“Yes, Jacinda. The two of you remain bound, which gives you a connection few other mortals have. You can use it to speak with her, and steer her away from the dark path she walks.”
“We aren’t bound.” I held up my arm, exposing the mark on my wrist. “She undid our bond and used it to drain my life force against my will. She’s in this for herself, not for her coven, and she’s willing to take me and the entire world down with her.”
“She was devoted as a child,” she said. “Now her devotion to her goal has warped beyond recognition. It’s up to you to steer her back onto the right track.”
“How the hell is she my responsibility?” I could hardly believe they were still foisting the job on me, like I’d volunteered to be Evelyn’s watcher. “She’s the one who was supposed to give me guidance. That’s why you bound us. You told me that.”
“You were supposed to be equals,” she said. “Partners, and equal participants in the Hemlocks’ curse.”
“You what?” Indignation gave way to disbelief. “Please tell me I’m not still under the bloody curse and not Evelyn.”
“When we die, we will need someone to take our place,” said Cordelia. “That was the purpose of your bond.”
“Then I’ll bind her to the forest.” Goose bumps prickled my arms.
“That won’t be enough, Jas,” said Cordelia. “Our magic is woven into this entire spirit line. If it unravels, the Devourer will break free, and the world will perish. The curse requires a Hemlock to be bound here, body and soul. Both of you.”
“Last time Evelyn came in here, it didn’t go so well for you.” A cold knot formed in my chest. I can’t end up trapped under the curse. It should be Evelyn, not me. “Look, you’ve been here for thirty-one years, right? If the Ancients are thousands of years old, then what stopped the Devourer from destroying the world before then?”
“The Devourer and his kind once inhabited a realm beyond the reach of this one,” Cordelia said. “Until they were provoked into attacking Earth, and we were the ones who paid the price. Now, they yearn to break free and finish what they started.”
“And destroy all life on earth.” My throat went dry. “Evelyn doesn’t care about earth. She never has. Not as much as she cares about her own ambitions.”
“She believes she is strong enough to take on the Ancients alone,” she said. “You must show her otherwise.”
“I tried allying with one of the Ancients and you bit my head off for it.” I folded my arms across my chest. “And now Evelyn has that same Ancient eating out of her hand. Is it only a problem when I do it, not her? Because I know you used to be buddies with the Ancients once. Was the Devourer one of them?”
“No.” Her voice snapped out, like a whip. “We were never allies. Go back, Jacinda, and stop Evelyn.”
“You can’t seriously—”
The forest disappeared, and fog closed in. An instant later, my surroundings changed to an empty field.
I swore loudly at the sky—vivid blue, definitely Earth. Grass lay beneath my feet. Not concrete. So, I hadn’t landed in Edinburgh. Where the bloody hell had the forest sent me?
Houses and apartment blocks stood behind a nearby fence, so I couldn’t be in the middle of nowhere. On the other hand, I might be trespassing on someone’s lawn. Awkward. Thanks for that one, Cordelia.
Three figures marched towards me, one female, two male. The man in the centre carried a long staff that came up to his shoulder, and all three of them wore some kind of green armour. Half-faeries. If that wasn’t enough to make me guess, their long hair and pointed ears would have clued me in.
“You are trespassing,” said the man wielding the staff. He wore what appeared to be a crown on top of his silky dark hair, and a scowl on his pale face.
“Sorry,” I said. “Er, who are you?”
“I am Chieftain Taive,” he informed me. “I am the leader of the half-faeries in this region.”
“What region?” I indicated the empty field. “I have no idea where I am, to tell you the truth. I came here by accident.”
“You are in my forest.”
“Your forest?” I said blankly. Then it clicked into place. “Oh, no. You owned part of the Hemlocks’ forest, didn’t you?” This Chieftain Taive must be the leader of the half-faeries who lived on the territory which bordered with the forest. Except there was nothing here. The Hemlocks’ forest had vanished, leaving a very bewildered group of half-faeries behind.
“Our forest,” he corrected, waving his staff in my face.
