We drove back the way Eris had brought us, back to the freeway. This time, I leaned to the side, pressing my face against the glass. Castellan didn’t order me to sit up. He obviously didn’t think anything I might do was a threat. Well, that felt true. I remembered my last sight of Judy and squeezed my eyes shut against tears. Crying wouldn’t help any of us. But the oracle might.
I calmed myself, made myself stop thinking of Judy and the possibility that Castellan was right and he’d sidetracked our potential rescuers. I had to assume Viv and I were on our own, and I was not going to wait around like a helpless maiden for a rescue. I glanced swiftly at Castellan, whose attention was on the road ahead, then closed my eyes. With luck, he would think I was deep in despair. He hadn’t struck me as the type to gloat, so I was probably safe from him striking up conversation. Right now, our only advantage was that he didn’t know about the oracle.
Breathing slowly and not too deeply, I considered my options. I settled on How can we escape? and let the question settle deep into my bones. Immediately the image of a wooded clearing appeared behind my eyelids, more brightly lit than the moon could manage. I didn’t try to find the source of the lights. My attention was drawn to a glow hanging in midair, golden and sparkling and familiar. No door frame surrounded it, but my visions rarely showed every detail, just the ones that mattered.
As I watched, the golden barrier parted like a curtain being drawn back, revealing blackness so complete it sucked at my eyeballs even though it wasn’t physically there. Three breaths later, the curtain descended, and I came swimming up to full awareness.
The car was still silent except for the sound of the tires on the road. I risked a glance at Castellan, but he didn’t look as if he was waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard. That was good, because my heart was pounding and I was sure I’d sound like an out-of-breath runner if I tried to speak. The prophecy had been unambiguous for once. Escape meant opening the barrier.
Despite my many years’ experience with the oracular gift and its accuracy, my mind threw up all sorts of objections. Opening the barrier was what we did not want to do. It would help the Savants conquer Faerie and it would lead to the elves invading our world. What was more, I had no idea how to do it. Viv’s scrying had connected our world and Faerie briefly, bypassing the barrier—the barrier itself hadn’t been affected.
The more I thought about it, the more I understood the prophecy’s instructions, though. If Viv opened a portal, it would let humans pass, but the barrier would still prevent the elves from leaving. And that was exactly what Castellan wanted. So the only answer was to give elves and humans equal access…except that was likely to destroy two worlds, and I fought the idea even though it had been the oracle’s and not mine.
I opened my eyes to discover we’d left the freeway behind for a smaller, two-lane highway similar to the one that paralleled the Washougal River. Trees grew close to the road, too close for my comfort, though the closeness was probably an illusion that rose from how dark it was. The moonlight that had shone on the water outside Castellan’s house didn’t reach beneath the trees’ branches. We drove in a moving pool of light made by the car’s headlights that reached just far enough ahead to keep me from feeling we might miss a sharp turn and drive headlong off the road.
I swiveled in my seat to look behind us, not at Viv and Eris but through the back window. The three other cars were still there, or at least I assumed all three were, because I could only see the one right behind us and, past it, the lights of another. Hope tried to rise within me, and I suppressed it. Castellan might only have a dozen goons, but I had no idea how many people Malcolm might bring, and they might still be outnumbered.
I stopped looking out the rear window, and my eyes met Viv’s. She no longer looked uncertain, but angry. A vivid purple-black welt high on her cheekbone looked even more vicious against her pale skin. She jerked her head in Eris’s direction, the smallest motion. I turned to Eris, who was watching me. I wanted to punch that smug smile off her face. “Plotting an escape?” Eris said.
“Not much point to that, is there?” I said, trying to sound defiant in a way that would make me seem even less of a threat. I had no idea how we might escape if the oracle’s solution wasn’t possible, but if they underestimated me, so much the better.
“Don’t think I’m going to relax just because you’re pathetic,” Eris said, sneering. I ignored her and turned back around.
“Eris, that’s unnecessary. Ms. Campbell is cooperating. So is her friend—I’m sorry, we weren’t introduced. I’m Michael Castellan.”
Viv said nothing. Eris jabbed her in the side with her pistol, making Viv squeak. “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s not like our names are state secrets.”
