The Shattered Dark (21 page)

“I know that, too.” After a moment, she adds, “Most of the time, these tips turn out
to be nothing.”

“And sometimes they turn out to be solid. London is a big city. Humans will be everywhere.”

“I can’t send you there alone, and I need Kyol and Aren both at this meeting. We might
be able to force the high nobles to vote.”

My eyebrows go up. “Really?”

“The fae you tracked to Eksan,” she says. “We were able to recapture him and the three
fae he met. Two of them confirmed that the remnants don’t have a Descendant they can
put on the throne.”

“That’s good,” I say. An understatement. It’s
really
good, and a tension I didn’t realize I felt slowly lifts from my shoulders. If the
high nobles approve her, things should get better soon.

Lena nods. “I need my lord general and sword-master with me when I talk with them.
They respect Kyol’s opinion, and Aren is good at reading people. I won’t be able to
send them with you until after the meeting.”

I play with the scrap of paper in my pocket. “Any guess how long Paige might be at
this location or how long the meeting will last?”

“On how long Paige might be there, no. On how long this meeting will take? Forever.”

I’m not sure how much of an exaggeration that is.

“How long have you had this?” I ask.

“It just came.”

“And there’s no way of knowing how long ago it was written,” I say.

“No,” she answers, even though I wasn’t quite asking a question.

“Can you send a couple of other fae with me?” Without knowing more about the tip or
Paige’s condition, I can’t convince myself to wait for the meeting to end.

Lena nods. “I can. But what am I supposed to tell them if you don’t come back?”

“I’ll come back,” I say. “If there are too many remnants in London, we’ll leave.”

She looks at me dubiously. “You’ll leave even if you see your friend there?”

“I don’t have a death wish,” I say. That’s not exactly answering the question, but
Lena doesn’t press it.

L
ENA SENDS SHANE
with me. Apparently, he lived in London for a year before moving to Houston. He says
he knows the area of the city where Paige is, possibly, being held. That will save
time. If the tip doesn’t pan out, we should be back in Corrist before Aren or Kyol
know we were gone.

The stretch of the Inner City between the palace and the silver wall is shortest in
the northeast corner. That also happens to be where Corrist’s gate is. Lena said she’d
have two fae meet us in the antechamber, so Shane and I wait there for our escorts.

“I found a house we can rent in Vegas,” Shane says, leaning against the wall and playing
with something in the pocket of his jacket. The jacket is made from a soft, expensive-looking
black leather. I grabbed a longer coat from the palace’s supply of human clothing.
It’s white and a little big, but it hides my dagger, and I didn’t have much else to
choose from. Atroth kept only a limited amount of my world’s textiles here. It’s ironic
he kept any at all considering how adamant he was about keeping our cultures separate,
but there were enough occasions when he needed his fae to be visible on Earth that
he decided to keep a stash here.

“Where?” I ask Shane.

“It’s on the west side of the city,” he says.

“Is that an expensive side of the city?” His place back in Houston was huge. At the
time, he worked for Atroth the same as I did, but he demanded the king pay his mortgage
along with an insanely high monthly allowance. I was happy in my little apartment—it
was my home for almost eight years—and I’ve never been comfortable with accepting
more money than I need to get by. All I need is attention from the IRS. Honestly,
I don’t know how Shane hasn’t set off red flags with his lifestyle.

“About that,” Shane says, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. “You have
to ask Lena for a raise. She won’t pay me more than she pays you.”

Good for her,
I think. Out loud, I say, “We’ll be fine in an apartment.”

“
You’ll
be fine in an apartment. Not me. I need space.”

“Get a job,” I tell him. Then, I curse.

A job. That’s exactly what I’m supposed to be getting.

“What day is it?” Damn it, I don’t even know where my driver’s license and Social
Security card are now. If they survived my dip in Rhigh’s river, they’re in my old
jeans.

“In Vegas? Thursday afternoon, I think,” he says. “Why? You have a date?”

