A force hit Gossamyr's chest. Avenall flung her to the ground. Their bodies crushed together, Gossamyr yelped as the hard surface battered her bones. The roll snuffed out the flame. Tickles of red hair swept her face.
"Avenall!"
He stood and, fisting his fingers in the air, roared and kicked the stone beast.
The gargoyle opened its stone jaw and silently yowled back.
With another warning hiss to the stoic torch, the fee minion knelt at Gossamyr's side. One of his wings bent and brushed her cheek. So dry, the once supple wing. Violet eyes, more red now, blinked as he surveyed her body. "You are fine and well?"
"As best possible." Snapping her right shoulder forward tugged what felt like a dislocated bone back into place. Sitting up, Gossamyr touched the lifeless wing skimming her side; it was cold, not at all warm or iridescent. "You.. .remember me?"
"I did not remember for so long. Now I do." A quick smile was destroyed by a confused wrinkle of brow. "She took it all from me. Gossamyr?" Red tears streamed across his pale cheeks.
"You remember."
"Yes, Gossamyr Verity de Wintershinn of Glamoursiege. I know your name. I remember. I remember you. We.. .loved."
"Yes!" She reached to embrace, but he jerked into a defensive crouch.
The shivering minion shook his head and his wings coiled tightly. "But a fee heart knows not love."
"If you believe, Avenall, you can, you can know love. It is..." So he had the mortal passion, as well. He'd suffered it unknowing.
"I..." A tilt of his head swept thick red hair tipped with black across Gossamyr's thighs. "I.. .saw you as no other. It mattered lit-
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tie that you were not full-blood fee. Why did your father despise me so? I only wanted to court you."
"My father.. .had his reasons."
"I did not dabble!"
"Shinn knew that. He—"
"Shinn." He nodded, knowing. "A mighty fee lord. Together we betrayed his trust. Oh." His wings curled about his shoulders as he inclined forward into a rocking bow. "My mistress," he hissed in a reverent sigh. "She has taken so much from me, much more than my essence. Memories of you. Our kisses."
Gossamyr clasped her fingers up through his hair and drew his forehead to her cheek. Heliotrope, his aura, deliciously reminiscent. "Yes, many kisses. Your touch made me light, as if I had wings."
"Exotic."
She nodded. A burst of nervous laughter calmed her fears.
Manic and red, his eyes, he shuffled back and pressed himself to the wall. Wings made a papery crunch.
"We must get the alicorn from her. Is there a way? A weakness?"
A male cry echoed down the hall. Not Ulrich, but the changeling.
o o
The collection room undulated with humming essences. The unicorn was nowhere to be seen. Dominique, his cape abandoned at the doorway, slowly approached the Red Lady. She lured him with her call. Volition abandoned, he strode with head up and arms stretched to caress. Vibrant violet wings curled forward to receive her strokes.
Wielding a spinning arret Gossamyr dashed forward. She did not aim for the Red Lady; it would serve little against her powerful mix of magic and glamour.
The obsidian arrow released, it connected with the back of Dominique's left thigh. He cried out and gripped the injury—direct hit, for he was pulled from the succubus's lure.
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The woman hissed at Gossamyr and twisted the alicorn in her fingers like a marshal's baton readying the musters for the call to attack.
Another arret hit its intended mark—the Red Lady's wrist— sending the alicorn flying against the wall of essences. It landed point first next to the yellow essence that had been pinned highest of all. Knocked loose, the essence began to fall, ever so slowly.
"Oh, Hades." Ulrich stumbled into the room and sucked in a gasp. "So many of them!"
Keeping an eye on the Red Lady, Gossamyr called to the soul shepherd. "Do you feel them? Can you command them?"
"I can feel them.. .all." He plunged to his knees. "There is one..."
The yellow essence floated past the Red Lady's grasp. Shimmering, floating on wings unseen, it bounded above Dominique's head. The pinned entity soared toward Gossamyr, a strange weapon aimed for her heart.
"What is it?" Dominique called.
Dodging, Gossamyr avoided getting hit, and at the opportune moment managed to reach out and catch the yellow essence. It shushed between her fingers, but the pin did not wound nor tear the essence asunder. Heavy, its weight, and scented with life—heliotrope. Humming loudly, the essence did not make to leave her carefully netted fingers.
