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The gem shattered. A blinding flash of light and energy burst through the room. Greg screamed as green electricity surged up his arm from the hammer and threw him back across the room. His body hit the wall, twitched several times, and lay still.
Through the window, Sara could see the sky was alight with ripples of colour. The generator exploded, shooting a geyser of flame up into the air, yet the lights stayed on. Sparks showered out of the wall sockets in rainbow colours, singeing carpet, bedding, and clothes alike wherever they landed.
Throughout the house and yard, dozens of stray and neighbourhood cats began to yowl, a haunting chorus of feline voices, revelling in magic’s awakening. Beneath it all was a low rumble, like a rockslide of gemstones: Jereth’s laugh.
Sara stared at the flattened and broken remnants of the fae ring – the one last thing between Jereth and his freedom. Terror sawed at her insides with sharp, serrated teeth. Greg was nothing to what Jereth could do. She scraped at the squashed gold.
“Oh God, oh God.” She could feel her breathing race and her stomach cramp. “Bridget! Bridget! What do I do? The ring is gone. What do I do now?”
The ghost appeared, sparks rippling down her skirt like silver embroidery. She took in the destroyed ring, the unconscious men, the terrified Abigail, still bound on the bed. She closed her eyes. “It is too late,” she said, her voice low and whispery once more. “He is coming.”
The wind howled louder and louder and the glass in the window burst inward, shattering in a rain of crystal pieces all over the room.
Sara screamed and covered her face. When she looked again, Jereth stood where the window had been.
He was every bit as beautiful as she remembered from Bridget’s memories, but his face was cold and hard. The light that played around him like tendrils of glowing mist seemed filled with glittering fragments of ice.
“You could have been on my side, Sara,” he said. “I would have rewarded you. But you are the same as all your human kind. Vapid and scared. You don’t deserve this land.”
Sara looked at Bridget. The ghost woman seemed smaller somehow. Bent, even. As if Jereth’s presence had broken her. She wouldn’t look at him, staring instead at the golden flakes and shattered gemstone that were all that was left of the ring she had worn as a sign of her love for the fae.
At her feet, Nate stirred. He reached up and touched her hand. Sara closed her fingers around his, feeling the warmth of him against her skin.
She realized she was no longer afraid. The worst had come to pass, but she had weathered the worst before. She had suffered beatings and abuse. She had lost her child and felt the bite of rejection. She had endured guilt, pain and heartbreak. And she had survived and found love again. She had Nate. He might be injured and there was a good chance they wouldn’t survive this, but she knew he cared for her. He had come to her rescue when no one else could. He had faced her demons with her and that demon, Greg, lay unconscious on the floor. Magical or not, she knew what the fae were. She had struggled with their kind for years of her life. Not anymore!
“You’re a bully.” She spoke the words clearly, strongly, with no shaking in her voice. “You’re stronger than us, and you’re a bully. Why did you even pretend to be in love with her if you were only ever planning an invasion?”
The fae frowned. “Why did I pretend? Oh, human, that’s rich. Ask your precious witch who it was that betrayed our love first. It was not I who was the trickster here, but I’ve had nearly two hundred years to pay for my folly and consider my revenge on your kind. Two hundred years trapped in a tree while my treacherous lover ran free with my power bound up in the symbol of my love!”
Bridget looked up at that, her eyes blazing. “You murdered my grandmother! Who does that to someone they love?”
“Lies! Human deceit and lies!” Electricity crackled around the edges of the room, turning the house into a kind of faraday cage. On the bed, Abigail whimpered and curled into a ball.
Nate let go of Sara’s hand, crawled over to his daughter and pulled her into his arms.
“You see that?” Sara said. “Family is important to us. You’re angry that Bridget trapped you when you’re threatening to kill everyone we love?”
“That was never my intention,” Jereth snarled. “But why shouldn’t I after what was done to me? She lies so sweetly, this one. My Bridget. She was the bait for my trap. The nectar for my honeybee. And this bee will sting when it is cornered.”
“She’s not lying,” Sara said. “I’ve seen her memories.”
The fae lord’s head tilted and he stared at her. “Have you indeed? Then see mine.” He threw out his hand and a bolt of lightning shot from it, straight to Sara’s heart.
“Don’t hurt her!” screamed Bridget, and leapt at Sara. The world dissolved in a spray of colour and they tumbled into memory together.
Sara watched as Jereth strode into the clearing and up to the circle, his long, loping stride easily covering the distance of two or three of Bridget’s Nan. The old woman wore a sturdy brown woollen dress under a feathered shawl given to her by the local Maori.
“You seem to be gaining respect with the natives of this land,” Jereth commented. “It must be good to have your skills appreciated once more.”
“It is,” said Nan. “But I learn as much from them as they do from me. Our ways are both of the earth but...different.”
Jereth nodded. “Differences can enhance each other when brought together. I’ve discovered this myself during my time with your family.”
Nan shot him a sideways look. “I’ve noticed.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Bridget has spoken to you of our feelings.”
“She has.”
“It is one of the things I will speak with my people about today.” He gestured to the circular pool of water encircled by four saplings and several large, flat stones. “You have my thanks for building this portal. It will mean a great deal to us.”
She nodded. “Step into the water, my lord Jereth. I will open the gap between realms.”
As soon as his ankles sank into the cool water, Jereth knew she had lied. The feel of the portal was wrong. There was no gentle opening that he could step through. The water pulled at him, tugging him deeper like a whirlpool.
He turned. Bridget’s Nan was crouched at the edge of the circle, her hand digging into the earth like claws. Behind her, Bridget’s father stepped out of the trees, an iron poker in his hands.
Jereth tried to step out of the water but his legs were trapped. Magic was holding him, pulling him to the centre of the circle. “Stop this. What are you doing?”
Around the circle, brown skinned women with straw skirts and tattooed faces were emerging, their voices raised in chant.
“We had a deal,” Jereth said.
Nan lifted her head, her eyes black with magic. “And it did not include my granddaughter! Did you truly think we would allow you to wed? Be gone back to your own realm, creature. You will never see Bridget again!”
Sara felt the pain in Jereth’s chest. The agony of loss mixed with the physical tearing of his very being from the human world.
“No! Bridget! I love you! Bridget!” He flung all that he could into a psychic message but the combined force of the women present was too much. The magic doubled back on itself, echoing in his mind.
The door between worlds was closing. He flung himself forward, lashing out with all the power at his disposal. Lightning exploded throughout the clearing, wild, uncontrolled. The circle closed and he was trapped, ever reaching. Ever alone.