by Anya Bast
Finally they came to a clearing, the opening of a cave looming in front of them. He ushered her through the dark crack and led her through a series of caverns to a carved set of wooden doors. Clearly the Summer Queen had had this place created a long time ago. It put Elizabeth in mind of a bomb shelter—and the queen had set off freaking World War III.
The guard swung the doors open, and Elizabeth was nearly blinded by the whiteness of the room within. Of course, that was a calculated move on the Summer Queen’s part. The chamber was designed to shock and awe. All that white put Elizabeth in mind of the human’s notion of what heaven looked like—but Caoilainn was no angel.
She stepped onto the polished marble floor, her footsteps echoing as she walked to the center of the room, where she knew she would find the Summer Queen’s throne. The first time she’d met the queen it had been in the woods, without all the fanfare, but she knew enough about Caoilainn to understand that wasn’t her regular modus operandi. This place looked a lot like the throne room in the Rose Tower.
Caoilainn wanted people to worship her. She wanted to be the most powerful person around, the most feared. That’s what this was about for her. If the walls fell, she’d lose all that. Swallowed up in the wonders of the wide, wide world, she’d lose her court. Her life would be meaningless.
“So,” said Elizabeth, her voice echoing off the tall marble pillars and the painted fresco on the ceiling high above her head, “you’ve holed up in a wall just like a bug? Interesting.”
The Summer Queen gave her a tight smile, and the ringlets framing her beautiful, young face quivered. “You’ve got the pieces hidden very well and I don’t want them found. Ever. Tread carefully, girl. It might be better for me if you were dead.”
Good point.
She shifted on the balls of her feet and crossed her arms over her chest. “I understand we’re neighbors now.”
“You’re holed up like a wild animal in an abandoned shack not far away. My scouts reported the activity. Do you really think anything goes on in these woods that I don’t know about? There were no cliffs here when Piefferburg was created. I made them with my magick. I am this land.”
“I admit you know more than other people about many things. You knew about me and my mom, and you’re the only one.” She paused, the thought suddenly occurring to her. “Do you know anything about my biological family?”
The queen’s full, perfect ruby red lips parted in a smile. “That’s information I may choose to give you if you agree to my terms.”
“Terms?” She frowned, fingering the edge of her torn, dirty sweater and trying not to feel inadequate in front of the Summer Queen’s silk and satin finery. “We already had our negotiations. I hide the pieces of the bosca fadbh for our mutual benefit. Our dealings are done.”
“Things have changed.” She lifted an elegant hand, arched an elegant brow, and flicked a long, elegant finger.
Elizabeth turned to find two men striding toward her. One tall, muscular and redheaded. The other average and unforgettable in most every way—aside from his cold, soulless eyes.
They were the two men who’d killed Ragnar, burned down her house, and tried to slap charmed iron cuffs on her.
She took a deep, measured breath in through her nose and out her mouth. Her first reaction was to dissolve and get the hell out of Dodge, leaving, again, all her belongings behind. There were other places in Piefferburg where she could hide.
But were these men friends or foes?
They’d basically saved her butt back at her house and they appeared to be allied with the Summer Queen, who was not Elizabeth’s ally but did want the same thing—the walls to remain standing.
But what about those cuffs?
Taking a step back, she made sure to keep a good distance between herself and the approaching men. If they made any move in her direction, she’d be out of here before they could blink.
“Elizabeth Cely Saintjohn,” said the poisonously innocuous man coming toward her with an outstretched hand, “so nice to finally meet you.”
She stepped away from him and put her hands behind her back. “And you are?”
A flicker of bare violence shot through his eyes, and he lowered his hand. “My name is Gideon P. Amberdoyal, archdirector of the Phaendir.”
Her mind went numb with shock. Archdirector of the Phaendir? “What does the P. stand for?”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He motioned at the redhead beside him. “This is Liam Connall Deaglan Mag Aoidh, a free fae working to keep the walls erect in order to protect his wife from the Wild Hunt.” Gideon paused and gave her a small, oily grin. “You two have something in common, don’t you?”
