by Kate Ristau
Áine gasped, but Eri scoffed loudly. “Stop showing off, Titania. We all know you love to sparkle.”
“But you seem to have lost your shine,” the queene replied, her Eta glimmering even more brightly than before. She smiled and tapped a long fingernail against her cheek. “Lost your shine. How can that be? Taking in too much?”
Her meaning was not lost on Áine as the queene’s eyes turned toward her. Áine tried to hold her gaze, but she seemed to lose control of her body. Eta flew in front of her eyes as the water sizzled against her skin, and she bent her head toward the ground. The Dullahan stepped toward her.
“Stop it,” Eri said, and a rush of darkness flew through the rosemary and slammed into the queene. She stumbled and twisted her head toward Eri. The smile was gone. “Don’t mess with my kids,” Eri said.
“Your kids?” Titania asked. “Oh Eri, none of the Barrows children are yours. You lost your little ones a long time ago. Do not believe I have forgotten those tiny flames. Still, if that is really what you’ve been doing out here in the Barrows, I have been so ignorant. I thought you were building an army. Instead, you are just reliving the past—”
Eri screamed, and the ground trembled again. Áine braced herself, but the queene just laughed.
“You cannot fight me, leanán sídhe,” she said. “You are filled with shadows, regret, and death. The Eta will not come when you call. Their magic is mine. I am taking Áine. I’m taking all the Barrows children. They are not safe with you anymore. You are…unstable.”
Áine clenched her fist. “You’re not taking us anywhere. I know what you are. I know what you did. Creed. He told us. Right before he—”
The queene spun around, her eyes flashing white, brighter than the sun. Áine stared into the blinding light. “Before he what, child? Before you murdered him? Before you sent him to the Hetherlands? Don’t think I don’t know. Don’t think you can hide what you did in the shadows—”
“And don’t think you can hide in the light, you ignorant storm hag. I know what you did to my sister. To my father. To my mother. I know the spells. I know the despair—”
The queene shook her head swiftly, but the light in her eyes dulled. “I do not—”
“I don’t care what you say. I’m done with talking. I’m challenging you. In the name of the light, I declare—”
“No,” rasped the Dullahan. The word fell from her mouth. The only other word she had ever spoken besides a name. Eri, Áine, and Titania all stared at the Dullahan. She held up her head, and more words tumbled out. “Do not fight. No more need die. I made my choice.”
“And I’ve made mine,” Eri said, spinning back toward Titania. “In the name of the light, I declare your life mine.”
“No!” Áine screamed, but she was too late.
The queene whispered her response, a dark smile climbing onto her face. “Let the light find favor.”
She blasted toward Eri, her fists shining with the light of the Eta.
Twenty-Seven
He pawed the ground, slobber dripping from his giant mouth, and she laughed. “Rego!” she said again.
He barked, opening and shutting his giant mouth and shaking his tail.
“Geez, seriously. You could have told me it was you.” Rego turned his huge scaly head, knocking a portrait off the wall. He jumped back as it clattered to the ground and barked at it, long and loud. When it didn’t move, he pounced on it, ripping the portrait to shreds with his giant teeth.
Everything about him was giant. Hennessy watch him break the frame apart, crunching it between his teeth.
He was a monster, dark as death. A terror.
In all Nana’s stories, the cú sídhe—that fairy dog—was an ill omen, a harbinger.
“What’s a harbinger?” Hennessy had asked.
“It’s an omen,” Nana had said. “A warning, a sign. It’s like a signal come down from the fairy folk. In fact, why, I remember when I was just a wee little lass, the cú sídhe came to our door. Ma made us get out, head straight to the Kelly’s cottage. It wasn’t safe, you know. And they were right. It was a holy show that night, like nothing I’ve ever seen, when the aes sídhe came calling.”
“What happened?”
“That’s a story for another time. But you should know, when you see that pup, you take my lead. Either you head for the hills, or he will head to your side, and he won’t ever leave you.”
