The Shattered Dark (2 page)

I
HAVE FIFTEEN
minutes to grab what I need from an apartment I lived in seven years. Sadly, that’s
more than enough time. My walls are bare except for a single abstract painting, and
the sofa and coffee table are secondhand, just like a college student’s furniture
should be. This place was always supposed to be temporary. I used to think that would
be because I’d graduate and move on to a real job, a nicer apartment, and, well, a
nicer life. But war will ruin anyone’s plans.

Instead of turning on the lights, I open the blinds as a courtesy to my guards, two
fae named Trev and Nalst. They’re here as a precaution even though it’s extremely
unlikely that the remnants of the king’s fae will choose
this
moment to come here. We took the Silver Palace two weeks ago. They’ve had plenty
of time to ransack my place, but everything is where I left it. Most likely, they
have no clue where I live. Back when I worked for the king, my identity was one of
the most tightly guarded secrets in the Realm, and the few people who knew my name
are now either dead or, like me, they’re working with the rebel fae.

“Hurry,” Trev orders. A bolt of blue lightning strikes down his neck, disappearing
beneath his
jaedric
armor. A fae’s chaos lusters grow more active, more frenzied when
they’re near human tech, but that’s not why Trev is anxious. The rebellion needs every
sword available to keep its enemies from retaking the palace. He and Nalst need to
return to the Realm ASAP.

They wait in the living room while I head to my bedroom. I grab a suitcase from my
closet, throw in my favorite pair of jeans and a few shirts, then I reach up to the
shelf above the clothing rod and grab a leather-bound sketchbook. Half its pages are
filled with my messy shadow-readings. The chicken scratches look more like a lunatic’s
drawings than maps, but if I show them to a fae and name the location out loud, he
or she will be able to travel to the place I’ve drawn. That skill and my Sight are
the reasons I was pulled into the Realm’s wars. Few humans can see the fae; fewer
still can read their shadows.

This is the sketchbook I always used when shadow-reading for the king’s fae, but I
didn’t have it with me when the rebels abducted me from my campus a little over a
month ago. I shouldn’t have needed it because I was
supposed
to have the day off.

I toss it into my suitcase, glad to have the sketchbook back. I like the broken-in
look of the leather, and the long strap allows me to wear it across my body like a
messenger bag, so it’s easier to hang on to than a normal notebook. With the way the
war in the Realm is going these days, I need that little convenience. I can run faster
when my hands are free.

Leaving the suitcase open, I walk to my desk to take my wallet out of the middle drawer.
There’s actually money inside. Sixteen dollars to be precise. That’s probably more
than what I have in my bank account. Back when the king was alive, he gave me a small
monthly allowance for tracking down criminals. Many of those fae were truly horrible,
but some of them? Some of them, I recently learned, were not.

I make sure my driver’s license and Social Security card are inside the wallet. They’re
the real reason I’m here. Every year I worked for the king, my human life slipped
further and further away. I lost my friends, my family, and my best chance at a college
degree, all because I put my work for the fae before myself. I can’t do that anymore.
I’m starting over,
and this time, I’m determined to find a balance between my human life and my life
working for the fae. The license and Social Security card will help me do that. A
start-up news aggregation Web site offered me a job in Las Vegas, and I need to give
the identification to the owner, Brad Jenkins, to finish the employment process.

A part of me can’t believe I’m setting down roots in Vegas—the city is too flashy
for my tastes—but that’s where I’m sharing a hotel suite with another Sighted human,
who actually likes the city. I guess I’m lucky, though. Jenkins is probably the only
editor alive who’s going to take a chance on a college flunkout.

I slide the wallet into my back pocket, then grab a photo album off a shelf. I don’t
open it. I hardly ever do. It contains pictures from a different life, a life back
before I became entangled in the Realm’s wars. I haven’t seen or talked to my parents
since I was seventeen. I didn’t plan for that to happen. I planned to go back home
after I graduated from college. I needed the degree to prove I wasn’t wild or irresponsible
or any of the dozens of other things they accused me of being, but maybe I can accomplish
the same thing with a job. If things go well, I might finally find the courage to
give them a call.

I
want
to give them a call. I miss them and the safe, comfortable life they provided.

After I tuck the album into the suitcase, I add my laptop and power cord. Trev and
Nalst will be extremely annoyed if they see the tech, but the laptop’s battery is
completely dead. It shouldn’t affect their magic much, certainly not enough to prevent
them from fissuring me back to Vegas.

The suitcase zips up with plenty of room to spare. I survey my room again, feeling
like I should have more memories to take with me, when my gaze rests on the small,
wooden box sitting open on my desk. I hardly ever wear jewelry, so the box doesn’t
contain much. There’s just a thin gold necklace, a beaded stretch bracelet, a few
other trinkets and…

My breath catches. There, neatly curled at the bottom of the box, is a name-cord.
It’s a string of onyx and
audrin
, a smoky, quartzlike stone found only in the Realm. Fae used
to wear name-cords braided into their hair, but only the most prominent families keep
the tradition now. This one belonged to Kyol. He gave it to me with a kiss and an
embrace the day the king made him his sword-master. Back then, neither one of us could
have predicted he’d one day kill that king.

I should leave it behind. I miss what Kyol and I had together, but I chose to leave
him. I chose to take a chance on somebody who risked everything to be with me. Honestly,
though, I miss Aren, too.

Something flutters through my stomach. It’s hard to tell if the feeling is worry or
want. It’s been almost a week since I last saw Aren. He was alive then, but it only
takes a moment to die, and he and Kyol and all of the fae supporting the rebellion
haven’t had a moment’s rest since taking the Silver Palace. Somebody’s organizing
what’s left of the king’s fae—the remnants, we’ve been calling them—and if we don’t
find out who it is soon, they’re going to overtake us.

