Feversong
Page 42
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What point was there in the king pushing her to restore her memory? She could never be Zara, never be the woman he’d loved to distraction and destruction. That woman was gone, dead, could not be reanimated.
As she’d feared, as the Fae queen with or without the full complement of her memory, the end result was the same.
“Bitterness,” she said and sighed.
“Awk! Bitterness!” the T’murra perched on her shoulder agreed.
JADA
She erupted from the slipstream at top speed and nearly crashed into one of the pillars in the alcoved entrance of Barrons Books & Baubles. Reconvene at the bookstore, Barrons had ordered before vanishing from Chester’s.
She’d raced through Dublin faster than she ever managed to navigate the slipstream before, but Barrons, Lor, and Fade still beat her there and were pacing impatiently before the door.
As she skidded to a halt inches from a column, Barrons growled, “About damn time.”
She bristled. “It’s not my fault you haven’t taught me how to move as fast as you. Barrons, we have to summon—”
“Don’t say it!” he hissed. “I told you, we don’t fucking need him.”
“But we don’t know where she’s going. Plan ‘We may have just gotten lucky’ was a total bust. That means his plan”—she was careful not to say Cruce’s name—“is back on the table.”
“I know where the Book is going,” Barrons said coolly. “Fae fuck thought he was being clever. He wasn’t. Come.” He whirled and stalked down the alley to the rear of BB&B. She loped to catch up, with Lor and Fade bringing up the rear.
“Where?” she demanded.
Barrons tossed over his shoulder, “Analyze: sifting inside the place is impossible, the stones can’t be sensed there, the quarters are too tight for an army, it’s near enough that Cruce believed we could get there from Chester’s before Mac could arrive there from Mallucé’s—an assumption he should never have made—and therein lies a way to summon the Seelie Queen.”
Jada slapped the criteria up on her mental bulletin board.
“Substitute ‘concubine’ for Seelie Queen,” Barrons suggested.
She hissed, disgusted she hadn’t riddled it out sooner, “The White Mansion.”
“Refine further. Where?”
She rapidly sorted through everything she’d learned about the place during her brief sojourn inside with Christian, came up empty-handed and told him irritably, “I’ve not seen enough of the mansion to isolate a preference for any one location over another.”
Barrons said, “Even if you had, you don’t think like a man. Were I the Unseelie King who’d built an infinite house for my woman, I wouldn’t want to have to go looking for her every bloody time I wanted to see her. I’d have a way to summon her. And I know where I’d want her. The Book is headed for the concubine’s bedchamber.”
Then they were at the brick wall, behind the bookstore, at the very spot she’d once made the decision that had cost her five and a half years of her life.
“He kept calling her ‘the queen’ so I was thinking it had to be somewhere in Faery,” Jada groused. Cruce had been doing it deliberately to mislead, and it had been effective.
“I made select comments to which he responded, yielding more information than he’d intended,” Barrons said. “He needs us. He can’t touch the spear. He can’t kill the queen. Withholding information was his only leverage.”
“We can’t afford to be wrong.”
“I spoke with Alina, while waiting for you. She confirmed the Sinsar Dubh’s presence at this precise spot mere minutes ago.”
“Does she know what she’s sensing is Mac?”
“No, and I didn’t tell her. Every second counts. Move.” He surged into the Silver concealed in the brick wall and vanished.
Squaring her shoulders, Jada leapt in after him.
A partially eaten Rhino-boy lay on the floor in the white room, keening and gnashing his tusks, clutching the oozing stump of an arm.
“She’s rebuilding her strength,” Lor said grimly.
Leaping over the savaged Unseelie, Jada dashed into the next Silver after Barrons, with Fade and Lor close behind. A chill of déjà-vu kissed her spine but now was no time for memories of the day fourteen-year-old Dani had leapt so fearlessly and blindly into one of these very Silvers, only to end up adrift in the Hall of All Days. Nor was it time for memories of the afternoon she’d entered one of the Silvers with Christian, and loosed the Crimson Hag on the world. After years of having to leap into whichever ones she’d been lucky enough to find, discovering the hard way where they led, she harbored a special hatred for the Silvers.
As they raced into the White Mansion, down dazzling alabaster corridors with high arched ceilings and tall, sparkling windows that framed a snowy garden and ice-crusted maze, Barrons opened the pouch he carried and tossed one of the stones over his shoulder for Lor to catch. The tall muscular blond palmed it and slipped it into his leather jacket.
White marble floors turned to sunny yellow, rose to turquoise then bronze as they moved deeper into the infinite, ever-changing White Mansion.
“You do know where you’re going, right?” Jada demanded, catching the cool blue-black stone Barrons tossed her and tucking it into the outer pocket of her backpack.
“Inasmuch as anyone can ever know where the fuck they’re going in here,” Barrons growled. “Mac has no more certain sense of direction in here than we do. Look for crimson floors, they lead to black then to the boudoir.” He tossed the fourth stone over his shoulder to Fade, who was bringing up the rear.
There was a sudden commotion behind them. Vicious snarls met with cool laughter. She skidded to a halt, whirling.
Cruce stood behind her, encased in a shell of translucent, shimmering walls, clutching the fourth blue-black stone in an upraised fist, while Fade flung himself repeatedly against the barrier, with no result.
The Unseelie prince smiled at them icily. “Going somewhere?”
AOIBHEAL
There was no escape from the king’s side of the boudoir either. The nearly invisible towering door set into the smooth black walls of his bedchamber failed to respond to her imperious command. Nor did any of her magic affect it. She was as trapped on his side as she’d been on her own.
