Chapter 23

I made a quick stop to one of the guest bathrooms to scrub the worst of the grime off my face and rinse what I could of the muck from my hair. Without a real wash—or hairbrush—the result left me looking like a drowned rat, but at least less like a filthy one. My clothes, which had several crusted stains I didn’t really want to identify, were also pretty much a lost cause. Oh well, it wasn’t like I was headed to a beauty contest. I’d have preferred to put my best face forward while negotiating with shadow, but it had been one hell of a long day, and it wasn’t over yet. It had taken me longer than I liked already, what with trying to drive with my shields open and then having to get through security and Casey. I needed to make sure the pocket of Faerie had survived the last sunset—which I assumed it had, as Dugan had told me to come here—get the portal negotiated, figure out what to do about Ryese and the bigger issue with the door, and then get some sleep.

I made quick work of the magical locks on the outer door to Casey’s old suite, thankful I’d paid attention when my father had brought me here in the past. The magical wards did more than just keep the curious from discovering the hidden pocket of Faerie, they also trapped inside anything that might somehow cross over from Faerie to the mortal realm. I assumed that was the reason Dugan had been sending his shadow pet instead of talking to me in person—the only remaining pocket of Faerie was securely locked down inside my father’s rather impressive wardings. I sort of expected Falin to be waiting for me as I rushed into the dark room, but found myself disappointed to discover it empty. I didn’t bother wasting any time in the sitting room, which was the first room past the doorway, but made my way straight for Casey’s old bedroom.

The moment I stepped over the boundary where the circle had been cast under the Blood Moon, everything around me changed. The air turned sweeter, with soft music drifting just out of earshot, though this music was sadder than I typically heard in Faerie. An enormous sun hung low on the horizon, orange and pink with the shades of sunset even though it was full dark in the mortal realm. The fact that there was another floor above this one had no effect on the open sky above me. The room had outgrown its original dimensions in other ways as well. Once it had been a fairly normal, if large, bedroom. Now the space was considerably larger, more like the size of a ballroom. I frowned. It had been the size of a football field the last time I’d been in here, which meant it had already shrunk by more than half. Would it survive one more transition between day and night? I had to get the fae evacuated tonight, before dawn.

I walked carefully through the space, because Faerie wasn’t the only plane manifesting in the room. The land of the dead had been forced into reality in spots and clusters. Other realities as well, though those seemed far less destructive than the land of the dead, which caused anything that passed through it to decay. The planes were scattered about like someone had been inspired by a Jackson Pollock painting, splashing a little land of the dead here and a bit of the plane of residual emotions there.

That hadn’t been the case, of course. After all, I’d been the one who’d done all this damage. I’d been bound with a soul chain and hemorrhaging power at the time. The results had been chaotic, but hopefully today they would be useful.

I’d still been holding out hope that Falin would be waiting for me in the chaotic pocket of Faerie—possibly Dugan was well. Not that I thought a prince and a king should be expected to wait around for me, but while I’d been more than a little distracted when Falin and Dugan had appeared in my windshield, by the expression on Falin’s face, which held some relief at the sight of me, though still riddled with worry, I’d thought that as a boyfriend—not king—he’d be here, ready to sweep me into his arms and find out what I’d been through the last several hours. It was possible I had some unreasonable relationship expectations, especially considering I was the one with commitment issues, but yeah, it stung a little as I walked through the empty space.

“Hello?” I called out when I reached the stone bench in the center of the room.

Nothing. I glanced around. Not even the shadows moved—not that moving shadows would normally be expected, but I was trying to reach Dugan so it would at least be an indication that he was listening, right?

“Dugan?”

Nothing. Had I taken too long to get here? If there had been something time sensitive, Dugan wouldn’t have cut off his spell before telling me, right? Or maybe I was still being rather presumptuous and shouldn’t expect them to be watching this space close enough to know the moment I stepped into it.

“I’m here to negotiate a portal with the court of shadows,” I called out to the dark depths of the room. I glanced at my watch. It was still early evening, but how long would it take to work out passage for the fae and then actually get them all here to this room? While this pocket of Faerie had shrunk, it didn’t feel like it was on the cusp of breaking away from reality at the strike of sunrise. Of course, neither had any of the others and they were already gone.

“You do realize he is a prince, not a valet,” a deep and not entirely unfamiliar voice said, making me jump as I spun around to scan the shadows.

Nothing in the room moved.

“Down, I believe,” the deep voice said. “Check your bag.”

