Grave Dance

“From his compulsion, yes. But from Faerie?” She shook her head. “I’m a changeling. Four years passed for you, but I have lived in Faerie hundreds of years, danced with the fae, eaten their food and drunk their wine. I’m not mortal anymore, not truly. Like them, I’ll never age, never die, but only while I’m inside Faerie.”

She shrugged. “I can take short trips as long as I’m careful. If I leave, the magic of Faerie will protect me except for the moments surrounding dawn and sunset. Those are the moments between, when the world is changing, and all but the strongest Fae magic fails. If I were caught outside of Faerie in the moments when magic fails, all the years I’ve seen would catch up with me and I would turn to dust.” She shuddered and Desmond nudged her stomach with his muzzle. Her hand dropped to him and clutched the thick fur at his nape. “But back on topic. A changeling can’t own anything or align with a court. If I had just wandered into Faerie, I could be claimed by any court, but since I belonged to Coleman, I now belong to his heir. While possession of his property is in question, I am untouchable—theoretically—-but there is no one to enforce that status, and no court will help me.”

A woman who looked human, though she may have been glamoured, stopped three tables away. Her eyes widened as Desmond planted himself in her path, and her hand froze in front of her body, as if caught in a motion between reaching and blocking. Then, shocking the hell out of me, she dropped into a curtsy.

“Is there something we can help you with?” Rianna asked, her hands disappearing in her sleeves as she spoke. When they emerged, I caught the glint of metal. A dagger, maybe? Clearly I wasn’t the only paranoid one. Of course, it’s not exactly paranoia when the monsters really are chasing you.

The woman straightened from her curtsy. She looked about ten years older than me, with wide, blunt features that made me suspect she was a changeling, not a fae. It wasn’t that she was unattractive, just more handsome than pretty. She smiled, her wide mouth softening her face with the expression. “Actually . . .” Her focus moved to me. “I think you already have. You’re Alex Craft, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I thought you were.” She pressed her palms together, her smile spreading. “I saw you on television and was sure I recognized you. You were the one who stopped the eternal dance. I know you were.”

She rushed forward, sidestepping Desmond. The barghest growled again, but the woman had already reached our table. She threw her arms around me, and if she’d had a weapon, I would have been dead. Instead I found myself in an emphatic embrace.

“Thank you,” she said. The top of her head ended at my shoulders and her cheek felt blistering hot where it pressed against my bare arm. “I was caught in that dance for six hundred years. You freed me.”

At her words, a balance between us shifted and whether she realized it or not, the debt she owed me became a very real obligation. I ignored the feeling. I wasn’t about to start collecting favors from strangers. I patted her back awkwardly.

“I’m Edana. I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.” She nodded an apology to Rianna. “But I had to thank you when I recognized you. I can’t believe you managed to free everyone from the dance. And you talk to the dead as well, don’t you? The newscast I saw featured you with a ghost. It looked like you were holding hands, but I didn’t think the living could interact with ghosts and shades. How did you pull that off?”

“I . . .” I didn’t have a good answer for that, especially since most grave witches couldn’t. Of course, if she’d been in that circle for six hundred years, I had no idea how much she knew about the changes since the Magical Awakening. “I have an affinity for the dead.”

Whereas Edana appeared human, the two newcomers were undeniably fae. The first had skin the texture of bark and wore a twisting vine of mistletoe in place of clothing. The second stood only three feet from the ground. He had eight spindly legs but a surprisingly humanoid head on the top of his insectlike thorax. Behind him, I caught sight of a curved stinger as long as my forearm on the end of a thick scorpionlike tail.

I gulped. The two fae weren’t the only ones waiting for my answer. Conversation had all but ceased in the bar. Why do I get a feeling not everyone is going to want a membership to my fan club?

“You shouldn’t interfere with situations that don’t concern you,” the mistletoe-clad fae said, stepping forward and making my gaze snap up to him. “Many of the dancers were imprisoned in that circle for a reason.”

But not all. I knew for a fact that some were tricked into joining the festivities and some simply stumbled in by mistake. Not that I was going to say any of that. Arguing with the two fae wouldn’t win me any points and I wasn’t about to apologize and indebt myself to anyone if I didn’t have to, so I remained silent.

My heart crashed in my chest, each beat harder than the last as the silence dragged on, but slowly the sound of murmured conversation picked up around us again. The two fae stared at me a moment longer, and then without another word they turned and walked away. The mistletoe-clad fae sat at a table with two thorn fae, and the scorpion fae joined a cluster of goblins gambling on a dice game in the back corner. They just wanted to issue a warning?

I sank into my chair, relief making my hands shake enough that I shoved them in my lap. Edana had slipped away at some point during the conflict, so it was once again just Rianna and me at the table. Well, and Desmond. Not that I had any delusions of privacy—there were definitely ears turned toward our corner.

“So . . .” I said, tugging on the cuff of my glove. I wished I had something in front of me—food, pen and paper, anything at all—to focus on. But I didn’t. I just had Rianna sitting across from me, watching me fidget.

I cringed. I’d had enough of Faerie for one day. Besides, I couldn’t claim ownership of Rianna. “You’re my friend. I can’t claim you as property. It’s weird and wrong.”

Okay, when she put it that way, it was the lesser of two evils, but . . . I released a deep breath, letting the air drag out of me and take with it the panic fluttering in my stomach. But nothing. I couldn’t let someone else, someone who wouldn’t have Rianna’s best interests in mind, walk in and make her a slave again. The least I could do was see if Faerie recognized me as the heir to Coleman’s holdings. If it did, I could try to figure out a way to free Rianna.

