11

"I don't give a rat's ass about your tender moment," Tris announced. "If you're wanting me to resurrect somebody, better gimme one whopper of a reason. I ain't the generous type."

He dragged a finger down my arm, from the hem of my sleeve down to my wrist. I ached to drown in the fire of our kiss one more time. Instead, I tromped over to the leprechaun, who grunted his derision.

Nevan, sidling up beside me, trailed his middle finger down the back of my forearm to tease the sensitive skin of my inner wrist, unleashing a riot of sensations. My body yearned to lean back into him.

None of that now. I linked my hands behind my back.

"Well?" Tris said. "You gonna convince me or what? I told ya I ain't in the habit of doing favors for mortals."

Nevan bent forward to loom over the seated leprechaun. "You'll be wanting to grant this favor. Unless you're in the mood for a thrashing."

"Shush," I said, elbowing him in the side. "I can handle this."

He grumbled.

I turned to the leprechaun. "Someone is trying to frame me for murder."

"That's my problem how?"

"Because… " My lips moved, I knew they did, but my train of thought derailed. Nevan and Tris must've heard the engine of my mind chugging, the wheels spinning, because they both studied me with bemused humor. I bounced on my heels and told Tris, with no attempt at all to disguise my self-satisfaction, "Because Nevan'll beat the crap out of you if you don't."

Nevan balked. "Pardon me, love, but I thought you were handling the dilemma yourself. Woman's liberation, eh? I believe that's what your kind calls it."

"Yeah, it is — and yeah, I am handling it."

"But you told him — you threatened I would — " Nevan's words disintegrated into exasperated noises. He threw his hands in the air. I muffled a giggle, but lost the battle with my grin. My reaction seemed to smother his temper and he let his arms drop. "I will never understand mortals."

"The feeling's mutual, Mr. Elemental Spirit of the Air." I tried to glare at Tris, but the humor slowly fading out of me hindered the attempt. "Will you do the resurrection thing or not?"

Tris worked his lips as if torn by the decision. "All right. But I'm only doing this to shut up your yammering. And so's I don't gotta watch you two drool over each other anymore. I'm getting nauseous."

"Maybe it's the raw copper ore you've been wolfing down."

He fixed me with a sly stare. "You want your sack of flesh and bones brought back to life or not?"

"I do."

"Let's get on with it then."

"Thank — " I clapped my own hand on my mouth this time, cutting off my words one syllable short of thanking the weaselly leprechaun. I chastised myself silently and removed my hand. "How's it work? This resurrection thing."

Tris chomped a bite of copper ore. "Use the vortex."

"Excuse me?"

"The vortex." Tris made a swirling gesture with his hand. "The one with the big sign next to it that says healing vortex in big white letters."

Realization rushed through me, stealing my breath and leaving me speechless. I'd known the vortex could heal minor wounds, but resurrect the dead? Holy heaven.

Tris eyed Nevan. "She illiterate or something?"

"No," Nevan intoned, "but she can be a tad slow to comprehend. We should excuse her, since this is her first trip through the falls."

The flapping of wings made us all jerk our heads skyward. A raven orbited overhead, banked lower with each circuit of the clearing. Though ravens all looked the same to me, an instinct warned me I'd met this one before. Brennus was back.

The raven dived into a tree, landing on a low-handing branch, and cawed three times.

Nevan stared down the bird.

The creature canted its head, coughing. Brennus casually fluttered his wings.

I inched toward Nevan. "Am I right in assuming that's — "

"Brennus."

The raven launched his body off the branch. It flapped wildly as Brennus rocketed up into the heavens to circle higher and higher until his dark figure shrank into a dot, winking out of sight.

Nevan pulled me snug against his side. He didn't have to tell me Brennus's appearance signaled bad news for us. Thanks to his spy and assassin, Skeiron would soon know where we were.