"Mine!"
From behind the curtained bed Avenall rushed toward Gossamyr. Eyes red with rage, he dodged Dominique's attempt to deter him, only flinching as the soul shepherd's fingers skimmed his wing.
Gossamyr could not stop her lover as he plunged into her. She felt resistance, and heard a strange mellow sigh—a return.
o o
The point of the silver pin exited Avenall's back and he collapsed into her arms.
TWENTY-NINE
"Avenall!"
Gossamyr juggled the oozing yellow essence and the wobbly limbs of the pin man. Avenall had speared himself upon the pin in a manic sacrifice.
Now the pale-winged fee, quivering and slipping his fingers into the viscous essence, looked up to Gossamyr. A smile, so bright, filled his violet eyes. Red spilled down his cheeks. "Thank... you...
"No!"
"My... Gossamyr," he said on a gurgling gasp. Red splattered her breast as he spat out the words. "I have loved.. .you. So. Exotic."
A death sigh escaped. With that breath the yellow essence seeped into the fee's body through his pores. Gossamyr watched the mark of banishment gleam and lessen and vanish.
"Puppy!"
"What is it?" Ulrich asked. Of course he could but see the essence she held in her arms, not the faery.
"Avenall," she whispered. "He is speared upon the pin."
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The Red Lady stretched out a hand, butchering a flock of essences as she slapped the marble wall.
"Please, Ulrich, come to me." Dead in her arms, Avenall was released into Ulrich's hold. "Can you feel him?"
Ulrich wrestled with holding the fee, but Avenall's shoulders slipped against his chest and he nodded. "Got him."
"Gently, please." Drawing in a choking breath, Gossamyr raised her sight to the succubus.
He held a being. He could not see it, but he knew whoever it was had meant much to Gossamyr. The pin—suspended in nothing, it appeared—wobbled between his curled arms. Ichor oozed from the pin, spilling over a shape of a body, yet unseen. Pierced through the heart, Ulrich guessed. Final remnants of the essence dissipated, mayhap seeping into the dead fee's body.
Now he felt the fee's very being tap him and seek guidance. A familiar call. He would not refuse. Drawn into the Send, he directed the essence onward. Heaven or Hell? No such choices.
"Go in peace," he whispered. "Ever after in his grace."
The body fell limp and began to slip from Ulrich's arms. Hooking under the invisible arms, Ulrich held strong. Together, the two men slid to the floor.
Arret spinning, Gossamyr spared a moment to turn and look to Ulrich. Avenall lay limp in the soul shepherd's arms. But peaceful, yes? A horrid loosening of tears pushed from her eyes. It was not fair that he had suffered for loving her! Be this his punishment for the mortal passion, a cruel sacrifice always demanded of the fee.
But there, the glimmer of Faery burst out from Avenall's chest. It stretched the height of the room, and then with a blink, spanned horizontal, running the length and out the door into the hallway. Bathed in the golden glow of his essence, Gossamyr closed her eyes and smiled. With another blink, the glimmer dissipated.
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"The final twinclian," she said. I love you, Avenall.
"Not my puppy!" the Red Lady spat at Goss
amyr. "You have taken much from me, warrior bitch."
Wiping spittle from her arm, Gossamyr approached the succubus. "No more than you have taken from my father."
"Shinn's cruelties touch all. Why is he not here to answer to his crimes? Does he hide behind a helpless mortal?"
"Helpless? You must have lost half your sight too, red woman." She spun the arret into a frenzy. "I've yet to fall babbling from your pitiful song."
"My puppy is gone!"
"You killed Avenall."
"You were the one who wielded the pin!"
"You took his essence and taunted him. He was dead long ago."
Avoiding contact with the wall of essences, Gossamyr stalked the succubus widder shins toward the edge of the marble steps. If she could throwr her off balance she gained opportunity to strike. But how, exactly, to take her out without a sword or weapon larger than an arret? She seemed impervious to the staff and its stealthy blows. Must she kill the woman?
