“Walking will help shake the effects.” Mac reached down and clasped my forearm, lifting me onto my feet slowly. From a pocket, he produced a thin, reddish roll the length and thickness of my pinky finger and extended the fragrant stick to me. “Until then, chew this. It will dispel the disorientation.”
Thinking it looked familiar, I accepted and scratched it with my thumbnail. “Is this tree bark?”
He nodded. “Cinnamon bark.”
I rubbed it between my fingers, heating the wood and warming the oils inside until its fragrance burned my sinus passages. Huh. Guess my tolerance was increasing. My first trip left me head-blind, unable to smell or process what my oversaturated senses were telling me. This was an improvement.
While I chewed, Mac drew a penny-sized charm out of another pocket, dropped it and crushed it under his heel. Ears popping, I winced as all ambient noise vanished, leaving us in deafening silence.
“Forgive the precaution. The woods are full of spies.” His gaze slid past my shoulder and back. “The Morrigan will have Unseelie patrolling the grounds near my den and guarding the door, I’m sure, but the grounds are warded and no other magical defenses can be set.” He drew in a scenting breath. “Dangerous as it is, we must take the den.”
I expected as much. “We need access to the Hall of Many Doors, right? That’s your plan?”
“The Hall of Many Doors,” he said, lips twitching with amusement, “is our only hope of finishing the job we came to do before madness takes your mate.” He gripped my shoulder. “I know this is difficult, but I trust you to think with your head, not your heart.”
I clamped my lips shut and nodded. I had a job to do. I would do it. And then I was going to find Shaw. The sooner we cut the Morrigan off from the mortal realm, the more pissed she would get and the easier it would be locating her feathery ass. Five minutes. That’s all I wanted. Five minutes alone with her to…negotiate.
Hall of Many Doors, here we come. I had suspected each door operated its own tether, and Mac had all but confirmed it. Diode once told me they only worked for Mac and me, so the doors were useless to everyone but us. Using them, we could finish severing the tethers in a few days, I hoped, in plenty of time to find Shaw before hunger turned him feral.
Otherwise it would take days—if not weeks—to trek to each location and disable each tether.
Then again, maybe useless wasn’t accurate. Just because the Morrigan couldn’t operate them didn’t mean she couldn’t use them against us. Blocking our access to those doors would cripple our efforts.
“Wait—what about the tether we just used?” Behind us, a sagging bridge spanned a crevice that might have once been a dry creek. We’d landed near where its rotten planks began. “Should we start here?”
“Yes.” A grin twisted Mac’s lips. “You should.”
“Me?”
“This is one of the skills you must learn. One of many I hope to teach you before…” Mac’s jaw bunched, emotion hot behind his eyes. “If we are separated, it is imperative the work be continued.”
Wiping my hands on my pants, I stepped forward. “Okay, how do I do this?”
Mac reached for me, and a strange comfort rippled up my arm when our fingertips brushed. His skin was warm against mine, rough where I slid my hand into his larger one. His palms were thickly calloused, reminding me of paw pads on the hound he once was and sometimes still pretended to be.
Leading me onto the bridge, he stopped when we stood balanced on the first rickety plank, and a spark of bone-cold energy froze my palm. His runes ignited against my bare skin, feeding me power.
“Tell me.” He turned his head toward me. “What do you sense?”
With him ramping up my power, there was only one thing to feel. “Magic.”
“Faerie is magic.” A hint of a smile. “What else?”
I let my free hand hover over the splintered railing, and waves of subtle power caressed the underside of my palm. “There’s a complex enchantment on the bridge.” I squinted. “It’s like a bluish-green net rolled into a tube. This end of the tunnel is wide open, and it’s almost as tall as we are. The far end—and this might be part optical illusion because of our perspective—looks like it’s six inches around.”
His grip sparked brighter. “Anything else?”
