by Laney McMann
A loud thump hit the front porch, and Justice swung the front door open, breathing heavy. “I swear I’m going to kill that guy next time I see him.” He rested his hands on his knees.
My breathing cut off. “So, no Benny?”
Justice shook his head.
“What?” Tristan’s face paled of all color.
“Ryan and his clan were waiting at Layla’s house earlier. They destroyed it, and they took Benny.” Justice came inside, and his gaze shifted away from his brother and onto Layla’s unconscious body. “Oh, my god. What happened?” He came toward the couch.
“We are not sure,” my grandmother said, “but we must go to the Infirmary.” She tapped my arm.
“Benny?” Tristan said, sounding exacerbated. “Where the hell did they take Benny?”
“I don’t know. Elethan left a note.” Justice glanced over. “Max has to go back to the Shadow Realm, or Elethan will have Benny killed. He said Layla would disappear, as well.” He tossed a wadded up piece of paper in Tristan’s direction, who snatched it out of the air with ease.
Hastily unfolding the letter, Tristan eyed the paper, and said, “I’m out,” and hobbled toward the door with one crutch under his arm.
I stood up.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You stay with Layla.”
“You’re on crutches. You can’t go after Ryan.”
He eyed me with the same anger I’d seen the night he’d told me the Fomorian were Demon Gods. “You stay here with Layla. Justice and I will meet you at the Underground later.” He held my stare, like a challenge.
I shook my head. “I’m coming with you.”
“No! Ryan wants you to come.” He transformed and turned his back to me, heading after Justice, who’d already stepped through the front door and onto the porch.
“Then he’s going to get what he wants, Tris! He came after Layla!”
“I know what he did!” His monstrous face centered on me. “And I’ll be the one making him pay for that, not you.”
“Tristan—“
“Grandma Mac …” He lifted his gaze toward the ceiling. “Say something. Please.”
I glanced at my grandmother, and my heart felt like it had been ripped in half. Layla lay lifeless on the couch, her hand hanging limp off the edge, fingertips brushing the floor. A wild mess of tangled blonde hair fanned out over the decorative, mauve throw pillows. I sank onto my knees beside her. “Grandmother … she has a Raven on her neck. An Etching.” The words flew out.
“Yes, I see.” She sounded grave. “The Morrigan’s Ogham.
No. “It can’t—”
Tristan squeezed my shoulder. “Stay here.” He followed Justice onto the front porch.
I nodded, glancing over at the two of them. “Be careful.”
Justice grinned. “Us? We’ll see you in a little while.” His gaze went to Layla. “Get going.”
My grandmother patted my arm, taking my focus away, as Justice and Tristan flew from the porch.
“She needs the Queen of Light, my child. We must go.”
“Flidais?” I asked.
“No. The true Queen. The only one who can stop the effects of the Raven Ogham from spreading. Teine’s grandmother.”
32
My arms were numb from wrists to shoulders, having sat in the chair next to Layla’s bed in the Infirmary for hours. She’d been placed in some kind of quarantine, and her hospital bed was encased in a giant plastic tube. I’d been allowed to hold her hand through a small opening, but nothing more. Something I’d had to argue with her grandmother to allow until I was furious and out of breath before she’d finally given in.
Layla’s eyelids fluttered as I watched her, light blue veins showing in stark, sickly contrast to her creamy skin. Every now and again, her body would twitch, and her pulse would race, sending the machines next to her bed into high-blasting alert. Her hand would grip mine and squeeze so tightly my knuckles turned white. Then she would let go, her breathing would return to normal, and her eyelids would stop moving. It had become routine over the last several hours, but she still hadn’t regained consciousness.
I kept hoping when she opened her eyes and saw herself in confinement, she wouldn’t go into some kind of claustrophobic shock. Layla hated enclosed spaces; I’d had to force her into the M.R.I. machine to get her cat scan only a few weeks back. The memory put a small, desperate smile on my face.