Thunder grumbled. A storm cloud blossomed in front of the sun and a chilly wind whipped through the clearing. I rubbed my bare arms as my gaze drifted up to the sky and the black mass consuming the blue. A crack of thunder detonated overhead.

I jumped.

Tris froze mid chew.

Nevan scowled at the cloud, his arm clinching me tighter.

An explosion of thunder rolled across the heavens, fading into silence, but I swore I heard laughter rumbling beneath it.

Nevan's breaths heated my cheek as he hunched to whisper in my ear. "No one will harm you. Not Brennus, not Skeiron, not even one of the gods will dare lay a hand on you. I will not allow it."

I longed to believe him, but though his words carried the weight of conviction, the sight of the raven soaring across the sky had slithered doubt through my heart. Nevan would try to protect me.

He would fail.

The certainty of it shimmied a chill down my spine, despite the warmth of Nevan's arm around my shoulders. He held me fast, his arm rigid.

Tris snapped off yet another bite of copper. "What's Brennus want with you two?" Nevan opened his mouth to answer, but Tris waved a hand. "Forget it. I don't wanna know."

"Are you sure this will work?" I asked. "The resurrection thing."

"Drag the mook into the vortex and it'll heal him." Tris scratched his chin. "Probably. Depends on how long it's been since he croaked and how busted up he is. Assuming his head ain't lopped off, it oughta work."

Earlier I'd learned firsthand the vortex had real regenerative power. Still, of all the shocking revelations I'd been hit with in the past twenty-four hours, somehow the notion of a genuine healing vortex stung worse than anything else. I'd spent three months denying such a thing could exist — hell, I'd spent years denying anything supernatural existed — and now my freedom depended on mystical healing energies.

Does it spin you?

Sandy's question about the vortex echoed in my brain. Yesterday, I'd told her no. Today, I felt my head spinning at the very mention of the blasted thing.

I resisted the impulse to tap my heels together and pray to go home. Instead, I leaned into Nevan just a little. "All I have to do is drag the body into the vortex?"

"Mm-hm," Tris mumbled around a mouthful of rock. "And let me finish my lunch. Gotta get the vortex up to full power for this one." I must've crinkled my brow or given some other sign of confusion, because Tris held up the copper bookend. "I eat this, it gives me power. The vortex gets it power from me. Get it?"

No, I didn't really, but I'd take his word for it.

I considered my options for a couple seconds, then said, "You didn't have to help me, Tris, but you did. You are a much nicer boy than you want everyone to think."

He looked up at me through his eyelashes, his mouth warped into a half grimace, half smile. Couldn't expect a teenager to admit he was a good boy. So not cool.

Was he a teenager? If Nevan could change his appearance, maybe Tris was older than he let on.

Tris shrugged one shoulder, returning his attention to the copper ore. "Whatever."

I swore I detected a faint blush on his cheeks.

As Tris kept on crunching ore, I twisted out from under Nevan's arm. He raised his brows but didn't try to stop me.

Tris, mouth stuffed with rock, mumbled, "You gonna save the dead guy or what?"

"Yes. Right now." I spun on my heels and bolted down the path back to the pool and the water-spouting boulder. Another pair of footfalls clapped up the path behind me. No need to glance back. Nevan was tailing me, I knew — or rather, I felt it.

Breaking out of the trees, I veered toward the boulder and its burbling water, certain the way home must lie somewhere in the vicinity of the tiny cascade. I'd wound up standing in front of the rock when I leaped through the darkness into this alien place.

Great, more water.

I halted at the pool's edge, mere feet from the big rock, my eyes drawn to the fountain spurting from it. Would I have to dive into the pool? My skin crawled at the idea.

Nevan sprinted past me, straight up to the boulder. Though I panted from exertion, he hadn't even broken a sweat.

"I'm assuming," he said, "you haven't the faintest idea how to get back from whence you came."

"Nope."

"It'll be easier this time." He slid his hand into mine, lacing our fingers. "Water is the doorway. When I say jump, do it. No hesitating. It is imperative you follow my instructions."