That leaves me around twenty-four hours to meet with Jenkins and finish my paperwork.
If everything goes smoothly, it’s doable, and I
want
that job. I need to feel like a normal human every once in a while—I can’t live and
breathe war twenty-four/seven—but finding Paige and making sure she’s okay is more
important than that. Way more important.

“It’s nothing,” I tell Shane. If I can’t make it to Jenkins’s office by five tomorrow,
I’ll just have to convince him I had a crisis that couldn’t be avoided.

Shane doesn’t have a chance to press the issue. Trev steps into the antechamber. He’s
raided the king’s stockpile of human clothing, too, and is wearing khaki pants and
a sweater loose enough to hide a good-sized dagger underneath. Since we’re going to
a city with a dense population, there’s too much of a chance that someone would bump
into the fae if they were invisible, so I insisted our escorts allow the
humans to see them. Their chaos lusters will still be invisible to anyone who doesn’t
have the Sight, and as long as no more than two or three fae are visible at once,
people tend to overlook their otherness. They don’t notice their silver eyes or their
slightly exotic faces.

“Looks like you’re stuck with me again,” I say to Trev.

“Not exactly.” He gives me a half smile, and I swear that’s the first time I’ve seen
him do anything but frown. He steps farther into the antechamber, making room for…

Aren. I keep my face expressionless as he approaches. It’s not easy, though, and not
just because I feel like a teenager caught sneaking out at night. Aren, too, is dressed
in human clothing. The only time I haven’t seen him in fae garb was when he wore a
suit to Paige’s sister’s wedding. He was gorgeous then. He’s gorgeous now even though
he’s just wearing a pair of relaxed-fit jeans and a simple, black shirt with the sleeves
rolled up to his elbows.
He
won’t blend in on Earth. He’ll draw attention from every woman around.

It takes me a second to find my voice. “Shouldn’t you be meeting with the high nobles?”

“I should be,” he acknowledges. “But I’m not letting you walk into a trap.”

If his clothing wasn’t a clue that he knows exactly what I’m doing, that statement
certainly is. Someone told him about London. Who? Not Lena. If she was against me
going after Paige, she didn’t have to tell me about the tip in the first place.

“The remnants might not be there,” I say. I feel my eyes narrow as I look at Trev.
He doesn’t like me. He was almost killed back at my apartment, and I know he wasn’t
thrilled to be tasked with picking me up in Nashville. Plus, he and Aren are friends.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he ratted me out.

“Paige might not be there,” Aren counters, taking a step forward. “And don’t blame
Trev,
nalkin-shom
. I made Lena tell me what was going on.”

Lena
did
cave? I know Aren can be persuasive, but, seriously, she’s supposed to be the ruler
of the Realm. He’s supposed to cave to her wishes, not the other way around.

“I’m going,” I tell him. “I don’t know how the remnants
have treated Paige. She might be hurt. She might think she’s—”

“I’m not trying to talk you out of going, McKenzie,” he interrupts, holding out his
hand. I stare at it while his words sink in. Sometimes I forget he’s not like Kyol.
He doesn’t decide what I should and shouldn’t do. He lets me choose. He supports me;
he doesn’t control me.

And that’s one of the reasons why I’m taking a chance on him. He doesn’t put me inside
a padded box to protect me. He gives me my freedom. He lets me be me.

I take his hand. His grip is strong, comforting.

“Shouldn’t you stay for the meeting?” I ask, needing to make sure it’s okay if he
leaves. Rescuing Paige is important, but so is securing Lena’s place on the throne.

“Lena underestimates herself,” Aren says, turning me toward the exit. “She can handle
the high nobles on her own. Plus, she has Taltrayn at her side.”

Despite his distaste for politics, Aren knows the high nobles and the game they’re
playing better than I do. I give his hand a light squeeze before I slide my fingers
free from his. I’d rather keep holding it, but we’re not alone, and Shane and Trev
both look annoyed and impatient.

