The Problem with Promises (44 page)

I stood back to get a perspective and found none. There was nothing but blue sky, gorgeous and frightening. No sun. No tree line. No rooftops. No mountains. Just a brilliant sky that had seen no chemicals, no discharge from cars, no smog or pollutants of any kind.

“Does that look like Merenywn to you?” I whispered to Merry. “Because it looks a helluva lot like the sky beyond the drop-off in Threall to me.”

Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass? Instead of some diminutive Fae who has a passion for rowan wood, we’d get Mad-one. Threall’s Mystwalker buying groceries at Metro … checking out the hair products at Walmart … buying sweaters at Eatons …

“Mademoiselle,” called St. Silas, “summon the Gatekeeper!”

I flicked him a glance of irritation. What did he want me to do? Stick my head inside and yodel, “Helloooooo?”

Pebbles. I could pitch pebbles through it. She’d hear them, wouldn’t she?

I inched closer, cocking my ear. Had I heard something?

I strained to listen.

Yes, there. A hollow repetitive click. Boots on a floor? No. Not boots, but a woman’s pair of heels. Tap, tap, tap.

She’s coming.

Don’t be a troll.
I took a cautious half-step to the left, my grip tightening on the bone handle. The first sight of her could best be described as perplexing. A small round mound at the bottom edge of the heart-shaped window. It took me a full second to recognize it for what it was: the bun of a curly-haired woman. Fuzzy, wiry. Mouse brown.

Clearly, she was walking uphill, because with each of her hurried steps, we got to see more of her. The bun view gave way to a forehead with a too short fringe of corkscrew curls. Then eyebrows—quite average. Deep-set brown eyes under puffy lids, their gaze cast downward.

Those were her best feature.

Put baldly, the funny Fae lady was ugly.

There was no two ways about it. She had a mouth too wide in a face too narrow. A jaw too pointed. Skin that probably had come through the birth canal already battered and deeply pored.

But she was not a troll. Mom said they smelled like meat that had gone bad. And this Fae carried with her only the scent of Merenwyn.

She must be climbing stairs, I thought, noting her bobbing progress. She took the last one with a little hop that brought her itty-bitty foot to rest on the lip of the window. There, she paused to lift a pale hand—
Goddess, she’s no bigger than a ten-year-old
—to shade her eyes against the sun.

There she was. The Safe Passage’s Gatekeeper. The Fae who’d painted my brother against such a terrible backdrop. Who’d traded sun potion for an easel and a bunch of rowan twigs.

Why couldn’t you have stayed on your side?

Her eyes widened. “Who are you?” she surprised me by asking in English.

“I’m Hedi.”
The girl who’d been tasked with your death. Even though you’ve neither angered me, nor threatened nor hurt one of mine. But I have a knife. Which I will use because it’s you or it’s me. Just as it’s this world or your world.
My grip on said blade turned utterly painful. Bone bit into my palm.

“You are his sister,” she said, her voice both rough and low.

“Whose sister?” I asked innocently.
Kill her. Then seal the gates so bad things won’t drip into our world.

“The Black Mage’s Shadow,” she whispered, appalled.

Guess the green eyes gave it away. “You know him.”

“He will bring death. Pestilence. War.”

“No he won’t.”

“I’ve seen it,” she whispered. “Our world will end. Life will—”

“End?” I shook my head. “There’s a lot of that going around.”

Humor was obviously not one of her strong points. Though, here’s a funny thing about Faes. Most of them possess magic.

And when you have magic, you can have … oh shit. With a gasp of dismay, she summoned her talent and a sphere of light and flames burst to life to float above her fingertips.

They must cover fireballs in the 100-level classes. How to Bail with Balefire.

She flicked her wrist.

Incoming. I’ve seen fireballs whizzing toward me before. I know what to do. Basically, what you want is to duck, real fast. Sadly difficult to do when you’re bent slightly over at the waist.

Our bodies? Sometimes they don’t wait for your brain to catch up. I had a knife and a meteor heading for my face.

Estimated time of impact, almost immediate.

Reflexes I didn’t know I possessed kicked in. My blade jerked up, ready to deflect the course of the sizzling hot thing hurtling toward my unprotected skin. Hell, a length of steel is better than a bare hand, right?

Damn right, it was.

