“Much better,” said the Seelie Queen. “I haven’t spoken to a Gatekeeper in a long time.”
“So you didn’t speak to Mum, then?” asked Hazel. “She… well. She’s in a lot of trouble, and so is the Court. There’s a traitor, but I guess you already know that. They’re working with Vale outcasts.”
“There are always traitors,” she said. “Always. Where there is power, there’s ambition, the desire for more power. Many will violate the laws of the Court to seize it. Many others will put on the appearance of serving while planning to undermine everything we are. We forget our past so easily, caught in an endless present.”
I blinked. She’s a little more self-aware than any other Sidhe I’ve met. Didn’t mean I had a clue what to say to her. She was so terrifying… and when I put my hand in my pocket for the book, it… stuck.
The book didn’t want me to show it to her. That meant she couldn’t have been the one to bind it, right?
“So you’re married to the Erlking?” asked Morgan. “Why not take the throne? He’s been half-dead for decades, they say.”
Hazel winced, but the Seelie Queen merely smiled. “Ruling isn’t what it appears to be. I rather think the whole system needs an overhaul… new blood, as the humans say. If you wish to speak with the Erlking, I do think you’ll be disappointed. You’re right in thinking he hasn’t been coherent for years. But I may be capable of helping you myself.”
Hmm. Her words made sense, delivered in her all-too-melodic voice… but the false modesty, the all-too-clear awareness of the flaws in the Sidhe’s system… it didn’t ring true to me at all. Like a glamour, I saw beneath. She had power. She wasn’t trapped. She was here on purpose—and nobody else was within sight.
“Guys,” I said quietly. “We need to move.”
She smiled her pretty smile at me. “Don’t you want to talk to the Erlking?”
“You said he can’t talk to us,” I said. “You have four mortals here in the most secure part of the Court, yet you haven’t checked us for weapons. You haven’t taken away our iron, and you never even asked what I did to Lord Daival.”
“This isn’t the Erlking’s territory,” said River, gripping his sword. “Who are you really?”
“I am exactly who I said I was,” she said, her voice soft, her smile pleasant. Cold fear took root inside me.
“What do you want with our family?” asked Hazel.
“Want? Nothing at all. The Gatekeepers are irrelevant, and I’m sure you’d be happier never to set foot in this realm again, wouldn’t you?”
Hazel shook her head. “Happier? Sure. A lot of people would also be dead. And if you’re really the Seelie Queen, you should know we’re tied into a vow with your Court through our very bloodline.”
“I hold as little power as any who doesn’t rule, and more than most.” Magic thrummed in her gaze. “It’s time for a change of leadership in Summer. And it’s time for you to leave. I hope the Vale is kinder to you than its other inhabitants. You’re human, which should work in your favour. Good luck.”
The trees faded out, and so did the meadow. The last thing I saw was her brilliant smile before nothing but grey remained.
13
The Grey Vale’s paths stretched out endlessly. Coldness permeated the air, not the freezing atmosphere of Death but the absence of life energy and warmth.
Oh, damn.
“Anyone have a map?” asked Morgan.
“I don’t believe this,” said Hazel. “I can control this place. Right? I should be able to find our mother in here.”
“Perhaps,” River said. “The Vale doesn’t follow a fixed map, and anyone with Sidhe magic can arrange the environment according to their own needs. That includes me, and possibly you as well, Hazel. It’s usually just Sidhe, but you probably have enough magic for it to work.”
But not me.
Morgan gave me a sideways look as though the same thought had occurred to him. “Great. We’ll skip along at random and hope we don’t fall in a pond.”
“We’re in better shape than most outcasts,” River said. “They’re generally stripped of their talismans before being kicked out.”
“Can that thing open a way out?” Morgan asked, eyeing the book’s shape in my pocket.
“No,” River said. “Ilsa…”
“I’m thinking,” I said. “I can only hop over between realms as a ghost, and I probably won’t be allowed to take you guys with me.” I pulled out the book despite myself, but it didn’t light up with helpful information. The Grey Vale, I thought clearly, skipping to the back. “Nope. Great. I can travel as a ghost. No clue how to get out otherwise.”