My bag? Well, the voice did seem to be emanating from my purse . . .

I pulled open the bag, pawing through the contents until I spotted a small compact mirror I occasionally used for spellwork. I dug it out, flipping it open to find Nandin, King of Shadows, staring out at me from the round, palm-sized surface.

“Ah, there you are,” he said with a smile.

He was not who I’d expected to see. “Uh, hello,” I said, hoping my voice sounded friendly and not as uncertain as I felt. Belatedly I realized I probably should have added a “Your Majesty” and a curtsy or something as this was a Faerie king I was addressing. Saying it now would accentuate the original slipup, likely highlighting the slight, so I took a different tack. “How are you, Uncle?”

The king’s smile broadened, amusement lightening his eyes as he tilted his head. “Reminding me of our familial bond to start negotiations, hmm? A well-played first step.”

My smile felt more like a grimace, but I tried anyway. The King of Shadows claimed he was my mother’s many-times-removed great-granduncle or some such. We might be distantly related, but there was no emotional bond there. My interactions with him had been recent, brief, and not entirely positive, though they had arguably been better than those I’d had with most of Faerie’s royalty. In truth, though, I’d have much rather been dealing with Dugan. While the king had more authority and was probably the person I needed to speak to if I wanted to borrow the court’s planebender, I at least had a tenuous understanding with the prince.

“As to how I am,” the king said, the smile he’d flashed me slipping, “I admit that things have been better. But then, that is why you are here, isn’t it?”

Yeah . . . about that. I had no idea how to begin negotiations with the king, so I just stumbled straight into it, headfirst. “I would like to utilize your planebender,” I said, and then grimaced. Utilize? Really? It wasn’t like I was asking to borrow a pair of scissors. The planebender was a person. If someone said something like that about me, I’d be irate. Once again I wished I was having this conversation with Dugan instead of the king. Also, not having it through a tiny mirror would be nice. The king’s face took up the entirety of the small surface, and the angle seemed odd. I lifted the mirror, tilting it slightly, as if that would readjust it. To let me see around him and if Dugan and—more important to me—Falin were with him. Moving it of course did nothing to change the king’s position in the mirror.

“Stop that. You are going to make me seasick,” the king snapped and I froze. Oops. The king’s gaze moved over my head, or more accurately, over whatever reflective surface he was speaking to me through. He stared at something out of my view for a moment, and then nodded, his expression earnest. Were Falin and Dugan with him? They’d been together when I saw them in the car window not a full hour ago, but I hadn’t seen the king then.

“Now, a door,” the king said, his gaze snapping back to me. “Everyone wants to talk about a door.”

I frowned. The very first thing he’d said had been about Dugan being a prince, not a valet. That hadn’t really registered at the time. Now I had to wonder who else had contacted him about a doorway. He does have the only planebender. All of the seasons had lost doors. Other courts were no doubt also looking for ways to evacuate their people.

That probably meant this negotiation was going to be largely one-sided. I didn’t have much to offer and he had the only planebender in Faerie. Of course, his court did owe me a favor. I’d use that if I could. I just hoped it would be enough.

The king stepped back, revealing more of the room he stood in. Not that there was a lot to the room—it was mostly gray stone and dark shadows—but there were people. Dugan, for one, but most importantly, Falin. I smiled despite myself as I caught sight of him, but no huge outburst this time, at least. Where Dugan and Nandin were shadowy figures with their dark hair, oiled armor, and cloaks of pure darkness, Falin was a glowing marble god, all sharp lines and brightness with his pale hair and white shirt.

He returned my smile when our gazes met through the mirror, but there was something else in his features—caution maybe? But about what? Nandin? The door I wanted to negotiate?

“Are you okay?” he asked, his gaze searching, but likely frustrated by the very little amount of me my tiny hand mirror revealed.

“It’s been a hell of a day since you told me Tem wasn’t who he claimed to be.”

“That was little more than an hour ago for us,” Dugan said.

Well then, it was a good thing I hadn’t needed the cavalry to come rescue me. Though even with only an hour’s time, I was still surprised—and if I was honest with myself, a little hurt—that Falin hadn’t come after me. He’d more or less seen Tem abduct me, and yes, he’d looked a little frantic when Dugan had established the connection in my windshield, but he hadn’t come for me. That was really getting under my skin, and I hated to feel that way. And maybe there was another reason. With only an hour having passed, maybe he was still trying to negotiate a door. Another thought hit me, twisting my stomach. Or maybe he was still badly injured from the duel. He didn’t look it, standing tall and gorgeous in my mirror, but he had a habit of glamouring over his injuries . . .

