Rise of the Magi (19 page)

His shoulders dropped, and he hesitated only a moment before he came to us and linked his fingers with mine.

The white floor fell away, leaving me in darkness again and without any sense of touch. I was no longer certain the others were still with me, but I didn’t dare move in case I inadvertently dropped somebody into the void, or me for that matter. Weightless, timeless, I hung there in muted suspension within Nix’s mind, forbidding my idle thoughts to venture to Liam, to what they might be doing to him. To whether or not he was still alive. He was. He had to be.

Shivering, I clamped down on my mental wandering and focused. Did I have to do something to get the rest of the way out? Had I fallen so far it would take us hours to get back up? Just as panic began to set in, tingling filled my limbs. A pinch sent a jab of hurt through my left arm. Another to my right. Stinging pain slammed into the side of my face.

Voices, muted at first, grew into frantic shouts. Someone cried nearby. Another, smaller voice, called my name. “Awake. Lila awake.”

All at once, sensation hit me like a concussion wave. Sound came from everywhere. Light filled my eyes. Cool air danced on my skin. My limbs wouldn’t move to bring my hands to my throat to find out why I couldn’t breathe.

“She’s not breathing!” Neve screeched. Weight—hers I assumed—pressed down on my chest. Once, twice, three times. She covered my mouth with hers and filled my oxygen-starved lungs before starting compressions again.

My body seemed disconnected from my brain, floating near, but not quite connected. I knew I needed to breathe, but no command I sent to my lungs made them draw in air. I screamed inside my head, finding no way to make it come out of my mouth, where Neve continued to breathe into.

After a few moments, whatever mental block that had prevented me from breathing cleared, and I gasped. Coughing, I clutched my throat as someone rolled me onto my side on a blood stained bed. When I finally managed to open my eyes again, I found Neve, Brígh, Nix, and Maeve holding Arianne, all staring moon-eyed from the half circle they made around the end of the bed.

Garret shifted in my belly, and a surge of glee lit up my mind that I hadn’t hurt him because I’d gone off half cocked. Never. Again.
Sorry, baby.
You’re safe now, shhh.
I rubbed my sore face and sat up. “Who the hell was slapping me? That hurt, dammit.”

Brígh pounded me on the shoulder. “I did, you idiot!” Another two blows came to my chest in rapid succession. Her hair swirled in a current of power, and her powder blue eyes, iced over with fear a moment before, made a swift change to blazing fury. “How dare you plunge into him and scare us like that! You don’t just go diving into someone’s soul even if you know what you’re doing! I’m so mad I could strangle the bajeepers out of you!”

“I can see that.” At her next assault, I held my hands up. “Ow, stop. It worked, didn’t it?”

Lips cracking a smile, Neve pulled her glowering sister away, as a few more of the remaining guards came in. I wondered if any of them had a skill that could go against Nix’s
cumhacht
so he didn’t blow a hole in the wall and escape if he was so inclined. To be sure, I raised my Will and said, “You will not leave this city without my permission, and you will not harm anyone here for any reason. And do whatever Neve tells you to.”

Instead of protesting, he gave a solemn nod.

“Are you all right?” Neve asked me.

A wiggle of everything confirmed my body worked as it should. “Bit of a headache, and bruised from this one,”—I jammed my thumb toward a sulking Brígh—“who is in big trouble for bringing Arianne here, but other than that I seem to be in one piece. How long was I in there, anyway? It seemed like for-freakin’-ever.”

“About an hour, or so.” Brígh crossed her arms and made an obvious effort to not look at me.

“What? No, that can’t be right.” At all of their nods, I dropped the subject rather than argue about something I didn’t understand. Time moved at a different speed in Nix’s mind, just like in the Black City, apparently. Not that I ever, ever, ever wanted to go there again.

“So, what do we do about him?” Neve jutted her chin toward Nix, who remained neutral, passive, arms at his sides and gaze lowered, where he stood against the wall in his ratty, dirty jeans and blood-crusted T-shirt.

I pulled Neve out into the hall and regurgitated what he’d told me about being magically booby-trapped. “So, now we need to rally the troops and figure out who needs to be doing what, and we need to decide who’s going when Nix leads me to those”—a glance at Arianne’s grinning face had me censoring my language—“itchy Bs who took our boys”.