Now Hennessy watched Rego chewing on the last piece of the portrait. It wasn’t the octopus kitten portrait. The remains of a feral donkey hung from his mouth.
She nodded her head resolutely, and Rego snapped to attention. She smiled at him, hesitantly at first, then warmly. He wagged his giant tail.
Safe. He made her feel safe.
And in this terrible place, that was more than enough.
Besides, she wasn’t sure he was cú sídhe anyway. He was more like a dragon than a dog, but either way, it was good to have him beside her. And if he started breathing fire, at least she would be warmer.
She had no idea how he had gotten so big. Or what she was going to feed him. Or what he wanted to eat anyway. She grasped her spear in her hand. She would figure all that out later—once they met Balor.
Honestly, if it didn’t work out with Balor, maybe Rego could just eat him too.
She laughed, and even in the dim light, she felt like she could finally see.
She could do this. She had a giant fairy hellhound, she had an ancient spear, and she wasn’t afraid of the dark.
“Come on, Rego.” She turned toward the door, and he followed behind.
They headed down the hallway. He avoided the circles of light cast on the floor, scraping the sides of the walls and whimpering as he passed each torch.
“You’ve got this,” Hennessy said. “You can do it.”
Rego skirted along the wall, making his way carefully back into the darkness.
Finally, they reached the giant black door. On closer inspection, Hennessy could see strange symbols that seemed to absorb the light carved into the wood. She reached up to trace one with a finger, then pulled back suddenly. The door was disgusting, repelling—evil and wrong. The symbols felt like the magic on Áine’s father’s door. They felt like death—no, emptiness. They felt like despair.
Hennessy pushed past the feeling and grasped the door handle. It wasn’t a regular doorknob—of course it wasn’t. Where the knob should have been, a giant black ax dug into the wood. She pulled the handle hard toward her, that feeling digging into her again. Dread. Disquiet. As if the whole world had gone cold and nothing would ever be warm again.
She pulled hard again. The door didn’t budge.
“Rego,” she called.
She would break her way in—bash the door down. She had her own gigantic siege weapon. He would eat the door. Tear it apart. He was hungry anyway.
She moved out of the way, then stopped.
Light.
She held up her hand, stopping Rego. She could see light flowing from under the door.
And she didn’t see any hinges.
Push, don’t pull. How many times had she made that mistake?
She put both hands on the door and pushed as hard as she could. The door rushed away from her, and she nearly fell into the room.
“Welcome,” said a deep voice from the far end of the chamber.
She lifted her head toward the large black throne in the center of the room and choked back a laugh.
“Oh my God. Are you seriously kidding me?”
Twenty-Eight
Áine dove toward the queene as she passed, but the Eta slammed into her and threw her to the ground. She crawled to her knees and called the water toward her. The barrel spilled, and water cascaded through the garden. The circle of light was already forming around Eri and the queene.
Áine screamed again, water flowing up her legs and into her arms. She launched it at the Eta, breaking through the swirling sphere, destroying the queene’s first attack. The Eta screeched a
nd spun back together, their light pulsing around Eri and the queene. Áine raised her hands and slammed the water forward harder, and the Eta fell again, but others took their place.
Eri had issued her challenge—she had called upon the light—and the Eta had accepted. They would not let Áine or anyone else interfere—not until the light of the Eta was stripped from one of their bodies forever. The sphere was closing.
Áine slammed her fist into the ground and focused on gathering the water from the river. When the barrier fell, if the queene were still standing, the waves would roll over her and extinguish her Eta forever.
The barrier was filled with light as the queene landed her first blow. She raised her arm and the Eta struck Eri in the shoulder. Eri spun away from the blast and slammed into the queene from the side, splashing a rainbow of light into the sky. But the queene reached out and pulled the very earth from beneath her. Eri slipped and reeled backward, then grabbed a handful of willow branches and spun through the air. Her movements were dark and fast—she crashed into the queene, roaring in anger. Then Eri flew back toward her, but the queene raised her arms and blasted the Eta back into Eri.
