6. CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

DANIELLA

Idid not want to visit the Envoy. No way in hell.

That creature was terrifying, and I was sure it was some sort of trickster demon, one that found its way into Elf-hame the same way that Caorthannach—that Mount Ruin bitch—had. No demon could be trusted, but trickster types were the worst. I knew it from my sister Lucia, who was studying at the League of Demon Hunters in New York. She had suffered at the hands of a trickster demon and nearly ended up possessed by it. She escaped that particular fate, though she’d suffered much worse at the hands of Lucifer’s son himself. That was an interesting story, which I hoped would have a happy ending.

Under any other circumstances, I would’ve heeded Lucia’s advice and stayed away from the Envoy, but what else could I do? Not to mention that I would go to the end of any realm—Elf-hame, my own, or even hell—for Kalyll.

Straightening to my full height, I talked with more conviction than I felt.

“Let’s go then.” I headed for the door.

“No can do.” Silver waved a finger, then looked at Cylea for approval of his use of a human phrase.

Cylea nodded to indicate he’d gotten it right.

“Why not? We have no time to waste,” I protested.

“You can’t visit the Envoy during the day,” Jeondar explained. “We have to wait until midnight.”

“Are you kidding me? So what do we do now? Just sit here with our thumbs up our asses?”

Silver blinked several times. “Now, that is an interesting phrase worth remembering.”

“Shut up, Silver. Don’t make me regret interceding for you.”

He put both hands up, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and gave a lazy step out of the way, whistling casually. “I did save your life, you know?”

“You turned me into a popsicle is what you did.”

“A what?”

“Oh, never mind.” I batted a hand at him, but I definitely owed him my gratitude. “But thanks, for… helping me.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“No. We won’t be doing any of that,” Jeondar said, wrinkling his nose as if he were actually picturing us doing exactly what the crude phrase suggested.

Seriously, did they have to take everything so literally?

“A visit to the Envoy isn’t like walking into a tavern, Dani,” he continued. “You need to prepare for it. We have to think carefully about what to ask.”

Right. The Envoy would give us tricky answers, and if we weren’t careful, we could end up wasting an entire day just to end up with vague, useless information.

I still didn’t like the idea of sitting here chatting. I needed action, needed to feel like I was doing something to actively find Kalyll, but this was the best we had, so we had to nail it.

“So how does it work?” I sighed. “I assume you guys have visited that fucking demon and have some experience with it?”

“Demon?” Arabis asked.

“Yeah, that’s what it is. At least that’s what I think, but it doesn’t matter. What exactly do we need to ask? Where is Kalyll?”

Kryn shook his head. “That won’t work. You need to ask yes or no questions.”

“Oh, yeah.” Kalyll had explained how it worked.

It was so dumb. You had to ask yes or no questions, yet the creature only answered straight up when the answer was no. If the answer was yes, it would instead offer additional information that was vaguely related to the question.

Like when Kalyll asked “will the one I love be my queen?”and the trickster answered “you will mourn her. Deeply.”

At the thought, my heart constricted. While I’d lain on that bed for an entire week, Kalyll had ached, the pain driving him to do who knew what. The others hadn’t explained yet, but I had a feeling Wölfe had made an appearance, which surely only added to Kalyll’s torment. Worse yet, as I stood here, he didn’t know I had awakened, and so his torture and mourning continued.

Witchlights! We had to find him.

I put on my thinking cap. “So how many questions can I ask?”

That was something Kalyll hadn’t mentioned.

“Two,” all six of them replied in unison, even Larina up on the mantel.

“Two?! That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s all we have to work with.” Jeondar shrugged.

“Okay.” I thought for a moment. “Assuming that Cardian took him to the Unseelie King, we could ask is Kalyll in Nerethien?” That was the name of the city where the Unseelie Court was located.

Cylea nodded. “Yes, that’s on the right track, but maybe we should be more specific. We could ask something like… is Kalyll in Highmire?”

“Highmire?” I echoed.

Cylea nodded, her blue hair swinging back and forth. “Mythorne’s castle.”

“Oh, that’s right.” I had forgotten its name. After thinking for a moment, I asked, “But couldn’t being too specific cause problems? At least being broad would give us a general idea of where he is. He could be in Nerethien, but not specifically in the castle. I’m sure Mythorne has other places for prisoners.”

Silver reclined against the wall. “For all we know he’s in your realm, Dani. I just can’t imagine Cardian having the balls to face Mythorne or place himself anywhere within his reach.”

Damn!This was harder than I thought. Trying to locate one person in two vast realms with almost nothing to go on was like trying to carve Mount Ruin with a spatula.

