by Jayne Faith
I turned, went for the door, and let myself out. In the corridor, I let out a soft chuckle. When Marisol caught wind of what was happening between Maxen and my sister, all hell was going to break loose. But maybe love would somehow find a way. I didn’t see how, but stranger things had happened. Probably.
Blowing out a long breath and trying to shake off the emotions that had grown so thick in the room, I strode away from my quarters. Halfway down the hall, someone caught up to me.
“The message?” Emmaline said, slightly out of breath. She held out her hand.
Grumbling, I dug in my pocket and pulled out the card she’d written out for me.
“I’m off to deliver this to Marisol’s proxy,” she said in a sing-song voice.
That was my cue to get the hell out before anyone tried to stop me. She turned down a branching hallway, and as soon as she was out of sight, I broke into a jog, ignoring the curious looks of the people I encountered.
I made it to the lobby and out through the doors. Jasper wasn’t there yet. Vincenzo was parked in a space off to the side. I went to my scooter and started it up. Just as the engine sputtered to life, a page burst out of the fortress.
He waved his arms at me, obviously trying to get me to come back inside. I ignored him, wheeling around and speeding off. Just as I was about to hit the gas and make my escape, I spotted Jasper sauntering up the road leading to the fortress. I pulled up to him, screeching to a stop, and moved forward on the seat.
“Hop on,” I said.
He looked down at the scooter with a dubious expression. “I don’t think . . .”
“They’re going to drag me back into a giant wad of red tape if we don’t leave now,” I said hurriedly.
He shrugged and threw his leg over the back of the scooter. The shocks creaked as his weight landed on the seat behind me.
I tossed a look over my shoulder when I heard shouts. There were fortress soldiers running down the road toward us.
“Go, go,” Jasper said in my ear, letting out a deep laugh.
I sped away, grinning like a demon.
Chapter 16
I DROVE US to the doorway in Golden Gate park, taking a circuitous route in case someone from the fortress got the bright idea to jump in a vehicle and pursue us. If anyone had, I’d apparently lost them. I was fully aware how juvenile it was to speed off as fortress officials tried to flag me down, but it was the right decision. I’d deal with the consequences later.
After I parked, Jasper slowly extracted himself from his position all snugged up behind me. He moved off to the side, and I caught a glimpse of the amused grin on his face. I couldn’t help smiling back.
“Lady Lothlorien is so going to ground your ass later,” he said, in a pretty good approximation of an American teenager. “She’ll take your sword away for a week.”
I chuckled and killed the engine. “We should probably get going before they catch up with us,” I said.
We started side-by-side toward a stand of straggly trees. Some of the branches formed a subtle arch shape. Our doorway.
I looked beyond the point, taking in the sweeping view of the Golden Gate bridge and the bay, remembering that the last time Jasper and I had been here alone, he’d commented that it was a nice spot to watch a sunset. I’d brushed off the comment before, but a new thought suddenly occurred to me. Had he been here with someone else to watch the sunset?
I peered at him out of the corners of my eyes.
“What?” he said mildly, still gazing straight ahead.
“What?” I repeated, feeling a little dumb.
“There’s a question on the tip of your tongue,” he said, his barely-there brogue somehow deepening the word “tongue.”
A little shiver spilled over me as I recalled our kiss in Melusine’s barn. The shiver swirled around my insides and heated, settling low in my stomach.
I waved my hand. “Nah.”
He flicked a smirking glance at me. “Okay, then.”
Ugh. That left me wondering things I didn’t want to be thinking about. Like whether King Periclase intended to marry Jasper off to some small kingdom princess or lord’s daughter.
We reached the arch, and Jasper turned to me.
“Mind if we go through together?” he asked. “After what happened earlier, it seems wiser than passing through one at a time.”
