“You can shower first,” River said.
“Thanks.” As much as my head had been filled with different ideas about what we might do in there, there was nothing remotely sexy about mud, blood, and bits of zombie.
Clothes discarded, I stepped into the shower. Not quite as intense as the house’s one, but I’d take what I could get. I let the warm water soak into me and exhaled in a sigh.
“Should I be joining you in there?” River’s voice came from outside. “I’d like to know what you’re doing that makes you feel that good.”
I tipped my head back and moaned. “Nothing makes me feel as good as a warm shower.”
“Is that a challenge?”
Grinning, I finished rinsing my hair and switched the water off. “Maybe. Want me to clean your wounds?”
“There aren’t any. There’s a lot of blood.”
I grabbed a towel. Flirting was one thing, but the shower was barely big enough to stand in. “Sorry, River, but anyone who’s had sex in here must be a contortionist.”
“Who said anything about sex?” He arched a brow as I walked out wrapped in a towel. “I was thinking more along the lines of me touching you. Massaging the pain away. Making your toes curl with pleasure. That type of thing.”
“You mean, what you did in the forest, but with fewer clothes and no interruptions.” I strode all the way to the bed. “Then you’d better hurry up and wash that blood off.”
He groaned, but ducked into the bathroom. I shamelessly admired the view from the back, inhaling the earthy scent of his magic. The formerly decaying house plants had come to life again, sprouting flowers I didn’t know. Summer magic—pretty but deadly sharp. And so much more.
I moved my blood-soaked clothes to my rucksack, and the talisman fell out. Water dripped onto the book from my wet hair and disappeared as though sucked into nothingness. I’d gained more control over it in the last fight, but not enough. I closed my eyes and tried to push the thoughts away. I was here for River. The damned book didn’t matter a bit.
River reappeared in the blink of an eye. His hair was wet and tousled, falling over his pointed ears. Not so much as a blemish touched his lightly tanned skin, which was fairly noticeable because he was wearing only a towel. My mouth went dry and I folded my arms across my chest, suddenly overcome with self-consciousness.
He reached out, grabbed the book, and tossed it onto the bedside table.
“River, that thing contains the power of an ancient god.”
“It’s getting in the way of the view.” He ran his hand lightly through my hair and kissed me on the mouth. Oh. “As I said…” His hand slid down my spine, under the towel. “Touching you.” Both hands dug into my shoulders, kneading the cramped muscles. “Massaging the pain away…”
“Can we skip straight to the pleasure?” I let the towel fall and wrapped my arms around his back, pressing my damp skin against his. It was his turn to moan, kissing me back, fiercely, deeply. His hands explored my skin, not pausing, stroking the fire inside me. He nudged my legs apart, working his way up my inner thighs. I tried to hang on, but he was relentless, each stroke bringing me closer to the brink, each soft tease threatening to destroy my grip on sanity. Slowly, mercilessly, until my bones turned to water and I writhed beneath him, gasping for breath. As his fingers delved into me, pleasure exploded up my spine and I cried his name into the pillow.
Then I saw the towel had fallen away, revealing every inch of him. I reached for his erection and he groaned. “Ilsa.”
“Condoms?”
“Top drawer.” He spoke through clenched teeth.
“You knew you’d have me here eventually, huh.” I one-handedly opened the drawer and removed a condom, momentarily letting go in order to slide it onto him.
“I was counting on it,” he breathed, positioning himself above me.
“Then I’d better make it worth your while.” My fists clenched on the bedsheets as he thrust into me.
We found our rhythm, and time disappeared, leaving only pleasure, a warm hot tingling sensation running from head to toe.
We lay tangled together, and he kissed the top of my head. “I wish we could stay here a week.”
“I don’t see why not.” I stretched out on the bed, wrapping my legs around his. “There. You can’t move.”
He twitched, then effortlessly slid one leg free, gliding on top of me.
“Cheater,” I murmured against his mouth. “I’ll make you scream this time.”
