Chapter 21

T he train rocks gently from side to side. I'd expected to hear a steady click-click-click, but the cars are so well insulated that the sound, if it happens at all, is too faint and muffled to hear anymore.

We've been on one train or another for three days and counting. Our first leg was from Tashkent to Samara, Russia—a journey of over forty-eight hours nonstop. It was breathtaking, rugged, wild, and everchanging. Over mountains and through valleys, lowlands, and highlands, past villages where life probably hasn't changed much in centuries and towns where modernity has caught up to some degree. I don't recognize any of the cars. The languages on street signs and storefronts gradually shift to being largely Cyrillic, and then entirely.

Aeon spends most of the trip meditating—eyes closed, sitting upright with his hands on his knees, chin on his chest. His breathing slows until he only takes one breath every thirty seconds. No one, at any point, questioned the giant sword on his hip or looked askance at his unusual garb; when I ask, he shrugs.

"A mask," he answers. "Somehow, the glamour in those cuffs prevents you from seeing the mask or any evidence of the magic." A shake of his head. "He really outdid himself with those, I must admit. A viciously clever bit of magic."

"Hard to appreciate when it's affecting you," I say.

All I get is a nod and a shrug.

We arrive in Samara in the middle of the night, with the next leg not leaving till the following morning.

"There's nowhere to go," Aeon informs me. "We don't need sleep, so there's no point wasting time finding a hotel."

So we pass the time in the station on hard plastic seats, with the lights overhead flickering intermittently. A bored clerk behind the ticket window watches something on his phone, the volume up, no earbuds—the chatter and laughter and shouts in Russian soon become merely background noise.

Aeon resumes meditating. His version of sleep, I suppose.

With nothing else to do, I attempt meditation as well. More accurately, I turn my attention inward. Look for any hint of magic, any suggestion of the glamour Aeon claims is blocking my access to my magic.

It takes a long time and a headache-inducing amount of concentration, but I reach a point where I can almost feel a faint tingle of something in my belly. I can't see anything, but I know the touch of magic. I know the effervescence of it in my veins. It's there but so faint it's essentially undetectable. Funny, though: the harder I focus on feeling it, the more my fingers tingle, as if they've been asleep and are waking up—pins and needles tickling and tripping beneath my fingernails and around my knuckles and making my palms itch.

Here, I see few signs of the larger chaos in the world. The riots haven't come this way. I've not seen a single magical person, or at least not anyone open about it.

"Are there no immortals in this part of the world?" I ask.

Aeon's eyes remain closed. "Of course there are."

"There's no fighting, no riots, no mobs hunting down immortals."

"It will come here, eventually. Such things take time to spread from the large western cities to places like this, remote and largely disconnected from the goings on of the wider world." He pauses. "It's why I like places like this. Peace lingers here. Lives are simpler. Harder, in many ways—and in ways that, if I'm being brutally honest, I don't think you can understand. But, simpler."

"And you can understand, can you?"

His eyes slide open. "Of course not. I have spent much time in remote regions, living with the locals. So, in that sense, yes, I do understand. But I also cannot because I can leave whenever I wish and begin a life somewhere else. For the local mortals, this is the only home they and their ancestors have ever known and will ever know and have no such luxury."

"If you had to pick one life to live, and that was it, forever, what would you choose?"

He stares at me. "That's like asking me which finger is my favorite. I'm rather attached to them all." A snort and a shake of his head. "I have lived countless lives, Maeve. I spent an entire human lifetime—a long one, a hundred years— as a fisherman on the Isle of Skye. I lived in a stone hut and saw no one for months at a time. That was delightful. The sea, the sky, the storms, the solitude? Just me and my boat, the nets, the seals and the whales and the birds?" His smile is calm and wistful. "It was lonely but lovely."

"Have you ever taken a mortal lover?"