The infirmary in the Otherworld had been full to capacity when we’d come in—so many people had fallen ill in the last few weeks. Apparently, Layla’s lack of Ancient Oghams had allowed the injuries she’d sustained the day of the attack to weaken her tremendously. Her Light was fading—a detail she’d failed to tell me—and the reason, I guessed, she’d looked so sick.
Gardenias in terra cotta pots rested on the window sill across from me, as was common place in the infirmary. A caregiver stood crushing stems and petals with a mortar and pestle, creating an array of magical formulas, spells, and medications needed to treat the sick and the wounded, but instead of the flowers flourishing in natural sunlight, artificial lights had been brought in to keep them alive. Flidais had informed me that almost all the naturally growing flowers were dead on the various waterfall banks throughout the Otherworld.
I remembered when Cara had rushed into my arms—how everything around the Royal Court’s waterfall had lost its luster. The forest had been dull and brown, as if all the life was being sucked out of it. All of Layla’s Light.
Her fingers squeezed mine through the small opening in the plastic enclosure. I waited for her breaths to increase, her eyelids to flutter, and my hand to go numb under the pressure. Her grandmother tried to convince me it was involuntary—the movement of Layla’s hand in mine—that a lot of patients who’d fallen unconscious made twitching motions, but I didn’t believe her. Layla knew I was beside her, and she was making sure I stayed. She'd asked me not to leave her before she fell unconscious, so I hadn't. I didn't want to. For a hundred different reasons. Most of all because of the way she'd said it. The fear in her voice.
Resting my head in my free hand, I closed my eyes as Layla’s hand gripped mine tight, and her body convulsed again, shaking the bed. I squeezed her hand back, unable to watch, hoping it would help. Maybe she could feel that I was suffering, too.
The elderly queen shuffled around the room, checking monitors and I.V. tubes. Justice and Tristan stood outside the infirmary door, staring in through the small glass window. There’d been no sign of Ryan, or the rest of the angels, they’d told me. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Even Ryan wasn’t stupid enough to hang around and wait for us to find him. Leading the enemy to us, like Sam had done, was one thing, but an angel being involved in a direct attack against the ones he swore to serve was punishable by one thing. Death.
Half dead already or not, Ryan didn’t want me to find him.
I hadn’t told either Justice or Tristan they would be staying with Layla while I went back to the Shadow Realm alone to retrieve Benny, but I was ready for the fight they would surely bring at the news. Besides the fact that I doubted they’d be able to get through the Underworld gates, there was no way I was risking anyone else’s life. I could barely stand the thought of leaving Layla, much less losing Tristan or Justice—or both of them. If we got into any trouble trying to rescue Benny … it wasn’t worth the risk. Tristan was hell bent on going, though, and I couldn’t understand why.
He hobbled into the room on one crutch again, looking even more ill than he had two hours ago, and whispered something to my grandmother, who sat across the room from me, near the window. She had remained with Layla, like I had, since we’d brought her in.
She nodded and rose to her feet, crossing the room, and spoke in hushed tones to the elderly Queen. Clips of the Morrigan’s name reached my ears. The curse. The Legend. After the first hour, or two, I’d stopped paying full attention to what anyone was saying. It all sounded the same, and I’d already gone over everything that had ha
ppened at my house, and at Layla’s. More than once. There wasn’t anything else to say, or to overhear.
Guilt anchored in my chest for having stayed in Historia for as long I did, for not letting Layla’s grandmother know my plan to return to Elethan. Truth was, after I’d seen Layla, after I’d left her a note and went to meet Justice, my plan, whatever it was, had flown out the window. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to leave, and as I sat watching her sleep, I couldn’t help wondering if she would be in quarantine at all, if I would’ve just gone back the Underworld and stayed away.
Flidais had come in to see Layla a few times. Cara as well, her little face so scrunched with sadness I could barely stand to look at her. She’d dragged a chair across the room, scuffing up the floor, and sat beside me, swinging her legs back and forth, while her gaze stayed glued on Layla, but after Layla’s thrashing fits continued, Cara had left. I couldn’t blame her. It was hard to watch.