“Isn’t this a dead end?” said Morgan. Before I could stop him, his body froze. I switched on my spirit sight and saw greyness, but no different to the way the path looked to begin with.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “You can’t move on here if you die. Those half-bloods were stuck here, that’s why they agreed to help out the enemy. Ideally we need to find the enemy, and get back into the land of the living. Relatively speaking.”
The spirit sight switched off, and the scene didn’t change at all.
Morgan shook his head. “I can probably run for miles as a ghost, but it all looks the same.”
“If I have control, so does Mum,” said Hazel. “Right? River, where was she when you last came here?”
“I met her at a house near a lake, but that was weeks ago,” he answered.
“What does she think this is, a holiday?” asked Morgan.
“A house near a lake?” said Hazel. “Walk with me. If she was there, it’s got to be safe, right?”
“I didn’t stay long enough to determine if that was the case,” River said. “Wait—this isn’t the place to make hasty decisions.”
The path ahead flickered, a lake appearing and disappearing again.
“Stop that,” Hazel snapped at River. “If we both try to affect the path at once, it’ll get confused. Stop—”
She broke off. Cold water flowed over my feet, without warning, and when I took a step, my shoe sank into marshy ground. We’d landed in the marshes at the edge of a vast lake, surrounded by trees. Even the water was the same muted grey colour as the trees.
“Thanks a bunch, River,” said Hazel.
River twisted to glare at her. “Magic can’t get confused. This was deliberate. Someone else is here.”
A chill ran down my back. Someone else… with magic? Nobody appeared to be around, but splashes came from the water, and there didn’t seem to be a path leading away into the forest. Not without skirting the lake.
“Is that the house?” asked Morgan.
There was indeed a hut on the river, but it sure as hell didn’t look like the sort of place Mum would pick to stay in. Ramshackle and tilting at an angle, it looked like one wrong movement would send it plummeting into the lake.
“Mum.” Hazel took a step forward. “Damn. I’d normally sense her, but faerie magic doesn’t work here—Morgan!”
He swore and pulled his leg free from where it’d sunk into the marsh. “Well done,” he said. “Mum isn’t here. This is faerieland, everything here wants to eat us—”
Several greyish heads poked up from the water.
“Merrows,” said River.
“What in hell is a merrow?” asked Morgan.
“Think mermaids, but less nice,” River said.
“Mermaids are dicks,” Hazel said. “Great.” She took a step backwards. “Get away… why isn’t my magic working?”
“I told you,” River said. “We’re on someone’s territory. Their magic is keeping us here.”
“Then we’ll go back—”
Grey hands grabbed my legs. I swore and kicked out, seeing the others were similarly ensnared. I grabbed the jar of iron filings from my pocket and threw some of them at the muddy ground, but the iron simply sank into the mud. No use using iron when I couldn’t even see my opponents. The hands were buried beneath the mud, pulling me deeper along
with them.
River’s sword stabbed down into the water. The hands let go of him, but his sword remained wedged in the mud.
“Well done,” Morgan said, kicking out. “Ow. Bloody monsters. What’s grabbing me?”
“Grindylows,” said Hazel. “I can’t access my magic here.”
Her hands glowed faintly green, but not enough. She’d probably burned herself out fending off those thorns. Dammit. All I had was salt and a knife, but the webbed hands latched onto my ankles and refused to let go. The other grey heads drew closer, bobbing in the water. Grey-skinned, human-sized creatures with webbed hands and feet and flat frog-like heads crawled to the surface, grabbing the nearest target—Morgan.
I threw a handful of iron filings at them. So did Morgan. The merrow let go, making furious noises, and oozed towards me instead. The hands holding me dragged me forwards, forcing me to my knees. Sticky mud encased my legs. River swore, throwing an iron knife, but the grindylows’ hands rose from the mud to snatch the weapon out of the air. Hisses and yelps came from below—the iron had burned them—but his weapon was gone.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the book, slipping out of my body. The slimy mud continued to climb. Morgan was submerged, too, while Hazel clung to a tree branch and River used his buried sword for balance as the swampy mud climbed ever higher.
