by D. D. Chance
And the words that welled out of me came from a far deeper place within me than I ever would have thought I possessed, a place dark and sure. “I don’t know how well you know the Hallowells,” I began. “I don’t know how well you know humans. But you should be prepared. We’ll surprise you with the cruelty and pain we’re willing to dish out. We’ll surprise you with the lengths we’re willing to go to subjugate those who are weaker than we are. We can also surprise you with our gifts of grace and camaraderie, but I doubt you’re going to be seeing the best of us in this fight. If it’s coming from the Hallowells, you’ll be seeing the worst.”
That was about the extent of any speechmaking I was capable of, but it did the trick. The six monsters gave varying levels of grudging assent, then stepped back into the shadows and were gone, the Laram staying the longest. The moment the last one disappeared, Grim exhaled sharply, his arm snaking around me to hold me completely upright.
“How badly are you hurt?” he asked.
“I’ve been worse,” I said with the kind of flippant bravado I’d used throughout my life when my mom had asked the same thing. My mom, who’d apparently had sex with a dickhead monster magician and former bottom-dwelling mollusk from another realm. I didn’t know which part of that sentence upset me more.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Grim said, pivoting me around toward the forest again. “I can carry you on my back or in my arms. But you’ll need to hold on, and you’ll need to let go of the arrow if you’re going to try to hold on.”
I chuckled grimly as I gazed down at the jagged-edged silver quarrel and the remains of Niali’s beautiful necklace, both of them striped with blood. “This is why I can’t have nice things,” I muttered to no one in particular.
Without saying anything further, Grim reached out and gently unpeeled my fingers first from the bolt, which he let fall to the ground, then the necklace.
He took the necklace and tucked it in the bodice of my dress, while I studied the bolt for a long second.
“What the hell was that all about?” I muttered, then squinted back at him. “Was that really my father? Did you know this whole time that that rando was my dad and that he was here?”
“Honestly?” Grim sighed. “No. I didn’t know what this act would draw out—but I thought it would pull your blood. I wasn’t expecting Cyrus, though, for a variety of reasons. The gray wizard wasn’t expecting you either, if that’s worth anything to you. If he had met and had relations with your mother, which he clearly did, the outcome of that act was a surprise to him. And he isn’t one to be surprised. He is the last remaining great magician of the realm, and he is an ally of the Hallowells.”
I shook my head, trying to sort it all out. “How could you have let him kill the other wizards? Nobody wants to end up a clam, not even for a little while.” And what did that make me, anyway? Part magic squid? Seriously?
Grim shrugged. “We had no idea it was happening until it was over. Again, the races of this realm keep to themselves. They did so for millennia before the humans found us, and they’ll do so for millennia after the humans leave. Don’t try to make us into you. We’ll never be you.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t say that I blame you,” I muttered. “I wouldn’t want to play follow the leader with us at the front of the line either.”
Chuckling at that, Grim reached down. He picked up the bolt from the ground and handed it back to me.
“This isn’t from the Laram.”
“Yeah, I know.” I took it from him. “It’s not smooth.”
He nodded. “Still, it’s silver, and that makes it a sound weapon. You can hold on to this as long as you cling tightly to my back.”
“I will. I will.” I cradled the bolt close as a rush of cool wind lifted the hair from my damp brow, and then Grim was beside me in his Akari form, kneeling down, letting me clamber up onto his back. The heat of awareness flushed through me, but I pushed it wearily to the side.
“Is it close, where we’re going?” I asked. “I don’t want to slow you down…”
“It’s close,” he assured me in my mind. And he set off through the darkness.
13
The trek back through the forest was a blur to me, and every time I woke, my hands jerked tight, my body somehow aware of the danger of me slipping off in the thick brush or being swept from Grim’s back by low overhanging branches. Despite Grim’s assurance, it seemed to take hours to traverse the short distance back to the Akari stronghold. When I finally jerked myself awake again, my hands closed around thin air, and I sat sharply upright, panicked, blinking against the flickering firelight of my bedroom’s light source.