“She will have to remain here, under quarantine, until I can break the magical binding,” her grandmother had said. “She will be safe, I assure you, child.” Her words had been stern but not unkind.
I knew she wasn’t telling me everything, but I couldn’t get anything else out of her. I tried not to think about what the Raven Ogham could actually mean, and attempted not to think about what I’d been trying to convince myself for years wasn’t true. Could never be true.
Tristan hobbled across the room toward me, and I cleared my throat and wiped my face.
“We have to go,” he said. “Layla’s safe here. We can’t lose any more time.”
Nodding, I found it impossible to move—to let go of Layla’s hand. Her eyes remained closed, as if she slept soundly. Her fingers wrapped around mine, and I squeezed them tight.
“Come on,” Tristan said.
“Give me a minute.”
He sighed and went back into the hallway.
I leaned closer to the bed. “Lay …” The choke in my throat was painful; I couldn’t force it down. “Please, wake up.” I placed her hand against my forehead. “Please.” Pressing my lips to her inner wrist, over the Arwen, I said, “I have to go. There’s something I have to do. I want you to promise me something." I kissed her hand. "Promise me that no matter what happens—you'll never stop believing in me. Remember?" I inhaled a deep breath. "Never stop."
With all the strength I could muster, I looked away from her and let her hand go. "I love you, Layla."
33
I landed outside the looming black gates, a mixture of disgust and unwanted fear rolling over my shoulders. My Oghams writhed like living organisms underneath my skin. They stretched out and formed straight arrowed lines in golden green hues—raised brands of mutilated flesh marking my arms from wrists to biceps, shoulders to back. Not one second of the time I’d spent in the Underworld, had the Oghams not reacted—warning me to stay away. Yet, here I was again, staring up at the rusted gates in the same spot I’d fled from.
Looking through the gaps in the iron bars, revolted, the Shadow Realm stared back My lame attempt to prove that I was trying to ‘blend in’ with the Fomorians would be a joke. Stupid. Pointless. I hated them. Every last one of them.
Whatever I’d thought I could feel for Elethan in that momentary glimpse of compassion he’d shown, or whatever it was, when he’d sounded like a father should sound, had vanished the minute he told me that my love for Layla was nothing more than a magical binding—a fake.
The Tie was magical coercion, he’d said. As if my feelings for Layla were nothing more than that. My original plan might have been to protect her from the Fomore, but I was slowly killing her in the process, hurting her more by leaving than I could’ve ever imagined. I'd seen it in her eyes, heard it in her voice. A mistake I wouldn't make again.
Justice and Tristan would have noticed I was gone by this point. They'd be scrambling to find me. The faster I entered the gates, the quicker they wouldn't be able to follow should they find the doorway.
No Fomorian blood; no entry. The Demon Gods, Tristan had called them. The killing race. My race. My blood.
Get in, get Benny, and get out. As fast as possible.
The rusted gates disintegrated to smoke under my touch, and I passed through them, the grinding crunch of steel on steel reforming behind me.
Fists clenched, I inhaled a deep breath and continued toward the castle. A spiraling crumble of age-old stone and rock blended into the ugly charcoal sky overhead, as if the two were one. No dawning seam of sunlight separated them, no white moon’s glow, only a sliver of red hanging like a crescent in the black sky.
My weighted footfall hit the dusty ground as if my legs were leading me, unbidden, toward my own death. Into the bowels of hell. Only instead of a fiery pit awaiting my soul, my father stood with open arms under the wide stone archway that created the entrance into the castle, charcoal colored robes tainted with the dust sweeping the ground at his feet.
“Son. You have returned to us.” He smiled wide—all teeth. “I was starting to grow anxious. You must check in—leave word with someone—so that I do not worry.” He clapped his arms around me and patted me roughly on the back.
My Oghams squirmed and jumped, and I had to clench my jaw to stem their power from seeping too far into my thoughts, or I would have thrown him to the ground, away from me.
