by Anya Bast
Melia narrowed her eyes and took a step toward her. Aelfdane put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. Melia’s gaze snapped from Elizabeth to Niall’s face. “She’s already done her damage.”
Bran’s crow, Lex, flapped his wings from its perch on Bran’s shoulder and cawed at Melia, making her turn. “Shut up, Melia,” said Bran, who normally didn’t say anything at all. “I know you. You would have done it to protect someone you love, too. Leave the woman be.”
Melia glared at both of them, then turned and stalked out of the room. Aelfdane trailed behind.
Ignoring the outburst, Niall glanced around the dingy apartment. “Nice place.”
“It’s not the Plaza, but it’s got a good view of the Black Tower from the deck,” Ronan answered. He was standing near the patio doors, gazing out over the city. “Better yet, Gideon and the Summer Queen have no idea we’re here or that the book is here.”
A scratching sound on metal came from the other side of the door and all the hair rose on the back of Niall’s neck. Everyone turned to stare at the door, silent, as the creepy scratching echoed through the room.
Niall glanced at Ronan. “Are you sure about that?”
“I was until now.”
The scratching continued, but now a long, lonely howl accompanied it.
“What in the Netherworld is that?” Emmaline whispered, her hand going for a knife that was lying on the dining room table.
“Sounds like a dog,” Niall said as he, Aeric, and Ronan inched toward the door.
The scratching came again.
Niall took the opposite side of the door from Ronan and Aeric, a charm ready on his tongue that could wallop the piss out of just about anyone. He nodded at Aeric, who opened the door.
In bounded two sleek black hounds, Blix and Taliesin. They were the dogs who led the Wild Hunt every night. The hounds went to the center of the room and turned in circles, whining. Niall dropped his hands to his sides, staring, unbelieving that the hounds had come to them…and not to Gabriel, head of the Wild Hunt.
“But it’s broad daylight,” said Emmaline. “And why did they come here? Why didn’t they go to…” her voice trailed off, and she looked toward the Black Tower.
Aeric looked at Niall, his face grim. Clearly all of them had the same worry.
Lex cawed in agitation and lifted off from Bran’s shoulder to find a perch on a nearby bookshelf, leaving his wings spread to make himself look bigger in front of the dogs. Bran went to the hounds and knelt, cooing at them and rubbing them behind their ears. “They don’t know why they’re here and they’re confused. They sense something is amiss in the city, and they don’t know where their master is.” Bran looked up at them. “They shouldn’t be here now. Danu has her hand in this.”
The hounds both seemed to catch sight of Elizabeth at the same time and went to her, whining. They licked her face and pushed their noses under her arm, as if trying to wake her. Elizabeth roused, her eyes coming open, and Niall went to her side, kneeling.
“Elizabeth?”
Her eyes fluttered open and she winced. “Oh, sweet Lady, that hurts.”
Niall kissed her forehead. “Lots going on, love. Can you shift to your water self and heal?”
She hesitated, as if taking stock of her injury, then nodded. “I think so.” In a moment, she was gone. In the next moment, she was back, naked and gorgeous on the couch.
Niall glanced at the men. “Uh. Avert your eyes, please.”
Elizabeth pulled the blanket that lay over the back of the couch across her body. “Sorry! I didn’t know there was anyone else in the room.” Niall looked at her leg, bloody and wounded only moments ago, now smooth, unmarred, and beautiful.
He held her gaze for a long moment. “I thought maybe I’d lost you.”
She glanced away from him, as if unable to look him in the eye. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for your help.”
Bella brought Elizabeth a pair of jeans. “I packed a few things before I left the tower. I think we’re about the same size.”
Elizabeth stood with the blanket around her and took the jeans, thanking Bella. Then she gathered the rest of her clothes and ducked into the bathroom to change. When she emerged, she glanced at everyone in turn, clearly not quite sure of the welcome she was going to receive. She’d been knocked out cold and had woken in a room filled with people she probably thought hated her.
