Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

I considered the rows upon rows of bottles behind the wooden bar from my seat at the makeshift table. Some bottles were huge, and others tiny—only the size of my thumbnail. Some gleamed, and a thick dust layer coated others. Some had cracks and rusty caps, others were made of crystal or amber. All held the same swirling water.

And only one bottle would save the world, Andas, and me.

The bottle I’d first seen upon entering the cave sat front and center, and I gazed at it for a time, wondering if the Trickster was brazen enough to display the very bottle I wanted. Or had he placed it front and center to trick me?

That choice felt too risky.

“What’s your selection?” he asked.

I slanted him a look. “Five seconds have passed, Keefe. You didn’t set a time limit.”

He pouted. “But I have many things to do.”

“You can wait.”

Real fury lit in his gaze then, and I wondered at it. But he’d tucked his anger away the next instant. I’d seen it, though, and I thought I knew what it meant—Keefe didn’t like being told what to do. Someone had controlled him before, and he hadn’t liked it.

I returned my focus to the bottles. “My mother held your reins for a long time.”

He snorted. “She never held my reins. But she thought she did.”

“You spent how long in the prison realm? You were under her power there.”

“There is a difference, young Underhill, when a prisoner knows he will not always be imprisoned. When his sentence is finite. And now make your choice and stop attempting to figure me out. Many have tried. Many have failed. I’m tricky like that.”

He laughed at his joke, and I hovered my magic over the bottles.

“The first bottle you touch, magic or otherwise, is the bottle you choose,” he said in glee.

“You didn’t state that in our deal,” I said.

“And neither did you,” he snapped. The cave trembled with his change in emotion.

I wondered anew at his sheer power. Such power could only be ancient, which seemed to confirm that binding myself to Andas had triggered the change in Keefe.

I hovered my magic over the bottles. They all felt the same, and I’d need to use my power to cut through the disguising magic cast over them.

This was never going to be that straightforward.

The tree of life rustled around me, and the slight shine of the fluttering leaves caught my peripheral vision.

I tilted my head, my mind humming as I shifted my focus from choosing the correct bottle to learning, as I did when confronted with any new predator.

One bottle contained the life of entire realms…

The tree of life sat mere feet away. Could like call to like?

I pulsed a surge of my magic into the tree trunk behind me. I’d already learned that attempts to purge Andas’s essence from the tree wouldn’t work—that purging darkness from anything or anyone never worked. So instead, I again layered my magic onto the tree. Before, I’d merely blanketed the leaves, branches and trunk with my power to save the tree, but now I layered my power until an equal amount of my magic glowed in the trunk as darkness blackened it.

Last time, the tree had tripled in size, but I felt something shift within the tree as its balance was restored. I could feel the tree looking to me for guidance. I had a claim on it now, and the tree understood that it had two masters, and that I was one of them.

This tree had made me hope, hate, regret, fear, and rage. A tree had made me feel all of this.

I had great respect for what this tree could do, and so I whispered my request to the tree of life, and it shuddered.

“You can’t use the tree,” Keefe spat out.

“This isn’t a game where you will make up the rules as we go,” I informed him coolly. “You have said that I cannot use my magic directly. Fine. I say that I will be allowed to use anything else at my disposal so long as my magic and body do not touch any bottle that is not my final and only choice.”

The Trickster crossed his arms, then glanced over my head at the tree of life. The corner of his mouth tugged up. “Oh, why not. Go on then.”

His easy acceptance of my demand didn’t fill me with confidence.

I whispered to the tree again, and with a second shudder, it parted with a third of its leaves. I encouraged the leaves to fall on the bottles. One each.

I watched to see if any of the bottles reacted to the life touching it. None of them glowed or pulsed or shattered.

Nothing happened at all.

“Ha!” Keefe burst out. “Anti-climactic. Still, you are merely a fae, and a fae mind can only fathom so much.”

My brows drew together. He spoke as if he weren’t fae. Keefe had a tendency to reveal information when he felt he had the upper hand. He’d be the kind of hunter to crow over his fallen prey, only to have the prey kill him with its dying breaths. Me? I didn’t waste time.