He stares into nothing for a long time. "Yes. When I was young—toward the end of my…second century? Third? She was a Neanderthal. But you must understand that mortals completely misunderstand what their earliest ancestors were like. Dress her in modern clothes with a modern haircut and makeup, and you'd be hard-pressed to know the difference. Facial structure, a bit. Gait and posture—but those are effects of lifestyle as much as physiology. She was wonderful. Caring. Affectionate. Peaceful and gentle. Animals of all kinds were drawn to her. Wild deer would approach her and eat out of her hand. Birds would land on her shoulders. Mice would make nests near our bed. We didn't share a language, but it didn't matter. We communicated through sign language, which was her primary language anyway. I found her injured and left behind by her tribe. I healed her and ended up staying with her. She brought me peace. Our cave was small and warm. We hung furs on the walls and spread them on the floor. She made a kind of broom out of a branch and rushes and kept the floors free of dirt. I gave her a small knife as a gift and taught her to whittle. Her favorite way to pass the evenings was to whittle animals out of wood."

He reaches into a pocket of his robe and produces a carving. It's small enough he can close his fist around it. The wood, probably once pale and almost white, has been stained by the ages that have passed and by the oils of his hands. It's a squirrel, balanced on its hind legs, an acorn in its paws, bushy tail arched high and drooping low. It's a stunning work of art, full of intricate detail.

I gasp when he reverently places it on my palm. "My god, Aeon. It's incredible."

He nods. "It is." A sigh. "I have carried that with me ever since. It reminds me of her and the time I spent with her. Fifty years. I avoided all magic except for the mask that made me look less elvish and more human, and to age myself along with her. I loved her very much."

"What was her name?" I ask, my voice quiet.

"Agana. At least, that's what I called her. I think her actual name was much longer and meant something like 'She Who Wanders The Sky.'" His smile is private, burgeoning with memory. "She was a dreamer. She would sit at the entrance of our cave and just watch the sky. The clouds, the birds. She was fascinated by it." He swallows hard. "When Agana was on her deathbed, moments from her last breath, I took her into the sky. I summoned the wind and let it carry us up into the clouds. I held her and showed the place where we lived from a bird's perspective. Her last breaths on this earth were filled with wonder as she finally saw what she had spent her whole life dreaming of."

My eyes burn. "That's beautiful, Aeon."

"After that, no more mortal lovers. It's too hard." A ragged sigh. "I wouldn't trade away those years for anything, but I wouldn't live through her death and the grief I felt afterward for anything, either."

Samara to Moscow, another thirteen hours. Moscow is enormous, and much warmer than I expected. It's fast-paced and a place of contradictions. Elaborate architecture, new buildings and old, wealth, laughter, arguments, and kindness and rudeness.

Here, the conflict does exist. I see a fae, unmasked, marching down the sidewalk, being trailed by a swarm of shouting, cursing teenagers. The fae, a younger male, ignores them even when they begin throwing stones and bricks and water bottles and old food—he has a shield up, and the detritus bounces off, which only infuriates them more.

I see a car burning in an alley.

A troop of soldiers marches past, armed and uniformed and stern—a coven of vampires, huddled in the shadows of a tall high-rise, vanish in a blur at the sight of the soldiers.

Aeon brings me to The Red Square with the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral with its bulbous spires and soaring minarets and the vast expanse of open space where so much history has occurred.

Moscow to Prague—it's a complicated journey with a lot of stops and transfers. Another full day.

We are on a train pulling into Prague's Main Station. The train pulls to a stop under a high, soaring tunnel of latticework metal and glass. Mortals scurry off and away—fearful, furtive. Gunfire echoes, staccato chattering, and isolated rifle cracks. Something explodes in the distance with a whump.

"Amazing that the trains are still running with all this going on," I say, as we follow the crowd into the station's lobby.

"Europeans are very serious about their trains," Aeon says. "They'll be the last thing to stop running."

I wish I had more time and that I was visiting this city under different circumstances and at a different time. It's incredible. Bridges and buildings were built by artisans who took pride in their work and built things to last. Narrow, winding avenues and quaint streetside cafes. Window flower boxes hanging from brightly colored apartment buildings open directly onto the street.

