Grave Dance (37 page)

“Simple. The nightmare realm touches every dark shadow where anyone has ever feared what might be hiding in the depths or believed was cast by a monster—

which means as long as your room has a shadow, I can find the door.”

“And we’l come to no harm by going through the door?”

“My vow on it,” he said, holding up his hand in an oath. I glanced at Falin. He stil looked skeptical, but he shrugged.

glanced at Falin. He stil looked skeptical, but he shrugged.

It was my decision.

Final y I nodded. “Okay.”

“Splendid,” Kyran said at the same time Desmond stepped closer to me.

“If you fol ow his path I wil not fol ow,” the barghest said.

I studied him. I didn’t know his motives for helping me either, but I was interested in his opinions. “Is his path dangerous?”

“Not more than any other,” he said, and then took a step back. “Be safe, old friend of my Shadow Girl. She needs you.” He fel forward and by the time his hands hit the sand they weren’t hands but paws and he was the same oversized black dog I’d first met. Then he turned and was gone.

“I’l stil need the charm,” Kyran said, holding out his hand again.

The amulet was the only link I had to Hol y, and my only chance of finding her and the accomplice. If something happened to it . . . I chewed at my bottom lip.

“You’l return it?”

“I think you’re even more skeptical than he is. You’re too young for that,” he said, but when I stil didn’t hand it over he glanced at the sand in the hourglass and then said, “Yes, damn it, I’l return it. In the same condition and a timely manner even. Happy?”

Taking a deep breath, I unclasped Hol y’s amulet and handed it over. As Kyran’s hand closed around the ruby, the shadows around us shifted, racing past. I expected the nightmares to return and grab us, but eventual y the shadows settled again. Directly in front of me stood a vaguely rectangular shadow, as if it were being cast by an unseen dresser.

“This would be the one, I believe,” he said, handing me back the amulet.

I wrapped my fingers around it. He was right. The amulet pointed toward the rectangular shadow.

pointed toward the rectangular shadow.

“Now what?” Falin asked, and I noticed his daggers had appeared again. He must have also thought the nightmares were returning.

“Now we step through.” Kyran held out his hands to us.

We were going to walk through a shadow? Wel , why not? Since arriving in Faerie I’d walked through wal s, doorways that didn’t show the correct room beyond their thresholds, and a hole in reality. Why not walk through a shadow?

I clasped the amulet back onto my bracelet before accepting the kingling’s hand. “I suggest a deep breath,” he said. “This wil be cold.” Then he stepped forward and the shadow overtook us.

Disorientation hit hard as between one step and the next my boots left sand and landed on crimson-colored carpet.

My stomach flipped, like the moment at the top of a rol er coaster when you’re hanging upside down but gravity hasn’t caught on yet so you hang suspended before crashing into the shoulder harness. If I’d looked around and discovered I was standing on the ceiling, waiting for reality to realize it and drop me, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But I wasn’t on the ceiling. I was in a plain, sparsely decorated room.

The shadow we’d stepped through was cast by a large wardrobe that dominated most of one wal ; a smal bed huddled against another wal ; and in the far corner of the room was Hol y.

I let PC slide to the floor as I crossed the room in three steps. Her eyes were open, and she sat perfectly straight, her hands resting on her knees. She wore a pair of pink silk pajama bottoms and a white camisole that she must have changed into before lying down and the curse overtaking her. She didn’t move as I approached.

“Hol y?” Not so much as a twitch. I waved my hand in front of her face. “Hey.”

of her face. “Hey.”

Falin joined me. He gently moved her face toward us, but she didn’t even blink. “She’s entranced.”

“But a pretty dol ,” Kyran said.

I startled, spinning around to face the nightmare kingling. I hadn’t realized he was stil in the room. I’d expected him to return to his realm after he’d delivered us to Faerie, but as he settled against the wal , he looked like he planned to hang around.

I frowned at him. “She’s not a dol .”

“Al changelings are dol s. Some are just more autonomous than others.”

Dread slid under my skin. She wasn’t a changeling. Was she? How much time in Faerie could pass during a day in the mortal realm?

“Damn, Hol y, snap out of it.” I shook her shoulders. She slumped forward, and the dread sank deeper into my skin. I had found her. I’d traipsed through three courts, but
I’d
found her.
And I stil couldn’t rescue her.

