by N. M. Howell
Shoulders falling, Raina pouted. “Well, it wasn’t a material gift.”
Derek and Trini exchanged shrugs and head shakes. “So, what?” Derek asked.
“I don’t think I can explain it.” Raina thought hard. What exactly had her father given her? A kind of enhanced vision? Or was it something more than that? “Let me try something.”
With no way of knowing what had been bestowed upon her, she could only mimic Kraevek’s giving. She placed her own palms over her eyes. She breathed deeply, and in moments, an utter stillness took over her thoughts. No longer seated on a bed, in a room, surrounded by her friends, Raina drifted.
A landscape appeared, at first the skyline of the city. Buildings lost color and solidity, revealing the bleak, scraped Island of Manhattan. Darkness glimmered in crevices, at the base of low hills, in midair, remnant magic, the seething, cooling energy of portal magic. There was very little of it, mostly scattered around the park. Raina reached out farther, harder, searching for even the tiniest spark of bright magic. Magic that would lead her to Kraevek.
She sensed nothing—there was no Light Fae magic left in New York City.
Thoughts intervened, obscuring the vision. Jax, poor Jax, burned, strapped down. Even if he volunteered for whatever misguided reasons, Raina knew she could save him. He had to know that Light and Dark were all the same people, no matter how different they appeared, no matter how dissimilar their lives. If she could only tell him…
Raina fell. Plunging. Hurtling downward. Drawn by an intense gravity, she tried to resist, only to give up to the insistent pull. It was more than a force, she realized, but a magic cry for help.
Oh no—Kraevek!
Raina felt the cold, crawling sense of an iron blade at her throat, hands holding her arms fast. And then she was in Kraevek’s thoughts. His mind was a whirlwind of panic.
“This one!” Merit Sharp bared his teeth, the smile of a predator. His hands reached toward Kraevek, pulling something free. A hood, Raina realized, of a fire-resistant suit. She felt the blazing air of the ritual chamber. Wild eyes caught sight of Jax, chained to a tilted rack, the remnants of the giant egg now embers and ash around his feet. One of the other hooded figures held a long spear at Kraevek’s neck, the edge of the weapon acidic as it lightly cut the skin.
Of course. The only infiltrator Kraevek could trust implicitly was himself.
“You think you fooled anyone? So arrogant, like all your kind. We used it against you, feeding you a piece of information at a time, drawing you in. Fae Lord.” Sharp spat the words out, face twisting.
“Even a broken man like you can be used. The last vessel of Light Fae magic left in the world. All along thinking you could walk around under our noses unnoticed. This is why the Fae Lords are unfit to rule.” Sharp turned away. “Take him to the portal.”
A sly expression crossed the headmaster’s face. In a gloved hand, he brought up a steel truncheon and swung it—
25
“You idiot!” Raina said through her teeth. “Sharp is right about you!”
“Raina, what is it?”
Her tiny room came back into view, Derek and Trini holding her arms.
“Are you okay? You were thrashing around, screaming—”
“The Dark Fae have Kraevek. Gods beyond, what a fool!” Raina growled.
“Quit holding out, Raina, do you know where?” Trini demanded.
“No. Not a clue.” Raina felt an emotional roller coaster, from rage to terror, and then to hope. “Wait. I don’t know where exactly, but I’m pretty sure I can track it down.”
“Where do we start?” Derek asked.
Raina stood. “Where else?”
“The academy,” Trini said.
“Do you think they’ll kill Kraevek?” Derek asked, folding up the bed.
“Yes.” Raina was certain. “They’ll sacrifice him to reopen the portal. I think that’s been their plan all along. They knew there was one person left on Earth with Light Fae ties.”
The three hurried to the elevator. “How can you be sure they were looking for Kraevek, and not you?” Derek asked.
They barely fit in the elevator. Trini pressed a sprung button for the ground floor.
Raina surveyed Derek and his question, considering it. “You know, I don’t, really.”
“So this could be a trap.” Trini mused.
“The Shadow Fae practice human sacrifice?” Derek suddenly blurted. “Oh my God, and I’m related to one of you?”