I’d kill Keefe one day, and if Andas—whom I could feel growing weaker with each passing minute—died after whatever Keefe had done, then I would also torture Keefe to his dying fucking day.

I blinked at a plucking sensation deep in my chest. I followed the sensation to the underground naga nest. The pull tugged at me still, encouraging me to try something I’d never attempted before but had witnessed my mother do.

I dove, in all but body, into one of the queens and opened her eyes. “Yesss?”

“Nessst mate,” said the young king. “You make a great choiccce for usss.”

I nodded my serpent head.

“We made nessst here,” he said. “Rootsss grow ssstrong around us, into our nessst, and we let them. We are togethherr with tree of life. We seee what it sssees. Water hasss alwaysss called to us.”

“What do you ssseee?” I asked through the queen’s mouth. Naga indeed had a gift for seeking water. It was a large factor in where they chose to build their nests.

The eldest queen answered, “We sssaw nothing, but her leavesss burned through the magic desssigned to masssk and trick. Leavesss on each bottle are a window to contentsss.”

My heart skipped a beat—well, the queen’s heart that I’d borrowed. The leaves had created a hole in Keefe’s magic, and the naga could see into the bottles through their new connection to the tree of life. “You know whiccch bottle is the righht one?

The naga nodded, from toddler to the eldest queen.

The young king dipped his head. “Underhill was wissse in placing usss here for thissss moment.”

Underhill hadn’t known any of this shit would happen. But their good opinion meant something to me, so they could go on believing in me. “How can I payyy the debt for thissss information?”

“You havvee sssspent a time in one of our owwn.” She gestured to the queen I occupied. “Sssshe is ssssilver-toucched, and a great treasssure.”

“Ssshow me.” I left the queen and returned to my body in the cave with Keefe.

He was talking. Had he been talking this entire time?

I kicked back my chair and touched my magic to the naga king’s essence. I’d entered Sigella’s body recently, but now I drew the naga king into mine while holding my magic away from his essence. If it touched him, he’d die. I could feel the naga king’s awe as he tip-toed inside the mother of all creatures. I could sense his fear and wonder and confusion at all he would never fathom of my power.

You may move my hand, I told him in my mind.

He replied in a whisper, Great Underhill, you honor me beyond measssure.

Walking behind the bar, I let his essence guide my hand.

Down the row I went, two-thirds of the way and past the bottle I’d first noticed.

The naga king’s magic pulsed through me, stopping me in front of a non-descript amber bottle covered in a thin layer of dust. Some rust on the cap. Not stately or eye-catching.

Average in every way.

The water issss here, Great Underhill, said the naga king.

I believed him. Thank you, I silently replied, then waited until the king’s essence had retreated to his own body once more.

I picked up the bottle.

“I’ll give you one chance to reconsider, young Underhill,” said Keefe.

His words were too careful. Too mocking.

“This is my choice.”

If our roles had been reversed, I supposed Keefe would have made a speech about his cleverness here.

I popped open the lid and the contents wisped into the air. Only a ding-dong would mistake the tiny droplets for what they appeared to be. The power stored in each of the droplets made my head swim. I was doubly stunned by the incredible power Keefe would have required to collect the water in the first place.

“Cheat!” Keefe bellowed. “That should have been impossible.”

I laughed then. Why did people keep using that word? It was particularly ironic that he was using it, given he’d just collected the water of the realms in a bottle. “It was impossible. And then it wasn’t.”

“Cheat,” he said again.

This was the real Keefe. He didn’t cope well with his plans changing. Or with being tricked. I’d learn to be more adaptable. If I had a tantrum every time things didn’t work out…

Well, there wouldn’t be any time left in the day.

I nodded at him, imagining how nicely his skin would part over the fine edge of my dagger, and then I portaled away.

I’d let my gut decide on my destination, not even registering where it was taking me until I arrived in the middle of a sparse forest to find Andas buried to his neck and shoulders in the cold ground.

The enormity of my decision to portal to him above anyone else shook me to the core.

I’d gone to him, not Kik and Peggy. Not my sister and Cinth.

Andas was alive.

Conscious, but barely.

I crouched by his head. “Why aren’t you better? I returned the water to the realms.”

