Grave Dance

Anyone could see magic while inside the Aetheric, and most witches checked their spells when they were there to make sure that no darkness or corruption had contaminated the spell or their bodies while they were spellcasting. Inside the Aetheric magic could be touched and pulled apart, separating light from dark. If a witch was cursed, and she could get to the Aetheric, she could pull the curse off her psyche, bypassing the need for counterspells. Of course, she had to do it herself. Healers had been working for years on a way to pull 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.

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 still functioned. Which means this might work.

I opened my shields. Holly’s soul, which I’d already been seeing as pale yellow, became clearer, almost outshining her features. But not all of it was glowing. The bite marks from the construct had healed and vanished from her skin, thanks to healing spells, but they scarred her soul with a snaking cobweb of magic. The spell was a deep gray with veins of red. Not the most malicious spell 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 accidentally grab her soul instead of the spell, but if I closed my eyes, that chance increased. Just be careful.

The spell felt slimy to my senses. In contrast, her soul underneath was a thing of heat and life. It was easy to tell the two apart, but not quite as easy to separate them. I needed something for the spell to latch on to, or maybe something to disrupt it. Drawing on the power stored in my ring, I sent a focused tendril of pure magic into the spell. In theory, the spell would either latch on to the new source of power and try to jump to me—though hopefully I’d be faster and have time to cut off the stream while the spell was between hosts—or the magic would give the spell a bit of a jolt. Or it would do nothing, but that was a bad option so I didn’t think too hard about it.

The outline of the spell turned fuzzy as my magic hit it. The edges curled like the legs of a dying spider, and I seized my opportunity. I snatched the spell in the very center and tugged. It pulled free, wiggling in my grasp for a moment. Then, without the physical connection to Holly to sustain it, the spell dissolved.

Holly blinked. “Alex? Oh, my God, Alex!” She threw her arms around my neck. “Is it really gone?” The heat of her skin burned against my bare shoulders and she jerked back. “God, Al, you’re cold. Are those icicles on your dress?”

“It’s a long story.” I stood, pulling her up with me. “Holly, do you know what happened to you? Who did this?”

“I remember.” She wrapped her arms across her chest as her green eyes took on a distant, haunted look. “Al, she’s crazy. She left not long ago, saying she had one more spell to cast. She said this ritual would set her free.” Holly shook her head and then suddenly went completely still. Her hand flew to her mouth, her fingers pressed against her lips. “I didn’t,” she whispered.

“Didn’t what?” Oh, crap, what sick thing had the accomplice made Holly do while she was under the spell?

Tears slid down Holly’s cheeks. “I ate it. I ate Faerie food.”

Chapter 36

Faerie food. It was addictive to mortals. Always. Even a single bite.

I gave my friend a hug, because she needed it. “We’ll figure something out,” I promised. We could get it shipped out or something. We’d find a way. It didn’t have to be the end of the world. But if we didn’t find and stop the accomplice before she managed to merge realities, the world as we knew it would change. “I know this is going to sound cold, but we’re going to have to deal with the food later. Right now I need you to tell me about the witch. She’s performing the ritual tonight? Did she say where it would take place?”

Holly’s eyes squeezed shut, blocking more tears as she shook her head. I turned to Falin.

“We have to get to the mortal realm, now.”

“Alex, I’m not even sure what court we’re in.” He stalked across the small room, glancing at the contents as if the sparse furnishings would give him a clue. I didn’t know enough about the courts to make a guess, but nothing about the room made me think of a season.

Could we be in Stasis?

I froze. Stasis. A powerful witch who was a changeling. A changeling who’d recently been freed but was still not truly free.

A sick feeling crawled down my skin. I knew someone who fit all those qualities.

Rianna.

“Holly, what did the witch look like?” I asked, and my voice came out low, distant.

“I—” She shook her head. “I don’t know. She wore a cloak.”

Damn. When I’d first seen Rianna under the Blood Moon, when she’d still been Coleman’s bound and subservient Shadow Girl, she’d worn a gray cloak. No. I couldn’t suspect my childhood friend of being a heartless murderer.

Or could I?