Blix and Taliesin trotted up to her, and she knelt, scratching them behind the ears. “I just want to tell everyone that I’m sorry I tried to keep you from gaining your freedom. It was selfish of me. Even my mother, the person I was trying to save, thinks so.” She paused, rubbing Blix behind a sleek black ear and not looking at any of them. “I was scared—I am scared—to lose someone I love, and I did a stupid thing to prevent it.”
The room plunged into silence. The muscles in Elizabeth’s shoulders tightened.
“I’ll leave right now,” she said, rising. “I need to find my mother before—Anyway, it’s better if I go.” She turned toward the door, and Niall’s stomach lurched. He didn’t want her go. Not now, not ever.
He took a step toward her, but Bran interrupted him.
“Anyone Blix and Taliesin likes, I like,” said Bran. “They’re excellent judges of character.”
Emmaline twined her hand with Aeric’s and smiled at her. “I get why you did it, Elizabeth. I think most everyone in this room gets it, except maybe Melia.”
Elizabeth spread her hands. “I won’t stand in your way any longer. My mother has accepted her fate, now I need to learn to do the same.”
“That sucks,” said Ronan.
“Yeah.” She gave a bitter laugh. “It really does.”
Just then something rocked the building, making everyone stumble to the side. Immediately the hunt hounds began to howl. The explosion quieted, but continued, sounding like a low growl in the distance.
“What the hell was that?” breathed Elizabeth at Niall.
Realization slammed into him. “The tower.” He raced to the patio door with everyone behind him. Back in the apartment, the hunt hounds lifted their noses to the sky and bayed.
TWENTY-FIVE
SNOW fell in big, fat flakes from a heavy gray sky, obscuring their vision. The deck was rusty and unstable, so they lingered in the doorway. In the distance, they could make out the tower with its four turrets, lights flickering on and off in the windows.
Another blast of magick shook Piefferburg City, feeling like a nuclear explosion. Wind radiated out from the blast site, buffeting their hair. The amount of magick used stung the back of Niall’s throat, choking him.
The lights in the tower flickered, and then the whole tower plunged into darkness. Everything went silent and still. Not one of them on the deck of the apartment building breathed. Mixing in with the snow, corrupting it, were dark flakes of charcoal and soot from something burning.
A great crack echoed through the city…and the Black Tower collapsed.
Heedless of the creaky deck, Niall stepped forward and gripped the cold metal of the balcony railing, leaning forward, not believing what he was seeing and hearing. The tower that he’d watched be erected, piece by magicked black quartz piece, was now imploding into rubble in Piefferburg Square.
The rumbling stopped, and all was quiet. Smoke blossomed like some flower from hell in the place where the tower had stood. More soot and ash wafted through the air toward them, mixing with the snow.
No one said a word. There was nothing to say. All of them were stunned.
All of them were worried about Aislinn and Gabriel.
In the distance a black shape grew larger, flying toward them. Elizabeth gripped his upper arm. “What is that?”
“It’s Abastor!” Bran yelled.
In a moment they saw it was true. The shape took the form of a great black horse, Abastor, the horse that led the Wild Hunt. On top of it were Queen Aislinn and King Gabriel.
Abastor drew up beside the deck, and Niall helped Aislinn of
f the back of the horse and over the railing, pushing her quickly into the apartment. Her dress was ripped and scorched in places; her hair had come loose from its chignon and hung tangled around her shoulders. Gabriel didn’t look much better.
Niall held out a hand to Gabriel. “You two know how to make an entrance.”
Gabriel climbed over, and Abastor flew away. His expression was grim. “Did you see the tower go?”
“We saw,” Aeric answered. “Round one goes to the unholy alliance.”
“What about the happy couple?” Niall asked. “With any luck they’re buried at the base.”
Aislinn shook her head. “There was a hell of a fight. They’re still loose in the city, but I think they’re split up.”
“And Kolbjorn?” asked Kieran.
Expression grim, Aislinn gave her head a sharp shake.
“We all had to run when the tower started to collapse,” said Gabriel. “The Phaendir and the National Guard have opened the gates. It’s a full-on invasion.”
