Black City

I was finding that I didn’t much care about Chloe’s opinion, or Beezle’s, or Samiel’s. I didn’t see why our enemies got to do whatever they wanted but we had to follow some nebulous set of rules designed to appease human ideas of morality. As everyone was constantly reminding me, the creatures we dealt with were not human.

We walked for quite a while, long enough that I was starting to question whether or not Bendith was leading us into a trap. Then we emerged into another clearing, and J.B. was there.

He was lying upon a wide, flat stone, his eyes closed. I started toward him, but Nathaniel put his hand on my shoulder to hold me back.

“Is there a spell around the stone?” Nathaniel asked Bendith.

Titania’s son shook his head. “No. It is safe for you to approach.”

I pushed past Nathaniel so I could go to J.B., kneeling at his side. My merry band of misfits crowded around us.

“Gods above and below,” I said.

J.B.’s face was covered in blood. His right cheekbone looked like it was broken. His chest was bare and covered in fist-sized bruises. His eyes were closed and his breathing shallow.

“J.B.?” I whispered. “J.B., can you hear me?”

“He’s in too much pain to wake,” Nathaniel said. “I can heal him.”

He exchanged a look with Jude, and Jude nodded. The wolf took up the place at my back, and I realized they were worried about Bendith striking when I wasn’t paying attention. Apparently Nathaniel didn’t trust his brother completely.

It was a good thing I had them looking out for me, because Bendith could have stabbed me at that moment and I’d never have noticed. All I cared about was J.B., and that he had suffered this because of me.

Nathaniel gripped J.B.’s shoulders and closed his eyes. The air filled with magic, and I felt that pulsing awareness of Nathaniel again, like his power was seeking mine. I put my hands over Nathaniel’s, and pushed through him and into J.B.

There was a lot of damage. Broken bones, torn muscles, and, most terrifyingly, I sensed a blood clot forming from the trauma. I carefully picked the clot apart cell by cell while Nathaniel healed J.B.’s other injuries.

After a while we had done all we could do, and I released Nathaniel’s hands. He let go of J.B. and we looked at each other. J.B. still had not opened his eyes.

“He will likely need to rest for some time,” Nathaniel said. “But he will be well now.”

I touched J.B.’s cheek. “Where are his glasses?” I asked.

“I suspect they were broken,” Nathaniel said.

“How will he see without his glasses?” I said. I felt tears forming in my throat and I swallowed them ruthlessly. It was a stupid thing to worry about, really. At least he was alive. I just hoped his brain was still intact when he woke up, that he was still J.B.

“Samiel?” I asked.

Samiel reached for J.B. and slung him over one shoulder.

“Now we have to get out of here,” I said. “Bendith, you’d better get back to the castle before Titania finds out what you’ve been up to.”

“I would like to stay with you,” Bendith said to Nathaniel.

“No,” I said, before Nathaniel could agree. “I’m grateful to you for your help, but you need to go home. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s life.”

“If I go home, when will I see you again?” Bendith asked Nathaniel.

“We will meet again,” Nathaniel said.

“How are we going to get back home without Puck?” Chloe said.

“We need to get outside the borders of the kingdom. That’s where we landed the last time we arrived here. Once we get there I’ll try to contact Lucifer,” I said.

“And what if Lucifer decides to leave us stranded here?” Chloe said. “Or you can’t reach him?”

“One problem at a time,” I said.

“If you return to the path through the woods, you will find what you seek,” Bendith said. He seemed reluctant to leave.

“Until we meet again, brother,” Nathaniel said.

“Until we meet again,” Bendith repeated.

We started toward the path, leaving Bendith by the stone looking lost. I determinedly faced forward. I would not worry about what would happen to Bendith now that he knew the truth. Titania had made her own bed and now she could lie in it.

“There’s going to be a reckoning for that,” Beezle said, and I knew he was referring to the revelation of Bendith’s parentage.

“Isn’t there always?” I said sourly.

We walked until we came to the edge of the forest. Chloe sat down on a nearby log, dislodging several small insects as she did so. Ahead of us was an open field of grass, and beyond it, green foothills that led up to sharp mountains. The sky was blue; the sun was bright. Everywhere except…

“Hey, look there,” I said, pointing to the topmost peak of the mountains ahead of us. At the very tip of the snowcapped mountain the bright blue sky was smudged with a patch of gray.

Chloe squinted. “What am I supposed to be looking at here?”

“The way out,” Beezle said, clapping me on the shoulder with his little hand. “Not bad.”

“How do you know that little dirty smudge is the way out and not another illusion?” she asked.

“Because when we arrived here the first time with Lucifer, we were in a kind of no-man’s-land, a place that was cold and gray,” I said.