Better hope necromancy works here.
I floated, pulling the book’s power into me, remembering when I’d been on the cusp of entering this realm. It had power. Not as much as our realm, but so many had died here, I must be able to use necromancy.
The air stirred. Coldness grew, a dark pit forming in the air. No. Not that.
The merrows turned around, screaming loudly at the sight of the growing form of darkness above the swamp. As one, they ran back to the deepest water and plunged into its depths. The dark shape continued to grow, cold energy stirring, the surface of the water freezing before my eyes.
With a tremendous cracking noise, River pulled his blade free from the now-iced marsh, while Hazel managed to crawl onto the branch. Morgan freed his leg, swearing loudly. And I continued to float in the air, power burning from my hands as the wraith solidified, drawn to my power. Go away!
Magical energy surged from the wraith’s hands, only to hit my shield. I jerked back into my body, my feet coming free from the frozen mud. “Guys, run! You can’t banish it here.”
“You have got to be kidding me, Ilsa,” Hazel shouted, clinging to the tree branch.
“I didn’t mean to summon it.”
I’d meant to get rid of the monsters. I hadn’t even spoken the summoning words. But the book’s magic attracted the dead.
Hazel’s hands splayed and a trickle of Summer magic struck the wraith, to no effect. My heart dropped when River advanced on it, across the ice, blade raised. Wait… he can do more damage with that here. The wraith was more solid than usual, so much that I suspected even an ordinary human without the Sight would be able to see it in this realm. Its form was almost human. A Sidhe, a Winter one, who’d died here in the realm of the exiles, filled with so much rage that its magic had survived beyond death.
I swallowed, my mouth dry. Necromantic power still hummed inside me, but I couldn’t free this wraith from its prison, not here.
Or can I? It wasn’t like I’d ever tried.
I called the book’s magic. Power rolled through my veins, pouring from my fingertips, and struck the wraith in an explosion of light. Its shadowy form became more distinct, and I squinted through the grey light, seeing its trapped clawed monstrous true form.
The ground froze underfoot, icy swamp water encasing my boots. Morgan drew something from his pocket—a necromancer’s spirit sensor—and hit the button. A jet of concentrated salt slammed into the wraith, knocking it away from me.
“Thanks,” I gasped, freeing my leg from the icy prison. I called the book’s magic once more, but Death didn’t open. My teeth rattled with the torrent of power, but when I spoke the banishing words, nothing happened.
Then I’ll have to finish it another way.
Necromantic power filled the air as River attacked it from behind. With his free hand, he raised the sword, green energy shimmering up to the hilt. He threw the blade in an arc, and the wraith screamed as it pierced through its transparent form.
At the same time, I blasted it with necromantic power. The wraith’s form cracked all over, pieces flaking away, and it disintegrated.
“It can’t reform,” River said, treading carefully over the half-frozen ground. I reached the blade first and handed it back to him. “Not enough magic here.”
“How’d you find any life energy here in the first place?” Hazel asked.
“There’s a little underneath the swamp,” River said. “Otherwise, I drew on my own reserves. I won’t be able to keep doing that, otherwise my healing ability will switch off.”
“I forgot you even had that,” Hazel commented. “You’re one step ahead of the rest of us.”
River shook his head. He looked pale under the swamp water. I’d never seen a Summer faerie use their own life energy to power a spell. It struck me as a highly risky thing to do, but here, it was probably the only option.
“Don’t overdo it,” I said. “You’re the only one here with the ability to cross realms directly if we find a nice Sidhe to help us escape.”
“I think we’re more likely to find a flying motorbike,” said Morgan, swearing as his feet stuck in the melting ice-covered mud. “Can’t you or Hazel make this bloody swamp disappear?”