“It won’t help,” a squeaky, high-pitched voice said, and I jumped.

A wooden birdcage hung in the corner of the room, but the creature inside wasn’t a bird. It was a smal fae. He was no tal er than five inches and covered with fur, but his face was more human than animal and he wore clothes like a man.

I stood and walked over to the cage. “What won’t help?”

“Cal ing, shaking, or any means you use to gain her attention,” the little creature said, stepping closer to the edge of the cage, but not approaching the bars. “The mistress wasn’t sure if she’d need her, so the fire witch waits. Nothing wil wake her but the mistress.”

I shook my head. “That’s unacceptable.” We’d carry her out of here if we had to. Wel , I’d probably ask Falin to do it, but we’d get her out of Faerie.

I stepped closer to the cage and then faltered. Something was wrong in that corner of the room; I could feel it with was wrong in that corner of the room; I could feel it with every atom of my being. “Iron,” I hissed as I recognized the slight tingle. “There’s iron encased in the cage bars.” Which meant this fae was not a pet but a prisoner. I reached for the door, but Falin grabbed my wrist, pul ing me back.

“You don’t know what he is, why he’s in there, or what he’l do if released,” Falin said.

I frowned and studied the little creature. It had smal pink ears that looked like soft mouse ears where they stuck up around its brown hat, and big round eyes atop a human nose and mouth. It didn’t look particularly dangerous—but looks could be deceiving.

“Who are you?” I asked the smal creature.

“Tiddlywinx, best glamour spinner in the oak ring,” he said, doffing his pointed hat and giving me a deep bow.

“Is the oak ring a place?” I asked Falin under my breath.

“Probably just a ring of oaks, and this little guy is as likely to be the only one who lives there as he is to be the best glamour spinner,” he said.

I mouthed,
Oh,
and Tiddlywinx bal ed his smal fists on his hips as he glared at Falin. “You ruin a good title, Sleagh Maith.”

A glamour spinner, huh?

“I think I met a hydra you made,” I told the smal man.

He shot up at that, his hands clasped in front of him. “My hydra? You saw it? Was it the best hydra you’d ever seen?”

“It was the only hydra I’ve ever seen.” Wel , now we knew where the glamour on the constructs originated. The question was whether Tiddlywinx was a wil ing participant, as his excitement suggested, or coerced, as the cage made it appear.

Falin must have had the same thought because he asked, “Why did you cast those glamours?”

“Because if I refused she brought in more iron.” He shuddered. I imagined a fae as smal as he was couldn’t handle very much iron.

“And what wil you do if released?” I asked him, because

“And what wil you do if released?” I asked him, because as long as he wasn’t a creature of ultimate darkness, I was letting him out of that cage.

“I wil owe you a massive debt, Sleagh Maith.”

My brows creased as I glanced at Falin. “He means you,”

he whispered.

“Oh, I’m not—” Actual y, I had no idea what I was or wasn’t at this point. I dropped the sentence halfway through and changed direction. “And after that where wil you go?”

“Back to my oak ring. I have to see if the squirrels stole al the stores I’ve been gathering for winter.”

Good enough for me.
But I stil had one more question.

“Your mistress—who is she and where did she go?”

The little man shook his head. “A witch of power. She was trapped until recently and now that she’s free, she stil can’t be with her lordly love. I think it addled her brain. As to where she went, I know not.”

Wel , at least it was more than we knew before. I released the latch on the cage and opened the door. Falin didn’t try to stop me this time, but stepped aside as the little man jumped free.

“Oh, so much better,” Tiddlywinx said, scampering in a smal circle around the carpet. PC, who’d been lying with his head on his paws, jumped up to give chase. When Tiddlywinx saw PC, he gave a loud squeak, which did nothing to convince the dog the little fae wasn’t a toy.

“No! Bad dog!” I yel ed, but PC was already into the game, which I became part of once I started trying to grab him.

Tiddlywinx turned suddenly, and he wasn’t a cute mouselike fae anymore, but a giant wolverine. PC yelped, stopping so fast that his back legs skidded out under him.

The wolverine charged.

“No! Don’t you hurt my dog.”

