“Part of me wants to lock you away in a tower, never let you come to harm—never allow another being to so much as look upon you.” He grazed my jaw with his thumb, moving our lips closer as he spoke. “The other part of me, the more rational part”—the corners of his mouth twitched up in wry amusement—“just wants to sit back and let you astound the world. To set you free from anything that might hold you back, myself included.”
I shook my head. “You wouldn’t hold me back. You know how to love better than you think you do.”
My lips pressed against his. His mouth had a salty tang that drove me crazy. Our kiss deepened, driven by my urge to be as close and intimate with Tejus as I possibly could. My tiredness had completely vanished. I wished that I could freeze time—that this moment could last for an eternity, that our heated kiss would never have the chance to cool off.
“Are we interrupting something?”
Reluctantly I drew myself back from Tejus, and grinned at Ash and Ruby, who had entered through the arch in the garden wall. I couldn’t believe that Ash was standing, let alone smirking at the two of us.
“Welcome back,” Tejus announced dryly. He stood up, frowning at Ash—I could see he was just as amazed at our friend’s transformation from nearly dead to healthy.
Ruby broke the strangeness of the moment by running forward and enveloping me in a massive hug. I returned it, grinning like a maniac—not just because I was profoundly relieved to see her alive and well, but also because the hunger that would have made me hesitate in the past was completely absent.
“Okay,” I laughed, untangling myself. “What the hell happened? I saw your injuries, Ash—I didn’t expect to see you on your feet for a while.”
“I’m as amazed as you are. The immortal waters are even more impressive than I thought,” he replied. “To be frank, I’m furious that the Impartial Ministers kept it to themselves—if we’d known about it…” His voice trailed off. I guessed where his thoughts were going—if the waters could heal him from an injury like that, then their medicinal properties could have helped a lot of sentries over the years.
“Let’s just be thankful that Queen Trina wasn’t aware of it,” Tejus replied. “Or my father.”
Tejus moved over to the overgrown lawn where we’d been practicing our barrier-building, and bent down to retrieve something from the ground. I recognized the Hellswan sword, enclosed in its protective sheath.
“This belongs to you.” Tejus proffered the weapon in Ash’s direction. “I picked it up when you were attacked. I hoped you’d be back to claim it.”
Instead of taking it out of Tejus’s hand, Ash crossed his arms and shook his head.
“The sword no longer belongs to me, Tejus. You’re the remaining heir of the Hellswan family—and the kingdom is gone. You’re its rightful owner.”
Tejus cocked an eyebrow.
“It’s good steel, Ash.”
“It’s more than that, and you know it.”
Tejus paused for a moment, and then nodded his thanks. He reattached the sword to his belt. “Make sure you pick up another from the armory, today,” he murmured. He seemed to be shrugging off the sentiment of the gift, but I knew Tejus better than that. He was deeply moved by Ash’s actions.
Ruby winked at me, obviously thinking the same thing.
A moment later, my grandpa, great-grandpa Aiden, and Sherus walked into the garden. Their eyes lighted with surprise on Ash, and they made the same stunned remarks that Tejus and I had about his bizarrely good health.
“How’s the barrier coming along?” my grandpa asked, once Ash had debriefed them all.
“Not well,” Tejus replied curtly. “We’ll keep trying, but I’m not holding out much hope. Until we know how it happened, I’m not entirely sure we’re going to be able to replicate it.”
My grandpa nodded, but he and Sherus exchanged a worried glance. I felt terrible that I was letting them down—and we would keep trying, but it was starting to feel near impossible. I wondered how much time we had left before the entity and its army struck again. Shouldn’t we be looking for another way to hold them off?
“We all need to get some rest,” my grandpa announced. “We don’t know when the next attack is going to be, and I advise that you try to recuperate while we have the chance.”
“Are the ministers still working in shifts to maintain the barriers?” Tejus asked.
“They are,” Aiden confirmed.
Before Tejus could say another word, Ibrahim and Corrine appeared from the opposite side of the garden, making their way toward us with perturbed expressions.
“Derek, there you are,” Ibrahim called out, untangling his jacket from a thorn bush as they hurried toward us.
I waited impatiently for the witch and warlock to tell us what they’d found across the water. They sounded a little breathless as they approached—they’d obviously been looking for my grandpa for a while.
“It’s blocked off,” Ibrahim announced as soon as he reached us. “We can only get ten or so miles out to sea, then we can’t go any further. There’s some kind of dome over Nevertide.”
“Can you see anything?” my grandpa asked.
Corrine shook her head.
“There’s some kind of illusion on the barrier, or ‘dome’ —showing more sea until the horizon, then there’s nothing but sky.”
“Is it like a sentry barrier?” I asked, wondering if the Impartial Ministers were responsible for this as well.
“Not exactly,” Ibrahim replied. “We never touched the surface of it exactly. It was like we were moving forward, but staying in the same place—more of a figurative barrier than a physical one.”
“Actually, that sounds familiar,” Ruby mused, “similar to the barrier that we faced when we tried to get out of Nevertide. But then we did touch the surface, and it stretched like elastic. Maybe it’s different.”
