by Anya Bast
No one knew what the pieces of the bosca fadbh, once united into the key it was meant to be, would unlock in the back of the Book of Bindings. All they knew for certain was there was some power contained within that would take down the walls of Piefferburg. Honestly, they didn’t even know that for certain; it was just a legend, passed down through the generations. It was a legend all the fae had their hopes and dreams pinned to…well, almost all of them.
“I know where the Summer Queen is hiding,” she said quietly.
He snapped to attention. All their attempts to track Caoilainn’s movements or find her location had failed. “Where?”
“You should know she’s working with the Phaendir.”
He grimaced. “I wish I could say I was surprised.”
“Do you know the sea cliffs in the northern part of Piefferburg? The ones created by magick? She’s got a whole residence built into them, complete with a throne room. Apparently she thought she’d need a secure location at some point and spent centuries creating one for herself.”
He studied her. “Thank you for telling me.”
She shrugged. “She’s working with the Phaendir and needs to be stopped. Go get her.”
“You did well by not giving Amberdoyal the pieces.” He looked at her. “Honestly, Elizabeth, you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”
She swallowed a bite of eggs and grinned. “You sound surprised.”
“I am. I mean, you spent your life pretty much alone, way out there with only a few nature fae and your family for company. Someone raised like that, you wouldn’t expect—”
“What would you expect?” Her tone had gone a little dark and stormy. Uh-oh.
He shrugged. “You’d expect more naivety, less maturity, maybe…more innocence.”
She looked down at her plate. “I was pretty innocent last night, if you’ll recall.”
He grinned. “Maybe at first, but you displayed an incredible eagerness to learn.” He recalled how she’d crawled onto her hands and knees for him and his cock went rock hard.
Clearing her throat, she glanced out the window and colored a bit. Her pale skin let every little blush be known. It was adorable. “You make it easy.” Her voice had gone a little husky, aroused.
He reacted to it immediately, his hands shaking like those of a man with an addiction and no way to get a fix. Making fists, he looked away from her. “Look, I need to get back to Piefferburg City and tell the queen that Gideon Amberdoyal is loose among with us with a cadre of Phaendir.”
“Ah.” She raised an eyebrow. “So, we’ve come up against our little problem already.”
“What do you mean?”
She set her coffee cup on the table and leaned toward him. “Well, I’m not going with you to Piefferburg City, that’s for sure. So it’s come time for our interlude to be over and for me to be on my way.”
He laughed. “And go where? You’re not recovered enough to dissolve and I’m taking the SUV.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I’ll figure it out.”
“You’ll stay with me.” Immediately he understood the mistake he’d made by using that tone of voice and the order that came with it. It had come from a place of concern for her safety, but no one ordered Elizabeth around. He knew that better than anyone.
Elizabeth Saintjohn had a will stronger than anyone he’d ever met. She’d told him once that she would resist him to her dying breath—and she really had.
She crossed her arms across her chest. “Not happening. I won’t go willingly, and I think you’re past slapping charmed iron on me, right?”
“I never slapped charmed iron on you, if you’ll recall.”
“Right, you just trapped me in a big box made of it.”
“And I’d do it again, too.”
She pushed away from the table and stood. “Listen, I better be on my way now.”
He affected his best wounded expression. “So soon? After last night? I think I feel used.”
She grinned at him. “Sure you do.” After putting her dishes in the sink, she crossed through the living room into the bedroom, probably to pack or find suitable clothes for the journey she intended to make.
Of course, he had no intention of letting her leave. Not while Gideon was still out there. Not in the snow. Not before she had the ability to dissolve.
He stood and followed her in, leaning against the doorframe. “Don’t make me use my magick on you again.”
She rounded on him with an expression of rage on her face. She pointed a finger at him, a sweater balled in her opposite hand. “Never do that to me again. Niall, promise me!”
“You would trust a promise from me?”
She considered that for a moment. “Yes, I would.”
He nodded, smiling. He liked that. He liked that a lot. She trusted him. “I promise I will never use mind fuck on you again, no matter what.”
“Thank you.”
“Come to Piefferburg City with me.”
“No way.” She turned around and continued to select clothing, clearly going for the heaviest items that would protect her skin the most. She intended to hike. “What if the Shadow Queen finds out I’m there? I’ll be dead within a week, tortured, then dead.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“You might not have a say.” She pulled an extra sweater over her head, then laced up a pair of hiking boots. “We’re going to have to send these people money for squatting in their house and using their things.”
“I won’t let you go out there with Gideon still on the loose.”
“Yeah?” She stood and pushed past him, walking for the front door. “Try and stop me.” She opened the door and turned, cold air and snow rushing around her and mussing her hair. Deep red tendrils whipped around her face. “This is where our paths diverge. I wish it could be different.”
“Me, too.”
She gave him a sad smile. “Good luck, Niall.”
“Good luck, Elizabeth.”
And then she was gone.
FIFTEEN
A goblin opened the doors of the Black Tower for Niall and he walked into chaos. Seelie nobles thronged the grand foyer, mixing with the monsters of the Black.
