AREN LEAPS INTO Tom’s path. The human comes to a sudden stop, his one good eye widening over Aren’s shoulder. I don’t realize he’s dead—no, dying—until Aren gives him a firm shove back. His dagger makes a sucking sound as it slides from Tom’s chest. A fountain of red spurts from the wound and splatters on the linoleum floor.
Tom collapses, and I can do nothing but stare as his life ebbs away in a puddle of crimson. This is my fault. I should have kept my mouth shut.
I’m only able to wrest my eyes away from the dead human when Naito grabs Kelia’s arm, pulling her to the kitchen sink. He twists on the faucet, cups a handful of water, and then splashes it over her shoulder, wiping at the gray dust coating her skin.
“If we clean you up and wait for the rain to settle the silver, you should be able to fissure out.”
Aren steps over Tom’s body. “If we know the storm’s coming, they know it’s coming, too. They’ll make their move before then.”
Naito cups another handful of water. “You have to hold them off. They won’t stand a chance once you can fissure. Don’t conserve your arrows. Kill anything that moves.” He abandons his method of bathing Kelia, grabs her hands, and thrusts them into the sink.
She sucks in a breath. “It’s cold, Naito.”
“I know, baby, but we need to get the silver off you.”
“A shower will be quicker,” Sethan says. “We’ll need to change into clean clothes, too, and wash the dust out of the inn.”
Aren nods. “We’ll clean up in shifts. You three first. Take McKenzie with you.”
I don’t like being shuffled up the stairs—I just want to be left alone—but I’m relieved to get away from Tom’s body. I hunker down in the hallway in the middle of the second floor, hug my knees to my chest, and listen for rain. All I hear is intermittent gunfire. I half expect to feel the pierce of bullets, but there must be enough walls and piping to keep them from passing all the way through the inn.
The fae shower and change clothes. Aren’s the last one who comes upstairs. He’s carrying a jaedric cuirass, a clean wool shirt, and pants. He doesn’t glance at me as he shuts himself inside the bathroom. I stand and start to walk farther down the hall, not wanting to be near the door when he exits. The idea of finding a closet to hide in appeals to me more than it did earlier. It’s probably the safest place for me.
“You’ll fissure out as soon as you’re able to,” Naito’s voice carries down from the third floor.
“You know better than that.” Kelia descends the stairs after him.
“They won’t kill me.”
“That’s a lie. If you shoot at them, they’ll shoot at you.”
He reaches the second-floor landing, grips the rail. “Then get out of here so I don’t have a reason to shoot.”
“Not without you.”
“Damn it, Kelia,” Naito explodes. “My father will take his time slaughtering you!”
A throat clears. I glance to my right, see Aren standing in the bathroom doorway. “You two will have to fight about this later. I need you at the back door, Naito. Kelia, you stay with Sethan.” He holds up his hand when she starts to protest. “Just until he fissures out. After that, do as you please. McKenzie.” He turns to me, opens his mouth to say something, stops. He clears his throat again. “Stay away from the windows.”
“They’re coming!” someone shouts from downstairs.
Aren sprints for the staircase.
“You’ll fissure out,” Naito says, then he grabs Kelia by the nape of her neck and pulls her into a fierce kiss.
She looks breathless when he releases her, slightly disoriented when he rushes off to chase Aren down the stairs. After a moment in which she masks her emotions, she turns to me. “Sethan’s upstairs. Come on.”
By “upstairs” Kelia means the attic. We climb the ladder to the low-ceilinged loft. Lena’s up here, too. She hands Kelia a sword, then gives me a glare that seems to trigger a rumble of thunder. The soft pitter-patter of rain begins on the rooftop. It’ll wash the silver dust out of the air and off the inn’s outside walls.
I take a half step away from Lena, afraid she’ll accidentally open a fissure right where I’m standing. Her edarratae flare, but no slash of light breaks through the attic’s dim glow.
“It might take some time,” Sethan says.
Lena paces. “We don’t have time. The humans’ guns are more accurate; they have more ammunition. Aren’s not invincible—”
“I know that.”
“He takes too many risks. He never should have brought her here.”
Stress doesn’t do good things for my patience. I cross my arms and meet her glare. “This isn’t my fault.”
“They’re your people,” she says. “It was your tech that led them here.”
“Your people.” I make the words sound like a racial slur. “Kidnapped me. And the vigilantes are no more my people than they are Naito’s.”
“Yet you were going to shoot us all so you could escape.”
I snort. “No, not all of you. Just you.”
A flash to my right cuts off Lena’s retort. A fissure rips through the air beside Sethan. After a moment of stunned silence, he nods to his sister, steps into the light, and disappears. Lena opens her own exit a second later and vanishes, too. My fingers itch to draw the shadows, but I have no pen or paper. Without sketching what I see, all I know is they’ve fissured to the Realm, to a province in the west, I think.