“There definitely wasn’t anything we could touch in place—we tried. The illusion reaches upward as well, creating a shelter over the land. Whoever put it in place is exceptionally powerful—this isn’t the work of sentries,” Corrine said, glancing over at Ash and Tejus. Her eyebrows rose slightly as she saw Ash, but she didn’t comment on his appearance.
“Are we thinking that the jinn or jinni created it?” Aiden asked.
The witches looked at one another, silently deliberating.
“We think so,” Ibrahim replied slowly. “I can’t think what other creature would have the power to make something so impenetrable and impervious to other forms of magic, except perhaps the entity, but this dome has obviously been up for a long time. The entity wouldn’t have been able to maintain it while locked in the stones. This kind of power requires a constant source.”
“And what about the rips in the sky?” my grandpa asked. “Are they not breaks in the dome?”
“We thought so at first,” Ibrahim replied, “and they certainly appear to be signs of the entity trying to break this barrier, or dome, but he hasn’t succeeded.” The warlock looked troubled, scratching his head before continuing. “It is strange… Almost as if the sky itself is an artifice which the entity has ripped, but not been able to break through.”
“We recognized some of the constellations as we got closer though,” Corrine added. “The sky is the same as that in the supernatural realm. There must be other lands outside of this one – we should consider this dome a blessing, in a way.”
Everyone was silent as we digested the information. It just seemed so strange to me that there would be jinn living here who had gone undetected for so long. Especially if they had so much power over Nevertide—what was in it for them? Why did they so badly want to be cut off from the rest of the supernatural world—especially now, with the entity having escaped? Surely, at this moment, this was the most dangerous land in all the dimensions?
“I agree that this is good thing.” Sherus broke the silence first, his voice low and thoughtful. “It means there’s only one way out of Nevertide—through
that portal. Which means there’s only one location that we need to guard and protect. Whatever happens, the entity must not be permitted to leave.”
I agreed with the fae king, but it was easier said than done. The entity was obviously aware of the fact, which was why it had chosen to concentrate its army at the cove. For all we knew, some of its army might have already escaped through the portal to Earth.
“We will find a way to shut it,” Aiden replied, “but not until we find a way to distract the entity. We can’t, and won’t, just blindly send more men out there to die.”
I could tell the fae king wanted to protest, but this operation was under GASP’s control. We would just have to wait, patiently, till we got our opportunity…
I hoped it would be sooner rather than later.
Hazel
I awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. It was still mid-afternoon, judging by the position of the sun, and the room was silent.
What woke me?
I looked over at Tejus. He was groaning in his sleep, his eyes screwed shut with an expression of anguish across his face. Without warning, he suddenly cried out, his muscles tensing, entwining his body in the covers.
“Tejus, Tejus, wake up—you’re having a bad dream,” I whispered, gently shaking him. He caught my wrist in a tight grip, holding it still. His eyes opened, staring up at me. It took a moment for the dream to pass and for reality to reassert itself—eventually I could see his eyes focus, and he released my hand.
“Sorry,” he gasped, sitting up in bed.
His body was drenched in sweat, and he sat for a moment, his head clasped in the palms of his hands.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Am I okay?
“I’m fine! Wh-What happened?”
He shook his head, his hand coming to rest on the sheets, but his gaze was fixed ahead, as if he was reliving whatever it was he’d dreamed all over again.
“Tejus, stop,” I said firmly. “You need to talk—what was that about? Was it the battle?”
He shook his head again.
“No,” he replied quietly. “It wasn’t the battle we were in—it was other…places. On Earth, and somewhere else. People screaming, running for their lives, panicking…there was nothing I could do.”
My blood ran cold.
“Did it feel like it was a vision, or an omen?” I replied slowly.
“I don’t know. Perhaps.”
I reached out and touched his hand. He jumped a little, instinctively trying to move it away, but I held on, and eventually I felt his muscles relax.
“Can you share it through a mind-meld?” I asked. “Like we did when Queen Trina tried to kidnap me?”
“We could.” He gulped. “It’s not pleasant.”
“All the more reason for me to see it. If it is a vision of some kind, then it would be good to know where on Earth these things are taking place.”
“All right,” he conceded. “Just tell me to stop when you’ve had enough.”
I nodded.
“Promise me,” he growled.
“I promise,” I replied, hiding a smile. Tejus was trying to protect me from dreams now? He obviously hadn’t realized the extent of my over-active imagination. If he didn’t show me, I would imagine the worst.
I felt his energy reaching out for mine, dark and silken, like wisps of smoke. I realized that I was witnessing the look and feel of a nightmare. Instead of Tejus’s normal golden threads of mental energy, they had been distorted by whatever had plagued his mind. Regardless, my own energy reached out and intertwined with his, and soon the room, the bed, and Tejus’s form next to me faded away to nothingness. I felt like I was suspended in mid-air, surrounded by gray, ashen matter—almost as if I was in the midst of the shadow army itself.