It stopped him dead.
Staring, he took in a sight that he’d never thought to see in all his days. The Seelie mixing with the Unseelie. He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. After all, the Summer Queen was gone, labeled a betrayer of her people, and the Seelie had always been sheep. Of course they were over here at the dark end of Piefferburg Square, seeking protection and direction. It was all the more convenient that the Shadow Queen had once walked among them. Her mother was Seelie. Niall guessed that was enough for most of them in these troubled times.
Kieran came up on his left side. “Amazing, isn’t it? They started arriving in groups a couple days ago.”
“Fuck.” It was the only utterance Niall could make at the moment.
“The military is massing at the gates. Looks like they’re coming in at any moment. Probably today. The Seelie are scared and looking to the only Tuatha Dé royal left in the city.”
“Fuck.”
“You mentioned that, yes.” He rubbed his chin.
He glanced at him. “Why are you so calm?”
“Calm? I’m not calm. I have a wife to protect, remember? A wife that went against the Phaendir and got us the last piece of the bosca fadbh. A wife that all the bad guys want dead. I’m headed out of the city with Charlotte today, Niall. I won’t risk her pretty neck. Not for anything or anyone. In a way, you’re lucky that you have no one to worry about.”
Yeah, except he did.
The realization jolted him. He really did care about Elizabeth. He cared about her a lot. Damn it all to the Lady, that complicated things so much.
He shook himself out of that thought pattern. The only direction it went was down. “Where’s the queen? I have more excellent news.”
“Do I detect sarcasm?”
“Jus
t a hint.”
“The last time I saw her she was meeting in the Ivory Room with the highest ranked Seelie nobles, attempting to soothe their scared rabbit hearts.”
Niall snorted in derision. “They’re like humans with a breath of magick.”
“Some of them not even that much. I met a man this morning whose only talent is turning yellow roses red. So useful in a fight.”
“And now we get to babysit them.”
“They think it’s our pleasure.”
Niall grunted, turned, and shook his hand. “Good luck, Kieran.”
“You, too. You’re going to need it with the queen.”
Yes, and Kieran only knew half of it.
He found her in the Ivory Room, just finishing up with a group of well-dressed Seelie nobles who all had sour looks on their faces. Niall stepped aside to let them pass and each of them favored him with either a look of scorn or fear. As the last man filed past, Niall made as if to bite him, snapping his teeth together. The Seelie shrieked and hurried away, leaving Niall grinning.
“I’m glad someone is having fun,” said the queen wearily. She stood at the large window that overlooked Piefferburg Square.
“I wouldn’t say I’m having fun, exactly, but you only have so many opportunities to frighten Seelie nobles in your life and you have to seize each one.” He walked into the long, ivory-colored room that was dominated by a long table with chairs.
She smiled at him and rubbed her temple. “It appears I get a surplus of them.”
She’d been raised Seelie. It was probably pretty strange for her to greet them as the dreaded, dark Shadow Queen now. She was even dressed the part today, in an elaborate black and silver silk and satin gown, split up the front to reveal thigh-high goth boots. Niall thought she looked great, then instantly imagined what Elizabeth would look like dressed in those clothes…minus everything but the boots.
Aislinn turned from the window and flopped into a chair. “I can’t wait to get my hands on the Summer Queen.” She fisted her hands in her lap, her voice holding a thread of steel.
“I think I can help you with that.”
“What?” She looked up at him. “Do you know where she is?”
He stepped a little closer to her…but not too close. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
She closed her eyes and let her head fall back to hit the headrest. “The good news. I could use some of that, even if it’s followed by bad.”
“I know where the queen is hiding.” He drew a breath. “The bad news is she’s teamed up with Gideon Amberdoyal, who is loose in Piefferburg with a cadre of Phaendir giving him magickal head juice that can blow things up. Gideon was allied with a free fae, too, but I think he’s dead now.”
Aislinn didn’t say anything for several moments. Finally, she focused on his face. “And the asrai?”
Oh, yeah, he’d forgotten that part. “Still alive, still has the pieces.” He launched into the whole story, leaving out the part when he’d made a pact to help her save her mother, rescued her from Gideon, and, oh, yeah, slept with her. Twice.
“Gideon killed Ragnar and the goblins?”
“Burned them to itty-bitty cinders.”
She sighed, turning to gaze out the window again. “And the asrai is gone again and no one can find her.”
“I can find her.”
She turned toward him and her eyes narrowed. “I told you to back off. How do you know all this?”
He grinned the most charming grin he could conjure even though he knew it wouldn’t help. “Yeah, well, I never backed off.”
“Why?” The question cracked out of her like a whip, and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
Because I love Elizabeth Cely Saintjohn. The thought slammed into his head like a freight train. Luckily he kept it from leaping to his lips. “I couldn’t. I didn’t back off because I care about my people, and because when I take a job, I see it through to its bitter end.” His breath showed white in the suddenly chilly air.
“You disobeyed me.”
“My intentions were good.”
