The intensity in that unspoken order jerks me out of the semitrance I’ve fallen into. For the first time, I look at Kynlee and really think about what I’m doing. I’m not just planning to fissure with a tor’um; I’m planning to fissure with a teenage girl who might not know a thing about the Realm.
This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever considered. Fissuring isn’t pleasant under the best of circumstances. Attempting it with a—
“Let’s do this,” Kynlee says. Then she’s out of the car, slamming the door shut, and crunching across the dry, dead grass that lines both sides of the road.
“Hey, wait,” I say, climbing out of my seat to follow her. Even though she’s walking and I’m running, it takes a second to catch up. Fae, even fae who are tor’um, move faster than humans do.
“Where is it?” she asks, stopping next to the river that connects Las Vegas with the lake to the east. I assume she’s asking about the gate.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. My head’s pounding. I’ve never been prone to migraines, but I have one now. It’s severe enough that I’m having a hard time focusing.
“I need to think about this,” I say.
Kynlee strips off one of her long, purple gloves. “We’re already here.”
An alarm starts going off in my head. Why is she trying to convince me to go through with this? I’m a complete stranger. She doesn’t owe me anything.
“Why are you so set on going to the Realm—”
My last word is more of a yelp. Kyol’s moving. I can feel it in the way he braces against the pain. He’s hurting so much he’s not breathing—a big mistake when you need oxygen to fuel your muscles—and I can practically feel the strength draining from his body.
Reason flees from my mind.
“The gate’s there,” I say, practically throwing her at the blurred atmosphere on the bank of the river. She lands on her knees but doesn’t hesitate to dip her hand into the water. She raises her palm to the sky, letting the water rain between her fingers. Each silver droplet glints in the sunlight. They seem to linger there, taunting me, drawing out the seconds and multiplying the panic ricocheting around in my chest. Finally, the drops solidify into a vertical slash of pure white light.
There’s no room in my mind for second thoughts. With my anchor-stone in my palm, I clasp Kynlee’s hand, then brace for the cold bite of the In-Between.
TWO
I’M PREPARED FOR the In-Between and the physical drain that comes from being led through it by a fae with little magic. What I’m not prepared for is the full assault of Kyol’s emotions. His agony roars through me.
I drop to my knees, cover my ears with my hands as if that will somehow block him out. Holy hell, he’s close. I didn’t expect him to be in Corrist. The Realm is a big place, one huge continent divided into seventeen provinces, and I thought I’d have to have someone fissure me closer to him. The fact that I don’t should save me some time, but not if I can’t find a way to tune out his emotions.
Closing my eyes, I draw in a slow breath and concentrate on myself, on the fact that I’m not hurt. I’m whole and healthy. Whole and healthy.
On some level, it works. Some of my haziness lifts. I just need to maintain my focus. Keep Kyol out of my head and keep me in it.
Chaos lusters leap across my skin as I crawl across a wooden floor. The lightning only appears on humans in this world. It’s bright and white, but barely lights up the room. I have to feel my way along a wall, trying to find a door or window or other source of light. My eyes are just beginning to adjust to the darkness when my hand finds a crevice that feels promising. I reach up, fumble with the lock, then freeze when I hear a moan. I look over my shoulder, see a tor’um curled up on the ground.
Shit.
My sanity whooshes out of me, and Kyol’s emotions whoosh back in. My head feels overloaded, and my heart thumps way too fast, a fact that makes me all the more aware of how slowly Kyol’s is beating. The lull between each beat puts so much strain on my body, my lungs are having trouble expanding. It doesn’t just feel like Kyol’s dying. It feels like I am as well, and I have to mentally fight against the part of me that is okay with that, the part that’s screaming that it would be better to be dead, too, than to live without him.
“My dad is so going to kill me.”
The murmured words pull me back to the present. I focus on the tor’um, watch her slowly sit up as I try to remember exactly why she’s here.
“Where are we?” she asks, her long, brown hair spilling over her shoulders.
I’m frowning. I can feel my forehead crease and my eyes narrow as I take in the empty, one-room house.
The one room safe house. That’s right. When Lena gave me the anchor-stone imprinted with this location, she told me it would be stocked with weapons, food, and water. The walls are made of stone, but the floor isn’t. There should be a few loose planks to pull up in the back corner.
And, more importantly, there should be a ward, a magical trip wire, set somewhere in here. If I break that, it’ll send a signal to the ward-maker, and he or she will notify Lena that someone needs help.
I nearly trip over the tor’um in my haste to find it.
“What are you doing?” the girl asks. She has a name. I’m certain I knew it at one time, but it’s so freaking hard to concentrate. There’s only one name that matters, and he’s dying a few blocks away.
I find a loose board, try to get my fingers beneath it. Goose bumps prickle across my arms. The ward is beneath the floor; I just need to get to it.
The tor’um says something else, but the board pops free, and a telltale tingling runs through me before vanishing abruptly. The ward is broken. Thank God.
I jerk up another board.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I look up. The girl’s hand is on my arm. She lets go when I meet her gaze, but my skin feels like ice where she touched me.
“I’m . . .” I squeeze my eyes shut. Focus, McKenzie!
“You need to stay here,” I say. Then, when a sliver of clarity breaks through the fog in my head and I remember her name, I add, “Kynlee. Stay here, and when they come, tell them Kyol’s less than a mile that way.” I point to the west. “I’m going after him.”
“Who are ‘they’?” she asks.
A third board pops up. In the hole underneath is a midnight blue cloak. I throw it aside, revealing two small, lidless crates. They’re filled with cabus—a foul-tasting fae drink that rehydrates and reenergizes—and magically preserved meats and cheeses. But lying between the crates is what I need: weapons.
“Who’s Kyol?” Kynlee asks.
A sharp lance of pain strikes behind my eyes. Darkness spills through my vision. I brace my hand against the side of a building, feel stone that’s rough and damp.
Damp?
I make myself focus. I glare at the crumbling mortar between the stones and realize I’m not in the safe house anymore. I’m outside on a street. Moonlight illuminates its craggy, uneven surface and the dirty, dilapidated façades of the buildings lining it have mold and moss growing between cracks. The rancid smell of sewage and decay clings to my lungs with each breath I pull in, and I have to fight down a gag reflex. This is not a good area of the city, and it’s especially not an area in which a human should be running around in plain sight and alone.