Foreign thoughts passed over Neve’s face, raising and lowering her eyebrows, making her eye twitch. “I know you used to … sort of … care for him, so sorry if I’m going against you here, but you can’t let Nix sit in on this.”

I travelled through denial, fury, hurt, and hope. His disappearance and rapid shift in opinion about us half breeds held me back from trusting him. He seemed sincere in his regret, but it could have been just another of the Magi’s ruses and his ultimate revenge against Liam and me. Too much rested on my ability to find the Magi on my own terms, but he was my compass.

“Andrew would agree with me if he was here.” Neve held her hands on her hips, her voice rising. “I’m in charge of security here, dammit, and I say it’s too risky.”

I grinned at her defiant stance and the edge to her stare that said she’d do whatever she needed in order for me to listen to her.

“Yes, you are my captain, after all, so that makes you in charge of security. I agree.”

Lifting her finger, she opened her mouth and shut it again. “Wait. You agree that this decision is mine, or that Nix shouldn’t come to Court?”

“Both.” I patted her shoulder and smiled wider, happy to see Neve coming into her role even more with the latest crisis. “Do whatever you need to in order to secure him somewhere. We can’t take the chance that the Magi have somehow made him immune to my Will. If there’s nobody left who can create wards, then ask one of the shifters. I’m sure they’d be able to come up with something.”

Neve continued to gape at me for a moment before she straightened and smiled. “Um … okay? Yeah … so … who do you want in the Court, then?”

“I don’t know, yet. Is there anyone left who can transport?”

“I don’t think so.” Neve’s lips fell into a grim curve.

That was a talent which usually fell to residents of the Black City, and without Gallagher, I didn’t have a connection to any of the other telepaths with the humans and elves to warn them. “Do you suppose the other cities were hit, too? There isn’t enough fae energy left in them to power the wards, so the Magi wouldn’t have needed a magic bomb like Nix to steal their muscle.”

“Do you think that’s why they did this?” Brígh came into the hall, where Neve and I stood, with Maeve and Arianne. “For muscle? To leave us weaker?”

I understood the hope in her voice. If the dryads wanted a small army—though, how they’d gain the boys’ cooperation, I didn’t know—then it would mean the Magi meant to keep them alive. “I don’t know, but I don’t have a better explanation at the moment, so let’s just leave it as a possibility, okay?”

She gave a partial smile, her pink hair settling down around her shoulders again with the evaporation of her hissy fit. “Tell us what to do.”

I re-entered the room to find Nix where we’d left him in the corner, on the business end of a few golden swords, which meant the women holding them didn’t have offensive
cumhachts
. “Neve, have as many guards as you think you need take care of Nix. Use whatever force necessary to keep his ass here, and don’t trust my hold over him for a second. He seems to be cooperative. It might be genuine, and it might be an act, so don’t let him fool you. Brígh and Neve and Laerni, if she’s up for it, will check on the other cities, if they’ll even let us in again.” At the very least, I hoped to find a way to bring the other races together for an update.

“Arianne could help,” Maeve said.

I held up my hand. “She’s been amazing, and I’ll ask her only if it’s a last resort. She’s a baby and shouldn’t be involved in this mess. And besides, she can’t bring anyone here anyway, so I really need someone who can bend space or whatever it is the transporters do.”

“Wait … is that how the Magi took everyone?” Neve asked. “There was a burst of light …”

The horror in her stare spread to me, but I shook my head, refusing to accept what that would have meant. “I won’t believe any of the former Unseelie are working with them again. They might be pissed at Liam, but they wouldn’t try to hurt us this way.”

“She’s right, Li,” Nix said quietly. “I saw them while I was there. That, I remember clear as a bell.” His lip curled up for the briefest of seconds before his expression fell flat again.

I bristled at his continued use of the nickname he’d once used as an endearment, bothered more by his suggestion that fae had played a part in the abductions than his use of it, but that seemed like a good thing to take my frustration out on. My head snapped toward him. “Stop calling me that, and what are you blathering on about?”

“Their little woodland city is crawling with Unseelie, or whatever they’re called now. They’ve been preparing for the Magi’s little snatch and grab for weeks.” He shrugged and dug for his pockets again. “I really wish I hadn’t been right about the Unseelie … I mean, the ones that are helping them, at least.”