“I’ll update you on the events of the day, but first—” I cut off as the image in the mirror jerked. The shadows filling the edges of the image swirled as the three men seemed to bounce up and down in the mirror. Except they weren’t bouncing, not of their own volition at least. Nandin reached out to something outside of the view of the mirror and Dugan took a step, looking like he was bracing himself. Falin grimaced, his hand moving to his side as his weight shifted. It was a look of pain, and Falin was very good at concealing pain, so whatever injuries he’d hid behind his glamour must have been bad.

“Ready?” the king’s voice called out, the words almost lost in the roar of noise pouring through my mirror as Faerie jolted and rolled.

I thought he was talking to me, though I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be ready for, but then a voice answered from somewhere out of my view. “No. It keeps slipping!”

Someone screamed, the cry frightened, thin, and very young sounding. The voice cut off almost as soon as it started, but the scream sent a cold sweat down my spine. It wasn’t any of the men I could see, but it was impossible to tell if the scream came from the same person who’d answered the king. Nandin lumbered forward, stumbling as much as walking out of my view.

The image in the mirror kept jumping and swaying and I found myself bracing as well, even though the room around me was still. Silent. Falin took a knee, and my gaze remained locked on him, watching the world around him thrashing. My breath lodged in my throat, my lungs burning in protest, but I couldn’t breathe. I could only watch Faerie jolt and shudder.

When the image finally stilled, I was looking at the shadow court sideways. Falin, braced with one hand on his thigh and another on his side, was the closest to the mirror. He filled most of the image, so I could see the lines of pain where they tightened around his eyes. He pushed himself up in a swift motion, though it wasn’t as effortless as I was used to seeing. Definitely still injured from that duel. Of course, once he stood, I could only see him from the waist down. That was true of Dugan as well, though with his dark armor and cloak, he blended in with the shadows so much that I was only sure where he was when he moved.

“What just happened? Is everyone okay?” I asked, and my voice came out in quick gasps even though nothing had happened on my side of the mirror.

“Faerie is unstable,” the king said, still somewhere outside my field of view.

A pair of boots stepped up to the mirror, filling the glass. Then the image shook again, moving in an arc as someone righted the fallen mirror on their end. The king’s face came into view, his expression grave, his mouth a thin line of worry.

“So, an earthquake?” I asked. There had been far too many earthquakes recently.

“More like Faerie fracturing,” he said, his gaze going beyond the mirror. I wasn’t sure if he was looking at something I couldn’t see or if he was simply thinking. “Things are happening. More doors have been lost.”

“More? How many more? Which ones?”

The king’s eyes snapped back to me, focusing. He didn’t answer, but gave me a searching look. Assessing if I’d trade for the information? Or trying to decide if I should know? Something else?

“Two more,” Falin said from somewhere behind the king. I couldn’t see him with Nandin filling the mirror, but that didn’t stop the sound of his voice. “South America is cut off, as is Asia. From winter, at least. I don’t know about the other courts.”

Nandin’s face pinched, as if upset Falin had shared what he considered too much. I just blinked, my hand dropping into my purse, and I dug through it by feel, without breaking eye contact with Nandin. We stared at each other, and then Nandin took a step back so that I could see the rest of the room again. Falin was no longer clutching his side, which was a good sign, but I still wondered how badly he was hurt. Dugan was studying me, his thumb running along his jawline.

“The other courts lost the same doors, except spring. Apparently the door in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was a little too tricky to blow, though I’ve heard whispers that there was an attempt,” Dugan said.

I gave him a small nod of thanks, biting my lip as I absorbed the news. Nearly half the seasonal doors were gone. That . . . that was really bad. My hand finally closed on the item I was searching for, and I pulled the map I’d tucked away what seemed like forever ago free, letting it unroll as I lifted it. I ripped my gaze away from the mirror long enough to stare at the map. Sure enough, the color had fled from more of the surface. North and South America were now both completely devoid of color. As were Asia and some of Europe. Finding Nekros on the map, our little folded space didn’t unfold as much as it had the first time I’d seen it, the wilds not as wide or dense.

Shit. The folded spaces were sustained by magic, and with Faerie being torn away, magic was leaving the land. Was human magic enough to sustain the cities and towns we’d built in the folded spaces across the globe? Or was the destruction of the doors going to have a rippling effect that would shake the whole world? If the folded spaces collapsed, both human and fae were in danger.

