I didn't want to stop running, ever. I didn't want to see the Others and wonder whose hit list I was on. I didn't want to go home. I just wanted to run and hear and taste and see and smell forever.
There were more rivers and more mountains, more cliffs that posed no threat to us as we leapt off. There were beaches and oceans, and I didn't stop even once to wonder at the way my feet beat against the water's surface.
And then we hit land, and things grew darker. The trees grew bigger, their bark like onyx and their leaves the darkest shade of green. The air became thicker, the taste closer to dark chocolate than cotton candy, and the earth beneath our feet gave way. The land tore itself apart so that we could fall and, even with nothing to stand on, still we ran.
And then we were there.
“Welcome, Bailey.”
It was hard to pay attention to my surroundings in the presence of a voice that embodied everything I should have been looking at: endless caverns made of black diamonds, darkness tinged with every color of the rainbow.
“Where am I?” I asked.
Drogan stepped forward from the glittering shadows. “Welcome to the Unseelie Court,” he said.
“This place may not suit you as well as the mountains,” Eze said, shining as much in the darkness as she did in her own terrain, her pink hair standing out in sharp contrast to the deep richness of the black all around her. “But it does have its charm.”
“We'll leave it to Bailey to decide which side of our world suits her better,” Drogan said. “You are Sidhe, child, and until this moment, until you stood here in this place, you had but scratched the surface of what that means.”
He said surface with just the slightest twist of his lips. The day before, on the mountaintop, the two of them had presented a united front, but today, I could sense the undercurrents of tension between them. Maybe it was because of the things Adea and Valgius had told me, because I knew that the Reckoning meant choosing between Seelie and Unseelie, the mountain and the depths.
“You'll make no choices tonight,” Eze said. “Do not worry about such things, Bailey. These decisions often make themselves. We only ask that you stay here for a while. Make yourself comfortable. Talk with the other younglings. Your Reckoning will be here soon enough.”
Drogan flashed me a kind and blindingly white smile that scared the crap out of me, and then the “adults” excused themselves and left me alone with the next generation of Sidhe once again.
Only this time, I knew that somebody here had it out for me and that whoever it was had taken full advantage of the changing rules governing the separation between this world and the one I had, at one point in time, considered my own.
“Heya, Bailey,” James said, waving to punctuate his words. “How's it going?”
I immediately scratched him off of my suspect list— not that he'd ever been on it. James's presence put me at ease, and I stepped toward him. Unfortunately, my ease didn't last as I closed the distance between us, because I made the mistake of glancing around. I was standing in a place that made darkness a counterpart in beauty to light. My body was glowing like a night-light, and I found myself strangely compelled to reach out and play with the shadows. They weren't earthly shadows. Like everything in this world, instead of existing between two states, they existed in both at once. There was light in the shadows, and darkness. They were both and neither, but absolutely nothing in between, and I pushed down the urge to run my fingertips along them, stroking them as if they were alive. Given my experiences with earthly shadows lately and the fact that, for all I knew, these Otherworldly ones were the means through which the Sidhe had traveled to the ones in my world to begin with, wanting to pet the darkness wasn't exactly what I'd call a logical reaction.
“How's it going?” I repeated James's greeting, settling for familiarity since it seemed that logic was completely out of my grasp.
“It's amazing, isn't it?” James asked. “I mean, who knew there were so many shades of black?” He lowered his voice and, even though his words remained completely casual, something about his tone made me shiver—in a good way. “Do you see what I mean about things existing in balance here, Bailey? In this world, even dark can be light.”
His words were so close to my thoughts that he may as well have been flashing a neon sign that said I GET YOU. I GET YOU. I GET YOU. Now if only he'd tell me to stop thinking about him and start concentrating on the problem I came to the Otherworld to solve.
“It's good to see you again, Bay.”
Beside us, Xane stiffened, clearly not liking James's casual tone. “You are welcome here,” Xane told me formally. “As the heir to the Unseelie throne”—that got eye rolls from both Axia and Lyria as they appeared on either side of him—”I bid you welcome to the Unseelie Court.”
The three of them were heirs, the biggest political power players of my generation. If the attack on my world (and on me) had in any way been orchestrated by Drogan and Eze as part of some as-yet-unseen plan, Axia, Lyria, and Xane were all prime suspects.
At that point, I registered that I had been welcomed and tried to generate a proper response. “Thank you,” I said, my voice coming out as powerful and ancient as it had the night before, with just the slightest husky hint of things I knew nothing about. It echoed up and down the caverns until the walls absorbed it and my words became part of this place forever. The darkness called to me, pulling at the ink on my tattooed skin and the sometimes-blue, sometimes-red blood in my veins.
“We've brought guests to meet you, Bailey.” Axia's voice was measured and her words were deliberate.
“Someone to meet me?” I repeated. I still couldn't quite grasp why it was that I'd merited so much attention (both positive and negative) from Eze and Drogan, their offspring, and the rest. I wasn't even full-blooded Sidhe. I reeked of mortality. Why would anyone who lived in a place like this want to meet me? Why would anyone even take the time to threaten me?
