Realms of Fire and Shadow: Fae Witch Chronicles Book 3

by J. S. Malcom

  CHAPTER 19

  We arrive back in the middle of the night, as fireballs streak across the sky and the smell of smoke drifts through the air. I have no doubt that the magic is faltering again, slipping from the Seelie grasp more and more. I feel it calling out to me, but a few attempts at performing magic of my own proves that the energy reaching me remains weak. It looks like we’ll still have to rely on Sloane’s amulet, at least for a while, and Revlen uses it to disguise me with a glamour. We can't risk having me be seen, and we can't risk being seen with Esras, who separates from us before we enter the city.

  Cade too departs, going back to Silvermist. He does so at Revlen’s request, maybe because she wants to get a sense of things there, or because Dabria’s hopes raised her own. I’m not sure. Much of the time, Revlen keeps her thoughts to herself. Personally, I have my doubts about whether it’s a risk worth taking, but Cade’s committed to the cause. Either way, he promises to return in a day, and I doubt there’s much that could stop him. Like a good thief, he has a knack for slipping through the shadows.

  Soon, Revlen and I ride slowly through streets where no gas lamps flicker and no lights shine from windows. Clouds cover the moon, blocking most of its light. I get just one chance, when those clouds part, to see my own reflection. Revlen’s glamour has once again left me unrecognizable, and this time I see a tired, middle-aged woman staring back at me. Then the clouds fill in again, leaving us in near total darkness. Which is good, since we'll be harder to see.

  Silence surrounds us as we pass smoldering rubble where buildings stood before, and we guide our horses past piles of debris. But the fires that still burn, do so weakly, just small flames still flickering, suggesting that this destruction took place days ago.

  We’re not far from the Gilded Gargoyle, probably less than a mile, when we hear the sound of other horses. It's too late to stop or change direction, as the riders emerge from behind a corner. There are four of them, Seelie soldiers out patrolling the street. We trot slowly toward them not knowing if there's still a curfew. If so, we could be killed on sight.

  They draw closer but don't reach for their swords. So, either the curfew is no longer in place or these men don’t care. As Esras told us, many of the Seelie don't approve of what's happening. Most, in fact. Maybe these four, sent out to face the risk alone, feel just as trapped as the Unseelie. Or maybe they just don't see us being enough of a threat.

  Still, they stare as we ride toward them, and we keep our eyes fixed straight ahead. I can only pray that the glamour is holding.

  “You shouldn’t be out,” one of them says, but without conviction.

  We nod and Revlen says, “We were just going home.”

  Then another says, “Stop.”

  We have no choice but to comply. They have swords and we have hidden knives. I’ve never trained for fighting and our magic is weak, which leaves just Revlen to defeat four Seelie soldiers.

  The one who issued the command looks us up and down with weary eyes. When he says nothing more, I think he’s about to tell us to keep moving. Then he turns to look at me again, his eyes narrowing. Can he somehow feel the magic Revlen cast to disguise me?

  “What’s your name?” he says.

  I hesitate, unsure what to say. We should have thought of something beforehand.

  “I said what’s your name.”

  Suddenly, he bucks forward with his back arched and his arms thrown out. He gasps for air, his eyes bugging as he gurgles up a spray of blood. I spot the arrow shaft protruding from his back just as another pierces his neck. He topples from his saddle as his horse rears up, whinnying in fear. The other soldiers look around wildly as more arrows slice through the air, missing them but not by much. We’re forgotten as they take off at a gallop, within seconds riding away.

  That was us last week, I think. We were the ones running and hiding. And while I fear for the safety of Dabria’s family, hoping nothing bad happened to them in that raid, I suspect we would have been returning here soon anyway. It can’t be long now until things shift. As if to underscore that point, when I look up another fireball streaks through the sky.

  *

  Revlen lets the two of us into the Gilded Gargoyle, using the street entrance since there was no need to skulk through alleys or use the hidden door. We didn’t encounter another soul. I soon learn that there are several more rooms beneath the bar. Some hold weapons, others supplies, and some are intended for places to meet, hide or recover. The bar itself is a front, of course, while what’s beneath it serves as both a rebel headquarters and safe house.