“Viv,” Viv said, sounding resentful.
“Well, Viv, I’m glad you were willing to see sense.” Castellan sounded as cheerful as if we were all good friends. Now he was the one I wanted to punch.
I settled back against the window and closed my eyes. Time to try again. Where is Malcolm?
Again, I felt the swooping sensation of a prophecy enfolding me. This time, I saw the landscape from above, as if I were a bird flying in great circles. Forests lay beneath me, as far as my vision reached, with no houses or roads to break the unrelieved foliage. My mind’s eye drew back, and the forest turned into a drawing of a forest—no, a map, but not a modern map, something old drawn on yellowing parchment. Small circles, three of them, were drawn on the forest seemingly at random, one red, one white, and one yellow. My eye was attracted to the white circle, and I knew instinctively this was Malcolm. Then the vision faded.
Frustrated, I let out a deep breath, and immediately regretted it when Castellan said, “Something wrong, Ms. Campbell?”
“Just wishing I’d never met you,” I lied.
Castellan laughed. “You don’t think we would have encountered each other eventually? My group and yours, I mean?”
“I don’t know. But you’re dragging me and my friend into your plot. Why shouldn’t I resent that?”
“I suppose that’s reasonable.” Castellan focused on his rearview mirror. “Do you agree, Viv?”
“Of course,” Viv said. “And if Judy dies, you’d better believe we’ll come after you.”
“I told you, she’ll be fine. Well, obviously not fine, not with that hole in her side, but she’ll survive it.” Castellan looked at me. “So, how did you do it? How did you destroy an entire alien species?”
I hated the way he said that, as if the invaders hadn’t been bent on human destruction and I’d made a selfish choice. “Magic.”
That made him laugh harder. “All right, I deserved that,” he finally said. “You don’t want to tell me? Afraid I might come up with a use for you, after all?”
That chilled me, the thought that to him I was nothing more than a tool. I didn’t want to give him any hints as to how that tool could be used, even though I didn’t know what he could make of that knowledge. I already knew better than to underestimate Michael Castellan. “It’s complicated. I can’t explain how it happened.”
“Don’t withhold information, Ms. Campbell. Eris could still shoot you.”
“More threats. You still want to pretend you’re not my enemy?” I glared at him.
“I don’t care anymore what you think of me. You don’t understand the value of my work.” Castellan shook his head, slowly, as if despairing over an ignorant child’s tantrum. “I will protect Tempus from Faerie, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. If you stand in my way—”
“I get it. Don’t bother.” I sighed. “Look, it really was too complicated to explain. The truth is, I don’t understand myself everything that happened when I destroyed the invaders’ reality. Sometimes, looking back, I wonder if I even had any control over that destruction.” Lying to Castellan felt good, like striking back in the only way left to me.
“I see,” Castellan said. I waited for more questions, but he fell silent, so I returned to looking out the window at the trees rushing past.
I reviewed what the oracle knew. Escape by removing the barrier. Malcolm was somewhere in the forest—this forest, I hoped—but knowing his location wouldn’t help me, or that vision would have been clearer. What else could I ask? Well, as long as I was desperate, I could ask a desperate question: How do I stop the Savants from destroying Faerie and taking its magic?
The swooping feeling dizzied me even more than before, and my hand closed convulsively on the door handle, though it couldn’t steady me. Colors swirled around and through me, and I was reminded of the invaders’ reality, how my mind had perceived it as filled with colors that felt deeply unnatural and wrong. Except I didn’t have that feeling now; instead, I felt poised on the brink of a hill, atop the steepest, highest roller coaster ever built, waiting for the plunge.
Then it came. I fell, and instead of fear I felt exhilarated, like I was flying instead of falling. Images flashed past so rapidly I barely recognized any of them. I saw Night-Noon, or a cat that looked just like her; saw the trees of Faerie with their tiny, odd flowers; saw buildings whose shapes were subtly alien; saw masses of people, tall and lithe with sculpted faces. Then the barrier appeared again, and this time it was ragged, like a shredded curtain, and the space in its center was even blacker than before. That vanished, and now I heard voices speaking in a language I didn’t understand, a language that didn’t sound like any foreign language I’d heard before.
