“It did something to me. Something … wrong. ” He studied it with distaste, picked it up, drew back his arm, and flung it into the quarry. I heard a splash, a second much larger splash, and a snapping sound, followed by a third splash. Since my back was to the water, I had to interpret what happened from the look on his face. “Something awful-looking ate it?”
Looking mildly shocked, he nodded. “Tell me everything you know about what you just fed me and the effects it has. And as for the loch, lass, I wouldn’t recommend swimming in it. ”
Christian’s clothes were soaked, and after a scan of the snow-covered peaks around us, he concluded there was a high probability of a sharp evening drop to frigid temperatures, which meant we needed our clothes dry, fast. As there was no convenient dryer nearby, toasting them in the sun was our only option, so a short time later we were both stretched out, me mostly naked, him completely. He was unself-conscious nude. I had to admit, he had reason to be.
After a quick glance, I’d sought privacy on the other side of the tumble of rocks our clothes were drying on and savored the warmth on my skin. All that was missing was my iPod.
And my parents. And my sister. And any feeling of normalcy or safety. In a nutshell, everything was missing.
I was terrified for Mom and Dad. Since the Silver I’d entered didn’t show the tunnel from the outside, what assurance did I have that the destination it did show wasn’t also an illusion? What if the LM wasn’t holding my parents captive in my own living room but someplace else and I’d sent Barrons on a wild-goose chase with the photo I’d texted?
A wave of frantic helplessness was building inside me, threatening to turn tidal. I didn’t dare give in to panic. I had to stay calm and focused and work on moving forward however I could, even if it meant taking baby steps. Right now that meant getting my clothes dry and resting while I had the chance. Who knew what dangers the night—or even the next few hours—might hold?
Christian and I talked while we sunned, our voices carrying easily over the rocks between us. I told him about the effects of eating Unseelie. He questioned me extensively, wanting to know who else had eaten it, exactly what it had done to them, and how long it had lasted. He seemed especially interested in the increased “skill in the dark arts. ”
“Speaking of dark arts,” I said, “what did you guys do the night of the ritual? What happened? What went wrong?”
He groaned. “I take it that means the walls came down anyway. I’ve been trying to convince myself that my uncles managed a miracle. Tell me everything, Mac. What’s happened in the world while I’ve been stuck here?”
I told him that the walls had crashed completely at midnight, that I’d watched the Unseelie come through, and that the Lord Master and his princes had captured me at dawn. I omitted the rape, being turned Pri-ya, and my subsequent … er, recovery (no way I was talking to the lie detector about those events), and told him merely that I was rescued by Dani and the sidhe-seers. I brought him up to speed on Jayne’s efforts, filled him in on what we’d learned about iron, and told him that his family was okay and searching for him. I told him the Book was still loose but withheld the gruesome details of my recent encounter with it.
“How did you come to be in the Hall of All Days?”
I told him about the Lord Master abducting my parents, luring me into the Silver, and insisting that I show him the stones.
“Bloody idiot! Even we know better than to do that, and he was once Fae. It’s no wonder the queen appointed us Keltar keepers of the lore. We know more about their history than they do. ”
“Because they keep drinking from the cauldron and forgetting?”
“Aye. ”
“Well, at least we have them. Even though the ride’s rocky, they help in a pinch. ”
“Are you daft, Mac?” he said sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know what’s happening every time you take them out of that pouch?”
“Duh, that’s what I was saying. It makes us shift worlds … or dimensions, or whatever they are. ”
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“Because the realm we’re in is trying to spit us out,” he said flatly. “The stones are anathema to the Silvers. Once you remove them from your pouch, the realm detects them and, like an infected splinter, endeavors to expel them. The only reason you go with them is because you’re holding on to them. ”
“Why are they anathema to the Silvers?”
“Because of Cruce’s curse. ”
“You know what Cruce’s curse was?” Finally, someone who could tell me!