  “There are many such places in Gorgedden,” Revlen explains. “Beneath both homes and businesses. They’ve been constructed over time, and we’ve had plenty of it.”

  “Cade showed me the sewer tunnels,” I say.

  Revlen chuckles, most likely thinking of the smell. “And, of course, the sewers. I started out running messages through those tunnels.”

  Within my mind, I picture a little girl. She has dirty clothes, oily hair and one eye. She runs through sewer water risking her life, when months ago she would have been home in bed.

  “Would you like something? Wine or beer maybe?”

  I shake my head. “I think I’m okay. Thanks.”

  By which I mean I need to rest.

  Revlen and I descend the stairs to the level below, where she unlocks the door to the room I’ll be using. “Try to get some sleep.”

  I glance at her to see if she’s joking. I’m exhausted, perhaps more so than I’ve ever been. We barely stopped riding for two days, subsisting almost entirely on strips of smoked meat. When we slept, we did so on the ground and not for long.

  “You do the same,” I say.

  She turns and walks down the hall, striding with cat-like grace. In the short time I’ve known her, she’s never once seemed tired. She seems perpetually watchful and ready, and I suspect she’s remained so since she was ten. I don’t wait to see which room she goes into. If Revlen wanted me to know, she’d have told me.

  I close the door behind me, realizing that the room I’m in is the same one where I spent that first night with Esras. Part of me wonders if Revlen put me there deliberately, so I can feel close to him while he’s away. I suppose it could be a coincidence, but I don’t think so. Revlen doesn’t miss much, and I doubt my return to the loft late the other night went unnoticed. She doesn’t strike me as being sentimental, but I don’t suppose life has afforded her that luxury. All the same, I appreciate the gesture.

  I peel off my clothes, wrap myself in a blanket, and stretch out on the sofa. I heave a grateful sigh at the feel of cushions beneath me. Almost immediately, sleep starts to carry me off, and I surrender to it, imagining myself being next to Esras.

  CHAPTER 20

  In the dream, we sit before the fire behind Dabria’s house. I look past those flames into the darkness, as it becomes a tunnel lit with flames of its own. I get up and start walking, alone now, drawn toward a light at the tunnel’s end. As I get closer, that light changes in shape to become a person who glows from within. Her light flickers, rising and falling to beckon me forward. I’m in one world, that of the subconscious, while my conscious mind calls me back to the other.

  There’s a ghost with you now, my mind says. Wake up.

  Of course, I know, and I open my eyes to see Fashenan standing beside me. I wonder how long she’s been waiting there.

  I sit up and ask, “What is it?”

  She stands staring, reminding me that she can only show me. I nod, letting her know I remember.

  Fashenan beckons and I start to get up.

  She shakes her head, and I sit back down.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. It just comes out. I can’t help it. Then I shake my head too, telling her what she already knows.

  She beckons again, this time holding her palm out flat to stop me. It makes no sense. She wants me to come with her, but not move? Suddenly, instinctively, I realize what she’s trying to say, as t
hose words I read about Sativola come back to me. She could step out of her body and walk with the dead.

  I shake my head. “I can’t do that.”

  Fashenan might not understand my words, but she knows what I mean. She nods slowly, but repeatedly.

  Can she know somehow what I am? Who I might be connected to? It would seem so, since she beckons yet again. The same way, with her palm held out.

  I keep my eyes on hers. “You’ll have to show me.”

  It can’t be my words, so it must be that I don’t try to rise this time. Fashenan steps forward and takes hold of my hand. Like last time, a chill runs through me, not from fear but from making contact with spirit. She’s alive, but not physical. Hers is a flesh without blood or warmth. She closes her eyes and remains that way. When I do nothing, she nods. Somehow, I understand. She wants me to close my eyes too. I do, at first seeing only darkness, and then the glowing blue spot where we touch. At first, it pulses like an orb, that source where our energies meet. Then the light spreads to take on her form again, glowing brighter now, more vibrant as I see her without using my eyes. Without letting go, Fashenan steps back, taking me with her as I leave my body. My feet move without feeling the floor.