“Fae sacrifice,” Trini muttered.
The doors opened with the weak clank of the bell. “I’m sure the Light Fae have performed their share as well,” Raina said. “Maybe even as much as humans.”
“We’re just too long-lived to need anthropologists,” Trini said.
Raina appreciated the banter. It kept her mind from slipping down a dark slope. Deep in her consciousness, she wondered if she would be willing to sacrifice herself to open the portal. Even more, she appreciated Trini grouping the Fae together.
They walked toward the Grand Street station when Raina changed her mind.
“Where are we going?” Derek asked.
“Delancey Street. We need to take the F Train.” Raina hurried her steps.
Trini fell into step beside her. “Aren’t we going to the academy?”
“Probably. But first, I want to go to the last place I saw Kraevek.” She thought, hoped, that the man had left her a clue when he headed east from the subway station.
Ten minutes later, they rattled northwest on the F Train. Raina sat back in the vibrating seat, calming herself into a deep trance. With Kraevek’s gift, she reached out, trying to sense anything. She felt nothing, not a twinge, until the subway curved after stopping at 57th and 6th. For the first time since she could remember, a sensation of heatless sunlight spread across her skin, like a symphony of touch.
“It’s here.” She sat upright, the train curving on. “We have to get off here.”
Trini restrained her when she reached for the emergency brake. “Raina, there’s no station here. We can’t get off the train.”
“If you pull the emergency cord, the train will screech to a stop. We’ll be surrounded by cops, transit cops and NYPD before we can pry the doors open,” Derek said.
Raina tapped her foot on the floor, sensing something below. “Where are we now?”
Trini and Derek shared a frown. “Under the Central Park Zoo, right?” Derek said.
“Right about there,” Trini agreed.
Raina let the two convince her to wait until the next stop. At Lexington Avenue and East 63rd, she bolted across the platform. She shot her eyes at the twisted hallway that eventually led to the nineteenth century waterworks. She sensed that wasn’t the way, and ran for the exit. Trini and Derek struggled to keep up with her as she flew up the stairs.
Following the route of the day before, she hurried north on Lex to East 65th. She turned left toward the park as he had. Where was he heading? The entrance closest to the academy was nearly a mile north. The three crossed Park and Madison avenues. Raina doubted they were closing in on Kraevek’s location. It wasn’t until they hit the transverse at 5th Avenue and the edge of the park that she felt a strong vibration.
“The Arsenal,” she said, gazing at the gothic revival building with its octagonal turrets. Of course. It had been here nearly as long as the portal. She ran down 5th, taking the steps to the building two at a time.
“It’s closed, Raina. That’s the Park and Rec Office,” Derek said over his panting.
Raina sensed magic from within. “This has to be it.” She moved to the ground floor entrance beneath the main stairs. Trini and Derek followed. Trini prepared an Intent Transitive to unlock the door. Raina found it pushed open easily—unlocked. The three swapped cautious miens.
Few lights burned within—at least physical lights. Red orange seeped through the cracks in the floor. “We have to find the basement.”
“This is the basement,” Trini sa
id.
“No it’s not.” Raina moved along a dark hallway past closed office doors. At the end, the frosted glass of a door pulsed with energy. She twisted the knob—
“Raina, don’t!” Derek pulled her back.
“What are you—”
Trini flapped her fingers at a paper taped to the glass. “This is a biohazard order—no admittance. They must’ve spilled something toxic in there.”
Raina tried to rip paper down. Her fingers went right through it.
“Whoa,” Trini breathed. She placed her palms on each side of the notice. It faded away. Behind the illusion, a dark green symbol was painted on the frosted glass.
“A glyph,” Derek whispered.
Trini shook her head. “A ward, a Ward of Impending Peril. No Fae would go through this, let alone a human.”
Raina stepped back up. “I don’t feel anything.” She twisted the knob--unlocked—and stepped into a storage closet. Boxes, cleaning supplies, and file cabinets had been moved to the right side. There was no sign of anything hazardous. On the floor, outlined in a magic glow, she found a trap door.
