Chapter 13

The novices ought to have reached the warehouse, but I was losing track of time. Here it slipped through my fingers, twisting my perceptions, warping my senses. The environment grew more hostile as well. The air cut deeper into my lungs, my eyes played tricks on me, and I lagged a few steps farther behind Remy.

"You smell that?"

The sudden loudness of her voice after the quiet of the tombs startled me. "I don't smell anything."

Within me, Ambrose stirred to sluggish wakefulness, meaning a magic source was nearby.

I don't think I imagined his stomach—or was it our stomach with him tucked inside me?—rumbling.

"This place is anchored in four locations, right?" I gave up on catching a whiff. "Plus Faerie makes five?"

That was how I remembered it, but I wanted confirmation I had heard Vasco right.

"Yeah." Remy rubbed alongside her nose. "That's the working theory."

One of these days, we had to get a firmer grip on this advance-planning thing. The seat of my pants was tired from all the flying.

"Go big or go home, right?" I nudged Remy into motion. "We need to hit the coven where it hurts. Wipe out their source of power. Otherwise, they're going to keep coming. They've made it clear they won't stop until we make them."

The coven had it in their heads Atlanta should be theirs, and they would sacrifice everything to seize control. How we got so lucky as to be their target, I couldn't begin to guess, but they wanted my city.

And they couldn't have her.

"Keep a nose out for other scents. I'm not sure where the other tethers are located, but we need to chop Buckhead off ASAP to give our allies a chance to defend the city. Then we need to cut the steady supply of reinforcements from other cities. After that, we can see about letting the archive do the void thing."

"That leaves us two choices," Midas said, closer than before. "Either we consign ourselves to the void, or we risk surviving in Faerie until we can barter our way home."

The last thing Midas deserved was to face this decision. I didn't want him trapped in Faerie. Again. Sure, I would be there to watch his back, but that placed us on Natisha's doorstep. The longer we spent in Faerie, the more likely it was she would catch wind of us. Then there was the small matter of her pack.

Midas was a direct descendent of Natisha's. He had family in her pack. The same pack that sold him to a cruel goblin for use as a gladiator in the arena matches that earned Midas his scars, inside and out.

"Your call." I tossed a smile back at him. "I can go either way."

Truthfully? Faerie would be easier, if also trickier, to escape.

Honestly? The void, for us, was unsurvivable. There was no food, no water. The spirits who called this place home needed none of those things. We could only live as long as the food in our packs allowed.

Still, I let him decide, and it wasn't an empty gesture. I was all about the follow through.

"Faerie." His warm hand landed on my shoulder. "There's no other choice."

Turning my head, I kissed his knuckles. "We can find another way."

"There's no time." His comforting touch lifted. "We can't know for certain how slow or fast time moves here. That will change again when we reach Faerie. We have to keep on schedule as best we can and hope we haven't missed the battle when we come out the other side."

That particular outcome was one I had sunk a great deal of effort into ignoring.

The three of us wouldn't make or break a flat-out war. That wasn't how battles worked. Often, it boiled down to numbers. Who had the most people? Who cared more if those same people died horribly?

We didn't have the numbers. Strategy was our best bet at winning. We had no time for second-guessing.

Our absence would be felt on the battleground, if it came to that, but this mission was more important.

When this nightmare closet went offline, it would cut direct routes to and from the coven's strongholds. They would be forced to rely on mundane means of transportation, which would slow them down. They would also be dependent upon the practitioners already at their disposal. Buh-bye, reinforcements.

Best of all? Those lethal outfits they so loved to wear? They would get put in deep storage. For good.

"There." Remy pointed out a row of tombs where one door stood taller than the rest. "It smells like…"

The arch had been carved to fit the existing architecture, but rather than stone, its center reflected us.

"…the sea." I followed her, unable to resist the humid warmth swirling the air. "Weird."

We exited the stairs and went to investigate what might be our first tether. I don't know why they were called that. I mean, okay, they tied one location to another. Big whoop. If this one was any indication, they struck me as more like the Einstein-Rosen bridge portal devices from Stargate. How much cooler was that? These could befaegates. Or witchgates. Both had merit.

Tilting her head to one side, Remy pursed her lips. "Does the architecture remind you of anything?"

"You mean like the gateway that spit us out onto the stairs?" I noticed the similarities too. "I'm guessing we blew our first mission objective. The tether to Buckhead was behind us, on the stairs." I tipped my head back. "Now it's way up there."