I’d felt the killer’s hope, her joy in that circle by the river. Tiddlywinx had said the witch wanted to be with her love. If the ritual was opening a way to be with true love, that might cause a lot of hope and joy. Love can cause great and terrible things.

I sank down on my heels, falling away from Holly as I clutched my own knees.

The pieces fit. The timing fit. Rianna knew what I could do. She’d asked me for help around the same time this started. She’d also returned my dagger, which was now following me around and had a tendency to tear holes in reality when used. It fit.

“Alex, what is it?” Falin asked, staring down at me.

I looked around. This room might be in my own castle. It couldn’t be Rianna. But it all fit.

No, not all. What about Desmond? I suspected that he loved her, and there was nothing keeping them apart. And if Rianna was the accomplice and already hunting me when I came to Faerie, why didn’t she trap me then?

So it doesn’t all fit. I breathed out a sigh as that little bit of hope created enough room in my chest for me to breathe. But not much. The sick, dread-laced feeling still gripped me hard.

I stood and turned toward Kyran. “You said you can get us to Nekros without passing through the winter court?”

He flashed me a grin. “My dear, I can most likely find the shadow of the witch you seek, but I believe we must hurry. Time is running out.” He peered into his hourglass again.

I stared at the rushing sand and again asked, “What happens when it runs out?”

“A moment in time, nothing more. But one I do not wish to miss.”

Right. “Let’s go.” We had a shadow to find and a ritual to stop.

“This would be the one,” the nightmare kingling said as the shadows in the nightmare realm separated to show the one, or really, the shadows, that he meant.

The shadows danced, leaping and twisting against the pale sand. Not just one or two shadows either, but more than a dozen, all in constant motion. I stared at it. This can’t be right. There was too much movement. Too many people. It looked more like a party.

“Perhaps a little farther from the action.” Kyran lifted his arms and the shadows slid across the sand. The shapes that replaced them were large and too formless for me to decipher what had cast them, but at least they were still. “This, I think, shall do nicely,” he said.

I nodded. As long as we ended up safely in the city we had a better chance of finding the accomplice—not Rianna, please not Rianna—than if we were stuck in Faerie. I waited, but Kyran made no move to lead us through the shadow.

“I have a confession,” he said, turning toward me. “This is the door you need, but I can’t open it.”

What did he mean he couldn’t open it? Falin’s hand on my waist twitched.

I swallowed around the lump suddenly lodged in my throat, but tried to keep my voice level as I asked, “Do we need another shadow?”

Kyran shook his head. “My power does not let me open doors into the mortal realm. But yours will.”

Damn. And this would be the catch. “What happens if I open a door?”

“You can freely walk from the nightmare realm to the mortal realm until dawn moves the shadows and the realms no longer touch.”

No wiggle room in that statement, so it had to be true. What does he stand to gain? It hit me suddenly. “If we can walk through, the nightmares can, too.”

“Very good,” he said with a smile, genuinely pleased.

“Alex, what is he talking about?” Holly whispered, stepping closer to me. I hadn’t told her anything about the whole feykin planeweaver thing. Looked like I’d have some explaining to do—if we survived this. But not now.

I shook my head. “Later, Holl.” I focused on Kyran again. He stood with his hands in his pockets, all his weight on one leg, the other knee slack, as if whatever decision I came to made no difference to him. “What will the nightmares do in the mortal realm?”

He shrugged. “The same thing they do here. Cause terror. Fear nourishes them.” He glanced at the hourglass. Only a thin line of sand remained in the top globe. “You are running out of time.”

I looked at the hourglass. “What happens when the sand runs out?”

He smirked. “Ah, finally, you’ve asked three times,” he said, and I remembered too late that three was often significant. A weight stretched between us. It wasn’t quite the same feeling as when a debt opened, but it was the same sort of magic. “The hourglass counts the moments until all doors open when the planes merge—or the moment in which that is prevented. Hard to say which, but one way or the other, it will happen soon.”

Damn. He really had been screwing with me this whole time. I glanced at the hourglass. At the rate the sand was falling, it had maybe twenty minutes until the top globe ran out of sand. And then the world as we know it will change. Or someone will stop the ritual.