Realm of Mirrors (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 3)

by Sonya Bateman

  Cobalt frowned. “It’s freezing outside,” he said. “You can talk in the studio, if you’d like some privacy. Is your friend Unseelie?”

  “Nah, he’s human.”

  “Then I’ll not have to invite him inside. If you’ll just lock up when you’re through, I’d appreciate it.”

  “No problem. Uh, thanks,” I said. “Hey, Will. Sorry about crashing the place.”

  “It’s fine,” Will said with a smile. “Cobalt did the same thing for me when I needed it.”

  I couldn’t help a wry laugh. Somehow I doubted Will had needed to rescue his family from evil fairies—but I appreciated the sentiment. “Listen, about your brother…”

  Cobalt waved me off. “Once Uriskel’s decided on a course of action, there’s no force in any realm to stop him,” he said. “I don’t like him risking his life, but I don’t blame you at all. This was his decision.” One corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “And he may actually have a way for all of you to come through this intact, though he’ll have to be the one to tell you. If he so chooses.”

  “Great.” He must’ve meant whatever Uriskel said in Fae that made him change his mind. Plans I didn’t know anything about were my favorite—especially when they were made by a terrifying Unseelie. “Well, anyway…thank you,” I said. “I’d better get down there. He’ll freak out if I’m not where I said I’d be.”

  “Very well.” Cobalt nodded. “Goodnight, Gideon.”

  “’Night.”

  I waved and rushed down the stairs, already fighting a swell of frustrated panic.

  How could I tell Abe that I might never see him again?

  “I knew it,” Abe said.

  We were sitting at one of the tables in the studio, drinking coffee that was as terrible as he’d threatened. With the lights on and the people gone, the place was kind of creepy.

  I still hadn’t gotten to any of the actual bad news, and Abe was already upset.

  “Hey, I’m not fighting werewolves,” I said. I’d only told him that I had to go away for a while. “It’s not even Milus Dei this time.”

  “So what is it?”

  Worse. I took a swallow of overcooked coffee and managed not to gag. “It’s like this,” I said. “You know Taeral?”

  His brow furrowed. “Your friend with the metal arm. The, uh, Fae.”

  “Yeah, him. Thing is…he’s not my friend.” I stared at the table for a minute, and finally got enough nerve to look at Abe. “He’s my brother.”

  I could see the moment it clicked into place for him. “Your actual brother?” he said.

  “Well, half-brother.” Abe knew the Others existed—he’d met most of them I knew, under seriously strained circumstances. But I had the feeling it was all kind of philosophical for him. Until now. “I didn’t know anything about it until I met him, a few days before you did,” I said. “That’s when I found out we have the same birth father. His name is Daoin…and he’s Fae.”

  Abe frowned slightly. “Was it an affair or something? I thought you lived with your parents.”

  “Yeah. So did I.” This part got a little unbelievable, so I tried to explain it as simply as possible. “Apparently my real mother died when I was born, and I was switched at birth.”

  “Huh,” he said. “Isn’t that the damndest thing? I never thought that switched-at-birth stuff really happened.”

  It wasn’t exactly a traditional switch, but I wouldn’t get into that right now. “I gotta say, you’re taking this really well.”

  “Taking what well?”

  “Seriously, Abe?” I said. “I just told you I’m not human.”

  He looked surprised. And then, he smiled. “Werewolf, Fae, bogeyman, whatever—we’re all basically people,” he said. “Well, maybe not the bogeyman. Point is, I wouldn’t care if you were part chupacabra, Gideon. I know you. You’re a good kid…a good man. And you’ve saved a lot of lives. Including mine, in case you forgot.” He reached across the table and patted my hand. “That makes you human in my book.”

  My throat spasmed shut. Right then, I almost decided not to go through with it.

  But if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be the man he thought I was. The man I wanted to be.