There was a buzzing noise. He leaned and picked up his phone from the table. “My mother is rather perturbed by my sudden absence.”
“Crap. I bet Hazel and Morgan are, too. They’ve been playing their part at making this city safe while we’ve been…”
“Taking care of important business.” He rolled off me. “Unfortunately, the Mage Lords seem to have decided we’re to accompany them to dinner with the council tonight.”
“Yeah, it’s not a date if there are a dozen terrifying mages around,” I said. “Might be a good time to announce our relationship to your mother…”
“She knows,” he said. “I told her.”
I tilted my head. “Before you told me?”
“You told me yourself, not in so many words.” He kissed me on the mouth once again and walked to the closet in the corner. “We can’t get out of this one. Sorry.”
“And then we’re coming back here?”
He grinned. “I’m frankly intrigued to find out what I can do to you in that shower.”
20
I didn’t manage to corner Hazel and Morgan until the following morning. The council had called another meeting, more exclusive this time, so the four of us weren’t invited. We met at the witch-run Cassandra’s Cafe instead, where I picked the table in the far corner so nobody would overhear us.
“I can’t believe they didn’t invite us to the meeting after all we did in the battle yesterday,” Hazel said, her mouth full of pancake. “Dicks.”
“Actually, I think that might work in our favour.” I poked at my food, my appetite noticeably absent. “The council… I’d say they’d work great as a backup force if this goes wrong, but none of them can actually set foot in Faerie without being at a huge disadvantage. Except Ivy. But I think the Erlking will only speak to Hazel or me alone.”
I’d thought it over. One Sidhe had authority over all the others—and was also in a position to send the Summer Gatekeeper off to the Vale without anyone else knowing about it. He might be hidden behind layers of security, but there must be a backup measure put into place in case anything happened to the gate. How the enemy had stolen it in the first place was still a mystery to me.
“He won’t speak to—” River began.
“Any of us,” I said. “We’ve been through this. Trust me. Ivy will come and help us after the meeting.”
I hadn’t told them my plan yet, mostly because I wasn’t sure it’d work myself. Just getting into the faerie realm itself seemed a tall order. And I wasn’t the only one who’d been scheming.
“Necromancy,” said Morgan.
“No,” said Hazel. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s a good plan.”
“No, it’s reckless and suicidal.”
I rolled my eyes at them. They’d been arguing over the same points since after the battle yesterday. Morgan had decided that since he’d raised the dead in the Grey Vale, the Courts could use a shock of their own.
“I didn’t mean zombies this time,” Morgan said. “Someone died there, right? Can’t we bring them back to testify?”
“You think the Sidhe would stop screaming at the sight of a ghost long enough to listen?” said Hazel. “That’s if they don’t turn you into a hummingbird.”
“Actually…” I began.
“Don’t encourage him.” Hazel swiped the remainder of my pancake from my plate. “Hey—Ivy’s here. Must have been a quick meeting.”
I climbed to my feet, spotting Ivy weaving her way through the caf�
�. She turned heads even in here, probably because she hadn’t bothered to disguise the fact that she was heavily armed.
“Hey,” she said. “Good choice of venue. Damn, I wish I could get some of those pancakes…”
“Anything new come up in the meeting?” I asked.
“Same old.” She rolled her eyes. “We’re expecting another attack at any moment, but nobody knows where it’ll come from or what form it’ll take. Also, the Sidhe still haven’t shown up. Something about a murder.”
“That’s what we were talking about,” I said. “Morgan thinks raising the guy who died so he can testify to the Court might help, but I guess they wouldn’t much like that.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” said Ivy. “Even if it was possible. I never thought you could use necromancy in Faerie at all. But I’ve been thinking about what you said… and I think you might be right.”
“What did you say?” Hazel said, looking suspiciously at me.
“I have an idea.” I glanced at River. “I was waiting for Ivy to show up to share it. All our other plans risk us getting arrested. What we need is a direct way to get to the person who put the vow on us. There’s one type of magic that’s direct in that way.”