Without asking if I could take the lead, I stepped up to the arch and began tracing the sigils and whispering the words. We had to be in physical contact to pass through at the same time. The usual convention was to place a hand on the person’s shoulder or grasp the upper arm. But just before I finished the ritual that would open the doorway, I felt the pressure of Jasper’s fingers on my lower back. Heat zipped through me from the point of contact, but then it was immediately sucked away into the cold void of the netherwhere.
I drew Mort as soon as I felt my corporeal body return to me. Spinning around in the clearing, I eyed the waving grasses. Jasper was doing the same a couple of feet away.
“I think we’re good,” he said, sheathing his short sword.
I glanced at him, and he pointed up. When I tipped my head back, I spotted three dark-feathered birds tracing lazy circles high above. Ah. The ravens were giving the all-clear.
“Where to now?” I asked.
He nodded at the doorway. “Back through, this time to the Spriggan kingdom. After that, your guess is as good as mine. I’ll just keep tracing the sigil for the Undine doorway until we finally arrive there.”
“I wonder how many we’ll have to go through,” I muttered.
The shadow kingdoms had always seemed a world apart from the rest of the Faerie kingdoms in a social and symbolic sense, but then there was also this literal separation, this runaround you had to do to get into any of them. I tried to remember if I’d ever even known someone who’d spent time in one of the shadow realms. Lochlyn was part banshee, and the Baen Sidhe domain was shadowed, but she didn’t grow up there. She’d been raised here, in the Cait Sidhe kingdom.
My stomach tightened slightly as I slowly sheathed Mort. Maybe I should have done a little more research before agreeing to this trip.
Jasper had gone to the doorway and was standing half-turned, waiting for me to join him.
“Have you been to the Undine kingdom before?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You’re not going to back out, are you?” he said it with a casual tone, but one brow arched. In that, his challenge was clear.
“Hell no,” I said.
He grabbed my hand with his left while he traced sigils with his right and uttered the words that would take us to the next doorway.
Just as we dropped into the void, I realized I had no idea where we would end up next. Too late, as the netherwhere claimed us and the ability to communicate.
When we emerged, I blinked at my surroundings, wondering if he’d made a mistake. We were standing in the Aberdeen, Morven’s pub in the Duergar realm.
Morven was behind the bar, and he turned his Santa Clause gaze on us. His eyes brightened when he caught sight of me. I lifted my hand in a wave. I wasn’t stupid, though—he probably liked me okay, but mostly he was interested in collecting more of my magic. New Gargoyles were rare, and few of us were strong enough to interest Morven. That made me a delicacy on the Faerie magic smorgasbord. I wasn’t in need of his services.
Jasper was peering at Morven with a distrustful glint in his eye.
“Back in we go,” Jasper said.
I grabbed his wrist before he could start tracing sigils. We passed into the netherwhere. So far, we’d gone through two doorways in Seelie territories, and I was at least somewhat familiar with both kingdoms. Not knowing where we would pop out set me on edge, even in the void.
The earthy, wet smell of a mud and stagnant water hit my nose as we came out into a wooded marsh.
“Where are we?” I asked, peering into the gloom.
We stood on a mounded semi-island surrounded by shallow water except for
a muddy land bridge leading away like a forest path. Moss-covered dead wood formed the arch of the doorway. Off to the left I spotted stilted cottages with docks extending into the water.
“I’d say the Boggart realm,” Jasper said.
I shivered. We’d crossed over into Unseelie lands. The Boggart realm wasn’t a shadow kingdom, but it was a bit apart from some of the larger kingdoms. A shorter, beady-eyed race of Fae, Boggarts had brownish seal-like skin, though they weren’t shifters. They frequented moors in the Old World and preferred to live near marshes and backwaters. Maybe our arrival in their territory meant we were getting closer to the watery kingdom of the Undine.
“How will we know when we’re there? I have no idea what the Undine world looks like,” I whispered. For some reason it felt unwise to speak too loudly.
“The ravens will tell me,” Jasper said, his voice also low.
“So, they’re traveling with us?”
“Aye, in parallel. They use their own doorway system, of course.”