“You’re so full of shit!” Brígh tugged off her ballet-style shoe, hopping on one foot to do so, and whipped it at his head. He ducked to the side, and it smacked into the wall.

“Enough!” I pointed to the door. “This is on us, now, and we’re standing around like a bunch of morons. Go! Get it done!”

Without waiting for responses from anyone, I strode out the door with determined steps, and headed out of the castle. It would take a few minutes for Neve and Brígh to secure Nix and round up the guards, so I went to the Court garden to wait. I needed to talk to someone before I exploded, and only my family would do.

On the grassy mound behind the woven chairs, I knelt and gazed up at the spirits rolling and curling above. For minutes, I just sat there, not knowing where to begin or what to ask as tendrils of mist descended to encircle me. Shifting between cool and warm, they wrapped me in their comforting blanket. Emotions from them all touched me: sympathy, fear, anger, despair.

“Goddess, please. I need guidance.” I knew it didn’t work that way, but I thought it was worth a shot.

18

Light footsteps preceded another set of knees landing beside mine on the center mound of the Court. When I realized who it was, I wondered if the Goddess had heard my plea after all. Laerni tucked her white skirt beneath her knees, the rest of her towering over me. I’d never been so grateful for her presence than I was then. My family comforted, but they couldn’t help me or impart any wisdom. Not anymore. I needed some wisdom, fast, because I hadn’t a clue what to do beyond gathering the masses again.

“Cas asked if the magic Talawen used belonged to the Magi or to the elves,” Laerni said. “Although we can conceal ourselves from others, we cannot conceal our presence from our own.”

Needing a few more minutes to collect my questions into some sensible order, I nodded. “So, it was the Magi’s magic. But Talawen’s dead, so she can’t very well teach me how it works now.”

“I suppose that is true.” Laerni released a sigh, one full of some strong emotion I couldn’t nail down. “Cas had the most loving home life of any fae here, did you know that?” At my shaking head, she continued, “A mother and father who loved him, encouraged him and taught him how to survive in the horrors of the Black City without losing his soul to its darkness. So, it should mean something to you that it is not his parents he thinks of when he wants comfort, but you and Liam. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, even though many aren’t consciously aware of it.”

I paused to let it sink in. I’d never known anything about Cas, but it didn’t surprise me he’d had a good family given his kind nature. It warmed me that he saw us as security and comfort—after all, that was what a king and queen were for, right? Though, I found it hard to believe many others outside of my closest circle looked to us as Laerni said. Not yet, at least. Maybe if we survived the next few days intact.

I stared at her for a moment. “What do I do when I find them?”

A long, slow sigh escaped the elf as she cast her large eyes skyward. “Alas, I do not know what the Goddess wishes for you to do. This is an unprecedented event in my eternity upon these lands. Whatever path you choose, whatever decisions you make, will shape the future for all.”

I shot up and made a wild gesture of hands. “No pressure, or anything. I don’t need you to state the obvious here. I need you to give me a clue. She can’t mean for me to kill them. Hell, I can’t even find them.” Her persistent calm took me down a notch. “I know you were afraid of them, so you must have encountered the Magi before, or at least heard some stuff. Gallagher didn’t get a chance to tell me what he learned from you. I need to know everything.”

“What I know, unfortunately, is very little, but all of it is yours as it should have been the first time you asked me in Freymoor.” Laerni curled her legs to the side and leaned one long, lean arm down, propping herself up. The bandages on her wrists had been removed, revealing twin bracelets of red scars on her once perfect skin. “It was so long ago our first encounter took place, I’ve not the words to describe it in a way you would comprehend. Long before the great mother divided realms to imprison her children, and another to safeguard us from them, bargaining with the moon pixies to create a world where she did not exist.”

When I’d asked Gallagher about how the glen remained the same when I’d created Iress on top of it—or so I’d thought, anyway—he’d explained that I’d birthed another realm, another shift of reality, taking the tomb of her tree with it and leaving everything else on the human plane. Thinking about it gave me a brain cramp, so I’d just smiled and nodded and gone on my merry way. Hearing Laerni’s description reminded me of it. “So Meline was right. It’s another realm? And, it’s a prison?” At Laerni’s nod, I tilted my head to the side. “They found a way out, then?”