“So, wait.” She held out a hand as if to slow the whirling in her head. “The archdirector, a free fae, and the Summer Queen are all working together to make sure the walls don’t fall?”
“Ding, ding, ding. You’re a genius,” replied Gideon in a voice laden with sarcasm. “And guess how much I love to be here in Piefferburg with all the fae. Talking with them, touching them, offering to shake their fucking hands.”
She gave a cold and bitter laugh. “Why would I care about your discomforts, Phaendir?”
“Because you and I want the same thing.” His voice came out a low hiss. He moved his hands, and she caught sight of heavy, mottled scar tissue at his wrists. Sweet Danu. “And the faster you turn over the pieces to me, the faster your precious mother will be safe, Liam’s precious wife will be safe, the world will fill with rainbow-flavored lollipops for everyone…and we can all fucking go home. I’m most interested in that last part.”
Elizabeth glanced at the Summer Queen and back at Gideon. “I’m not giving up the pieces, not to anyone. Not even to someone who purports to want the same thing I do. Especially not to the Phaen-fucking-dir.”
She didn’t swear often, but this occasion totally called for it.
“I told you,” said the queen in a bored voice.
Gideon took a step toward Elizabeth, immediately making her back away. “You don’t have a choice.” He spat the words at her and clenched his thin, white hands at his sides. He wanted to kill her. It was right there in his eyes, clear as anything. The man gave her the creeps.
“I have the pieces; therefore I have all kinds of choices.” She jerked her chin at him. “Why do you want the pieces, anyway? They’re safe, hidden. You don’t need to worry about them.”
“I don’t have to worry about them? Really?” He pointed to himself and raised his eyebrows. “I’m in charge of the safety of all the world and I don’t need to worry about where the pieces are? That’s news to me.” His countenance changed, growing darker. He snarled the next words at her. “I want all the pieces of the bosca fadbh and the Book of Bindings. Breaking the walls of Piefferburg isn’t the only thing you can do with the book, after all.”
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth glanced at the queen, but got no reaction from her. “Is he saying what I think he’s saying?” She turned to stare accusingly at Liam, who hadn’t said one word since he’d entered the room. “How can you be working with him? He’s evil!”
“He’s not going to destroy the fae with it,” said Liam, his face grim. “He means to destroy the fecking book, to keep anyone else from using it.” He had a heavy Irish accent.
“And you believe him?” She made a scoffing sound. “How can you be sure he’s not going to unleash a can of unholy Labrai whoop-ass on us? Maybe another round of Watt Syndrome, or something worse?”
Liam shrugged. “We can’t be sure.”
“Oh, great. Great plan. I’ll be keeping the pieces, thanks.” Her hands were shaking with a mixture of rage and fear. It made her voice sharp. She needed to get out here. After shooting an icy glance at the Summer Queen, she walked for the door.
Gideon grabbed her by the upper arm as she passed, and she dissolved in the space of a breath, leaving him holding her sweater.
Hard. Pooling. Trapped. Choking. Suffocating.
&n
bsp; She shifted back into corporeal form and lay on her side, coughing and gasping. She slapped a palm to the marble and stared poisonously up at the Summer Queen through the fall of her hair. “There’s charmed iron in this floor.” There was no mistaking it. This was the second time in her life she’d experienced charmed iron, and both occurrences had been within days of each other.
The Summer Queen smiled. “Why do you think I asked you here?” She waved a hand airily. “I’m getting bored, you can take her now.”
Liam stepped forward and scooped her into his arms, snagging her clothes along with her. She fought him, kicking and screaming, not even caring she was naked. He just clamped down on her harder…then even harder, so she could barely breathe.
Gideon approached her, looking very pleased with himself. Murmuring a series of words she didn’t understand, he pressed his clammy hand to her forehead and she felt consciousness slowly slip away. Her eyeballs rolled back into her head as darkness closed its fist around her. She bet anything that when she woke, she’d have a charmed iron cuff on her ankle.
