I STEP OUT of the In-Between and into the Vegas suite I share with Shane. Kyol underestimated the amount of time it took to reach the gate. It was closer to the middle of the night before the fae and I arrived. Fortunately, the remnants didn’t show up. Maybe they sent a scout who saw the thirty swordsmen and archers Kyol had sent to guard the gate. That force would deter most fae.
It wouldn’t have deterred Aren, though.
If Aren were leading the remnants, he would have found a way to achieve his goal. That was his specialty, attacking against the odds. He and Lena are having a tougher time now that they’re on the defense.
After my fae escort leaves, I glance inside Shane’s room. I don’t see him sprawled across his bed, so my best guess is he’s in the Realm, making himself useful. The alarm clock on his nightstand says it’s just after 1 A.M. Thank God. I can take a nap and still have time to take my driver’s license and Social Security card to Jenkins. He needs it by five o’clock tomorrow, but I don’t want to wait until then. I need to mark that off my list today so I can concentrate on finding Paige.
I fall into bed, too tired to do anything more than take off my shoes and socks and unbelt the scabbard from around my waist. Twenty minutes later, though, I’m still lying here exhausted, but awake. My mind won’t shut off. I’m worried about Paige. The tor’um knew who she was. If I had any doubt the remnants had her, I don’t anymore.
Opening my eyes, I stare at the ceiling. I hope the remnants have let Paige see them. I hope they’ve tried to explain things to her. But even if they haven’t, even if she thinks she’s trapped in a bad dream or that she’s snapped, I can fix it. I’ll tell her everything. King Atroth forbade it when he was alive. He thought he was preserving the Realm’s magic by keeping the human and fae worlds as separate as possible, but that’s not the only reason I kept silent about them. The one time I tried to tell a Sightless human about the fae, I ended up in a mental institution. That’s where I met Paige. She hated Bedfont House as much as I did. She won’t want to go back.
I roll to my side, pulling my covers over my head.
“I think I’m crazy,” I tell Paige as I stare at the white wall across from my bed. The counselors at Bedfont House leave it bare and encourage us to decorate it however we want. I haven’t lifted a finger to do so. When I first arrived, I thought if I put up a picture or poster, it would be like I’m admitting that I belong here. Now, I’m thinking maybe I do. I haven’t seen any lightning-covered fae in more than three weeks. Maybe I made them up. Maybe I made it all up.
“Everyone here is crazy,” Paige says, not looking away from her handheld mirror. Her eyes are opened wide while she puts on glittery mascara. Her side of the room is decorated. She painted it black. How the hell she got a hold of black paint, nobody, not even the staff, knows. They didn’t make her repaint it, and they’ve said nothing about the posters of cemeteries and creepy old houses she’s put up. The wall is accented with red: a scarf hanging near the door, a crimson teddy bear sitting on her dresser, the bright silk pillow that’s between her and the wall at her back. She has bats in her blond hair. Six of them. They’re tiny black clips with glitter on the wings.
We’ve been rooming together for two weeks now, and if you ask me, this whole Goth thing isn’t really her. I think she’s putting on a show to screw with the staff.
I return to staring at my blank wall. In the corner of my vision, I see her put down her mascara. She sits up, swinging her legs off the side of her bed so that she’s facing me.
“Okay, fine,” she says, sounding impatient. “Why do you think you’re crazy?”
I frown. Did I say I was crazy? I can’t remember. My mind feels heavy, sluggish. The white wall across from me is oppressively bright. It’s almost as hard to look at as a fissure opening.
Ah, a fissure. The fae. That’s right. I do think I’m crazy. I hope I am, at least, because if I’m not, if the fae do exist and I can see them and read their shadows, then I was taken advantage of. I helped Kyol and his king hunt down the false-blood Thrain, and now that he’s dead, they’re through with me.
Kyol’s through with me, which means he never cared about me in the first place. None of them did. I was just a tool to help them win their war.
