With Ambrose safe and Hadley out of immediate danger, he darted in, nipping its shoulders until it flung back its head and exposed a precious weakness. A column of pale, thin skin usually protected by its bony jaw.
Racing in, his paws barely hitting the stone, he lunged and then bit down until his teeth clicked together.
Foul blood gushed, filling his mouth with a rotten-meat tang, and he spat as he darted away.
The cyclops thrashed and howled then fell on its side where it shrank into the elder’s form. She gurgled at him, pointing a damning finger, and Midas couldn’t risk any hex she might fling.
As hard as it was for his inner beast to attack an elder, an elder female, he had no choice. He shifted beside her, took her head in his hands, and snapped her neck with a merciful quickness she didn’t deserve.
No one that steeped in black magic was an innocent.
Shoving to his feet, he strode to Hadley, who was sitting up with a grimace. “How bad is it?”
“I’m not hurt,” she groaned, more winded than pained, “but I feel like I should be?”
“Ambrose?” He searched for the shadow but found only the Remys. “How is he?”
“Back in here.” Hadley beat a fist against her chest. “He’s licking his wounds.”
Wishing now he had let Ambrose strike the final blow, he asked, “Does he need to feed?”
“I don’t think so.” Cradling her ribs, she got to her feet. “The ambient energy will be enough, probably, if we give him time.”
“Remy?” Midas turned. “Are you all right?”
“I’m down Two and Six, but they’ll recover.” She rubbed the side of her head. “Aww, man. My flower.”
The once-pristine bloom lay bruised on the stone, trampled flat beneath their feet during the fight.
“A flower is the least of our problems.” Midas planted his feet wide. “Remy, we need to talk.”
The two friends stared at one another, Hadley stoic and Remy tugging on the strap of her pack.
“You, uh,” Remy started, “heard that, huh?”
“I know you have the hearts, yes.”
“Midas.” Remy kicked a rock that rolled off the edge and plinked down the stairs. “That’s why he came.”
“Yes,” he answered for himself. “Bishop warned me the hearts were missing.”
The edges of her mouth drooped in time with her shoulders. “And you immediately thought of me.”
“We weren’t sure what to think,” Hadley cut in, “until the crone confirmed it.”
“I’ve kept one of my selves at the archive since you discovered it. I worked out that we needed the hearts to enter.” Remy dipped her chin. “You need witchborn fae blood, but the protections on the archive aren’t picky what form it takes. Midas made it in with crust in his fur, but I wanted to be sure we didn’t get caught out in enemy territory.”
The big question, the one that would make or break their friendship, bubbled up in a fury from Hadley. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to, but then I thought—I could finish it.” She toyed with a sequin on her hip. “We were going to Faerie anyway. We had to, in order to sever the coven’s connection to the archive. Why not kill two birds with one stone? I figured witchborn fae would be thick on the ground in the archive. I planned to drag one through to Faerie with me, summon Natisha, and present her with the hearts on your behalf after I completed the set.”
Hadley jolted at Remy’s casual intent to commit murder, but he knew better than to expect an old fae to adhere to modern sensibilities, and Remy was an ancient compared to his softhearted mate.
“Why take that onto yourself?” Hadley crossed her arms over her chest. “This is our bargain to close.”
“It’s been eating you alive,” she snapped. “Do you think I can’t tell?”
Fingers tapping her elbows, Hadley dipped her chin. “Remy…”
“Remember what I said about you having a marshmallow heart? Well, this bargain has been charring it.” Remy puffed up her chest. “All I did was yank you out of the fire before you burned alive.”
The softening in Hadley’s features told Midas the fight was over, and Remy had won.
Remy might have gone about protecting Hadley the wrong way, but she was right about one thing.
Hadley’s heart was as soft as a marshmallow fresh from the bag.
“You still can’t go around killing people willy-nilly,” Hadley sighed in the cadence of a familiar lecture.
“They do it,” Remy protested, “all the time. They’re probably doing it right now.”
“We can’t judge ourselves by their standards, or else we become them.”
“I’m not like you,” she yelled. “I’m not sunshine, rainbows, and unicorn farts.”
“Neither am I.” Hadley’s voice grew rough, her eyes dark. “I’m not like you either. You were born who and what you are. I made myself into this. I can’t unmake me. I can only do my best to live with the consequences of my actions. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”
Remy’s bottom lip trembled, and she scrubbed her palms under her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I’ll forgive you if you promise not to make me do business paperwork for a week after we get home.”
“Deal.” Remy sniffled and removed her backpack. “Here.” She shoved it at Hadley. “These are yours.”
The color leached from Hadley’s skin, the gruesome contents sickening, but she held out her hand for it.
“I’ll hold on to them.” Midas switched packs with Remy to spare Hadley. “I don’t mind.”
The smile she thanked him with twisted his stomach into knots just as it had the first time.
“We should go.” Midas guided her toward the stairs, careful of her injuries. “After you, Remy.”
“I see how it is.” She plucked at her dirty top. “I should have worn a red shirt.”
The joke was one he wouldn’t have understood until Hadley, but it made him chuckle.