“There’s also a faint compulsion inlayed into the wood to help camouflage the bridge’s magic.” My gaze cut left each time I focused. It made distinguishing between what my eyes saw versus what my magical oversight perceived that much harder. “To deter the wannabe tether jumpers, I assume.”
“Go deeper,” he coaxed. “You’re almost there.”
Shutting my eyes, I blocked out everything except the pulse of energy flowing through the tether into us. “I see a flare of some kind. It’s bright blue with pinpricks of white.” I opened my eyes, and I knew. “Two planks up on the right, at the base of the railing, there’s a compartment.” I pointed it out like Mac was the blind one though it was his magic coursing through me. “The control panel, right?”
Seeming pleased, he nodded. “One step more.”
I scrunched up my face. “The symbols…I see them in my head. I can read them.” Shock pinged through me. “I see the coordinates for where we are and where we came from. It recorded our trip.”
“You did well.” He squeezed my hand once before releasing it. “Now, try it again.”
The magic Mac lent me vanished the way it had come, leaving me off balance with a slight headache.
“It’s gone.” I sagged, almost too weak to move my lips. “All of it.”
“You have seen the path,” he said. “Remember it. Take it.”
Blowing out a frustrated breath, I did as he asked. I shut my eyes and opened myself as fully as I knew how, so that each wisp of magic brushing my skin left its own faint impression. Even knowing where to search didn’t make it easier. I turned my attention to the magical net cast over the bridge. The imprint was faint now, transparent, instead of the shining beacon it had been while I drew from Mac. Once the tunneled structure coalesced, I latched on to the tether’s magical signature and followed the steady flow of energy through the complex enchantment to where it pooled above the second plank.
“I see the board, the switch.” Eyes squeezed tight, I strained for more. “I see…” I growled under my breath, but the intricate runes failed to appear even as I trembled. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”
Knuckles rapped against the side of my head.
“Ouch.” My eyes sprung open. “What did you do that for?”
“Think,” Mac admonished. “Pull the knowledge from your memory.”
Keeping my eyes open and on him this time, I reached inside my thoughts, to the place Mac’s power had kindled. Specks of green flared in my memory. Delicate runes matching my hand—our hands—danced before my eyes in translucent waves over the bridge. Slowly, slowly, their meaning returned.
“Got it,” I breathed. “How is this possible?”
“The mantle of the Black Dog is knowledge.” Mac gazed out at the tether with me. “In an instant I was lifted up, transformed, reborn as the man you see before you. All that I knew was ripped from me as the collective knowledge of the sidhe nobles responsible for my gift wedged all that they were into me.” His brow puckered. “My mind and body were broken to pieces before they were reforged.”
I flinched. “That sounds painful.”
A wry twist of his lips was his answer.
I studied him from the corner of my eye in the dappled sunlight, comparing our features and our magic, awed by him despite myself, waiting for the old anger to resurface, but it was slow to rise and easily shoved aside when it did.
Yes, he had hurt my mother. He was hurting her even now. But I was raised as a human, and it wasn’t fair to hold Mac to human standards. Not when he obviously loved my mother, and not when his responsibilities in Faerie had been greater than any love he had for her…or for me.
I tilted my head. “Do you remember wh
at it was like…before?”
“I do.” A melancholy sigh escaped him. “I miss the simplicity of that life.”
Another question came to my lips, but he hushed me as he would a child.
“Later, you and I will talk, and I will answer any questions you have.” He drew himself up taller and rolled his narrow shoulders. “For now, we must focus on the task ahead. Time is running short.”
Seven days—six and a half after our slow start—until hunger turned Shaw rabid. Bonded as we were, even raging in his incubus form, I was his only food source. The circuit he burnt into himself during sex with me meant he could be faithful. Had to be, actually. He was now dependent on me to keep him alive, a job I would normally relish, but finding him starved meant he might kill me.
“We’ve stood exposed too long.” Mac scowled. “We need to sever this one and get moving.”
I blew out a breath. “What next?”
“We find out if the Morrigan’s fear is justified.” He held out his hand. “You have to bleed.”
