The Shattered Dark

Shane reaches the door at the bottom of the stairs. He opens it, exits the building. It’s dark outside. Streetlights reflect off the damp sidewalk, and there’s a chill in the air. I’m grateful for my jacket, but I’m wishing I’d put on something heavier than a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt beneath it.

I stuff my hands into my pockets, then turn, waiting for Aren and Trev to exit the building. The room we fissured into is above what looks like a real-estate agency. Pictures of flats and quaint-looking houses that cost upward of a half million pounds are taped to the window. A couple of doors down the road, a small group of men are standing outside a pub, smoking.

“It’s this way,” Shane says when the fae join us. I fall into step beside him and attempt to not look like a tourist. You’d think that would be easy since I’ve spent so much time in the Realm, which is definitely a more foreign location than this city, but this is London. There’s so much history here. And never mind that this is the homeland of Shakespeare and Jane Austen, King’s Cross Station is somewhere around here. I want to see Platform 9¾. I swear, one of these days, I’m going to have a fae fissure me here for a vacation.

“You’re alive in this city,” Aren says.

“What?” I ask, turning. I was walking beside Shane, but I must have slowed down to take everything in. Aren’s beside me now. Trev and Shane are a few paces ahead.

“You’re more mesmerized by this place than by any place I’ve seen you in the Realm.”

“That’s because no one’s trying to kill me here,” I say.

No one’s trying to kill me here yet. I’m surprised Aren doesn’t point that out, but he just smiles as he watches me, and my stomach does a little flip. It’s as if seeing me here like this makes him happy, and just for a moment, I let myself think about what it would be like to walk down this street with Aren without any worries about the remnants or Paige. That’s what we need, time to be together without all the pressures of the war.

“That’s the address,” Shane says, pointing to a section of a brick building about thirty feet in front of us. We pass a tiny convenience store and an even tinier restaurant serving lamb and chicken kabobs. A long line of people blocks its entrance, but they’re not waiting to order anything. They’re waiting to get into the white-walled building just ahead. By the way the humans are dressed, it has to be a club or a rock concert. I really don’t get the girls’ clothing choices. It’s cold out here, and they’re all dressed in short skirts and skimpy tops.

Shane stops before we reach the front of the line, staring down at his phone before looking back up again. A metal door is set into the plain brick wall. It’s dented and has orange rust stains at the top and a streak of something black and sticky-looking in the middle. It’s the kind of door you don’t touch because you’re afraid of what you’ll find on the other side.

I look up at the second story. The four evenly spaced windows are dark. The building is probably deserted—completely deserted. If the remnants were here, they’d have a light of some sort, either a candle burning or a magically lit glass orb. We’ve come this far, though, and I need to be certain Paige isn’t on the other side of the door.

When I step forward, Aren stops me with a hand on my arm.

“Behind me,” he says.

I was going first just so I could get us through the line of humans, but he parts the crowd with his shoulder. He’s careful not to let his skin touch anyone else’s. A few girls protest, thinking that we’re cutting in line, but Aren flashes them a smile, and says, “Just passing through.”

Of course, they don’t protest then. One of them even returns his smile. She reaches for his arm and says in a heavy British accent, “No need to hurry off.”

He barely manages to dodge her touch. I’m beside him the next instant, and the girl’s expression turns sour. My action was more to keep them separate than to claim him as mine, but I don’t mind if that’s the way she’s seeing this.

Her gaze shifts to Trev, but before I have to rescue the other fae, the line moves. She forgets about us the second she turns away.

We reach the door, and Aren looks down at me. “Are you sure you want to go inside?”

I could let Aren go in without me. He could do a quick search and be out here in no time. But if I’m wrong and the remnants are actually here and one of them happens to be an illusionist, Aren and Trev won’t see an attack coming. I won’t let them be vulnerable like that.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m sure.”

His jaw clenches, but he discreetly takes out a dagger from under his shirt.

“Shane, wait out here,” he says. “Warn us if you see fae.”

He reaches for the door but doesn’t turn the handle. He looks back at me. “Tell me you’re armed.”

I’m so, so close to saying I’m not just to see how he’ll react, but it’s not the time to kid around. I reach behind my back and take my dagger out, keeping it concealed beneath my coat.

He nods once, then twists the handle.

I don’t expect it to move. I expect us to have to break in somehow, but the door swings open without a sound, a fact that creeps the hell out of me. The door looks old and heavy; it shouldn’t glide open like a well-oiled hinge.

I have to force myself to step inside the dark, musty-smelling room. When I do, I’m immediately on edge. This place doesn’t feel right. The air is dense. It tastes like a warning, and the way the door clicks shut behind Trev triggers a memory. That’s how the door to the girls’ locker room sounded ten years ago when I entered it. Volleyball practice was over. I’d forgotten my gym bag and had to borrow the key from the janitor. I couldn’t find the light switch, so I blindly felt my way along the lockers, counting them off until I reached the sixth one. It took only a second to grab my bag, but when I turned around, I wasn’t alone.

That wasn’t the first time I had seen Thrain, but it was the first time he knew I saw him. Even though I didn’t know anything about him then, when he smiled in the dark, the way the edarratae flashed across his sunken eyes and the hollows of his face made him look menacing.

“McKenzie?” A whisper from Aren. He’s stopped just in front of me. Chaos lusters flash across his face, and I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the remainder of the memory, reminding myself that this isn’t my high-school locker room. It’s an empty foyer to what must be a bankrupt hotel or apartment building. I think we came in the back entrance because a glass door is on the opposite side of the room. The glass is painted black. A few scratches in the paint let in a miniscule amount of light. Now that my eyes are adjusting, though, that light is enough for me to see what might have once been the check-in counter a few paces to the right of the door.

“Upstairs?” I whisper back to Aren, nodding toward a narrow staircase on the left side of the room. A tiny elevator with a gated door that you manually open and close is next to it, but even if tech didn’t bother fae, I wouldn’t want to use it. It doesn’t look extremely dependable.

Aren studies me. I try to force the tension out of my shoulders and to relax my grip on my dagger, but I’m sure he notices how stiff I am. He looks relaxed, but alert, and by the slight tilt of his head, I can tell he hears every creak and groan of the building despite the rumbling bass from the club next door.