by Emily Mckay
“I may not understand how to use my powers. I may barely have begun to tap into them. But right now, you have two options. You can answer my questions for me. Or you can leave me wanting more. If I know one thing about this world, it’s that a Sleeker who wants things is a dangerous enemy.”
Finally, he turns to face me. For the first time, there is something like respect in his expression. Unfortunately, there is also amusement. “You have your mother’s spirit, but you do not know who you are messing with. Compared to me, you are barely a dust mote on the breeze. You are as small and insignificant. As powerless. And about as much of a threat.” He takes a slow menacing step toward me. “But if you want answers, I will give them to you, because it amuses me to do so. And because, apparently, your mother cares for you. And the thought of bringing pain to something she loves pleases me.”
He takes another step closer, and now we are facing each other. He looks down at me, his face refined, so handsome he might be a plastic surgeon’s finest work. Somehow, I know he is studying me, taking in all the minor physical imperfections of my very human body. No doubt, wondering how my Sleeker mother could possibly love such an insignificant weakling.
“I want your mother, quite simply, because she was mine first.”
His?
He must have the wrong person. Despite that, his words send a chill through me.
I swallow. “You were mated?”
“No. Nothing so human. We were partners. Sleekers work in pairs. She and I were curated to be the perfect pair. Bred for it. Raised from birth. For decades, we guarded the thresholds between our worlds. We were the best, the most efficient pair of Sleekers this world has ever known.”
“And then she met my father.” Somehow, I know this is what changed things. My mother always said he was unlike anyone she’d ever known.
“And then she met your father. She left this world to hide in yours.” His gaze softens, as if remembering the events from the past. “Even when I found her, she wouldn’t return. Even though I need her to help me sever the threads between our worlds. But she’ll return now.” He nods as he studies me. “Yes, she will return now.”
With a sudden, sinking dread, I understand. He’s not just going to use my hair to find my mom. He’s going to use me as bait to lure her back here. That’s why he didn’t simply take a lock of my hair and let me leave with Kane. He needs me to still be here when he brings her back. That’s how he’ll control her. How he’ll trap her here.
Kane himself said it. Gull Veston Island was not made to trap Dark Worlders. It was built to contain Tuatha.
He built a prison, just for her.
Rattled, I’m desperate to keep him talking.
“Why cut all the threads between worlds?”
“Not all the threads. All but one. So only I will have power.”
For the first time, I see true emotions in his expression. I see the fevered light of fanaticism. I see passion and faith, twisted by molten rage.
Which, for the record, it is a lot scarier than you might think. Especially when it’s gleaming in the eyes of the most powerful being you’ve ever faced. Especially when that being just compared you to a dust mote. I’m not gonna lie, if I’d had enough water to drink in the past twenty-four hours, I probably would’ve peed my pants.
Thankfully, I’m saved from that humiliation by two things. The first—I am dangerously dehydrated right now. The second—Smyth once again turns and walks away. He may have enjoyed his monologuing, but he’s already moving on.
His Sleeker arms retreat into his back as he leaves. This time, I don’t follow him. The time for Q&A is over, and I’m okay with that. As he walks, he swirls his hands in the air before him. A threshold opens and he steps through it without breaking his stride.
When Kane opens a loop, there is tension in his arms and muscles. He’s physically pulling space apart. Smyth’s motions are gentler, more elegant. He is willing the doorway into being. Smyth’s threshold is an arch of light and space big enough to drive a Mack truck through. And for a moment, I can see my world on the other side, hanging there in the space above the green lawn of Crescent Island. I catch a glimpse of a city street, passing traffic, and red brick buildings.
I run toward it. If I can get there, if I can follow him through. I can stop him. I can find my mother before he does.
But it snaps closed before I reach it.
Just like that, I am all alone on Crescent Island.
Excerpt from
Book Five of The Traveler Chronicles:
The Traveler Undone
I have one rule of thumb. Never trust anyone who appears to be defenseless.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I don’t have a lot of panic attacks, but the second the threshold closes behind Smyth, my anxiety ratchets up by about 200 percent.
I am trapped here. I could do magic, if I actually knew how to control my powers. Of course, so far, my powers consist entirely of ward removal and shoe retrieval. I have no idea how either of these skills is going to help me here.
And frankly, right now, there are a lot of things I need to do.
I need to get off this island.
I need to find a way to open a threshold of my own so I can return to the Dark World.
I need to find my mother before Smyth does.
And then I need…
I need answers.
How could my mother be a Sleeker? After all these years of it being just the two of us against the world, how could she have lied to me?
I could believe my father was of Sleeker blood. That explained everything. His trouble connecting to the “real world.” His emotional fragility. His ultimate breakdown. That made sense.
But if my mom was a Sleeker… If she defected to the Dark World, knowing what she was… If Smyth came after her…
Then, my dad’s breakdown wasn’t a breakdown at all. Smyth had found us and attacked my dad and me. Dad hadn’t shot me at all. Smyth had…punctured me.