“What, vows?” said Hazel dubiously. “Vows are direct, but only if you know the wording.”
“We know one word.” I pointed at her forehead, then at mine. “The Gatekeeper’s binding mark… it’s not just a mark. It means something.”
“An Invocation,” River said, in a low voice. “Neither of you can read it?”
“Can you?” said Hazel defensively.
He shook his head. “No. I only know a few words. I assumed since it was your family’s, it was restricted to Gatekeepers only.”
“I’m not Gatekeeper yet,” Hazel said. “I know the final stages of my training probably involve learning all the Sidhe’s secrets… and Mum definitely had some other way of getting directly into the Court. I always assumed it was down to the gate. But our symbol is carved into it.”
“Exactly,” I said. “It’s a long shot, but… Ivy can read the language. Every word.”
Hazel’s mouth fell open. “But… how?”
“Instinct,” she said. “Honestly, I’ve no idea. It’s a side effect of my magic. Only people with Sidhe magic can actually speak the words aloud without consequences. I’d say you probably can, since you have the Gatekeeper’s magic.”
“Damn.” Hazel shook her head. “This is way off the rulebook.”
“I didn’t think that mattered,” I said. “Apparently the words are so specific that if they belong to a person, it takes you straight to them. So if we get into Faerie and speak that word, it’d take us to the gate, or to the person who put the spell on our family in the first place.”
“Since it’s a binding spell, I suppose it would take you to the caster,” said River. I thought he’d approve of my plan. The book might terrify the Sidhe, but vows were a type of magic they’d created themselves, and respected. Unless they’d stolen that magic from the gods as well, but the point still stood. We had few other options.
“Oh.” Hazel’s expression cleared. “I get it. You can’t use magic to get into Faerie if you aren’t one of them, but if we work with their magic… the vow, if I used it in a literal sense, it’d act as though I’d have to immediately go and obey the one who put it on me, I’d be dragged straight to the Erlking and nobody would be able to stop me.”
“The only downside is that you might not be able to take anyone with you,” said Ivy.
“It’s the bloodline,” I said. “That’s what the vow binds. It doesn’t bind to a specific person until they take the position as Gatekeeper. If both of us speak, we’ll both be taken there.”
“How did you know?” said Hazel, surprise flashing across her face.
“I worked it out. Don’t you remember?”
Our gazes connected. She remembered as well as I did the months leading up to her magic manifesting. Morgan had already passed the age where his magic might have shown up. But with the two of us, it might have been either of us who took the position. We hadn’t known.
We’d sworn to break the curse.
Our plans never amounted to anything. Hazel seemed committed to her position at first, and whenever it became too much for her and she wanted to run away, she found me, and we pulled out all our old notes. All our guesses from what Mum had said, about the nature of the curse, and the possible wording of the vow. And how it might be undone. The entire family was bound to the one who spoke the Invocation. That should mean that since Hazel wasn’t actually Gatekeeper yet, I should be able to go with her.
I was counting on it.
“So you want to go alone?” said Ivy. “The two of you?”
“The more people who go into Faerie, the more chances they have to hurt us,” I said. “I need to tell the Erlking—if he really is the original caster—what I am. And that his wife’s plotting against the Court.”
“I can tell you how to pronounce the word here,” Ivy said. “But we’d need to go into Faerie to actually get into the Seelie Court. Speaking those words draws on all the faerie magic in the area. There isn’t much in this realm normally, and the two of you aren’t used to handling the magic. It’s… destructive. Powerful.”
River rose to his feet, his face paling. “If it’s that dangerous—”
“I’m just telling you what I know,” said Ivy. “I used an Invocation to banish someone powerful when there was hardly any magic left in this realm at all. It’s do-able. But I have to warn you of the risks.”
“I’m lost,” Morgan said. “How would speaking this magic word help at all?”