Either that or be killed, Shinn's words revisited Gossamyr's thoughts. Or had she heard them, plain as ever?
Her aggressor stood stunned, yet a malicious grin stretched her lips to an open smile. It was then Gossamyr felt the new presence.
Shinn stood in the doorway.
THIRTY
His presence filled her heart, pounding, expanding, urging... All she had ever known—a father's love—overwhelmed. Gossamyr wanted to rush to Shinn and embrace him. To plead, "Take me home; I believe."
She believed in love and that it knew no bounds.
She glanced to Ulrich. He gathered Avenall into his arms as gently as a father would a child. He had fathered a child not of his blood and had loved her.
Yes, she felt loved. And why not? She was Verity d'Ange: mortal.
Vengeance, valor—and now, the truth.
But in her heart she could not abandon her mission to such foolish emotions.
Keeping the arret spinning and ready for release, rage over Aven-all's senseless death worked tears at the corners of her eyes. Courage shimmied through her being, far more powerful than any glamour. And fear loomed close. Not fear of the enemy, but fear for the well-being of Ulrich, and now Shinn. Why had he come here? He risked Disenchantment, or worse, the Red Lady's bane.
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"Father?"
Shinn lifted a hand. "Gossamyr, stay back. Would I had done this before, I would have never had to send you off on such a mission."
"But—"
"You've come for me, Turiau de Wintershinn of Glamoursiege?"
At the succubus's announcement, Gossamyr saw Shinn stiffen, fighting the erie of his Naming.
The Red Lady glided across the marble base, the essences quivering with her pass, right up to the staunch Faery lord. "So little time has passed, and yet—" she sneered, displeased with what she looked upon "—you have aged centuries."
"I have not come to welcome you back to my bed, Circelie San-greul of Rougethorn. I banished you with good reason, and the banishment holds."
She pouted out a thick red lip. "Your recital of my name wields no power against my magic. What do you desire, Turiau? Do not tell me you've come to rescue your false mortal child."
"Never false in my heart."
"Ah. So honorable, to the bitter end. Such a horrible confession to love a mortal makes me quiver, Turiau. Twice now. But you are too late. She knows her truth; Faery will now only eat her away."
"Enough!" Shinn nodded toward the wall, high above. "The al-icorn's power is not for you to possess."
"Who sayeth?"
Gossamyr eyed the pinioned alicorn. Using her staff-—even half-size—for a levered jump, she might make the leap.
Shinn's voice boomed throughout the room. "Me for the alicorn."
"No," Gossamyr gasped. 'Twas as if the gargoyles' flames sizzled in her throat that she could not speak another word.
"Oh?" The Red Lady spun around. Malice twinkled in the look
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she speared at Gossamyr. A twist at the waist turned her back to Shinn. "You offer your.. .essence?"
"The Disenchantment has yet to touch me; I offer you an essence strong and capable—"
"—of seeing my return to Faery?"
"If that be your desire."
"But you are not so strong, I see you age before my eyes."
The Faery lord spread his iridescent emerald wings wide. Hyacinth perfumed the room. A swoosh of his wings breathed a strong wind, stretching out the Red Lady's hair and skirts from her body. He spoke forcefully, "Yet strong."
The Red Lady clapped her hands overhead and spun. "Yes! I will agree to the exchange."
"Gossamyr! Retrieve the alicorn," Shinn demanded.
While her body moved toward the wall, Gossamyr felt heavy tears streak her cheeks. The burning in her throat, acid and hot, choked her from crying in protest. Shinn must not sacrifice his essence to this wicked succubus! Nor could he allow her return to Faery!
She stopped beneath the alicorn and looked to Shinn. In her father's eyes she saw the mirror of her tears. With her truth, he had sacrificed something greater—his own truth. For he had fallen to the mortal passion by loving her.
The Red Lady whisked between the two of them. "Take it then, false child of Shinn. Be quick with it."
"Turiau de Wintershinn," sang the succubus, "bold lord of Glamour siege."
Shinn stiffened, his jaw hard. He could not move, Gossamyr knew, so great was the Red Lady's hold.
You can overpower her.
"Don't," Shinn croaked as Gossamyr lifted her staff behind the Red Lady's head.