She glowered darkly at him for a moment before the temperature in the room increased a little. She had more important things to worry about than his disobedience and they both knew it. “I’m not giving up, Niall. Those bastards might be between our walls and the soldiers might be ready to beat in the gates, but I will never stop trying to break the warding.” The dark circles under her eyes seemed to go a shade darker. “Lead Kolbjorn Einar Soren Halvorson to her. He’ll get her to tell him who she’s protecting and where she’s hiding them. He’ll do whatever is necessary to get the pieces.”
He wasn’t surprised by the name she’d given him. Kolbjorn was the likely next choice after Ragnar. Not only could Kolbjorn shoot exploding magick like Gideon, he could pulverize bones with a thought. Imagining him with Elizabeth made his blood run cold.
Niall didn’t have the heart to tell the queen her plan wouldn’t work. There would be no way Elizabeth would give up any information under torture…even if he really planned to lead Kolbjorn to her, which he didn’t.
“Of course,” he replied. “Right away.”
He was lying and it made a black fist of sick nothing form in his gut, but he knew a way to end this situation once and for all—without causing physical harm to Elizabeth. Instead he planned to go to Thea, tell her everything. He had a feeling she wouldn’t like what her daughter was doing.
He also had a feeling that Thea would do the right thing.
By doing this he knew the woman he’d fallen in love with would hate him forever, but it would also save her life. Having Elizabeth alive, healthy, and hating him was better than having her tortured and killed.
Aislinn lifted her eyebrows. “Really? No fighting me? No discussion about morals or compassion that will break my heart?”
He gave his head a sharp shake. “We don’t have time to lose.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
His heart felt sick lying to her, for betraying his people, but he loved Elizabeth and there was no way he would be a part of her destruction. He would do anything to protect her, sacrifice anything.
And in that one moment of clarity, he finally understood Elizabeth’s motivation.
Behind them, one of the Shadow Guard lurched, panicked, into the room. “It’s done. They’re through! U.S. soldiers are streaming into Piefferburg right now.”
SIXTEEN
NIALL raced out of Piefferburg City at top speed just as the soldiers were streaming in. They didn’t come in with their guns blazing—that was a good sign. Instead they marched and drove in, took up spots around the city like silent sentinels, weapons at the ready.
They didn’t allow any Phaendir into the city. That was smart. It kept the fae from attacking…at least, mostly. Still, skirmishes were breaking out here and there. Likely it would only get worse. The fae weren’t going to suffer an occupation.
The clock was ticking away the seconds to war. The tension in the city, already palpable like heavy fog, had ratcheted up a degree. Niall knew he had to hurry.
He sped out of the city and down the narrow roads of the Boundary Lands, as fast as he could get to Thea’s house. Leaving the engine running and the door open, he raced up the walkway to the front door and didn’t even bother to knock. He burst into the kitchen…
The cottage was empty.
No fire burned in the hearth. Everything was cold and dark. He raced through the living room to find that the bedroom showed recent signs of packing.
Elizabeth had moved her. She hadn’t trusted Niall enough not to come here and reveal all. Smart woman. Too smart for her own good.
Niall sank down on the end of the bed and cradled his head in his hands.
He was out of options.
ELIZABETH walked up the path to her mother’s hidden house. She moved her to a small home deep in the woods, the home of one of the elderly people she’d cared for and who had died not long
ago.
Before she made it to the door, her mother burst forth, arms waving. “They’re through! Elizabeth, they’re through!”
“Who’s through?” Although she had a sinking feeling she knew.
Her mother hugged her hard, then led her into the house. The TV was blaring in the small living room, channel set to Faemous. “The U.S. government has broken through the gates. They control it now, won’t let any fae out and won’t let any Phaendir in. The military has marched into Piefferburg to take control of the towers. There’s fighting breaking out everywhere.”
Elizabeth sank down onto the couch, hand to her mouth. “Sweet Lady.”
“I never thought I would see this day.” Her mother sat down beside her. “I never really thought it would happen.” Her expression and voice grew dark. “Curse whoever has those pieces.”
Elizabeth jerked as if hit, but she wasn’t really surprised to hear her mother voice such an opinion. “Do you really want the fae free? Mom, if the walls fall the sprae will leave Piefferburg and you’ll—”
“Die.” She looked down into her lap. “I’m aware.”
They fell into watching coverage of the blooming occupation of Piefferburg City, filmed from high atop a building in the ceantar dubh, it appeared, by a trembling Brian Bentley, one of the Faemous commentators. The fae were using their magick left and right, as the shaking camera showed. Shots were being fired back. Charmed iron and non-charmed iron weapons—the only physical weaponry the fae possessed—really weren’t all that effective against bullets. Even so, the humans were definitely getting the worst end of the battle.
Because, after all, bullets weren’t all that effective against magick either.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and almost passed out. She’d known this would happen, but now that it actually was happening she couldn’t quite catch her breath.
“Elizabeth, what’s going on with you?”
She opened her eyes to find her mother staring at her. “What do you mean?” She motioned at the TV. “History is being made even as we speak. It’s making me woozy.”