My chest aches. I want to go back to their world. I want to be needed and important, and I want to see more of the Realm, meet more of the fae. I want…
I want Kyol. If he’s real, I want him.
Paige’s bed squeaks when she stands. I hear her sigh then, a few seconds later, my bed sinks as she sits beside me.
“Here,” she says, handing me a glass of water. “You should stop taking the meds.”
I stare at the water’s rippling surface. “They make me take them.”
“They make all of us take them,” she says. “They only watch us for five minutes afterward. Go to the restroom and throw up. Most of it won’t make it into your system.”
I take a sip of water, then force myself to focus on her. It’s more difficult than it should be. “That’s what you do?”
“Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it? I get thrown in here after downing a bottle of cold medicine and here they are forcing pills down my throat. Now”—she takes back the glass and sets it on my nightstand—“tell me. Why do you think you’re crazy?”
I haven’t told any of the other girls why my parents sent me here. I guess I’m sane enough to know how crazy it sounds. The meds must really be messing with my judgment now because, without hesitating, I tell her, “I see things. People.”
“Dead people?” she asks.
I give her an are-you-kidding-me glare.
“Just checking,” she says, grinning. She has a cute face, pixieish. I’ve lucked out with her as a roommate. She’s easy to get along with, and she doesn’t judge. Plus, she’s not a raving lunatic like some of the others here. She’s not a raving lunatic like me.
I squeeze my eyes together, trying to think through the fog in my mind. The details of the past few months, of the king and his fae and the false-blood and his devotees, are too vivid to be fake. And Kyol…I couldn’t have made up someone like him.
“Hello, McKenzie?” Paige says, waving her hand in front of my face. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you are nuts.”
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” I ask.
“I think we should break out of here tonight. Hit the town and party. There’s this guy I know. He can pick us up and…”
I jerk awake when something scurries up my leg.
I’m across the room before I have time to scream. This isn’t a cheap hotel. This is a fifteen-hundred-square-foot suite that costs over $500 a night. There should not be rodents here!
Heart thudding, I stare at the bed, waiting for the comforter to move. It doesn’t. Could I have dreamed that? It’s possible, but my calf still tingles where the thing touched me. It was furry, and even though I’m still wearing jeans, I’m sure I felt tiny feet.
The comforter wiggles, and I slam back against the wall. The thing is not tiny. The lump under the cover is close to two feet long, the size of a skinny pillow, and it’s shifting, rolling to the left, then to the right, almost as if it’s trying to burrow into the mattress. That’s not the way a rat behaves, is it?
I feel my eyes narrow. Pushing away from the wall, I take the three steps back to the bed, grab the edge of the comforter, and whip it off.
Something silver darts off the other side of the mattress. I hiss out a breath between my teeth, throw the comforter back down, then walk around the foot of the bed.
“Sosch.”
Two big blue eyes blink innocently at me, and silver fur fades to white as I watch.
“How did you get here?” I ask as I kneel down and extend my hand. Kimkis aren’t pets—they’re an endangered species in the Realm—but they tend to bond to certain people. This one bonded to Aren. Sosch can find him anywhere. Kimkis aren’t able to create their own fissures, but they can scurry into ones opened by fae. From there, they navigate the In-Between to their favorite people and places. This isn’t the first time Sosch has found me, but it’s the first time he’s found me in my world.
I slide my hand down his long body, watching as his fur flushes silver under my palm. Kimkis do that when they’re near scents they like, and they tend to like the smell of Sighted humans and gates. The fae use them as detectors. I’m pretty sure a kimki led Thrain to me all those years ago, and I know Sosch has helped Aren discover a few of the Realm’s Missing Gates. I don’t know if he’s bonded to me. It’s obvious he likes me, though, and I have to begrudgingly admit that he’s just a little adorable.
Sosch lets out a sound that’s a cross between a chirp and a squeak, then uses my outstretched arm as a springboard to my shoulders. He looks at me and does some weird, crinkly thing with his nose.