Alas, however, the trip from the train station is a chaotic blur—Aeon manages to snag a taxi despite the crush of humanity all trying to find one. He rattles off an address in Czech, and the taxi driver—an older male wearing sunglasses despite the gloom of the early morning hour—nods.

As we're pulling to a stop with a noisy squeal of brakes, the driver glances around furtively and then removes his sunglasses to reveal a pair of void-black vampire eyes.

He says something in Czech.

"He wants to know if you're her," Aeon translates. "The Queen."

The driver is twisted in place, one arm along the back of his seat, searching me with his eyes.

"What do you sense in him?" I ask.

Aeon shrugs. "Curiosity. Fear. Hope."

"Then tell him that I am she."

Aeon relays my words. The driver's eyes widen, and he reaches for me with one hand. Speaks in rapid Czech, my hand in his.

"He blesses you by the old gods and the new, and by old blood and the new. He says you are a beacon of hope for immortals. He has no hate for the mortals, but only wishes to live in peace and harmony with them." Aeon pauses, listening, and then continues translating. "Your mate, Alistair, has called for many of the old ones, like him, to join your growing court in England, and he wishes to travel there, but his coven has chosen to stay here, in Praha, where they have lived for many centuries." Another pause. "He says the whole world is watching as your people build The Enclave. He wishes to ask you for a blessing."

My throat is thick. "A…a blessing?"

Aeon nods. Holds my eyes. "Correct."

"What kind of blessing do I give to a vampire?"

He glances at the ceiling. "Recite something—anything. Put your hand on his shoulder. I know of something. I'll tell you what I said after."

The first thing to come to mind is "Mary had a little lamb," but I discard that. I wrack my brain.

And then…my fingers tingle. My palms itch. And something bubbles up in the back of my mind and trickles into my mouth.

"May the blood guide you. May shadows comfort you. May the sun hide its face and the night last forever. May your death be swift and your life eternal."

Aeon's eyes betray his surprise, but he hides it swiftly and relays my words. The vampire covers his mouth with his hand, visibly moved. He kisses my hand, and then pricks the ring finger of his right hand with his fang and extends the digit to me, blood welling at the tip.

Panicked, I look to Aeon for help. He clamps a hand, out of sight of the driver, on my thigh. He closes his eyes to hide the flare of blue, and I feel a surge of something rush through me—cold, or hot, swift, or sluggish…it's hard to understand, let alone explain. I feel my fangs lengthen. I prick my finger, the ring finger of my right hand, and extend it to him in turn.

He pinches my finger gently and guides it to his mouth and smears my blood along his lower lip. I mirror his action, recognizing the ritual in the gesture, even if it's new to me.

He licks his lip, and his eyes pulse once, revealing pale brown irises for a brief moment before they revert to blackness. I lick my own lip and feel sparks burst in my skull—the moment Aeon releases my thigh, the sparks cease, and my fangs retract and the bizarre sensation vanishes.

Aeon produces a wad of cash from somewhere, but the driver shakes his head, chattering excitedly in rapid Czech. His eyes are smeared with bloodtears as we exit the car. He waves at us, shouting what I assume are farewells.

When he's gone, Aeon shoots me a puzzled frown. "How did you know that blessing?"

My turn to shrug. "Mother's Spirit."

He nods thoughtfully. "Even through the glamour holding your magic hostage, a mother's love wins."

My eyes, already hazy from the old vampire's emotional words to me, sting with tears. "So it would seem," is all I can manage. I clear my throat and wipe my eyes with the heels of my palms. "Where are we?"

"Visiting an old friend—a mutual acquaintance shared by Andreas and I."

"You know Andreas?"

A shrug—so many damn shrugs. "Not directly. We both knew people who knew each other. This was during the Greek war for independence. I was posing as a war correspondent for a Greek newspaper attached to the unit he served in. We met a few times, briefly, but he—" here, Aeon gestures at the building in front of us, a graceful, lovely, old apartment block, "was close to both of us. He was the commanding officer to whom I reported, and Andreas reported to him as well. After the war, the three of us exchanged letters—or, well, Andreas and I both exchanged letters with Leonidas, who tended to share with us what the other was writing. It was always an odd triangle."