I dropped my gaze to my hands. There was no blade, and no necklace, only a thick lock of white-blond hair in my grip.
“You wouldn’t let go.”
That observation came from all the way across the room, but surprised me so much in the stillness that I jerked around, half falling off the bed to get my bearings. Niali sat perched on a low stool by the table, her knees up, her arms clasped around them, her back against the wall. All she needed was a swishing tail and she would look like her Akari alter ego, no further transformation required.
“That’s why you have his hair in your hands. You wouldn’t let go. Even after he shifted and you were only holding on to his actual hair, not his fur. We had to disentangle you.”
“I don’t remember any of that.” I closed my fingers around the lock again.
“He cut it with his knife.”
I grimaced. “I guess that was better than me ripping it out of his scalp.”
“That’s why he did it,” Niali said, smiling impishly. She straightened up from the wall, her gaze no less curious. “How are you feeling?”
I sighed, glancing down at my body. As usual, my wounds had healed pretty quickly, only a few light scratches remaining from what had been the deepest gouges. I rolled my right shoulder, testing it. It was sore, but not terribly so.
“I’ll live. How long was I out? I don’t usually pass out while I’m still out in the open.”
“Grim said it wasn’t surprising, because you felt safe. He said you typically slept as soon as you returned from a monster attack. It was an ingrained reaction to you. But the trip back and your injuries triggered that reaction more quickly than usual.”
“Yeah. I was mostly worried about not falling off his back, but at least I wasn’t worried about anything else attacking me.”
“Exactly.” She beamed. “Sneaky of Grim to test you out of view of the council yet in full view of our allies, but he knew what he was doing. We weren’t sure who would show up when you summoned aid. We were ready if certain factions not friendly to the cause were in the offing, but you drew the top families. And the gray wizard himself. Grim wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t either. My mother, of course, will tell you that she expected it all along, but she lies.”
I smiled a little. Once again, Niali reminded me of Merry Williams, and I wondered how they would react if they ever met. Of course, if Grim was successful in his campaign against the Hallowells, they never would. The borders would be closed between our two realms.
I chased away that thought before it could fully take hold.
“So that was my test?” I asked, ashamed that I sounded so hopeful. “I don’t have to go through another one tomorrow?”
“You do not,” Niali confirmed. “And I got full permission—finally—to tell you about your dad.”
I opened my mouth, closed it again, my brain still having difficulty fully processing that idea. “My dad,” I managed. “You know about him.”
“Cyrus is the only wizard left in the realm. Yeah, we know about him.” She lifted a hand and gestured lazily around the room. “He lives in a fortress similar to ours, though of course it has regular doors. He’s old, really old, like old-as-the-dust-of-time old. And honestly, for him to have somehow met your mom so randomly is sort of unlikely. Grim has no idea what to do with that information, that Cyrus is actually
your dad. It makes no sense on several different levels.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “From everything I could tell, even if my mom was a member of the Hallowell family, her connection to their line had become pretty murky—and she didn’t have a ton of her own magic. I can’t see how she would have gotten across into this realm, at least not on purpose.”
“I mean…it’s possible, technically,” Niali offered, her face screwed up in thought. “It happened, so of course it’s possible. There are portals everywhere, and if she fell into the wrong one, given her bloodline, she could have ended up on the other side.” She peered at me with her golden eyes. “She never told you anything about your dad?”
I sighed. “Not a thing. I had no idea if she liked the man or not. He wasn’t a topic for discussion. I never got the impression that she was assaulted or raped or anything horrible like that, and then my, um, dad—Cyrus—said something strange before all the fighting…”
Niali nodded. “Grim told us that. He said she left Cyrus without ever telling him she was pregnant. If she knew when she left him, then it’s even more shocking he didn’t pick up on it, because the gray wizard reads minds and bodies with equal skill. He’s basically in tune with everything around him. It makes him impossible to attack unawares. The only way to kill him would be in a direct conflict, when he knows you’re coming and somehow you still manage to get the upper hand.”