“It’s also noon.” Niall glanced into the apartment, where the book was lying on a table, guarded against Elizabeth by Melia and Aelfdane. “Let’s make sure we win round two.”
“MOVE it,” growled the Shadow Guard behind Liam, pushing him toward Piefferburg Square. Liam coughed from the dust and soot. A few moments ago they’d witnessed something thought impossible—the fall of the Black Tower. It was noon, but it looked like midnight in the square from all the smoke.
The Summer Queen and Gideon were somewhere gloating right now.
The tower had begun to collapse just as the rest of the prisoners were being brought up. They’d waited until everyone had been evacuated from the building until they cleared the scum from the dungeons.
Originally, Liam had had three Shadow Guards herding him out of the Black Tower, but two of them had been lost in the chaos.
“Move it!” the guard bellowed, pushing him forward again with his charmed iron sword, the handle biting into the small of his back. Liam stumbled forward, the iron links of the cuffs around his wrists jangling as he caught himself on the base of the statue of Jules Piefferburg, founder and architect of the place.
All around him, fae keened.
The tower behind them was just a smoking ruin. The building had collapsed in on itself, making a tidy, tall pile of rubble where it had formerly stood, but debris and dust scattered a wide perimeter.
The guard grunted and swore, pissed that Liam had halted for a moment to catch his balance. The handle of the sword connected with Liam’s back again, making pain blossom. Anger rose in the pit of his stomach, fast consuming him. He lowered his head and gritted his teeth. It was past time he got rid of this gobshite.
Feigning a coughing fit, he doubled over. The guard shifted impatiently. Liam pivoted on the balls of his feet, bringing his hands in a swooping arc straight into the guard’s jaw.
Blood flew from the guard’s mouth as the cuffs made solid contact. He staggered to the side and fell under the weight of his armor.
Liam jumped on the guard, swinging his hands again and hitting the man in the cheekbone. He felt the split of meaty flesh and the crack of bone. The man went limp beneath him.
Breathing hard, his hair in his eyes, Liam searched for the keys to the cuffs quickly. The fae around him were watching the spectacle—his was just one more act of violence in a city run rampant with it—but he didn’t trust someone not to be a hero. Once he’d found the keys, he grabbed the guard’s sword and lurched off into the shadows before someone could try.
Once his cuffs were off, he rubbed the back of his hand across his soot-smeared forehead. Every inch of him was covered in the ash of the tower. If he was a poetic man, which he wasn’t normally, he might think of death and the cremation of a body.
Kneeling in the debris and coughing on the dust, he worked his hands through the scattered rubble and pressed his palms to the cold cobblestones of the square. Magick radiated through him as he searched for Gideon. Where had the fecker gone?
Immediately he had a lock on his location, since he wasn’t far. Dragging the sword behind him, Liam pushed up and stumbled through the smoky, snowy air toward him, dodging onlookers who were covering their mouths with their sleeves and walking around looking stunned.
In the distance he could hear skirmishes—fighting and the sounds of gunfire. He’d heard someone say that the gates had been opened to the Phaendir. From the sounds of it, that was definitely possible.
He made his way around to the far end of the square, dodging a slavering sluagh, who snapped at him as he passed. He didn’t even need magick to find Gideon. All he needed to do was follow the trail of frustrated, bloodthirsty goblins and sluagh. They roamed this area like lions denied their prey, confused and befuddled by the protection magick that surrounded the Phaendir and the Summer Queen.
Liam would love to see their protective shields fail—how fast they’d become goblin food.
Finally he made out the group of cloaked Phaendir. They were standing in a little clump, murmuring under their breath and swaying back and forth. His steps faltered. Liam had lived almost a century and it was one of the creepiest things he’d ever had the misfortune to see.
Gideon stood not far away, talking to more Phaendir, Liam guessed. So, it was true, the Phaendir had entered the city full force. The Summer Queen was nowhere to be seen. If the bitch was under the rubble, Liam wouldn’t cry for her.
“So you’re not dead,” said Gideon, catching sight of him.
