The Shattered Dark sr-2

by Sandy Williams

  “I can’t send you there alone, and I need Kyol and Aren both at this meeting. We might be able to force the high nobles to vote.”

  My eyebrows go up. “Really?”

  “The fae you tracked to Eksan,” she says. “We were able to recapture him and the three fae he met. Two of them confirmed that the remnants don’t have a Descendant they can put on the throne.”

  “That’s good,” I say. An understatement. It’s really good, and a tension I didn’t realize I felt slowly lifts from my shoulders. If the high nobles approve her, things should get better soon.

  Lena nods. “I need my lord general and sword-master with me when I talk with them. They respect Kyol’s opinion, and Aren is good at reading people. I won’t be able to send them with you until after the meeting.”

  I play with the scrap of paper in my pocket. “Any guess how long Paige might be at this location or how long the meeting will last?”

  “On how long Paige might be there, no. On how long this meeting will take? Forever.”

  I’m not sure how much of an exaggeration that is.

  “How long have you had this?” I ask.

  “It just came.”

  “And there’s no way of knowing how long ago it was written,” I say.

  “No,” she answers, even though I wasn’t quite asking a question.

  “Can you send a couple of other fae with me?” Without knowing more about the tip or Paige’s condition, I can’t convince myself to wait for the meeting to end.

  Lena nods. “I can. But what am I supposed to tell them if you don’t come back?”

  “I’ll come back,” I say. “If there are too many remnants in London, we’ll leave.”

  She looks at me dubiously. “You’ll leave even if you see your friend there?”

  “I don’t have a death wish,” I say. That’s not exactly answering the question, but Lena doesn’t press it.

  FOURTEEN

  LENA SENDS SHANE with me. Apparently, he lived in London for a year before moving to Houston. He says he knows the area of the city where Paige is, possibly, being held. That will save time. If the tip doesn’t pan out, we should be back in Corrist before Aren or Kyol know we were gone.

  The stretch of the Inner City between the palace and the silver wall is shortest in the northeast corner. That also happens to be where Corrist’s gate is. Lena said she’d have two fae meet us in the antechamber, so Shane and I wait there for our escorts.

  “I found a house we can rent in Vegas,” Shane says, leaning against the wall and playing with something in the pocket of his jacket. The jacket is made from a soft, expensive-looking black leather. I grabbed a longer coat from the palace’s supply of human clothing. It’s white and a little big, but it hides my dagger, and I didn’t have much else to choose from. Atroth kept only a limited amount of my world’s textiles here. It’s ironic he kept any at all considering how adamant he was about keeping our cultures separate, but there were enough occasions when he needed his fae to be visible on Earth that he decided to keep a stash here.

  “Where?” I ask Shane.

  “It’s on the west side of the city,” he says.

  “Is that an expensive side of the city?” His place back in Houston was huge. At the time, he worked for Atroth the same as I did, but he demanded the king pay his mortgage along with an insanely high monthly allowance. I was happy in my little apartment—it was my home for almost eight years—and I’ve never been comfortable with accepting more money than I need to get by. All I need is attention from the IRS. Honestly, I don’t know how Shane hasn’t set off red flags with his lifestyle.

  “About that,” Shane says, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. “You have to ask Lena for a raise. She won’t pay me more than she pays you.”

  Good for her, I think. Out loud, I say, “We’ll be fine in an apartment.”

  “You’ll be fine in an apartment. Not me. I need space.”

  “Get a job,” I tell him. Then, I curse.

  A job. That’s exactly what I’m supposed to be getting.

  “What day is it?” Damn it, I don’t even know where my driver’s license and Social Security card are now. If they survived my dip in Rhigh’s river, they’re in my old jeans.

  “In Vegas? Thursday afternoon, I think,” he says. “Why? You have a date?”

  That leaves me around twenty-four hours to meet with Jenkins and finish my paperwork. If everything goes smoothly, it’s doable, and I want that job. I need to feel like a normal human every once in a while—I can’t live and breathe war twenty-four/seven—but finding Paige and making sure she’s okay is more important than that. Way more important.