I grimaced. “Yeah. I’d rather it not be that fair of a fight.”
Niali giggled and straightened on her stool, once again only missing the twitching cat tail to complete the picture.
“No kidding. So, Sheori wasn’t happy to find out the truth of your parentage. She had your father narrowed down to a couple of possible candidates, but the gray wizard wasn’t her first choice. Or her tenth, frankly.”
“So where does this leave us?” I asked. “How does that affect Grim’s plans, or the plans of the Akari rulership council?”
“Well, they’re all up in arms, trying to figure out what Cyrus will do next. Most everyone believes he’ll contact the Hallowells straight out, not out of any sort of well-considered strategy, but because he’s pissed. This isn’t a guy who likes the idea of his own daughter running around unchecked.”
“Why would he hold them accountable? They didn’t know about me either. It seemed like Elaine knew about Mom, but then Mom managed to make a break for it and vanished. It’s not like they chatted on a regular basis.”
Even as I said the words, I sat up straighter. Niali pointed at me. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t know…” I said thoughtfully. “But what if my mom’s letter wasn’t intended for the Hallowells at all? What if it was intended for Cyrus? There’re parts of it that didn’t make any sense to me and didn’t faze the Hallowells. But what if…”
“Do you still have the letter?”
I shook my head, deflated. “It’s back at the Hallowells’.”
I knew someone who did have the letter, of course. Or who could reconstruct it, probably already had reconstructed it. Liam Graham would not have been one to miss making an extra copy or three to hide away, especially since he’d already lost the letter once. It was all I could do not to glance at the mirrors on the wall around us. I didn’t want Niali to know how close the guys were to breaking into the monster realm. I wanted them here, not blocked off. I wanted us all together.
“I suppose we could get it from the Hallowells?” I offered.
Niali nodded enthusiastically. “I bet Grim plans on going back there.”
“What? No. That’s crazy,” I protested, my fingers tightening on Grim’s lock of hair. “They’ll capture him, question him for sure. The fact that he came through with me—they’ll never trust him again. They certainly wouldn’t let him walk free.”
She shrugged. “You’re probably not wrong, but you know Grim.”
I sighed. I didn’t know Grim, not nearly as much or as thoroughly as I wanted to. The flare of awareness that zipped through me at this latter idea woke up my slumbering butterflies, but I had no time for them right now. I had a plan, and I needed to execute it.
I slumped back in the bed, swinging my foot a little for good measure. “How long was I asleep?”
Niali waved off the question. “Honestly, not long. The ruling council is set to meet tomorrow morning. There are members of adjacent packs that we’re calling in, now that we’ve gotten the agreement of five families to join us.”
I twisted my lips. Even in the monster realm, they broke things down by families, much as they did among Boston’s magical elite. It made it all feel much more personal, but personal grudges were often the most devastating of all.
“Is that enough to fight the Hallowells?”
“That’s the idea, anyway. With you showing that you can bring clans together for the battle, and keep them together at least for the start of the fight, it changes things. It becomes a foretold battle, something sanctioned by the elders back from the beginning of time. The Akari will have all the help they need.”
“I should be there, then?” It was a question, because I really didn’t feel like I brought that much to the party. I was beginning to accept the fact that I was enough simply being who I was, no special magical powers required, but that all remained a little sketchy to me.
Niali nodded. “They won’t meet tonight. You should get more rest. Can I get you anything?”
“Food, I guess?” I hazarded. I mainly needed her to leave, but I was hungry. Eventually, I would need to eat again.
Niali hopped off the stool and stood, nodding quickly. “Not just food, but some of Sheori’s restorative tea. It’ll carry you a long way. I’ll go get it.”
