Rise of the Magi (13 page)

Thoughts open to one another, Liam looked at me and I shrugged, both of us knowing exactly what she wanted. “Would you like to see Iress?” he asked with a grin.

“Could we? An honest-to-goodness fae city? Seriously?” She chewed her finger before abruptly tucking her hand into the pocket of her dress. “If it’s not too much trouble, that is. That way we can get started bright and early.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Mel?” the man asked, his stare bobbing from Liam to me, Willa, and back to Meline.

Andrew, back to full-grouchy-guard splendor, put himself between us and the man. Leaning forward in an aggressive stance, he held his arms straight down at his sides, fists drawn in tight.

“Yes, and by the way”—Meline pointed to the man—“this is Thomas, and this”—her finger swept to the woman—“is Amanda.”

I nodded to them both, having to lean around Andrew to see Thomas. I didn’t reach for his offered hand just in case they went haywire, the way regular humans did when they touched a fae. James had grown used to us, it seemed, because he didn’t react in our presence anymore, whether we were powered up or down. It was so much easier to meet with him when he wasn’t trying to hump our legs.

“Lila?” Andrew raised his arms to keep me behind him, his stare never straying from Thomas. “You really want to invite strangers into the city, especially with everything going on?”

“Yep. Of all of the people around that table, these folks gave me the least amount of worry. Now, let’s go find these ladies and gent a shifter to sleep in so I can get my ass to bed.”

“Ever use a portal before?” Cas ushered our three guests to the yellow distortion on the wall.

“Most of our magic is earthen in origin,” Meline said. “We don’t have any spatial spells, which I’m guessing this is, though we can bend reality a little.”

That was a new one. I could barely bend myself to tie my shoe with my baby belly. I hadn’t really given much thought to how the portals worked. There were too many questions I hadn’t found the time to ask, and I filed that one away for later.

The three stood examining the portal until my patience evaporated. “Can we play tourist tomorrow, please? Grouchy pregnant lady, here.”

Brígh snorted and laughed with Neve, while Quinn grinned at me.

“Oh, sorry.” Meline said.

Cas explained where the portal would take them and that it would make them feel like they were being turned inside out and spun around in a washing machine, which was a pretty succinct description.

Thomas went a little green, but Meline jumped right into the portal with the enthusiasm of a kid getting onto the best ride ever. When we all made it outside Seven Gates, Brígh and Cas described where we were, where the other doorways went, and we stepped up to the very center cut-out in the granite wall—the new portal leading to Iress.

“I can feel your wards already.” Meline rubbed her arms. “They’re so dense. What kind of magic is this?”

“Fae magic,” Brígh said. “The good stuff. Maybe we can exchange a few tidbits …” The downward turn of her mouth accompanied hurt shining out from within. “You know … if we live long enough.”

“We will,” I said through set teeth, following her into the gateway, dragging Meline and Willa behind me. “Talk like we will. Believe we will. And if you buy that mind-over-matter shit Gallagher blathers on about, then we’re golden, right?” The others filed in after us, Liam bringing up the rear.

Trevor met us on the other side. I smiled at him, or at least tried to. “Thanks for bringing Laerni to the meeting. She’ll be back in a bit with Gallagher. Would you mind taking Willa and Quinn to the rest of their crew?”

After a little bow, with a giant helping of the dramatic, Trevor swept his arm out. “This way, lady and gent.”

Slipping her hand over Quinn’s bicep, Willa smiled at me. The fear had faded a little, but not completely. I’d see it erased if it killed me. “Goodnight, Lila. Thank yeh for this.”

I raised my hand and waved as the three of them started toward our new sea.

“Wow.” Mouth gaping open, Meline stood beside me on the cobblestone. She stared first one way, and the other. I imagined she’d been doing it for a minute or two at least. “Just … wow. Um … did that house just blink? You didn’t mean those are the shifters you said we’d stay in. I thought you were … I don’t know … using some slang I didn’t know for
rustic inn
.”

Brígh and Cas bent over laughing. To my dismay, Andrew didn’t join them but had returned to his angry bear persona.