I pick up the name-cord. I’ve never seen Kyol wear it, but it’s a family heirloom.
The least I can do is give it back to him.

I slip it into my pocket, then grab my suitcase and roll it into the living room.

“I’m ready,” I tell the fae.

Trev is fidgeting with a piece of
jaedric
that’s peeling up from his armor. The bark is pulled off
jaedra
trees in long strips, then applied in layers to a molding. The former Court fae’s
armor is always a dark, even brown, well oiled and with a thirteen-branched
abira
tree etched into the cuirasses, front and back. In comparison, the rebels’ are discolored,
unadorned, and overall, pretty shoddy-looking. They’re functional, though, which is
most important.

Trev lets go of the
jaedric
snag and nods. A chaos luster strikes at an angle across his nose, and a muscle in
his cheek twitches, making the sharp angles of his face stand out even more. Fae don’t
feel the lightning unless they’re touching a human, but I’m sure he saw the blue flash.
His hand tightens just perceptibly on the hilt of his sheathed sword, and his eyes
narrow enough to give him shallow wrinkles at the outer corners. Trev looks like he’s
in his midtwenties, but the
Realm ages people slower than Earth does, so it’s difficult to guess exactly how old
fae are. Those tiny wrinkles on an otherwise smooth face are a giveaway to me, though,
and I’d bet he’s at least fifty.

He heads for the door. I follow but stop when I see the stack of mail on my kitchen
table. The top letter is from my college. I can’t resist the temptation to open it
even though I’m sure I don’t want to read what it says. I make it to the line, “We
regret to inform you,” before I stop and frown.

The frown isn’t because I’ve flunked out of school. The rebels found me when I was
taking my very last final exam, and back then, I thought they were the bad guys. I
ran out of my English Lit class—a class I had already failed twice—because I couldn’t
let them kill or capture me, so I’m not at all surprised I’ve been expelled. I’m surprised
because I don’t know how this letter—how any of these letters—got here. No one has
a key to my mailbox and apartment except Paige, my only human friend. She puts up
with my frequent absences and weird behavior. When I worked for the king, I often
didn’t show up when we agreed to meet somewhere, and more than once, I left in the
middle of a conversation. I had to make up all sorts of crazy excuses for my actions,
but Paige always shrugged her shoulders or gave me a look that contained just a hint
of doubt…and then, she let it go.

This time, though, I think I’ve flaked out too much even for her. I’ve been calling
Paige every other day for over a week to apologize for disappearing at her sister’s
wedding, but she hasn’t answered the phone. If she’s that pissed, I can’t see her
coming over here to check on my place.

But she must have. I spread out the mail, searching for a note or letter from her.
There’s nothing, and I’m about to go to my phone and call her yet again when I see
the purse resting on a halfway-pulled-out chair. When I pick it up, a tingle runs
up my arm.

“McKenzie?” Trev calls.

Goose bumps sprout over my skin. This is Paige’s purse and…

And oh, crap!

“I broke a ward.” I drop the purse as if I’ve been burned.
That tingling sensation was more than regular goose bumps; it was a magical trip wire
that will signal the fae who created it.

I spin away from the kitchen table and sprint for the front door. I don’t have to
explain anything more to Trev and Nalst. They know as well as I do that a remnant
must have created that ward.

“Go,” Trev orders. Nalst nods, and a strip of vertical white light rips through the
air beside him. He steps into it, disappears.

With effort, I wrench my gaze away from the shadows the fissure leaves behind. Only
shadow-readers like me can see the rippling afterimages, but this time I don’t need
to draw out their twists and turns to know where Nalst has gone. Even though the remnants
shouldn’t know where I live, we made a contingency plan. He’ll bring back help from
the Realm.

But we’re not going to stand around here waiting for it.

Trev draws his sword as I yank open the door. I rush out first, turn right, and run
across the cement breezeway to the staircase.

My apartment’s on the third floor. Ignoring my racing heartbeat, I focus on the steps
as I fly down them two at a time. Trev stays with me, keeping pace despite the fact
that he can move twice as fast or simply fissure to the parking lot below. I make
it all the way down without any remnants appearing. Maybe they’re becoming disorganized,
and no one’s prepared to fissure here. Maybe the fae who created the ward is dead.
Maybe they—

Slashes of light rip through the air to my left. I curse, round the corner of the
building…

And plow into a man. Even though he’s a good foot taller than me and extremely overweight,
I have enough momentum to make him stagger into one of the cars parked outside my
building. He’s human. The three beings appearing around us are not.

“McKenzie,” the man says. I almost don’t hear him because the two nearest fae lunge
at Trev. He deflects the first remnant’s sword with his own, then fissures out of
the way of the second’s attack.

Another fae, a woman, watches me and the human, who I finally recognize as the apartment
manager when I notice his clipboard. He’s the only thing keeping her from killing
or capturing me. I don’t know how long that will last, though. The king’s fae used
to go out of their way to remain undetected by normal humans, but less than a month
ago, they launched an attack in the middle of a neighborhood near Vancouver without
any regard for human lives or property. She might decide I’m worth the collateral
damage.

Collateral damage. Is that what Paige has become?

“Your rent’s late again,” the manager says, oblivious to the woman stepping around
him with her sword raised. Without the Sight, he can’t see the fae unless they choose
to be seen.

“Where’s Paige?”

My demand makes the fae hesitate. She looks at the manager when he follows my line
of sight. While he’s distracted, searching the parking lot for something he can’t
hear or see, I grab his clipboard, turn, and throw it at the head of the shorter fae
attacking Trev.