I swallowed hard, looking into the small mirror again.

“When did the latest bombings occur? I had winter’s people put extra security on the doors after Nekros’s was destroyed. At that time, there were no signs of trouble at any of the other doors.” I hadn’t had any reports from the other FIB offices, but then again, most of my local agents had jumped ship, taking off for the door in South America—not that it would even be there when they arrived, apparently—and, besides, I hadn’t exactly been accessible for reports most of the day, so I shouldn’t have been shocked that I hadn’t heard about the newest bombings. But why hadn’t the increased security helped? Having already lost one door, you’d think they’d be vigilant. Of course, Ryese had planted Tem on my team—he could have plants and sympathizers anywhere. I chewed at my bottom lip. “Could we have this conversation in person? This little hand mirror isn’t the best FaceTime device.”

Dugan’s brows furrowed, and I saw him mouth the word “FaceTime” as if trying to parse out the meaning. Yeah, Faerie didn’t tend to keep up with the latest technology. And by “latest,” I wasn’t even sure most of the courtiers were familiar with the printing press yet . . .

“Answering your first question,” the king said. “Around noon in the human realm. As to the second—” The image in the mirror shook again, cutting off the king’s words as all three men again braced against Faerie’s jolting rumbles.

Two earthquakes in less than five minutes?

My eyes remained riveted on the mirror, waiting for the motion to once again still. An odd sensation at the edge of my awareness dragged at me, but I didn’t want to look away from the image in front of me. Falin had braced his legs against the rocking motion of the ground and I felt almost afraid to lose sight of him, though there was nothing I could do to help from the mortal realm. Still that niggling feeling pulled at my senses, calling to my magic. I ignored it, but it tugged at me, a subtle wrongness to it.

The wrongness was what made me finally glance away from the mirror. Ignoring those gut instincts that warned of dangers was a good way to get jumped by really scary things. I thought I was alone in this room, but this was a pocket of Faerie. It was possible that something had crossed from Faerie to this pocket and gotten stuck in here with me, trapped by my father’s wards. I glanced around, searching for what was niggling at me without fully taking my attention away from the mirror.

I saw nothing unusual at first. Then my gaze caught on a corner, not because I could see anything odd, but because I could feel it. The threads of Faerie were dissolving, the pocket surrounding me shrinking. I’d thought I had until sunrise before we were in danger of losing this last bit of Faerie, but now that I focused on it, I could feel it actively dissolving around me.

The sounds in the mirror quieted, and I glanced down as the image stabilized, the men straightening. As Faerie stilled, the fraying strands around me quieted as well. My gaze bounced between the mirror and the corner of the room, but now that the earthquake had passed, the room had stopped shrinking.

“How often is that happening?” I asked as Dugan righted the mirror this time.

“With increasing frequency.” Dugan frowned. He was close enough that he took up the entire mirror. “The first one more or less corresponded with the doors blowing. Recently they have been hitting every few minutes. Faerie will tear itself in half at this rate.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. The panic that I’d barely been keeping leashed railed against me, trying to drag my lungs out of my chest. Or maybe it was simply my heart’s frantic jumping that knocked the air from me. The pocket of Faerie I was standing in was shrinking, possibly every time Faerie quaked, which meant my window of opportunity to get the locals out was closing. But with Faerie tearing itself to shreds, it didn’t sound like any of us were safe in either reality.

“What can be done?” I asked.

“Currently?” Nandin said from somewhere behind Dugan, which I couldn’t see as the prince was still filling the entire mirror. I found myself craning my neck, as if that would help me see around him. It did not, of course. “Preventing more doors from falling would be good. We appear to be at some crucial tipping point.”

I dug in my purse for my phone with the intention of sending a text to Nori about the fact that more doors had been lost and telling her to contact the remaining FIB offices and get as much security on the remaining doors as possible. But, of course, there was no phone in my purse. Tem had destroyed it, the bits likely still on the floorboard of my car. It wasn’t like the initial security I’d ordered seemed to have helped anyway.

“What is being done to secure the doors from Faerie’s side?” I asked, wishing I could actually see Falin, as he was the only one here with a door to the mortal realm. The shadow court had little skin in this game, well, except that it sounded like this disturbance was trickling down to affect all of Faerie.

“Faerie is locking down,” Falin said and I blinked in surprise.

