8. Kiera

The ground passed in a blur below as Rhys and I flew toward Ballsbridge. The sun was high overhead, though obscured by grey cloud cover, as Dublin so often was. We gradually grew closer to the address where we hoped to find the fae crime lord, Kelibon.

From what I could tell, Ballsbridge was one of the richer areas of the city, close to the city centre. As we set down in the general area the assassin had indicated, I looked along the road at a row of homes, each with a small garden. None of them looked palatial where we were, though I had no doubt they were valuable. Perhaps there was more to them than met the eye. If Kelibon was here, surely there would be warding.

I was focusing my magical sight along the busy road, when Rhys grabbed me with a suddenness I didn't expect. He embraced me, so I held him too.

"I don't know what way things are going to go, so I want you to know I love you, Kiera."

I was surprised to hear those words from Rhys – after all, he was normally so cool and calm, but he had his passionate moments too. I held on to his strong arms as I claimed a heated kiss from his lips and laid my head against his shoulder.

"I love you too, Rhys. I'm not sure heaven would understand, but it's about us and what we want... who we want, and I want you."

Rhys held me tightly, as though he didn't know if I'd be stolen away from him at any moment, or him from me. He let me go, and we gazed at each other, before focusing once more on our environment. It was hard to regain my previous train of thought, but I knew what I had to fight for – and that was Rhys, and us.

"You don't have to worry. I'm not going to leave you if I can help it," I told him with complete sincerity.

"It's the ‘if you can help it,' I'm worried about, Kiera."

I drew on my magical senses and looked up the road at the many rich houses in our vicinity. I gasped aloud when I saw the sheer extent of the warding in the area.

"There's a massive amount of warding in the area. It's like your estate in Clonsilla, only more… so much more. I think we're in the right place."

"Are you able to determine if it's fae magic?" Rhys asked.

"I don't think so, but it could well be fae. You don't see it?" I was surprised when he shook his head.

"No, nothing," Rhys replied with obvious concern.

"It's probably because I have an active connection to the divine. If I can see well-disguised fae magic, it might be another reason Kelibon wouldn't want me around. We should get off the footpath before we're noticed."

"He could be in any of these houses," Rhys said, as he walked with me toward a cluster of shops up the street.

There was a small convenience store and a dry cleaners, with a car park beside them.

"He's probably a customer there, given that they're so close to his home."

That was when I noticed a telltale tingling and a feeling of familiarity.

"I don't think we'll need to ask them. I can sense my charge nearby," I told Rhys.

"Are you telling me you could've honed in on your charge all along?" Rhys asked with a slight tone of annoyance.

"No, I was given his home address, which isn't in this part of Dublin. I'm able to sense him within a small area though and he's close – I mean, really close."

A dark-haired, clean-cut man in his thirties walked out through the front doors of the convenience store, quickly passing us. He didn't seem to recognise me, and was merely glancing ahead, relaxed as he went about his day.

I leaned in close to Rhys. "That's him – his name is Zachary Lynch. I wasn't going to tell you who he was. Please don't harm him, as he must choose his own fate."

"I'm not going to harm him… unless he attacks me, in which case I'll kill him. But I suggest we follow him for now," Rhys replied.

He led us straight to a house that was more than likely Kelibon's lair. It was only half a dozen doors down, and as thoroughly marked with glowing wards as the other houses in the immediate area. I wondered if they were owned by other magic users in the vicinity, they'd merely been warded or if Kelibon might own all of these properties, himself.

"You never told me how you fell," I said, glancing over at Rhys as we followed discreetly from a distance.

"Fell from grace? It was more of a choice than you might think," he replied.

"Why would anyone choose that?" I asked him, as we took cover behind some trees.

"You think I wouldn't choose my own ‘sins,' such as they were? I knew what was going to happen eventually. The Archangel Gabriel gave me a choice – let a serial killer get away, knowing he would kill a number of innocent people, or put him out of his misery. I chose to do the latter. That wasn't when I fell, but it became a pattern over time.

"I fell from grace but I didn't fall out with heaven, exactly. I simply did the dirty work they weren't willing to do, and now some of them consider me a twisted being. I did this for others. because as far as I'm concerned, it was the right thing to do. And that's why I'm going to kill Kelibon."