“Kraevek’s down there,” she whispered. “I can feel him calling me.” What was it Jax always said? Magic draws. But this was more than being drawn. She felt compelled, directed, commanded. Lifting the ring, she yanked the door up and plunged into utter darkness below.
There were no stairs, but a long, long ladder of steel rungs. She descended for what felt like several stories. When she looked up, she saw no one coming after. “Come on!” she whispered fiercely.
High above, she saw a yellow light, quick as a flashbulb. “Sorry,” Trini whispered back. “I had to clear the ward.”
At the bottom of the ladder, they stood at a landing of spiral stairs, the passage carved into native stone. Derek waved his hands in front of his nose. “You sure there’s nothing toxic down here? What’s that smell?”
“Sulfur,” Trini’s face wrinkled, “algae, and some kind of animal musk.”
Raina knew what it might mean. Still, she continued down the winding treads. “Kraevek is close. We have to keep—”
A gout of fire lit the bottom of the passage, the reek of brimstone and smoke rising up the narrow staircase. Rasping roars shook the bedrock beneath their feet.
“Nithedrake,” Trini whispered in a tight voice.
Raina felt tears prickling, threatening. She was so close, the pull of Kraevek like an addiction. The nithedrake in The Ramble hadn’t been able to find her, she thought, working up the courage. Silently, she descended the final few steps and peeked around the corner.
Two of them, dull orange scales glistening in the light of their own fires, sat chained to opposite sides of a semi-circular room. On the flat wall, an arched door led beyond. To Kraevek, Raina had no doubt.
The larger dragon curled around a pile of glowing coals. No, not coals—eggs, huge eggs nearly a foot long and ovoid, like dinosaur eggs. She thought of her vision of Jax. These eggs were only a quarter that size. She didn’t have time to speculate. The male twisted its neck, swiveling its head toward Raina. A chain rattled, a pale lavender metal that sucked in the light from the fiery beasts, the collar around the nithedrake’s snaky neck.
Guardians. The female would be reluctant to leave her nest, unless threatened. The male was secured to the bare stone wall. Either one could reach across the expanse of the room and snatch up anyone trying to cross to the door. The slit pupils of the male’s eyes contracted.
He saw her.
With a yelp, Raina dodged back around the corner. Following, a shower of smoking fire blasted the edge of the entrance to the stairs. Derek tackled Raina, driving her to the ground.
“Stay low!” he shouted.
Trini dropped to one knee, arms crossed. The green, glasslike ovals of an Adargo Dire manifested, blocking the vomited flames. The spell held off the burning attack, but the stairs acted like a chimney, the air nearly too hot to breathe.
Bedrock trembled The male’s attack roused the female from her nest. “We’re so screwed,” Trini said. Her words ended in a scream. A huge reptilian face thrust into the staircase gap, filling it. Wreathed in smoke, the maw yawned wide.
Derek fumbled something from his pockets. With a screeching yelp, the head whipped out of sight. Raina stared at him. She saw an elaborate frame around his wrist, surgical tubing: a slingshot. He dug in his hoodie pocket and produced a handful of metal spheres. “Iron ball bearings,” he said.
Iron—the one element that destroyed magic. Trini voiced her thoughts.
“That’s great thinking, but we aren’t going to kill dragons with tiny little balls.”
Derek drew another one back. “Thank me for saving your bacon, why don’t you?” He advanced into the chamber. Deafening, bone-shaking howls followed. Derek dived back to the stairs as billowing fire erupted.
“Okay, okay, yeah, we need something more,” he choked.
“Gods and comets, Derek, you’re on fire!” Trini shouted. Fingers splayed and twisting, she called down a spell. Sand rained from above, disappearing before they hit the floor. A Precipitation of Sand. It snuffed out Derek’s burning clothes and hair, but the stairway remained torrid. “We gotta run, Raina.”
“No! I can sense Kraevek on the other side of that door!”
“It doesn’t matter! We can’t fight nithedrakes with the little magic we have.”
No, not magic. What had Kraevek said? Magic defies physics, physics defines magic. Trini’s fast-thinking spell had given her an idea. “I just need you to distract the female for a second. Derek, you shoot her. Trini, give her the sand if she pukes up fire. Ready?”