"You were distracted at the time." Midas grimaced, no doubt recalling his grand entrance. "I surprised you, and then I rushed you. It's not your fault."

"Live and learn, right?" Remy chucked me on the shoulder. "We're probably the first non-sacrificial, non-coven lifeforms to enter the archive. Cut yourself some slack."

"Yeah." I tried, I really tried, but it was hard. "Live and learn."

"Wonder where it goes?" She ran a hand along the designs carved into the doorframe. "I can't read it."

"It doesn't matter." I summoned Ambrose, who exited my body in a prickling rush of sensation. "It won't go there for much longer."

The shadow studied the faegate while tapping a finger against his lips.

"Well?" I watched him, my gut drawing tight as he considered it. "Will draining its power pull the plug?"

He stuck out a hand and dipped it side to side in a maybe gesture.

"We're old pros at breaking wards. Do you think this will work the same way?"

Hands tucked into my back pockets, I hid their trembling from the others, but not from Ambrose. The bottom line was, I was about to supercharge him. How he reacted would determine if we made it out of here alive.

No pressure.

"You hungry?"

"Always."

The silken whisper might have been my imagination. I mean, another name for dybbuk is devourer.

Therefore, it wasn't rocket science to conclude Ambrose would always be game for a snack.

"He…spoke." Midas cocked an eyebrow at my shadow self. "That's new."

Well frak.

So much for that hope.

"He sounds how a honey butter biscuit tastes." Remy goggled at him. "Mmm."

"That's how he hooks suckers." I shoved her shoulder. "He has to be appealing for his schtick to work."

Rich laughter tickled the fringes of my hearing, and Ambrose wrapped an arm around my shoulders, as he had seen Midas do countless times.

Leaning in, he almost brushed his lips against my ear when he said, "This will be fun."

A shiver rippled through me, and I palmed his face then shoved him back. "Get thee behind me, Satan."

Ambrose laughed again, clearly tickled by the reference, and strolled toward the witchgate.

Hmm.

Nah.

I got it right the first time.

Faegate definitely sounded cooler.

"You know more about Christianity than I do about your religion," Midas noted. "I should fix that."

That he cared enough to want to learn about Hecate, about how necromancers communed with their goddess, mattered more to me than when or if we ever got around to immersive lessons.

"We've got time." I rested against him. "I have my entire public-school career to thank for what I know."

In addition to the nuts-and-bolts education I received, I had been coached in the study of humans. How to blend with them. How to befriend them. How to integrate into their society, since my Society viewed Low Society necromancers as framework to hold the High Society aloft. Religion was a part of that, and it was fascinating to cobble together a belief system that integrated the world I was expected to belong to and the one I had been born into.

"Are you ready?"Ambrose turned back toward us. "I have finished translating the sigils."

Shock that he could read them popped my eyebrows into my hairline. "They're instructions?"

"They explain how to power the tether, yes. They also describe how to return it to its restful state."

"Feed it magic to open it." I could see I was right in his expression. "Drain the residual power to close it."

"Just so."

"All right." I checked with Midas, who nodded, then turned back to Ambrose. "Let's do this."

"This will hurt,"he warned, glancing back at me over his shoulder. "Brace yourself."

Midas threaded our fingers and wrapped an arm around my middle, ready to support me.

The fingertips of Ambrose's right hand touched the uppermost sigil, and light exploded around me.

I fell, not into soothing darkness, but into the burning sun.

* * *

"Awaken."

A moan slipped past my lips.

"Awaken."

"Bite me."

"Oh good." Remy poked my cheek. "She's okay."

"Sarcasm isn't an indication of well-being," Midas argued. "She could sarcasm in her sleep."

"The balance of power has shifted," Ambrose said, his voice clear as a frakking bell. "She is fine."

That snapped my eyes open, and I focused on the blur in front of me. "Midas?"

"I feel like I ate too much barbeque at a pack cookout." He traced the curve of my cheek with his fingertip. "Except instead of stretching my stomach tight, I'm stuffed all over."

"Same." I gripped his wrist. "But are you okay?"

"The tether is severed." He winced, as if even that light touch hurt. "For that, I can be okay."

"Faegate," I corrected him for the joy of watching him fight off a smile. "Like Stargate but fae-er."

"A faegate?" A single huff escaped him, but he locked it down fast. "I see."

