Chapter 42

CHAPTER 42

I sit on a bench in the truck's open-air cargo area with a few other soldiers and Viviane. Another truck follows behind us, and a light dusting of snow falls, stinging my cheeks.

Viviane sighs. She looks exhausted. "When this is over, Nia, I want a chance to get back to Brocéliande. I miss the red moon. And the korriberry tarts the way my mum used to make them."

"When did you leave?"

"It was just after the famine started. My mum knew things were going to get bad for a demi-Fey like me, so we moved to England. But I miss Brocéliande. It's my home. We had a little cottage in the Melian Forest, and my specialty was picking mushrooms to cook with. I could identify all of them. When I lived in London, I used to dream every night that I was back there in the rich forest with red moonlight."

I smile at her. "We'll find a way to get you back."

She frowns, surveying the landscape. "We should be near the portal now, if your prediction is right."

"Let me focus." I take a deep breath, trying to tune in for the feel of the portal magic. The noise and vibrations of the engine aren't making it easy to focus, but the soldiers are keeping quiet.

I glance around at the rugged, wild landscape—rolling snow-dusted hills, the frosted heather and grasses that sparkle under the winter sun. From this point, we can see all the way to Glasgow, though it's partially shrouded in mist. I inhale the scent of pines, moss, and damp earth, trying to clear my thoughts.

But I feel my powers fizzling within me. Without sleep, I can't seem to summon the power I need to even find the portal, let alone close it.

As the minutes tick by, I can feel Viviane's nerves fraying. Finally, she says, "Are you sure it's somewhere here?"

"I'm pretty sure," I say.

Which is close enough to the truth. I think there's about a fifty percent chance that it's around here.

But the longer this goes on, the more I start to doubt myself. What if I got it all wrong? What if I only saw part of the plan—or what if in the past two days, the plan changed?

Then something twinges between my ribs.

"Wait!" I whisper, touching my chest. Then, louder. "Wait! Stop the truck!"

Viviane bangs her fist on the tiny, smudged window between us and the cab. "Stop the truck!"

Pearson is sitting in the front with the driver. I see him tell the driver something, and the truck slows and stops. I shut my eyes so I don't see the looks of the people around me. So I don't feel them watching me. When the truck is silent, I can concentrate.

Yes . I can sense it, that familiar, vibrating tug—just like the portal we went through yesterday. It twines around my ribs, beckoning me closer. I point with my finger, my eyes still shut. "The portal is that way."

"How far?" Viviane asks.

"I don't know. About two hundred meters. Maybe three hundred."

She nods. "That's good enough. Let's triangulate to be sure."

I nod. If I can point to the direction from a different position, we'll be able to pinpoint the exact location of the portal.

Viviane checks a compass, then her map. She opens the window between us and the cab and tells Pearson and the driver to take us a few hundred meters down the road. As soon as the truck starts, I lose my sense of the portal. I wait anxiously as we drive, praying that I haven't been imagining things.

The truck stops again, the engine going silent. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, and to my relief, I feel it again, sliding between my ribs, luring me closer. "That way."

I open my eyes and point in the direction I feel the portal's energy coming from.

Viviane checks her compass again. Then she looks out over the landscape, verifying our location on the map. She purses her lips as she triangulates the two vectors, then circles a point on the map. "Here."

I frown at it. The location tells me nothing. Is it really the place I saw in Talan's dark, twisted mind?

Viviane shoves the map in Pearson's face and points to the location I identified.

My skull is rattling with something like panic as they argue about how best to get there, and my fingers curl into fists. The pressure of the oncoming invasion is bearing down on me, making it hard to breathe. We veer off the road, nearly crashing into a pine tree. The truck shudders through a snowy field, and the second truck follows.

A few minutes, the truck stalls. The engine revs, the wheels screeching. We're mired in the muddy snow.

"Close enough," Viviane says. "Let's go."

I follow her off the truck, and the rest of the soldiers join us. The second truck rolls up, and more soldiers hop off onto the hillside. There are nearly thirty of us, I think, most of them armed with the guns the military use against Fey—old-fashioned rifles that shoot iron bullets. Like me, Viviane is armed with a crossbow, but she also wears her sword slung around her waist.

Magic tingles over my body. "This way."

The power of the portal pulls at me, luring me closer. Now I'm certain we're on the right track.

We march down into a misty valley, then up another hill. With breath puffing from our mouths like clouds, we climb the next hill, trying not to slip on the tall, snowy grass or trip on the craggy rocks that jut from the hillside. I'm out of breath, wheezing. I take a few puffs from my inhaler to open up my lungs, to stop the coughing.

"It should…be…right…beyond the top…of the…hill."

Viviane and Pearson suddenly drop to the ground, lying hidden in the tall grass. Pearson hurriedly motions for the rest of us to do the same. I flatten and crawl closer to Viviane.

"You were right, Nia," Viviane says grimly, peering over the top of the hill. "The portal is definitely here."

From the top of the rocky hill, I look down, my stomach sinking.

A portal has opened—a rip in the landscape. And a legion of Fey soldiers has already begun to step through, their weapons gleaming.