"When you say Leonidas," I hedge, "You don't mean…"

Aeon laughs. "Gods, no. Not that Leonidas. He was a mortal, and he did indeed die with his men at Thermopylae."

"I see." I see a curtain twitch. "And this Leonidas can help me?"

A nod. "He is a powerful glamourworker, one who specializes in what you might call magical lockpicking."

"Well, then, let's get on with it. I need my magic back." My fingers buzz and my palms itch as if I've got a handful of old television static. "The longer I'm blocked, the worse it'll be when I get it back. I'm starting to feel like I might explode." It's not something I've realized until I say it.

Aeon winces, nods. "I can see it building up, as a matter of fact."

Aeon presses a button on the intercom labeled "L. Demetriou."

A short silence, and then a rough, gruff voice. "It has been a long time, Iannis."

"It has," Aeon returns. "I need your help."

"You or the girl?"

"The girl."

"I saw the block from the window. It's a real nasty fucker."

"It is. And she's no mere girl."

"I know this too." The intercom buzzes. "Come up."

The stairs are narrow and steep but clean and well-lit. We ascend to the third floor; a window facing the street lets in sunlight, bathing the faded and well-worn but clean gray carpet, muted ochre walls, and plaster tray ceiling with a line of ornate plaster rosettes marching down the hallway.

Dust motes swirl and dance in chaotic, mathematical orbits in the ray of sunshine. A door at the far end of the hallway creaks open.

Aeon and I meet Mr. L. Demetriou at his door. He's a tall, broad, barrel-chested fae with a vicious scar running vertically down the left side of his face; the scar claimed his eye, and in the socket is a miniature sun—a glowing ball of white mage-fire. His hair is salt-and-pepper, cropped to a military high-and-tight. He wears dark-wash blue jeans and a faded gray T-shirt. A short sword is buckled on his left hip, and a gargantuan revolver on his right.

He grins, showing white teeth. "Iannis. I've not seen you since—when was it?"

"Italy, 1945."

The old soldier—for that's what he is, from head to toe, every inch a career warrior—guffaws, clapping Aeon on the shoulder with a huge hard paw. "Ahh, yes! Roma, my old lover. We drank a barrel of old red wine and told fish stories."

Aeon laughs. "I've not been that drunk since, old friend." He wraps an arm around my shoulders and guides me closer to the old soldier. "Leonidas, it is my great honor to introduce to you Maeve Sparrow, Once-Mortal Queen and the WorldBreaker. Also of note, her mother was Andreas Bouras's mate."

Leonidas assesses me with frank, open hazel eyes…or, eye. Although, the mage-flame eye does seem to regard me as well, and to move in synch with the other.

"Andreas Bouras, eh? A good man, a great soldier, and a better friend."

I smile, nodding. "He's like a father to me. He's in Manhattan, leading the army there fighting the Mortal Federation."

Leonidas nods. "So I've heard. The whole world watches the events there. The recent victories bode well, and the reports I'm hearing of advances in magic-technology hybridization give us all reason to hope."

"I've been…involuntarily out of touch," I say. "I'd like to hear what you've heard."

"There have been reports of your disappearance but no official announcements." He slaps the doorframe. "Here I am, leaving you standing outside like the mannerless boor that I am. Please, come in."

He ushers us in. His apartment is small and tidy, befitting a soldier. The walls are white, adorned with clusters of photographs arranged by period: daguerreotypes and tintypes of Leonidas in various uniforms, posed and candid—I don't know enough of uniforms to know when the photographs were taken and where; there are early black and white photographs, heavily shadowed and grainy from what appears to be World War One; better photographs of him with a unit from World War 2 and/ or Korea; color photographs from Vietnam, the first Gulf War, somewhere in Europe…he appears to have fought in just about every armed conflict there's been in the last couple hundred years.

His appearance is consistent through them all—a mortal male in his forties, grizzled, hardened, scarred, with an eyepatch and short hair; his mask doesn't change much, it seems, other than his ears and to age him down.

