by Chloe Neill
“Two dozen fairies on my front lawn?” Ethan said, gaze narrowed dangerously. “Yes. I believe that’s something we’ll need to address.” He glanced at me. “It seems you may get your chance to talk to Claudia after all.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE SHADOWED GIRL
Mercenary fairies had once been allies of Cadogan House—or close enough. They were fearsome and fearless warriors, and they’d been the first to guard the House’s gate while we slept. But fairies liked gold, and they’d been lured away by the Greenwich Presidium, our previous British masters, and had turned against us. So it wasn’t good news to learn they were camped out in the yard.
On the other hand, given the week we’d had so far, it was somehow not entirely surprising.
Brody hauled ass back to the House. He piped in the Ops Room through the vehicle’s audio system, so we could commiserate with Luc and Malik.
“What do they want?” Ethan asked, brow furrowed, arms crossed, one leg over the other. He’d switched from investigation to Master mode pretty quickly.
“We haven’t even opened the door yet,” Malik said. “We called as soon as the gate alerted us. They were allowed into the yard for the sake of supernatural comity.”
“Weapons?”
“None,” Luc said. “That’s reason number two they were allowed into the yard. They’ve said nothing. They’re standing in formation. She’s standing in front of them. Waiting, as they all are.”
“Suggestions?” Ethan asked.
“I think we hear them out,” Luc said. “They aren’t allies, but they’re also not being aggressive, at least right now. They came to us without weapons, and although she probably won’t deign to talk to anyone but you, they do seem very interested in a conversation.”
“Malik?” Ethan asked.
“Agreed.”
He glanced at me. “Sentinel?”
“Agreed. Odds are, she wants to talk about the same things the rest of us want to talk about.”
“The weather,” Malik said, without irony.
“The weather,” I said.
“I concur,” Ethan said. “Lock down the House. I want everyone on full alert, just in case. We’ll be there in—”
“Two minutes,” Brody supplied, meeting Ethan’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
“Two minutes,” Ethan said with a nod. “Let’s be on our toes.”
• • •
Tires squealed as Brody pulled the vehicle to a stop in front of the House.
“Ready?” Ethan asked Luc.
“Ready as we’ll ever be when a few dozen mercenary fairies come to the door.”
“Then, let’s go,” Ethan said, and the audio went quiet.
Brody opened Ethan’s door, and we walked to the gate, nodded at the guards, who stepped aside to let us enter the grounds. At the same time, Malik opened the House’s door, walked out first, Luc and Lindsey behind him, then Kelley and Juliet.
The fairies, uniformly lean, with sculpted cheekbones and long, dark hair, all of them clad in identical head-to-toe black, stood in a wide triangle, the point facing the gate, the broad side facing the House. They were a striking, graphic contrast to the inch of snow that covered the lawn.
They parted as we approached, splitting with mathematical precision along the sidewalk. And when the last line of them split, she turned to face us.
She stood in front of that line of fairies, an absolute vision. Her skin was milk white, her hair long and wavy and strawberry blond and topped by a delicate ring of white flowers. Lily of the valley, just like the ones in my bouquet. She wore her usually diaphanous white gown, her voluptuous body easily visible beneath it.
But there was a difference. Claudia had always been beautiful, but millennia trapped in a tower had begun to take their toll. Tonight, the age and fatigue that had pulled at her skin had been brushed away, as if by an artist with a very skilled hand.
She was stunningly beautiful. And very, very dangerous.
“Claudia,” Ethan said.
“Bloodletter.” She slid her gaze, full of peril and old magic, at me. “Consort.”
“Wife,” Ethan corrected.
She looked dubious at the distinction. Fairies didn’t believe in love, or so they said.
“Why are you here?” Ethan asked.
“The world is changing.” There was a hint of Ireland in her voice, a trill that hadn’t been there before. She held out a hand, watched the snowflakes that settled on her palm, then blew them away. The flakes sparked, dissipated.
“So we are aware,” Ethan said. “I’ve allowed you onto my grounds, Claudia, despite your previous treachery. Tell me what you want, or be on your way.”
I wasn’t sure that was the best tone to take with a dangerous woman who’d brought her dangerous army. I put a hand on my katana, just in case.
“There is no need for threats,” she said, and flicked a hand in the air.
Something brushed across my hand. A thin green vine had bloomed from my katana’s lacquered sheath and slunk toward the sword’s handle, twining around it to keep it in place. Leaves, small and brilliantly green, split from the vine and uncurled, sending the scents of new spring leaves and powdery flowers into the air.
This was old magic, fairy magic. Magic she’d been able to access before she’d voluntarily given it up. She’d loved Dominic, Seth’s literal evil twin, and had given up her magic to save him, even while maintaining that fairies were above such base emotions.
She wasn’t supposed to have this magic anymore.
That’s new, I said silently to Ethan.
And concerning.
For several reasons, I thought, and glanced up, saw the challenge in her eyes. “Get your magic off my sword.”
Claudia’s gaze shifted to Ethan as if to confirm I had any authority in the House—or to assess whether getting married had softened his edge. He smiled back at her.