“Yeah, neither are you.” More’s the pity. “Where’s the book?”
“Not in my possession.” Gideon ground the words out.
“Where’s the queen?”
“Off to find the book, I suppose. I don’t know. I’m not her fucking keeper.”
“Huh.” Liam considered him. His suit was ripped and dirty. Soot covered his face and all exposed skin. His thinning brown hair was sticking up all over the place. He looked like he’d been through hell and back. “Aren’t you a little worried about what comes next?”
“What do you mean?” he snarled and motioned at the tower. “We took down the damned Black Tower!”
“Yeah.” He paused. “But I doubt the book was in there when it fell.” Even now the Unseelie queen could be somewhere in the city, working the spell. “Where’s the book, Gideon?”
“I don’t know where the fucking book is,” Gideon snarled into his face.
Liam snarled back, “Then what fecking good are you?” then whirled and stalked away.
Behind him came the sound of snapping jaws, growling and screaming. Liam turned, hoping to see the sluagh tearing into the archdirector, but it was the goblins and sluagh tearing into a group of arriving Phaendir instead. Guess they didn’t have any of those nifty shields.
Liam glanced back to see Gideon watching placidly as the creatures ripped his men apart. Maybe he didn’t want to waste the power it would take to protect them. Maybe Gideon just wanted to see them die. Liam didn’t know and didn’t care. It appeared it was up to him to find the book and stop this mess.
Kneeling, the sound of death behind him fading to the sounds of eating, Liam plunged his hands into the carnage of the Black Tower and concentrated on the Unseelie Queen. Wherever he found Aislinn, he would find the book.
TWENTY-SIX
THE Book of Bindings lay on the table in the small apartment in ceantar dubh and the clock said high noon, though the dark skies outside made it look closer to midnight.
Aislinn opened the book, and all the air seemed to leave the room for a moment. The Shadow Royals and their advisors stood around the table, while Elizabeth hung back, clearly not feeling as though she had a role to play here.
Niall kept glancing at her. Her face appeared stony, expressionless—resigned. She kept glancing past the patio doors, wondering, perhaps, where her mother had gone, wondering if Thea was all right.
She’d tried to leave to find her mother, but Niall had pointed out the obvious—Elizabet
h had no idea where she was and it was a big city, full of fighting and chaos. It was too late. What a load of sorrow was that?
Thea was going to die alone.
Elizabeth went to stand by the patio doors, hugging herself and looking out at the dirty, soot-smoked city. The beauty was gone, and all that was left was ashes.
“It’s time.” Aislinn flipped past all the mysterious spells to the back of the book, where the grooves for the bosca fadbh guarded the locked portion. Taking the key from Gabriel’s fingers, she slid it into the grooves. No fanfare or grand pronouncements this time. All grim business.
They held their breath.
Nothing happened.
Aislinn frowned and glanced out the window. “It said it would work when the sun was at its highest point in the sky and no shadows marred the land. Shadows definitely mar the land. Maybe…”
“Aw, holy fucking—” Niall began.
Light exploded from the book in a flash so bright, they all turned away to shield their eyes. The flash was so brilliant it probably spilled from all the windows and doors of the apartment, lighting the building like a Roman candle.
Not exactly discreet.
The light faded, and they all looked down at the book. The bosca fadbh was gone. What remained was a single sheet of velum with swooping golden writing in the same strange, ancient language that the instructions had been written in. Maybe it was the language of the ancients. Whatever it was, it was old. When a fae couldn’t remember what something was or where it came from, that meant really old—older than humanity, older than the dinosaurs.
Niall leaned over, trying to understand what it said. After a moment, the words flowed into his head even though he still couldn’t read the text. “These words are meant to free the bound, should this spell, once lost, be found.”
Aislinn took a step back from the book, her face pale.
“What’s wrong?” asked Gabriel.
She motioned at the book. “We have no idea what this spell will actually do. This book was created before time was recorded. Why should it work for our specific circumstances? What if we speak this magick and it makes things even worse than they already are?”