“Are you hungry?” I ask. What the hell do kimkis eat?
I spot the snack-sized bag of Goldfish on my dresser. That probably won’t hurt him. I open the bag and hold up a fish to Sosch’s mouth. He eats it, then his nose crinkles again.
“Good?” I reach inside for a second tiny cracker, but this time, he turns his head away, and his mouselike ears twitch. He leaps off my shoulder and rushes out of my bedroom one second before there’s a knock on the door to the suite.
“Housekeeping,” a maid calls. Shit. Humans can’t see the fae unless they want them to, but I’m pretty sure they can see a kimki that’s wandered into our world.
“Sosch!” I try to grab him, but he’s much too quick.
“No thanks!” I call out, hoping the maid will move on. She shouldn’t be knocking on our door at all. Shane and I leave the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on the handle when we’re gone. I didn’t take it off when I was fissured here.
Sosch lets out another chirp.
“Shh,” I say. Then I see the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the inside of the door. Crap.
“Sosch!” I yell, but it’s too late. The door is already opening. The kimki flushes silver with pleasure, then darts past the maid’s feet.
“Sosch!” I call out again.
The maid lets out a squeak very similar to the kimki’s, then hops back. Her head turns, following his progress down the hall.
“What is that?” she asks.
“It’s a…a…an Egyptian otter,” I stammer as I move past her. Sosch scurries under the housekeeping cart. I grab the handle to move it out of the way.
“We don’t allow pets in this hotel,” the maid says.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I’ll get him out of here.”
Sosch looks over his shoulder, and I swear to God, he gives me the kimki equivalent of a grin before darting down the hallway. I’m going to kill him, and after I kill him, I’m killing Shane for leaving the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the wrong side of the door.
“He doesn’t shed, does he?” The maid has a look of horror on her face as she stares into my suite.
“I have no idea,” I mutter. I grab a pillowcase off the housekeeping cart and chase after the damn kimki. A chime rings and, just as I round the corner, I realize what the sound is.
“No, not the—”
Sosch scurries inside an elevator as a startled woman gets out. The doors slide shut right behind him. I sprint forward, try to hit the button to open the doors again, but it doesn’t work.
What the hell am I supposed to do now? If animal control picks him up, they’ll figure out that he is definitely not an Egyptian otter. There’s no telling what they’ll do with him then.
Grumbling under my breath, I punch the button for the second elevator. I should let Sosch fend for himself, but I can’t stand the thought of him ending up in the hands of biologists or scientists or anyone else who wants to figure out what he is or how his fur flushes between white and silver.
I fist the pillowcase in my hand as I watch the numbers above Sosch’s elevator count down the floors. Of course, it doesn’t stop until he reaches the ground floor. The image of hotel guests screaming as bellboys throw themselves across the floor, trying to catch the kimki, leaps into my mind. This could be really bad.
The second elevator pings. I step inside, punch the glowing number one, then jab the DOOR CLOSE button half a million times.
Sosch had a nonstop trip all the way down. Me? I stop at two additional floors and pick up six hotel guests before the doors finally slide open on the ground floor. I slip past the others with an apology, then scan the lobby.
It’s less chaotic than I feared. No women screaming or bellboys on the floor, but Sosch definitely passed through here. Everyone’s looking to the left, where a set of glass doors are propped open. Clenching my teeth, I stalk in that direction. You’d think the damn kimki was native to this world, he navigates it so well.
Hot summer air envelops me as soon as I step outside. The Vegas Strip is about a hundred feet ahead. It’s packed with people. No way am I going to push my way through that crowd searching for Sosch. Never mind that I probably won’t be able to find him, I’m not wearing shoes, and once I get out of the shaded entrance, the concrete will toast my feet.
A chirp-squeak comes from the decorative fountain a few paces to my left. Perched on the marble edge is the kimki. He happily nibbles at a cracker a young girl gives him. Fortunately, the girl’s parents aren’t paying any attention to her.