Eri stumbled to the ground again, wrapped in shadow, but she did not jump back up this time. She held her head in her hands, darkness dropping from her fingers.
“I told you,” the queene said. “You can’t fight me. You’re weak. Frail. Filled with shadows and lost in the dark. You’ve spent so long destroying them. You don’t even understand how to use them. Sure, there’s pain. But there’s also possibility.”
Áine’s breath caught in her throat. That was blasphemy. Shadows were dangerous. The queene protected the Aetherlands from the darkness. She was the light.
“Try it,” the queene whispered. Eri was still kneeling on the ground, her head in her hands. “Let them go. Accept them. Embrace them. Balance the scales.”
“You’re not talking about balance,” Eri whispered. “You’re talking about destruction.”
Áine watched the Eta. They were falling back from the queene, slipping from her fingers. She didn’t notice. She couldn’t see.
“You never really understood the Eta, did you?”
“Destruction,” Eri whispered. “That’s what I never understood about you, Titania. So much destruction. It’s like you can’t handle living in the light. You have to have chaos. It’s almost like you were happy when he died—”
Light exploded inside the sphere, then contracted back around the queene. She held a clenched fist to her mouth. Áine could see the rage dripping down her face. The light was gone from her cheeks and hair.
“Balance,” the queene said; then she cleared her throat, and her voice rang like a bell. “That’s what I believe. That’s what Oberon taught me. But he thought he had to die for it. And I knew he didn’t. I knew there were other ways—”
“You’re letting the shadows through,” Eri said, wiping her hand slowly across her face. “I should have known. There’ve been so many…”
“You already knew that. And you know why. It makes the Eta more powerful,” the queene said.
The shadows make the Eta more powerful? The queene was lying through her teeth. Why? Why was she letting the shadows into the Aetherlands? It didn’t make the Eta more powerful. It destroyed them.
But the Eta believed her. They were weaving their way back around her arms and through her hair, while Eri was still on her knees, shadows wrapped around her feet. All Eri wanted was the Eta, and all she got was shadows, while Titania bathed in light.
The queene loomed over her. There were butterflies flying around her hands. Sparkles in her hair. She unclenched her fist. “Why do you have to destroy them? We can use them—”
“Enough,” Eri said. “This is where we finish this.”
“This is where I finish you,” the queene said. “And all of your little monsters. It’s over, Eri. Release your Eta, or I’ll carve the mark.”
“The mark of the beast will not stain my forehead,” she said, and Áine watched as shadows swam up Eri’s arms. “There’ll be no one left to carve it. Our time is done, Titania. The shadows will fall. The Eta will shine.”
“They are using you!” Titania screamed. “Listen to me! Open your ears! How can you be so stupid? They are using all of us!”
Eri shook her head and rose to her feet.
The path into the forest rumbled, and Áine looked up to see Ciaran, his face shining, leading the dryads down the hill and into the Barrows.
He was too late.
“Niamh’s daughters are ushering in a new world,” Eri said. “A new age.” She paused, one last shadow sliding down her arm to the tip of her fingers. “I just wish I could be here to guide them.”
She had to do it. The time had come. Áine bounded toward the sphere, carrying all the water with her, her arms raised in anger, in rage, every inch of her body flowing in a river of hope and desire. She launched herself toward the sphere, slicing into the light, her body bent toward the queene. To save her aunt, to save her life, she—
She crashed into the sphere and was thrown backward, just as the sphere imploded in a burst of sparkling darkness.
Twenty-Nine
“I’m dead,” Hennessy said. “Is that it? This is some weird death thing. Or I’m dreaming. A weird fever dream.”
“You are not dreaming,” Creed said. “And you are not dead.”