With a hiss, the tip of Knox’s knife went right into the center of the balefire.

This was when it would have been good for the ball of flame to divide in two, like a split walnut or a broken clamshell, before it broke apart to fall harmlessly to the cement pad. Instead the fireball remained relatively intact, save for that dribble of wet fire that scorched my tender knuckles and remained poised on Whitlock’s blade.

A rather spectacular fiery shish kebob.

“Son of a bitch,” I breathed.

The Fae’s eyes widened until her lashes tickled the pouch of skin above them. “Blah, blah, blah, blah!” she shrieked in Merenwynian as she twisted the coin she wore around her neck.

Then, quicker than you could say “Alice in Wonderland,” she spun on her boots and pelted back down those hidden stairs.

I’m not stupid. I had fire on my knife blade and a wrist as strong as hers. I flicked the balefire through the heart-shaped window. Heard it drop with a sizzle onto the stairs. Was momentarily blinded by a flurry of red sparks, blue flame, and dark smoke.

My brain caught up. Told me to duck.

I did, sinking into a frog crouch.

So, I was in a good position to watch the gray coil of smoke billow out of the window’s opening. And the film over the gate to darken, then slowly clear itself.

Tender knuckles braced on the cement, I found myself ogling blue skies.

And nothing else.

The Gatekeeper had harried back down her rabbit hole.

*   *   *

Well, I didn’t immediately leap through the gates after her. What I did—considering the sum strangeness of my evening and morning—was take a time-out.

I stared at the window blankly. That’s what you do when you’re looking at something that makes no sense—like a sky that is both up and down. You freeze, dumbfounded, giving your head time to wrap itself around the huge-ass differences between this portal—this
safe
passage—and what you knew of the Creemore portal that had swallowed first your Trowbridge, then your brother.

Apples and oranges. That’s what I was comparing.

Or better yet, economy travel against a first-class ticket.

Behind me, I heard a click. Yesterday, I wouldn’t have reconciled that noise to the snick-slide of a safety latch. Today, it was achingly familiar. I flicked a glance over my shoulder. Mathieu. Diamond in his ear winking in the sunlight. Wrist resting on the fence’s railing. Snub-nosed weapon pointed my way.

Was that the same gun? It looked smaller.

“Oh fuck off,” I muttered, turning back to the passage.

What should I do? Cry “Sy’hella!” and hope this gate would respond like the one over the fairy pond at Creemore? Because the damn Fae had left it open—any Merenwynian evil could slither through it. Where the hell was she? Waiting somewhere in those passages? Ready to pop out at will, lobbing fireballs again? Or maybe she’d already crossed to Merenwyn? Screw those pesky mortals! She was astride her pony, spurring her trusty steed to the castle.

Sound the alarms. The wolves just returned fire.

Crap.

St. Silas’s boots echoed on the cement.

Just get it over with. Shoot me. Or better yet, let me go back to Trowbridge. Allow me to huddle in close. Let his chin cover my eyes. Then … shoot us. Yes. That’s the better choice. Romeo and Juliet. Except Romeo had been a douchebag and Juliet … I’m sorry, Julie-girl, but you gave up way too easily.

How can I fix this? How can I make this better? Right?

“Leave her alone, St. Silas,” shouted Trowbridge.

Unmindful, St. Silas crouched beside me. He scratched the stubble on his chin. “The Great Council will not let it end so.”

“Of course they won’t,” I said, with bitter sarcasm.

The burning smell was gone. Rinsed in a wind I couldn’t feel. Scent, sweet as freesias, drifted through the heart-shaped portal.

“Gregori and Salvador will demand that you travel to Merenwyn,
ma chère.
They will hold your mate here—a hostage, you understand?”

“Stop talking to her, St. Silas.” The fence shivered and groaned.

“Yes,” I replied dully. “I understand hostages.”

The sky was so blue. Lexi was on the other side of that window. Waiting for rescue and an attitude adjustment. The Black Mage too.

And the gate …
oh Goddess
 … it was still wide open.

“They will sweeten their demand with the promise of hope.” He balanced his arms on his knees, hung his head in a manner almost doleful. “They will tell you that once you’ve returned with her head and both coins, that they—we—will let you go.”

“But you won’t.”