His breath was labored. “You did?”

I opened a portal to the rawmouths’ lake on Unimak. Of course, it wasn’t theirs any longer. I’d felt them die within me early on, as I’d felt most of the water fae die before cutting myself off from their pain. Some of those who possessed the ability to also live on land had survived. When this all ended—if it ever ended—then I’d mourn everyone lost. I’d get used to the void in me where they used to be.

The lake looked just as it had at the naga king’s coronation. “The water is back.”

Andas sighed and closed his eyes. “Keefe got me good.”

My heart hammered, but I said calmly, “Where are you injured? What do you need?”

“Help is on the way. I couldn’t portal them here.”

He didn’t have any henchmen left, but I heard a familiar scuffle and then the drag of hundreds of feet. “Your gray fae.”

“Stand back, Silver. They get ahead of themselves sometimes.”

That was a fucking understatement.

I bounded to crouch on a boulder fifty feet away as gray fae converged on Andas like addicts. And that was exactly what they’d become—addicted to his darkness. He was their fix.

I watched as they dug at the ground and tugged on him.

I heard his furious roars as they failed to extract him.

After a few minutes, I dropped down into their midst and walked back to him.

Andas coughed pitifully, and I jerked to a halt.

No, they hadn’t failed to extract him. His head and shoulders just ended where they should continue. He was like one of those stupid head and chest statues in the Alaskan court. “Keefe…chopped you up. How are you alive?”

Chopping wasn’t an accurate description. I couldn’t see any wounds. There was no blood.

“He didn’t chop me up ,” Andas said, glaring at a gray fae creeping up on me. “Stay back, all of you. She is mine.”

My stomach flipped. “Andas, you’re dying. You need to tell me how to help you.”

“Keefe has locked me in the four realms. I am whole, but my head and chest are here, one arm and leg are in Underhill, the other arm is in the prison realm, and my second leg is in the scale realm.”

“Why can’t you portal yourself out?”

“Because he locked me here,” Andas ground out.

Something wasn’t adding up. “Why would that kill you?” He had to have another injury.

“It’s not killing me,” he said on an exhale, looking about seven-eighths dead.

I jerked his head back via a ruthless hold on his black hair, then shouted in his face. “I will be very fucking angry if you give up everything we’ve worked toward so far because you want to keep secrets.”

Andas met my furious gaze with one of his own. I saw the stream of thoughts behind his eyes. I saw him come to the realization that he had no other option.

“I can’t stay in one place for long,” he said in a low voice. “Keefe was aware of that.”

Andas couldn’t?—

“What?” My jaw dropped. “Why can’t you stay in one place?”

Then I thought about the way I could always feel him leaping around. He’d portaled us somewhere after the kraken attack, only to leave me for a time so he could continue portaling around without me connecting the truth. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter why.”

I tilted my head in confusion. Had Unbalance always done this?

If Keefe had locked Andas in place, then I’d expect the reason Andas had to constantly move about was crucial.

I schooled my features, then wrapped my silver essence around his head and neck and the tops of his shoulders. I opened portals around him next. The portal to Underhill was easy. I ripped out the barbs of Keefe’s magic in Andas that were pinning him in place. Ignoring Andas’s screams, I pulled his arm into Earth to join his head and chest. I’d need to keep the portal open until I freed the rest of his body though. I couldn’t pull his leg through without ripping it off the rest of his body.

I had a feeling he wouldn’t thank me for that.

I took a breath. Getting the pieces of him hidden in Underhill had been easy, but it would be the only easy break we were given.

To my surprise, however, I could sense and access the prison realm. “This will hurt.”

“The last one fucking hurt,” Andas retorted.

“This will hurt more.” I held my magic at the ready, and when I’d opened the tiniest possible portal to Keefe’s realm and territory, I ripped out the barbs and yanked Andas’s other arm to Earth. The upper half of his body was all in one place.

“I can’t access the scale realm,” I said after trying. I’d opened portals through other beings before, but I wouldn’t be able to force my way into Andas.

He stopped cursing and groaned. “Go through our bond.”