  I can’t help it, and a gasp escapes my lips, followed by a surprised and frightened laugh. I can hear myself, but I can’t be heard, except by very few. I know this now, as I spin around to see myself still sitting on the sofa. It should be shocking, terrifying, but it’s not. In fact, I’ve done this before, as a child when my body was taken. There was that short time, before I found Julia, during which I wandered as a ghost.

  Suddenly, I realize something else. Autumn did the same, she told me. She stepped beyond her body when, for her too, it was the only means of escape. Until now, I’ve imagined that being the connection, but suddenly I know the truth. For both of us, it was trauma that forced us to do this thing, for which trauma isn’t required. We’re veil witches. It’s within us to do this. It is, in fact, part of our legacy.

  She could step out of her body and walk with the dead.

  Fashenan moves forward, starting to flicker, while I keep trying to follow on foot. She turns and beckons again, almost impatiently this time. As if to say, “Here, let me show you,” she reaches out once more to take hold of my hand. This time, we rise from the ground. She turns to look at me, her fierce eyes staring into my own. The message she seems to be trying to deliver is, “Get ready.”

  Then she flies forward, shifting her grasp to my wrist as we pass through the wall, and then down the hall. We keep going until we’re outside. Suddenly, we're flying down the street, so fast that everything becomes a blur. The sensation is both exhilarating and terrifying, as we gain such momentum that I can't perceive a thing. It’s like being dragged with incredible force through a tunnel, without even torches lighting the way.

  In the moments that pass, I remember Autumn telling me that she too at first assumed she had to walk. Soon, she learned that just thinking of someplace could take her there. Part of me wonders if right now, despite how fast I think we’re moving, I'm forcing Fashenan to move slowly. I can’t think of where she’s trying to take me, so my thoughts can’t take me there.

  Finally, we start to slow. I can see what's around me again and I gasp as I look down, realizing we’re in the sky. Beneath us, moonlight shines down on houses surrounded by walls. As we keep moving, the houses grow larger, the lands surrounding them more vast. We must be above where the nobles live. Before long, I catch a glimpse of familiar grounds, an estate with gardens holding topiaries large enough to be seen from the air. I think we might be travelling to Fashenan’s own house—if, in fact, she still thinks of it that way— but we don't stop. Soon we swoop in low over an estate so grand that it could only be one place. Flags flutter from towers. Guards patrol both within and outside the walls. The palace. It has to be.

  My stomach plunges as we suddenly plummet, and then we're inside, flying through halls lit by magic and lined with gold-framed paintings. Suddenly, we come to a stop so abruptly that it would seem in defiance of physics. But it’s not, is it? Only in the physics of the world I know.

  We're behind a man who strides down a hall. His boots click against marble floors, and his black cape billows behind him. He's tall, thin and purposeful, with long bone-white hands adorned with rings. He wears his platinum hair loose, and it cascades to his shoulders, with just the points of his ears poking through. I don’t have to see his face to know who he is. I bristle at the sight of Vintain, disgust and hatred rippling through me.

  He reaches the end of the hall, where two guards swing open doors at his approach. He enters a vast chamber with vaulted ceilings and rows of slender arched windows reflecting the light of torches. The center of the room is devoted to a massive table of gleaming wood so dark that it's nearly black. At its head, sits a woman. She too is tall, thin and pale. She wears a green velvet dress and has silver white hair. Upon her head rests a delicate crown rising in a series of points. I expected Queen Abarrane to be old, and I suppose she must be, but her porcelain skin shows barely a line. She's also stunningly beautiful, but in the way of something not real. It's a frightening beauty, as if she's more a carved than living thing.