I blinked. “Is that staff made of plastic?”
“This way.” He snapped his fingers, beckoning me to follow him. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go, so I walked behind him and his two companions. Both of them carried swords made of sharpened wood rather than metal, while their armour had faded in colour as though they’d stood outside on one too many rainy day.
We reached a bare stretch of ground near where the forest’s entrance had once been. In the centre sat a throne—or rather, a decorated tree stump. Two armoured guards stood on the left-hand side, and between them was a bemused-looking Keir. “Hi, Jas.”
I ignored the guards and ran towards him. “Keir. Are you okay?”
“I think so.” He gave the armoured guards a wary look. “Unless this is another hallucination. Let me tell you, there’s only so many times I can live through being impaled by a fury before it gets old.”
“What are you two talking about?” demanded Chieftain Taive. “Who are you?”
“I told you, I’m a vampire,” Keir said. “I was looking for Jas. We didn’t mean to trespass on your… territory.” He gave the tree stump a baffled glance. Even that was fake, up close. Clearly, being Chief didn’t pay that well.
I cleared my throat. “We’ll be leaving now. This was a mistake.”
“Did you have something to do with my forest’s disappearance, human?” He jabbed me in the chest with his plastic staff.
“Don’t touch her,” Keir said sharply. “The forest is being devoured by an ancient god. You’re welcome to go looking for it if you like, but we have a job to do, and to be perfectly honest, I have no idea who you are.”
“Everyone knows who I am!” said Chieftain Taive. “And if you threaten us with war, then we will meet you in kind.”
“There’s a war coming anyway,” I said. “The Ancients—you know, the gods your people kicked out of Faerie—are on the move. Their ally just kidnapped our friends, which means the Mage Lord is going to have my head on a platter when I get back—”
“Did you say the Mage Lord?” said the Chief faintly. “Colton?”
“Yes… do you know him?” Wait, Ivy was involved with Faerie. “And Ivy Lane? She’s a good friend of mine.” Assuming she forgave me for leaving her stranded in the Ancients’ realm, anyway.
“I owe her a favour,” muttered the Chief. “Fine, leave. But if you bring misfortune onto our doorstep, then you will face the consequences.”
“We have enough misfortune of our own, trust me,” I told him.
Two of the guards shepherded us towards a gap in the hedge surrounding their territory by way of poking their weapons at us. Keir raised an eyebrow at their plastic swords but didn’t comment until we were safely on the other side of the hedge.
“What the bloody hell was that?” he said. “I’m lost.”
“This was where the Hemlocks’ forest used to be,” I explained. “I guess it disappeared when Evelyn cut off the spirit line.”
Rather abruptly, if the Chief’s reaction was anything to go by.
“She kicked us out, too.” Keir ran his fingertip over a shallow cut on his cheek. “Damn, she hits hard.”
“No kidding.” I rubbed the mark on my wrist, but I could no longer sense my Hemlock magic at all. “What the hell are we supposed to do? We’re miles from Scotland, and I can’t use the forest as a shortcut without my magic.”
“The spirit line,” he said. “Can you still travel that way?”
“This is Birmingham, isn’t it?” he said. “Was it always so… grey?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’d better get away from the faeries’ territory. I forgot they lived right next to the forest.”
“The Ley Line,” said Keir. “It’s not far off, is it? Can you use it to get back?”
“Same issue as the other spirit line,” I said. “And I am not going to Faerie. Not without Ivy or someone who knows the Sidhe, anyway. I’ll call Isabel.”
I pulled out my phone. As I did so, Keir drew to a halt. His gaze zoned out, suggesting that he was grabbing a vessel to check our location.
I fired off a text to Isabel, but I didn’t mention Ivy was still in the other realm with Ilsa—that could wait until I saw her in person. I hardly believed Evelyn had the nerve to capture two of the few humans who’d tamed a talisman containing the power of an Ancient. Ivy and Ilsa could take care of themselves, but unless I found a way back, asap, none of the others would even know they were missing.