  “Thank you.” I drew a deep breath, and it shuddered out of me in a rush. There was no easing into this. I’d just have to spit it out. “Taeral and Daoin were kidnapped by some very bad Fae who aren’t going to let them go, and probably plan to kill them,” I said. “So we have to go try to rescue them—me and Sadie, and another Fae. But these guys took them to Arcadia. The Fae realm. It’s…not exactly on Earth, and we have to use magic to get there. And I might not make it back.”

  Abe didn’t say anything for a long time. He stared at me, sipped his coffee, and stared some more. At last he pushed the cup away and said, “Yes, you will.”

  “Abe, don’t—”

  “You will.” He shook his head, and a grim smile formed on his lips. “Even if you might not, just make an old man happy and lie to me. Say you will.”

  “All right,” I said slowly, not sure I’d be able to keep talking like this. But I pressed on somehow. “I will, then. Be back in about a week, maybe less. But in case I’m…late…”

  “We’re lying here, remember?”

  “In case I’m late,” I said firmly. I couldn’t leave without telling him this. “I told you about Chester Rigby, and how he’s been digging into Milus Dei for years.”

  “The town nutcase out in Pennsylvania. Yeah, I remember,” Abe said.

  “Well, he’s not completely crazy. He’s right about everything but the aliens.” I laughed in spite of myself. Chester had managed to convince himself that the cult was a carefully planned, long-term alien invasion, trying to create a race of genetic super-soldiers. But he did have a lot of information on their history, branches, and current locations—and he’d given me copies of everything. “Anyway, I have tons of stuff on these guys. It’s in my room, at the place I told you I was staying,” I said. “If I’m late, I’d like you to go there and get it. They know you might be coming. Who knows, maybe the NYPD can do something about those bastards. Now that one of them isn’t running it.”

  Abe let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. But it’s not going to be necessary,” he said. “When you get back, we can both work on it.”

  “Yeah. We’ll do that.” I grimaced and reached into my pocket. “One more thing,” I said, putting my van keys and the parking garage ticket on the table. “It’s in the E-Z Park at Eighth and Thirty-First.”

  “I’m not taking your van.”

  “It’s armored, Abe.” I tried to smile. “How can you say no to an armored van?”

  “Because it’s had a lot of dead people in it.”

  “I haven’t transported any corpses in…days,” I said. “Look, you can give it to SWAT, or donate it to the Rescue Mission or something. Just take the keys, please.” Part of the reason I wanted my van looked after was sentimental. It had been my home for years, and I didn’t want it destroyed by the city.

  Reluctantly, he scooped up the keys and ticket, and shoved them in a pocket. “Fine. But I’m only holding onto them because I don’t want you losing your keys in some weird-ass fairy realm,” he said. “Getting them back’d be a bitch.”

  “Thank you.”

  He sat silent another moment, and said, “Well, if you don’t have any other bad news for me, guess you’d better get some rest for your…magic traveling, or whatever.”

  “I guess so,” I said. “You too—now that you have to work normal-people hours.”

  “Yeah. I just love this promotion.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I said.

  I walked him to the door, and he stopped before he went out. “You can do this, Gideon,” he said. “Go save your family…and come back in one piece.”

  “Hey, I have to, right? Because not all my family’s over there,” I said. “The part I care about most is standing right here, telling me not to get my dumb ass killed.”

  H
e grabbed me, and I hugged him back hard. I felt his shoulders heave once, then he stepped back without looking at me. “Take care, kid,” he said thickly. “And call me when you get back.”

  “I will.”

  When the door closed behind him, I leaned against the wall with my eyes shut.

  It was a long time before I trusted my legs to get me back upstairs.

  CHAPTER 13

  It took me a minute to realize the weird buzzing sound was my phone. I only set the alarm when I had to get up at ungodly o’clock—and eight in the morning definitely qualified, for someone who often didn’t even go to bed until now.

  Once I’d gotten that straight, I had to puzzle out why there was something warm and solid pressed against me. And I finally figured it was Sadie.

  I’d meant to sleep in the chair. Honest.

  When I came back up from tearing my guts out with Abe, she’d been thrashing and moaning on the bed. Having a hell of a nightmare. I managed to half-wake her, and she muttered something about not wanting to be alone, and could I lay down with her until she fell asleep.