Slapping my right palm into his, I grimaced. “I thought you might say that.”
Metal rasped as he drew a dagger the length of my forearm from his thigh holster. “Look away.”
He sounded exactly like Mom when I was about to get a finger pricked at the doctor’s office.
“I can handle it.” Swallowing, I uncurled my fingers and braced myself. “I’m a big girl.” Sharp as his blade was, I still winced as faint pressure sliced open my index finger. “Freaking monkeys.”
Blood rose along the seam of the cut, but none fell. The cut crusted over as I began healing.
“I was afraid of this.” Mac sheathed his blade. “You heal almost as fast as I do.”
“How do you control your bleeding for spellwork?” I wondered.
A chuckle slipped from him. “I keep a never blade I confiscated in a cabinet in my office.”
Removing my left hand from his, I flexed the right, which was marked by my own never blade wound, and wished there was another way. I really didn’t want to bleed out. “Can you remove the enchantment?”
“I can.” He took my hand, palm up. “It’s an original spell of mine crafted for the same reason.”
“So you willingly cut yourself with a never blade often enough you had to figure this out, huh?” I watched as pink spilled onto his cheeks. “Yet you still can’t heal the wound. Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Unless another source of magic is introduced into our blood, interrupting our own, our gift mends us too quickly.” Mac’s expression turned pensive. “There are a few fae who have natural immunity to us. It was their blood used to spell the first never blades. It’s a necessary failsafe that must be broken once in a while in order for us to do any good with the gifts we have been given, but as in all things, we pay a price.”
Thinking back on the past year, I got an inkling. “Hobgoblins are immune, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Redcaps too.”
“Yes.” His head lifted, eyes softening. “They are.”
I was about to ask why he would let me go a few rounds with one of the rare fae who could hurt me, not to mention leaving him with plenty of my blood he could use as a focus object for dangerous spellwork later, but Mac pressed his palm to mine, and a pulse of searing pain dropped me to one knee.
Forget ripping off a bandage. This ripped off the top layer of my freaking skin, and I screamed.
Mac slapped a hand over my mouth until I could clamp my jaw shut and get it under control.
“The original spell grafts skin.” His voice thickened. “The counter spell removes it.”
So I was right about the reverse tearing off skin. Yay?
With a jerk of my chin, I signaled I could handle it. Please, let me be able to handle this.
Blood trickled from the neat cut, pooling in my palm until Mac fished a wad of cotton gauze out of his pack and pressed down hard. A flash of panic spiked my pulse. No matter how long he held it, the bleeding wouldn’t stop, which was kind of the point. And yet…gulp.
“Now what?” I took over for him, applying steady pressure like it mattered. “The control box?”
“Whether you jump a tether to the mortal realm or ride it to another location in Faerie, all tethers are anchored by a physical object to keep them stationary. Otherwise, they would drift. This location is pinned by the bridge. The control box is an amenity I added so that others could adjust their coordinates and travel more easily, but that is the limit of their power. To sever a tether, you must locate its anchor, and then you must counteract the spell I laid on the object. To do that, you use your magical sight to locate the threshold of the entrance. Once that is done, smear your blood across it and use the Word unique to its location.” Mac gestured before folding his arms across his chest. “Go on. You’re bleeding too much.”
Huffing, I did as instructed. I stared at the bridge, letting my sight go unfocused. As the shimmering net superimposed itself over the bridge, I focused on the thin weave forming a tunnel and followed the rim of the circular entrance down to the ground, where the magic hit earth and rippled.
I crept forward, wary of the energies lapping against its mooring. Once on my knees, I pocketed the gauze and let my blood drip in a line from one side to the other, then I smeared my hand over it to even out the drops and create an unbroken threshold. Nothing flickered. Nothing surged. Disappointment had me balling my fist, but when I twisted to glance at Mac over my shoulder, he gave me a pleased nod.
“Say the Word,” Mac said patiently.
I scowled at him. “You didn’t give it to me.”
