River drew back, panting. Something was… off. Wait, the music. It’d stopped. And that smell…
Greyness swept across my vision. I saw two glowing lights. River’s spirit, pulsing strongly, and mine, too.
Spirits weren’t supposed to appear in Faerie.
River leapt back from me with an exclamation of alarm. All the colour had drained from his face. “Did you feel that? Either someone opened a way to earth, or someone used necromancy here.”
Shock jolted me back to my senses. “How?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It’s not possible—it shouldn’t be possible.” He grabbed his blade, which had disappeared in a glamoured haze while we’d been kissing.
Wishing I had a proper weapon, I put my hand in my pocket and touched the book. Its power crept up my arm, invigorating, wrong. The magic had remained dormant since we’d come here. It shouldn’t exist. Despite myself, I pulled out the book. The symbol on the cover gleamed white, and so did my hands. A whisper across my spirit sight made me jump backwards.
“There’s a spirit here.” I put the book in my pocket, turning to look for the way back.
Then the first wraith appeared, its shadowy form sweeping over the clearing.
Screams rang out as a chill breeze followed in the wraith’s wake. Everyone here could see it. Hell—it’d probably been a Sidhe while it’d been alive. I didn’t have necromantic candles with me, which left me with one means of banishing it. I held up my hands, glowing white.
“Get over here, you bastard,” I shouted.
The wraith turned on me. Its shadowy form descended, and bright green magic exploded into life. Thorns rose into the air, grabbing at every Sidhe they could reach. Whoa. No Sidhe had cast the spell. The wraith still had its magic, and now it was attacking its kin. Magic streamed from my hands, but much less bright than it was in the mortal realm. The wraith shook off my attack. Summer energy blasted into the wraith, thrown from a couple of Sidhe, but did no damage.
“Keep hitting it!” River shouted at them. “It’s vulnerable to magic. Get it onto the ground!”
Necromantic energy blasted from his own hands, mingling with mine, but was it possible to banish a wraith from a realm which had no veil? The wraith fell back under the assault as several other Sidhe joined in the attack, but the thorns continued to rise, striking any Sidhe who came near. Bright faerie blood stained the pristine forest floor, and the curtain of ivy had been ripped away, exposing the panicked Sidhe running around the main room—and two more wraiths, hovering above the crowd. Piskies flew around, panicking, while the band fled the stage.
“Get out!” roared a voice. “Get out of my house.” Lord Niall stormed through the room, pure anger twisting his face. He slammed his staff into the floor, and the whole house trembled.
They were going to utterly destroy this place if someone didn’t banish those wraiths.
With a glance at River, I switched on my spirit sight. If the gate could be accessed here, I needed to get them out. I willed the book’s magic to fill my veins with cold power, searching for the familiar spiked gate, but saw nothing but greyness and the burning shapes of the wraiths. Dark spirits, clawed and hideous, reduced to something less than Sidhe or human.
The Vale. They came from the Vale.
But—that’s where Mum was.
River’s attack smashed into the nearest wraith, sending it flying backwards. The other two flew over the crowd, as though revelling in the chaos they’d created. Sidhe fired arrows at them, which simply sailed right through their enemies.
“Magic is the only weapon that works,” River called to them. Everyone seemed to be in too much shock to care about a half-blood giving them orders. “Watch it—they can use Sidhe magic against you.”
Thorns burst from the ground, and green light exploded overhead as the Sidhe’s magic collided with the wraiths’.
Hazel ran up to us, magic flowing from her own hands. Morgan stood alone, shouting the banishing words at full volume. His disguise had gone, like mine. I marched past the panicking Sidhe to Morgan’s side and joined him in shouting the words of banishment. Necromantic power continued to flow from the book to my hands, combining with Morgan’s own attack. River joined us, but even the collective power of all three of us wasn’t enough to send the wraiths into the afterlife.