“This way.” Keir resumed walking down the road. “We’re close to the Ley Line.”
“I know we are.” I slipped my phone back into my pocket, cursing under my breath. “I’m not kidding when I say Vance is going be hopping mad at me for letting Evelyn take Ivy. Evelyn—”
“Is not your responsibility,” Keir said.
“Cordelia Hemlock begs to differ.”
“Wait, you saw her?”
I relayed what she’d told me as we drew nearer to the area I recognised as Isabel’s home, when she wasn’t in Edinburgh.
Keir frowned. “She still thinks you can talk her out of her mad crusade against the gods, even now?”
“Pretty sure nobody can.” I dug my hands in my pockets. “Oh, and unless I catch up to her soon, the Hemlock curse will affect me instead of her.”
Keir let out a soft exclamation. “The curse? You mean… you’ll be stuck in the forest, like the others?”
“Lucky me.” I dug my hands in deeper, as though I’d find answers lurking at the bottom of my coat pockets. “Either way, I’m not so sure I can escape it. I’m still a Hemlock, as far as the curse is concerned.”
“Bullshit.” Keir spat out the word. “Just say the word and I’ll march into that forest and tell Cordelia what I think of her curses.”
“That won’t help us stop the gods attacking earth, though, will it?” Hopelessness threatened to rise, borne by the renewed loss of my magic. I forced it down. My friends need me.
“That’s the Ley Line.” Keir indicated the road ahead. “Who lives here, humans?”
“Witches,” I said. “It also goes through shifter territory, I think. Isabel’s coven lives around here, but she hasn’t texted me back. I hope we haven’t lost more than a day.”
Last time I’d seen the Ley Line, it had been a vibrant current of energy running through the air, but without my Hemlock power, I wouldn’t have known it was there if Keir hadn’t pointed it out. I turned on my spirit sight, and a spark pinged on the corner of my vision.
“There are dead close by.”
“I know.” Keir pulled out his knife, his mouth set in a grim line.
Three undead lumbered over to us, their eyes glowing with the light of the vampire piloting them.
Keir caught one of them by the throat. I engaged the second, cursing myself for not carrying salt. The undead’s decaying arm swung a wild punch at me, and its hand fell off when I blocked its strike with my forearm. Then I plunged into the spirit realm, seeking the vampire driving the dead.
“Hey,” a male voice hissed from the human-shaped shadow before me. “You… you’re…”
“A shade?” I wrenched the life out of him with a single pull. “Guess I am.”
Energy flooded me, replacing my depleted resources after my battle with Evelyn. I let the zombie fall to the earth, catching my breath. Keir had finished the other undead, scanning the road. “There’s one more. Guess I’m as popular here as I am at home.”
They must be after us. But how had they found us so quickly?
I flew out of my body, my hands grabbing the vampire’s transparent form. Instinct screamed at me to drain him, but I refrained from finishing him off. “Who sent you?”
“You… you…” His words trailed off as his energy flooded me, and his outline evaporated into the surrounding grey of the spirit realm.
I returned to my body to find Keir staring at me. “Damn. You move as fast as a vampire, Jas.”
“Huh.” I scanned the fallen undead, their bodies rotting in the road. “Got any salt?”
“No need.” He eased a spell off his wrist and threw it at the undead, which burst into white flames. When they cleared, nothing but ashes remained.
Keir tensed, then lowered his hands as several more figures stepped out of the Ley Line. “Guess Isabel got your message.”
Isabel approached us, accompanied by Vance, Drake and Wanda. Oh boy.
Bracing myself, I faced Isabel first. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“Jas,” Vance said. “Where is Ivy?”
My heart contracted. “Evelyn had a whole army of shadow furies. They flew off with Ivy and Ilsa. I tried to stop her, but my—her magic—it threw us back through the spirit line.”
“She what?” Isabel’s hands clenched. “That snake.”
The air hummed with power as Vance’s mage ability turned on like an imminent lightning storm. “She can’t have taken Ivy.”