Then, somehow, a member of the Curati had altered our memories.
But my mother must have known the truth. If she had been Smyth’s partner, she would have known what he was capable of. She would have known the difference between a bullet wound and a Sleeker wound. Even if no doctor in the Dark World knew, she’d know.
She’d let me think my father was crazy… She let him think he was crazy. All this time. He’s been in and out of mental hospitals for the past six years.
She knew the truth. She let this happen.
Oh God.
This is all too much to take in. I need to sit down.
Slowly, I walk back to the steps of Smyth’s mansion and lower myself onto the lowest one.
Except, instead of easing onto the bottom step, I bump into another Jell-O barrier, practically bounce off it, and slide down onto my ass.
“Great. That is just fan-fucking-tastic.”
This world has knocked me on my ass. Again. Literally and metaphorically.
I don’t know how to process this new information about my mom.
The person I trusted most in the world is a monster. An actual monster.
But she’s also my mother. I don’t want Smyth to kill her.
Is there anything I can do to stop it?
I shift to look up at the mansion. He has wards around it. Of course, he does.
Damn paranoid asshole.
Not that I wanted to go into his house. It just would’ve been nice to sit on the porch while I plotted how to get out of here.
So instead, I stretch my legs out in front of me and lean against the Jell-O.
Okay, what are my options?
The only non-magical way off this island is over the bridge of death. Which, incidentally, leads right into the mouths of those hellhounds.
I glance in that direction, just to verify
they are still there. They are. Big gaping mouths, butcher-knife-sized teeth, buckets of drool. I think one of them just licked his lips.
Obviously, I’m not crossing that bridge. No way.
That leaves me with two options. Either I wait here for Smyth to get back and beg for mercy. Or I open a threshold of my own.
Okay. How hard can it be? I watched Smyth do it. From behind. I couldn’t see his hands, but I remember what his elbows did.
I push myself to my feet and dust off my hands. Just in case it makes any difference at all, I walk to where he opened the threshold. After all, there are places where the veil between worlds is thinner. That’s the whole point of those doors at Book People.
I stand right where he had planted his feet and I close my eyes.
Back when dawn first broke on the island, I felt magic in the air. I felt it dance along my skin just before the timekeeper set time back to Everdawn. If I’m going to open my own threshold, I need to find that thread.
After a minute of standing there, I feel the faintest bit of magic dance along my skin.
I raise my arms in front of me and mimic the motion I saw Smyth use. The action is different than what Kane does to pull a loop. Smyth isn’t wrenching anything open. He’s brushing away a veil.
I move first one hand and then the other in front of my face in a circular motion. Nothing.
I do it again with my fingers held in a different position. I try a peace sign. The finger wiggling Benedict Cumberbatch did as Dr. Strange. I even try it with Spock’s “live long and prosper” sign. Nothing.
Which is what I expected. I’m not trained to do this. All I know is that I can’t stay here on this island when my friends are in danger. While my mother is in danger. While a sociopathic wannabe dictator uses my genetic material to hunt down someone I love.
And just like that, I feel the magic snag on my fingers.
A subtle resistance to the air, as if I’m touching an actual veil.
Of course.
My power stems from my will. My intention. The things I desire that are beyond my reach.
The more I yearn for them, the more tangible the threshold becomes.
I repeat the swirling motion until the veil feels as heavy and weighty as a velvet curtain.
With my right hand, I draw the veil aside. Only then do I open my eyes.
I immediately stumbled backward.
Yeah, I’ve opened the threshold. To this exact place in my world.
On this side of the veil, there is the solid ground of Crescent Island. Twelve inches in front of me, there is nothing but blue sky and what I can only assume is a mile-long drop to Pelican Island in my world.
I swipe my other hand in front of the air, pulling the threshold closed.
And I stumble back several more steps before dropping to my knees, shaking.
What is it with this world and terrifying heights?
Every time I turn around, I nearly plummet to my death.
“That’s not a bad threshold,” says a voice from behind me. “For your first try, anyway.”
I whirl around to see Kane standing behind me. I scramble to my feet. “You came back!”
I have to fight the urge to throw myself into his arms. You came back feels like the kind of thing you should say while throwing your arms around someone. So I’m pretty proud of the restraint I show in not doing that.
“You came back,” I say again, trying to sound slightly more chill.
“Of course.” Kane’s mouth twists in a bemused smile.
I realize coming back for me was his plan all along. I underestimated him. I believed him to be the arrogant, selfish Kane that he had been pretending to be ever since I arrived in the Kingdoms of Mithres, instead of the person I know him to be from years of reading about him.
He fooled me. Or, maybe I let myself be fooled. Because this Kane, this kind and decent and selfless guy, will be much harder to walk away from.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he says.
Nodding, I cross to his side as he pulls a loop. A minute later, we are standing together on the deck of The Blossom. As Smyth promised, Crab is there, once again in his human form. He crosses to me and claps a hand on my shoulder. “Glad to have you back on board, missy.”