Only, this time, it would be real.
TWELVE
NIALL found Elizabeth the same way he’d found her before, by working a tracking spell on her. He wasn’t surprised to find she’d fled toward the ocean. She’d need to be a little less predictable than that. Of course, in Piefferburg, there was a lot of ocean. His tracking spell showed she was in a hilly, uninhabited area of the Boundary Lands, about forty-five minutes from the coast.
Since he didn’t have that nifty way of traveling as water, he packed up his SUV and set out to tell her what Priss had discovered.
He’d stuck around Piefferburg City for a couple days waiting for Priss to research whether or not she could entertain his request, taking a room in the ceantar dubh, since he didn’t want to run into anyone from the Black Tower.
The city was in a state of preparation. It almost felt like they were getting ready for a hurricane to hit. Families were leaving the city, boarding up their homes and shops. The Shadow Queen had ordered the Blacksmith, Aeric O’Malley, plus a small army of fae, to make weapons and had armed everyone she could in case the Phaendir or the military came in through the gates.
And they waited. For the invasion. For the missing pieces of the bosca fadbh. For a miracle.
He was supposed to deliver that miracle, but it was a damn hard thing to do without becoming the monster some people thought he was.
And it was about to become harder.
Following the map he’d drawn to pinpoint her location—and hoping like hell she didn’t leave it before he got there—he turned down a narrow gravel road in the northernmost part of Piefferburg. The weather had turned frigid during the last couple days and little specks of snow rained on his windshield.
Irritated, he flicked on his wipers and turned the heat up. He got that she needed to lose herself where she couldn’t be found, but this was ridiculous. Navigating narrow, treacherous roads becoming more treacherous by the moment from the snow that was falling more heavily, he made his way through the forested Boundary Lands to the small cabin where she was hiding. Turning down the driveway, he spotted a dented white cargo van in front.
Stopping the SUV, he considered it, his wipers swish, swishing back and forth. As far as he knew, Elizabeth didn’t own a vehicle other than her ATV.
So who that hell was that?
His intuition prickled. Something wasn’t right here. Rolling the SUV down the road a little, he parked it behind a clump of holly bushes and eased out of the vehicle. The cold hit him like a slap to the face. Using the bushes and trees to mask his movements—and hoping like hell there weren’t any magickal security systems in place, he made his way up to the log cabin. It was a large place, nice, probably some vacation getaway for a wealthy Seelie or Unseelie. The windows were half frosted over, but he found one to peek through.
Someone passed by the window right as he peered in and he ducked down, out of sight. After a minute, he tried it again. There were two men in the house, a tall, strong-looking guy with red hair who he didn’t recognize and a man with brown hair and eyes who was wearing a suit—seemed kind of formal for a trek to the wilderness. Where was Elizabeth? His magick said she was here somewhere.
The brown-haired man paced in front of a couch that was turned so its back was toward the window, gesturing and talking as though agitated. The redhead sat on a chair turned backward, his expression apathetic and maybe just a tad pissed off. The suit-guy looked like he probably talked a lot. He looked like a weasel, too.
He caught sight of movement on the couch, a flash of a woman’s red head. Ah, there was Elizabeth. He studied the couch, silently willing her to move or do something so he could get a sense of what was happening. Was she in there of her own free will? Was this some new twist in their ill-advised and treacherous relationship?
Or was she a prisoner?
Silver flashed near the polished wood floor and Niall concentrated on it—a charmed iron cuff around her ankle. So, prisoner, then.
A crackle of a power signature not unlike his own zinged through his awareness. In the same instant, suit guy looked up, toward the window, his eyes focusing hawklike on Niall’s face in the millisecond before Niall lunged to the side, bolting for his SUV. The redheaded guy burst from the cabin behind, hollering for him to stop.