Rianna led me through the club, toward the large tree growing right through the floorboards of the bar. Over our heads, a swollen moon glimmered high above the tree limbs. I frowned at it. The full moon had passed almost a week ago on the mortal plane. The full moon here was not a reassuring indication of time.

“How do we get there?” I asked, lagging slightly behind. Desmond had glued himself to Rianna’s side, and there wasn’t room for all three of us to walk abreast between the crowded tables.

“We’ll have to pass through the winter court,” Rianna said without turning around. “Then we’ll take another door to Stasis—that’s the no-man’s-land where the holdings are currently located.”

She stopped as she reached the tree and turned back to me. Motioning me closer, she raised on her tiptoes and whispered, “I wouldn’t mention where we are going. Coleman’s holdings are nothing magnificent, and surely nothing to fight over, but the Winter Queen was miffed to say the least when Faerie didn’t award it to her court. In her opinion, her knight is responsible for Coleman’s death, even if he employed the help of a feykin. She doesn’t take rejection well and she isn’t the most pleasant person when displeased.”

Rianna lifted one thin shoulder and let it drop. “I know you have . . . interests . . . in the winter court—which, by the way, I also recommend that you not mention. The queen is infamous for her jealousy. But any court you decided to join would be better than staying in Stasis, cut off from everyone.”

Interests. I almost laughed. That’s one way to say I slept with the queen’s pet assassin and lover. Of course, I hadn’t known he was either at the time. I shook my head. “You know that even if Faerie recognizes me as inheriting, I’m not going to automatically join a court. I don’t know anything about the courts.”

“I know. But at least if the holding is claimed, that will be taken care of.” She gave me a weak smile. “Desmond and I can wait it out as long as we know we’re not going to be tossed and traded around.”

Well, I guess this is it. I nodded and followed her as she walked around the back of the tree. I expected a trapdoor in the ground, or maybe in the tree itself—after all, folklore reported Faerie to be a subterranean land, and I’d heard Caleb say before that he was headed “under hill,” but there was no door—there was just tree and the back side of the bar.

I took another two steps around the tree, and the world seemed to slide around me. I wasn’t moving, or at least it didn’t feel like I moved in space, but the warm amber light in the bar smeared into darkness, and a cooler, bluer light filled the air.

The air had a bite to it, but it wasn’t cold, and surely not frigid enough for the enormous pillar beside me, but though the ice shimmered, the intricately carved fae dancing in spirals up the pillar were sharp, the details too precise for the pillar to be melting. My eyes followed the dancing fae up the column until it disappeared into a glassy ceiling that sparkled like hundreds of small stars were caught in the frozen mass. Music emanated from somewhere, the soft, plucked notes mournful.

She set a brisk pace, all but dragging me down the long passageway. I expected the smooth ice floor beneath us to be slick, but it was no worse than walking on marble. The only light in the passage was from the stars caught in the ice overhead, but it provided more than enough illumination, even for my bad eyes. I reached out with my ability to sense magic. The very air buzzed with enchantments and magic. It was as if I were drinking the magic of Faerie in with every deep breath. I tightened my shields before the buzz of magic overwhelmed my senses.

We’d made it only a couple of yards when three figures stepped out in front of us. At first I thought the statues really had come to life, but these were fae of flesh and blood. Not that we could see a lot of that flesh. All three wore hooded cloaks as white as freshly fallen snow, and in the gap where the cloaks fell open I could see intricate armor that looked like plated scales carved from blue-tinted ice. Two blocked our path while a third moved to intercept us, a sword naked in his hand.

“You’ve entered the winter court’s territory. Identify yourselves and your purpose,” the guard with the sword said, coming to a stop directly in front of us. This close, I could see thin, shimmering lines of glyphs tattooed across the exposed skin of the guard’s face and hands—at least I thought they were tattoos, though the ink glimmered like hundreds of ice crystals tracing the man’s skin.

“I’m the changeling Rianna, currently in Stasis. And this is . . .” She glanced at me, squeezing my hand once before dropping it. “My dear friend. I have permission to use this hall to travel between Stasis and the mortal realm.”

Rianna dug a thin chain out from under the collar of her dress and tugged it over her head. A blank pendant shaped like an ice crystal hung on the end of the chain, and she dropped it in the guard’s palm.

He whispered a musical-sounding word and the pendant glowed a deep cobalt blue. With a nod, the guard handed the chain and pendant back to Rianna. “Follow me. I’ll escort you to the door.”

Rianna followed silently, so I did the same. Desmond brought up the rear, his nails making the softest clinking sounds on the ice. At first I tried to memorize our route, but as the guard led us down one identical hallway after another I lost track of how many lefts and rights we’d taken. I’ll definitely need a guide to get back out of this place.

I stared at the unbroken ice wall inside the arch. “Um.” “It’s the door,” Rianna said, locking my arm with hers again. “It will take us anywhere we want to go in Faerie, as long as we know where we want to go. Now you have to trust me. And don’t let go.”

The world froze around me. I gasped, sucking in solid frozen air, and a sharp ache filled my lungs. Panic stung my mind, flooded my muscles, but I couldn’t move. Then, as suddenly as the world had frozen, it thawed, turning as comfortable as bathwater. I released the frozen gasp I’d taken, and the pain in my chest vanished as warmth spread over my body. Again I didn’t feel like I was moving, but the world slid out of focus, like a child smearing his hand through a painting that was not yet dry. Then it solidified again, and I was standing in a cavern that held a castle. Not just a big house, but an honest-to-goodness, large-stonefacade-with-turrets-and-towers castle. There was even a moat—though why anyone would build such a thing in the belly of a cave was beyond me. As I stood there staring, the drawbridge lowered and a portcullis made of twisting vines lifted to clear our path.