I’ve changed my mind. The kimki isn’t adorably cute; he’s a hideous rodent who doesn’t belong in my world.
I wait until the girl holds out a second cracker before I step out of the shade. The concrete is as bad as I thought it would be, but if I keep moving, my feet might not turn to ash. I sprint to the fountain and make my move, sweeping Sosch up with one arm while pulling the pillowcase over his head with my other hand.
“Thanks for finding Sosch for me,” I tell the girl when her mouth falls open. She stares up at me, and I swear to God she’s about to break down into tears.
“Really sorry,” I say, hopping from foot to foot as I back away. The apology doesn’t help. Her chin quivers.
I spin around and take off before she can point me out to her parents. Just as I’m merging with the crowd on the Strip, sobs ring out behind me. I feel like crap for making the girl cry, but I didn’t have a choice. I have to get Sosch out of here.
And I have to find some shade.
I refrain from slinging the pillowcase over my shoulder. Instead, I hook my arm under Sosch’s belly and keep him pressed to my side, making sure the pillowcase stays open so he can breathe. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him. I can’t take him back inside the hotel.
The concrete isn’t so bad in the middle of the crowd. So long as no one steps on my foot, I might be okay.
At least, that’s what I think until my skin prickles. I look over my shoulder, searching for the chaos luster I think I saw leap across someone’s hand. There’s a group of girls wearing flashing crowns walking the other way. The battery-powered blue lights are bright even under the blazing sun. Maybe my brain interpreted those as a fae’s edarratae?
Someone runs into my shoulder, wrenching it hard. I ball my hand into a fist as the guy turns toward me.
“Sorry,” the human slurs, drunk even though it’s not even noon yet. His friends laugh as they guide him away.
Yeah. I’m definitely paranoid.
I try to force myself to relax as I continue on, but my skin is still crawling. It’s not a feeling I get often in my world, and it’s ridiculous to have it here, in the midst of all the flashing lights, the billboards, the humans with all their electronic devices. A fae’s edarratae would be going crazy. They’d be easy to see. And that’s why Shane and I are staying here, in a hotel on the Strip. Aside from the rebels dropping us off or picking us up, it should be fae-free.
My feet freaking hurt, but I keep going, making my way toward the south end of the Strip. The only place I can think of to go is to the gate. It’s on a stretch of road that connects the city of Vegas to Lake Las Vegas. It’s relatively rural, and since kimkis are attracted to gates, there’s a chance Sosch might stay there for a while.
I can get there by bus, but the stop I need is ten blocks east of Las Vegas Avenue. It’ll take twenty minutes to get there. As I turn down a side road, I readjust Sosch on my hip. I swear he’s fallen asleep, and somehow, he’s made himself weigh twice as much as usual.
Only a handful of locals and a few tourists who’ve wandered away from the Strip share the sidewalk with me. With the smaller crowd, it’s easy to see that no one—no fae at least—is following me. After checking over my shoulder for the tenth time, my anxiety level finally lowers. Exactly one second after that, I hear the shrrip of a fissure opening behind me. Before I’m able to turn, I’m yanked into an alley.
I drop Sosch as I twist toward my attacker, swinging a fist at…
“Lorn,” I grind out when I recognize the impeccably dressed fae plucking my fist from the air.
“McKenzie,” Lorn returns with a smile. That smile disappears when an obviously pissed-off Sosch shoots out of the pillowcase, wraps himself around Lorn’s left leg, then bites him just above the knee.
“Ahg. Off!” Lorn snaps in Fae, kicking out with his leg. Sosch thuds against a grimy door.
“Hey!” I glare at Lorn as I scoop the kimki up in my arms. “What are you—”
I stop because we’re not the only people in this alley. A human is leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette.
“What’s that?” he asks, eyeing Sosch, as the kimki climbs up onto my shoulders.
“Otter,” I mutter.
Lorn laughs. I clench my teeth together, adding Lorn’s name to the list of people I’m going to kill.