by Reine, SM
“I can worry about Benjamin,” Seth said.
“But not Leliel.”
He clenched his jaw. “You need to stay here, where Adàn and LCI can protect you.”
Marion clutched his sleeve. “You’ll leave me? With a shifter?”
“He can do better than me in this condition. If I do anything drastic, I’ll be useless to you.” Seth rubbed his chest with his first two fingers. It was still hurting. “I’ve got to use my power where I’ll be most helpful.”
“You’ll be most helpful with me,” Marion whispered. “Where I can protect you from the Godslayer.”
The Godslayer was not the Garin woman who posed the biggest threat to Seth. It was the one who was molded to his side, weaker than a deer after a long winter. The one that made him want to prioritize her safety over protecting Genesis.
Light flared in the city above. There was life within the hive where demon insects lived, and with the demons gone, that would indicate Adàn’s location.
Seth released Marion. “I’m going to have to phase us again. Grab a few bottles of the Philter.”
“Seth…”
“Come on,” he said. “Hurry.”
They both scooped up armfuls to slip into Marion’s quiver. And then Marion was leaning on him again, looking at him from a few inches away. It was striking to look at a woman almost his exact height. She made it difficult to see anything but her eyes.
Seth snapped his fingers.
They reappeared in the hive.
Marion didn’t collapse this time, since she’d been drinking those potions. But she did pop one open to drink. She drained the bottle before managing to focus her vision on the source of the white light.
Which wasn’t Adàn Pedregon after all.
They were in something resembling a town square on the outer edge of the hive. It was a gathering point between insect-demon territory and the Dead Forest, and its main feature was a broken archway.
Ariane Kavanagh was currently standing beside it, analyzing the right side closely.
“What in the world are you doing?” Marion asked.
Ariane jumped at the sound of her voice—but relaxed when she saw her daughter. “Oh, hello,” she responded in French. Her preferred language with her offspring. Seth understood it, as he understood all languages. “Come over here and help me lift this.”
She was trying to get a massive arch of stone off of the ground, but Ariane lacked the strength for it.
Marion was no more physically capable than her mother. She was much better with magic, though. A wave of her hands brought the arch off of the ground, and she set it atop the half-columns that Ariane indicated.
It was impressive magic. A mage should have struggled in the territory of infernal warlocks. Marion barely exerted herself.
“Very good. Thank you.” Ariane dragged a canvas bag over and started picking through pieces of rock inside.
“What’s this for?” Marion asked.
“It’s a trade gateway,” Seth said. “Arawn used it to send lethe to Earth.”
“Very good,” Ariane said again, this time because he’d responded in fluent French.
Neither she nor Marion looked surprised by his use of the language.
They’d have had a different reaction if they knew his history. Seth had been raised by an elementary-school dropout in trailer parks. He hadn’t even known what things like baguettes were until college.
Godhood was a curse in some ways, and a gift in others. Seth didn’t know if undeserved, unearned knowledge was a gift or not, but it sure made it easy to butt in on conversations where he wasn’t welcome.
“I’ve set myself to finding an alternate route for Adàn’s men into Sheol,” Ariane said. “This is giving me a good deal of trouble, though. Arawn blew it up before leaving. I don’t think he wanted us easily sharing supplies.”
“Demons are creatures of chaos. He likely couldn’t resist the urge to irritate you,” Marion said. “I sympathize with him.”
Ariane gave a world-weary sigh and stuck a small stone fragment into a fissure where the arch had broken. It fit like a puzzle piece.
“It doesn’t matter if you fix it or not. The arch doesn’t allow living things to pass,” Seth said.
“I’ve been modifying it. I learned a lot while involved with Metaraon, and warlockcraft is not so different from magecraft. There are only a few important components. In the case of the arch, they are within the core, and I have already reshaped them to suit my needs.” Ariane patted its curved side.