The beast stopped and abruptly transformed back into Tiddlywinx as Falin scooped up my now terrified dog.

“I meant no harm,” the little fae said. “I’m indebted to you,

“I meant no harm,” the little fae said. “I’m indebted to you, dear lady. What do you wish of me?”

“Can you break the curse on Hol y, or at least tel me how?”

“That is magic far outside my power.”

Okay, that sucked. I glanced at Falin, and his lips thinned a moment before he said, “Could you provide us transport to a bar cal ed the Eternal Bloom?” When I gave him a questioning look, he said only, “We can’t pass through the winter court.”

Right. The queen was probably out for my blood, and Falin—wel , if he returned, he’d be hers again.

Tiddlywinx slumped, his lip protruding. “I could spin a glamour of the most beautiful horses you’ve ever seen, but I cannot create a door they could carry you through.”

And that would be a long-winded “no.” I sighed.
How the
hell are we going to get back to Nekros if the only door
that opens to the city is attached to the winter court?
I guessed we could take the next-closest door and rent a car to drive back. It would suck, but it would work.

“I might be able to assist you,” Kyran said, pushing off the wal , “but if you plan to help your friend, you’d best hurry.” He reached into the shadow and pul ed the hourglass on its pole into the room. I didn’t bother asking him about it this time.

But he was right. I needed to figure out what to do about Hol y. I turned toward her, and Tiddlywinx scampered around me. He vaulted onto the leg of Hol y’s pants and scurried up to her knee.

“Good lady, I stil owe you a favor,” he said, balancing on the top of Hol y’s thigh.

She didn’t flinch. Her focus didn’t even move, and she was rather squeamish about anything that the word “rodent”

could be applied to. I had the feeling that Tiddlywinx would count as one of those in her opinion.
This is not a good
sign.

“We’l have to work out the details later,” I told him.

“We’l have to work out the details later,” I told him.

“But—”

“You heard her,” Kyran said.

I turned around and frowned at him. I noticed Falin did the same.
What’s the deal with this guy?
He reminded me of that kid at school who real y wants to be friends with you, but you just don’t like him. Not that I’d real y known Kyran long enough not to like him; I just didn’t trust him.

Tiddlywinx waited a minute more. Then he said, “Fine”

and vanished.

I rocked back onto my heels and studied Hol y.
There
has to be something I can do.
Reaching with my senses, I scanned the curse on her. It was active now, draped over her like a net made of spider silk. I didn’t have the magic needed to be a curse-breaker, but maybe now that this one was out of its shel , I’d be able to do something with it.

Maybe. Just maybe.

“Alex?” Falin stared at me, his eyes sweeping over my face. “What is it? You have that look like you have an idea and you know it’s a bad one but you’re going to try it anyway.”

I did have an idea. And he was right. “I can see magic,” I said, moving to stand directly in front of Hol y. “I mean, ever since I began seeing the Aetheric, I started to be able to see the shape of magic and the color of spel s.”

Anyone could see magic while inside the Aetheric, and most witches checked their spel s when they were there to make sure that no darkness or corruption had contaminated the spel or their bodies while they were spel casting. Inside the Aetheric magic could be touched and pul ed apart, separating light from dark. If a witch was cursed, and she could get to the Aetheric, she could pul the curse off her psyche, bypassing the need for counterspel s.

Of course, she had to do it herself. Healers had been working for years on a way to pul patients to the Aetheric with them, but so far no one had found a way to make two psyches end up in the same place.

psyches end up in the same place.

But I didn’t need to travel to the Aetheric to see magic—

or to touch it. The Aetheric plane was thin to nonexistent here, but magic stil functioned.
Which means this might
work.

I opened my shields. Hol y’s soul, which I’d already been seeing as pale yel ow, became clearer, almost outshining her features. But not al of it was glowing. The bite marks from the construct had healed and vanished from her skin, thanks to healing spel s, but they scarred her soul with a snaking cobweb of magic. The spel was a deep gray with veins of red. Not the most malicious spel I’d ever seen, but clearly effective enough.

Well, here goes.
I reached out both with my hand and with my psyche. Part of me wanted to squeeze my eyes shut because I was terrified that I would accidental y grab her soul instead of the spel , but if I closed my eyes, that chance increased.
Just be careful.