“Brígh will show you around,” I said, pinning her with a serious glare. “You are not to be alone for a single second, you hear me? See you all early, though I’ll be anything but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

As Brígh went arm-in-arm with Meline down the street, she said, “So, when you walk in, just imagine your dream house, and ta-da! The shifter will look however you want it to.”

“Seriously?” Meline and the other witch shouted in unison. “That’s the coolest thing ever! Where did you find them? How did they get here? Is this more fae magic? What do they eat? Not people, I hope.”

Neve, Andrew and Cas followed them. I knew two of them went with the intent of keeping Brígh safe and didn’t have the slightest hesitation about the witches. Andrew, on the other hand, didn’t take his glower away from Thomas.

As the questions continued to explode out of the women, Liam scooped me into his arms and headed toward the castle. “Don’t start with me,” he said, “I’m exercising my husbandly privilege.”

I dug my knuckle into his shoulder. “You’re pushing your luck, buddy.”

He flashed a knowing grin. “What? No protest? No death threats? Will wonders never cease?”

“Oh, shut it and walk faster, mule.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and held tight, feeling very much like my life and my future were slipping away from me, and no matter how tight I held on, how desperate I was to keep it all, eventually it would be torn from my grasp. Somehow, somewhere, I had to find a way to put an end to our end.

My man must have picked up my train of thought because he went silent and drew me closer. I loved that I didn’t have to tell him not to poke at me. He just knew what made me tick and explode, that saying the words out loud would only have made me cry and probably slug him for it. Instead, he remained quiet, let me listen to him breathe, to the too-fast ticking of his heart, to the steady rhythm of his footfalls. I could have lived to the music that was Liam. Once upon a time I would have tried to dissect my feelings for him, to find fault, but I’d learned to accept instead of poking my finger into things that made me happy, like pretending to read a book while my man made eyes at me.

“Even if the other cities slam the door in our faces, I think we need to personally try again to warn them tomorrow,” he said, breaking me out of my wandering within his personal symphony.

“Yeah, I guess.”
Goddess, make them listen.
They might have despised me, but they were still my people. A stab of guilt hit me, that instead of reuniting the two fae courts, I’d divided us into three. “But not until after our field trip with the witches.”

• • •

The next day at dawn, Liam and I stood amongst a circle of guards, as per Andrew’s insistence. I’d tried talking to him before we regrouped with the witches, but he acted too agitated and cut me off with barked instructions every time I opened my mouth. Apparently, he’d been up half of the night planning how our visit to Talawen’s glen would go. Liam had reiterated what Neve had told me, that Andrew’s current state was due to what had happened in Freymoor, and he needed to work it out on his own.

Why alone? Men.
How could I reassure my guard if he wouldn’t talk to me? Liam had told me to let Andrew be, labelling it guy stuff, and I supposed I had no choice for the time being, but soon, Andrew and I would be having a talk. If I could overcome my tendencies toward suffering in silence, then so could he.

Meline rubbed her arms as she scanned the clearing where Talawen’s tree had once stood. “This is old magic,” Meline said between chatters of her teeth. “I’ve never felt anything like it. Thomas?” She faced her companion who wore a grim expression of tight lips and dark bags under his eyes. Apparently, sleeping in the belly of a monster had disagreed with him.

“There are layers of more than one type.” Thomas spun in a slow circle. His large, calloused fingers stretched out, as if feeling the texture of the air. “A confusion spell, maybe? Or a concealer spell? It makes me feel heavy, like it’s suppressing my magic. Definitely earth magic, though.”

If I’d been a dog, my ears would have pricked up at that. “Are you saying that’s a good thing that it’s earth magic? Can you do anything to lift it?” Not that I had a clue how all of the magic mumbo-jumbo worked. I didn’t even know how mine worked. I’d begun to feel like a bit of an idiot for not having questioned the mechanics of what stared me in the face every day.

Meline turned to her companions. “What do you think, guys? The old stuff is always the most unpredictable, and this is more ancient than the dirt itself. It might blow up in our faces, but I think we need to risk it.”

“Whoa.” Neve held up her hand, while the other restrained Andrew from rushing toward the witches. “What do you mean ‘blow up’? As in literally? Kaboom?”

A wry smile slid across Meline’s lips as she shrugged. “There’s no way to tell. Maybe?”