  So I did. The next thing I knew, it was morning.

  And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually slept in a bed with another person.

  Sadie stirred, and my brain registered that the alarm was still going off. I maneuvered carefully to sit on the edge of the bed, grabbed my phone from the nightstand beside it, and tapped it silent.

  “Umph,” Sadie slurred behind me. “’S morning now?”

  I got up and paced a few steps away before I answered. Maybe we wouldn’t talk about the whole bed-sharing thing. “Well, the sun’s up,” I said. “Probably.” This room didn’t have windows, but I was pretty sure sunrise came before eight.

  “Good.” Sadie straightened, pushed the covers down and ran a hand through unruly auburn curls—while I tried not to notice how absolutely adorable she was in the morning. “There a shower here?”

  “Yeah, right there.” I pointed to the small bathroom door. “You can use it first.”

  “I planned on it.” She smiled sleepily and swung her legs off the bed. “Gideon…thank you. For staying with me.”

  I gave a slight cough. “No problem.”

  “Yes, it was. But you did it anyway.”

  Sure. It was a problem, in a you’re-with-my-brother way. But now wasn’t the time to bring that up. “Er, we should get ready,” I said. “I have no idea when ‘early’ is supposed to be, but I’m guessing it’s soon.”

  She sighed and stood. “You’re right. I’ll be quick,” she said, brushing past me to head for the bathroom.

  I probably should’ve said something else right there. Unfortunately, I had no idea what.

  While she was in the shower, I double-checked the bags we’d brought up last night—Sadie’s just to make sure it was still there. I had no idea what she’d packed. But I had a few changes of clothes, the spelled dagger Taeral gave me, and two of the guns we’d liberated from Milus Dei, with extra ammo. Didn’t know what we’d face over there, but I figured a bunch of bullets would slow most things down.

  As long as I could manage to hit them. I wasn’t the world’s best shot.

  By 8:30, we were both showered and dressed. We left the room and found Cobalt and Will at the table in the small dining area, looking no more awake than either of us felt. But they’d put out quite a breakfast.

  “That’s a lot of food,” I said, staring at a table full of bacon and sausage, buttered toast, breakfast pastries, two kinds of juice, and one of those fancy egg pies—couldn’t remember what it was called. “How long have you been awake?”

  Cobalt laughed under his breath. “Not that long. There’s a diner nearby, and they deliver,” he said. “Coffee’s on the counter, if you’d like. Help yourselves.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll get us coffee.” Sadie headed for the pot. She hadn’t said much since we woke up, and apparently she didn’t plan to.

  I couldn’t blame her. I’d never been on Death Row, but right now I could imagine what it felt like to sit down to the last meal.

  Uriskel turned up shortly after we stopped trying to eat—but I almost didn’t recognize him.

  Yesterday’s leather and straps had been replaced by a rough, dark green sleeveless tunic over a full-sleeved black shirt, formfitting black pants, and simple suede boots. His dark red hair had somehow grown about a foot, and he’d acquired some fierce-looking facial tattoos. He carried a pack much bigger than ours on his back, and smaller bags in each hand.

  There was something else, too. A bunch of feathers sticking up behind his shoulder, which I finally figured out were arrows to go with the bow fastened alongside the pack.

  “A bow and arrow?” I said. Not even a round of bullets could kill a Fae, so a simpler weapon didn’t make much sense. “Are they enchanted or something?”

  Uriskel smiled crookedly and shook his head. “They’re not for battle,” he said. “We’ll need to eat, and there’s a shortage of things such as grocery stores and electricity in Arcadia.”

  “Oh. Right.” I hadn’t even thought about how different this place was going to be, other than full of Fae instead of humans. At least I knew how to hunt—but I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the way I’d learned.

  Cobalt looked him over and nodded approval. “It’s been long since I’ve seen you this way, brother,” he said. “Interesting markings. But you might’ve asked me, you know. I’d have done them better.”