  “It’s nothing,” I tell Shane. If I can’t make it to Jenkins’s office by five tomorrow, I’ll just have to convince him I had a crisis that couldn’t be avoided.

  Shane doesn’t have a chance to press the issue. Trev steps into the antechamber. He’s raided the king’s stockpile of human clothing, too, and is wearing khaki pants and a sweater loose enough to hide a good-sized dagger underneath. Since we’re going to a city with a dense population, there’s too much of a chance that someone would bump into the fae if they were invisible, so I insisted our escorts allow the humans to see them. Their chaos lusters will still be invisible to anyone who doesn’t have the Sight, and as long as no more than two or three fae are visible at once, people tend to overlook their otherness. They don’t notice their silver eyes or their slightly exotic faces.

  “Looks like you’re stuck with me again,” I say to Trev.

  “Not exactly.” He gives me a half smile, and I swear that’s the first time I’ve seen him do anything but frown. He steps farther into the antechamber, making room for…

  Aren. I keep my face expressionless as he approaches. It’s not easy, though, and not just because I feel like a teenager caught sneaking out at night. Aren, too, is dressed in human clothing. The only time I haven’t seen him in fae garb was when he wore a suit to Paige’s sister’s wedding. He was gorgeous then. He’s gorgeous now even though he’s just wearing a pair of relaxed-fit jeans and a simple, black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He won’t blend in on Earth. He’ll draw attention from every woman around.

  It takes me a second to find my voice. “Shouldn’t you be meeting with the high nobles?”

  “I should be,” he acknowledges. “But I’m not letting you walk into a trap.”

  If his clothing wasn’t a clue that he knows exactly what I’m doing, that statement certainly is. Someone told him about London. Who? Not Lena. If she was against me going after Paige, she didn’t have to tell me about the tip in the first place.

  “The remnants might not be there,” I say. I feel my eyes narrow as I look at Trev. He doesn’t like me. He was almost killed back at my apartment, and I know he wasn’t thrilled to be tasked with picking me up in Nashville. Plus, he and Aren are friends. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ratted me out.

  “Paige might not be there,” Aren counters, taking a step forward. “And don’t blame Trev, nalkin-shom. I made Lena tell me what was going on.”

  Lena did cave? I know Aren can be persuasive, but, seriously, she’s supposed to be the ruler of the Realm. He’s supposed to cave to her wishes, not the other way around.

  “I’m going,” I tell him. “I don’t know how the remnants have treated Paige. She might be hurt. She might think she’s—”

  “I’m not trying to talk you out of going, McKenzie,” he interrupts, holding out his hand. I stare at it while his words sink in. Sometimes I forget he’s not like Kyol. He doesn’t decide what I should and shouldn’t do. He lets me choose. He supports me; he doesn’t control me.

  And that’s one of the reasons why I’m taking a chance on him. He doesn’t put me inside a padded box to protect me. He gives me my freedom. He lets me be me.

  I take his hand. His grip is strong, comforting.

  “Shouldn’t you stay for the meeting?” I ask, needing to make sure it’s o
kay if he leaves. Rescuing Paige is important, but so is securing Lena’s place on the throne.

  “Lena underestimates herself,” Aren says, turning me toward the exit. “She can handle the high nobles on her own. Plus, she has Taltrayn at her side.”

  Despite his distaste for politics, Aren knows the high nobles and the game they’re playing better than I do. I give his hand a light squeeze before I slide my fingers free from his. I’d rather keep holding it, but we’re not alone, and Shane and Trev both look annoyed and impatient.

  It doesn’t take long to make it to the gate. Within fifteen minutes, we cross the Inner City and reach the silver wall. Just on the other side, a river flows down from the Corrist Mountains. A relatively flat area of land lies between the wall and the rapidly rising foothills. No homes or shops are built on it, so we have a clear view of the gate as soon as we pass under the wall.

  When we stop beside the river, Aren dips his hand into the water first, and a deep thunder rolls through the air. After his fissure opens, he slips an imprinted anchor-stone between our clasped palms, and I hold my breath as he pulls me into the In-Between.