“Hmm.” Hadley appeared to consider that. “I haven’t chosen bridesmaid dresses yet…”
Midas knew a threat when he heard one, and part of him hoped Remy did draw the short straw.
The rest of the bridal party couldn’t laugh as hard at him if they were also decked out in future wear.
“I am never wearing a red shirt next to you.” Remy belted out a laugh. “That’s like holding a lightning rod while sitting on top of a pine tree during a severe thunderstorm warning.”
“Don’t be silly. You wouldn’t be a red shirt.” Hadley smiled, but it showed teeth. “You’d be a red dress.”
Thirteen
The novices ought to have reached the warehouse, but I was losing track of time. Here it slipped through my fingers, twisting my perceptions, warping my senses. The environment grew more hostile as well. The air cut deeper into my lungs, my eyes played tricks on me, and I lagged a few steps farther behind Remy.
“You smell that?”
The sudden loudness of her voice after the quiet of the tombs startled me. “I don’t smell anything.”
Within me, Ambrose stirred to sluggish wakefulness, meaning a magic source was nearby.
I don’t think I imagined his stomach—or was it our stomach with him tucked inside me?—rumbling.
“This place is anchored in four locations, right?” I gave up on catching a whiff. “Plus Faerie makes five?”
That was how I remembered it, but I wanted confirmation I had heard Vasco right.
“Yeah.” Remy rubbed alongside her nose. “That’s the working theory.”
One of these days, we had to get a firmer grip on this advance-planning thing. The seat of my pants was tired from all the flying.
“Go big or go home, right?” I nudged Remy into motion. “We need to hit the coven where it hurts. Wipe out their source of power. Otherwise, they’re going to keep coming. They’ve made it clear they won’t stop until we make them.”
The coven had it in the
ir heads Atlanta should be theirs, and they would sacrifice everything to seize control. How we got so lucky as to be their target, I couldn’t begin to guess, but they wanted my city.
And they couldn’t have her.
“Keep a nose out for other scents. I’m not sure where the other tethers are located, but we need to chop Buckhead off ASAP to give our allies a chance to defend the city. Then we need to cut the steady supply of reinforcements from other cities. After that, we can see about letting the archive do the void thing.”
“That leaves us two choices,” Midas said, closer than before. “Either we consign ourselves to the void, or we risk surviving in Faerie until we can barter our way home.”
The last thing Midas deserved was to face this decision. I didn’t want him trapped in Faerie. Again. Sure, I would be there to watch his back, but that placed us on Natisha’s doorstep. The longer we spent in Faerie, the more likely it was she would catch wind of us. Then there was the small matter of her pack.
Midas was a direct descendent of Natisha’s. He had family in her pack. The same pack that sold him to a cruel goblin for use as a gladiator in the arena matches that earned Midas his scars, inside and out.
“Your call.” I tossed a smile back at him. “I can go either way.”
Truthfully? Faerie would be easier, if also trickier, to escape.
Honestly? The void, for us, was unsurvivable. There was no food, no water. The spirits who called this place home needed none of those things. We could only live as long as the food in our packs allowed.
Still, I let him decide, and it wasn’t an empty gesture. I was all about the follow through.
“Faerie.” His warm hand landed on my shoulder. “There’s no other choice.”
Turning my head, I kissed his knuckles. “We can find another way.”
“There’s no time.” His comforting touch lifted. “We can’t know for certain how slow or fast time moves here. That will change again when we reach Faerie. We have to keep on schedule as best we can and hope we haven’t missed the battle when we come out the other side.”
That particular outcome was one I had sunk a great deal of effort into ignoring.
The three of us wouldn’t make or break a flat-out war. That wasn’t how battles worked. Often, it boiled down to numbers. Who had the most people? Who cared more if those same people died horribly?
We didn’t have the numbers. Strategy was our best bet at winning. We had no time for second-guessing.
Our absence would be felt on the battleground, if it came to that, but this mission was more important.
When this nightmare closet went offline, it would cut direct routes to and from the coven’s strongholds. They would be forced to rely on mundane means of transportation, which would slow them down. They would also be dependent upon the practitioners already at their disposal. Buh-bye, reinforcements.
Best of all? Those lethal outfits they so loved to wear? They would get put in deep storage. For good.
“There.” Remy pointed out a row of tombs where one door stood taller than the rest. “It smells like…”
The arch had been carved to fit the existing architecture, but rather than stone, its center reflected us.
“…the sea.” I followed her, unable to resist the humid warmth swirling the air. “Weird.”
We exited the stairs and went to investigate what might be our first tether. I don’t know why they were called that. I mean, okay, they tied one location to another. Big whoop. If this one was any indication, they struck me as more like the Einstein-Rosen bridge portal devices from Stargate. How much cooler was that? These could be faegates. Or witchgates. Both had merit.
Tilting her head to one side, Remy pursed her lips. “Does the architecture remind you of anything?”
“You mean like the gateway that spit us out onto the stairs?” I noticed the similarities too. “I’m guessing we blew our first mission objective. The tether to Buckhead was behind us, on the stairs.” I tipped my head back. “Now it’s way up there.”
