by Lucy Auburn
The thing sat heavy in the pocket of my gym shorts as I headed down the hallway towards the ambassador’s office. More than once I passed another fae and felt woefully under-dressed; it was almost enough to make me wish for Persephone’s suffocating silks again. I’d never felt elegant while pinning them in place and cursing their extravagant lengths, but the finished look was always something worth showing off.
Of course, just when I was starting to feel at my ugliest I saw them coming down the hallway ahead of me. Both tall, both strikingly handsome, with chiseled jaws, intense eyes, mouths that were quick to laugh—and in one of their cases, quick to scowl and growl. Leon and Elah, who were apparently friends now, or at least friendly. I stopped short when I saw them, eyes wildly darting for a non-existent corner to sink into.
Apparently I was the only one who felt that awkwardness, though, because Elah smiled at me and Leon smirked. “Selena.”
“Hey guys,” I said, voice as weak as my knees. I hadn’t prepared for this—if Tae Min showed up I might just melt into the floor beneath me, never to be seen again. “I was just looking for the ambassador.”
Leon said, “We just came from there. He had an assignment for us.” He darted his eyes down to my mouth and then quickly back up again. “You’re looking a lot better. For a second there, on the battlefield, I thought we’d lost you.”
“Did the doctor give you the all clear to get up and walk around?” Elah’s eyes were just as intense as ever, dark amber where Leon’s were a bright blue. Worry curved his mouth downward in a subtle frown. “You weren’t even awake when we brought you here.”
I sighed at his protective worry, even as it warmed something in me. “I didn’t lose a leg, you know.”
“I know.” He bit his lip as he looked at me, and I was reminded of the evening we shared, and how close we came to being engaged. “The detective and I have somewhere to be,” he said regretfully, “but if you’re up for it, I’d like to talk to you when we get back.”
I glanced at Leon, and then back at Elah again, heart torn and confused. But neither of them seemed at all jealous of the other, which made me feel like I was the one being silly. “Alright,” I said, wondering what we would talk about. “Let’s talk. How long will you two be gone?”
They traded a look that made me think they were keeping a secret from me, but maybe that was my paranoia talking after all that time spent in the Underworld. Leon supplied the answer to my question. “We shouldn’t be gone long. Hours, hopefully. A day at the most. You have my phone number if you need anything.”
I didn’t have my cell phone, but I was pretty sure I’d left it in my car. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said, ducking the intensity of his bright blue eyes as I passed them both. “If I need anything, I’ll... call you.”
What I didn’t tell either of them was that I was going on my own trip. Somehow I didn’t think they would approve, especially given I’d only just returned home. I was hoping Petyr would be open-minded enough when I explained to him what I wanted to do, but maybe he wouldn’t understand either. I just knew I couldn’t sit in that room all day, full of thoughts spinning around and around in my head, doing nothing. I had to take hold of some part of my life and do something.
The receptionist was sitting in the waiting room when I got there. She raised two silver-blonde brows at me when she saw me, then sighed and gestured towards the doors. “Go on in. He has ten minutes, fifteen if his next meeting is late.”
“Thank you.”
Both great, heavy wooden doors swung inward at her unspoken signal, a piece of magic I’d never really seen or understood that well. Petyr was sitting at his desk when I walked in; by the look on his face when he glanced up and saw me, he hadn’t been expecting me.
“Selena.” Standing fluidly, he walked around the desk as the doors closed behind me with solemn formality. “Are you okay? Should you be walking around like this?”
If he was going to be this overprotective about me walking to his office, I doubted he’d take me to the Shadow Realm himself. I’d have to try a different tactic if I wanted to end my association with Vincent once and for all.
Also, his protectiveness irritated me.
“You and Elah are cut from the same cloth,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest and staring up into his warm brown eyes. “I’m feeling a lot better now. Certainly well enough to walk twenty feet on my own.”
For his part, Petyr at least managed to look embarrassed. “Sorry. It was just disconcerting, seeing you hurt like that. There was a lot of blood, and I couldn’t—” He stopped, emotion flickering across his face. “My healing powers wouldn’t work on the bite.”
Biting my lower lip, I worried at a thought in my head. “Beelzebub. He’s in some kind of prison cell, I know, but you should be warned that he’s powerful.”
“I know, Selena.” He reached out to squeeze one of my hands. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore. He’s not your responsibility.”
The urge to correct him, to lay the blame at my own feet, was overwhelming. But I tamped down on it and accepted his words, remembering that I came here for a different reason entirely. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Oh? Here, take a seat.” He motioned towards two wing-back chairs sitting on each side of a table near the wall, a sort of nook and cranny for guests to relax in. “Is this about where you were these past three months? Leon mentioned something about the Underworld, but maybe that wasn’t all of it. Or maybe you have questions.”
I shook my head, remembering how Maggie had warned me not to tell Petyr too much of what I’d shared with her. “Petyr is a good man,” she’d said, “but his loyalty lies with the Elders first and foremost. He’ll be obligated to tell them anything you share with him, even if he’d rather not.”