  A second later, we emerge into a stale-smelling room. A broken chair is visible in the instant before our fissure winks out. Then the room plunges into complete darkness. Well, complete darkness except for the blue lightning on Aren’s skin. The chaos lusters look agitated, a sign that we’re in the middle of a major city. There might not be any tech on in this room, but there most certainly is a good amount nearby: streetlights outside, wi-fi in the air, mobile phones placing and receiving calls. Heavy, pounding music grows louder, then fades away. A car driving by, most likely. This isn’t like hanging out at an abandoned inn in the middle of Nowhere, Germany, like the outpost where the rebels first kept me captive. A few hours here, and all the fae will have migraines.

  Which makes this city a really odd place for the remnants to hold Paige. I feel the odds of her being here dropping with each erratic flash of lightning across Aren’s skin.

  A slash of light nearly blinds me when it pierces the darkness. Trev and Shane step into the room. As soon as Shane releases Trev’s hand, he reaches into his pocket and takes out a cell phone. Trev scowls as Shane holds down the button to turn it on. Apparently, Shane didn’t mention the tech to the fae.

  “Paige isn’t that far away,” Shane says. “We don’t even need to take the underground.”

  Paige isn’t that far away if she’s at the address we were given.

  “Good,” Aren says. “If anything goes wrong, we’ll meet at the gate. You both know where it is?”

  On a map, yes. Finding it in person might be a little more difficult, but Shane and I both nod. Hopefully, we won’t get separated. And, hopefully, this won’t take long. Trev is already rubbing his forehead as if he has a headache.

  Shane leads the way out. I follow him down a narrow staircase, and Aren and Trev descend after me. It’s dark, but I can still see stains on the thin carpet covering the steps. I keep my hands close to my sides. This is the kind of place where you don’t want to touch anything. At least this is a safe place to emerge into my world. The archives only had three anchor-stones imprinted with locations in London. According to Kavok, one would have taken us directly to the gate, which is out in the open on the northern bank of the Thames, and the other one would have taken us to Westminster. Shane said Westminster wasn’t anywhere close to the address we have, though, so we chose this one because Kavok suggested it was a discreet location. He was right about that. No one’s around to see us.

  Shane reaches the door at the bottom of the stairs. He opens it, exits the building. It’s dark outside. Streetlights reflect off the damp sidewalk, and there’s a chill in the air. I’m grateful for my jacket, but I’m wishing I’d put on something heavier than a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt beneath it.

  I stuff my hands into my pockets, then turn, waiting for Aren and Trev to exit the building. The room we fissured into is above what looks like a real-estate agency. Pictures of flats and quaint-looking houses that cost upward of a half million pounds are taped to the window. A couple of doors down the road, a small group of men are standing outside a pub, smoking.

  “It’s this way,” Shane says when the fae join us. I fall into step beside him and attempt to not look like a tourist. You’d think that would be easy since I’ve spent so much time in the Realm, which is definitely a more foreign location than this city, but this is London. There’s so much history here. And never mind that this is the homeland of Shakespeare and Jane Austen, King’s Cross Station is somewhere around here. I want to see Platform 9¾. I swear, one of these days, I’m going to have a fae fissure me here for a vacation.

  “You’re alive in this city,” Aren says.

  “What?” I ask, turning. I was walking beside Shane, but I must have slowed down to take everything in. Aren’s beside me now. Trev and Shane are a few paces ahead.

  “You’re more mesmerized by this place than by any place I’ve seen you in the Realm.”

  “That’s because no one’s trying to kill me here,” I say.

  No one’s trying to kill me here yet. I’m surprised Aren doesn’t point that out, but he just smiles as he watches me, and my stomach does a little flip. It’s as if seeing me here like this makes him happy, and just for a moment, I let myself think about what it would be like to walk down this street with Aren without any worries about the remnants or Paige. That’s what we need, time to be together without all the pressures of the war.