“Helena,” Viv said, sounding alarmed.
I jerked alert. “What?”
“I asked about your family,” Castellan said. “Were you asleep?” He sounded skeptical, like he knew I couldn’t have been asleep but couldn’t think of any other reason why I’d ignore his question.
“I’m not telling you about my family,” I snapped, “so don’t ask. Besides, you’ve already investigated me, so you know all the answers already.” I hoped my hostility would conceal my fear. Castellan had no reason to suspect I was an oracle just because I’d been in a trance, or whatever that had looked like. Damn him for interrupting that vision before I understood it.
“For a small organization, your Wardens are remarkably thorough,” Castellan said, sounding impressed. “Nothing we did penetrated the illusions and misdirections you set up. All we were able to find were hints, here and there—you have children, I’m sure—”
I turned on him, snarling. “Don’t. You think you’re clever, taunting me with how special and amazing your organization is, but if you make this personal, I will find a way to destroy you.”
Castellan’s eyebrows raised. “So fierce! I suppose you think we should have some kind of gentlemen’s agreement, no involving our personal lives? That sort of thing is so nineteenth century, pistols at dawn and so forth.”
“I don’t care what you call it. And I’m not interested in making an agreement with you. I’m telling you how it’s going to be.”
Castellan pursed his lips in thought. “I can let you have the illusion that you have any degree of control, I suppose. When Faerie lies open to us, you won’t matter anymore.”
I rested my forehead against the glass, which was cold and felt a little sticky, probably because my anger had me sweating. If he made my children pawns in this horrible nightmare, I would stop him. I’d killed once, to protect myself and avenge Malcolm, and the memory still made me ill on occasion, when it caught me off-guard, but I knew what I was capable of, and Castellan didn’t. Yet.
The car slowed, and then Castellan turned right onto a rutted dirt road not much wider than a game trail. Viv gasped, and I glanced back to see her eyes widen as she looked past me out the windscreen. Then her eyes met mine and narrowed in warning. She said, “You drove us off the road! This car can’t possibly make its way through all those trees.”
I immediately turned around and made myself grip the door handle with one hand and the front edge of my seat with the other, pretending to be scared. I’d forgotten my other advantage, the ability to see through illusions, and Viv’s warning came just in time not to give away that I could see the actual road.
“It’s an illusion,” Castellan said. “We’ll be past it soon.” He didn’t sound suspicious at all, but I didn’t relax my grip or the stiffness of my body until he said, “There, see? The illusion doesn’t have to last long, just enough to distract any random hikers.”
To me, the road looked just as it always had, a narrow path with matted grass growing down its center so it looked like two strips of rutted, dried mud. The Pathfinder bounced along the road, and now I had to hold on to keep myself from being tossed out of my seat despite my seatbelt. The jolting was severe enough to keep us all silent, and I closed my eyes and decided to try once more. How do I stop the Savants from destroying—
The car slowed to a stop, and my eyes flew open. I sat up, slowly, unable to believe what I saw. We’d come to a halt in a clearing big enough to be a football field, surely too big to be natural in a forest this size. Many other vehicles were parked nearby, and “vehicle” was the right word, because with the exception of a few full-size pickup trucks, all of them were Army surplus Humvees or Jeeps. Tall lights on stands circled the clearing, shedding the kind of bright light I associated with stadiums or airport runways. Olive-green and khaki tents, more military-grade supplies, occupied the far end of the clearing, some larger than others. My assessment of the Savants’ operation changed instantly. This wasn’t a corporation, it was a paramilitary organization.
Castellan turned the engine off and said, “Let me show you around.”
“What, like a tour?” I said.
“If you like,” Castellan said. “I want you to understand what we’re capable of. I’m sure it won’t convince you that I’m right, but maybe it will ease your mind to know we can defend humanity against the elves.” He got out of the car without waiting for Viv or me. I didn’t think there was any point in defying him. It wasn’t even fear that he or Eris would shoot us; there wasn’t anywhere else to go.