/ love you, she mouthed to the Faery lord as the Red Lady ap-
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proached him, her palms rising to bracket his face. She would kiss him, suck out his essence. Gossamyr knew not how the foul extraction manifested, nor did she wish to witness.
She jumped and missed the alicorn.
Landing the floor in a graceless sprawl, she spied as Ulrich carefully arranged Avenall upon the crimson bed. A man blind to the figure in his arms, yet he managed to remove the leather hip sheath of pins.
She jumped again and her fingers skimmed the alicorn. A vibrant burst of Enchantment drifted from the horn. "Achoo!"
"Take this!" Ulrich called. He pulled out the clacking pins and tossed the leather bag to her.
As Gossamyr turned to catch the bag, she saw the Red Lady press her lips to her father's mouth. And she froze in that moment, a reluctant witness to her father's sacrifice.
The mighty Faery lord, arms spread wide in resistance—you shall have me, but you shall not have my fealty—took the kiss without moving. Clinging to her former lover, the Red Lady kissed him for what seemed to Gossamyr, evermore. Too long. A heart pulse caught up in a net.
In that instant the fetch buzzed into the room and swept over Shinn and the Red Lady's embrace. The dragon fly fluttered before Gossamyr. Look away.
And so she did.
She turned and leaped again, this time snagging the alicorn with the bag. In that moment she felt the vibrations of Enchantment. She did not want to hold this object. It was not hers to own. Where had gone the unicorn and the changeling?
With a deft balance to keep the alicorn teetering—without touching it—she slipped it into the leather pouch and ran down the steps to Ulrich. "Take it."
He shoved the pins into her hand, exchanging them for the leather bag. Gossamyr was pulled about by a mourning cry from her
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father. His body plummeted, falling straight backward, arms still out at his sides. Wings drained of life were useless against the fall.
The Red Lady, unloosed from her deadly kiss, staggered and coiled into a fix of squirming limbs. She moaned with such pleasure Gossamyr felt she witnessed a private act.
"Shinn!"
"No."
She wrestled against Ulrich's attempts to hold her back.
"This is your chance," the soul shepherd pleaded. "She is in a wicked
sort of sexual thrall. Take her out!"
A glance to Shinn. He lay perfectly still. Wings flattened upon the cold marble. The fetch landed his forehead. Dead?
"No," Gossamyr moaned in a rabbity cry.
And in the next instant her fingers clenched about the silver pins. Gathering the dozen long needles with both hands, she pointed them outward and rushed the writhing succubus. Racked with a pleasure most wicked, the Red Lady danced and sighed along the wall, clinging and undulating against the essences. Viscous fluids splattered her arms and neck and face as her movements burst the struggling essences.
Gossamyr wielded the pins overhead and, just as the Red Lady's arm whipped backward, twisting her chest up and high in a spasm of pleasure, Gossamyr drove the weapons into her chest. Silver pin to faery flesh. Pins slid freely through ribs, others, Gossamyr had to shove hard to pierce the resistant bone cage.
The force of the act blasted Gossamyr backward. Flung unfettered and uncontrollably, she landed Ulrich's body. The two slumped to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
Maniacal wails filled the room. The succubus's body shivered upon the wall as if an essence for ever pinned between the Celestial and the Infernal.
"Will she die?" Ulrich whispered over Gossamyr's shoulder.
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The succubus spat out oaths tinged with the Red and then ceased movement. Ichor poured from her chest, glistening ooze dripping from the heavy iron balls that tipped the pins. Her head slumped, folding onto her bosom.
And the wall of essences stopped. All became quiet.
Save the glimmer parting Shinn's chest. A brilliant essence of violet and emerald emerged and severed from the Faery lord's body.
"No, go back!" Gossamyr lunged to her father's side. She reached for the escaping essence, then paused to consider. Should she touch it? She did not want to risk a revenant. Carefully, she placed her palms above the essence to shield it from rising any higher. The cloying aroma of hyacinth set loose tears. "What should I do, Ul-rich? I cannot put it back in the body."
"Let it go!"
"No!" Gossamyr clasped the essence to her body and felt it seep into her clothing, through her flesh and into her body. "Oh!"
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