  “That’s the address,” Shane says, pointing to a section of a brick building about thirty feet in front of us. We pass a tiny convenience store and an even tinier restaurant serving lamb and chicken kabobs. A long line of people blocks its entrance, but they’re not waiting to order anything. They’re waiting to get into the white-walled building just ahead. By the way the humans are dressed, it has to be a club or a rock concert. I really don’t get the girls’ clothing choices. It’s cold out here, and they’re all dressed in short skirts and skimpy tops.

  Shane stops before we reach the front of the line, staring down at his phone before looking back up again. A metal door is set into the plain brick wall. It’s dented and has orange rust stains at the top and a streak of something black and sticky-looking in the middle. It’s the kind of door you don’t touch because you’re afraid of what you’ll find on the other side.

  I look up at the second story. The four evenly spaced windows are dark. The building is probably deserted—completely deserted. If the remnants were here, they’d have a light of some sort, either a candle burning or a magically lit glass orb. We’ve come this far, though, and I need to be certain Paige isn’t on the other side of the door.

  When I step forward, Aren stops me with a hand on my arm.

  “Behind me,” he says.

  I was going first just so I could get us through the line of humans, but he parts the crowd with his shoulder. He’s careful not to let his skin touch anyone else’s. A few girls protest, thinking that we’re cutting in line, but Aren flashes them a smile, and says, “Just passing through.”

  Of course, they don’t protest then. One of them even returns his smile. She reaches for his arm and says in a heavy British accent, “No need to hurry off.”

  He barely manages to dodge her touch. I’m beside him the next instant, and the girl’s expression turns sour. My action was more to keep them separate than to claim him as mine, but I don’t mind if that’s the way she’s seeing this.

  Her gaze shifts to Trev, but before I have to rescue the other fae, the line moves. She forgets about us the second she turns away.

  We reach the door, and Aren looks down at me. “Are you sure you want to go inside?”

  I could let Aren go in without me. He could do a quick search and be out here in no time. But if I’m wrong and the remnants are actually here and one of them happens to be an illusionist, Aren and Trev won’t see an attack coming. I won’t let them be vulnerable like that.

>   “Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m sure.”

  His jaw clenches, but he discreetly takes out a dagger from under his shirt.

  “Shane, wait out here,” he says. “Warn us if you see fae.”

  He reaches for the door but doesn’t turn the handle. He looks back at me. “Tell me you’re armed.”

  I’m so, so close to saying I’m not just to see how he’ll react, but it’s not the time to kid around. I reach behind my back and take my dagger out, keeping it concealed beneath my coat.

  He nods once, then twists the handle.

  I don’t expect it to move. I expect us to have to break in somehow, but the door swings open without a sound, a fact that creeps the hell out of me. The door looks old and heavy; it shouldn’t glide open like a well-oiled hinge.

  I have to force myself to step inside the dark, musty-smelling room. When I do, I’m immediately on edge. This place doesn’t feel right. The air is dense. It tastes like a warning, and the way the door clicks shut behind Trev triggers a memory. That’s how the door to the girls’ locker room sounded ten years ago when I entered it. Volleyball practice was over. I’d forgotten my gym bag and had to borrow the key from the janitor. I couldn’t find the light switch, so I blindly felt my way along the lockers, counting them off until I reached the sixth one. It took only a second to grab my bag, but when I turned around, I wasn’t alone.

  That wasn’t the first time I had seen Thrain, but it was the first time he knew I saw him. Even though I didn’t know anything about him then, when he smiled in the dark, the way the edarratae flashed across his sunken eyes and the hollows of his face made him look menacing.

  “McKenzie?” A whisper from Aren. He’s stopped just in front of me. Chaos lusters flash across his face, and I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the remainder of the memory, reminding myself that this isn’t my high-school locker room. It’s an empty foyer to what must be a bankrupt hotel or apartment building. I think we came in the back entrance because a glass door is on the opposite side of the room. The glass is painted black. A few scratches in the paint let in a miniscule amount of light. Now that my eyes are adjusting, though, that light is enough for me to see what might have once been the check-in counter a few paces to the right of the door.