt that power as we crossed over the Walbrook. He’d told me that once, humans had sacrificed themselves to the gods. To us. Human skulls and gold pieces lie in a buried river. I’d felt the power of the skulls under water—my ancestral home—and I hadn’t thought of it since.
“Darkness,” I said. “And running water, the heaviness of damp soil. Roan, I need to go to the underground river.”
Chapter 30
“Shit,” I muttered, hugging my leather jacket tighter around myself.
Roan led me to the entrance to the Walbrook River near Cannon Street, just a few minutes away from the Underground. Inset into the wall, an enormous metal door blocked our way, half-buried with rocks and rubble.
“Can you jump past it, using reflections?” Roan asked.
I closed my eyes, trying to feel for the reflections around me. Beyond the circular hatch, I felt nothing, and I shook my head. “It’s pitch dark beyond it. There are no reflections without light.”
Roan scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “I can get the door open in less than a day.” He crossed to the door, heaving a rock out of the way. “Let me try clearing the rubble.”
“Roan, I think it’s going to take a while longer than that. It’s clearly not meant to be opened.”
He hurled another stone out of the way.
“I can call Alvin and see if he has any explosives,” I said. “He has a phone, did you know that? It just goes to show that even fae can have phones. I can buy one for you after we’re done here.” I watched him working, the muscles shifting under his T-shirt.
He paused, a rock in his hands, and met my gaze. “Your lust is helpful. Do go on.”
I crossed to him, surprised to find that he’d already uncovered a large section of the metal door. I ran my fingers over the edge of the rusted hatch.
“Did you hear what I said about the explosives?” I said. “I think this is locked.”
He arched an eyebrow at me, straightening. He gripped the metal bolts that pinned the door shut.
“I get it. You’re very strong. Your manliness is noted. Now let’s get some help here.”
He let out a small grunt and tensed. The door didn’t budge.
“Roan…”
He smiled rakishly at me, eyes shifting to a deep amber. His lips curved sensually. He was stoking my lust to feed from it.
He returned to shifting the rocks, his broad shoulders flexing as he worked. There was something visceral in the single-minded way he approached this door. After weeks of bargaining, negotiating, trying to find complex solutions to impossible situations, here was something simple. A door, that needed opening. And my guy was determined to get it open.
The sun kissed his skin. All I had to do was stand here and admire his beauty, and power imbued him. As I watched him, I thought of him laying me down on the table in his library, the way his carnal gaze raked over my naked body, the way he took his time with me.
The door groaned as Roan pulled on it. He leaned back further, grimacing with the effort. I could see the door buckling as he pulled on it.
Is he actually doing it?
I took a step back. In the next moment, the door exploded open with a shower of rocks, mud, and water. I stared at Roan, and at the cavernous opening he had uncovered. A shallow stream of water rushed from the bottom of the opening.
There it was. The actual Walbrook River.
“Holy shit,” I said.
Roan caught his breath. “What were you saying about noting my manliness?”
I smiled. “As if there was any doubt. Should we check it out?”
He arched an eyebrow suggestively.
“The tunnel, I mean. Your manliness is well established.”
The smell of damp soil greeted me as I stepped inside, flicking on the flashlight. Icy water rushed over my feet, my ankles.
The earthy, briny scent reminded me of the sewers underneath Grendel’s club. Stone passages, stale water running underneath my feet… I swallowed hard. Darkness lay in front of me. If the passage behind us closed, we’d be trapped.
Trapped.
Roan gently touched the small of my back. “Are you okay?”
I smiled shakily at him, my feet sloshing in the freezing water. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
“Feel any terror?”
“Just my own, so far. I’m still not great with dark, enclosed spaces. Not a big deal.” It was probably kind of stupid to try to brush things off when I was with someone who could feel my emotions, but I was proud of my effort anyway.
As we walked deeper into the passage, it curved sharply, the sunlight from the entrance disappearing. Now, the only light came from the pale sphere of my flashlight, and I cursed myself for not buying a stronger one.