There's a threadbare brown couch, a low, scratched oak coffee table with an ashtray, a thick paperback novel open face down, and a half-empty bottle of ambrosia. A bookshelf opposite the couch—where a TV would be—is overstuffed with a myriad of books of all subjects, sizes, and conditions. A cell phone rests on the arm of the couch where he was sitting and reading before we arrived.

"It ain't much, but it's home, for now," Leonidas says, noting my appraisal.

I gesture at the array of photographs. "Quite a story told, there."

His eyes scan the photographs. "Sure is. Fought in a lot of wars." He turns back to me. "You, my girl, have a serious problem."

I hold up my wrists. "I certainly do. Ae—Iannis tells me you can help?"

He frowns, and his good eye flares as he uses magic to peer at me. He hums and nods, scans me from head to toe, and then takes my hands in his and turns them palm up, palm down, edge up, edge down, and then runs his fingers around the circumference of one cuff and then the other.

His eye dims to normal, and he releases my hands. "This is a nasty bit of business." He frowns again, more in puzzlement. "I recognize the work, but I can't place it."

"Zirae," I answer.

He nods. "Ah, yes. I knew it looked familiar. But even for him, this is vicious."

I shrug. "He really hated me, I think. Or feared me, or both."

"Hated? Past tense?"

"Past tense. I killed him. These damned things were the last thing he did on this earth. And damn him to all the hells for it." I can't help a growling sigh. "He hijacked my spell, dragged me through some portal, and dropped me in the Gobi. We fought, I killed him, and as he died, he slapped these fucking things on me. I can't access my magic at all—I can't even feel it. Even my vampiric nature is suppressed—no bloodlust, no sun sensitivity, nothing. I'm almost mortal, except I don't need to eat, sleep, or rest."

He nods. "Yes. It's a hell of a glamour. I doubt I'll be able to break it on my own—Zirae's powers were far beyond my own, and this…this is a work of art, as much as I hate to admire anything about that venomous old scorpion."

"So you can't help?"

He bobs his head to one side. "Now, I didn't say that did I? I said I can't do it on my own. I'll try, but my feeling is that you'll have to jump in and finish it off. I think I'll be able to interrupt it long enough for you to grab some prana and finish the fucker off."

"How does it work?" I ask.

He takes one of my hands again and draws a line from my hand up my arm to my shoulder and back down to my heart, never quite actually touching me anywhere but where his hand holds my wrist.

"The Three Sisters and the Fourth God flow inside you within your blood." He tilts his head to one side. "Not in your blood, exactly, but close enough—it flows along the same channels. A regular mage-cuff operates on two levels: one, a glamour to prevent the cuff from being unlocked. It is essentially a very simple but effective ward. The second part of the cuff is an insertion point for the magic, allowing the glamour, which is, in essence, a parasite, to enter your body and do its dastardly work on your magic."

"I understand," I say, knowing I sound bitter. "I was a prisoner of the Tribunal for several months. I broke out of the mage-cuffs, so I am intimately familiar with how they work."

He regards me with shock and respect. "You broke out of mage-cuffs? It was thought to be impossible."

"For a Primi, yes. I am no ordinary immortal, however. It still required…a lot of power."

He taps the bracelet around my wrist. "This is different from a mage-cuff but operates on a similar level. There is a glamour—single use only—that closes the clasp, fuses it, and makes it impervious to physical manipulation. A nuclear bomb could go off in this room, and those things would be untouched."

"So I discovered," I say, wry and bitter.

"I imagine," he says. "The insidious part is how it affects your magic. Instead of introducing a parasitic glamour that attacks your magic much the same way white blood cells attack a disease, these devious little bastards are much simpler and much more elegant. They produce a glamour that acts like a dam at your wrists. Essentially, they halt the flow of magic, damming it at your wrists. The magic still exists, but without the flow, you can't feel it, can't see it, can't use it. But your basic nature cannot be changed—you are not a mortal. The bloodlust, the prana hunger, all that is a byproduct of the magic on your body. Without the flow, those things cease as well."

"So what's the plan, then?" I ask.