“No, it’s not that,” I said aloud, a twitch of guilt running through me at keeping so much from him. “I was actually wondering if you could tell me about—about one side of my family. The Lightblood side.”
I’d barely stopped myself from revealing to him that I knew my father was the Lightblood fae, now that I’d met my mess of a mother; I was either worse at this lying thing than I realized, or Petyr’s warm gaze just had a way of charming the truth out of me. I would have to be more careful around him.
“Regretfully, we know little about the Lightbloods. I did speak to the Elders about them at one point, when it became clear your powers were manifesting, but there are some secrets they hold from even me. Including the secrets of how our realms were created.” Petyr must’ve sensed my disappointment, because he reached across the small round table to place his palm over my hand, bringing me warmth. “What is this about? Are you trying to find your parents, or is there something else going on?”
“I want to know more about my powers,” I told him truthfully. “These past three months, while I’ve been gone, all I did was look for a way to go home. And I kept thinking that if I knew how to use my Lightblood powers, maybe I would be able to just walk between the realms like it was nothing. I did it that one time with you.”
“That was while we were using the teleportation ring, though.” He held up his hand, the ring shining in the warm light of his office. “Teleportation is a tricky thing. Once you’re between two realms, the way we are when the world around us blurs while we use the rings, it’s easier to wind up somewhere else. That was how you found yourself in the Shadow Realm. But if you can’t get back to that in-between place, you won’t be able to realm walk.”
I shuddered at his mention of the in-between place, which I didn’t remember fondly. “It just doesn’t make sense that I can’t use my Lightblood powers, when my succubus abilities just showed up one day. Shouldn’t they be instinctual like that?”
“It is interesting. I think it has something to do with how different fae abilities work.” Petyr leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful hand coming up to scratch at his chin. His eyes drifted off as he continued speaking. “My own Any
ana abilities didn’t come on me until I was nearly an adult, while many fae awaken during puberty. And I won’t be fully Anyana for a long, long time—maybe even a century or two.”
The thought of Petyr, the man sitting in front of me, growing to be two hundred years old was mind-blowing. But my heart sank at the implications of what he said. “So you’re saying it’s possible I might not be able to use my Lightblood skills until I’m a lot older.”
“We don’t really know one way or another. But I do have some books that might help. They’re not about Lightbloods, but they do cover teleportation and instantaneous transportation pretty thoroughly. Maybe something in one of them will shake something loose for you.”
I held back my frustration and nodded, wishing I could just reach across the table and grab his ring, then somehow force it to take me to the Shadow Realm. But after everything Petyr had done for me, I knew it would be wrong—and I was trying my best not to be selfish now that I had a second chance at life on Earth.
“I’ll go get the books.” Petyr pushed his chair back. “While I’m up anyway, do you want anything to drink?”
“I’m good,” I said, warmed as always by his attention and care for me. “Just the books is more than enough, thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it. If you’re anything like your foster mother, I imagine they’ll be more than enough to keep you busy all afternoon—and the busier you are, the less likely it is that you’ll somehow get yourself hurt again and get me in trouble with Maggie. I swear she would’ve killed any one of us if she thought we let you get hurt.”
I warmed a little at his words, staring down at the table. It occurred to me that for how little time I’d spent with the ambassador, he seemed to know me quite well—including my penchant for getting into trouble when left to my own devices. No doubt that had something to do with his friendship with Maggie and all that they shared, but as he brought the books back to me I couldn’t help wondering how much attention he paid to me.
And if it was all part of his job, or something more.
Legs crossed in front of me on my bed, I spread the books out on my bedsheets to read them one by one.
I kept expecting to get interrupted, but Naomi was with her sister, Leon and Elah were off on their mission, and Tae Min apparently had other patients to look into. Sarah checked in on me one more time, and when I asked about the doctor she mumbled out something about a long-term care patient. Maggie was tending to her store, but had promised to come pick me up and take me home as soon as it was closed.
That left me alone with the books and my thoughts, able to dive into them without worrying about being interrupted by a heavy conversation or a mind-shattering kiss.
They described many ways of transportation between the realms, but as Petyr said there wasn’t much about the Lightbloods in there. One of the books covered portals between realms, which had apparently been much more common until a group of wayward humans discovered them and stumbled through. They were still used at times, but now laws and edicts governed how long they could be left open, and the magic it took to make them was great.
Elah had come through a portal to meet me when I first went to the Realm of Light, though in his case it took him across the realm, not between them. Portals between the realms apparently took a great deal more energy and skill than ones that simply transported a person a great distance, and most of them were only suited for one person at a time.
There was a brief passage about blackfyre horses, covering their ability to be transported without panicking. It also mentioned Elah’s ability to transport himself across battlefields, though it was described as “wind-walking,” and the text pointed out that most blackfyre knights couldn’t do it very often or with much accuracy, making it unwise to rely upon for more than just battle. Apparently it was easy enough for blackfyres and their horses to transport to a destination they could see with their eyes, but longer distances were their own complication.
I’d used my own eyes in a way when I accidentally transported myself to the Shadow Realm. All I’d done was look in the direction of that mysterious, seductive voice, and suddenly I was there. Meeting Vincent.
