Grave Visions Page 24

  Also, the tree wasn’t that far off the path, and in my experience, the flowers had a hypnotic quality. All Nekros needed was for hikers to start disappearing after stumbling into Faerie and becoming changelings. Besides, because of the agreements made after the Magical Awakening, it was illegal for a gate to be unguarded and unrestricted for that very reason. Someone official needed to know about this tree, and hey, I happened to be in the forest with the lead FIB agent—you didn’t get much more official than that when it came to fae matters.

  I sheathed my dagger and dug my phone out of my pocket. It, of course, had no signal.

  Damn.

  I snapped a couple of pictures with my phone and then studied the clearing around me, trying to pick out landmarks. I could probably follow the flow of magic back to the tree, but just in case, I wanted some markers rooted in mortal reality. If there was one thing almost all folklore agreed on, it was that finding a door to Faerie once didn’t indicate you’d ever be able to find it again. Granted, those stories were about humans interacting with Faerie, but still, better safe than sorry.

  I made my way back to the pond’s edge, noting anything I thought could help guide me back to the sapling. I was so busy searching for landmarks and checking the phone for signal that the splash of water directly behind me didn’t register.

  At least, not until a pair of green-tinted arms wrapped around my shoulders, a hand clamped over my mouth, and I was dragged backward, into the befouled water.

  • • •

  I screamed, but the water was already rushing up all around me and the sound emerged trapped in bubbles. The afternoon sun vanished behind a veil of algae. My eyes stung from the dirty water, but I didn’t dare squeeze them closed.

  And the arms continued dragging me down and down, the light of the surface winking away.

  The pond couldn’t possibly be this deep, not this close to the bank.

  But it was. Somehow.

  Thrashing, I struggled to retrieve my dagger from my boot. A slimy strand of black seaweed wrapped around my wrist, pulling it away from my body. Another strand wrapped around my other wrist, then my upper arms, my ankles, my waist, until I was immobilized. Only then did the arms encircling my shoulders release me.

  In the dark water, I could only just make out the shape of the figure as she floated up, over my head and then spun so that her upside-down face was inches from mine. Jenny smiled, flashing those pointy green teeth of her namesake.

  “Oh my,” she said, tutting under her breath. Despite the laws of acoustics in water, I heard her words clearly. She didn’t even make bubbles as she spoke. “You’re old enough to know better than to play around my bog.”

  I scowled and pulled at the restraints holding me.

  “Why so quiet?” She laughed. “A little smarter than you look, then. But conserving your air won’t help. And that scream when you first went under is going to cost you.”

  She was right. My chest burned, my lungs aching with the need to draw breath. How long had I been underwater already? A minute? A minute and a half?

  Jenny twisted upright and floated down until we were face-to-face again. Her dark hair flowed around her, blending into the murky depths of the water as she gave me an appraising once-over. I kept struggling.

  “He wants you alive,” she said, her smile fading. “I don’t see why. But how much more air do you have? Maybe you accidentally drown while I subdue you.” She pressed a long-fingered hand over her chest. “There was just nothing poor Jenny could do.” She laughed again.

  Crap. I had to do something. Fast.

  I dropped my shields, looking around. There were dead things aplenty on the bottom of the pond—I could feel their picked-over bones—but thankfully none were human. Unfortunately, deer and hog shades weren’t going to do a lot to prevent me from drowning. I glanced at the seaweed holding me, hoping against hope it was simply a glamour I could disbelieve away.

  It wasn’t.

  The seaweed was not only real, but alive, so I couldn’t drag it over to the land of the dead and rot it away. Damn. A bubble of exhausted air slipped from between my lips. I needed oxygen, and soon.

  Jenny watched me, giggling with delight as I struggled in vain.

  I considered trying to pull raw Aetheric energy and shape it into something useful. A fireball to burn away the seaweed? Underwater—would that even work? Or maybe a pocket of clean air around me. But even if I knew how to form those kinds of spells, which I didn’t, whatever or wherever this pond was, it didn’t exist completely in the mortal realm because I could see only the thinnest strands of Aetheric energy.

  More expended air escaped my now-tingling lips.

  No, I wouldn’t die like this. I wouldn’t.

  But I was out of time. My body took an involuntary breath of water.

  The water felt heavy and thick as it rushed into my lungs. Pain spread across my chest and my thrashing turned from struggles to escape into spasms.

  Jenny clapped her hands. “Oh, this is my favorite part.”

  My body heaved, trying to expel the water, but there was nothing but more water to take its place. The pain in my chest was unbearable, but my arms felt numb, heavy. My legs too.

  I heard a splash from somewhere in the distance, and a loud, echoing boom. Then there was only darkness.

  Chapter 24

  The darkness parted to more pain. I coughed up water. Then blessed, cool air rushed into my lungs.

  I had less than a moment to savor the sensation before a spasm hit my body and I heaved, hacking up more water. Tears filled my eyes, and I realized I hadn’t opened them yet. I coughed and sputtered a moment more before forcing my eyelids to peel back.