"Simple. I should have enough juice to temporarily block or interrupt the glamour in the cuffs. You'll have to act fast, though—and I mean fast . You have to be ready to strike the moment you feel your shit turn on, got it?"

I nod. "I understand."

He moves to the couch and sits, patting the seat beside him. He looks at Aeon. "Iannis, you're on containment. The magic in her needs to flow. It needs expression. I have no way of knowing what will happen once we break this thing. She could detonate, go feral, who fuckin' knows. So you gotta make sure whatever happens stays in this room."

Aeon nods. "I understand." His eyes flare blue. "We are warded. You may begin."

Leonidas takes my hands in his, his huge paws circling my wrists with the bracelets under his fingertips and palms. His good eye flares white, and his magical one blazes brighter than ever—his skin glows a searing white, and I feel heat surge through me.

My fingers tingle like mad and my palms itch worse than ever.

"Be ready," he murmurs.

Silence.

Heat increases, feeling like pressure on my hands.

The tingling and itching spread to my forearms, my biceps, my shoulders—and then, all at once, scorching blistering heat turns my heart into a sun gone nova, pounding with a raging fire that surges through my veins, burning me up from the inside. It blazes down to my toes and up to my scalp, my eyes, my hair, my skin, my fingernails. Everything burns.

Someone is screaming—me.

And then I feel it—my magic. It's a blessed, beautiful burst of bliss, a sweet rush of familiar strength; my nostrils are filled with the scent of sunlight and honey. I look within and see my magic, but now it's not just a boiling ocean, it's…a tsunami, a fifty-foot-high storm surge of wild power, frothing and smashing and churning.

I strike with all possible speed, throwing my entire mental being into the oceanic maelstrom. I fill myself with prana, suck in and absorb, drowning myself until I'm glutted and leaking with raw power.

Milliseconds have passed—they feel like hours.

I send my attention to my body, and immediately I see the glamour. It—or they, because the two bracelets function separately—appear as opaque, white-glowing discs bisecting my hands at the wrists. The flow of energy slams against the barriers and reverses flow, eddying at the dams, where it appears dull, lifeless, and sickly, blazing brilliant and blinding in my chest. Too bright.

Which is when I fully comprehend the dastardly deviousness of Zirae's cuffs. They are a death sentence. Worse, they turn me into a walking time bomb—each day that passes, the clogged, dammed flow of magic congeals and compresses and coagulates in my veins, much like clogged arteries causing an eventual heart attack. Only, instead of merely dropping dead, I'll involuntarily vent burst.

A being with the sheer amount of raw energy inside, like me? I could very well level an entire city.

" HURRY !" I hear Leonidas say through gritted teeth. "I'm losing it!"

I smash the glamours with a twin burst of prana; the glamours spiderweb but hold. I hammer them again, and again, and again, harder each time.

I feel Leonidas's grip on the part of the glamour hiding my magic from me weakening, slipping, causing my access to slacken. The glamours are nearly broken, chipped, and cracked.

With a last desperate assault, screaming, I lash out with every ounce of power I have left. The strikes hit as I feel Leonidas lose his hold, and the gate slams down and my magic vanishes once again.

For a moment, I'm back to what I was—powerless, helpless, and doomed.

I open my eyes—Leonidas is slumped forward on the couch, hands on his knees, panting as if he's just sprinted a hundred yards all out.

"Did—did it work?" He gasps.

"I…" I start, about to tell him it didn't.

But then…a tingle in my fingers. An itch at the bend of my elbow. A tremble in my belly. A flutter in my chest as my heart lurches.

A burning ache flares in my chest and my wrists are gripped by pulsing pangs of agony. The bracelets glow red-hot, and the scent of burning flesh fills the small apartment.

I can't breathe. My muscles twitch and contract involuntarily—seizures.

My eyes shutter closed, and searing white light blasts my eyelids. A guttural sound scrapes out of me, becoming a gurgle and then a hoarse rasp.

And then—the world goes utterly white.

Silent.

Still.

White becomes black, a swift slide down the spectrum of visible light. Heat becomes cold, and I'm swallowed by nothingness.