“Awesome.” I watched her leave, her softly padding feet echoing for only a second as she disappeared around the curving entry wall. Then silence filled the room.
I knew I wouldn’t have much time, so I slid off the bed, disconcerted to find I was naked. Clothes lay folded on one of the low chairs, a gray tunic and pants set made of some sort of silky material. It would have to do. After pulling it on and finding pockets in the waistband, I tucked Grim’s hair into one of them, then rifled through the rest of the clothes. Sure enough, there was an iron blade and an ankle sheath. Not mine, but close enough. I strapped the knife to my ankle, then I straightened, slid my feet back into my shoes, and studied the room. “Okay, Liam. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Only…which mirror had I seen him in? I couldn’t figure that out at first. I tried to recall where I saw the reflection of the bed in the mirror and use that as a point of triangulation, but ultimately, I went up to one and then another, peering hard at the surface, trying to see beyond it. No good.
I shifted toward the third mirror and nearly jolted out of my clothes. Two figures stood facing me, peering through the mirror. One was waving and gesticulating wildly. I recognized Liam and…it had to be Tyler. He was too big for Zach and not big enough to be Grim.
“Called me.” The snatch of words drifted toward me, and I blinked. Had Liam seriously heard my quiet plea? If so, how cool was that?
I stepped toward the portal and spoke his name as loudly as I dared.
“Liam?”
Both guys froze, their indistinct shadows on the other side of the mirror going stock-still, then turning carefully my way.
I didn’t hesitate. Taking one step back, I rushed forward and leapt straight into the mirror.
14
“Nina, no!”
I heard the warning from behind me too late, Niali shouting as something clattered to the floor, but I was already through and instantly realized my error. It wasn’t Liam and Tyler on the other side of the portal. It wasn’t the room beneath Lowell Library either. Instead, I was hurtling through a furious windstorm of boiling clouds, caught between two worlds, the one I’d left but which now seemed closed to me, and my cell at the Hallowells, with Elaine Hallowell standing in the center, her hands up, a swirl of purple fire
rotating in front of her.
Idiot! I railed at myself, but my forward motion was too intent, my desire to barrel through the mirror and half expecting it to shatter on impact sending me windmilling ahead. I needed to stop, to turn back, but—
A golden streak of muscle and fur leapt over me, landing squarely in front of Elaine Hallowell. I don’t know which of us was more surprised. Niali was an Akari, not this giant she-lion, but she snarled in impressive fury at Elaine, as if Elaine were to blame for her intrusion.
The dots snapped together in my head. Elaine stumbled back, looking for all the world like a zookeeper who had opened the wrong gate. The wrong gate! Niali was sacrificing herself to let me get back to the Akari stronghold. But then what would happen…
I didn’t have to wait long to find out. I gaped in horror as Elaine’s hands jerked down in time with several stakes dropping out of the sky to pin Niali to the floor. The lioness screamed in pain.
Something inside me snapped. I raced forward, ripping the two nearest stakes out of Niali’s hindquarters as she flailed. I thrust the sharp rods at Elaine. The one-two punch of our surprise visit took the illusionist off her guard enough that she didn’t protect herself in time. My jabs struck true, driving her back, and I fell on Niali, ripping the remaining spikes from her body and dragging her backward like a woman crazed.
“Shift,” I screeched, and she did. The two of us fell back into the boiling smoke as Elaine flopped and writhed. I stopped only long enough to throw a couple of other spikes at her, willing them to strike true. To my utter shock, they did. I lurched back to pull up Niali in her much smaller human guise and rush back through the smoke. While I had felt closed off from the portal on my own, as long as I was with her, the realm now welcomed me with open arms. We tumbled into the center of the room again, but Niali was bleeding badly.
I couldn’t tolerate that. I was an empath, dammit. Zach had leveled me up on that score. It was time for me to empath the shit out of this situation.