Marion’s eyes brightened with interest. “What components does this use?” She pushed on without giving her mother a chance to respond, circling the arch. “A power generator, I assume, and something that will tunnel between planes. Does it have a lock?”
“No lock on this one. The planes resist being opened, so turning it off is enough to seal whatever holes it creates.”
“Ah, no lock. Shame.” Marion seemed to lose interest completely. She nudged the bag of rubble with her toe. “You’re wasting your time. Adàn can come through the door underneath Dilmun whenever he’s ready.”
“That news is a relief indeed. But having another, flexible door to Earth is hardly a waste.” Ariane lifted an eyebrow at Seth. “Particularly if it makes it easier for the two of you to visit?”
“Mother,” Marion said, rolling her eyes.
“Flexible, you say.” Seth rubbed his chin. “Flexible enough that you could open a path from here to Ransom Falls? Adàn could send the LCI shifters through to hold the Genesis warp.”
“The warp?” Ariane swayed on her feet, hand flying to her heart. “It’s opening?”
“Soon, very soon,” Marion said. “On November fifth.”
“It’s where the Godslayer came from, too,” Seth said.
“The Godslayer? Elise?” Ariane’s voice cracked on her name. She cleared her throat and said, “My other daughter has been spotted?”
“An avatar,” Marion said. “She’s trying to kill me.”
“What have you done to deserve getting killed?”
“Mother,” she said again.
Ariane shrugged. “I know Elise well enough. She doesn’t waste time on hunting people down if they haven’t earned it.”
“You don’t know her as well as you think you do,” Seth said. “This Godslayer avatar she’s made, it’s definitely for killing. The thing has four arms and no face.”
“Are you certain she’s after you?”
“Absolutely certain.” Marion caught her mother’s hands. “Finish the gate and send LCI through. If they can hold the warp safely, you could see the Godslayer for yourself. I know how fascinated you are by your eldest daughter’s ongoing legacy.”
Ariane smirked. It was much like one of Marion’s smiles, as though she were internally gloating over some kind of clever secret. “Very well. That’s easy enough, since Adàn eats from my palm. It’s a power women have over men—as you would know, wouldn’t you?”
She slid another stone into place. The gateway began to hum. It sensed that it was nearing completion, and its energy grew excited.
“I want Adàn to protect Marion in Duat too,” Seth said. He pretended not to see Marion’s look of outrage.
“That, I cannot do,” Ariane said.
“Why not? He eats out of your palm.”
“Your demands are inconsistent. You can hide Marion from Elise’s avatar in Sheol, or you can open a route directly to a place where Elise will be waiting. You cannot do both.”
“Excellent point, Mother.” It was probably the first time Marion had so willingly sided with her mom. Even when women were at each other’s throats, they could team up for the sake of screwing with a man. “There are places I’m needed, Seth.”
“Indeed, my precious queen. Allow me to worry about the warp.” Ariane hesitated, and then kissed her daughter’s cheeks. “Stay away from Elise for now.”
“I will,” Marion said, “if I can.”
Which was
so far from a promise that she might as well not have bothered at all.
9
It went against every single one of Seth’s instincts to take Marion to the Winter Court, but he did. He took her directly through the wards to a jungle-like bedroom that was locked behind two separate sets of doors. When she’d been steward, she had lived almost exclusively in that room. Now there were no sheets on the bed. No clothes in the open wardrobe. No sign of Marion’s altar, or her makeup.
She wasn’t sleeping in that room anymore.
As she’d said, her marriage with Konig was fine now. She was sharing a room with him. Sharing a bed.
Marion went to the mirror and waved her hand down it. The face of one of her handmaidens appeared. On the current path that Aoife was walking, she still had a few years before she died brutally, succumbing to head trauma and brain bleeding.
“I’ll need protection in my former rooms,” Marion said. “Send Ymir to me. Position the others outside my doors.”
Aoife nodded sharply. “We’ll be there soon.”
The mirror blanked. Seth’s reflection remained, looking a lot like twenty-two-year-old Luke Flynn.
