The Shattered Dark

by Sandy Williams

  My brow furrows as I try to make sense of his words. “To the meeting?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  I raise an eyebrow. “The meeting with the high nobles?”

  “Yes.”

  I reach up to take his hand away from my face so I can think about something besides his touch. It doesn’t help much, though, because he doesn’t let go of my hand.

  “They’ll hate that,” I say.

  He responds with a smile.

  Ah, I see. He doesn’t want to go play politics. “That’s okay. I’ll pass.”

  “You can think about it on the way,” he says, as if I didn’t just answer. “It could be entertaining.”

  He uses his foot to nudge something out from under the bed. Tennis shoes, the ones I bought on the way to the gate in Vegas. I let out an exaggerated sigh but grab a pair of socks and shove my feet into the shoes. They’re dry. I don’t think they’ve had enough time to do that on their own, so I’m guessing a fae evaporated the rest of the water using magic.

  Aren opens the door. I finger-comb my hair, pull it back into a quick ponytail, and ask, “Will Lena let me sit in on the meeting?”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  If Atroth were still king, it wouldn’t be a question. He would never have considered letting me stick around for even an informal conversation with a high noble. Oh, he would have been polite about it, maybe even apologetic, but he would have sent me back to Earth the moment I finished whatever task he gave me to do.

  Things aren’t that way with Lena and the rebels. I’ve made it clear I want to know what’s going on in this war, and I won’t let them keep me in the dark like her predecessor did.

  Aren and I are passing through the sculpture garden, and I’m imagining all sorts of reactions from the high nobles if I decide to sit in on that meeting when Lena steps out of the north wing of the palace. She stops beside a carved pillar, looking almost startled to see us.

  “Is the meeting canceled?” Aren asks, sounding hopeful.

  Lena’s gaze moves back and forth between us before it settles on Aren. “It…No. No, it’s not canceled.”

  “Then you’re running away?” he asks, letting the question hang there.

  Her expression turns cool. “No. I came to get you. I want you to look like a sword-master at this meeting. There’s new armor waiting for you in your room. Go change into it.”

  “I don’t think what I wear will make a diff—”

  “Go, Aren,” she says.

  He clenches his jaw as he nods once, reluctantly accepting her order before he turns and leaves. I actually agree with Lena. Aren and the rest of the rebels should look like they belong in this palace; they shouldn’t look like they’re…well, rebels. This is just an odd time to insist on the clothing change.

  I’m struck by how exhausted Lena looks. Her hair, usually shiny and smooth, is pulled back into a simple ponytail, and the silver in her eyes is dark. They don’t have that sharp edge that they used to.

  “When was the last time you slept?” I ask.

  As if she’s suddenly conscious of her appearance, she straightens. “When was the last time you slept?” she fires back.

  “I just woke up,” I point out.

  “Unconsciousness doesn’t count as sleep.” The almost petulant note in her tone reminds me of Kelia, which is a comparison I really don’t want to make. Lena and I are allies. It’s best that I think of her as a queen and a means to keep the people I love safe.

  “So tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Everything,” Lena says. She draws in a breath, lets it out. “The high nobles. They insist I tell them who…” She stops, closes her eyes and begins again. “They’re insisting I tell them who killed Atroth.”

  Kyol killed Atroth. She’s keeping that from them? “Does it matter who did it?”

  She gives me a look. “It’s illegal to kill a king.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “And nothing,” she says, almost dismissively. “Let’s not talk here.”

  She turns to head back inside the north wing of the palace. I have to jog to catch up with her.

  “I received a message today,” Lena says, when I reach her side.

  When she doesn’t elaborate, my gut tightens. “What did it say?”

  She looks at me a moment before focusing ahead. Her face is rigid when she says, “If I let you go, I have to let them go. It could be a trap, and…” She sighs. “And nothing can happen to you. I’ll lose both of them if you die.”

  I grab her arm, make her stop walking. “What did the message say, Lena?”

  She easily shakes free of my hold as she faces me. Then she hands me a folded piece of paper she removes from beneath her jaedric belt.

