I played it slow and soft and sorrowful, more to just feel the instrument’s voice resonating up my arm than to hit the actual notes. That subtle vibration, the hum of singing wood, in some ways still meant more to me than the far newer, wilder polyphony of my magic. It grounded me in a way matched by nothing else but Christopher’s arms, and made me feel for the first time since Elessir and I had escaped Faerie that I was in fact home.
And home was about to be bulldozed by a dragon-powered cyclone. My awesome timing, I told myself, let me show you it. What the hell had happened to the whole Go See a Concert With My Boyfriend plan, anyway? I missed that plan. I wanted it back.
So I set my jaw, scowled, and changed tunes, jolting from the wistful D major to a darker, faster E minor, the melody I remembered from the fiddle player on the stage when Christopher and I had been at the show. Fucking dragons. Fucking interfering fey monarchs. Fucking unpredictable bards. Fucking wibbly-wobbly flow of time breakage and worrying everybody sick and no, damn it, it didn’t reassure me that I’d only been gone a month instead of a hundred years. On each angry thought, my bow sliced over the strings with all the force of a striking sword.
I played till the tune blew itself out, a scant precursor to the fury on its way in from the sound. Now I was restless, on edge and ready to take something down.
With hands I had to fight to keep from shaking, I packed the violin away and stowed it safely in my closet. Nor was I surprised to find that Christopher had silently stolen to my bedroom door and had been listening to me play the whole time, watching me with a gaze every bit as stormy as my own roiling mood. I turned to him without a word and pulled him into my arms, hugged him hard, and held him close for a long moment. He responded in kind, and when we both pulled back, we were still grim-eyed.
But now we were ready to go.
* * *
We headed out to Discovery Park in waves. Makiko and her sons left first, scouting ahead to make sure we could make it there. Of the rest of us, it seemed only natural and proper that Millicent, Christopher, Elessir, and I take the lead, even if we had to take Millicent’s car to do it. I drove since both of the Warders started radiating power out into the air the instant we stepped outside, and neither could spare enough attention to take the wheel. Elessir’s senses and reflexes were probably vastly better than mine, but along with the extra sword Melisanda loaned him as she’d promised, he had Melorite’s skull. And I had no desire whatsoever to relieve him of the job of carrying it.
All the way there, even through the body of the car, I felt the storm brewing. It wasn’t just the smell of it, though the air coming through the car vents was heavy with ozone and the salt-laden tang of ocean-born rain. Pre-magic, I’d never smelled the ocean on any wind in off the sound, not unless I’d been standing right down on the waterfront. But I could smell it now. The rising pressure of what had to be the storm’s leading eastern edge pushed against my temples, a headache just waiting to happen. And most importantly, my power spiked up in answer to the magic layered into that wind along with the moisture. There was far too much of it, more than I’d ever sensed in the city before, even kept in relative check by the city’s Wards.
Not to mention the city’s Warders. Never mind the magic pouring off them so thickly they were almost glowing. One look at Millicent and Christopher’s strained faces was all I needed to tell they were working the Wards with everything they had, even on the move.
None of us talked much. No one had mental space for it. Only Millicent broke our joint silence, barking directions for me when I needed them. We all knew where our destination was—but the streets between my place and the westernmost edge of Seattle, where Discovery Park lay sprawling, were a maze of detours, roadblocks, and unexpected traffic snarls as everyone unfortunate enough to still not be under the protection of a roof was hurrying for cover as fast as they possibly could.
The park, once we finally reached it, was closed. But we’d planned for that, with the lot of us converging on one of the less obvious entrances. The Asakuras were waiting for us when we got there. How they’d gotten the gate open for us, I didn’t know. Whether it was some nogitsune magic, whether they’d brought bolt cutters, or whether one of them actually worked at the park, I had no idea. Nor did it matter. They got us in, which was the important part.