I just wasn't that important.
Was I?
“Girls,” Axia called, and immediately, I was surrounded by a flutter of motion and greeted by nine voices speaking as one. I felt vaguely like I'd been caught in a field of massive butterflies, but when I managed to concentrate on the girls' features, I realized that they looked as human as I did. Granted, at the moment, that wasn't incredibly human, but despite the fact that these girls moved so quickly and fluidly that it seemed like they were flying, there definitely wasn't a set of wings in sight.
“Hello, Bailey,” the girls greeted me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to concentrate on just one of them. Their voices were hypnotically musical, and all nine of them seemed to exist in a state of perpetual motion.
“Muses,” James said wryly under his breath, as if that single comment explained it all.
“Muses,” I repeated.
James rolled his eyes.
“I've brought a guest as well.” Xane was not about to be outdone by a gaggle of females.
“Hello.”
I turned toward the sound of the greeting, and for a split second, I balked.
Okay, I thought, scratch the part about there not being any wings in sight.
“Eros,” James murmured in my ear.
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “I got that much.”
His wings were black, the exact same shade as the diamond-lined walls of Hades' caverns. Somehow, I'd never pictured Cupid looking quite so imposing. Or quite so shirtless.
Or, you know, quite so much like an angry Abercrombie model with wings.
Suddenly, my suspect list had just gotten much, much longer. I'd been working off the assumption that I'd already met all of the younger Sidhe, and my instincts told me that the people who'd attacked Jessica were young. But if it turned out that there were many more that I hadn't met, more where Eros and the Muses had come from …
I might never figure this thing out.
“Would you like to dance?” Eros extended one hand, and I had to remind myself that h
e was potentially evil.
“You can always dance with me instead,” James told me. “I promise not to step on your toes.” There was nothing special or flirtatious about his words, but his tone and his eyes held something else. His boyish charm and borderline-human appearance were completely at odds with everything else around us and with the power I felt in his presence, but I found myself drawn to him.
“Sure,” I said.
Eros—if that was his real name, which seemed doubtful—accepted my decision with a nod and took a step back. Xane frowned. Beside him, Axia and Lyria showed no emotion, but I got the distinct feeling that they were pleased with this turn of events.
I also got the distinct feeling that I had no idea what was really going on here. And that whatever I was doing, it probably wasn't a good idea.
“Just follow my lead,” James said, and I found myself desperately wanting to, even when he grinned broadly and added, “I've always wanted to say that.”
He took both of my hands in his and nodded to the muses. “A little music please, ladies?”
Music isn't the right word for the sounds that followed. My flimsy grasp of Greek mythology told me that only some of the Muses had anything to do with music, but all nine of them contributed to the melody that filled the air, and I couldn't shake the feeling that what they were doing here—what they were making—was every bit as complicated as the web that I wove with my dance each night.
There was magic in this song and in this place, and the combination of the two did something to me. It was as if the Muses had constructed this song—deep and sad and a little bit dark—with this place in mind, and as James and I swayed back and forth, our movements fit so perfectly to the tune that I couldn't shake the feeling that I belonged here too.
Even stronger than that was the feeling that I belonged with James. He'd always known me. He'd missed me before we met, and I felt like we'd danced together a million times before. This didn't feel like a date, and it certainly didn't feel like a first one.
It felt like forever.
The song became faster, and the hint of sadness faded away to reveal something in equal parts urgent andexquisite underneath. James let go of one of my hands and spun me around with the other. I could barely remember the mortal realm, and even as the dancing grew faster, the moves more complicated, I flew through them effortlessly.
Apparently, dancing was right up there with running (and possibly James) on the list of things that my Sidhe body was made for.
The song changed again, and we slowed for a bit, our movements perfectly in sync as the others joined us. The music continued, and we never stopped, never paused, never even spoke. We didn't need to. Every spin, every step, every tilt of the head was its own language, and the message this dance communicated was plain as day.
Sidhe.
Sidhe.
Sidhe.
This is where you belong.
This is what you are.
This is the dance you are meant to dance. We were meant to dance it together. Each moment here is worth more than an eternity on Earth.
Sidhe.
James tossed me into the air, and I arched my body, throwing my head back. The thick air of the underrealm caressed my body, holding me aloft long enough that I wondered if I was flying. Seconds ticked by, and still my feet didn't touch the ground. My pose became more extreme, until my head and my feet nearly touched each other behind my body. Finally, I sank down and James caught me again.
“You're very flexible,” he whispered.
I wasn't. Not really. But in the Otherworld, I was many things that I really wasn't. Or maybe, a small voice whispered inside my head, on Earth, I wasn't many things that I really was.
That thought was so confusing that I couldn't even begin to make sense of it and, as the dancing continued, I didn't try. The song became even faster and more layered, and I concentrated on the steps, the elaborate, interconnected motions that I somehow knew by heart, even though I'd never danced them before.