The seriousness of his tone convinced me. I nodded, but my gut clenched when I glanced back at the water.

Nevan dipped his free hand into the little fountain. The boulder dissolved into a darkness teeming with worm-like bands of blue, green, and purple. "Jump."

Hand in hand, we jumped.

The impact as we hit the floor in the cave made my knees buckle, punching them into the stone floor, shooting pains through my legs.

Nevan landed flat on his feet, steady as a mountain.

As my vision adjusted to the dimness, I raised a hand to my forehead and strained to make out my surroundings. Ahead of me, the waterfall cascaded over the cave's mouth in a rumbling, silvery curtain, muted by… uh… magic.

I glanced over my shoulder at the portal whatsit spiraling into infinity. Would I ever get used to the supernatural being real?

Nevan crouched beside me, lashed an arm around my waist, and jacked me up off my ass. Once he'd set me on my feet, he cradled my neck in his hands. "All right, love? No permanent damage?"

A playful lift of his brow contradicted his concerned tone. He was the most confusing man I'd ever met. "I'm fine. Let's go."

To my left, a shadow stirred. My attention swerved toward it just as a figure trundled out of the darkness in the depths of the cave.

Sheriff Travis Blackwell passed in front of the curtain of water, shoulders slumped, his clothes and hair rumpled and drenched and splatting drops onto the ground. Scrapes on his arms turned the skin a raw red. His mouth was open, his breaths came hard and fast. Eyes narrowed to slits, lips compressed into a line, he planted his feet wide to bar our path out of the cave with one hand positioned on the butt of his Sig Sauer.

His voice was hushed, his tone eerily cool. "Where have you been?"

I scuffled backward, bumping into Nevan. His body pressed against my back, buttressing me there. His hands, coiled around my upper arms, staked a claim. I had no time to consider whether I liked his dominant stance or the possessiveness it communicated, because Travis intervened.

With one wide step, he closed the distance between us and stabbed a finger in the air in front of my face. "I said where the hell have you been?"

His voice boomed in the confines of the cave, ricocheting off the walls. He repeated his question, with even more volume. I suppressed a cringe — damned if I'd show him any fear, no matter how insane he was acting — and told him in a dead-calm voice, "We explored the cave."

Travis's gaze swung past me, past Nevan, straight to the disk of blackness behind us and the multicolored tendrils corkscrewing within it. His eyes flew wide, his face blanched, and the fury crumbled out of him like a fragile shell broken by the wind. His hand fell away from his gun. He rocked back on his heels.

I wondered how long he'd hidden in the shadows, how much he'd witnessed.

"What is that stuff?" Travis asked, his tone far too even.

He was putting on a front and I couldn't fault him for it. The otherworldly hole in reality had thrown me for a loop too. His voice may have been even, but his eyes beseeched me for a rational explanation.

"I saw that thing when I first came in here, chasing after you two. I tried to touch the stuff, but it — " He jerked a hand toward the whirlpool hovering in midair, his lips trembling, infecting his voice with a matching quaver. "It floated away."

"Long story." One I really, really did not want to tell him. He'd drag me off to the loony bin for sure and maybe sign up for his own stint in a padded cell.

I tracked his gaze as it zeroed in on the churning darkness and its ribbons of luminous color unreeling into eternity. The abyss telescoped down to a pinpoint and winked out with a sizzling snap and a puff of air. Where once the portal had hovered, I saw only the mottled, uneven rock of the cave's rear wall.

Travis blinked twice in slow motion. He shook his head with such ferocity his head seemed to flap like a flag in the wind. He sank his face into hands, and after a moment, looked up at me. "If it's all right with you, I'm gonna pretend I never saw… whatever I thought I saw."

"Do what you want."

He squared his shoulders, straightening. "Why'd you run, Porter?"