As she’d feared, as the Fae queen with or without the full complement of her memory, the end result was the same.
“Bitterness,” she said and sighed.
“Awk! Bitterness!” the T’murra perched on her shoulder agreed.
JADA
She erupted from the slipstream at top speed and nearly crashed into one of the pillars in the alcoved entrance of Barrons Books & Baubles. Reconvene at the bookstore, Barrons had ordered before vanishing from Chester’s.
She’d raced through Dublin faster than she ever managed to navigate the slipstream before, but Barrons, Lor, and Fade still beat her there and were pacing impatiently before the door.
As she skidded to a halt inches from a column, Barrons growled, “About damn time.”
She bristled. “It’s not my fault you haven’t taught me how to move as fast as you. Barrons, we have to summon—”
“Don’t say it!” he hissed. “I told you, we don’t fucking need him.”
“But we don’t know where she’s going. Plan ‘We may have just gotten lucky’ was a total bust. That means his plan”—she was careful not to say Cruce’s name—“is back on the table.”
“I know where the Book is going,” Barrons said coolly. “Fae fuck thought he was being clever. He wasn’t. Come.” He whirled and stalked down the alley to the rear of BB&B. She loped to catch up, with Lor and Fade bringing up the rear.
“Where?” she demanded.
Barrons tossed over his shoulder, “Analyze: sifting inside the place is impossible, the stones can’t be sensed there, the quarters are too tight for an army, it’s near enough that Cruce believed we could get there from Chester’s before Mac could arrive there from Mallucé’s—an assumption he should never have made—and therein lies a way to summon the Seelie Queen.”
Jada slapped the criteria up on her mental bulletin board.
“Substitute ‘concubine’ for Seelie Queen,” Barrons suggested.
She hissed, disgusted she hadn’t riddled it out sooner, “The White Mansion.”
“Refine further. Where?”
She rapidly sorted through everything she’d learned about the place during her brief sojourn inside with Christian, came up empty-handed and told him irritably, “I’ve not seen enough of the mansion to isolate a preference for any one location over another.”
Barrons said, “Even if you had, you don’t think like a man. Were I the Unseelie King who’d built an infinite house for my woman, I wouldn’t want to have to go looking for her every bloody time I wanted to see her. I’d have a way to summon her. And I know where I’d want her. The Book is headed for the concubine’s bedchamber.”
Then they were at the brick wall, behind the bookstore, at the very spot she’d once made the decision that had cost her five and a half years of her life.
“He kept calling her ‘the queen’ so I was thinking it had to be somewhere in Faery,” Jada groused. Cruce had been doing it deliberately to mislead, and it had been effective.
“I made select comments to which he responded, yielding more information than he’d intended,” Barrons said. “He needs us. He can’t touch the spear. He can’t kill the queen. Withholding information was his only leverage.”
“We can’t afford to be wrong.”
“I spoke with Alina, while waiting for you. She confirmed the Sinsar Dubh’s presence at this precise spot mere minutes ago.”
“Does she know what she’s sensing is Mac?”
“No, and I didn’t tell her. Every second counts. Move.” He surged into the Silver concealed in the brick wall and vanished.
Squaring her shoulders, Jada leapt in after him.
A partially eaten Rhino-boy lay on the floor in the white room, keening and gnashing his tusks, clutching the oozing stump of an arm.
“She’s rebuilding her strength,” Lor said grimly.
Leaping over the savaged Unseelie, Jada dashed into the next Silver after Barrons, with Fade and Lor close behind. A chill of déjà-vu kissed her spine but now was no time for memories of the day fourteen-year-old Dani had leapt so fearlessly and blindly into one of these very Silvers, only to end up adrift in the Hall of All Days. Nor was it time for memories of the afternoon she’d entered one of the Silvers with Christian, and loosed the Crimson Hag on the world. After years of having to leap into whichever ones she’d been lucky enough to find, discovering the hard way where they led, she harbored a special hatred for the Silvers.
As they raced into the White Mansion, down dazzling alabaster corridors with high arched ceilings and tall, sparkling windows that framed a snowy garden and ice-crusted maze, Barrons opened the pouch he carried and tossed one of the stones over his shoulder for Lor to catch. The tall muscular blond palmed it and slipped it into his leather jacket.
White marble floors turned to sunny yellow, rose to turquoise then bronze as they moved deeper into the infinite, ever-changing White Mansion.
“You do know where you’re going, right?” Jada demanded, catching the cool blue-black stone Barrons tossed her and tucking it into the outer pocket of her backpack.
“Inasmuch as anyone can ever know where the fuck they’re going in here,” Barrons growled. “Mac has no more certain sense of direction in here than we do. Look for crimson floors, they lead to black then to the boudoir.” He tossed the fourth stone over his shoulder to Fade, who was bringing up the rear.
There was a sudden commotion behind them. Vicious snarls met with cool laughter. She skidded to a halt, whirling.
Cruce stood behind her, encased in a shell of translucent, shimmering walls, clutching the fourth blue-black stone in an upraised fist, while Fade flung himself repeatedly against the barrier, with no result.
The Unseelie prince smiled at them icily. “Going somewhere?”
AOIBHEAL
There was no escape from the king’s side of the boudoir either. The nearly invisible towering door set into the smooth black walls of his bedchamber failed to respond to her imperious command. Nor did any of her magic affect it. She was as trapped on his side as she’d been on her own.