“She stands Sentinel of this House, Claudia, and you know she can fight. For that reason alone, I’d suggest you heed her advice.”
Claudia watched him for a moment. Her expression didn’t change, but I caught the light flick of her fingers, the rustle of her long red locks. And I didn’t need to look down to know the vine was retreating. The tingle of magic receded along with it.
“You’ve regained power,” Ethan said.
Her smile looked pleasant, but there was something behind it. Something old and powerful and treacherous.
The air filled with buzzing magic so quickly I barely had time to recognize the attack before we were somewhere else . . . and somewhen else.
I stood in a meadow, green and lush, and as misty as an Irish shore. A lark sang somewhere in the distance, its voice a melody against the low thrush of waving grass, the faraway sound of a beating ocean. I looked down, found myself in a long skirt of soft, nubby fabric, a tunic over it in the same shade of pale blue.
Ethan stood beside me, eyes closed, in leggings and tunic, a heavy iron sword in his hand, streaks of blue across his face.
“There,” Ethan said, and lifted his arm, pointing toward the meadow.
A dozen men and women stood in a circle, moving rhythmically to the soft and hollow sound of a leather drum.
I closed my eyes, let the breeze caress my face, as soft as a mother’s kiss. There was no buzz of magic here. It was the breeze, the tall grass beneath my fingertips, the swell of the cold ocean tide. It was the salt air, the pale mist, the dancers and their music. It permeated every rock, every hill and vale, every person, every thought in the land of fairy, the place where they made their home. A place that was home.
There was happiness here, and pain. Birth and death, and the parade of things that happened in between, the kaleidoscope of experiences that made up a life. But beneath it all, there was contentment, because there was home. Because this was
the domain of the fairy. This was fairyland, literally and figuratively.
A sound echoed over the hill, the laughter of a child whom I’d never seen before, but somehow knew as intimately as I knew myself. The giggle echoed across the land, bursting with joy and buoyant silliness.
Ethan’s smile widened, his eyes alight with joy and hope as he watched the horizon, waiting for the child to crest the hill. He moved forward to be one step closer to the child . . . But the wind lifted and turned cold. The earth shuddered, and we stood once again in Chicago.
Wherever we’d gone, we’d come back.
I knew it hadn’t been real, that nothing we’d seen had been real, so it couldn’t have been taken away from us. But that didn’t matter. The grief was instant and as deep as an ocean, leaving me empty and aching, and hollowing out a part of my soul I knew would never be filled. Not when I might have stayed in that world forever, waiting for the child to run into our arms.
The child whose existence was no longer guaranteed.
A hand gripped mine, and I looked at Ethan, found that same look of longing on his face. And as the moment passed, that longing faded to understanding. We’d been there in that world for only a moment. And neither of us had wanted to come back. From the expression of the vampires around us, we weren’t the only ones affected.
No wonder so many fairy-tale characters disappeared, accidentally (or intentionally) stepping foot into the land of the fae, never to return again. They hadn’t been captured by the fae, or not literally. They simply hadn’t wanted to return. They’d have lived contentedly in Emain Ablach for an eternity.
I was pretty sure I hadn’t even heard the phrase before. But it had been slipped into my thoughts like a secret note, a hidden message that I would remember for an eternity, and a place to which I’d probably never return.
I shifted my gaze to Claudia, saw that she knew at least something of what we’d seen, what we’d experienced, and also saw what looked like arrogance.
Claudia looked at me, and I found myself unnerved by her attention. Her eyes seemed to see too much. “You have seen much.”
I shook my head. What I’d seen wasn’t for her. And I didn’t have time to dwell on it right now, so I pushed it aside. “What is Emain Ablach?”
“The green land. Our land.”
“You have access to the green land again,” Ethan said, every word carefully spoken.
Claudia nodded. “I can see home, as I have shown you. I cannot physically travel there, but I can see it. That is . . . a change.”
“And you’re here to show us,” Ethan said. “To demonstrate your power.”
“Or to flaunt it?” I asked.
My tone hadn’t been friendly, and neither were her eyes.
“I chose to sacrifice my connection, however undeserving the recipient of my gift. The deal was done. The power should not have come back to me.”
Her eyes, so vividly blue, darkened, like seas beneath a roiling storm. And there was fear in her eyes. Even Claudia, who was as egotistical and dangerous as they came, was worried.
“Why is it happening?” Ethan asked.
Her brows lifted. “I am not here to answer your questions, bloodletter.”
Ethan’s expression remained implacable. “And yet, you’re here. In my territory, without permission, to seek an audience with me.”
Claudia growled, anger flashing in her eyes. “You did not stop her when you had the chance.”
No question as to the “her” she intended.
“To the contrary. We stopped Sorcha; the humans allowed her to escape. You believe she’s the reason your power has returned?”
For the first time since I’d known her, there was uncertainty in Claudia’s expression. “There is power in this land. Power the shadowed girl worked to contain.”
“The shadowed girl?” Ethan asked.
But I understood. “She means Mallory,” I said. She’d been shadowed by dark magic. “Mallory reversed Sorcha’s magic. There shouldn’t have been anything left of Sorcha’s spell.”