I was just about to ask how he told them where we were going if he didn’t even know himself, but the words froze in my mouth when I spotted movement in the deeper water. Remembering our ill-fated trek through the pond bordering Melusine’s territory, I tugged at Jasper’s sleeve and pointed.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me back to the doorway. Just before we ducked into the netherwhere, I saw a head—bald and sleek, with two solid white eyes—rising from the water.
Then we stepped into a different realm. I started as salty sea air invaded my nose and mouth.
“We’re there,” Jasper said, his words echoing slightly over the soft sound of lapping water.
I blinked, peering into a gloom even darker than the one we’d just left.
I drew Mort and sent magic down my arm. The licking violet flames provided just enough light to show we were in a shallow cave on a beach. My boots sank slightly into the sand as I shifted my weight. I led the way out into the open, where a gray sea shrouded by thick fog greeted us.
Seeing no threat, I released my magic but kept Mort in my hand. “The Old World?” I asked.
The Faerie territories that were anchored to the Old World—mostly Scotland, Ireland, and England—had a certain feel to them that was hard to describe. It was like stepping into history. Even the air seemed to have a certain aged richness to it.
“I believe so.”
He peered upward, and I followed his gaze. Ravens circled overhead. I tipped my head back farther and saw the cave was actually a shallow depression in a tall, nearly sheer cliff. Above, there were signs of humanity—houses with lights in their windows and curls of smoke trailing from their chimneys. The scent of cooking food wafted to us on the downdraft.
“So, we’re here,” I said. “Any idea where to find your pops?”
Jasper was scanning the water, his golden eyes intent. “Did you see that?”
“What?” I squinted out at the sea.
Was that a flash of fin?
I reached for my magic again just as several figures rose from the shallow water just beyond where the waves died on the sand. They walked like humanoids, but their bodies reflected the light in scaled patterns, and I caught a flash of a webbed hand. They were all male, naked except for a sort of seaweed loincloth, and each carried a spear.
I kept Mort at my side but gripped the hilt tightly, ready to swing if needed. The fish-men kept advancing.
Jasper stepped forward.
“We’re here for an audience with King Finvarra,” he called out. “We mean no harm. We just want to speak to him.”
One of the fish men stepped ahead of the others.
“Who be you?” he asked in a voice that sounded as if he had wet sand stuck in his throat. I caught a flash of his teeth—wicked little points top and bottom.
He didn’t make any threatening moves, but muscles rippled under his scaled skin, and the bicep of the arm holding the spear flexed in short pulses.
“I’m Jasper Glasgow, sworn to the Duergar King Periclase.” Jasper gestured to me. “This is Petra Maguire, sworn to Lady Marisol Lothlorien of the Stone Order.”
“Ahh,” the fish man crooned. “Seelie and Unseelie. Victor and loser. Would-be enemies from the battle of champions.” He cocked his head. “Curious that they travel together.”
“We’re progressive that way,” Jasper muttered under his breath.
I covered a snort of laughter with a cough. The fish men all twitched in my direction, and I lifted Mort a few inches. They gripped their barbed spears more tightly.
Jasper gave me the side-eye and then faced the mean and held out his hands palms down. “We’re no threat. We simply want an audience with King Finvarra.”
The men moved forward and began to surround us. Jasper’s hand nudged closer to the grip of his sword.
“We shall take you,” said the leader. He turned to me. “As soon as she puts her spellblade away.”
My jaw flexed as I locked gazes with him. I slowly sheathed Mort.
Jasper and I glanced at each other as the fish men circled us and began herding us parallel to the shoreline. I wasn’t sure whether to feel encouraged or insulted that they hadn’t demanded our weapons. It was a wise choice on their part. I didn’t give Mort up easily, and things would have gotten ugly.
I peered ahead, trying to guess where they were taking us. There was a perilous-looking winding staircase carved into the cliff.
But instead of leading us to the stairs, the fish men turned into a cavern. It wasn’t a shallow one like the cave housing the doorway through which Jasper and I had arrived. I squinted into the darkness but couldn’t see the end of it.