Once we were in past the gate, we had to make it to the wide, open spaces close to the water—and past any number of trees swaying precariously in the wind. Debris from the previous storms that had slammed the city littered the winding boulevard that would normally have provided a leisurely path through this bastion of nature. Tonight, it gave us damning evidence that there were reasons the park had closed to the public during the emergency of the last many days. Halfway in, we found our way blocked by the ruin of a Douglas fir that had tumbled over, the bulk of its lower trunk shattered, yet more than substantial enough to keep our vehicles from advancing another foot.
Which we’d also planned for. There was nothing else to be done for it but for every last one of us to break out gloves and tools from the trunks of our cars and haul the tree out of our way. Even Millicent and Aggie, who might have been excused on the grounds of age, did their part. One glare from Millie out from under the brim of her fedora was enough to quell the objections the rest of us were thinking before we got brave enough to actually voice them.
Much odder than seeing two old women engaged in physical labor was seeing two Sidhe doing it. Makiko and her sons still looked human in their bipedal forms, and they had personal motivation at stake. But Melisanda with her unearthly grace, even disheveled by the gusting breeze and with grubby mortal work gloves protecting her hands, looked almost ridiculous helping haul fir branches out of the road. Elessir looked only marginally less silly, outclassed in size as he was by Christopher and Carson, and even next to Jake and the two Asakura boys, he looked slender and breakable. Yet Seelie and Unseelie alike worked alongside us. And it was strangely reassuring to see that not only could Elessir sweat like us mortals, but that he was specifically willing to.
My goodwill towards him lasted about as long as it took us to clear the road enough so that we could proceed. We found no further obstructions—but all that meant was that once we reached the grasslands out on the point, we had to choose between the dubious shelter of the surrounding trees and the blast of the weather already roaring in from the sound. Thick, dark clouds shot through with lurid splashes of green and yellow massed across the entire western half of the sky. Even from our vantage point the tumult of the waves underneath those clouds was apparent. As we regrouped on the edge of the trees, I could only be grateful we didn’t have to leave dry land.
Even if dry was a very relative term. Because of course it was raining, in a barrage of cold needles of water blown into sharp angles by the wind. None of us bothered with umbrellas. They would have ripped to shreds by that wind, the moment we tried to open them. We dressed in layers instead, in raincoats or fleece or windbreakers, whatever we had on hand.
Elessir and I had to stride out into the middle of the field, with the West Point Lighthouse a stark white shape in the near distance and tall brown stalks of grass lashing around us at our passing. Christopher was right on our heels, while the others hung back out of the way, giving us space to work—and in Christopher’s case, that meant throwing off power that I did in fact start to see the stronger it got. His signature green-golden Warding glow, strangely ethereal and delicate against the stormlight, flared out from us in a wave that didn’t do much for the chaos in the sky. But down on the ground, it pushed back hard against the wind and gave us a few vital moments where we could talk without having to scream to be heard.
“So are we doing anything here above and beyond firing off a magical flare gun?” I demanded of Elessir, peering balefully at him out from under the hood of my raincoat. He hadn’t bothered with one himself. All he’d added to his country-boy denim look was Melisanda’s extra sword, belted around his waist, giving him plenty of ro
om to draw. His hair was soaked through, hopelessly disheveled, yet somehow appropriate. It made him look wild and far more himself than he had in days.
But then again, maybe it was all because of the storm. If there was such a thing as Unseelie weather, this was it. And if the gleam in Elessir’s eye was any indication, he was enjoying it, the bastard.
“More like waving our cape in front of a very large, very angry bull,” he said. “But if it’s any consolation, darlin’, I’m pretty sure she only wants to take my head off.”
“Keep calling her darlin’ and I’ll take your head off,” Christopher growled.