“I’ve been wandering worlds in this place for what feels like bloody forever, and I’ve learned a thing or two. Cruce hated the Unseelie King, for many reasons, and coveted his concubine. He cursed the Silvers to prevent the king from ever entering them again. He planned to take all the worlds inside the Silvers and the concubine for himself. Be king of all the realms. But a curse is an immensely powerful thing, and Cruce cast it into a vortex of unfathomable power. Like most things Fae, it took on a life of its own, transmuted. Some say you can still hear the words of it, sung softly on a dark wind, ever changing. ”
“Did he succeed in keeping the king from his concubine?”
“Aye. And because those stones you carry were carved from the king’s fortress and bear the taint of him, the Silvers reject them, as well. A short time after that, the king was betrayed, he and the queen battled, and he killed the Seelie Queen. ”
“Was that when the concubine killed herself?”
“Aye. ”
“Well, if the Silvers are trying to spit us out, then won’t they eventually send us back to our world?”
He snorted. “They aren’t trying to spit us out back to where we came from, Mac. They’re trying to restore the natural order of things and spit the stones back to where they came from. ”
I inhaled sharply. “You mean every time we use them, whatever realm we’re in is trying to send us to the Unseelie prison? What happens? Do they miss?”
“I suspect none of the realms has enough power on its own, so we’re being swept toward it, like a broom across a vast floor, through as many dimensions as possible. ”
“Each time we get pushed a little closer?”
“Exactly. ”
“Well, maybe,” I tried hard to be optimistic, “we’re a million realms away. ” Somehow, I didn’t think so.
“And maybe,” he said darkly, “we’re one. And the next time you ‘shift’ us, we’ll end up face-to-face with the Unseelie King. Don’t know about you, but I’d rather not meet the million-year-old creator of the worst of the Fae. Some say merely gazing on him in his true form will destroy your mind. ”
Some time later, Christian announced our clothes were dry. I listened to his clothing rustle as he dressed. When he was done, I got up and moved toward my clothes, then stopped dead in my tracks, staring at him.
He gave me a bitter smile. “I know. It started happening shortly after you fed it to me. ”
I’d seen him nude. I knew he had crimson and black tattoos on his chest, part of his abdomen, and up the side of his neck, but the rest of his body had been unmarked.
It was no longer. Now his arms were covered with black lines and symbols, moving just beneath his skin.
“It’s spreading down my legs and moving up my chest,” he said.
I opened my mouth but didn’t have the faintest idea what to say. I’m sorry I fed it to you to save your life? Do you wish I hadn’t? Isn’t it better to live to fight another day, no matter what?
“It’s something to do with the dark-arts part of it. I feel it surging in me like a storm. ” He sighed heavily. “I suspect it’s because of what Barrons and I tried to do on Hallow’s Eve. ”
“And what was that?” I fished.
“Called on something ancient that we should have let slumber. Invited it. I keep hoping I’ll find him
, but once we were sucked into the vortex, we got separated. ”
I stared. “Barrons got sucked into the Silvers with you on Halloween?”
Christian nodded. “We were both in the stone circle, then it vanished, and so did we. We flashed from one landscape to the next like someone was flipping channels, then suddenly I was in the Hall of All Days, and he wasn’t. I may not care for the man, but he knows his dark magic. I’ve been hoping we can find a way out, if we put both our minds to it. ”
“Uh, I hate to break it to you, but he already has. ”
Christian’s eyes flared, then narrowed. “Barrons is out? Since when?”
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“Since four days after Halloween. And he never said a word about it. He told me you were the only one who vanished that night. ”
“How the bloody hell did he make it out?”
I gave him a look of helpless exasperation. “How would I know? He never even admitted he’d been here. He lied. ”
Christian’s eyes narrowed further. “When did you have sex with him?”
Uh-oh. The lie detector was staring out at me from those tiger eyes. “It wasn’t like I was willing,” I prevaricated.