“This is all new to me. Give a father a break.” He chuckled and sounded so genuine, so real, I almost believed him. I almost wanted to believe him.
My posture stiffened. “Where’s Benny?”
“All business, then? Come, now. Lunch is waiting for us inside.” With his arm still over my shoulder, he steered me into the drafty castle. “Hungry?”
Elethan steered us both through the entrance and into the bowels of the castle, motioning toward a chair opposite him in an overly lavish sitting room. Red velvet armchairs sat in a circle facing one another, each with its own small, highly polished wooden table beside it. Two crystal chandeliers caked with cobwebs hung over the seating group, and fires burned hot in the fireplaces along the walls of the elongated room. Lunch rested on silver platters next to the chairs we occupied. What had to be a miniature roasted chicken sat whole on my plate, green grapes and strawberries beside it, and a hunk of seeded bread.
“So,” the King said, “was your escapade a success?”
My eyes narrowed, as I twirled my fork in between my fingers. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He gave a short smile, focusing toward the plate in front of him. “Your last … hoorah, as it were. Did we not agree it was in Teine’s best interest—as well as your own—to sever ties?” His tone remained simply curious. “You know, Son, I have my people watching Teine’s every move.” He kept his gaze on his food. “I am aware she is … injured, should we say.”
My fingers wrapped tightly around the fork, the, the tines cutting into my skin.
He raised his gaze and met mine with a look of indifference. “She will not survive a direct attack.”
The tines of my fork bit further into my flesh. “If you touch her—if you come anywhere near her—” The Oghams on my arms jumped as if ready to rip from my flesh and fight on their own.
He grinned, gaze sweeping toward my wrist. “Although I believe you powerful, Son, I do not believe you a murderer.” He put a piece of chicken in his mouth. “I have no ill will toward the girl. She does hold the Light, however—I know her world is suffering. Acquiring her realm would be quite simple at this juncture. I have several … people, shall we say, stationed near her, as we speak. You did not believe I would simply allow you to walk away, I hope?” He smiled, as if he knew he’d won. “Oh, the gullibility of youth.” He shook his head and picked up a strawberry. “Join me, and I will keep my word.”
Gritting my teeth, I said, “I just wanted to say goodbye. I didn’t handle our breakup like I should have, and I owed it to her.”
He smiled wide, raising his eyes to meet my gaze again. “How gentlemanly of you. I should thank Mairs
ale for raising you with such … etiquette. The social graces fit for a Prince.”
Was that a threat? A very well said, very well disguised threat? I didn’t speak or lower my glare.
He laughed—a full bellied sound. “So much like me, you are. I see it all over your face. Serious. Strong. Not afraid of anything, are you?” He waved a hand in the air. “Do not concern yourself, Son. I do not wish to harm your guardian. I owe her, in fact. She is safe, I promise you.”
My shoulders both tensed and relaxed, if that were at all possible. He knows I hate him. He can see it. “Where’s Benny?”
“Not hungry?” He pointed to my untouched plate.
“No—I … had a late dinner.”
He wiped his mouth with a crisp linen napkin. “Ah, yes. Indeed, you did. No matter, I will send your lunch to your quarters, should you find your appetite later.” He pushed to his feet, having eaten everything on his plate, leaving only bones and grape stems. “My servants will show you the way.” He shifted his stance, but stopped midway. “Many lives are in your hands, it would seem.” A polite grin crossed his face. “Should you decide to leave again, I shall know.” His gaze moved straight toward the Etching on my neck.
“So you are tracking me.” It wasn’t a question. “You lied about this.” I pointed to the coat of arms on my neck.
“Oh, please do not misunderstand me. The poison shall fade, and with it the charms of the Leanaan Sidhe, but the Coat of Arms will remain. Consider it … an initiation into the Fomorian fold.” His eyes sparkled orange in the firelight. “A Princely Ogham to go with your …” His gaze swept toward my wrists. “… other ones.”