Kelia taps her sword on the ground and stares at the space where Sethan stood.
“Naito will never forgive himself if you die,” I tell her. Her silver eyes rise to meet mine. Edarratae flash across a tensed jaw.
“Then I better not die,” she says softly. Then, more firmly, “Let’s go.”
She gestures to the ladder. I’m tempted to refuse to leave, but I saw the rage in Tom’s eyes when he sprang at me. If the other vigilantes are as mad as he was, reasoning with them won’t work.
I heave out a sigh and make my way down the ladder, then the stairs. I almost slip when I reach the ground floor. The entryway is wet. All the first floor is. There’s still some silver glistening in the water, but the rebels managed to wash most of it away.
“This way,” Kelia says.
I follow her toward the back of the inn, ducking beneath the windows we pass. Naito’s at the back door. Aren is, too. He yanks me to the floor as soon as I enter the narrow washroom.
“Stay low,” he orders.
“I am staying low,” I snap back.
A flicker of some unidentifiable emotion shines in his eyes when I move away from him.
He says something in Fae to Naito. A second later, he and Kelia open fissures and disappear.
“They’re going to create a diversion,” Naito tells me. “When they start fissuring in the clearing, we’ll run for the trail. Aren and a few others will try to keep our path clear, but don’t stop moving.”
He rises up a little to keep a watch out the small window in the back door. Tom’s pistol is in his hand. His fingers are wrapped tightly around its grip. The firm set of his jaw indicates he’s willing to use it if necessary.
“Would your father really kill you?”
He glances at me, gives a short nod. “Yeah. He would.”
“You were a vigilante when you met Kelia?”
His expression softens at the mention of her name. “Yeah.”
Gunfire strafes our side of the inn and pings off pipes in the wall. I flatten myself on the ground, close my eyes, and pray for it to stop. In a few, long seconds, it does.
Naito shakes glass from his hair. The door’s window is completely blown out now.
The silence that follows makes me uneasy, especially when it stretches out over several minutes. I want to throw open the door and take my chances, but the rational part of my brain tells me to wait. To distract myself, I ask, “You two are happy together?”
“Yeah.” He rises to peek outside again.
“Even though most fae don’t like humans?”
“Most Court fae don’t like humans,” he corrects me. “That’s the king’s fault. He thinks we’re destroying their magic.”
“We are destroying their magic.” We’re at least damaging it.
“No. It’s cyclical. The Realm’s magic grows stronger in some centuries, weaker in others.” Naito sinks back down and studies me. “Why so many questions? You thinking about getting involved with a fae?”
“Of course not,” I say quickly. I’ve heard Naito’s theory before; fae use it to excuse the little souvenirs they take back to their world.
“I highly recommend it,” he continues. “Sex with the edarratae . . .” He shakes his head and a small smile tugs at his lips. “Trust me, you’d love it. You’d never want to be with a human again.”
I glance away, hoping Naito doesn’t notice my cheeks flushing with heat. That’s when I see two big, unblinking blue eyes staring at me. Sosch. He’s huddled in the gap between the hot-water heater and the wall.
I stretch my hand out. It’s the only invitation he needs. With a chirp-squeak, he darts into my arms. The poor thing is covered in silver dust and trembling.
“He’ll slow you down,” Naito says.
He’s right. I should leave him behind, but the grudge I’ve been holding since I found him hiding in my backpack is gone. I won’t abandon him just because he belongs to Aren.
And speaking of my backpack, it was on top of the fae’s supplies in the breakfast nook. Carrying the kimki in that will be easier than running with him in my arms, so I set Sosch on the ground, ordering him to stay.
He doesn’t. As soon as I crawl away, he chirps and follows me. Fortunately, the laundry room and breakfast nook share a wall, so I have my backpack in hand within seconds. Sosch darts into it before I return to my spot by the back door.
Naito watches me zip the bag. “The vigilantes probably wouldn’t find him.”
I shrug, then reopen the zipper a little, leaving Sosch enough room to breathe and get out if he wants.
“How much longer?” I ask, slipping the backpack on.
He doesn’t need to answer. My skin tingles an instant before a fissure opens just outside the laundry room.
“Now,” the fae says.
Naito pulls me to my feet. “Stay close.”
I don’t have time to worry about jostling Sosch. We burst from the inn’s back door and into the night. Or what’s supposed to be night. The clearing is lit with fissuring fae. The white slashes of light reflect off the pouring rain. It’s like running through a field of fireworks—the grand finale—on the Fourth of July. Gunfire accentuates the shrrip, shrrip, shrrips of the fae’s fissures as they leap in and out of this world, over and over again, faster than I can track.