"You need to ground the energy." Remy lifted my hand, and it vibrated in hers. "You're all jittery."

Unlike Ambrose, I didn't digest power. It wasn't food to keep me going. It was fuel for performing magic. I had no immediate need for it, no particular use for it, and Midas was in worse shape. He had no outlet, no release valve to ease the pressure. His only magic expenditure was his natural talent of shapeshifting.

"Any idea how to do that?" I sat upright and took Midas's hand, which shook even harder. "Quickly?"

Forehead pinched, she frowned at me. "How do you usually burn off the excess he pumps into you?"

"I almost die," I confessed, cheeks growing warm. "Then he heals me."

"Or she jumps on bombs," Midas added dryly, "and he shields her from her poor life choices."

The urge to thump him on the end of his nose surfaced, but I exercised restraint as a mature adult and let the insult pass unchallenged. And if I was mentally plotting revenge later, then we all needed our hobbies, didn't we?

"You could fling yourself down the stairs." Remy walked to the edge of this level. "That would do it."

"We can't see the bottom." A growl rose in Midas. "It might kill her."

"Hey," she complained. "I didn't say she ought to do it, I just said that would do it."

A light dawned in Midas's eyes, and he smoldered at me. "Would any physical exertion work?"

A smidge breathless, I leaned in. "What did you have in mind?"

"Ugh." Remy hid behind her hands. "Please don't emotionally scar me."

"We turn the spiral into our very own Stairmaster." He bounced on his toes, ready to run. "It might take a while to burn off the magic, but we have to empty our tanks for the next tether—I mean, faegate—right?"

"That's less fun than what I had in mind, but it might work." I located my shadow. "Ambrose?"

"I have not done cardio for cardio's sake," he mused. "This might prove entertaining."

Exercise was not my idea of entertainment, but plenty of folks thought otherwise. "Do you think it will work?"

"Perhaps." A dark curl in his featureless face indicated a smile. "I suppose we are about to find out."

"Next question." I pursed my lips at Midas. "Do I want to save the city enough to work up a sweat?"

"Just pretend there's a bomb." He grinned at me, already backing toward the stairs. "Then race toward it like you're going to fling yourself on top of it."

"I'm going to fling you," I mumbled, the tips of my ears burning, "right down the stairs."

"I'll just count reps or whatever." Remy inched away from us. "That's a thing, right? Reps?"

"Not in cardio, no." I stepped onto the staircase and glared up the way we had come. "Just catch us if we fall."

"Sure thing." She flickered into three Remys who linked arms and squished together onto the same step. "One net, coming up."

"Ugh." I began to climb, Ambrose beside me, Midas behind me. "Here goes nothing."

Leading the pack, I jogged up two more flights then reversed to let Midas lead us down four more.

Rinse and repeat for an eternity.

"Popcorn."

Wiping the sweat out of my eyes with the hem of my shirt, I paused for a breather and braced my palms on my upper thighs. "Say what now?"

Remy sniffed the air, and her eyelids fluttered with pleasure. "Don't you smell it?"

"All I smell is myself." I tried not to breathe too deeply, but I was winded. "And black magic." I was sucking in so much air, I couldn't avoid gulping down the stench. "Not sure which is worse at this point."

"I smell it too."

"Rude." I twisted to glare over my shoulder at Midas. "How are you not sweaty?"

Laughing, he smiled at me. "When was the last time you went for a run?"

Before this latest coven flare-up, I hit the Active Oval each night, as he well knew. But this was next level. Had I hit the track every night for the last month, I couldn't have kept up with a frakking gwyllgi prince.

"Don't change the subject," I huffed. "I get plenty of exercise."

"Yes." His palm curved around my hip. "You do."

Gagging noises rose from below, Remy reminding us we weren't alone. As if we were ever really alone with Ambrose around. And…yeah. I wasn't going to think too hard about that one. Not when you considered Midas was right about the type of exercise I had been getting lately.

"I feel mostly normal." I checked with Ambrose. "How about you?"

"I find that holding this form burns through my stores nicely, as does conversing aloud with you."

"Without the running?" I clarified. "Just standing there talking would have worked?"

"Yes."

Straightening, I glared at him. "And you didn't tell us this why?"

"You were performing an experiment," he reasoned, his wispy smile sharper. "I didn't want to interrupt."

"Pro tip," I offered. "The next time you see a way to get me out of cardio, take it."