I couldn’t tell whether the strain in his voice was due to the magic he was pouring forth or the daggers he was glaring at the singer. Most likely both. “Boys, boys, you’re both pretty!” With my left hand I grabbed hold of Christopher’s nearest fingers. With my right, I gestured peremptorily at the tote bag in which Elessir had stowed the object that had brought us all out into the squall. “Let’s get this done and dealt with, okay?”
“By all means.” Elessir unzipped the bag. Within it, in a nest of towels and washcloths we’d added for padding, the alokhiu’s skull was a cold flash of white. His mouth twisting, he drew the thing out and held it forth for me, dropping the bag negligently at our feet. “We’ll both have to be touching it…” The Unseelie paused, slanted a glance at Christopher, and finished blandly, “Miss Thompson.”
“Don’t make me turn this park around,” I retorted, and then glanced at Christopher myself, squeezing his hand tightly. “Got my back?”
“Always, Kenna-lass.” For me, his voice was still strained, but without the growl. More importantly, the power he was putting out pooled around me, a warm brightness palpable enough to almost have weight of its own. I blinked at him. This was stronger magic out of him than I remembered.
Then I caught myself. He’d been working on his magic for a month and was pulling from a broader range of territory now. It showed. My own power rose up to meet it, taking the temperature of the air around us up, and making me forget the lash of the rain.
I laid my free hand on the skull that Elessir held. To my surprise, Christopher laid his other hand over mine. His power and mine together whirled around all three of us in a column of light.
The instant we made contact with the thing, physical and magical alike, my entire consciousness nearly buckled under an onslaught of visions as merciless as the rain.
Melorite. I saw her, or rather sensed her, as if from within her own head: the lifting of graceful white hands, wavy auburn hair blowing across my line of sight, the blood-deep pull of magic that seduced what it wanted and swallowed it whole. She cut a swath through half a dozen mortal cities in the memories that swamped me in those few seconds: London. Vienna. Paris. Moscow. Oslo. Rome. Faces and figures spun through my head, some male, some female, all clad in the garb of different eras. Each one succumbed to the siren call of Melorite’s Unseelie power.
In almost every fragment of vision, I also saw Elessir.
He changed with the passing of the centuries, assuming and discarding each one’s fashions with practiced ease even as he immersed himself in its music. A dozen different instruments found their voices in his hands, including a violin with a sweet, silken timbre that made me want to weep. I saw him rousing a crowd of mortal listeners to bright-eyed ecstatic dancing while he unleashed a smile of angelic brilliance back at them with his singing… and I saw Melorite drinking it in, twisting it, turning that feedback loop of unmitigated joy into something darker and predatory.
I saw her ensnaring him in her arms and in her magic. She laughed as he resisted her, only to stumble harder into the trap of her thrall. Time and time again she feasted upon him, until at last, even with her bodily form destroyed by her Queen, there was nothing left of her but that urge to devour him whole.
And I was going to have to call her hungry spirit, clad in a dragon’s form, down upon him.
Something of my horror at that thought must have flared up in my face, for Elessir—the real one, not the one in the visions assaulting my mind’s eye—abruptly shouted in a voice that reverberated as only a master singer’s could, “Do it, Kendis! Find her! Call her!”
Now he decides to use my name? I couldn’t stop that one wild thought from careening through my head. But I locked down every other one threatening to come after it, because he was right. I had to focus.
So I grabbed onto that memory, a memory that wasn’t mine, of Elessir and a violin. I threw it on a burst of magic straight into the skull, and just as had happened when I’d helped Christopher and Millicent search for Jude, my awareness abruptly expanded far beyond the physical space I occupied.
Without warning, part of me was aloft in the full blast of the storm. I couldn’t feel the rain and the wind, but from this new dizzying height, I saw much of Discovery Park spread out below me. The individual shapes of most my friends were lost against the greater roll of the land; Millicent and Christopher, though, stood out as the nexus points of the shining wash of light they’d raised here at the very western edge of the city, and of the city’s Wards. Trees that had no business being below me without an airplane involved swayed violently in multiple directions at once, and even as I watched, the top of a towering conifer snapped off and went flying.