  Falin knelt over me, one hand still in the center of my chest, and desperation written across his face. I tried to tell him I was all right, but I couldn’t stop coughing. My throat was raw, my chest on fire, but my lungs kept attempting to expel every last drop of pond muck.

  Falin helped roll me to my side, one of his hands keeping my head tilted back so my airway remained open, the other rubbing my back. I coughed some more, my whole body shaking. Sucking in a deep breath, I focused on holding it a heartbeat before letting it explode back out of my lungs. Then two heartbeats.

  After what felt like an eternity, I caught enough of my breath to speak.

  “Jenny?” The name emerged as a croak, the effort making my aching throat burn worse.

  “I shot her, but she got away,” Falin said and I realized the dark object lying in the muck inches from my nose was the butt of Falin’s gun.

  And speaking of muck, I was ready to be out of it.

  “Help me up,” I said, struggling to sit.

  Falin slid his hands under my armpits and pulled me to my feet, but he didn’t stop there. Once I was standing, his arms slid around me and he tugged me against his chest in a tight embrace. I was still shaking, my breath trembling out in wheezing gusts. Add to that the fact that my dip in the pond had chilled me, the October breeze sliding through my wet clothes, and I was more than happy to lean against Falin’s warm chest, at least for a moment. I let my exhausted body enjoy the comfort of his strong arms, and maybe, just for a heartbeat, reminisced about the night we’d shared months ago, before everything got so complicated.

  But it was complicated, and I couldn’t let myself forget that Falin was a danger to more than just my emotions.

  Lifting my arms, I pushed against his chest. He didn’t release me. His arms protectively encircled me in an embrace gentle but unbreakable. I craned my head back, torquing my shoulders. Only then did I catch sight of the figure behind him.

  If the figure had been Jenny Greenteeth or Tommy Rawhead with a weapon, we would have both been dead. Or maybe not. Maybe if the figure existed on the same plane of existence as Falin, the knight would have heard him and would have been armed and in a defensive pos
ition in a matter of heartbeats. But this figure wasn’t someone Falin could sense, let alone fight.

  Because behind Falin, stood Death.

  The soul collector looked pale under his tan, and his hazel eyes, cast downward, were haunted. He saw me looking at him, and his shoulders sagged as he shook his head. He looked . . . defeated.

  Of course, his girlfriend was currently in the arms of another man.

  Damn it.

  I shoved against Falin hard enough that when he released me, I stumbled back two steps. He reached out to steady me, but I stepped around his arms, forcing my shaky legs to take me toward Death.

  “I couldn’t save you,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “You’d lost consciousness before I reached you, so I couldn’t touch the plants binding you. He had to cut you free.” He jerked his head toward Falin without opening his eyes. “I didn’t even have breath to offer you to bring you back. All I could have done was take your soul or leave it in your dying body.”

  I reached for his shoulder but he ducked away from my touch.

  “I’m fine,” I said. Shaken, definitely. Scared, yeah. But aside from the pain in my throat and chest, I really was fine.

  Death caught my hand before it dropped. “Not because of me.” He pressed a light kiss against my fingertips.

  Then he vanished.

  “Who is here?” Falin asked, stepping up behind me.

  It said something about how well he knew me that he asked which invisible entity I was talking to instead of assuming I was suffering from shock or hallucinating. Yeah, maybe I talked to people on different planes of existence a little too often.

  “No one,” I said, still staring at the spot where Death had been. Then I forced myself to turn away. “No one else is here.” And there were other things I needed to worry about right now than the emotional landfill that acted as my love life.

  Like the amaranthine tree. And the fact Jenny was still out there.

  • • •

  “We could cut it down,” I said, staring at the sapling. The trunk was no thicker than my thumb, and my dagger was enchanted to slice through nearly any material. It would be easy.

  Falin frowned at me. “It’s considered taboo to harm amaranthine trees. They are sacred to Faerie.”

  “So what happens to it then? Will the courts build another bar around it, like the Eternal Bloom?” The tree was deep inside a federal nature preserve—I doubted the government would like it if the fae announced they were commandeering this land. “Any clue what it’s doing here anyway?”

  Falin appraised the sapling. “There are many different kinds of doors to Faerie, but amaranthine trees are always permanent doors and are epicenters for belief magic to filter in from the mortal realm. A new tree hasn’t appeared naturally in recent memory, and from what I’ve heard, all attempts to propagate one has failed.”

  We both stared at the tree. Clearly someone had succeeded. We were far too close to the tree in the Eternal Bloom for this one to be natural.

  “Is there any way to tell where it leads?”

  Falin walked around the tree. I’d considered trying that when I first saw it, but okay, I admit it, I chickened out. Now I held my breath as he rounded the back of the sapling. I waited for him to disappear into Faerie, but nothing happened. He returned to the spot where he’d started and shook his head. “Maybe whatever means was used to create it couldn’t duplicate its doorway properties.”

  “Or maybe it just needs to mature more,” I said, because while it might not be a gate we could travel through yet, the tree was definitely syphoning belief magic. I hadn’t been able to identify the trail of magic I’d followed to the tree, but now that I knew what I was looking at, it made sense. The Bloom drew in so much magic in a continual stream that it built up around the building in a gradual way; a gradient change that was likely responsible for the mixed realities in the VIP room. This young tree had such a thin stream of magic that it was almost more noticeable because of the thin but concentrated strand I’d all but tripped over.