Ambrose angled his head toward Midas, clearly more clued in than I wanted him to be.

"Not that kind of cardio." A fire engulfed my cheeks. "That kind is fine."

Midas's lips twitched. "Just fine?"

"Better than fine." The burning spread down my neck. "Goddess." I wiped my face with the hem of my shirt for the excuse to hide. "Ambrose, forget I said anything." I glared at Midas. "You, I will deal with later."

"Even that sounds kinky," Remy complained. "You two couldn't have kept it in your pants like two more weeks? Life was so much easier when you two were all sexual tension but no action."

"No," Midas and I said together and then laughed and then stopped when Ambrose joined us.

Frak, that was creepy. I had to talk to Linus about how to put Ambrose in timeout when Midas and I exercised in the future. He was no Boy Scout, and taking his word he wasn't watching or listening in was stretching my faith in him.

Even a dead guy was still a guy.

And I was the vehicle through which he navigated life. I was fine with that. I had made my choice. But I wanted our shared ride to have a steering wheel and brake pedal so I could park him when I wanted alone time with my mate.

"Shall we?" Ambrose took the steps down to Remy with a bounce in his gait. "Popcorn, you said?"

"Can you not smell it?" Another thought occurred to me. "Can you smell anything?"

"Myriad flavors of magic."

"Flavor is taste, not scent."

"The two senses are intertwined for the living. What I lack in one area, the other provides."

"Hmm." I followed him onto the level with the door. "So, why the chocolate?"

It wasn't magic, so it didn't have a flavor. Or…crap. That wasn't quite right, was it?

"The spells used to keep the chocolate from melting." I answered my own question. "You like those."

He was a snob, and his addiction to high-end magically crafted chocolates, like the ones Choco-Loco sold, cost me a fortune.

"There are others, more subtle ones, not listed on the menu. All are benign, most enhance flavor."

That made sense, but it did make me wonder where they hid the fine print on how liberally magic was applied to their treats. Sure, most folks were buying for themselves, their sweethearts, or as gifts, but if I was buying treats for a magic-eating boogeyman, then surely someone else…

Okay.

That was unlikely.

But they should still give me the option of skimming the fine print by posting it where I could easily ignore it.

"You eat other food," I pressed. "You beg for leftovers all the time."

Which made him sound like a dog.

Oops.

"There are limits on what I can give for free," he said after a moment's consideration. "I am not unlike the fae in that manner, in that a balance must be struck. That is part of our bargain. Any exchange between us must be equitable or mutually beneficial."

His murder spree hadn't been mutually beneficial, not by a long shot, but the use of his power in exchange for the use of my body was equitable. Once behind the wheel, he had free will. And total control of me. I couldn't stop him from doing whatever he chose while balancing the scales between us.

The takeaway here, for me, was I needed to pay him in chocolate for absolutely everything to keep our slate clean.

"And," he confessed, "you tend to eat food that has passed through many hands."

Wrinkling my nose, I reconsidered my food truck addiction. "You make it sound so appetizing."

"Bits of the cooks' and servers' magic flavor the meals, a seasoning of sorts, and I can appreciate those subtle hints."

That made sense as to why he preferred certain leftovers to others. Plenty of humans worked in the food service industry, and he wouldn't gain nourishment from them.

We stopped before the second gateway, and Ambrose began to prowl around it, doing his thing.

As he did, a blur of white streaked past, and its taloned fingers raked the length of his spine.

Frak.

That was not good.

The spirits couldn't hurt the living, but…Ambrose was dead. He had been a shade, albeit a powerful one, when I struck my bargain with him. It hadn't occurred to me that he might be in danger from the souls. I had taken Vasco's sweeping statement about my immunity as encompassing Ambrose too.

A vicious growl poured out of him as he spun toward the spirit and took one step toward it. "No."

Feathers quivered in its hair, and a possumlike tail, thick and meaty, flexed and curled as it watched him.

"I am a devourer," he said when it continued defying him. "You are but a morsel for me to snap between my teeth, and when I swallow, you will be no more."

Hissing and spitting, it backed off a safe distance, but it didn't leave.

Ambrose inclined his head toward the spirit. "I will not harm you if you give me no cause."

One or two others joined it, but none of them ventured closer, and none of them dared strike again.

We must be alone in the archive. Without the coven's lullaby, souls were rousing from their slumber.

"You could snack your way through this place," I realized. "Talk about all-you-can-eat. This is a buffet."