Bleeding Sidhe lay around us. Some of them might die—for real. Imagining how the Sidhe would react to that strengthened my resolve. The book’s power pulsed through my veins. It’s not tied to one realm. It’s tied to me, and it’s mine.
I drifted out of my body, still holding the book. White light shone from my hands, colliding with the nearest wraith. Where the hell is that gate?
“Get back into the hell you came from,” I snarled, imagining the gates appearing, sucking the wraiths into the void. Come on…
A wrenching sensation tugged through my whole body, and darkness appeared beyond the wraiths. Not the gates, but something else. Death? Maybe. I shouted the banishing words, over and over, magic pouring from my hands like a faucet.
The darkness closed in, and the wraiths disappeared, leaving grey fog, and gleaming lights within.
Two things were apparent. The Sidhe did have souls… or spirits, at least… and every one of them had seen what I’d done.
I fell back into my body, staggering against River. Exhaustion blurred my vision, masking the Sidhe and dulling their voices to a continuous hum.
Lord Niall’s voice broke through the haze. “There will be no further revels without extensive guards!” he shouted. “No humans will be welcome.”
“You’re welcome,” said Morgan, but his voice was lost amongst the crowd. This time neither Hazel nor I stepped in to warn him. Because if I wasn’t half-dead, I’d say the same.
“We have to go,” I mumbled. “Guys… get over here.”
Something was wrong, like I’d given more than the book’s power when I’d used its magic. Almost as though it’d drained some of my life force away, too.
“Way to go,” Hazel said to me. “That was—wow.”
“They think you’re the angel of death.” Morgan snorted. “Hey—Ilsa. Crap. Are you okay?”
I tried to say I think I’m dying, but it came out as a croak. My legs gave out as the last of the book’s power fled, and blackness rushed in.
7
I woke up on a soft bed, surrounded by the pleasant smells of flowers and muted Summer magic. And a familiar earthy scent. River sat in a chair beside the bed, his eyes closed. I tried to sit up. My body and head didn’t like that. Dizziness swept through me, and I flopped back onto the pillows.
River stirred. “Ilsa? Are you okay?”
I groaned. “Try hungover with a side of migraine and a terrible case of ‘got run over by a faerie horse’.”
He pushed his hair back with one hand. “Then it’s probably a good thing that you didn’t wake up when we rode back.”
“Please tell me I didn’t throw up on you.”
“No. You were completely unconscious. You worried me.” He walked to me in his swift faerie manner and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. My face heated at the memory of his hands on my skin in the forest, and I ducked my head, willing the images to disappear.
“The Sidhe… they saw me,” I said.
“They didn’t see it was you who banished the wraiths,” River said. “They saw into the realm of Death, same as all of us, but they’re not experienced in telling one spirit from another.”
“Someone must have been to let those wraiths in,” I croaked.
He passed me a glass of water, and I drank the whole thing in one go. How long had I been lying here? Long enough for dawn to break outside. Days might have passed at home, and anything might have happened back in Scotland.
“Yes,” River said quietly. “Someone let them in. There was either an outcast or a necromancer present. Given the level of magic there, I’d guess a traitor.”
“They opened the Vale.�
� I swallowed. “I—I could have done the same, but I didn’t want to send those wraiths after Mum. I can’t believe the Sidhe couldn’t take them down. What about those Invocations?”
“Their magic has little effect on the dead. Winter would work better, and I bet the attacker was counting on that.”
“I saw them. In Death. Is that because they’re no longer immortal, or…?”
“I don’t know,” River said. “I’ve never seen anything like that in the years I’ve worked for them.”
“Are they—okay? I mean, nothing’s come back and attacked them again?”
He shook his head. “No. Lord Niall ordered a search of the grounds, but we’d left by then. We weren’t the only people glamoured, and the Sidhe know nothing of necromancy at all.”
“Good,” I said. “I mean, it’s not good that the attacker might still be there. It’s not like my spirit sight works as a tracker the way it does at home.”