Really? That was useful information. I should catch him on the verge of death more often. I dove into our bond without any resistance, and I had a feeling he couldn’t have closed our bond even if he’d wished it. Which could just as easily go the other way, so I shouldn’t celebrate too much.

I easily pushed my magic toward his leg, and when the sensation changed to that of wading through mud, I gathered that I’d entered the scale realm. If that hadn’t alerted me, then the savage barbs of magic stabbing through Andas’s leg and pinning him in place would’ve done it.

I couldn’t sense anything outside of Andas’s body, but now wasn’t the time to look around the scale realm.

I said silently, I can push out Keefe’s magic. Can you do the rest?

I felt his nod, then he replied, On three.

I didn’t do countdowns. Diving into Andas again, I sent out a wave of silver and disintegrated the barbs filled with Keefe’s swirling magic.

Andas roared, and I retreated from his body, then lunged to grip his arm and help drag him out.

A portal opened, and Sigella stumbled out.

I released Andas and caught her by reflex alone.

Andas finished yanking his leg into Earth and blurred to his feet, weapons drawn and pointed at Orlaith, who stood on the other side of the portal in the scale realm, black ribbons snapping behind her.

The red-haired beauty stood defiant and surer than I’d ever seen her. There were no pleas to braid my hair. No nervous bat babbling. Her silver dress was streaked with black. Whatever internal dilemmas she’d experienced when first returning to her body, she’d obviously figured them out. And by figuring them out, I meant that she’d embraced whatever darkness remained in her. If I couldn’t see the bands of darkness in her, then the state of her dress would’ve been enough to tell. I’d learned by now that my creatures were silver. What surprised me is that Orlaith still had any silver at all on her dress.

“Don’t get caught again. I can only intervene so much,” said Orlaith to Sigella. She cast a quick look at me, and I saw her anger toward me. And her pain.

I wasn’t sure how to take her comment though. Did she mean that Keefe was in control, but she could still go against him if she wished? Or just when she chose?

And what would make her choose us consistently? I couldn’t rely on Orlaith to do the right thing anymore. She was unpredictable.

Sigella lifted her head from my shoulder. “Thank you, Orlaith.”

“Not all of us have forgotten that we were once friends,” said the fae, slamming the portal closed.

Considering she’d sent me to a kraken to kill me because her father said so, I found that hypocritical. But again, consider me surprised that darkness hadn’t completely claimed her and that she’d saved Sigella. I wanted to feel hope that Orlaith could still be saved—that we could return to being what we once were.

I also knew that could never be.

I exchanged a long look with Andas.

“You good?”

His body was in one realm and all attached. Things could be worse.

Andas nodded, then glanced at Sigella. “Yes, but…I need to go.”

I knew what that meant: he had to move.

I released a heavy exhale. “Go. Be safe.”

“I’ll find you soon.” Andas trailed his fingers over the raven feathers on my back, and they tingled at his touch.

Then he was gone.

“How are you faring?” I asked the ancient fae still in my arms.

Sigella grunted. “Like I’m going to liquify Keefe, put him in my favorite teapot, and drink his insides along with a beetroot tickle.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up and fed.” I also had to check on the others now that the water had been restored.

I looped an arm around Sigella’s back and we walked through my portal into…

Chaos.

Screaming.

Fae staggering and blurring. Children limp in their mothers’ arms.

A human fell to her knees before me. Her face was turning blue. She couldn’t breathe. Water spilled from her lips.

“She’s drowning,” Sigella said in horror.

Drowning from the inside out. Whipping my magic forth, I pulled the water from her lungs. And didn’t stop there, because I noticed the cells of her body were at the bursting point. It was as if someone had injected too much water into every single part of her body.

The woman toppled to the ground, dragging in great gulps of air.

“He put the water back. I asked him to put all the water back where it came from,” I whispered, and then shouted at the closest fae, who was frozen in horror but not drowning. “When did this start?”

He turned an unblinking gaze my way. “J-just a minute ago, Underhill.”

“Why now?” Sigella asked.

“Because Orlaith returned you, and he got angry,” I said grimly. “He decided to interpret my request another way.”

I strode toward the nearest drowning human, already knowing I couldn’t possibly save them all.

More death. More suffering.

Looked like the Trickster was having the last laugh.