My heart began racing, but I wasn’t alone here. I wasn’t in prison, trapped with the rat bones. Roan was here with me, and I could feel his warmth, his love.
We could turn back and leave whenever we wanted, rush into the sun, feel the wind on our skin. No one but Roan could shift that enormous metal hatch through the rubble. I slowed my breathing, thinking of Siofra’s trap. In a dark tunnel, rage was a much better companion than fear.
Something tingled over my skin, and I paused.
“What is it?” Roan asked.
“I think I felt it…” I concentrated. “Just a twinge, but stronger than aboveground.” I began walking again. “I think we’re getting closer.”
It was there—a dark and ancient terror, its connection to me unmistakable. It was a part of me. Maybe that’s why I heard the river in the In Between, where the reflections stripped me down to my most fundamental self. But surely there was more to me than terror.
From the darkest corners of my skull, I thought I heard people screaming, and my pulse raced.
Excited, I walked faster, nearly running. Our feet splashed through the shallow river, the beam from my flashlight jumping around.
When I noticed a movement in the corner of my eye, my mouth went dry. “Rats.”
“They scare you,” said Roan.
“Why would they scare me?” Bile rose in my throat. “They’re a wonderful source of protein.”
My flashlight illuminated a branch in the tunnel, a crumbling passage to our left that sloped downward. I shone my light down there. From there, faint waves of fear thrummed over my body. “There. It’s coming from there.”
“From the wall?” Roan was staring at the passage, his face blank.
I frowned. “No, the passageway.” I pointed. “The one right here.”
“I see a wall, C
assandra.”
I thrust my hand into the passageway, and Roan’s eyes widened.
“It’s glamoured. But then why can you see through it?” He reached for the wall, but his hand stopped short in the air. He shook his head. “I’m hitting stone.” He slammed his hand against the rock, seemingly frustrated that there was something he couldn’t defeat with brute force alone.
But as the terror curled around my body, I felt it beckoning me further into the passageway. As much as I hated the darkness, the isolation, as much as I hated feeling trapped—I had to do this alone. “I don’t think you can come with me. The river is for the Weala Broc fae.”
Come closer, Cassandra, a voice whispered faintly in the hollows of my mind. Here, it didn’t just feel like terror. It was a presence, like a conscious being.
Roan’s green eyes shone in the darkness. “We can get some other terror fae to join you.”
“No. She wants me to go in alone.”
“She?”
I shook my head, not entirely sure what I was talking about. “I just feel something here. Someone.” I sucked in a deep breath. “It will be okay, Roan.”
I could see the internal struggle written across his features. I got it. If Roan told me he had to walk into a dark, scary tunnel on his own because an unknown terror spirit wanted him, I’d be pulling him in the other direction.
I touched his arm. “I need you to trust me.”
“Cassandra, that is unwise.”
“I need you to trust me,” I repeated, feeling the spirit of the Weala Broc luring me closer, an inexorable pull. “I have to do this alone.”
“Please do not take this unnecessary risk.” I could feel his fear for me tugging at our bond.
I hugged him tightly, feeling his heart beating through his shirt. “Whose mind is clouded now?” I whispered. I let him go, leaving him behind me.
I walked into the passage, and I could hear his gasp as he saw me disappear into the wall.
Chapter 31
The ceiling sloped downward as I walked, eventually forcing me to crouch. I moved slowly, aiming my flashlight on the water in front of me. I stepped around the piles of debris and slippery rocks. Water seeped into my shoes, freezing my feet. The spirit of the Weala Broc kept getting stronger, like a tug that pulled at the center of my body. My breath came in short, sharp bursts, matching my thudding heartbeats. It almost seemed as if the light of my flashlight was becoming weaker as I descended further down, the dampness and the dark extinguishing it. I heard the sound of a rat scuttling through the water, squeaking.