“But you are,” Hennessy said, her heart beating faster against her chest. “We did this already. You died. I saw it. You fell into a bloody chasm. Finished. The end.”
“That was centuries ago.”
“That was yesterday.”
“For you. Not for me. Time works differently here.”
“It’s impossible.”
“It’s not ‘impossible,’” Creed said slowly. She wanted to punch the smirk off his face. “You just don’t understand it. That doesn’t make it impossible.”
Hennessy stared up at his pale face, the scar running down his cheek. It was him. Goddamn it, it was him. “You died. We killed you.”
“You are so human,” Creed said. “Just because you say something doesn’t make it true.”
“You died.”
“No matter how many times you say it.”
“You’re dead.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I don’t like you.”
Creed smiled, his scar stretching his face, widening his lips. “That, however, may be true.”
“What do you want?”
“This is not a chance meeting.”
“Yeah, I figured as much.” She couldn’t stand the sound of his voice. It creeped toward her through the firelight. Slithered. Like a snake.
“I have been waiting for you.”
“Right there? In that chair? God, that must have been boring.”
Creed’s face tightened, and he slowly cracked his neck to the side, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “I forgot about your…tenacity.”
“I forgot about your…dumbness. You are dumb.”
Creed sniffed, squinting toward her. “May I get you something to eat or drink?”
The word stuck in her brain. Drink. Thirsty. Water. Her throat, dry. “No.” She wouldn’t take anything from him. “No.”
“You must be so thirsty,” he said.
“Nana. In her stories. The people always take food from the fairies when they shouldn’t. And they get stuck there. With the stupid fairies.”
“You’re already stuck here,” Creed said slowly.
“But I’m leaving,” Hennessy replied.
He stared hard at her, his red eyes gleaming. “Take a drink then. For the road.”
She could feel the intensity of his gaze and the longing inside her. She licked her lips. They were dry. He widened his eyes. She looked away, tried to focus. “No,” she repeated. “And don’t try to hypnotize me. Stupid.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“You,” he
said.
“Don’t be gross.”
“Don’t be simple,” he said.
“Are you dumb? For real. I’ll never do anything with you. You’re like—the total bad guy. You literally killed me.”
“And your friend killed me. You tried to kill me too.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Hennessy snapped. She moved away from the door and called, “Rego!”
Rego bounded in, slicing through the shadows and landing beside her in the half light. “Kill him,” Hennessy said.
“Wait!” Creed yelled, falling back into the throne, his face filled with terror as Rego hurtled toward him.
Hennessy held up a hand, and Rego stopped. She wasn’t playing Creed’s games. She was the one in charge now. “The Crossing. How do I get there? I’m done with the Hetherlands. I just want to get back to her.”
“No,” Creed said, the color drained from his face. “You don’t. You really don’t.”
“I’m sick of your head games and your stupid hypnotizing—”
“I’m not hypnotizing you.”
“How do I know that?”
“You would feel it,” Creed said, gesturing toward his deep-red eyes. “ And you would have no choice. It’s not really something you can ignore. Like your dog. Can you call back your dog?”
“No,” Hennessy said. Rego was looming over Creed’s throne, drool and ooze dripping onto Creed’s shoulders.
“Listen,” Hennessy said. “I just got attacked by a bunch of claw monsters—”
“Sluagh—”
“Whatever,” she said. “I don’t care what you call them. Where. Is. The. Crossing.”
Creed sighed and slid slowly out of the throne and away from Rego’s growl. Hennessy tilted her head in warning, and he stopped.
“You think the sluagh are evil,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And let me guess: the shadows are too?” She hesitated, and he rolled on. “You’re smarter than that. Use your head. The shadows aren’t evil. It is the Eta. They are destroying everything. They are growing and changing. They have a mind of their own. Just like the shadows. But the Eta are greedy, and so powerful. And Oberon, with his forsaken veils—he has given them power beyond imagining—”