He jerked his chin toward the tether. “I shouldn’t have to.”
Great. He was testing me. Again.
Figuring the answer must be right in front of my face, I studied the net and then the control box, but nothing jumped out at me. All I saw were the coordinates. Mac wouldn’t use those… Would he?
“Numbers aren’t technically words,” I muttered.
The snatch of laughter I caught told me I had guessed right. With my hand planted on the blood smear, I spoke the coordinates under my breath. Waiting until my leg muscles quivered, I shoved to my feet, faced Mac and threw out my arms. “I guess this means the Morrigan will have to eat crow.”
All her scheming, all the people she had hurt, all for nothing.
My blood wasn’t counteracting his. My counter spell hadn’t kindled.
Shoulders slumping, I had to find a new bargaining chip if I wanted to get Shaw back.
His gaze strayed past me. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Wood groaned behind me, and I spun around in time to watch as the supports buckled. Mac and I leapt backward as the bridge collapsed on itself. Old as it was, magic was all that had been holding it together. When I cut the tether, the magic spilled into the ground and the ancient structure toppled.
“I did it.”
I severed a tether.
“You did indeed.” He sounded pleased. “Now, let’s tend your hand so we can get moving.”
Still reeling from what I had done, I drifted to Mac in a daze of possibility, and he clasped hands with me, pressing his runes against the hairline cut on my right palm. A whiff of burnt skin rose, and I growled viciously through the pain. He inspected the temporarily cauterized wound before humming low in his throat, seeming satisfied.
“There.” He sounded apologetic. “That ought to hold.”
I curled my numb hand into a fist. “How many are left?”
“There is one tether in Winter and one in Summer. Autumn and Spring each have two.”
“So we have five to go.”
And then it was time to find the Morrigan.
Chapter 9
Mac drifted as silent as a wraith through the tittering forest, his boots picking familiar paths with confident strides that left me panting in his wake, trying to keep up with him. Leaves crinkled under my heels despite my attempts to muffle the noise. Prickling on my na
pe confirmed we were being watched, but I scented no one. Mac walked on, unconcerned, so I mimicked his body language, using false confidence as my shield.
Five tethers remained. One more here in Autumn. But first we had to secure Mac’s den. Success meant we could make a quick trip to sever the tether and be done with this portion of Faerie. Failure meant we needed the tether active as a means of escape. In fact, I liked the idea of saving it for last for that very reason.
Figuring we were safe until reaching the den, I took in the sights. I hadn’t had time before to admire the impossible collection of trees. Bald cypress, sugar maple and black tupelo trees brushed limbs in greeting while aspen, sourwood and sassafras stood alone. Sweetgum trees dropped tiny balls on the ground for us to roll our ankles on while towering longleaf pines provided spots of green amid all the reds, oranges and golds. As an added bonus, the trees produced pinecones the length of my forearm.
A burst of mischief hit me, and I punted one such pinecone at Mac. He glided to his right, and my kick went wide. The cone bounced twice before smashing into an aspen instead of his backside.
The impact startled a caw from overhead, and my blood ran cold. The urge to search the sky was a twitch in my neck. But I took Mac’s lead and kept my eyes glued straight ahead and my head level.
Keep calm and carry on.
Ahead of us, a familiar giant redwood rose from the ground. It stood well over three hundred feet tall. Its reddish-brown bark had peeled in a few places. Handfuls of its spiked green needles had shed. Hard to tell if the damage had occurred when I led the hunt on a chase through Mac’s living room or if the damage was recent. I hadn’t seen the den after accidentally riding a tether via one of his doors.
Unfazed, Mac led on while gooseflesh peaked my skin, though his pace slowed until I caught up easily. He planted his feet as the wind changed, and the scent of wet feathers and musk hit my nose.
An eager gleam lit his eyes, and black-green power sparked in his palm. Together we tilted back our heads. Black bodies perched on the limbs above us, humanoid but covered in silky feathers.
“Aves,” Mac growled.
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