Just like that, we were back to the cop-versus-suspect dynamic. Not more than half an hour ago, I'd panicked when Travis whipped out his handcuffs and suggested he might arrest me. Now — backed up, in the literal and figurative sense, by a sylph who could whisk me away in a heartbeat — I discovered it had gotten much easier to defy the sheriff.

"I won't go to jail again," I informed him. "Not ever."

Nevan's fingers pressed into my skin. Whether his gesture signified support or a warning, I couldn't say for sure.

Travis drummed his fingers on his leather belt. "I offered to help you."

"You mean the way you helped last time?" I shrugged out of Nevan's grasp to take a single step forward. "Why should I trust you?"

My fingers curled claw-like toward my palms but did not ball into fists. The memory of those days, of the most horrifying time in my life, ratcheted up my tension until my entire body ached from the pressure of rigid muscles.

Nevan kissed the top of my head. His hands stroked my arms, the realness of his touch banishing the ghosts of the past. He nuzzled my hair, murmuring phrases of comfort too soft for Travis to hear.

Thank you. Did gratitude expressed in thoughts count? Nevan had said debts accrued in the Unseen realm, not here, so I supposed I was safe.

"Well, Travis?" I said. "Why should I trust you?"

He rubbed his eyes and his voice grew strained as he met my gaze head-on. "I'm sorry for how I treated you back then. More sorry than you could possibly know. Took me six months to track you down, Lindsey. I came here to try and mend our friendship. I screwed that up too. Won't ask forgiveness, 'cuz I don't deserve it, but I will say this. I failed you three years ago. I won't make the same mistake today."

I should've felt vindicated by his admission, but it left me hollow. "Why didn't you tell me any of this when you turned up in Lutin Falls two and a half years ago?"

He aimed a long-suffering look in my direction. "You wouldn't speak to me unless it was in an official capacity. I've been fixing to tell you lots of times, but I chickened out. It's still hard to admit my brother went psycho on the girl he loved more than anything in the world. Hard to admit, to believe, I didn't see it coming. He was my brother."

Nevan glided a hand up my back, settling his palm between my shoulder blades. I'd almost forgotten about Nevan. He had become a pillar of strength for me, and though I'd leaned into him moments ago, his presence had faded into the background of my consciousness. Another item had also lapsed from my thoughts.

The dead body.

Enough distractions. Travis's admission confused me, but I had no time to consider its implications. I moved away from Nevan, toward Travis and the waterfall behind him.

"I appreciate your honesty," I said and shoved him aside, clearing my path to the falls. "But I've got work to do."

"Work? What the blazes are you talking about?"

Spray from the waterfall misted over my face and my hair, pasting strands to my cheeks. I swiped them away. "I have a dead man to resurrect."

Travis scuffled sideways, distancing himself from me even as he glared at Nevan. I glanced around in search of the sylph and found him standing behind me, motionless and erect, his gaze remote yet fastened on Travis. Despite his aloof demeanor, Nevan's irises burned with a tempered fire. He'd withdrawn from the battle, but not from the war.

What exactly the two men were fighting for, I had no clue.

"I'll retrieve the dead fellow," Nevan said, and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Travis took a hesitant step toward me. "Retrieve? What he hell's he talking about?"

"Nevan has gone to find the body and bring it here."

Travis's mouth puckered. "He's stealing a corpse?"

"Guess so."

The vibrations from the pounding water of the falls numbed my brain, driving out thoughts. Weariness descended upon me and my shoulders caved under the phantom weight. It felt like decades had elapsed since I leaped into the other world in search of a copper-eating leprechaun. I closed my eyes, more weary in mind than in body, yearning for a rest from all this craziness.

"You were gone a long time."

I came back to reality with a mental start, rolling my eyes toward Travis. His voice had sounded too close, which made sense considering he'd crept to within a foot of me. Worry lines creased his forehead.

"Don't be so dramatic, Travis," I said. "Half an hour is not a long time."

"Half an hour?" His mouth opened and his upper lip lifted, exposing his teeth. "Lindsey, you were gone for three hours."