“Vows aren’t set in stone,” Hazel said, her eyes gleaming. “If someone swears I will obey you, the person it’s cast on might decide it means once. So they obey, then they stop. If their will is stronger than the person who put the spell on them, they can’t be compelled to obey them again. Of course it usually ends in a stalemate because the Sidhe are equally powerful. But the Erlking is indisposed. He’s weak. If I figure out what exactly the vow said, I can outdo him. Or if it turns out the family’s mark is the vow, or means Gatekeeper, it carries its own magic.”
“Guess I’m sitting this one out,” said Morgan.
“We need someone to keep an eye on things here,” I said. “One problem… I guess we need to either find the Ley Line or a liminal space. Somewhere close to Faerie.”
“I can find the Line,” Ivy said. “We should leave before the council tries to stop us.”
River was silent as we left the cafe and walked down the road, following Ivy’s lead. Even my spirit sense didn’t tell me the Ley Line’s general direction, nor the book. But if Ivy could speak the gods’ language aloud, then surely I could as well. I’d speak to the Erlking, and demand he get back our gate, and Mum along with it, or die trying.
There was no other way to end this.
The book’s magic hummed in my veins. We drew to a halt, looking up at the peak of Arthur’s Seat.
“We seriously have to climb the hill?” I said.
Ivy tilted her head up. “I can see a shit-ton of faerie magic up there. Must be a liminal space.”
“Or the local half-faeries throwing a party,” I said.
We began the steep climb. River could easily have taken the lead but hung back to walk at my side, occasionally looking at me as though to check I was still there.
Don’t go where I can’t follow you, he’d said. I’d never promised I wouldn’t, but to faeries, what you didn’t say was more important than what was said. The terror that I was about to cross a line we couldn’t go back from was far beyond my fear of what we’d find on the other side. The yawning gulf of death didn’t compete.
I grabbed his shoulders and kissed him in full view of the others, and probably half the tourists, too. He stared at me, his eyes stunned.
“If the Erlking doesn’t let me come back, I’ll tear a hole between the worlds with my own hands,
” I said to him.
“And if you’re not back in a day, I’ll do the same from this side,” he said defiantly.
“Save your proclamations of love for after we’ve finished saving the world,” Morgan said. He didn’t look unenthusiastic about missing out on another trip into Faerie. On any other occasion, I’d have been happier sitting it out. But this was different.
Ivy glanced at me as the line drew closer. I saw it now, shivering with magic, tinted green. “That guy… River. He’s a registered necromancer, right?”
“Yes,” I said, unsure what she was getting at.
Ivy said, “We’ve been trying to get half-faerie representatives on the council for a year now, but they don’t like having conflicting loyalties, and they always pick the Court. They’re not keen on the idea of cross-supernatural cooperation. Neither are the shifters, but they can be bribed. We can give the shifters access to resources. Half-faeries don’t want or need them.” She shrugged. “But he seems to know both worlds, so he’s a prime candidate. If he wants to. Just making a suggestion.”
“He does,” I said. “Lady Montgomery trusts him, too. Assuming we survive this, I’m not letting the council make any decisions about Faerie without consulting the Gatekeepers. Hazel isn’t, either.”
“I thought not,” Ivy said. “Right… here’s how you pronounce the word.” She spoke it quietly, but the air hummed with magic.
I turned to Hazel. “Let’s hope it’s enough. If it’s the god’s language, and I have the gods’ magic, it should work for me as well.”
“Actually,” Ivy said, “the Erlking once had—and created—a similar artefact himself. Lost, now. But he knew the gods. Maybe he’s complicit.”
I blinked. “You’re telling me this now?”
“I don’t know him,” she said. “But… you be careful who you tell about the book.”
“I will.” But it’s my choice. I’d get the Seelie Queen arrested no matter what.
Hazel and I stepped directly into the spot on the Ley Line. A place of potent magic. It tugged at my spirit, the Grey Vale calling for me. I paid it no attention, and looked at Hazel instead. Her face was a mirror of my own—stern resolution with a hint of fear.
Hereditary Power Page 18
