I surveyed the room, but I didn’t see Lyr. Where had he gone?
Holding the cloak around me, I stood up and listened for him, his deep melody. After a moment, I felt his vibrations skimming over my skin, and I crossed out into a hallway. After a few minutes of searching, I found him in another room, standing in an empty window. The wind whipped at his hair as he stared out onto the dark landscape.
He turned to look at me. “Why are you awake? Go back to sleep.”
“What are you doing?” I blinked the sleep out of my eyes.
“Making sure no one finds us.”
“Thanks for your cloak.”
He frowned. “Your teeth were chattering too loudly.”
“What’s the symbol on the cloak?” I asked.
“It was the symbol of my mother’s house.” He turned away from me, looking outside again.
So that had definitely been Lyr’s cloak in the prison cell. He’d come into my prison cell, put me to sleep, then put a cloak under my head as a pillow. None of which he wanted to admit.
I pulled his cloak tighter around me, watching him.
Why had he let me run free all these years if he thought I was a psychopath? I was breaking every rule he held dear.
“You left your cloak for me in the prison cell, too,” I ventured.
He looked like I’d caught him off-guard for a moment, turning to me with surprise. Then he looked back to watch the storm outside. “Go back to sleep, Aenor. Tomorrow, we try again for the athame. I’m looking out for the fuath. They might be able to find us through a scrying mirror, but I’ll see them before they arrive.”
Sleep called to me again. I crossed back into the empty room and curled up with Lyr’s cloak around me for warmth. I shot a quick glance at the dagger on the floor, then pulled it close to me.
Never let your guard down, Aenor.
* * *
Powerful arms scooped me up, and I woke with a jolt.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
I still clutched the sheathed dagger to my chest like a sleeping child clutches a doll.
“The fuath are coming,” said Lyr.
I was about to protest that I could get down the stairs myself, but he was moving like a storm wind over the ocean. Swift as a squall, even with me in his arms.
Once we reached the ground floor, he let go of me, and I sprinted for the car.
This time, the hotwiring went faster. I had it going within a minute. I turned on the ignition, and we sped off.
It was still dark, and I wasn’t sure where we were going. At this time of night, there were almost no other cars on the road. Except the headlights behind us, which seemed to be closing in on us.
“Is that them?” I asked. “I thought you said they don’t know how to drive.”
“They’re in the car. I can smell them. But they’re not driving. They have a human driving them, perhaps someone whom they’ve bribed with money.”
“A cab driver. We call that a cab driver.” I hit the gas a little harder, ramping up the speed, and the wind whipped at my hair through the window. It took me a moment to realize that, at some point while I’d been sleeping, Lyr had cleared off all the glass from the driver’s seat.
Thank the gods. He really was a good protector.
“How did they find us?” I asked.
“Scrying, probably. I felt it not that long ago.” He looked behind him. “Can you go faster?”
I wasn’t a skilled enough driver to outrun them.
We were zooming through a town center, now, the roadsides lined with some shops and crowded with concrete apartment buildings.
“I’m bad at driving,” I said. “We need to just … confuse them.”
I veered around a corner. The turn was absurdly wide, taking me onto the wrong side of the road. Lucky for me, there was no one on the other side to hit, though I clipped a street sign. Adrenaline surged as I fought to regain control of the car.
“Dorcha.” Lyr uttered the spell that would partially cloak our car in shadows.
This was not the safest way to drive, especially considering it cloaked most of our headlights, and no other cars could see us.
I took a sharp left, leaning heavily on the gas on a wider boulevard. One side of the road was lined by gas stations and construction, and the other by a rocky hill covered with shrubs.
It was too flat and open here; there was no chance of losing them. I veered back, careening wildly over the rubble divider to head back toward the town center.
Lyr cursed under his breath.
I took a sharp right, wheels screeching as we veered back into the town center. From here, I took a series of sharp turns that sent my stomach lurching, then sped through a gas station parking lot.
Lyr launched into another spell—a powerful spell for protection—as I swung wildly around a tiny rotary. His magic rippled over the car, shielding us. I let out a slow breath.
God of the deep, I was not great at this.
I took a sharp lap around the traffic circle, then veered off wildly in the direction from which we’d come. Ha! That should confuse them. I was driving like a maniac.
I leaned on the gas again, then banged a hard right down a residential street.
“We’ve lost them,” Lyr said at last.
I let out a long breath. “Can you take the shadows off, now? I can’t see a thing.”
Lyr’s magic skimmed over me as he pulled the shadows from the car. “Get back on the highway. We need to drive south.”
“South? You’re issuing these directions like I have some sense of where the sun rises and sets or an internalized compass.”
“We will have to lose the car,” he said. “The fuath know what it looks like. And we will need to get to a large city. The fuath can hunt by smell, and a large population will confuse them.”
“Fine. Just tell me where to go.”
But he went silent.
I took my eyes off the road for just a moment to glance at him, and I saw that he’d shifted again. His hair wafted around his head like he was underwater, and his body glowed with otherworldly gold light. His dark claws had extended.