“This is nuts!” Trini said.
Raina ducked around the corner, not knowing if her friends had the courage, or the lack of sense, to follow.
26
Making the precise motions of flipping back a veil, the color of staring into the sun behind her eyes, the sound of harmonic trumpets behind her ears, Raina cast a Phaze Attentive as she made the chamber. Both nithedrake roared at her. She couldn’t say whether it was from the spell, the use of magic, or merely her insane charge into the room. It took the attention off Derek and Trini for a split second.
Derek fired his slingshot, striking the female on the snout. Huffing, hissing, she turned her head from the iron sting. The male opened its fanged mouth, smoke drooling. As it let go of its fire, Trini snuffed it out with another Precipitation of Sand.
Raina dropped into a low state of consciousness, plunged so deeply into a trance that if this spell didn’t work, she would be done for—a sitting duck. Digging deeply into her soul, she made motions similar to Trini’s. Except she didn’t draw a rain of sand, but a Zephyr of Hoarfrost.
A blizzard of ice screamed through the chamber, Raina feeling the energy rip through her, letting go of her preconceptions, her doubts, her insecurities. Like a swimmer breaking the surface, gasping for air, Raina drew in as much power as she could. Her skin lit up with a golden glow, tattoos of both Dark and Light glyphs appeared on her exposed wrists.
The spell itself could have no effect on the magic beasts. They thrived on magic as much as meat. But almost as one, each nithedrake lowered its long head, steps halted. In the driving ice, each creature succumbed to torpor, as all cold-blooded animals do in a chill.
In moments, they fell into a deep, still slumber.
Naked stone of the chamber now glistened with ice, snow drifted against the walls. Derek backhanded an icicle off his nose.
“Holy cow!” When Trini spoke, her breath was a cloud.
Raina paused, anticipating her knees giving out under the weight of unbearable exhaustion. It didn’t come. In fact, she felt buoyant, her body practically crackling with energy. “Come on.”
They shoved through the massive arched door. Dark Fae globes of illumination were scattered randomly down a stone throat of a hall. With her newfound senses, Raina let herself be drawn toward Kraevek.
They crossed an intersection w
here nineteenth century waterworks pipes led, undoubtedly, to the hidden rooms of the Egalitarian Confraternity, and likely beneath the Lake in Central Park where Raina had first encountered the nithedrake. Ducking under and around, they continued to a branching of four corridors.
“Which way?” Trini whispered.
Raina concentrated for a second. “Here.”
They jogged on, footfalls echoing. A deep sound stopped them short—the clamor of a gong.
“Damn, an alarm,” Trini whispered.
“Never mind. I know where we’re going,” Raina said.
Halls branched off, some with corroding water pipes, some leading off into the dark. Raina followed her sense like a bloodhound on a trail.
“Halt!”
Guards dressed in academy uniforms rushed at them from a perpendicular passage. They hauled themselves around the corner. Trini made Phaze gestures Raina hadn’t seen before. In a moment, she saw images of herself, Trini and Derek race away, turning a random corner. The guards followed the images in hot pursuit.
“Neat trick,” Raina whispered.
The half-fae girl shook her head. “Won’t last long. We better get this over with quick.”
They continued on. “We need to think of something. They must already know what we’re here for,” Raina said. She knew they were getting close.
Before they could come up with a plan, six guards sprinted around the corner. Raina saw the gesticulations for Impales Strident and quickly raised an Adargo Dire. Trini did the same. Bolts of energy screamed toward them like fireworks. Trini staggered back with a grunt as her shields took the brunt. Raina easily fended off the attack, working up a counterstrike. Until she saw the slingshot flop across the floor.
“Derek!” Trini wailed.
Raina worked up a huge Panoply Rubicund to cover them all as she turned. Damn it, her shield spell hadn’t been big enough. Derek lay on the ground, blood gushing from his right arm. His eyes rolled back in his head. Oh, no!
The guards were on them, close enough to break Raina’s spell. With hardly a thought, she cast an Impel Exhort so powerful it knocked the guards down like tenpins. Trini dragged Derek out of the line of fire.