My frustration mounted, and I had to fight the urge to pull out my hair and scream. I felt like a nuclear bomb ready to obliterate everything around me. I had to… do more.

“I need pen and paper,” I blurted out, then marched to a nearby desk.

When I found what I needed I sat down and started jotting questions down. Anything that popped into my mind, I wrote it down—no matter how stupid.

Arabis sat across from me and also procured a piece of paper and did the same. The others remained quiet, meandering through the library, deep in thought.

All the nervous energy poured out of me and onto the page until I could think of nothing else to write. I straightened, looked up over what I had written, and underlined the things that had merit.

It was a lot.

I slammed my hands on the desk and stood, knocking my chair over. “Why only two questions? It’s not like it would kill the Envoy to be more helpful.”

My question made me wonder for the first time why the Envoy was answering any questions at all. Did it gain anything? And if it did? What if we offered it more of whatever it wanted?

“What is the Envoy after, anyway?” I asked.

They all looked at me with matching frowns.

I elaborated. “I mean, what does it gain? Does it want gold? Jewels?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” Arabis looked chagrined.

I waited for her explanation, but she only exchanged glances with the others.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“The Envoy shaves days from the end of your life.” Silver was now reclining against a bookshelf, inspecting his fingernails. He shared this piece of information as if he were talking about the weather.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

“That’s just… wrong! How many times has Kalyll been to visit the Envoy?”

“Only twice that I’m aware of,” Kryn said. “But I think—”

I cut him off. “So let me get this straight… he’s going to live fewer days than he would have otherwise?”

“That’s the idea.”

A lot of messed up scenarios crossed my mind. What if someone died before saying I’m sorry to a loved one? Before signing an important peace treaty? Before running over a serial killer with their car? Before conceiving a baby with their wife? The list was endless. One day, one hour, could make a huge difference, and the realization made me feel as if I was really going to explode.

So no gold or jewels for the fucking Envoy. Even one question seemed too much already. Two could break someone’s entire purpose for living. What if the baby the wife would’ve conceived was someone like Marie Curie?

Witchlights! I had to stop thinking about it that way. For all I knew, it was more likely that the Envoy was shaving off crappy days from crappy old age.

“Are you all right, Dani?” Arabis asked.

I must have looked how I felt—ready to blow up and make a bloody mess—because she looked truly concerned for me. Clenching my fists, I reminded myself to be strong. I couldn’t fall apart. Still, I had to ask my next question.

“Why do I have to go to the Envoy? Why not one of you?”

“Because we’ve all been already,” Jeondar explained.

I shook my head, confused. “But Kalyll went twice.”

“What I was going to say when you so rudely interrupted me,” Kryn said, “is that I think Kalyll went once, and Wölfe went a second time.”

My mouth opened. I wanted to argue the point, but I knew very well that Kalyll and Wölfe were two entirely different people. Even if the night we visited the Envoy Kalyll had felt in charge, he must’ve found a way to let Wölfe take the wheel.

I smiled sadly. Kalyll was clever. If only he was clever enough to escape Cardian right now. I glanced toward the chamber door, willing it to open and let him in. I could almost picture him there, hands outstretched, a wolfish smile on his lips: Here I am, were you unnecessarily worried?

But he didn’t appear, and my heart ached with his absence.

“So what questions did you come up with?” Arabis pointed toward my piece of paper on the table.

Cylea came behind me and righted the chair I’d knocked down.

Rubbing the back of my neck, I picked up my notes, reminding myself to be strong once more. Yes, Kalyll would do everything in his power to escape, but Cardian and Mythorne would not make it easy for him. They knew he was a shadowdrifter. They would take precautions against his power to turn into smoke and his ability to morph into a powerful beast when the sun came down. So I had to do my best to find him and set him free because it was possible we were his only hope.

Eyes roving over the list, I read the first idea I had underlined.

“I could ask if I will see him again?” Re-reading the question out loud made the idea sound stupid—not to mention that it also made my knees wobble at the possibility of the Envoy’s answer being a no. I would not be able to survive that blow. When I wrote and underlined the question, I’d only been thinking of receiving a positive answer.

Silver shook his head. “Not a useful question. You might see him again, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be alive when you do.”

I placed a hand on the table to steady myself.

Cylea swatted Silver’s arm. “Shut up, you insensitive bastard.”

I went over the rest of the list, then crumbled it in anger. None of the things I’d written were any good. All the questions were a reflection of my desire to know that Kalyll was all right, that his traitorous brother hadn’t murdered him already.

“This will sound terrible,” Kryn said, “but you need to get a grip, Dani. Kalyll’s life depends on that visit.”