My brow furrowed at Rhys's explanation. It sounded so reasonable when he put it like that. I knew what I'd been told by heaven – that it wasn't my place to take a life, as doing so was an act of evil. Rhys's explanation made a lot of sense, but seemed more human than angelic to me. Perhaps that was what he was now, more than anything else, as he'd fallen from grace and lost his connection to divinity. It didn't mean he was wrong, however. If anything, it seemed brave and almost sacrificial. A sacred act, even though he'd acted with violence.

The house stood before us in a Georgian style. It had two storeys plus what looked like a basement. It was painted a dark olive green with white accents around the window frames and roof. Several wide stone steps led up to the front door, which Zachary strolled through. He'd already closed the door behind him before we could get close.

"What can you tell me about the wards you see around the house?" Rhys asked. "We need to know if they're going to stop us getting through or alert Kelibon to our presence."

"They're glowing with a bright golden light," I said. "They're actually rather beautiful. I recognise standard protective wards, like the type that would keep burglars out, and also another – I think it might prevent the use of certain types of magic in the house. I'll need to take a closer look."

"I'm not sure we're going to get much closer without being seen, Kiera. If we can't use our magic in there though, we need to know about it."

"If I'm more powerful than the magical caster, then I should be able to overwhelm the ward's magic, Rhys. No fae is more powerful than God."

As I turned to move, Rhys grabbed my arm.

"Maybe so, but if you get stuck in there and the magic blocks me from entering, I won't be able to help you. We go in together. It wouldn't surprise me if Kelibon has technology around here like CCTV. I doubt he's only relying on magic."

"Do you think we should wait for tonight?" I asked.

"We're unlikely to be noticed unless he has watchers around or happens to look out the window at the wrong moment. Can you magically-disguise both of us? I think your attempt might be more powerful than my own."

"I can do that, but we'll have to stay close together," I explained.

"How close?" Rhys asked.

"Sixty feet, roughly."

So that was what we did. A quick enchantment, and the chances of us being noticed were diminished. We checked for cameras as we strode up to the house's side gate. Seeing none, nor anyone out the back, Rhys opened the gate and we made our way into Kelibon's back garden.

"Oh, look at that. Its appearance is false from out the front," Rhys commented as the view changed.

What had seemed an ordinary backyard expanded before our eyes to include a massive garden ringed by pine trees, an elaborate outdoor seating area, and a pond beside it where koi darted through the water. Thankfully, Rhys and I appeared to be alone here.

Turning to the house, it had gained an extra level, and a set of cherrywood double doors sat open at the back of the house, allowing the breeze to blow through. I glanced inside but the sitting room appeared to be empty. It would have been so easy to walk in through those doors, but Rhys stopped me and shook his head.

He pulled me aside by the house. "Sometimes the most obvious way in isn't the best one, especially when you're dealing with tricky folk like the fae."

He stretched his wings, and flew up to a window on the previously-hidden upper level of the house. It sat slightly ajar, but I could see little more until I joined him there. The room held a large ballroom with a polished wooden floor, far larger than it seemed it should be from the outside.

"He has his house dipping into the faerie world. I thought he was an exile?" I asked.

It wasn't the use of glamour magic, which likely disguised the reality of his home, that made me think that. It was its expanded size within. That suggested the house delved into another dimension, and I could only think of one that Kelibon would be able to access.

"That's what I heard," Rhys replied, his brow furrowing. "It comes from a reputable source but it's possible Kelibon could've leaked inaccurate information."

If Kelibon wasn't truly exiled and he was working with one of the fae courts, that would be a momentous problem.

"It's possible that he harnessed the power of the fae to create this… effect. It doesn't change what we've come here to do, Kiera. It makes it all the more vital we succeed."

"This isn't just an enchantment though, Rhys. It's dimensional in nature. This window frame is a boundary between the mortal world and the faerie world." I breathed a soft sigh. "I understand, though. We do need to succeed."

I studied the paradox of a house half in the mortal world and half beyond it, and shook my head. "I believe Kelibon is using glamour magic outside the house to disguise it. If we break Kelibon's magic here, the humans in this city will be able to see what's really here."

"Unless you can hide what you need to," Rhys replied.

I nodded. "Unless I can do that."