“You were distracted at the time.” Midas grimaced, no doubt recalling his grand entrance. “I surprised you, and then I rushed you. It’s not your fault.”
“Live and learn, right?” Remy chucked me on the shoulder. “We’re probably the first non-sacrificial, non-coven lifeforms to enter the archive. Cut yourself some slack.”
“Yeah.” I tried, I really tried, but it was hard. “Live and learn.”
“Wonder where it goes?” She ran a hand along the designs carved into the doorframe. “I can’t read it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I summoned Ambrose, who exited my body in a prickling rush of sensation. “It won’t go there for much longer.”
The shadow studied the faegate while tapping a finger against his lips.
“Well?” I watched him, my gut drawing tight as he considered it. “Will draining its power pull the plug?”
He stuck out a hand and dipped it side to side in a maybe gesture.
“We’re old pros at breaking wards. Do you think this will work the same way?”
Hands tucked into my back pockets, I hid their trembling from the others, but not from Ambrose. The bottom line was, I was about to supercharge him. How he reacted would determine if we made it out of here alive.
No pressure.
“You hungry?”
“Always.”
The silken whisper might have been my imagination. I mean, another name for dybbuk is devourer.
Therefore, it wasn’t rocket science to conclude Ambrose would always be game for a snack.
“He…spoke.” Midas cocked an eyebrow at my shadow self. “That’s new.”
Well frak.
So much for that hope.
“He sounds how a honey butter biscuit tastes.” Remy goggled at him. “Mmm.”
“That’s how he hooks suckers.” I shoved her shoulder. “He has to be appealing for his schtick to work.”
Rich laughter tickled the fringes of my hearing, and Ambrose wrapped an arm around my shoulders, as he had seen Midas do countless times.
Leaning in, he almost brushed his lips against my ear when he said, “This will be fun.”
A shiver rippled through me, and I palmed his face then shoved him back. “Get thee behind me, Satan.”
Ambrose laughed again, clearly tickled by the reference, and strolled toward the witchgate.
Hmm.
Nah.
I got it right the first time.
Faegate definitely sounded cooler.
“You know more about Christianity than I do about your religion,” Midas noted. “I should fix that.”
That he cared enough to want to learn about Hecate, about how necromancers communed with their goddess, mattered more to me than when or if we ever got around to immersive lessons.
“We’ve got time.” I rested against him. “I have my entire public-school career to thank for what I know.”
In addition to the nuts-and-bolts education I received, I had been coached in the study of humans. How to blend with them. How to befriend them. How to integrate into their society, since my Society viewed Low Society necromancers as framework to hold the High Society aloft. Religion was a part of that, and it was fascinating to cobble together a belief system that integrated the world I was expected to belong to and the one I had been born into.
“Are you ready?” Ambrose turned back toward us. “I have finished translating the sigils.”
Shock that he could read them popped my eyebrows into my hairline. “They’re instructions?”
“They explain how to power the tether, yes. They also describe how to return it to its restful state.”
“Feed it magic to open it.” I could see I was right in his expression. “Drain the residual power to close it.”
“Just so.”
“All right.” I checked with Midas, who nodded, then turned back to Ambrose. “Let’s do this.”
“This will hurt,” he warned, glancing back at me over his
shoulder. “Brace yourself.”
Midas threaded our fingers and wrapped an arm around my middle, ready to support me.
The fingertips of Ambrose’s right hand touched the uppermost sigil, and light exploded around me.
I fell, not into soothing darkness, but into the burning sun.
* * *
“Awaken.”
A moan slipped past my lips.
“Awaken.”
“Bite me.”
“Oh good.” Remy poked my cheek. “She’s okay.”
“Sarcasm isn’t an indication of well-being,” Midas argued. “She could sarcasm in her sleep.”
“The balance of power has shifted,” Ambrose said, his voice clear as a frakking bell. “She is fine.”
That snapped my eyes open, and I focused on the blur in front of me. “Midas?”
“I feel like I ate too much barbeque at a pack cookout.” He traced the curve of my cheek with his fingertip. “Except instead of stretching my stomach tight, I’m stuffed all over.”
“Same.” I gripped his wrist. “But are you okay?”
“The tether is severed.” He winced, as if even that light touch hurt. “For that, I can be okay.”
“Faegate,” I corrected him for the joy of watching him fight off a smile. “Like Stargate but fae-er.”
“A faegate?” A single huff escaped him, but he locked it down fast. “I see.”
“You need to ground the energy.” Remy lifted my hand, and it vibrated in hers. “You’re all jittery.”
Unlike Ambrose, I didn’t digest power. It wasn’t food to keep me going. It was fuel for performing magic. I had no immediate need for it, no particular use for it, and Midas was in worse shape. He had no outlet, no release valve to ease the pressure. His only magic expenditure was his natural talent of shapeshifting.
“Any idea how to do that?” I sat upright and took Midas’s hand, which shook even harder. “Quickly?”
Forehead pinched, she frowned at me. “How do you usually burn off the excess he pumps into you?”
“I almost die,” I confessed, cheeks growing warm. “Then he heals me.”
“Or she jumps on bombs,” Midas added dryly, “and he shields her from her poor life choices.”
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