  At Vintain’s approach, she flicks her hand, barely lifting it. Two men, also seated at the table, rise immediately. Without a word, they bow and leave. Vintain neither speaks to them, nor looks their way as they pass. He goes to the table, where he stands and waits with patient confidence. Even the queen seems bored with the required formality. She flicks her hand again and he sits.

  “Tell me what you know,” she says, her voice soft but her tone firm.

  Vintain sits back and crosses his legs, one over the other. “She hasn't returned to her realm. Of that I'm certain.”

  A chill runs through me at his words. How much more have their changelings learned about me since I've been gone. Are they watching my friends and family? They must be for him to know that.

  “That only tells me where she isn't.” Queen Abarrane says it without reproach, although a hint of annoyance shows in her pale green eyes.

  Vintain nods, acknowledging the criticism. “We have men searching the outpost villages.”

  The queen sighs. “We should have flooded those ant hills decades ago. Have they discovered anything?”

  Vintain hesitates, just slightly, and then shakes his head. “Not yet.”

  At this, relief washes over me. I can’t be sure, of course, but nothing indicates that Dabria, her family, or their village came to harm. That’s as much time as I have to think, before Vintain continues.

  “If she did take refuge within this realm, and I believe she did, then she must have found someone to help her.”

  The Queen swivels her head his way. “Other than the half-blood you spotted before.”

  Vintain nods. “Yes.”

  “And you're certain she isn't in Silvermist.”

  I wait for Vintain’s answer, thinking there's no way for him to know. The fae can't go to Silvermist, nor can they put changelings there.

  “We're certain.”

  My blood runs cold at what his words imply. He can’t possibly know, but somehow he does.

  “And this help you believe she's found. Presumably, you mean the rebel faction.”

  It's the first time Queen Abarrane shows agitation. Her long fingernails tick on the table’s surface, like a stopwatch counting the seconds.

  Vintain seems to observe the same, his eyes traveling to where the queen’s nails mark the passing of time. “Most likely, yes,” he says. “I can't imagine any others being willing to take the risk.”

  “Then step up your efforts. I expect you to find her.”

  “Of course.”

  Queen Abarrane dismisses Vintain with a flick of her hand. He stands, bows and walks toward the door.

  “And Vintain,” the queen says.

  He stops.

  “You said you suspected there might be a psychic bond betwe
en the witch and her friend.”

  He nods, his hands clasped behind his back. “I believe they sense when the other is in trouble, or in pain. But the girl can’t possibly know where her friend is.”

  “I don’t care,” the queen says. “Step up your efforts there too.”

  “Of course,” Vintain says, and then he resumes walking.

  *

  White hot rage washes over me as Vintain leaves and the queen remains at her table. I have no doubt what that last exchange meant, and I'm not sure which one of them I want to kill more—the queen for suggesting he torture Julia, or Vintain for being so casually willing to do so. My gut twists with anger and frustration, and I stand paralyzed until Fashenan reaches out to me again.

  She’s right, of course. There’s no reason to remain. It will do us no good.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  Fashenan may not understand my words, but my tone must convey my meaning. She nods, takes hold of my wrist, and we drop through the floor—one level, and then another, and yet one more. Almost instantly, we stand in another long hallway, this one lined with only white doors. Somehow I know just by looking that they’re locked and that this must be where they keep the changelings. Fashenan points to a door, while making no move to join me. She leaves me to see what I asked to see.

  I pass through the door, into a small cell of a room. Moonlight glows weakly from a slit of window up by the ceiling. In that dim light, I see Julia sitting on a bed, hunched forward with her legs crossed beneath her. It’s impossible to know whether she just woke up, hasn’t slept, or time has become lost to her. She stares out with a flat and distant gaze. She’s sickly pale, as if she hasn’t been outside for weeks. The room is blank, its walls and surfaces bare, utterly devoid of anything personal. There’s just the bed on which Julia sits, a dresser, a small round table and a hard wooden chair. They’ve given her nothing, not even paper on which to write. How long have they left her this way?