“You mean all the courts?” I’d known winter had been locked after the bombing, as even the unaffected doors hadn’t been able to reach the court, but I’d been under the impression that had been because Falin had been injured in a duel and the court had locked to give him time to recover. I hadn’t heard that the remaining doors to the other courts had also locked. Of course, the other courts hadn’t exactly been forthcoming.

“All of Faerie, as of this afternoon,” Dugan said, his expression grave. “Every door between the mortal realm and Faerie is sealed. Travel between courts on this side is still open, but Faerie has closed herself completely to the mortal realm.”

I sank onto the stone bench. That might protect the remaining doors, assuming the explosive spells weren’t already in place and Ryese didn’t already have people stationed around the remaining doors in the mortal realm. But it also meant all the fae in the mortal realm were cut off. That wasn’t too serious for those in areas where the doors still existed, because, while they couldn’t travel to Faerie, at least it was still tied to the land at the doors and would sustain the local fae. But for the evacuating fae? They couldn’t even bargain their way through the closest territory back to their own courts. Of course, Falin had said the South America doors were gone, so all my agents who’d jumped in their cars and fled toward where the closest winter territory should have been were headed to an equally devastated area instead.

“I need a door,” I said, the words coming out surprisingly clear considering how numb I felt everywhere.

Dugan lifted a dark eyebrow.

“Well . . .” the king said and then made an annoyed sound. “Dugan, I know she is a pretty girl, but do let the rest of us see her as well. This is already hard enough with Faerie throwing us around every few minutes and whatever small reflective surface our planeweaver is using.”

Dugan frowned, but backed away from the mirror, opening my view to the rest of the room. Falin had moved closer in the interim, as had the king, so that even with Dugan taking a place beside them, all three men barely fit in the small frame.

“The shadow court owes me a favor. I’d like to trade it for a door for all the fae I can gather.” Not that I could gather all the stranded fae in the Americas before this pocket of Faerie deteriorated. Hell, if it were that easy to move fae across such large land distances, this evacuation wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place; the locals would have been easily relocated to the closest winter territory before the latest door had been lost. But at least I should be able to rescue the locals, and I’d try to evacuate as many as could reach us until the last thread of Faerie dissolved.

The king frowned at me, but then his eyes once again flickered over toward something out of view of my mirror. What was he looking at? Who was over there? It wasn’t just the king either. Falin shot more than one furtive, if weary, glance in that direction. The weariness concerned me, but he hadn’t attempted to warn me in any way, so whatever it was, it must be a concern for their side of Faerie, not mine.

“Are you in the habit of reminding kings when they owe you favors? It doesn’t seem a healthy trait.” Nandin’s tone was good-natured, but I bristled at the implied threat. I saw Falin’s hand twitch as well, but it was his only reaction.

“I’m simply opening negotiations,” I said, keeping my tone flat.

“Ah, my dear—” The king cut off as all three men fell sideways, or more accurately, the mirror they were speaking through fell sideways. From the look of their feet, which was all I could see before my own mirror went completely black, all three fae caught themselves and braced for Faerie’s rolling quakes as it shook again. With the image gone, I would have thought the connection broke, except for the awful noise of Faerie rumbling and for the fact that I distinctly heard the king curse, so apparently I still had an audible connection, just no image. Or maybe the mirror had fallen facedown this time.

With nothing to see in my mirror, I devoted my attention to the edges of the room. Sure enough, the threads of Faerie began fraying as soon as the earthquake began. The damage was slow—I doubted the room was losing more than an inch or two per incident—but that would add up. How long would this pocket of Faerie last?

“Find a way to make it work!” the king’s voice shouted over the background noise.

I thought he was talking about the mirror, but the voice that answered was younger, not one of the men I’d been speaking to. “I’ve been trying. Faerie is too unstable.”

“Well, it’s not going to get any more stable.” That one was Dugan’s voice, but it didn’t sound like he was actually talking to the other two, just grumbling an aside.

I frowned, glancing at my mirror. It was still dark. The sound of Faerie’s rumbling was growing dimmer; the angrier shaking must have been quieting to smaller aftershocks. The edges of my room stopped fraying as well, so I guessed the worst of it had passed. Though for how long? There were mere minutes between the last few earthquakes.

I expected someone to right the mirror again, now that the most recent incident had passed. Instead the unknown voice yelled, “I got it. Be quick!”

Without warning, arms wrapped around my waist and dragged me backward, up over the bench I’d been perched on, and into the darkness.