Marion placed the remaining Persephone Philters in a drawer. “You seem worried,” she said, watching Seth through the mirror.
It was cold in Niflheimr. Cold and dark. This was where death intersected with the thread of Marion’s life. Not at this time yet, but in this location.
“I am worried. You should be worried too.” Seth couldn’t stand still. He paced. “We can’t stay here for long. Get whatever you need. More arrows, supplies, food…”
“I don’t need anything else. I’ve already set up the trap in Dilmun, and that is my next step forward,” Marion said. “And no, you cannot come with me when I confront Leliel. She would know something was awry the instant that she saw you.”
Frustration wracked Seth. “Then I’ll turn invisible.”
“Turning invisible is a cosmic power that would limit your time in the mortal worlds. I will be safe. I swear it to you.” A weary smile flickered over her face. Young as she was, the return of her memories had also returned a lot of pain. “Ymir will convince you of my safety.”
“Ymir? You mean the juvenile frost giant?” Seth didn’t think anyone could convince him that Marion was safe. Not in this place. Especially not a baby frost giant. “No, we’ll just keep moving until the Genesis warp opens and then we can phase Benjamin directly there.”
“Are you confident you can phase him to the warp, with or without cosmic powers?” Marion asked.
Seth wanted to tell her yes, but…
“No,” he said. “The clearing outside Ransom Falls makes me feel mortal, just like the conservatory.” He couldn’t see the part of the Meta with the Genesis warp and he couldn’t perform cosmic acts there, either.
They could get close, but not close enough to avoid both Leliel and the Godslayer.
She briefly shuffled through her closet and emerged with a small box. “Have faith in me. I didn’t plan for the Godslayer, but I planned for everything else. Running from this will not help.”
“But a young faerie will?”
“You haven’t seen Ymir lately,” she said, pulling a few candy bars out of that box.
The door opened.
And then it grew.
It stretched big, like someone was holding a lighter underneath an ice cube, melting away a tunnel. The frost giant, Ymir, entered the room through this widened section. He wouldn’t have been able to fit his towering form inside otherwise. He wasn’t the scrawny little boy-child Marion had befriended when she first became Steward of the Winter Court. He was a mountain.
Marion’s whole demeanor shifted at the sight of him. Her face warmed with friendliness, and her body language became unguarded. “Hello, Ymir. How have you been?”
“I’m okay,” he said, letting Marion drop the candy bars into his palm. His voice was disarmingly high-pitched. He didn’t look like a kid, but he sounded like one. “Are we gonna arrest someone again?”
“You’ve been arresting people with him?” Seth asked with a neutral tone. Size aside, Ymir talked like he shouldn’t have been trusted with anything sharper than safety scissors.
“He’s the only person I completely trust here.” Marion smiled despite herself, reaching up to scratch Ymir’s elbow. “I never put him into danger without an escape plan, not that he needs one. He’s usually helping me do the escaping.”
“I can go anywhere in the unseelie worlds,” Ymir said proudly.
“Anywhere,” Marion confirmed. “He has the most amazing ability to reshape the courts, much like Konig does. No locks, walls, or bars can keep him out.”
“It’s nice because I can talk with people whenever I want now,” Ymir said. “Lots of people. Some of them have chocolate too.”
“Wait, you’ve been getting candy from others?” Marion looked legitimately affronted. “How much sugar have you been having?”
He shrugged. “Dunno.”
That did not appear to be a satisfactory answer to Marion. “Who’s feeding you?”
“Tove always has something.” That was one of Marion’s handmaidens. “And Nikki.”
“Who’s Nikki?” Seth asked.
“She’s in the army,” Ymir said. “She’s really weird. I like her.”
“Gods, I hope you’re still eating an occasional fish. I don’t care to know if sidhe are susceptible to diabetes.” Marion opened a couple of candy bars to save him time trying to manipulate the wrappers with big, clumsy fingers. Horrified as she was by his diet, she couldn’t seem to resist enabling his sweet tooth. “Ymir, would you tell my friend how you help protect me?”