"I could, yes, but I won't." Ambrose observed the gathering, unable to hide the predatory gleam in his eyes. "These beings have suffered enough without me inflicting myself upon them."

That tread dangerously close to him expressing remorse, and I wasn't willing to touch it with a ten-foot pole. I couldn't afford to be sucked in—or suckered in—if that was his game.

This much exposure to an Ambrose capable of verbal and emotional manipulation couldn't be good for me. I couldn't walk through any of the doors he was leaving open. Not yet. Not when I couldn't trust his word fully. Not when my friends, and my city, were on the line.

Ignoring his hostile audience, Ambrose returned his attention to the gateway.

A faint vibration in my pocket did not make me squeak or jump back.

"What's wrong?" Midas jerked toward me, hands lifting in a defensive pose. "Hadley?"

"I got a text." I laughed, surprised. "It must be the proximity to the gateway."

"You were supposed to turn off your phone," Remy reminded me. "I'm amazed it's not fried."

"I did turn it off." I thumbed the screen. "Or maybe I put it on silent out of habit."

Phones these days never got shut down, unless they ran out of juice, but I ought to have checked mine.

Rolling her eyes, Remy gave me a bland stare devoid of surprise. "Any news from topside?"

Bishop had flooded my inbox while I was incommunicado, and I swallowed hard as I read them, wishing I could put his mind at ease.

>>The hearts are gone.

>>Remy took the hearts.

>>Abort the mission.

>>Abort.

Then, as if he had given up hope of stopping me, he slid into update mode.

>>I texted Midas to inform him of the situation.

>>Damn fool won't text me back.

>>You're probably together by now.

The next to last one crocheted my gut into a matched set of potholders.

>>A coven emissary demanded we hand over Liz. We refused. Now it's their move.

The final entry frogged the potholders then tried to go bigger, like maybe a blanket.

>>The Faraday is under attack.

>>I don't know how long we can hold them off.

>>If I don't get another chance to say it…

>>…you're the best friend I've ever had, kid.

I shook my phone, but no more texts fell out of it.

>Hold on, Bish. We're coming. Just hang in there a little longer, okay?

Heart clogging my throat, I forced my thumbs to type out the rest before I lost my nerve.

>You're the best friend I've ever had too.

The girl I had been thought she would remain best friends with Grier for life, but Grier hadn't known Amelie half as well as she thought. That friendship shaped their formative years, but it had been superficial in so many ways.

Bishop knew me. Good, bad, ugly. He had seen it all. Bit by bit, he was revealing his dark side too. That required an investment of trust that would bankrupt most friendships, but we had paid the dues. I wasn't going to lose him. Not to the coven. Not to anything, if I could help it. And definitely not tonight.

Powering down my phone, hoping the magic exposure hadn't fried it, I put it away.

"The coven has launched their assault on the Faraday."

Midas wrapped his palm around the back of my neck. "The enforcers will keep them safe."

"For how long?" I leaned into his hold but then withdrew. "That's what worries me."

"The second I sign a lease, this happens," Remy grumbled. "Moving near you was a mistake."

Another time, I would have laughed and meant it, but I was too heartsick.

"Yeah, well," I tried to joke back, "you did get a newly renovated apartment out of the deal."

"The fact it got a facelift due to a massive explosion should have tipped me off."

Midas gave her a flat look, but he didn't burst into his favorite song, the one with a chorus about how many times I had been blown up, in great detail. For his silence, I was grateful.

"I only have myself to blame," she agreed. "Good thing I haven't unpacked my trash bags yet."

The reminder of her move-in status made me think of Lillian. "Your roomie will be okay?"

"I doubt they'll care about a potted plant," she said, touching the flower in her hair. "Lil will be fine."

Ambrose, who had finished his assessment, turned to us. "Are we ready to begin?"

"Yes." I took Midas by the hand. "Let's do this."

With a nod, Ambrose began the process of breaking down the faegate and devouring its magic. He ought to have swelled like a tick ready to pop, that was how I felt, but thankfully none of us exploded from the magical overload as the second faegate's mirror-center winked out for good.

"You appear to be in pain." Ambrose dusted his hands. "Perhaps I miscalculated."

"Perish the thought." I rubbed my belly, though my whole body ached. "How fast can you digest this?"