“I know. I know.” I beat a fist on my forehead and took several deep breaths. Looking inward, I found the place where I liked to relegate Dark Dani. I needed her cold determination, her calculated way of thinking.

—Not her determination, she seemed to say. Our determination. Kalyll has accepted all aspects of himself. You need to do the same if you want to see him again. Alive. She pointed out that last bit adding an edge of sarcasm to the word.

Dark Dani wasn’t one hundred percent me, but I could be like her. I had been like her in the past. Gently, careful not to let her overtake me completely, I invited her in.

Immediately, I felt my pulse slow, and my mind clear. The edge of desperation was still there, but it was less sharp. Manageable.

Rolling my shoulders, I glanced around the room, meeting everyone’s gazes. They all seemed calm, ready to confront any news the Envoy might deliver. For a moment, I found it surprising that Kalyll had surrounded himself with such a glacial bunch. Then I realized they were exactly what a Seelie Prince needed to help him perform his duties. Emotion couldn’t rule in court, just like it couldn’t rule in the emergency room or the operating table, I realized.

And that was when it hit me, Dark Dani had always been with me. She was the one who healed with steady hands when there seemed to be no hope. She was the one who issued clear commands to the staff when gauze, retractors, forceps, or scalpels were needed. And that was exactly who I needed to be right now. This was how I would be strong for Kalyll.

“Okay, this is what I’m thinking,” I said, taking charge of myself and the situation. “It’s best to ask questions that we think have a positive answer, right?”

“Right,” Jeondar said. “That way she will provide additional information.”

“It would be nice if said additional information was useful, but from what I experienced last time, I bet it won’t be.”

“Sometimes it is.” Arabis shrugged and glanced toward Kryn, making me wonder if, during her visit to the Envoy, she’d asked something about their relationship.

From the way Kryn was frowning, it was easy to guess he was wondering the same thing. Witchlights! I would be glad if these two got their stories straight. It was heart-wrenching seeing them pine over each other day in and day out. I wasn’t sure how the others had endured the tension for so long.

“‘Is Kalyll in Elf-hame?’” I said, pushing thoughts of Arabis and Kryn aside. “What do you think of that as the first question? It’s broad, but we need to discard the possibility that he’s in my realm. Besides, I have a feeling he’s still here, so the Envoy’s answer should be yes. But you guys know Cardian better than I do. Do you think he took him elsewhere?”

Arabis shook her head. “Cardian isn’t familiar with your realm. When he first visited, he behaved like a horse’s ass, as the saying goes in your realm. That was when King Beathan took away his transferring privileges. It’s the reason we never suspected he had a token. He might be using it to travel faster within Elf-hame, but he has no friends on the other side of the veil. All his allies are here.”

“I agree.” Kryn nodded.

The others did too, making me feel better about using this as my first question.

“Okay, so I’ll ask is Kalyll in Elf-hame? and when she says yes, she’ll provide additional information. If it’s useful, my next question can be based on whatever she says. If it’s not, then my second question could be is Kalyll in Nerethien? Again, I have a feeling that’s where Kalyll is, but maybe you all know of a more likely place where Cardian could have taken him.”

“He could be right under our noses, for all we know?” Cylea said. “Right here in Elyndell.”

Jeondar paced, a fist rubbing his chin. “We paid a visit to Cardian’s closest, most powerful allies, and after the scare Kalyll gave them, I don’t think they would dare lend the coward a hand any longer.”

“One of those allies literally can’t,” Kryn said with a chuckle.

Arabis threw a disapproving glance toward Kryn, while Silver laughed and the others just shook their heads. I frowned and suspected they were talking about something Wölfe had done. I didn’t want to know, so I didn’t ask.

“Elyndell would be too difficult a place to keep Kalyll hidden,” Jeondar added.

“Maybe you’re right.” Cylea nodded. “What about Pharowyn? The little prince has a couple of allies there.”

“I doubt he does anymore,” Jeondar disagreed. “News travels fast. I bet they’re not even in Pharowyn anymore. I bet they heard the king was on a westbound extermination path and found suitable hiding places to fare the storm.”

Cylea lifted her arms to the heavens. “Then Nerethien sounds like the most likely possibility, after all”

The others thought for a moment.

Jeondar started nodding to himself. “At this point, Mythorne might be the only ally of any considerable strength left to Cardian. Maybe the only one who would dare try to contain Kalyll, especially now that his reputation as a ruthless shadowdrifter has everyone talking.”

“Then it’s settled,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “We have our questions.”

Now, all I had to do was wait until midnight without losing my mind in the meantime.