  I open it.

  “Shane said it gives Paige’s location.”

  A good number of fae can speak my language, but I don’t know of any who can read it. What looks like a UK address is written in the center of the paper. Below it is Paige’s name. That’s it. No explanation.

  “Who’s this from?” I ask.

  Lena’s lip twitches. “It’s anonymous. It came with a stack of other correspondence.”

  I sniff. Of course. I look back down at the writing. It could be from Lorn. It could also be from the remnants. “How do we know it’s not a trap?”

  “We don’t. That’s why you can’t go.”

  Refolding the paper, I slip it into my pocket. “I can’t not go.”

  “I know that, too.” After a moment, she adds, “Most of the time, these tips turn out to be nothing.”

  “And sometimes they turn out to be solid. London is a big city. Humans will be everywhere.”

  “I can’t send you there alone, and I need Kyol and Aren both at this meeting. We might be able to force the high nobles to vote.”

  My eyebrows go up. “Really?”

  “The fae you tracked to Eksan,” she says. “We were able to recapture him and the three fae he met. Two of them confirmed that the remnants don’t have a Descendant they can put on the throne.”

  “That’s good,” I say. An understatement. It’s really good, and a tension I didn’t realize I felt slowly lifts from my shoulders. If the high nobles approve her, things should get better soon.

  Lena nods. “I need my lord general and sword-master with me when I talk with them. They respect Kyol’s opinion, and Aren is good at reading people. I won’t be able to send them with you until after the meeting.”

  I play with the scrap of paper in my pocket. “Any guess how long Paige might be at this location or how long the meeting will last?”

  “On how long Paige might be there, no. On how long this meeting will take? Forever.”

  I’m not sure how much of an exaggeration that is.

  “How long have you had this?” I ask.

  “It just came.”

  “And there’s no way of knowing how long ago it was written,” I say.

  “No,” she answers, even though I wasn’t quite asking a question.

  “Can you send a couple of other fae with me?” Without knowing more about the tip or Paige’s condition, I can’t convince myself to wait for the meeting to end.

  Lena nods. “I can. But what am I supposed to tell them if you don’t come back?”

  “I’ll come back,” I say. “If there are too many remnants in London, we’ll leave.”

  She looks at me dubiously. “You’ll leave even if you see your friend there?”

  “I don’t have a death wish,” I say. That’s not exactly answering the question, but Lena doesn’t press it.

  FOURTEEN

  LENA SENDS SHANE with me. Apparently, he lived in London for a year before moving to Houston. He says he knows the area of the city where Paige is, possibly, being held. That will save time. If the tip doesn’t pan out, we should be back in Corrist before Aren or Kyol know we were gone.

  The stretch of the Inner City between the palace and the silver wall is shortest in the northeast corner.
That also happens to be where Corrist’s gate is. Lena said she’d have two fae meet us in the antechamber, so Shane and I wait there for our escorts.

  “I found a house we can rent in Vegas,” Shane says, leaning against the wall and playing with something in the pocket of his jacket. The jacket is made from a soft, expensive-looking black leather. I grabbed a longer coat from the palace’s supply of human clothing. It’s white and a little big, but it hides my dagger, and I didn’t have much else to choose from. Atroth kept only a limited amount of my world’s textiles here. It’s ironic he kept any at all considering how adamant he was about keeping our cultures separate, but there were enough occasions when he needed his fae to be visible on Earth that he decided to keep a stash here.

  “Where?” I ask Shane.

  “It’s on the west side of the city,” he says.

  “Is that an expensive side of the city?” His place back in Houston was huge. At the time, he worked for Atroth the same as I did, but he demanded the king pay his mortgage along with an insanely high monthly allowance. I was happy in my little apartment—it was my home for almost eight years—and I’ve never been comfortable with accepting more money than I need to get by. All I need is attention from the IRS. Honestly, I don’t know how Shane hasn’t set off red flags with his lifestyle.

  “About that,” Shane says, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. “You have to ask Lena for a raise. She won’t pay me more than she pays you.”