  “It’s only a glamour,” Uriskel said. “I’ve shifted it a bit. Hoping we’ll be mistaken for wild ones at a distance, and avoided for a time. Speaking of.” He tossed one of the small bags at me, then walked over and handed the other one to Sadie. “Enter Arcadia dressed like that, and you’ll be instant targets. I’ve more appropriate clothing for you.”

  Sadie shivered a little. With whispered thanks, she headed for the guest room.

  “I’ll just wait for her,” I said, and opened the drawstring bag for a peek. Dark green and black stuff—probably an outfit similar to Uriskel’s. “So, um. What wild ones?”

  “The Unseelie of the wood,” Uriskel said. “They’re largely…unpleasant, and avoided by those more civilized, who don’t find violence and mayhem quite as entertaining.”

  “Terrific.”

  It wasn’t long before Sadie came out dressed in black and forest green. She looked amazing, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that. Compliments seemed inappropriate for an outfit designed to help rescue the love of her life from certain death. So I just waved a little as I passed by on the way to the guest room.

  I changed quickly, and then glanced in the bathroom mirror, figuring I probably looked like Peter Pan in this stuff. But I was surprised to find my reflection seemed a little more intimidating than a Disney cartoon. In fact, it was almost threatening.

  Must’ve been subconscious. I was probably still thinking about the wild ones, and it’d rubbed off on my perceptions or something.

  When I rejoined the rest of them, Sadie gaped at me. “Holy shit.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “Um. I’ve just never seen you look so…Fae before,” she said.

  Will smiled. “It suits you.”

  “Interesting,” Uriskel said. “And now if we could all end the fashion discussion, we’ve places to go, and miles to make.”

  The silence that followed stretched into awkward territory, until Cobalt said, “Safe returns, then. All of you.”

  “That’d be the plan.”

  Uriskel moved to the center of the room, and Sadie and I followed. “I’ll put us near to the Trees of Ankou as possible, though we’ll still face a hike across the marshlands,” he said. “The Mists tend to be active there. I can’t risk stepping directly into them.”

  I frowned. “What Mists?”

  “Let’s hope you’ll not have to find out.” He raised a hand, paused, and then drew it down like a slow-motion karate chop.

  The air rippled apart a
s his hand passed through, creating a slit that pulsed and gleamed with brilliant colors of every shade and hue—and some I couldn’t even name. The gap almost seemed to breathe, a slow and slumbering pace that calmed my racing heart.

  “All right. You first, DeathSpeaker. Then the girl,” Uriskel said. “Don’t wander off. I’ll be directly behind you.”

  I nodded and moved in front of the rip. This wasn’t the way I expected my first visit to Arcadia to happen—but I was going. No turning back now.

  I stepped through before I could think myself out of it.

  The first thing I noticed was the moon.

  There’d been no bright lights or sudden darkness. No sense of time passing, no rush of air or weightless suspension. Going through the portal was like stepping from one room to the next—except the first room was completely gone, and the next one wasn’t a room. It was a vast, wide open space under a brilliant and impossibly huge moon.

  But it wasn’t like any full moon I’d ever seen.

  Pure blue steel, ringed by a shimmering corona like silver flames. The light eradicated every feature, erased the familiar shadows that textured the moon I knew. And there was something else off, something I only realized when I tore my gaze deliberately from the bright circle.

  The sky was cloudless, velvet black with a faint purple hue.

  And there were no stars. Not a single one.

  A startled intake of breath behind me announced Sadie’s arrival. I turned toward her—and the hesitant smile on my face froze as alarms blared through my head.

  Full moon.

  A full moon was very bad for a werewolf. And this was the fullest damned moon ever to exist.

  All thoughts of taking in the surroundings vanished. “Sadie,” I said carefully. “I think I figured out why you being here is not good.”

  She didn’t seem to hear me. Her wide eyes saw the moon, and nothing else.

  Just then, Uriskel stepped from the glowing gap in the air beside her. He gestured dismissively, and the jagged line of light vanished. “Well, at least that went smoothly.”