If I didn’t know better, I’d have said she was enjoying herself. “Do it,” I said.

“Not while you’re here, they won’t.” Andrew’s glare said he wouldn’t be swayed.

“I agree.” Liam stepped in closer.

I took a moment to find the right words. “Look, I know we have to be cautious and all that, but we don’t have time to piss around. We’ll go and stand over there until we can’t feel the prickle of the magic anymore. If Andrew sees a problem, he can stop time, and we’ll jet.” I met everyone’s gazes within my immediate circle. “Good?”

“Works for me,” Andrew said, a grim threat in his stare toward Thomas.

Through a sigh, Liam said, “Fine, but I still don’t think it’s enough. I’ll take you into the in-between the instant I feel it’s necessary, and you won’t argue with me.” To Brígh , he added, “Can you See anything?”

She kicked at a stick and plunged her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “No. Same deal when I tried to see Talawen. There’s something blocking my vision here. Likely the magic.”

“About that,” Cas said, “do you suppose Talawen somehow learned the Magi’s magic? Or did the magic she used to conceal the Old Ones belong to the trees themselves?”

That was a really good question, one I hadn’t thought of. “I bet Laerni would know, and you can ask her yourself when we get back.” I smiled at him. “Good work, detective plum.”

While he grinned and elbowed Andrew in the ribs as if to say ‘Aren’t I so smart?’, I started for the edge of the woods. To Meline, I said, “If you can get these pieces of shit out in the open, then have at it.”

A thought froze me for a split second: what if what we were about to do led to Brígh’s death? How could I know what decision would change our grim future, or if it would be the one that put our foot down on the land mine threatening my aide? I grabbed her and shoved her behind me, ignoring her startled cursing. My hair would be grey by the time I figured it all out.

The three coven-folk joined hands, facing the long grass at their feet. Another jolt of electricity piled into the already highly charged atmosphere.

At the edge of the trees, a few feet beyond the faintest prickle of the Magi’s spell, we stood to watch.

“What are they doing?” Brígh squinted. “They’re just standing there.”

I rubbed my arms, unable to chase away the new prickling on my skin—cooler and gentler than the Magi’s mojo—growing worse by the second. I could have sworn a horde of angry, stinging fire ants paraded on me. “They’re definitely not just standing there. Can’t you feel it?”

“I just hope we get to pound something today,” Andrew said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know,” Cas said. “I thought all this magic stuff would be … I don’t know … flashier. More exciting.”

Liam patted him on the shoulder. “Careful what you ask for, bud.”

Gallagher shuddered. “Agreed. My veins feel as if they are trying to flee my body.”

A rumble, and the forest wavered, followed by a momentary slam of emotions and thoughts that weren’t my own: joy, elation, also anxiety. Gallagher held his head and locked gazes with me, his opaque eyes wide.

“Anyone else hear that?” Creepy didn’t cover it. I pulled my senses in closer in case it happened again.

Liam swung me to face him, scrutinizing me with intensity as he went spelunking in my head. “Hear what? What happened?”

The guards moved between me and the three magical Musketeers who were still holding hands. Their lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. As I peered over Andrew’s rigid shoulder, the trees faded again. In the momentary crack in the magic, I caught a glimpse of something white on the ground behind Thomas. A dark form stood over it.

The emotions charged me again. Gallagher cried out with hands over his ears. I managed to stay standing by a narrow margin, continuing to stare at what lay on the ground. A person with white hair. I knew that hair. The bottom dropped out of my stomach as I turned to pure energy, bolted forward and screamed, “Nix!”

13

Shouts behind me seemed distant and unimportant as I streaked by Meline and her crew. “It’s fading,” I said. “Keep them here!”

The cloaked form standing over Nix tilted up. A woman’s eyes, green as the grass around her feet, opened wide. Her form and Nix’s wavered as if heat waves danced between them and me. She reached for him, gave his arm a frantic tug, but when he didn’t move, took off like a frightened deer into the forest.

The instant I laid my hands on his still form, his body solidified. Had my touch alone brought him from their plane to ours? I shook Nix. “Can you hear me?”

The others reached me a second later. Aside from their death glares heating the back of my neck, they remained silent.