The mists started to move, and suddenly I was jolted violently into a vision. I was on Earth, standing on a wide, neatly manicured lawn. Screams of terror came from behind me. Spinning around, I saw a multitude of people running at me head-on. Men with briefcases, women holding strollers and small children, students with book bags, and waiters still wearing aprons—hundreds of them all yelling and crying. I looked up to the sky, seeing the shadow of the entity appearing over a large, steel structure. Before I could react, a woman barged past me. As our eyes met, her body transformed, her blue dress and pretty face becoming distorted, graying before my eyes, till her sockets were black holes and she roared at me, her jaw hanging as the shadow consumed her. I screamed, feeling a burning sensation at the back of my mouth.
The vision vanished just as abruptly as it had come, and I was jolted to a new destination—another place on Earth, with cobbled streets and small, pretty shop windows that were twinkling. I could smell the aroma of chocolate, and hear a bell sounding in the distance. The screams sounded again, and I could hear the echo of hundreds of people running a few streets away, the shop windows shaking from the stampede.
Before I could even witness the horror of the people, I was transported again—this time to a more metropolitan destination that I recognized as London. I was by the River Thames, looking out toward Big Ben. The shadow slowly moved toward me, darkening the buildings like a huge thundercloud. A single cry went up, and I looked over to the left, watching a child crying over a fallen ice-cream. The ground started to shake beneath my feet. The child’s mother looked up, her gaze confused, then quickly turning to fear as the earth jolted.
I turned my head back toward the shadow, but it was too late. I was already being shown another vision, another city—this one I didn’t recognize immediately, but it was just as crowded as the one before. Now the vision was starting to flicker and blur, and I thought my time in Tejus’s head was up.
I could feel our bond weakening, but before it did I saw another place, certainly not on Earth. This one was impossibly beautiful, with a large white-stone fortress in front of me, and leaping ice-fire fountains marking the way to the door of the castle. I heard a roar—loud and inhuman, one that shook my bones, making my entire body tremble. I shut my eyes against it, not wanting to see anymore. The next moment, I was back in the room, pushing Tejus away from me.
“That was horrible,” I rasped, leaping up from the bed.
“I know,” he replied quietly.
I realized why he hadn’t wanted to share it with me. It wasn’t what I’d seen exactly that was so terrifying, though that was bad enough, but more what I’d felt. I’d been so helpless to do anything except acknowledge the crushing force of the entity—knowing, with every fiber of my being, that it was coming, but that I would be able to do nothing. That we had already lost.
“It’s showing us, isn’t it? It’s showing us how powerful it is. That… that we’re already too late?” I stammered my question to Tejus, my heart beating erratically. I paced up and down the room, my arms clutched tight around my frame.
“Hazel, stop.” Tejus threw back the covers. “Get back into bed. You need to calm down; this isn’t helping anyone.”
His words felt harsh, but he was right—I was starting to get hysterical and panic. I took a deep breath, trying to regulate my heartbeat. I walked slowly back to the bed, and climbed in. Tejus drew me next to him.
“We’ll go down and speak to Derek in a minute,” he assured me.
His arms wrapped around me, and I lay with my head against his chest. He felt so solid and comforting, further aiding my return to reality.
“I recognized some of those places,” I whispered. “London, Paris—that was the one with the lawns and the big tower in the distance—and I think one of them was on a planet in the In-Between. Something about it reminded me of the fae…but I’m not sure what, exactly.”
“Will the others know?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so. Most of GASP have traveled the world over. I just hope I can describe them well enough—the visions are so disjointed.”
Tejus was silent, his fingers methodically running down the length of my hair.
“If they are visi
ons, and they come from the entity, why is it showing them to us?” he mused, sighing.
“I guess to taunt us? They had that kind of feel to them, like the powerlessness—I got the impression we were being shown something we couldn’t stop.”
“Did you feel anything else—like an energy…that didn’t belong to you or me?” he asked tentatively.
“Do you mean the same as when we built the barrier? I don’t know—it was strange, but I put that down to being a nightmare, of sorts.”
He fell silent again, and I wondered what he was thinking.
“You’re right,” he agreed eventually, “it was probably that. Let’s go and speak to your grandfather. We need to warn the rest of them.”
I slid off the bed, with some reluctance. I got the impression that Tejus was holding something back from me—a thought or idea. I didn’t push him though. He was right. GASP needed to know what was coming.
Benedict
When we reached the end of the poppy field, there was more forest waiting for us. I groaned inwardly. I’d had enough of battling my way through trees and brambles and narrowly avoiding falling into bogs. I could see why none of the sentries ventured up here. If the creatures weren’t going to get you, then the plants probably would.
“More forest?” Yelena moaned. “Ugh. I’m sick of forest.”
“We know the mountains aren’t far now,” Julian replied, but he sounded just as weary as the rest of us – the energy from the flowers had drained quickly. The end did seem to be in sight though. Now, when we looked up, we could see the peaks of the mountains through the tree branches in the distance—but at least they were in sight.
“So then we’re going to have to scale that massive thing?” Yelena whined.
“Do you have any better ideas?” I retorted.
“I do—we can at least rest and eat something, and I can get rid of the pebble in my boot that’s been driving me crazy for the last three miles.”
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