  Good for her, I think. Out loud, I say, “We’ll be fine in an apartment.”

  “You’ll be fine in an apartment. Not me. I need space.”

  “Get a job,” I tell him. Then, I curse.

  A job. That’s exactly what I’m supposed to be getting.

  “What day is it?” Damn it, I don’t even know where my driver’s license and Social Security card are now. If they survived my dip in Rhigh’s river, they’re in my old jeans.

  “In Vegas? Thursday afternoon, I think,” he says. “Why? You have a date?”

  That leaves me around twenty-four hours to meet with Jenkins and finish my paperwork. If everything goes smoothly, it’s doable, and I want that job. I need to feel like a normal human every once in a while—I can’t live and breathe war twenty-four/seven—but finding Paige and making sure she’s okay is more important than that. Way more important.

  “It’s nothing,” I tell Shane. If I can’t make it to Jenkins’s office by five tomorrow, I’ll just have to convince him I had a crisis that couldn’t be avoided.

  Shane doesn’t have a chance to press the issue. Trev steps into the antechamber. He’s raided the king’s stockpile of human clothing, too, and is wearing khaki pants and a sweater loose enough to hide a good-sized dagger underneath. Since we’re going to a city with a dense population, there’s too much of a chance that someone would bump into the fae if they were invisible, so I insisted our escorts allow the humans to see them. Their chaos lusters will still be invisible to anyone who doesn’t have the Sight, and as long as no more than two or three fae are visible at once, people tend to overlook their otherness. They don’t notice their silver eyes or their slightly exotic faces.

  “Looks like you’re stuck with me again,” I say to Trev.

  “Not exactly.” He gives me a half smile, and I swear that’s the first time I’ve seen him do anything but frown. He steps farther into the antechamber, making room for…

  Aren. I keep my face expressionless as he approaches. It’s not easy, though, and not just because I feel like a teenager caught sneaking out at night. Aren, too, is dressed in human clothing. The only time I haven’t seen him in fae garb was when he wore a suit to Paige’s sister’s wedding. He was gorgeous then. He’s gorgeous now even though he’s just wearing a pair of relaxed-fit jeans and a simple, black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He won’t blend in on Earth. He’ll draw attention from every woman around.

  It takes me a second to find my voice. “Shouldn’t you be meeting with the high nobles?”

  “I should be,” he acknowledges. “But I’m not letting you walk into a trap.”

  If his clothing wasn’t a clue that he knows exactly what I’m doing, that statement certainly is. Someone told him about London. Who? Not Lena. If she was against me going after Paige, she didn’t have to tell me about the tip in the first place.

  “The remnants might not be there,” I say. I feel my eyes narrow as I look at Trev. He doesn’t like me. He was almost killed back at my apartment, and I know he wasn’t thrilled to be tasked with picking me up in Nashville. Plus, he and Aren are friends. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ratted me out.

  “Paige might not be there,” Aren counters, taking a step forward. “And don’t blame Trev, nalkin-shom. I made Lena tell me what was going on.”

  Lena did cave? I know Aren can be persuasive, but, seriously, she’s supposed to be the ruler of the Realm. He’s supposed to cave to her wishes, not the other way around.

  “I’m going,” I tell him. “I don’t know how the remnants have treated Paige. She might be hurt. She might think she’s—”

  “I’m not trying to talk you out of going, McKenzie,” he interrupts, holding out his hand. I stare at it while his words sink in. Sometimes I forget he’s not like Kyol. He doesn’t decide what I should and shouldn’t do. He lets me choose. He supports me; he doesn’t control me.

  And that’s one of the reasons why I’m taking a chance on him. He doesn’t put me inside a padded box to protect me. He gives me my freedom. He lets me be me.

  I take his hand. His grip is strong, comforting.

  “Shouldn’t you stay for the meeting?” I ask, needing to make sure it’s okay if he leaves. Rescuing Paige is important, but so is securing Lena’s place on the throne.

  “Lena underestimates herself,” Aren says, turning me toward the exit. “She can handle the high nobles on her own. Plus, she has Taltrayn at her side.”