The Muses' singing changed from sweet to bittersweet to something else altogether, and I could feel the emotions building up inside of me. Each note was torture and ecstasy, and I wanted—needed—to do something. I just had no idea what. The dancing continued, until finally it was too much for me, and I just started laughing.
And soon everyone was laughing and dancing, and the song turned sweet again. It slowed, until James and I were swaying once more, both feet planted firmly on the ground.
“You're a good dancer,” he said.
“Something tells me that everyone here is a good dancer,” I said.
“Aha!” he said jokingly as he brought his hand to my chin in a gesture that was anything but jesting. “I told you that you belonged here, that you were one of us.”
I got the feeling that he couldn't have given me a higher compliment, but at the same time, the words made me feel a little queasy. Was I one of them? Could I be?
Hadn't I just come to the realization that I wasn't anything anymore? I wasn't human, I wasn't Sidhe, I wasn't in balance. I was liminal, and I was me, and I knew, just knew, that wasn't going to be enough.
Dancing with James hadn't brought me balance. It didn't solve my problems. But it felt so right that the tentative grasp I had on my own doubts and what I'd learned floated out of my head, banished by the movements of our bodies and the sound of the song.
“You okay?” James asked, and I was struck again by how utterly familiar the expressions on his glittering face were. If I'd been dancing with anyone else, if I'd felt this way about anyone else here, I was pretty sure that queasy would have progressed to nausea, and quite possibly to “being the first Sidhe to barf during the Reckoning process.”
“Bay?”
The nickname made me smile. Something about being near James just felt so right. My mind flitted briefly to Alec, back on Earth, but I couldn't picture his face in James's presence, so I came to the very logical conclusion that there was no reason for me to try. I had my very own hot—but adorably human—Sidhe boy right here. What more did I want?
“I'm fine,” I said. He moved a little closer to me, and we continued to dance to the slow, rhythmic music, our movements gentle and perfectly matched. “Just a little overwhelmed.”
“You?” James said, his voice full of faux shock. “Never!”
“Shut up.”
“As you wish,” he said, but the grin was back on his face with a vengeance.
“So,” I said, searching for a topic of conversation.
“So,” he returned.
I wondered if he was having as much trouble as I was reconciling the sound of our voices, powerful and old, with our conversation, which sounded pretty much like every awkward conversation I'd ever had with a boy.
“So,” I continued, “who are you?”
Until I asked, I'd completely forgotten that I wanted to know, but as was so often the case, my brain ended up playing catch-up with my mouth.
“Feeling philosophical?” James asked. “I think, therefore I'm James.”
And I'm yours. That addition was silent, but I felt it in his smile and his tone.
“You're James,” I said, and for a second I wondered if I'd accidentally replied, “I'm yours, too” instead. I covered quickly, aiming for the goofy, casual tone he sometimes used with me. “You're the ‘first James,’ I know, but that wasn't what I meant. Axia is Artemis. Lyria is Aphro dite. The Muses are … the Muses. So who are you?”
“What if I told you I was nobody?” he asked.
“I wouldn't believe you,” I said softly. If anybody here was nobody, it was me, and given that I was one of the three Fates, I just couldn't picture James as not playing his role as well. It was much easier to picture Xane as “nobody” in Greek myths, because so much of his identity was tied up in being his father's mini-me. James, on the other hand, had to be someone. I was sure of it.
“I am a man of mystery,” James said, striking a James Bond-esque pose. “Plus, I kind of
don't want to tell you.”
He made me laugh. It was so strange: one second the two of us were connected on some deep and mind-blowing level, and the next, he was a goofball and I was a goofette. It was so completely odd, but so right.
“It can't be that bad,” I said, searching his eyes for confirmation. “Right?”
James looked a little bit sheepish.
“Fine,” I sighed. “In that case, tell me about the others.”
He raised one eyebrow quizzically. “The others? I already told you most of what I know.”
“Not who they were in Greek mythology,” I said. “Tell me about who they are now. You know … normal stuff.” He seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. “Like who's dating who. Or who the cool kids are. Or what their powers are.”
Okay, so maybe that last one wasn't entirely normal, but I was curious. I wasn't exactly sure why I was curious, and I got the feeling that there was something I should have been remembering, something that this place and this moment and James were keeping me from thinking about, the same way it made my thoughts fuzzy whenever I tried to think about my friends.
Hadn't I come here for a reason?
Hadn't I been scared of something?
I couldn't quite remember, which was strange, but not quite as strange as the fact that I suddenly didn't want to.
“Powers?” James repeated.
I gave him a look. Even when my mind was fuzzy, playing dumb didn't work on me. I was friends with Delia, and she made pretending to be more clueless than she was an art form. Or at least I was pretty sure that I was and that she did, but under the influence of the rainbow of blackness here, I couldn't have sworn to it. Strange feeling, that—being unsure of the one thing in life that I'd always known was true.
“What can you do?” I said. “What can anyone here do? Like … Eros. Does he really have a bow and arrow? Does he make people fall in love?”
Is he the reason I feel this way with you? I thought. It made no sense. None of it made any sense.
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