Out of curiosity, I tried to access my spirit sight. But the familiar greyness didn’t appear. I couldn’t imagine tracking would work when the Sidhe’s magic muddled everything, anyway.
“You opened the realm of Death in Faerie,” River said seriously. “The mortals’ Death, no less. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I don’t think it was the gate I opened,” I said. “I think… I don’t know what it was. Not the Vale, either. What happens when Sidhe die, anyway? I mean, they have souls. I know that now. They must disappear temporarily even if they come back.”
“I can’t say I know,” River said. “Did you see the Vale?”
“No. I’m not so sure I can open the Vale from here at all.” I reached for the book, which was still in the pocket it’d been in before I’d been glamoured. “Just when I think it can’t surprise me any more…” A new section had appeared in the back. Faeries and death. I briefly skimmed the page, as River leaned in to look.
“Death Kingdom,” I said. “Oh—it’s apparently in Winter. Not the Vale at all.”
“It’s where banshees live,” said River, reading over my shoulder. “But what you did to the wraiths didn’t open a door within Faerie itself, but somewhere beyond it. The ‘Death Kingdom’ is just a name for the far reaches of Winter territory. I went on a mission there once, and it’s not like our Death realm. There aren’t ghosts there.”
“Hmm.” I slid out of bed. I still wore my faerie-made clothes, though my glamour had long since faded. “Is there a shower here somewhere?”
“In there.” He pointed to the en-suite bathroom. “No hot water, I’m afraid. Only the Sidhe have that luxury.”
“I’ll survive.” The room was fairly cool, but the sun outside the windows indicated another scorching day.
The shower looked suspiciously like a human creation except without temperature controls. What did the Sidhe do, hop over the Ley Line to swipe the humans’ inventions and then replicate them with magic? It wouldn’t surprise me if they did. They hated us coming here, and had put even River into a position of inferiority, but I’d bet everything I owned that they’d expect to be treated like royalty in our place. They’d come over to the mortal realm and left us to clean up their mess, while even the lesser nobles here lived like kings.
The soap smelled of flowers. Big surprise there. I wondered if Winter’s equivalent smelled of ice and despair, and decided I didn’t want to know. After dressing in more faerie-made clothes—which, to be fair, were somehow both comfortable and flattering at the same time—I found River waiting outside.
“The others are in the conservatory,” he said. “We have food that won’t have adverse effects on humans.”
“Thanks.” I tugged a hand through my hair, which was still hopelessly tangled. “How long have we been here?”
“You’ve been unconscious for about twelve hours.” He walked into a side room, while I spotted Morgan sitting in the conservatory.
“Hey,” I said, scooting over to join him. “You okay?”
He scowled. “Bloody faerie water. I didn’t have one drink and I feel like shit.”
“Yeah.” I collapsed into the chair next to him. “Where’s Hazel?”
“No clue. Thought she was with you.”
“No…” I frowned. “It’s not like her to go wandering off. I was going to suggest finding someone else who might know what the hell happened yesterday. There was a traitor, or a necromancer, right there at the party. Did you sense anyone?”
“No. I wasn’t paying attention.”
I sighed. “I don’t blame you, but a Sidhe? Really?”
He grinned. “I just wanted to see if they’re as good as everyone says they are.”
“What’s the verdict?”
“Yeah, they are. Dicks.”
I snorted. “Well, they certainly did a great job screaming and running around like headless chickens. You’d think they’d never seen a ghost before.”
“They hadn’t,” River said, returning with a platter covered with faerie food—homemade bread, cheese, fruit. “They were lesser nobles. I’ve passed on my concerns to my father about the presence of a traitor, but the guests have long since departed. I doubt you’ll be able to get into the inner Court with the added security.”
“We’ll see what Hazel says.” I picked up a grape and bit into it. “How many days have we lost at home?”
“I don’t know, but probably less than a week,” said River, helping himself to a handful of grapes. “I wish there was an accurate way to check. I lost six months the first time I came here.”