Pulling the white-blue amulet out of my pocket, I stared at it and frowned. I never should’ve accepted it in the first place, but—here we were. All I wanted was to get rid of it, and put everything dark behind me once and for all.
The more I skimmed and read the books, the more I got into them. All the strange magical physics behind teleportation fascinated me. It’d been a while since I got to learn anything new; my college courses hadn’t continued when I was in the Underworld. In fact, as far as I knew, I was probably a permanent dropout now.
Thinking about college just made me think about Talia, and I felt guilt for the fact that I hadn’t reached out to her yet. But my phone was in my car, and Maggie mentioned that my car was parked at her house, which I wouldn’t be going to for hours. Talia would have to wait, even if it felt wrong to have gone to Hell and crossed between realms without talking to her.
Sifting through the books in front of me, I set the more useful ones to the side, and put the ones that had proven useless on the nightstand. As I sorted them, a small, pamphlet-like book caught my attention. I didn’t remember reading it yet. “The Ways of the Ascended,” I murmured, frowning at the title. “Did Petyr put this in here by mistake?”
When my fingers brushed across the embossed words on the cover, I felt a strange spark of recognition, as if I’d known this book at one point in my life. Like I’d been looking for it without knowing what it was. Frowning, I paged it open and started to read.
The style of the text was formal and difficult to get through. I leaned back on the pillow behind me, curling up with the book in my lap and re-reading each sentence to make sure I understood them.
It didn’t seem to be about teleportation, though one sentence mentioned something about “breakers of the barriers between realms.” Instead it described an ancient and powerful race of people called the Ascendants, who formed the world and all the people in it.
This was a religious text, I realized with a frown. It was just some piece of mythological fae fiction—it even briefly described a shining city on the top of a mountain peak, called the Mirrored City. The way the book described it made it seem like heaven, if a little more grungy and real.
Disappointed, I flicked through the rest of the pages in search of anything interesting, but mostly found extended descriptions of the Ascendants, including prophecies about them, and of course more than one prediction that they would return to the Earth and bestow humanity with immortality. Sighing, I was just about to give up on the book when I saw a strange symbol swooping across one of the pages in black ink. It seemed to fly off the page as I hunted for it. I found myself staring at the curves and jagged edges in front of me.
There were no words on the page opposite, and no explanation as to what it was. I traced one of the lines with my fingertip and inhaled sharply as a pins and needles feeling slithered up my finger like a snake.
I felt it pull me forward. There were whispers hidden in its depth, like the whispers of the dark hallways in the Underworld, only these were friendly instead of frightening. They seemed to be beckoning towards me, insisting I follow them somewhere. Anywhere, maybe.
Licking my lips nervously, I double-checked that I had Elah’s amulet so I could call for him if I got myself into trouble. And I slipped Vincent’s amulet into my gym shorts again for good measure. Then I got off the bed, sensing I would want my feet beneath me for this. I held the book in one hand, open to the page I needed.
Splaying out my fingers, I put my palm flat against the symbol. The whispers grew to voices, laughing and cajoling, singing to me and purring in my ear.
I closed my eyes and leaned into the sounds, picturing the Shadow Realm in my head, seeing myself reach out to return Vincent’s amulet and then walk away from him for good.
It seemed so real.
All at onc
e I felt the world around me disappear as yet again I was whisked away to somewhere new.
It was only when I drew my hand back that I realized I’d made the same mistake twice now, by letting my mother’s necklace—and now the book—take me somewhere without even thinking about it. The book had seemed so seductive, its power whispering at me that I was in control, but for all I knew it was just tricks. I was surrounded by darkness, pinpricks of light in the distance, which seemed to suggest this was the Shadow Realm. But the realm itself was infinite, and I could be in any corner of it for all I knew, doomed to walk for eternity.
“You’re an idiot, Selena Pierce,” I muttered to myself, wishing I had more caution in my bones. “Truly a fool.”
That was when I heard his voice. “Little lamb.” He walked out of the darkness, his brown skin glowing in a mysterious omnipresent light. There were flicks of amber in the depths of his dark eyes, which were always slightly narrowed with playful, sinister charm. “I see you’ve made your way out of Hell. Figured out what you are, have you? I suppose I should be calling you little wolf now instead.”
I started to tell him off, then paused. His words, as always, tempted me. “What do you mean, ‘what I am,’ and all that? What do you know about me?”
A smirk pulled up the corners of his lips. His next words taunted me, even as he walked close enough for me to see into the fathomless depths of his eyes. “I know everything you know, maybe,” he murmured. “Or maybe I know more. Maybe I know nothing—or everything.”
I hated his riddles, but curiosity pulled at me. Closing the book, I slipped it into the waistband of my gym shorts and tried to pretend like I wasn’t lost.
I mustered the most authoritative voice I could find. “Take me to whatever weird little corner you have set up here, Vincent, and tell me everything.”
Instead of telling me off, he looked almost satisfied—or proud, if that was possible. With a nod and a flourish, he turned in a seemingly random direction and gestured for me to follow.