I followed Castellan as the other SUVs in our convoy pulled up and their passengers emerged. A quick glance told me what I hadn’t seen in the relative darkness in front of Castellan’s house—all of his goons were dressed plainly in dark clothes, not quite fatigues but definitely not ordinary jeans and T-shirts. Castellan in his casual attire looked out of place next to them.
Viv moved to walk close beside me. She opened her mouth, and I said, “Don’t say anything. He’ll hear us.”
“So wise, Ms. Campbell,” Castellan said without turning around. He gestured at the clearing. “We’re prepared for an initial incursion. Nothing big, a few dozen armored assault vehicles and about a hundred and fifty men—speaking generally, of course, since we don’t discriminate on the basis of sex.”
“How forward-thinking of you,” I said.
“Your hostility is growing tiresome,” Castellan said, but he didn’t sound angry, more like he was reading lines from some supervillain’s script. “We’ve developed weapons my researchers are convinced will work against elves. You know the legend about cold iron? Since we couldn’t capture Gabriel Roarke for testing, we’re not sure how much validity it has, but most things will be killed by the application of enough force.”
More men and a few women in those paramilitary clothes walked past us, not apparently in a hurry. They didn’t acknowledge us, didn’t even acknowledge Castellan, and I was going to comment on that when Viv said, “What’s that?” in such an alarmed voice I looked at her rather than where she was pointing. She didn’t seem to notice me, but I felt her hand grab mine and pass me something hard and rectangular. I swiftly shoved the phone into my back pocket and tugged my shirt over it.
Eris and Castellan weren’t watching us; they were looking at the missile mounted on the back of one of the larger vehicles. “A precaution,” Castellan said. “We don’t expect to use it, but it’s sensible to prepare for the worst, right?” He resumed walking, and Viv and I followed. I was acutely conscious of Eris walking behind me, within sight of the phone I now carried if I hadn’t been careful enough. Why Viv had risked revealing that we still had something Campbell Security could track, I didn’t know. Possibly she’d thought that Castellan’s attention would be more on her than on me now, and no one would think to search me for a second phone. In any case, the pressure of the phone on my backside made me feel more secure than I had in hours.
Castellan swept through the camp without paying attention to the activity around him. I didn’t know anything about the military to judge what everyone was doing, but I was sure I saw much fewer than a hundred and fifty “soldiers.” I wished I had Malcolm’s eye, to judge how dangerous the situation was. Then I made myself stop thinking of him. He was nearby, somewhere, but without knowing where or how close he was, I had to act as if he might not get here in time. Not that I knew what “in time” meant, either.
The far end of the clearing looked like a solid wall of trees, their leaves picked out starkly by the white lights. It wasn’t until we were within ten feet of it that I realized there was a gap. The gap was even narrower than the rutted path that had led here and showed signs of heavy foot traffic, grinding down any grass or plants that might once have grown there. Trees leaned in on both sides, their smaller branches snapped off as if whoever had used the path had grown impatient with how the leaves brushed against them. Beneath the trees, it was much darker, and soon we’d left the lights behind and I was feeling my way, waiting for my eyes to adjust.
Castellan walked with the same assurance with which he’d crossed the clearing, as if his vision wasn’t impaired. I stumbled once and caught myself by grabbing one of those broken branches, which bent beneath my weight and almost made me fall again. Castellan didn’t stop. Eris, behind me, nudged my back with something cold and hard. I managed not to turn on her.
The path made a couple of S curves, rising slightly, and then came out in another clearing equally brightly lit. My mouth fell open. Vaguely, I was aware of more paramilitary types handling large weapons or fussing with portable electronics. Eris nudged me again, but I ignored her. All my attention was on the structure at the center of the clearing.
It was made of brushed steel beams welded together at the corners to make a doorway easily thirty feet high and half that wide. Tiny lights coursed like traces of liquid fire up and down the uprights, pale blue and green and yellow the color of starlight. My mind tried to turn it into something normal, a modern art sculpture wrapped in Christmas lights or a prop on a Hollywood set, anything to help me comprehend it. It was absurd and at the same time it was the most real thing I’d ever seen.
“Our doorway to Faerie,” Castellan said. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”