“I would try,
ma chère.
But my appointment to the council is recent. My opinion does not, as yet, carry great weight.” The wind ruffled his hair. Caught his scent and sweetened it with flowers. He lowered his voice, to the faintest whisper. “Do you recognize opportunity,
ma chère
? Sometimes it passes us so quickly…”

“I don’t know the language,” I said, my mouth dry. “I can’t speak a word of it.”

They have crossbows in Merenwyn.

He scowled at the window. “Perhaps the Gatekeeper has not traveled far. Perhaps she has fallen inside this…” He paused for a word.

“Rabbit hole,” I whispered.
The Black Mage knows what I look like.

A slow nod. “It is possible that she’s wounded. Inside the passage. An easy kill.”

“Or she’s waiting for me on the other side. With a few dozen royal guards.”

What about the Raha’ells? What if they found me first? Would they take a long look at my translucent green eyes and think that they looked awfully familiar? Would they hold the Shadow’s sister as hostage or would I become the fox? Running ahead of the hounds.

“You can’t send her!” shouted my mate. “She’ll be defenseless.”

We both pivoted. St. Silas on his heel, me on my knee. Trowbridge gave the handcuff securing him to the railing a furious yank. The chain-link fencing shivered.

“I will arm her with the knife,” the Frenchman replied.

“You may as well put these fucking handcuffs on her and push her through hog-tied,” he said, comets swirling. “They’ll pick her off before she’s covered half a league. They have traps and hunters! It’s a game to them, don’t you get it?”

“I will allow it to be her choice.” The Quebec wolf slanted his gaze away from my mate’s growing flare. “Stand down, Trowbridge. Or I shall instruct Mathieu to commence target practice?”

I gave my lover a thin smile that tasted both sad and sweet, then turned back to the gates. Staring at all that sky—seeing that there was no land, no horizon, not a tree in the distance—it was like being in Threall and looking at the end of the world. Exactly like that. If I took that first step through the window, what would I find? An endless plunge, or a short drop?

“Jesus,” Trowbridge said despairingly. “Don’t go, Tink.”

I don’t want to. I really don’t.

“I have to close the gates,” I said. “Have to.”

“Just say the words. Stay with me.”

Stay. His favorite word is “stay.”

I thought of my brother’s portrait. I thought of Anu and Cordelia.

Then … I thought about me.

I am stronger than I think I am. Harder too. Death’s been trying to catch me for days, and I just keep … slipping between its fingers. And if I do go—if I take that leap—I will buy some time. Things happen when time is bought.

Pigs fly.

“Don’t let her go!” yelled my mate.

Courage. It starts with one step.

“I’m going to do it,” I said, getting off my knees.

“Sweetheart, don’t. Not without me.”

I bent over, put one hand on the frame. The myst rolled over my knuckles. It was cool, and perfumed with a smell I remember so well. My mother’s land. “I’m no baby anymore,” I said, staring at the blue sky.

“You’ll always be mine.”

Mine, mine.

I forced my lips into a weak smile. “This is where you’re supposed to tell me to stay alive, Trowbridge.”

A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Stay alive,” he whispered.

I nodded, turned my back, and took that step.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I should have anticipated falling down the stairs. I knew they were there. But they’d been cut to fit a size zero foot, not a size six. Very narrow, very steep. And I was already disoriented. Everybody had told me portals were all about wind and walls that looked like smoke but felt wet. That there would be voices, long, echoing cries. And people behind the liquid walls. Lost souls. That’s what I’d been told—portals were air, and smoke, and sound, and everything that scares you.

There was no wind, no smoke. No voices either.

I was alone. Utterly alone. On a rock landing pad of sorts, at the bottom of a slope of stairs that had been chiseled out of solid dark rock. If I rolled, just a bit, I’d drop.

Maybe three feet, maybe leagues.

Into a pool of blue.

Sky? Or water?

I can’t do it. I don’t want to fall. I don’t want to be alone. Not again. Not now when I know what it feels like to belong to family that wasn’t a family.

I swear—I didn’t say it. I thought it but I didn’t say it.

Merry spoke. With a pinch of tissue, and a bite of electricity, and a deep golden glow from inside her breast—she reminded me.

I was not alone.

And so, I took a deep breath, and I covered her with my palm, pressing her hard against the cushion of my own breast, and then … I rolled.