A shiver snaked up my spine. Something about the way he looked in this state just made my heart stop. I couldn’t help but feel like there was something wrong with it.
Was that how he’d looked when he’d slit the pink-haired girl’s throat? Like a demonic god?
I wondered if he’d felt the slightest bit of guilt when her blood stained her white gown.
I drove around blindly until I found the highway, and then I followed the signs to Tel Aviv.
* * *
We drove for another forty-five minutes, the morning star rising in the sky above us, a cold blue glow in the violet sky.
Then, the sun began to rise, staining the sky with amber and hot coral. Lyr stayed in his Ankou state until rosy morning light pulled him out of it.
My stomach started to rumble as we pulled into Tel Aviv, the streets crowded with restaurants and offices. A few people were on the sidewalks with steaming coffee cups.
Outside a closed restaurant, I found a parking lot that was mostly empty, which was the only situation I could actually park in without damaging all cars involved.
I pulled up diagonally over two spaces, then stole another glance at Lyr. My chest unclenched as I saw that the claws were gone, and his eyes had returned to a serene blue.
I wanted to know what he’d done to bring that curse on himself.
What was worse than killing people?
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said what’s worse than killing people? And then your stomach growled. Again.”
“I didn’t know I said that out loud.”
“You need to eat again.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Hang on. I’m going to try for the athame first.” I gripped the wheel, closing my eyes to tune into the sweet music of the Meriadoc. I wanted to feel
it thrumming up my spine….
Instead, I just felt Lyr’s vibrations and the hunger rippling through my stomach.
I opened my eyes again. Then, I strapped the sheath around my thigh once more. It looked ridiculous with the short shorts, and I wasn’t sure if this was at all legal in Israel, but I wanted to keep the knife on me. “You definitely need better intel from the Winter Witch, because this blows.”
“Getting to her will be a bit of a problem.” He swung open the car door and stood, sniffing the air. “Let’s get you food, first. Maybe your tracking skills will work better when you’re not hungry. We’ll find a quiet place for you to sit and concentrate until you can hear it.”
“I don’t think my tracking skills are the problem.” I stretched my arms over my head. “Also, we don’t have any money for food.”
He strode into the street, his hair gleaming pale gold in the morning light. He was crossing the road, heading for a wide, pedestrianized boulevard. Tree-shaded streets lined either side of the walkway.
“We can take food if we need it,” he said.
“I am intrigued by how eager you are to break human laws, given your rigidness with fae laws.”
“Fae laws are superior. I already explained that.”
I hurried to keep up with him as he crossed the road. My dreams from the night before were still flickering in my mind. “That’s convenient. Because you can basically do whatever you want. It’s fine to slit a girl’s throat and hang her body from your castle, as long as you don’t use iron when you do it.”
Just as he got to the walkway, he whirled abruptly, staring down at me.
It seemed I’d struck a nerve.
Chapter 24
I cocked a hip, staring back at him. “I was just thinking about the girl with pink hair. And how you killed her. And how she could have been me.”
“Are you referring to the body you saw outside our fortress?”
“Yes. The girl who tried to steal your necklace.”
“At 472 years old, she could hardly be called a girl. Her body has been there for over a year but does not decompose. And do you know what would happen if she’d taken the World Key from me and figured out how to reverse the spell?”
“Is that possible?”
“All spells can be reversed with enough time and skill.” He folded his arms, staring down at me. “And what do you imagine a nefarious person might do with that power?”
“Sell the key, make lots of money, and buy a nice house with lots of guards to protect them from assassins like you. Live in luxury, above ground, where no one calls you a dirtling.”
“That’s what you would do with it. What Lady Leianna intended was to open a shadow demon realm, demand fealty from a legion of monsters in exchange for their release. She wanted to use the key to raise armies of demons to take over the world. She was a twisted lake maiden, and she fed off human misery the way a succubus feeds off lust. She has killed countless people, children among them. For fuck’s sake, Aenor, don’t sentimentalize her as a helpless girl just because you think she looked like you.”
With my arms folded, I tapped my fingertips against my elbow. Maybe he had a point. “I can see why the key might be a problem in the wrong hands, and why you’d need to make sure you sent a message.”
A cool morning wind rushed over us, and Lyr stared down at me, gold glinting in his eyes. “I have sometimes had to do terrible things to protect the people of Ys.”
“It sounds like you understand me, then. We’re the same in that way.”
He arched an eyebrow. He didn’t look like he was willing to concede this point. “I’m not sure that we are, entirely.”
“What?” I said. “Why?”
“The Winter Witch has prophesied your future. She says your blood is poisoned.”
“She said the same to me. It could mean anything. Do you have any idea how many value-brand cookies I eat per day?”
“That wasn’t all of it. I’ll show you.”
He leaned down and cupped my forehead, his hands warm and gentle on my skin. I closed my eyes.
For a moment, my mind went blank. Just totally empty. Then, a winter storm whipped up around me with whirling eddies of sparkling snow. The Winter Witch trudged closer, her eye blinking.