"Not fast enough unless I exert myself." A twist of shadowy lips conveyed his annoyance at being wrong, a novel experience for him. "Our proximity to Faerie is accelerating my transformation from shadow to…let us call it a more substantial state of being. As I become more tangible, I can hold less magic."

"We can still Stairmaster it away, though, right?"

"Yes." He cast me a sideways glance. "I will cardio off the excess."

Skin tingling, I resisted the urge to scratch an invisible itch. "How long will that take?"

"Ten flights ought to do it." He dropped his gaze to his feet. "Will you join me?"

As much as I hated to work up a sweat again, the vulnerable note in his voice suckered me in. "Sure."

Remy and Midas took their cues from us and began their descent while Ambrose and I began our ascent.

Perhaps to balance the ledger between us, Ambrose taught me a new trick that left me grinning as we caught up to the others.

"What do you have to smile about?" Remy wrinkled her nose at me. "You're sweating buckets."

"For your information—" I wiped my face then flicked my fingers at her, "—I'm a naturally happy person."

"How are you feeling?" Midas steadied me. "You're…glowing." He frowned. "Are you okay?"

The glow was news to me, but I couldn't decide if it was happiness or a side effect, and I didn't care.

"First," I panted, "tell me how you feel."

"Caffeinated."

A laugh burst out of me, and I patted his cheek. "Good."

Narrowing his eyes on my face, he asked, "What did you do?"

"I syphoned off you." I buffed my nails on my tee. "Ambrose taught me how."

A slight furrow dug in across his forehead, and I could sympathize.

On the one hand, Ambrose was a fountain of necromantic knowledge, and he had the power to back up his lifetimes of study. He was an invaluable asset.

On the other, Ambrose was never as powerful as when I leaned on his magic, his know-how, or his advice. Dependence on him was a deadly liability.

As much as I wanted to believe Ambrose was Team Hadley all the way, he had access to unlimited power on this trip. He could eat, burn off the calories, then gorge again over and over. Until we let our guards down, until we let him feast to the point his will rivaled mine, until I went down hard the one time he didn't catch me.

"How weird is it to be one-third of a thrupple?" Remy glanced between us all. "I have trouble committing to rubber band colors for my braces, but you're with two guys. One of them is in you twenty-four/seven."

"I'm not with two guys." I jerked upright. "I'm just bonded…to two guys…at the same…" I waved my hand. "Those are technicalities. Stop being a perv."

"Hey," she said, setting off again, "I had nothing else to do but watch and wonder."

"I don't experience sexual gratification."

The three of us went stone-still as Ambrose chimed in, and I wished I had gone stone-deaf too.

"I admit," he enlightened us. "I was curious if I would develop an appetite to rival Hadley's once she and her mate became sexually active, but no. The act itself generates a purely physical pleasure. As I am not a physical being, I don't experience it in any meaningful way." He turned toward me, and I swear I caught the arch of a brow. "However, there are certain rites that can be performed while—"

"I'm willing to compromise," I allowed, "but I'm not cooking up sex magic for your dinner."

Frowning hard at him, Remy asked, "Hunger is the only emotion you experience?"

Hunger wasn't an emotion. It was a drive, a primitive need that must be met. Not a feeling.

"I am a devourer." He rolled a shoulder. "Hunger is all I know, all I am."

A worrisome pinch in my chest threatened to make me sympathize with Ambrose.

He was more than that. He was cunning, sly, and ruthless. Hunger was the least of him. But that wasn't exactly a positive endorsement of his personality traits, so I didn't volunteer them. I wasn't sure he had feelings, but he was good at miming them, and I had to wonder if he wouldn't develop them if he stuck with me a few decades.

"That's a good thing." I patted him on the back, and a corresponding tingle hit my shoulder. "You're the bottomless stomach the world needs right now."

Hard to tell, without distinct features, but I swear he smiled, and it defined his lips in an alarming way.

"We have one more tether." I shook off my unease. "Then we hit the big time."

"Faegate," he corrected me, amusement thick in his voice.

Oh, yes. He was definitely buttering me up for something. But what?

The four of us climbed down in a single file with Remy at the head and Ambrose at the tail. He burned more energy by running backward three steps then jogging down to catch up with us. He did that the whole way down to the third faegate, and my muscles twanged with sympathetic aches.

"Licorice," Remy said after a while. "Black licorice."

"I don't know why they make the stuff." I made gagging noises. "It's disgusting."

"It's delicious," she countered. "Your taste buds are just too snooty to appreciate non-chocolate treats."