Niall climbed into his SUV and gunned the engine. He needed to get away, needed to regroup, needed to plan.
Needed to figure out who the fuck these men were and get Elizabeth away from them—and soon.
Magick exploded behind him as Niall gunned the vehicle out onto the road, spraying gravel underneath his tires. In the rearview mirror he caught a glimpse of the suit-guy standing in the road behind him, snowflakes catching on his dark lapels. The man’s mouth worked as he uttered words Niall couldn’t hear. It looked like he was working some kind of magick, not unlike the magick Niall wielded.
Power gathered in the air, raising the hair on the back of his neck, tasting like metal at the base of his tongue. Niall slammed his foot onto the accelerator, forcing the SUV’s transmission to clunk into a higher gear and squealing the tires. An alien source of power exploded like a bomb right where his vehicle had been a moment before, uprooting a small tree and sending dirt and rocks flying.
Fuck him. Whoever that man was, he could blow things up like Kolbjorn Einar Soren Halvorson, the death dealer.
He sped down the treacherous, narrow road, knowing like a punch to the gut that the redheaded hulk would be following. Sure enough, a heartbeat later, the white cargo van careened onto the road behind him.
Taking a turn so hard he nearly rolled the SUV, Niall spotted an opening between the trees and directed himself toward it. He risked entering the woods and not being able to find a way through, but it was his only shot at getting away from this guy. The roads up here were too unpredictable to drive fast on. He’d end up going over a cliff, and who would help Elizabeth then? Plus the spits of snow were fast becoming a full-fledged storm, diminishing his visibility. Luckily, there wasn’t enough on the ground yet to show his tracks.
Yanking on the steering wheel, he veered to the left, off the road and into the trees. It would be hard to navigate in here, but much harder for the cargo van. Finding the narrowest path through the trees he guided his vehicle as deep as he could into the foliage, hearing the twang and thunk of branches against the sides and undercarriage of the vehicle. He found a nice clump of bushes to hide the SUV behind and stopped, mumbling the words it took to pop a concealment spell into place. It would shield him from any locator magick either of the men might possess.
Rolling down his windows, he could hear the cargo van trying to follow, the squeal of spinning tires, silence, then the slam of a car door and lots of cursing.
“Fuck you, bastard,” Niall murmured. “You’ll never find me now.” He allowed his head to fall back against the headrest and let out a careful breath.
The redhead was definitely fae,
and from Irish descent if the accent and the quality of the cursing was any measure. The man still had a strong accent, which was…odd, considering all the Irish fae, himself included, had been trapped in Piefferburg for three hundred and sixty five years and time had bled their accent away into the lighter, more homogenous form that most Piefferburg fae possessed.
That was strange, but the suit man was even stranger. No one in Piefferburg had magick like that except himself and Ronan, so who the fuck was he? The only other people who had a power signature like that…
…were the Phaendir.
He closed his eyes. “Oh, fuck.”
ELIZABETH opened her eyes blearily to find Liam and Gideon bickering in the middle of the living room. They always bickered. They were like an old married couple that had nothing in common. But, of course, these two did have something in common—they wanted to break her.
Just like Niall had wanted to break her. Just like the Summer Queen.
She had a thing or two to show these people about how breakable she was.
“Why, in Labrai’s name, didn’t you stick your hands into the dirt and do that finding thing you do?”
“I told you,” answered Liam, his accent thicker when he was angry and spit flying everywhere, “I did do that. The fae had some way to mask himself. He entered the fecking woods and just fecking disappeared.”
Gideon grimaced and wiped some of Liam’s spittle from his face. “Masking magick means mage. Mage means Ronan or Niall fucking Quinn.” He said their names like he was announcing the spread of the Black Plague. “Niall Quinn, would be my specific guess. We should have killed those little Quinn bastards back when we had a chance.” Gideon turned toward her. “You’re wanted by so many men these days, cupcake.”
She gave him a chilly, unamused grin. “I’m flattered. Too bad they all want to kill me.”