“No,” said River. “We need to find an alternate route through the trees.” He looked around and pointed to the forest creeping down the lake’s side.
“Guys,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know using my magic would draw that thing here.”
“You did better than me,” said Morgan. “I was trying to attack it with my mind. Didn’t do a thing.”
“We’ve all probably caught our death of cold, but we’re still in one piece,” Hazel said shakily. “How is Mum coping in this place without magic? The whole realm is set against humans.”
“I think it’s meant to be set against Sidhe,” River said, shaking mud from the end of his blade. “They’re banished here with no magic. They’d be dead in a day.”
“That wraith wasn’t,” I pointed out. “It still had magic.”
“Then it was an outcast who came here on purpose, I’d guess,” River said. “Even those with magic can’t survive here. There’s no life, and no death either. Not the sort that powers Winter magic.”
“This sort, though.” I held up the book, the only part of me not covered in swamp water. “It’s not powered by being here, but it’s not underpowered, either.”
Gods’ magic. The Ancients. How could you harness that kind of power? Where had it even come from?
The Vale was created when the Sidhe cast out their gods…
My teeth chattered. River drew in closer to me, but he was shivering, too. His eyes had paled, leached of Summer magic. Not a good sign. “Don’t do that again,” I told him. “Use necromancy if we run into another of those things. I know it probably attracts more of them, but…”
“I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary to get us all out in one piece,” River said quietly. “To get you out of here. I think you should probably put that book away.”
We climbed the bank of the lake and walked carefully through silvery undergrowth. There were less wildly growing plants than there were in the borderlands, though the Vale bore a certain similarity to Lady Hornbeam’s territory underneath the grey. Of course, nothing actually grew here. The trees looked like ordinary oak and ash, but appeared to be frozen in time, their silvery leaves season-less and empty of life. Not dead, not alive. I shivered harder, unable to get warm no matter how quickly I walked. The others didn’t look much better. Morgan was limping. Hazel’s damp hair clung to her face, hiding the Gatekeeper’s mark. I doubted anyone out here cared about her status.
“Finally,” Hazel said as we reached the path again. “Okay. Take us to Mum, you treacherous dead end of a forest.”
The path didn’t move. It looked identical to the last one. Hazel sighed heavily and continued to walk. So did I. My legs felt like lead weights, and the swamp water soaking my jeans didn’t help. Usually when I used necromancy, I felt more alive and alert. Now I felt more like I’d volunteered my own life energy to River’s spell.
The realm couldn’t have no beginning or ending. Even Faerie… okay, I didn’t know about Faerie. It was usually best not to think too hard about these things when magic was involved.
The book kept glowing. Like it wanted me to use its magic again. Nope. No more wraiths. We might not get lucky next time. River was still in the lead, but whenever he looked back to check on us, his face was lined with exhaustion.
“Can’t you ask the path to lead us out of this realm?” I asked. “I know there aren’t supposed to be exits, but someone’s clearly hopping in and out of the Court. There’s no harm in checking.”
River walked ahead without speaking, no longer moving at swift faerie speed. “No. There isn’t one, not open anyway.”
The path continued. I groaned. “Okay, let me think. If there’s no way out… is there a person who can get us out?”
River shook his head. “I wouldn’t. That would take us directly to the nearest Sidhe, and just because they can leave this realm doesn’t mean they’d have any intention of helping us. There are no allies here.”
“Dammit.” The book glowed brighter, and a shock of energy made me jump into the air. “I think the talisman’s trying to tell me something.”
“A warning?” said Hazel. “I—” She cut off in a startled shout as tree branches wrapped around her legs, pulling her into the earth.
I ran towards her, and branches grabbed my own feet. “Dammit.”
Morgan disappeared beneath the earth. River swore and grabbed his blade, but they’d gone. The book glowed brighter. I pulled it out and opened it. The pages shimmered too brightly to read. Necromantic power poured from my fingertips at the branches, but they refused to let go. They weren’t alive or dead, so my magic did nothing but rattle the branches without damaging them.
Hereditary Power Page 12