Midas kept his mouth shut, which made me suspicious about which way he leaned on the topic. Not the snootiness, but the licorice. Gwyllgi stomachs were lined with lead, so he could eat pretty much anything he wanted and get away with it. He would probably even enjoy it.

We trailed the scent to the corresponding level and exited the stairs, making room for Ambrose.

"This faegate is weaker than the others." He made a thoughtful noise. "I must have broken a circuit with the other two." He smoothed a palm over the gateway, its mirror surface reflecting him back at us. "That is good news."

I would take all the good news I could get. "Will it make severing the archive from Faerie easier?"

"Not really, no." He didn't sound worried, just frank. "It will still require a magnitude of effort."

"On the bright side," Remy said, "the Buckhead portal ought to be primed to collapse by then."

"Yes." He planted his feet and bowed his head, his palms flush with the stone. "Brace yourselves."

Midas and I held hands again. There was no magical element to it. Only comfort. Though, if you think about it, there was a magical element in that. If not a definable one.

Power surged into me, stinging down to my fingertips, but the burn wasn't half as bad as the last one.

"There." Ambrose straightened, smoothed a hand down the front of his chest, and faced us. "Done."

"Three down, two to go." I clasped my hands together. "Let's—"

An earsplitting shriek from above raised the fine hairs down my nape and left us all craning our necks.

The mob of spirits we had collected fled into their tombs without so much as a wave goodbye.

Chickens.

"You dare," a high voice shrilled, magnified with power. "You dare defile our most sacred place."

"Your most sacred place is a super creepy murder closet," I yelled back. "It needed airing out."

Another scream, this one laced with fury, rent the air.

"Go." Midas nudged me. "We must reach the final faegate before she catches up to us."

"That works too." I ran after Remy, who had hightailed it down and away from the danger. "She's fast when she wants to be."

A low chant rose to greet us, and the bottom fell out of my stomach.

The spirits hadn't vamoosed because they were afraid of what was heading straight for us. She wouldn't hurt them, after all. They had heard the coven chanting below us and been unable to resist its siren call to rest.

"The next batch." Midas, of course, had already heard them. "We're caught between them."

Hindsight smacked me between the eyes with a revelation that came too late to be of any use.

We might have screwed ourselves over in forcing the coven to exclusively use the Faerie gateway.

The novices hailed from various cities. That was a good thing. Newbies were easier to beat. Anyone stepping through from Faerie? I…had my doubts about how that would go. Those practitioners would be the heavyweights. As would the practitioner stalking us from above.

And, thanks to the time it had taken to work our way down, we had sandwiched ourselves between a hammer and an anvil.

Fun times.

"How are we going to get past the coven recruits to the faegate?"

No one answered my question for a beat. Several beats, if we were talking about my heart.

"I will drain their power," Ambrose decided, "and leave them unconscious."

As the old chestnut goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That plan of attack had worked well for us so far.

"Will it impact your ability to finish the job?" That was my primary concern. "Even your stomach isn't bottomless."

Unless it came to expensive chocolates guaranteed to break the bank. Then it was a void.

"Perhaps," he allowed. "I don't see another way to neutralize the threat."

Ducking into the tombs hadn't worked. The witchborn fae had smelled coven blood on Midas and on Remy. Take that away, and we had nothing. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We were stuck.

As much as it pained me, I had to side with him. "I don't either."

If Ambrose got us through the coven, the next stop was Faerie.

Deep breath.

Another deep breath.

You got this.

Faerie was a state of mind, or something.

"Okay," I decided. "Ambrose, take them down. Everyone else, get ready to run."

Remy snorted at my paper-thin plan. "Do you know how to use a faegate?"

Flip on the power and take a leap of faith was my understanding. "You walk through it?"

"I would pay good money to see you try." She snorted. "You'd smack right into the stone."

"I didn't mean…" I narrowed my eyes on her in time to watch her laugh at me. "Never mind."

All the energy Ambrose absorbed from the coven had to go somewhere. He might as well put it to good use. Powering the gateway sounded perfect to me. It wouldn't burn off all he gained, but it was a start.

As the chanting swelled, I noticed a single voice sweeter than all the rest, rising high above the others.

Fear stabbed me in the heart, an ice pick that wouldn't melt so long as I heard her song.

Natisha was with the coven.

Natisha was in the archive.

With us.

Oh frak.