“Keep moving!” Naito shouts.
My vision is blurred with light and smudged with shadows. I can barely see where I’m running, and I’m terrified I’m going to sprint straight through a fissure. Where’s the damn tree line? Rain pelts my eyes, and I swear the clearing lengthens as we cross it.
“Down!”
The moment I realize I’ve been shoved to the ground, I’m yanked back up.
“Go!”
I recognize Aren’s voice this time. He pushes me after Naito, who’s scrambling to his feet. I ignore the stitch in my side, the squirming kimki in my backpack, and keep running.
We make it to the trail, but if I thought the forest’s cover would ease some of my panic, I was wrong. I can’t see the vigilantes, but I can hear them. I hear their guns, their heavy breathing, their movements in the wet underbrush. They’re closing in on me. From my left. From my right. Shit, a camouflaged man steps right in front of me.
I skid to a stop as he raises his gun. Aims.
Aren fissures between us. A shot rings out. There’s a flash of steel as Aren’s sword cuts through the rain, cuts through the human.
Aren reaches back, grabs my arm, and thrusts me forward. “Follow Naito!”
I stumble over the gurgling vigilante, try to ignore the gaping slash angling from the top of his shoulder through his chest. My body wants to shut down, to stop moving. I’ve seen too much blood tonight, too much violence.
I crawl forward and then notice the little blue cell phone sticking out of the vigilante’s pocket. I tug it free—oh, God, I’m stealing from a dead guy—and bury it deep in my pocket.
Flipping my wet hair out of my face, I glance up. Naito’s just ahead. He peers over his shoulder, sees me down on all fours in the mud. I make a decision, scramble to my feet, spin, and run back toward the inn. After a few strides, I veer off the trail and carve my own path through the forest.
“McKenzie!” Naito shouts, but I’m sure he won’t follow me. He loves Kelia too much to risk her waiting for him at the gate. And Aren’s preoccupied. I should be able to escape long enough to make a phone call.
The underbrush entangles me. I shake loose, continue on, slipping and sliding over leaves and wet grass. I don’t know what direction I’m heading in, but I don’t care as long as it’s away.
The gunfire fades, and I no longer see fissures in the thick green of the forest. A hint of light peeks through the canopy above, and my pace slows when the trees thin up ahead. Cautious, I flatten myself against a thick oak and study the clearing. The inn isn’t located as deep into the forest as I imagined. An honest-to-goodness paved road lies just on the other side of the field. But running without cover makes me decidedly uneasy, especially when I’m not sure where I can find a safe haven.
I wrap my hands around the straps of my backpack and scan the road again, wondering how much traffic it gets on any given day, when, finally, God throws me a bone. To my left, no more than twenty yards away, an empty BMW is parked half obscured by an outcropping of trees. As an added bonus, I can get to it without crossing the field. I’m sure it belongs to the vigilantes. Hopefully, I can get to it before they return. If the fae leave any of them alive to return.
The rainwater drenching my hair and clothes weighs me down as I pick my way along the edge of the forest. With each step, I pray the humans left the keys in the car. I don’t know what I’ll do if they haven’t—I can’t hot-wire the thing—but as I draw near, I hear the engine purring beneath the sound of the falling rain. They’ve left it idling.
Taking my backpack off, I hurry to the driver’s-side door, open it, and fall inside. Sosch squeaks when I swing the bag into the passenger’s seat, but there’s no time to see if he’s okay. This seems all too convenient to go off without a hitch, but I’m already committed. I shift the car into reverse, then slam down the pedal. Too hard. The BMW fishtails in the wet grass before its tires catch. I curse and ram the gearshift into drive.
The back windows explode the next instant. Glass rains through the air. I duck behind the wheel, blindly steering as bullets thunk against the car’s sides. I accelerate over uneven ground, away from the attackers and toward where the road should be, before risking a quick peek over the dash.
Aren’s there. I slam on the brake as he cuts down a vigilante who had a gun aimed at me. He fissures, reappears behind another armed man, and strikes again. Three more vigilantes replace that one.
This time, Aren moves more slowly when he attacks. Two of the newcomers get shots off. Aren stumbles back. He loses his footing, slips, and lands hard on his back.
Maybe I could have driven away if he hadn’t caught my eye just then. I freeze, one foot hovering over the accelerator. The vigilantes will kill him. I shouldn’t care. I should let him die—he’s killed hundreds of fae—but leaving him here is too close to murder. I can’t do that, not when I’m in a position to help.
Cursing my conscience, I slam down the accelerator. I ram into the two humans, hard enough to knock them off their feet. Before they have a chance to recover, I pull up beside Aren and shove open the passenger door. “Get in.”