Hair whipped into my eyes—the same blond color as Lyr’s. It took me a moment to understand that this was one of his memories. He was channeling his memory directly into my skull.
The Winter Witch was upon him now.
“Tell me,” Lyr’s deep voice boomed over the white landscape. “What will become of Nova Ys?”
The witch’s mouth opened. “She of the House of Meriadoc seeks to bring a reign of death. She of the poisoned blood seeks to rule a realm of bones.”
She let out an ear-curdling shriek. Then, “The daughter of the House of Meriadoc. Her beauty hides her true nature. Her heart turns to ash, her soul infected by evil. She seeks to sever your head from your body, to fertilize Nova Ys with your blood. Death spills from her.”
Another ear-piercing scream echoed, one that sounded harvested from the depths of hells.
Then, Lyr pulled his hands away, and the vision vanished from my mind. “The Winter Witch is never wrong.”
I tried to catch my breath, and I stared at him, my heart slamming hard against my ribs. As prophecies went, that one did not sound great.
It didn’t sound like me, though. I didn’t want to cut off his head and fertilize Ys with his blood. And why would I want a kingdom of bones?
I felt a sharp chasm open up in my chest, a wild desire to prove to him that he was wrong. “You can’t really think that’s me.”
His deep blue eyes drank me in. “It’s you. The Daughter of Meriadoc.” He brushed a strand of my blue hair out of my face. “The Winter Witch has never been wrong before.”
“So, if you think I’m going to cut off your head, why are you letting me hang around you? Why are we working together?”
“She said that you’ll seek to do it. Not that you’ll succeed. I intend to stop you.”
Electric energy crackled between us. “And how do you intend to stop me?”
“By whatever means necessary.”
I was grateful for the sheath cutting off circulation to my leg right now, because it had a weapon in it. At any moment, Lyr could decide that I was about to cut off his head, and he’d feel compelled to try to stop me.
“I don’t believe it.” I didn’t want a kingdom of bones.
Unless something changed me. The athame, perhaps? When I touched it, would something change me?
“I have no desire to fertilize a city in your blood. I’d cut off your head, maybe, if you deserve it, but the dang thing would probably grow back.”
My stomach rumbled, and I was getting so hungry that maybe I was a little at risk of trying to drown a city in Lyr’s blood. I needed toast or something before I actually did try to decapitate him.
“But mostly, I don’t care a lick what the Winter Witch says. She’s wrong,” I said with much more conviction than I felt. “Put it out of your head, and let’s get breakfast.”
“Wait here a minute. I’ll get you something to eat.”
He crossed to a coffee stand in the center of the pathway, striding up confidently in his crown, as if he didn’t look bizarre. What was he going to do? Terrify them into giving him some croissants?
The barista slid a tray with a coffee cup and two brown paper sacks onto the counter and called out the name “Shira!”
Lyr shot out and snatched the tray, moving in such a fast blur I wasn’t sure anyone else saw him.
I wasn’t even sure if he understood that you usually paid for food. For most of his time in the human realm, he probably just had servants handing him things.
He’d crossed the road and joined my side again within moments, and he shoved the tray at me. “Fill your belly. Then try again to find the athame.”
Fill your belly. Weirdo.
By my side, he was striding
along the wide sidewalk like he knew exactly where we were going.
“Do you know of a space around here we can use?” I asked. “For my athame tracking?”
We crossed the road again, heading for what looked like an apartment building. “I’ll find one.”
Hungry as I was, the coffee smelled amazing. I grabbed Shira’s latte from the tray. It burned my tongue just a bit, but once the taste of caffeinated drink hit my tongue, I couldn’t stop myself. Ahhhh, glorious stimulants mixed with milk…. “I love coffee. I love Shira right now. I even love you, Lyr, you brooding, coffee-providing monster.”
He shot me a confused look, and I took another long sip.
As we walked, I peered into the paper bags. Shira had amazing taste, too, because she’d selected a pain au chocolat and an egg sandwich on French bread. My mouth watered.
“Do you want any of this?” I asked Lyr, hoping for a no.
“I’ll eat later.”
Brilliant.
Lyr stopped walking in front of a short concrete building. Above us, narrow balconies overlooked the sidewalk.
He stopped at the door, then pushed all six of the apartment building’s buzzers. After a moment, someone spoke in what I thought was Hebrew. Lyr replied fluently. I had no idea what he said, but the buzzer sounded a moment later.
Apparently, Lyr knew more about the human world than I’d given him credit for.
He pulled open the door, I followed him into the cool hallway, and the door shut behind me.
He turned to me. “Just give me a moment. I’m going to discreetly find an empty apartment.”
By the look of him, Lyr wasn’t the best choice for discreetly scoping out a building. Nothing about an enormous, blond fae was particularly discreet. Except that Lyr had a certain way of moving fluidly though the shadows that I couldn’t mimic. It was how he’d been able to steal Shira’s breakfast out from under her nose. A breakfast I now desperately wanted to devour.
I leaned against a door. Then, I balanced the tray on one knee, taking a bite of the pain au chocolate.
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