And that had been bothering me—how could there have been magic left over to create the delusions if the battle at Towerline had eradicated it?
With impeccable timing, and before Claudia could answer, Mallory and Catcher strode through the gate and down the sidewalk.
They stopped when they reached us, and Mallory’s eyes grew wide as she took in the spectacle that was Claudia.
Emotions evolved on her face—confusion, curiosity, and, as she probably felt the depth of Claudia’s magic, something that looked like lust. Like need. Something that probably wasn’t good for a woman with an addiction to dark magic.
“Mallory,” I said, making her name a quick snap. It accomplished what I needed it to do, and seemed to pull her out of her momentary magical stupor.
“Hello,” Catcher said, nodding at Ethan, at Claudia. “We don’t want to interrupt.”
But he plainly was here to interrupt, to jump in, in case the fairies were a threat. And with Mallory, to contain them.
“You aren’t,” Ethan said. “Claudia, this is Catcher and Mallory Bell. Claudia is queen of the fairy.”
“The shadowed girl,” Claudia said quietly. Her gaze had skipped over Catcher, evidently unimpressed. But she looked at Mallory carefully, and for the first time since I’d known her, there was something akin to respect in her eyes. Something that looked like recognition, like she’d finally found someone worthy of her interest, rather than the same old stringy vampires.
“You wrought old magic,” Claudia said. “That magic shadowed you.”
“I’ve worked to lift that shadow,” Mallory said, straightening her shoulders.
“And turned away from limitless power,” Claudia said, clearly unimpressed. “You turned instead to words and chants, herbs and whispers.”
“Didn’t you turn away from power, too?”
“You would judge me?”
“If you’re going to judge first, yeah. Maybe we can skip the rest of the intimidation game and get to the point?”
Claudia’s eyes fired—she wasn’t used to smart-mouthed sorceresses—but she let the comment go. Maybe she was intimidated by Mallory, which was fine by me. I wasn’t comfortable without a check on Claudia’s power. We didn’t need another Sorcha.
“I felt your magic, your unraveling of hers. It wasn’t enough.”
Mallory blinked, looked baffled and insulted at the same time. “We reversed the spell successfully.”
“Perhaps. But she did not allow the magic to disseminate after it was unraveled.”
Mallory just stared at her for a moment. “That’s impossible,” she said quietly. “That couldn’t have worked. We knew her magic—her alchemy. We worked the reversal completely.”
She looked at me, at Ethan, at Catcher. “They know the truth.”
Mallory’s gaze snapped to ours. “They do?”
“There had to be leftover magic,” I quietly said. “The delusions were created by magic, and they didn’t set off the wards.”
“But I was so careful.” She reached out, took Catcher’s arm. “We were so careful. We did everything right.”
I could feel her ire rising, watched her work to control it. Muttering to herself, Mallory walked to the gate, shoes scuffing through the snow, then back again.
“We nailed her alchemy,” she said, pointing at each of us in turn. “Nailed it to the wall. But maybe, while we were on the roof, she snuck in some kind of hidden code. A worm or Trojan horse she added at the last minute, something we couldn’t detect . . .
“Oh my God!” she said, and thumped her palm against her forehead. “It’s so obvious. So freaking obvious.” She looked at Catcher. “That’s why our spells got stuck—why her magic blue-screened. Because of her little magical Trojan horse. We unwrapped the alchemy, but instead of the m
agic disseminating across the city, there’s—what?—a fog of it stuck here?” She looked at Claudia, who merely inclined her head.
“Why can’t we feel that magic?” Ethan asked. “The buzz?”
“Because it’s spread over a large area,” Mallory said. “Not strong enough to feel, but still there. Still waiting.”
“And the wards were created after Towerline,” Catcher said, nodding as the pieces fell into place for him. “After the magic had been released. That was the baseline the wards were created against. Only new magic by Sorcha above that baseline would trigger them.”
I looked at Claudia, considered the glow of her skin, her new green-land visitation rights. “You’ve been affected by that magic.”
She didn’t bother to look at me, but kept her gaze on Mallory. “My tower is magicked; it’s how I stay here, and alive. I suspect it has absorbed that power, and I have reaped the benefits.”
“And the delusions?” Ethan asked.
“Maybe the magic settled in pockets,” Catcher said. “Jeff has confirmed all the humans who fought us last night were near Towerline when the battle went down. And two dozen more—humans and sups—have been arrested in sporadic outbreaks, most of which have been downtown.”
“This land is poised at a precipice,” Claudia said. “Whether it falls or not I cannot see; that will be for you to determine, your battle to win.
“Win it,” she said, and with that final demand, she turned and walked through her lines of fairies, who’d stood motionless in the snow for so long that flakes had gathered on their shoulders. They gathered behind her like a train, then disappeared down the walk and through the gate, steps fading into silence.
“Take the House off alert,” Ethan said. “For now.”
Luc nodded to Juliet, who headed to the basement to make the arrangements.
“Was it real?” he asked quietly, stepping beside Ethan. Luc wasn’t the type to have reservations. “Were we there?”
“She took us to the green land,” Ethan explained.
Mallory’s brow lifted with interest. “Really.”