“Ivy will probably be mopping the floor with her right now,” I said. “Ilsa, too. I tried to get back, but my magic was cut off as soon as she kicked us out. The good news is, the other Hemlocks aren’t dead, even though the forest is no longer anchored to the spirit line.”
“Then we’ll follow her through the mirror.” Vance’s dark grey eyes shone with fury as he turned back to the Ley Line.
Drake caught Vance’s arm. “Hang on—don’t do anything rash. We don’t know where Evelyn took Ivy, and who knows what other crazy shit is over there in the other realm?”
“Dragons, for a start,” I said. “I don’t know if they’re working with Evelyn, too, but the entire population of shadow furies in that realm now seems to answer to her. She tricked their god into making them believe she was me.”
“I see,” said Vance, his calm tone edged with menace. “We’re going back to the guild. Then I’ll go after Ivy.”
I doubted Evelyn would make it that easy for him to track her down, but I’d save the arguments for when we reunited with the council.
Vance transported our group into a field, then a road, and after two more jumps, we landed in lobby of the necromancer guild. I staggered against Keir, who caught my arm to steady me.
My head spun, sudden exhaustion hitting me. I didn’t kill her. And from the look of things, we’d lost hours over there in the other realm. We were lucky it hadn’t been days.
Evelyn wouldn’t kill Ivy or Ilsa as long as she needed their power, but if she set Ivy and Ilsa against the other gods, then there could be only one result.
A bloodbath, with Evelyn rising from the ruins as a goddess in her own right.
7
“If anyone can survive out there, it’s Ivy,” I said, for about the tenth time, addressing the council. “Really, we should be prepared for Evelyn to come here. The furies’ god is no longer a potential ally, and now Evelyn has access to his entire army of shadow furies.”
Vance, who’d insisted on calling an emergency meeting the instant we got back to Edinburgh, frowned. “I’m aware of that, but Ivy doesn’t have control over the spirit lines the way you do. Neither does Ilsa.”
“I don’t anymore,” I said. “If I did, I’d go back over there in a heartbeat. I don’t know about you, but I can’t take down an army of furies and their shadowy god
single-handedly. They’re immune to necromancy, for a start.”
Mutters rose among the rest of the council. As the sole witness, it was on me to help reassure them that Ivy and Ilsa weren’t dead. Ivy might not have any living family members left, but she sure had a lot of people willing to kick up a fuss on her behalf.
Vance spoke. “I will go there myself. We’ve wasted too much time already.”
Isabel made a noise of protest. “You can’t go out there alone. Mage Lord or not, there are living gods out there, and Ivy and the others were lucky not to get killed.”
“If I may interject,” said Lady Montgomery, who sat on my right-hand side. “This is my guild, and I’ll thank you not to risk bringing the gods into our headquarters. This meeting is over. Mage Lord, I’d like to have a word with you. The rest of you can leave.”
Isabel caught my arm and pulled me after her out of the room. “Following the mages will only lead to more trouble. Also, you’re exhausted. I can tell.”
“He’s going to get killed out there,” I protested. “What will become of the Council of Twelve if Vance and Drake go missing as well?”
“I know.” Her eyes were downcast. “I think he has a point, though. Ivy’s powerful, but she’s up against an army, and those furies might have taken her anywhere.”
“What the hell did your ancestor do?” Morgan approached Isabel and me. “I thought you were supposed to be getting Ilsa’s talisman back, not losing her as well.”
“I didn’t know Evelyn would have an entire army of shadow furies on her side.” I wouldn’t berate him for eavesdropping this time. With the council arguing about Ivy, I hadn’t even begun to deal with the guild members furious about Ilsa’s disappearance. Like Morgan and River, for instance. “I tried to take her down, but the Hemlock magic forced me out through the spirit line. I didn’t mean to leave her and Ivy behind.”
“And why are the mages going through the mirror and not us?” Morgan scowled at their retreating backs.
“Because we have more sense.” I looked to Isabel to back me up. “I think Ilsa and Ivy have a better chance of escaping the furies and making it back to the mirror than we do of finding them, especially without a plan.”
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