“Bet Lady Montgomery loved that,” said Morgan through a mouthful of bread.
I tensed, ready to tell him to stop winding up River, but River himself didn’t look particularly bothered. “She knows Faerie. I did warn her.”
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“It’s difficult to measure in our time. I’ve worked for the Court in some capacity for four or five years, but I was first invited here at eighteen. My father…” He paused. “He offered me the talisman as a gift, and it chose me. A good job it did, because we were attacked by borderland outcasts on my first visit. The Court offered me a job in exchange for helping them.”
“That’s how you got into bodyguard duty?” I asked. “I remember you mentioned the borderlands once.”
“Most of my tasks weren’t that high-risk. I was usually asked to safeguard magical objects or escort lesser fae through the outskirts of Faerie.”
“So do you prefer that or dealing with the dead?” asked Morgan.
“I don’t have a preference,” he said. “I worked at the guild for longer. Your sister’s back, by the way.”
Hazel came into the conservatory, her expression distraught and her face pale. “The circlet… the light went out.”
The light on her forehead had faded, and no green or gold glow surrounded her. Her magic had gone.
An icy chill spread down my spine, masking the warmth of the room.
“Shit,” I said. “Is Mum…?”
“It doesn’t mean the Gatekeeper has died,” Hazel said. “Someone’s taken the gate.”
“What?” I stared at her. “The gate here? Who?”
“I don’t know, do I? I can’t open the gate without the bloody circlet,” Hazel said.
River swore. “If your power’s tied to the Court—I’ll ask my father if he might be able to help.”
He glided out of the room. Oh, boy. River had had to ask for more than enough favours on our behalf already, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the Sidhe kicked us out by this point. The idea of the house being compromised… it wasn’t thinkable. I had to do something.
“How can anyone have got into the garden?” Morgan asked. “Don’t we have defences everywhere?”
“Not on the gate,” Hazel said. “It’s supposed to be a defence force all by itself, because its run by the Court’s magic.”
“So it died because the Court’s magic is fading?” asked Morgan.
“If they have the gate, they have
the house,” Hazel said. “Mum has things in the house which I do not want anyone else getting hold of.”
Hope it’s not Holly. But Holly, we could handle. Ghosts couldn’t take over a house, so who else might be attacking? Even most Vale creatures didn’t have the intelligence—or the access, considering how well the house was hidden.
River ran back into the room. “There’s still a link to your house from my last mission. We can leave through the garden.”
“But can we come back that way?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. I wish we could. I’ve asked my father to keep an eye on the Court and send a messenger to me if there’s trouble, but his brownie has left on a mission for the council. You’ll have to find another way back.”
Leaving would put our quest to rescue Mum on hold—but if we let anything happen to the house, the Gatekeeper’s entire position might be in jeopardy. Hazel’s expression mirrored mine, and she must be feeling it worse than I was—after all, she would have done anything to fulfil her role as Gatekeeper. But when that goal clashed with keeping us safe, she’d go against it up until the point where her vow to the Court made it impossible.
“It might be a mistake,” I said consolingly. “The gate leads back here anyway, if it turns out it’s still there. Has anyone ever taken it before?”
“No,” Hazel said, biting her lip. “That’s the thing. It leads directly here. How many of our enemies need a direct route into the Summer Court?”
“We need to leave,” River said, reappearing. “There are people at the door asking questions about the events at Lord Niall’s party yesterday.”
“Shit,” I said. “The last thing we need is to be hauled off for questioning.”
Actually, the last thing we needed was for some unknown villain to hijack the gate into the Summer Court while the Gatekeeper was potentially held captive in the Vale, but the universe wasn’t inclined to let any of us catch a break lately.
We crept out of the conservatory, between thorny plants, until we were safely out of sight of the house. Then River paused, looking up at the sky. “Here…. I can sense the vow.”
The Gatekeeper's Curse- The Complete Trilogy Page 50