Around the airborne fragment of my thoughts, far more palpable than the storm’s natural elements, magic raged with force enough to almost send me plunging back down into the confines of my body. Azganaroth’s primal might had been stronger than this, as was the magic of both of the Queens of the Courts… but with the storm to back it up, this maelstrom of power was almost their rival.
Oh God. I didn’t dare let that wisp of panic take hold of me even though it tried really, really hard. There was no time to think about what the hell I was doing or how in the good green world I was going to do it. Down on the ground I was pretty sure I’d raised our prize of the skull high, pulling it away from the hands of both the boys with me, but I couldn’t think about that either. No other option was before me except to take that image of Elessir a’Natharion playing Tchaikovsky on that violin like a goddamn boss, wreathe it in the fire of my magic like I was tying it up with paper and bow, and hurl it westward into the thunderheads.
Hey, Melorite! Look what I’ve got! You want it? Come get it!
I don’t know how I screamed it, mentally, vocally, magically, or all of them at once. Not that it mattered. The instant I threw that challenge down, lightning cracked the sky in answer, stoking the clouds into higher and higher frenzy, until something massive tore out through them and into my line of sight. It had no wings, but it didn’t need any. The great coiling length of it rode the thermals with all the ease of a creature born to do nothing else. Even though I had no perceptible form in the air as far as I could tell, a horned and whiskered head with eyes like spotlights lashed around until it pointed straight in my direction.
And with a deep percussive boom of thunder, the dragon roared.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Saeko. Melorite. Alokhiu. Bone walker. No matter what you wanted to call her, and no matter what terrible beauty I might have found in scales gleaming in countless shades of blue, silver, and green or the white mane and whiskers and horns, it all added up to one thing: twenty feet of pissed-off dragon, and all of it bearing down on me. I should have retreated then. I tried to retreat then, tried to will myself back down into my body where I belonged. Before I could, a raw torrent of power overwhelmed me, turning everything to a formless, lightning-bright void. There were the faintest traces in that blast of by-now-familiar Sidhe magic, but the vast majority of it, young and strong and fierce, was from the dragon child. For a few terrifying moments, I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. All I could do was try to keep my consciousness from blowing apart while my body, somewhere down on the ground, crumpled over.
YOU! Surprise and fury clanged through my head, and that at least was all the alokhiu, amplified a hundredfold until she
spoke with the voice of the storm itself. Why are you here? Why did the Queen let you go?
So not a topic I was going to get into with her, in so much as I had any wherewithal for astral repartee. I guess she just likes me better than you!
The alokhiu-dragon bellowed again, much closer now, before barreling right through the scrap of space where my awareness hovered. There was no physical impact, but the psychic one hit me like a mountain falling on my head. I was dimly aware of myself screaming. Bright golden magic flooded into me—Christopher’s support, shored up in turn by Millicent—and that was barely enough to keep me from shattering entirely. If Christopher had his arms around me, I couldn’t feel them. All of my senses were still oriented on the sky, not the ground.
Do you really think you can take me, infant? Melorite’s contempt, every bit as tangible as her roar, scorched my faltering thoughts. Layered through it came her mocking laughter. What, pray tell, do you hope to accomplish?
At any other time I might have pumped a fist in triumph that I was adding telepathy, of a sort anyway, to my magical skillset. Right then I couldn’t string two mental words together, much less reestablish the link between my body and my mind, and terror flooded through me at the realization that I had no idea where my fists actually were. That panic, more than anything, fueled the volley of raw images I lobbed in the bone walker’s general direction: Elessir wielding her own skull, me smashing it with magic as well as the sledgehammer we’d brought along with the rest of our tools, the wrathful grief of Makiko Asakura. To finish it off, I hurled her the fury of Luciriel, not taking it kindly at all that her alokhiu servant had slipped out of her control.
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