“Go there,” the lead fish man said, pointing deeper into the cave. “You will find King Finvarra.”
He pronounced the name of the Unseelie High King as if it were foreign to him.
Jasper and I exchanged another look.
“Where does this lead to?” Jasper asked, doubt coloring his voice.
“The king’s quarters.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I muttered, trying to make out anything in the gloom. The cave seemed to extend deep into the cliff.
I glanced back again, and the fish men had crowded into the entrance of the cave. When I took a couple of steps toward them, ready to demand they clear the way, they lifted their barbed spears.
I drew magic like a reflex, and between one blink and the next, Mort was in my hand.
Jasper had drawn his short sword beside me, and I felt a faint breeze of magic as he activated his rock armor. I did the same, acutely aware that I wouldn’t be able to do it too many more times without a healing salt bath.
“Move,” I commanded.
The fish men lifted their spears more menacingly. I hadn’t noticed before the gills on the sides of their necks and over the tops of their shoulders. The flaps began to fan out, making the men look less humanoid and somehow more dangerous.
They took shuffling half-steps toward us, obviously trying to drive us back. I charged, swinging Mort and hoping to startle them backward. One of the fish men panicked and not having enough space to properly throw his spear, shoved it at me. I ducked, knocking it away with my arm. It glanced off my right forearm, seemed to stick there for a split second, and then fell to the ground. The sand it touched began to smoke. I glanced down and saw there was a new hole that went through my jacket and shirt, burned away by the sticky residue. It penetrated to my rock armor and began to sting.
I let out a yell, lunged, and whipped Mort in a tight arc at the nearest fish man, knocking the spear out of his hands.
The men were still shuffling forward, making glugging noises in their throats and pushing the spears at us in quick jabs.
“Stuff on the spears is burning my armor,” I said to Jasper through gritted teeth. The slime hadn’t dissolved my armor. That would have been much more agonizing. But it was painful enough to make my eyes water.
Jasper and I were both trying to hold ou
r ground, but more fish men had appeared at the mouth of the cave. There were at least twice as many as before. They were all glugging and hissing at us, their gills flared.
They inched us back. I didn’t want a massacre, but the fish men left us no choice.
“We’re going to have to mow them down,” I muttered at Jasper.
He didn’t have a chance to reply. The ground beneath our feet gave way, and we fell. Sand rained down on us as we landed in shallow water about eight feet down. I scrambled to my feet and blinked sand from my eyes. Jasper and I both splashed as we tried to get our balance and our bearings all at once. The water wasn’t deep—maybe eight inches—but the shock of landing in it disoriented me.
We’d fallen into a trap. Overhead, the fish men peered down at us and warbled a noise that sounded like victory. I stabbed Mort upward, and violet magic licked off the end of the sword, reaching out to slice one of the fish men across the face with razor cuts. He screamed and fell back.
A spear fell down at us, narrowly missing my upturned face. More spears rained down.
“Take cover!” Jasper shouted.
We pressed ourselves against the sandy walls of the pit. Not that it helped much, but at least we could see what was coming. The fish men were obviously trying to kill us. Maybe they were flesh eaters. At that point, I was pretty damn sure they had no idea where Finvarra was.
I held up an arm to protect my face as the fish men threw more spears. Burning streaks flared a couple of seconds after each spear contact.
My eyes met Jasper’s in the semi-dark of the pit, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was: there was no way out.
Chapter 17
BURNS STREAKED MY body, and nausea reeled through me. Jasper squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, a look of pain on his face.
“Toxin,” I said.
He nodded. “Aye.”
My knees began to tremble, and about ten seconds later, I sagged, my ass sinking into the water. The cold sea immediately soaked through my jeans and began wicking up my shirt. Jasper was losing the battle against gravity, too. Somehow, the goo on the spears was penetrating through our armor and getting into our bloodstreams.
