I let out a relieved breath and looked around.
Jagged rock walls on all sides, nearly uniform in height. We’d come from one prong of a fork in the road. I turned to look at the other prong, along which the scuffle from a moment ago must’ve taken place. No one walked out. Either they’d been going the opposite direction, or they were dead.
The pathway in front of us led away right. No hovels peeked over the walls, and no voices floated our direction.
Plunk.
I gritted my teeth. The leaking roof was starting to get on my freaking nerves.
Have you felt any of these demons? Darius thought-asked.
“What do you mean?” I started forward again, not wanting to curse my good luck.
The level-five demon in Seattle, and the one we called not long ago, seemed to feel your power. And you theirs, correct?
I thought back as we hurried along. “Their power made mine throb—either the fire or the ice, depending on their type of magic. But ever since we got down here, my power has become a beast all its own.”
They should feel your magic.
“At first I thought they couldn’t, but maybe they do. As you’ve seen—safely from the sidelines, I might add—I am constantly noticed. I should invite them to tea so I can ask if it’s my power they are feeling or my mug they are seeing. Or both.” I analyzed the rock walls, which were reducing again. There wasn’t any apparent rhyme or reason for their fluctuating size. “Why did they put in walls, anyway? Why create corridors that essentially lead to the same places? It’s not like these are streets with homes, and the occupants want privacy. They’ve made it so you have to stay on the path. You can’t go over the walls unless you want to cut yourself up. It feels like we’re rats in some science experiment in the Brink. I don’t get the reason for it.”
Being that the creatures in this section of the edges are extremely volatile, maybe privacy is exactly what they’re after. The fewer demons each sees, the fewer problems there will be.
I frowned, because maybe, but there weren’t exactly tons of nooks and crannies on the paths. Hiding wasn’t really a legitimate option. Besides, the paths just dumped out into the open. Privacy en route to the meeting didn’t mean much if you didn’t also have it while conducting business.
The rocks around us fell away. Another step and the imagery around us changed dramatically, blanking out my thoughts. I turned around with wide eyes as Darius pressed up against me. Behind us, the corridors of rough rock walls had disappeared, replaced with a desolate landscape stretching as far as I could see. Gray stone had turned to hard mud or clay, run through with cracks.
I turned back around, gripping Darius’s arm.
Directly in front of us, a single pier led into the smooth water of the river. It stretched out in front of us until it disappeared behind a thick layer of gray fog. No ripples or current disturbed the surface. Desolate beach ran along it, and just like behind us, there wasn’t another person or creature as far as the eye could see.
“Only one dock,” Darius said out loud, clearly wanting to interrupt the unnatural silence.
“Right in front of us.” I patted my gun for comfort. “Was that the only path to get to the river, or would that pier have magically appeared in front of no matter where we’d entered?” I looked around again. “This smells like mind-fuckery to me.”
I walked along the beach, watching the dock as though it would follow. It stayed right where I’d left it. So did the fog, not shifting and rolling like normal fog. The dried mud under my feet didn’t feel as smooth as it looked, nor did it give way like that substance normally would have. In fact, the hardness felt like the stone we’d just left.
I stopped and looked up. The canopy of rock from the edges of the underworld had been replaced by limitless gray sky, the same color as the fog. Seeing it stretch forever, like the beach, like the new canvas of dried desert behind me, gave me vertigo.
Yanking my gaze away, I looked back toward Darius.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
He was gone. The spot he’d been standing in was empty.
I glanced to the side. The dock was lined up with me. It was no longer where I had been.
“Holy tater tits, Batman.” I broke out in a cold sweat, fighting the urge to sprint back in his direction. If I did that, and he was just obscured by fog or an illusion, I’d miss him, and in this place, it was entirely possible I’d never find him again.
Plunk.
I froze. And looked up.
The gray sky was there, same as before, but that had been a drop of water. I was sure of it. Which meant the leaking rock ceiling was up there somewhere.
An illusion. That’s all this was. Trickery of the eye. Magic intended to do what those walls had done: force us on a certain path.
Mental fuckery, like I’d thought before.
I closed my eyes, focusing on my connection with Darius. I could feel his beating heart, pounding rhythmically deep inside me. Strong and sure, it wasn’t at an elevated speed, which meant he wasn’t freaking out like I was.
Could he see me?
Instead of opening my eyes and looking around wildly, like I’d just done to no avail, I looked internally, feeling the natural homing device assured by the bond. It was a beacon that would allow me to find him anywhere. In any world. We would never be lost from each other.
I walked like a blind person, waving my arms in front of me to keep from bumping into anything. With my luck, a pole would randomly appear just so I’d knock my head against it. If there was YouTube in this place, the residents would go to town thumbs-upping that little nugget. It would be right up there with the whole head-kicking debacle.
A slight hum filled my body as I neared what should’ve been Darius’s body. His heartbeat stayed strong and steady. Another few steps and a flare of delight fluttered my heart and flipped my stomach. Being that this was the first time I’d been away from him since the bonding, even just a little bit, I wondered if that would always happen when we reunited. It was nice.
I opened my eyes.
The pier was back in front of me. Darius was not.
“Darius?” I called.
I am here. You should be right beside me. I am reaching for you but not feeling you. I can hear you in my mind.
“Does your heart not react when you freak out? Because you should be freaking out—not that I’m judging.” I was totally judging.
I saw you disappear. This place seems to be an illusion, tricking our minds. It also seems to have some metaphysical power. The change in our proximity has put us on a different plane. Or the same plane but in a different space. Perhaps it’s meant to isolate people before they go over the river.
“You’re talking nonsense. Okay, look, we need to get back in the same acid trip. Do you have any experience doing that?”
Drugs do not affect vampires in that way.
“Dang it. Don’t do drugs, they said. They’ll ruin you, they said. Well, now look.” The dock lurked across from me, taunting me. Ready to move around like a ghost when I wasn’t looking.
Rage sparked again, and this time I let it fill me. Fanned it higher. I didn’t like being punked. If this place wanted to mess with me, I’d mess with it right back.
“Let me know if anything happens on your side.” I set fire to crawl along the dock, feeling things out. Magic radiated from that direction, complex and comforting. It was equal parts fire and ice, blended in a breathtaking way. This magic couldn’t be unraveled by a mere touch. In fact, it needed counter magic—I would have to work in opposition with its structure to tear it apart.
I spent a few more minutes studying what I was feeling, trying to make sense of it. Identify it. Then I pushed my magic out all around me, mixing the two sides as best as I could despite the fact that they wouldn’t peacefully blend.
The world lit up around me. Fire and ice interlaced in the sparkling, complex fabric of this entire illusion.
“My father is an absolute master,” I said softly. I knew this was above me, and it would take too long to even attempt to carefully unweave it. I’d have to do what I did best. Try to blast through it. Which was good, because my appreciation didn’t stop the rage boiling within me. Something else, too. Confidence. The desire to command. To control everything around me, even though I clearly wasn’t doing great with controlling myself.