“Lie,” he said flatly.
“I wouldn’t have done it under any other circumstances. ” That was the truth, and he could choke on it!
“Lie. ”
Really? “He made me do it!”
“Major, huge lie,” he said dryly.
“You don’t understand the situation I was in. ”
“Try me. ”
“I hardly think it’s relevant to any of our problems. ” I turned my back on him and began dressing.
“Do you have feelings for him, Mac?”
I dressed in silence.
“Are you afraid to answer me?”
I finished dressing and turned around. Christian was getting a little scary-looking. His eyes were growing inhumanly brilliant, golden. I kept my face a smooth mask. “I’m starved,” I told him. “I’ve got two protein bars. You can have one. And I’m thirsty, but I’d rather not drink from that quarry. And I think we have much bigger problems than my feelings about Jericho Barrons. Or lack thereof. And those animals,” I pointed to the far edge of the valley, “look edible to me. ”
I began to walk.
Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones that thought the sleek, graceful gazellelike creatures looked edible, as we soon discovered in the middle of the valley.
A stampeding herd of thousands of shaggy-furred horned bulls with whiplike tails and wolfish snouts was bearing down on us, hard.
“Do you think maybe they’ll just part around us?” I’d seen it happen in the movies.
“I’m not sure it’s not us they’re after, Mac. Run!”
I ran, even though I was pretty sure it was pointless. They were too fast, and we were too far from any kind of shelter.
“Can’t you do something Druidy?” I shouted over the nearly deafening pounding of hooves.
He gave me a look. “Druidry,” he shouted, “requires preparation, or it can have disastrous results!”
“Well, you’re looking all formidable! Surely you can do something with whatever’s happening to you!” The black symbols had begun to move up his throat now.
The ground was shaking so hard it was getting difficult to run. It felt like an earthquake creeping up on us.
When I stumbled, Christian moved so quickly that the next thing I knew I was over his shoulder and he was running ten times faster than a normal man. Of course, he was pumped on Unseelie. I raised my head. The herd was too close. We still weren’t moving fast enough. The creatures were gaining, snouts snapping, saliva flying. I could practically feel their breath blasting us.
“Use the stones,” Christian shouted.
“You said it was too dangerous!”
“Anything’s better than dead, Mac!”
I dug into my waistband, pulled out the pouch, and flashed the stones.
Comparatively speaking, it was one of the smoother transitions.
Unfortunately, it deposited us on a fire world.
I flashed the stones again, and the flames on my boots died instantly, because the next world didn’t support carbon-based life and there was no oxygen.
I flashed the stones again, and we were underwater.
The fourth time I flashed them, we ended up on the narrow top of a jagged cliff that fell sharply to a bottomless chasm on both sides.
“Put me down,” I shouted over the wild gale whipping around us. I was crushed over Christian’s shoulder, dripping wet and gasping for breath.
“Here?”
“Yes, here!”
Snorting, he lowered me to my feet but kept his grip tight on my waist. I stared at him. His amber irises were rimmed with black. It was staining inward, like ink clouding water. The strange symbols were licking up over his jaw.
“Just what did you do on Halloween?” Why was Unseelie flesh having such a strange effect on him?
He gave me that killer smile, but it wasn’t killer charming, it was killer cold. “I chickened out at the last minute, or we wouldn’t have failed. We tried to raise the only other power we knew of that had once stood against the Tuatha Dé and held its own. An ancient sect called the Draghar raised it once, long ago. Barrons didn’t hesitate. I did. Care to get us off this cliff, Mac?” he snarled.
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“What if the next place is even worse?”
“Keep shifting and I’ll keep holding on. ”
A gust of air blasted us. We went stumbling off the edge, into yawning darkness. I opened the pouch as we fell.
A massive vortex exploded around us, black, swirling, tearing at my hair and clothes. I struggled to shove the stones back into the rune-covered bag. I could feel Christian’s grip slipping, then his hands were gone and I was alone.
