I tried to scramble out of the river, but the bank collapsed beneath my fingernails. It didn’t stop me. I just dug my nails in deeper, and slowly pulled myself out of the mud and muck. I had the hand of Gaia out before I reached the ramp again. “Zola! The queen is in Falias! And the walls of the Obsidian Inn are unguarded!”
“Go with Gaia,” Zola shouted. “We’ll follow with who we can.”
I shook my head. “No, we can’t leave our home undefended.”
“You’re not going out there alone, boy,” Zola said. “You don’t know what’s waiting for you.”
Zola was right, and I knew she was right. Nixie had sent half her army to Rivercene. If she thought the attack was happening there, then what the hell did she think was happening here? What had she thought was coming for the Obsidian Inn?
“Get in touch with the innkeeper, Alexandra, anyone in Rivercene. Find out if they need you first!”
“Damian, no!” Zola shouted.
By the time her words reached my ears, I’d already wrapped my fingers into Gaia’s and stepped into the Abyss. I walked blindly as Gaia formed beside me, the golden motes of light joining together, as the distant stars of the Abyss slowly swam into my vision.
“Falias. I need to get to Falias, and the Obsidian Inn.”
“There is a great deal of power there,” Gaia said, her voice echoing from nowhere and everywhere as her face grew more defined.
“The queen of the water witches has attacked them. I have to get there now.”
“You should not.”
I hesitated at Gaia’s words. But she didn’t understand, this was Nixie. This was Mike and the Old Man and Dell and the werewolves. I couldn’t leave them. I couldn’t abandon them to a wave like what had hit Saint Charles.
“I have to.”
“You should not,” Gaia said, a moment before she doubled over, releasing a thunderous shout as pain tore through her.
“Gaia!” I shouted. “What is it?”
“I have disobeyed,” she said, her voice strained.
“No, you haven’t. We’re just having a conversation.”
“It is not your word I disobeyed. It is the compulsion laid up on my hand. I will not send you to your death,” Gaia snarled. “I do not care what this compulsion costs me.”
“It’s my choice,” I said. “You can’t keep me away. One way or another, I’m getting to Nixie. Put me somewhere close, but away from whatever threat you sense.”
Gaia slowly straightened, the strain leaving her voice. “That would be a reasonable solution.”
I eyed the Titan, horrified at the pain that had wracked her body simply for disagreeing with me, and terrified at what power she might have sensed.
“As close as you can get me, yet still believe me to be safe.”
She narrowed her eyes and stared at the darkness around us. “I do not know if any place I put you will be safe. But I could do my best to keep you away from the largest of the powers.”
“Do it,” I said, “and no need for a soft landing. I need to be there yesterday.”
I began to regret the phrasing of my request when the lights of the Abyss turned into stretched-out lines as Gaia whipped us through nothing. Gaia’s hand started slipping away a moment before our connection severed entirely, and darkness became an explosion of daylight.
I slammed into the grass, rolling a few times before the inertia faded and I crashed to a stop. My backpack dug into my shoulder, and I grunted as I shifted it to redistribute the weight. I crawled up to my knees and tried to figure out where Gaia had dropped me. I pulled my phone from my pocket, before remembering that it had been underwater, more than once. There was no coming back from that.
A sound grew in the distance, an unmistakable crash. The battle cries of an army, charging another force. The earth shook beneath my feet. And the cries grew ever louder.
I turned slowly, orienting myself to the lay of the field Gaia had dropped me in. I tried to understand what I was looking at, and it didn’t take long before dust in the distance told me which way the sound was coming from. The voice that sounded behind me nearly gave me a heart attack.
“You are a fool.”
I rounded on the line of trees behind me. High in the branches of one of the evergreens was a face I hadn’t expected to see here. The face of the fairy called Drake.
I wrapped my fingers around the focus on my belt and freed it. “You come to kill me?”
“What kind of idiot question is that?” Drake said. “My place has been in the shadows for far too long. I tire of my king’s games. But you intrigue me.”
I frowned at the fairy. Something didn’t look right. The branch he was on bobbed up and down, not moving with the wind and the other limbs around him.
“Did you bring a Green Man?” I asked. “That your play? Have me get close enough to get impaled?”