“Are you okay?” I ask. “The hellhounds didn’t hurt you?”
“Don’t you worry about me. I have ways to protect myself from hellhounds.”
I smile, barely able to believe that we all made it off the island alive. This motley crew of comrades fills my heart with an overwhelming sensation of peace and affection.
But the moment is short-lived. I know what they don’t. We don’t have time to relax, because we still need to stop Smyth.
“I figured out why Smyth built a prison capable of holding a Tuatha. He’s going to try to cut the thread between worlds.”
The princess sucks in a breath. “That’s not possible.”
“He believes he can do it if he—” I cut myself short. I’m not ready to tell anyone about my mom. Not yet. “Trust me. He thinks it will let him rule the Kingdoms of Mithres. Is he right?”
The others exchange worried looks, but it’s the princess who answers. “We all rely on the thread to fuel our magic. Without it, no one could do any magic. Not even Smyth.”
Without the thread of magic, Smyth may not be able to do magic, but… “There’s no magic on the island, but he can still use his Sleeker powers.”
“Exactly.” Kane bites out the word.
“So only the Sleekers would have power. They would control everything. We have to stop him. We have to get back to Austin so we can follow him into the Dark World.”
So I can stop him from finding my mother.
Even as I say the words, it hits me that the boat isn’t moving. We should have set sail for Houston as soon as Kane and I got back.
“Why aren’t we going?” I ask Kane, even though it is a question I could just as easily ask Crab. Somehow, I know in my gut that it is Kane who has the answer. “We should be heading back to Houston. Why aren’t we?”
“You will. I just wanted—” He runs a hand through his hair, not quite meeting my gaze. “You’re going to be fine. Morgan’s with you. Kendal, too. You already have Crab wrapped around your finger.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When you get back to Austin, Morgan can get you back to The Volume Arcana.”
“Why would Morgan need to find me a threshold? Why won’t you be there?” Kane isn’t meeting my gaze, so I look around at the other people standing awkwardly on the deck of The Blossom. “What’s going on?” Suddenly, everyone seems to have something else to do. “Somebody answer me.”
“I’m going back to the island.”
“What?”
“I’m going—”
“I heard you.” I cut him off. “Why would you go back there?”
“I have unfinished business.”
“Unfinished…” I can’t even finish the sentence. Literally everyone else has scattered. “Something more important than stopping Smyth? And we’re supposed to just leave you trapped here?”
“I’ll follow when…” He hesitates, swallows, and then seems to find the end of his sentence. “When my business is finished. I should be able to pull a loop back to Austin.”
“Should? Should be able? In other words, you have no idea if you can pull a loop back to Austin from within the Crimson Miasma at all.”
“Kendal is going with you. If I can’t pull a loop, she’ll know. She can tell Crab to come back for me.”
“This is the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard.” He just stares blankly at me, so I elaborate. “Crab can’t come back for you because he can’t make it through the Crimson Miasma on his own. So if you can’t pull a loop back to Austin, you’ll be trapped here.”
“You’ll figure something out? Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounds?” Apparently, he does, because instead of responding, he ignores me. He takes a step back and cups his hand in front of him to pull a loop. I don’t let him. Instead, I close the distance between us. I get right in his face.
He looks down, fuming. “Get out of my way.”
“Yeah. That’s not gonna happen.” I give his chest a poke. “You didn’t leave me here. So I’m not leaving you here. I didn’t come all this way, didn’t devise a plan to rescue the princess from Gull Veston Island, and didn’t learn how to use my powers, all so that you could die on that stupid island.”
“Trust me, I don’t have any intention of dying.”
Before I can argue, Morgan says, “He’s going back to rescue his sister.”
Morgan’s words are so soft, it takes a moment for them to register.
He is standing a few feet away, one foot on a bench as he stares off the port side into the distance.
I whip back around. Kane doesn’t meet my gaze but scratches at the back of his head, looking guilty.
“What?”
“He is going back to rescue his sister.” This time, Morgan speaks more clearly.
“What?” I repeat again dumbly. “He doesn’t have a sister.” I turn to Kane again. “You don’t have a sister. Right?”
“I…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.
I look from him to Morgan and back again. Ro nibbles on her lip, her smile knowingly sympathetic. Crab looks bemused. The princess just looks bored. Only Kendal looks unsurprised, maybe even resigned.
I take a few steps back until I feel a bench hit the back of my knees. I sink down onto it, dropping my head into my hands.
How could he possibly have a sister that I didn’t know about? A sister?
It doesn’t seem possible, and yet…
Is this the mysterious girl from the Dark World that Kane was trying to hide from Kendal? It must be. But to form the loop, he had to let Kendal fully into his mind. And so she knows.
If he does have a sister, if she is on this island, then it explains a lot—why he was so desperate to come here, but then so disinterested in rescuing the princess.