I slammed down onto grassy tundra, on my hands and knees.
I hit so hard, the pouch went flying from my hands. My forehead smacked into the earth and I bit my tongue viciously. I couldn’t feel Christian’s hands on me anywhere.
Ears ringing from the impact, I lifted my head, dazed.
I stared straight into the eyes of an enormous wild boar with razor-sharp tusks.
When you’re staring death in the face, time has a funny way of slowing down.
Or maybe, in this realm, it really did move slower, who knows?
All I knew, as I stared into the boar’s beady, cunning, hungry eyes—tiny in its cow-size body—was that ever since I’d dropped my cell phone into our swimming pool, I’d begun losing things. One after another.
First my sister. Then my parents and any hope of going home.
I’d tried to roll with the punches, be a good sport. I’d made a new home for myself in a bookstore in Dublin. I’d attempted to make new friends and forge alliances. I’d said good-bye to pretty clothes, my blond hair, and my love of fashion. I’d accepted shades of gray instead of rainbows and finally embraced black.
Then I’d lost Dublin and my bookstore.
Finally I’d lost myself, even my own mind.
I’d learned to use new weapons, found new ways to survive.
And lost those, too.
My spear was gone. I had no Unseelie flesh. No name in my tongue.
I’d found Christian. I’d lost Christian. I was pretty sure he’d ended up being dragged off one way in the vortex, while I’d been sent another.
And now I’d lost the stones, too. The pouch was on the ground, far beyond the boar, drawstring tight. I couldn’t even hope for an accidental shift.
The dirk strapped to my forearm wouldn’t begin to pierce the animal’s scale-plated hide.
And I had to wonder: Was this the whole point? Was it about taking everything from me there was to take? Was that what life did? Made you lose everything you cared a
bout and believed in, then killed you?
Yes, I was feeling sorry for myself.
Fecking A, as Dani would say—who wouldn’t at this point?
Fire worlds? Water worlds? Cliffs? What crappy cosmic power was in charge of deciding where the stones sent me next? Were the blue-black slivers of whatever they were so despised by the Silvers that if a realm couldn’t spit them all the way back to the Unseelie hell, it would settle for trying to destroy them—therefore, oops, me, too? Was I being deliberately flung into the jaws of danger?
Or, as I’d begun to wonder lately, had the destruction of me begun a long time ago? Hidden in obscured dreams and forgotten memories.
What did I have left?
Nothing.
I crouched, staring furiously across a space of grassy field at a beady-eyed boar that I swore wore an evil smile on its tusked face.
It snorted and pawed the ground.
For lack of anything else to do, I snorted back and pawed the ground myself. Bristled and shot it a look of death.
Beady eyes narrowed. It lifted its heavy-jowled head and sniffed the air.
Was it trying to scent fear? Too bad. There wasn’t any rolling off me. I was too angry to be afraid.
Where the hell was everyone when I needed—oh! Once before I’d thought myself without options, while I’d still had one left.
As the boar assessed my victim potential, I scowled at it, baring my teeth while easing a hand beneath my coat and into my back pocket.
I slipped out my cell phone. Water poured off it. Would it even work? I snorted inwardly. I was still expecting things to function according to understandable laws, as I crouched here in the seventh alternate dimension I’d been in recently. How silly of me.
I flipped it open and laid it on the ground.
The boar ducked its head, readying for the charge.
I didn’t dare raise the phone to my ear. I punched buttons as it lay there. First, Barrons, then IYCGM, and finally the forbidden IYD. This definitely qualified as dying.
I waited. I don’t know what for. Some miracle.
I guess I’d been hoping that using IYD would do something like magically transport me to safety at the bookstore. Or Barrons would instantly materialize and rescue me.
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I waited.
Nothing happened. Not a damned thing.
I was on my own.
Figured.
The boar dropped its head menacingly. I gazed longingly at the pouch dozens of feet behind it.