Drake blew a laugh out through his nose. “You are a paranoid one.” He slapped his perch, and I froze. It unwound from the tree, lowering itself into the field not thirty feet away. I’d only seen one before, one that had lived under my bed, a flash of silver teeth in the skull of a great beast.
“Shit.”
“That was a good fight,” Drake said. “You took down the Green Men far more efficiently than I’ve seen anyone do it before. I’d like to spar one day.”
“Like today? While you’re on your dragon? And I’m … screwed?”
Drake shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving me, as if every moment he was anticipating an attack. For all his bluster, he was cautious. And he knew I posed a threat. That made me feel marginally better, considering the dragon seemed to be ignoring me completely. It nosed the earth beneath its front claws before releasing a mighty sigh and flopping to the field. Drake wobbled on the dragon’s shoulder, but his gaze didn’t waver.
“I guess one of us is bored,” I said.
“As I said,” Drake said. “Had I wished you dead, you would be so. I’ve come to give you a warning.”
“From Nudd?” I asked.
“No,” Drake said. “From me. I have no loyalty to either side of this conflict.”
“Okay? And what does that have to do with me?”
“You’ve stepped into a trap. The battle over the hill is between the same factions. When you enter the fray, they will turn on you. Both sides.”
I blinked at Drake.
“Nudd was right about you,” he said. “You didn’t receive a message from your mistress. That was masked by the Fae.”
“But if my message wasn’t real? Then anyone who uses those discs …”
Drake nodded. “Those communiques are far less secure than you imagine.”
I was about to charge over that hill, smashing into whatever conflict awaited me. But was Drake being honest? Was it just an ambush playing out? Now that I thought about it, Nixie hadn’t shown her face. She almost always showed herself, even if it was just in the ripples of the water. I had no doubt the Fae could imitate her voice, but I didn’t know the limitations of those actual projections. I cursed.
“Travel away from the battle,” Drake said. “Your friends are less than a mile away. Do not use the hand of Gaia. The king will know, and a trap of a different sort will be sprung.”
“That’s how I came here,” I said.
Drake gave a quick shake of his head. “The trap will only activate if you attempt to warp away. Your arrival was planned.”
“Are you the same Drake that the fairies talk about? You served the Mad King?”
Drake placed a hand on his chest, covering the engraved symbols on his armor. “I still do.”
I muttered to myself under my breath and pulled at a side pouch on my backpack. I slid out a bag of Frank’s beef jerky and tore it open.
“What are you doing?” Drake asked.
“Making friends.” I pulled out the largest piece of jerky I could find and tossed it underhand toward the dragon. The dragon’s head snapped up so fast that he threw Drake off his shoulder, and the fairy yelped as he tumbled down the scaly back. The dragon, on the other hand, snapped the beef jerky out of the air with one quick strike. It made two exaggerated chews and then swallowed. Then it trundled forward, sniffing the air, until it was only about six inches away from me.
“Are you mad?” Drake shouted. “That is a dragon .”
I held a handful of jerky out and let the dragon lick it away. It held its head upside down, and I poured the rest of the bag in. It chewed slowly, before finally returning to Drake, who wore an expression of absolute disbelief.
“If I don’t find my friends,” I said. “I’m going to train your dragon to chew your face off.”
Drake climbed back up on his dragon’s back and patted the beast’s neck. “Interesting.” The fairy gave me one nod, and then the dragon launched into the air.
I waited until they were out of sight before I blew out a shaky breath. To say the beef jerky had been a gamble would probably be the understatement of the year. That dragon could just as easily have bitten my head off, and if he was anywhere near as powerful as Jasper, I wouldn’t have had very long to worry about it.
I couldn’t be sure what Drake’s intentions were, but the fact he didn’t attack helped me entertain the idea that all was not as it seemed. The silhouette of the dragon vanished fully behind the tree line before I turned my back on the fairy and his mount.
I pulled the cold gray flesh of Gaia’s hand out of my pocket and studied it. If Drake was right, I wouldn’t be able to use the hand to escape the field. But did I truly believe that? Did I trust the word of a Fae who had so recently killed some of my allies? Killed Casper’s men?
I took a deep breath and tucked Gaia’s hand into my backpack. Running headlong into Nudd’s trap might give me all the evidence I needed, but it also might get me killed a lot faster. The question was, did Drake set his own trap? I glanced behind me one more time before striking out through the long grass and heading into the trees.