“Punching. I’m good at punching.”
Seth wasn’t sure if he was more disturbed by how casually he said it, or the fact that this overgrown child was punching people on Marion’s behalf. “I bet you are.”
“I also help get people together so Marion can make plans without getting caught,” Ymir said around a mouthful of candy.
“It’s a valuable service,” Marion said.
“What people do you get together?” Seth asked.
“Dunno. Lots of sidhe.” He was staring fixedly at the open box on her vanity.
She put one more candy bar in his hand. The others had already gone down the hatch. “Thank you, I believe that’s enough information.”
Even snarfing candy, Ymir was powerful and intimidating. And as long as Seth’s sternum was made of the Tree, Marion was probably safer with a creature of his size protecting her. It was hard to imagine the Godslayer getting past Ymir.
The frost giant wasn’t the main reassuring thing. It was the network of allies that Ymir had helped Marion build—Wintersong and Nikki and Tove, and all the other people sharing their chocolate stashes whose names Ymir couldn’t remember.
Marion wasn’t alone. She knew what she was doing.
“I’ll be meeting with Leliel soon,” Marion said, stroking her hands along Ymir’s forearm. “Will you tell Wintersong it’s time to activate our more drastic plans?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said.
When he left, the enormous doorway reverted to its original state. Seth wouldn’t have believed it had changed in the first place if he hadn’t seen it himself. “Wow.”
“I have spent years placing dominos,” Marion said. “I’ve planned for everything.”
“You couldn’t have planned for Elise,” Seth said.
“This much is true.” She tilted her face toward his, almost as though she was going to kiss him. Or maybe Seth was just thinking about it hard, looking too hard, dreaming too hard. “I have an idea of how to remedy the Godslayer problem, though. Will you help me?”
“I mean, yes, that’s why I came here,” he said. “But what do you need?”
Marion reached into him—maybe like taking his hands, maybe like hugging him, except that he didn’t have anything to hold or touch at the moment. Nothing about him was solid except his
ribcage. And, in a way, it was better. Because then he could engulf her. It felt like he could shelter every inch of her mortal body from any threat…except time.
Her fingers slipped past the bones and pieces of ash, enclosing his heart. Her eyes closed as she leaned into his shadow. “I need you to kill the Godslayer,” Marion whispered.
* * *
Leliel found it deeply unpleasant to go to Earth, even in pursuit of feeding herself. She’d spent months attending to the unborn angels in Shamayim and hadn’t left them—not even once. They flourished under her care. But she’d been starving from neglecting herself.
Even her hunger wasn’t enough to send her into the mortal planes. It was the need to locate the Genesis warp. If she fed as a side effect of that, then it was fortunate, but not necessary. She’d live on nothing but oxygen and dreams if that’s what it took to save the ethereal race.
She searched for the Genesis warp for days on end. She fed off of gaean minds as she passed, sipping lightly of their energy as she struggled to find balefire. She couldn’t find it. And a few sips of energy weren’t enough to bolster her strength to make the search easier.
There wasn’t much time until the warp opened, and she couldn’t find it, dammit.
Not like this.
As much as it pained her, she needed to nourish herself.
So for a day—only a day—she walked the streets of Earth without searching for balefire. She tolerated the humans’ stinking cars. Their loud voices. Their obsession with indulgence. The money, the greed, the indignity of it all. She went to a liberal arts college to be near humanity’s most arrogant self-obsessed spawn, and they stunk like the material that plopped from the backside of a horse.
College students didn’t think anything of interest, but they did occasionally think. That was enough. Leliel drank deep of the campus’s energy for as long as she could tolerate.
She became stronger, but she also ran out of time to keep searching for the Genesis warp.
It would open on October thirty-first, and that date was rapidly approaching. The number of things that she needed to arrange overwhelmed even Leliel.