  “You couldn’t compel Jenny Greenteeth to respond when you tried to summon her. You said any denizens or independents of winter should have no choice but to respond to the court’s knight, unless they were noble or sworn to a noble. I assumed that meant the latter since she didn’t appear when you called her, and she’s in winter’s territory without signs of fading. But with the tree so close to where she made her home . . .” I trailed of, organizing my thoughts. “Could she be tied to another court entirely? Here to guard the tree as a new court establishes a foothold? The tree providing her tie back to her own court and supplying the magic needed to sustain her?”

  “Maybe, but it’s doubtful. With no gate, all the magic the tree is absorbing is likely fueling its own growth.” Falin knelt beside the tree and brushed his thumb over its smooth bark. “Most likely she is tied to a winter noble, possibly one who formed some manner of alliance with another court.” Falin frowned down at the sapling. “But this tree’s existence makes no sense. Faerie naturally balances the territories when the doors shift. Different seasons wax and wane in power as the year passes, but adding another door would only encourage Faerie to split territory differently the next time the doors moved. The seasons always remain relatively balanced.”

  “Should the queen have noticed this sapling leaching from her power base here in Nekros?” I asked.

  “She’s been rather distracted,” Falin said.

  It was true. And maybe that was the point. I’d been trying to figure out what the alchemist would gain by kidnapping and draining fae, leaving the ghastly display he had with Icelynne’s bones, and distributing Glitter to mortals where it caused horrific, high-profile deaths. Maybe this tree explained all those actions. Maybe they were all distractions.

  I thought back to what the nightmare kingling had said when we’d met in my dream. That realms of the imagination were the purview of the light fae. “What if it wasn’t a season? What if it was the light court?” Or shadow? They are certainly dwindling in power and could use a way to gather more. But Dugan had sworn the bogeymen weren’t working for his court. Could he simply not know?

  “Light and shadow don’t have doors.”

  “I know. But amaranthine trees don’t just appear, either. And like you said, it doesn’t make sense for another season to try so hard to establish an extra door—they could lose it at any time when Faerie next rearranges itself.”

  Falin gave a one-shouldered half shrug that didn’t actually communicate anything. And that was likely the point. After a few long moments, he said, “Assuming what you’re suggesting is possible, light is the least likely to be orchestrating this invasive takeover. They are the only court that has stood by the queen in her recent . . . troubles . . . and not sent a challenger to duel for her throne. The Queen of Light is the Winter Queen’s sister.”

  My mouth formed a silent O as I let that sink in. The ruling class of Faerie were not a very diverse bunch. Of course, when you lived as long as the fae, alliances through marriages and births were bound to tie a small population together.

  I hugged my arms over my chest, trying to quell the shiver threatening to tremble through me. Pond-soaked clothing was certainly not the warmest outfit. Falin glanced up, his gaze lingering over the gooseflesh visible on my arms. Then he stood and without a word, walked to the edge of the clearing. Reaching up, he grabbed a huge hunk of Spanish moss that dangled from one of the bottom branches of a tree.

  He shook the twisted gray mat of plant matter and it grew in his hand, the shape and texture changing as he poured glamour into it. By the time he reached my side, he’d transformed the moss into a gray blanket.

  He tossed it over my shoulders, tugging it around me so it covered my soaked clothes and most of my chilled skin. The fabric was heavy, and as velvety and soft as chenille. I tried hard to focus on how it appeared now, and n
ot on the fact that a moment before it had been a tuft of stringy moss, because real or not, it was warm and I didn’t want my planeweaving to break the glamour.

  “Better,” I said, as way of acknowledging the act since I couldn’t thank him.

  Falin only nodded before turning back to the tree. “I think we should dig it up and take it to the queen.”

  “Now? We don’t have any shovels.”

  He patted his pockets and pulled out his phone. A few drops of water dripped from the speaker when he turned it upright. Yeah, he wouldn’t be making any calls with that anytime soon. Maybe not ever.

  I searched for my own phone, but it wasn’t in my pocket. I’d had it in my hand when Jenny had grabbed me. If I was lucky, it was in the muck on the edge of the pond. If I was unlucky—and I typically was—I’d managed to hold on to it and it had been dragged into the pond with me. In which case, I’d never see it again. I needed to start paying for insurance on my phones. This was the third one I’d lost or destroyed this year.

  We clearly weren’t going to be contacting the agents he’d called to come watch the lake. They were likely still on the road and could have stopped to pick up some supplies to help move the sapling, but oh well. I looked down at myself, I was already covered in slime and muck from my trip into the stagnant pond and then subsequent time unconscious in the mud on the bank. How much worse could I get digging up a tree?

  I knelt beside the trunk and pulled my dagger from its sheath. The semicognizant dagger hated being driven into the ground, but despite its protests, it would get the job done. Brushing debris back from the base of the tree, I said, “Let’s do this then.”

  • • •