  Despite his distaste for politics, Aren knows the high nobles and the game they’re playing better than I do. I give his hand a light squeeze before I slide my fingers free from his. I’d rather keep holding it, but we’re not alone, and Shane and Trev both look annoyed and impatient.

  It doesn’t take long to make it to the gate. Within fifteen minutes, we cross the Inner City and reach the silver wall. Just on the other side, a river flows down from the Corrist Mountains. A relatively flat area of land lies between the wall and the rapidly rising foothills. No homes or shops are built on it, so we have a clear view of the gate as soon as we pass under the wall.

  When we stop beside the river, Aren dips his hand into the water first, and a deep thunder rolls through the air. After his fissure opens, he slips an imprinted anchor-stone between our clasped palms, and I hold my breath as he pulls me into the In-Between.

  A second later, we emerge into a stale-smelling room. A broken chair is visible in the instant before our fissure winks out. Then the room plunges into complete darkness. Well, complete darkness except for the blue lightning on Aren’s skin. The chaos lusters look agitated, a sign that we’re in the middle of a major city. There might not be any tech on in this room, but there most certainly is a good amount nearby: streetlights outside, wi-fi in the air, mobile phones placing and receiving calls. Heavy, pounding music grows louder, then fades away. A car driving by, most likely. This isn’t like hanging out at an abandoned inn in the middle of Nowhere, Germany, like the outpost where the rebels first kept me captive. A few hours here, and all the fae will have migraines.

  Which makes this city a really odd place for the remnants to hold Paige. I feel the odds of her being here dropping with each erratic flash of lightning across Aren’s skin.

  A slash of light nearly blinds me when it pierces the darkness. Trev and Shane step into the room. As soon as Shane releases Trev’s hand, he reaches into his pocket and takes out a cell phone. Trev scowls as Shane holds down the button to turn it on. Apparently, Shane didn’t mention the tech to the fae.

 
; “Paige isn’t that far away,” Shane says. “We don’t even need to take the underground.”

  Paige isn’t that far away if she’s at the address we were given.

  “Good,” Aren says. “If anything goes wrong, we’ll meet at the gate. You both know where it is?”

  On a map, yes. Finding it in person might be a little more difficult, but Shane and I both nod. Hopefully, we won’t get separated. And, hopefully, this won’t take long. Trev is already rubbing his forehead as if he has a headache.

  Shane leads the way out. I follow him down a narrow staircase, and Aren and Trev descend after me. It’s dark, but I can still see stains on the thin carpet covering the steps. I keep my hands close to my sides. This is the kind of place where you don’t want to touch anything. At least this is a safe place to emerge into my world. The archives only had three anchor-stones imprinted with locations in London. According to Kavok, one would have taken us directly to the gate, which is out in the open on the northern bank of the Thames, and the other one would have taken us to Westminster. Shane said Westminster wasn’t anywhere close to the address we have, though, so we chose this one because Kavok suggested it was a discreet location. He was right about that. No one’s around to see us.

  Shane reaches the door at the bottom of the stairs. He opens it, exits the building. It’s dark outside. Streetlights reflect off the damp sidewalk, and there’s a chill in the air. I’m grateful for my jacket, but I’m wishing I’d put on something heavier than a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt beneath it.

  I stuff my hands into my pockets, then turn, waiting for Aren and Trev to exit the building. The room we fissured into is above what looks like a real-estate agency. Pictures of flats and quaint-looking houses that cost upward of a half million pounds are taped to the window. A couple of doors down the road, a small group of men are standing outside a pub, smoking.

  “It’s this way,” Shane says when the fae join us. I fall into step beside him and attempt to not look like a tourist. You’d think that would be easy since I’ve spent so much time in the Realm, which is definitely a more foreign location than this city, but this is London. There’s so much history here. And never mind that this is the homeland of Shakespeare and Jane Austen, King’s Cross Station is somewhere around here. I want to see Platform 9¾. I swear, one of these days, I’m going to have a fae fissure me here for a vacation.