It doesn’t take long to make it to the gate. Within fifteen minutes, we cross the
Inner City and reach the silver wall. Just on the other side, a river flows down from
the Corrist Mountains. A relatively flat area of land lies between the wall and the
rapidly rising foothills. No homes or shops are built on it, so we have a clear view
of the gate as soon as we pass under the wall.

When we stop beside the river, Aren dips his hand into the water first, and a deep
thunder rolls through the air. After his fissure opens, he slips an imprinted anchor-stone
between our clasped palms, and I hold my breath as he pulls me into the In-Between.

A second later, we emerge into a stale-smelling room. A broken chair is visible in
the instant before our fissure winks out. Then the room plunges into complete darkness.
Well, complete darkness except for the blue lightning on Aren’s skin. The chaos lusters
look agitated, a sign that we’re in the
middle of a major city. There might not be any tech on in this room, but there most
certainly is a good amount nearby: streetlights outside, wi-fi in the air, mobile
phones placing and receiving calls. Heavy, pounding music grows louder, then fades
away. A car driving by, most likely. This isn’t like hanging out at an abandoned inn
in the middle of Nowhere, Germany, like the outpost where the rebels first kept me
captive. A few hours here, and all the fae will have migraines.

Which makes this city a really odd place for the remnants to hold Paige. I feel the
odds of her being here dropping with each erratic flash of lightning across Aren’s
skin.

A slash of light nearly blinds me when it pierces the darkness. Trev and Shane step
into the room. As soon as Shane releases Trev’s hand, he reaches into his pocket and
takes out a cell phone. Trev scowls as Shane holds down the button to turn it on.
Apparently, Shane didn’t mention the tech to the fae.

“Paige isn’t that far away,” Shane says. “We don’t even need to take the underground.”

Paige isn’t that far away
if
she’s at the address we were given.

“Good,” Aren says. “If anything goes wrong, we’ll meet at the gate. You both know
where it is?”

On a map, yes. Finding it in person might be a little more difficult, but Shane and
I both nod. Hopefully, we won’t get separated. And, hopefully, this won’t take long.
Trev is already rubbing his forehead as if he has a headache.

Shane leads the way out. I follow him down a narrow staircase, and Aren and Trev descend
after me. It’s dark, but I can still see stains on the thin carpet covering the steps.
I keep my hands close to my sides. This is the kind of place where you don’t want
to touch anything. At least this is a safe place to emerge into my world. The archives
only had three anchor-stones imprinted with locations in London. According to Kavok,
one would have taken us directly to the gate, which is out in the open on the northern
bank of the Thames, and the other one would have taken us to Westminster. Shane said
Westminster wasn’t anywhere close to the address we have, though, so we chose this
one because Kavok suggested
it was a discreet location. He was right about that. No one’s around to see us.

Shane reaches the door at the bottom of the stairs. He opens it, exits the building.
It’s dark outside. Streetlights reflect off the damp sidewalk, and there’s a chill
in the air. I’m grateful for my jacket, but I’m wishing I’d put on something heavier
than a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt beneath it.

I stuff my hands into my pockets, then turn, waiting for Aren and Trev to exit the
building. The room we fissured into is above what looks like a real-estate agency.
Pictures of flats and quaint-looking houses that cost upward of a half million pounds
are taped to the window. A couple of doors down the road, a small group of men are
standing outside a pub, smoking.

“It’s this way,” Shane says when the fae join us. I fall into step beside him and
attempt to not look like a tourist. You’d think that would be easy since I’ve spent
so much time in the Realm, which is definitely a more foreign location than this city,
but this is
London
. There’s so much history here. And never mind that this is the homeland of Shakespeare
and Jane Austen, King’s Cross Station is somewhere around here. I want to see Platform
9¾. I swear, one of these days, I’m going to have a fae fissure me here for a vacation.