I had always been curious how Bishop moved around the city, but he kept his secrets closer than I kept mine.
“I can do two now, two in about an hour.” He glanced between us. “Choose your teammates wisely.”
“Midas and I will go now.” That was a no-brainer. “Ford and—”
That fast, I had forgotten. I almost named Ares. She would have been a natural pick for our team.
But the days of relying on her were over, and I couldn’t afford to let myself forget it.
“—Remy,” I finished lamely. “There are seven of her, so that’s our own mini army right there.”
“Remy can find her own way,” Bishop reminded me. “Tell her where to meet you, and she’ll be there.”
Sneaky was her middle name, and she had been the one to spot the coven stakeout in the first place, but I worried she was spreading herselves too thin. I didn’t want to risk losing another part of her.
“All right.” I checked with Midas. “I don’t have another pick. What about you?”
As a nurse, Lisbeth served us best inside the Faraday, and the rest of the OPA was clear of the building.
“Hank.”
“Hank? As in, Hank-Hank. Doorman Hank?”
“He’s good in a fight, and he’s smart. You saw him take down Lillian. That was straight detainment. Operating on his lowest, least violent setting.”
“Okay, you convinced me.” I trusted him to know his—our?—people’s strengths. “Doorman Hank it is.”
“Good.” Bishop made it sound the opposite. “That’s settled.”
An uncomfortable silence fell, a shroud that muffled the room, the quiet only broken when he rose.
Cold spiked the air around him. “Do you have everything you need before we go?”
“Let me grab a few things first.” I threw out my hands. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Midas stared down Bishop as I scurried from the room, hit the elevators, and retrieved the cross-body bag of supplies from our apartment. Breaking personal records for speed, I zipped back downstairs then powerwalked, super casually, to where I’d left them.
Neither had drawn blood, whatever else they might have done while unsupervised, so I called it a win.
“You’re certain?” Bishop cupped my jaw in his palm. “You must be, if you accept my offer.”
Offer had the ring of a fae bargain to it, but Bishop had never required trade for the help he gave freely.
“I trust you.” I held his gaze. “You won’t hurt me.”
Heaving a sigh, Bishop took my hand and intertwined our fingers until I started losing feeling in them.
“Hold tight,” he ordered, serious as I had ever seen him. “Don’t look back. Don’t let go. Don’t panic.”
“Um…”
Bishop hauled me into the shadows gathered in the corners of the room and down into the dark.
Eight
Biting cold ripped the air from my lungs, and the glare of an unfamiliar sun stabbed me in the eyes as it reflected off the untouched snow carpeting the ground for miles in all directions. “W-w-where?”
“I’m not telling,” he said, a faint lilt flavoring his voice, “so don’t waste your breath asking.”
He yanked on my arm, and I was happy to fall in step with him, praying the activity would warm me. The thing I noticed about Bishop, as my teeth chattered and eyelashes sparkled with frost, was the tiny smile on his face as we trudged through the drifts.
The flakes didn’t stick to him, so much as they kissed him then slid aside, as if welcoming him home. The touch didn’t melt them. I couldn’t tell if his skin was that cold, or if it was an odd trick of the light. But what I knew in my bones, what sent Ambrose bounding ahead of us like a hound on the hunt, was that Bishop had brought me into Faerie.
I was in Faerie.
The Faerie.
And Bishop just…just…walked right in. He traveled this path on a regular basis. He…belonged here.
I mean, duh, I knew he was fae. A fae fae. A Faerie fae. But this demonstration of power staggered me.
What the frak was he? Who the frak was he? What was a power like him doing in Atlanta?
“Almost there,” he called back to me without turning.
Bishop angled us toward what appeared to be a teeny mountain. It must have been a million miles away. With flat white all around, I had no reference for scale or distance. I had no clue how long it would take us to get there, and I wasn’t sure, if I was being honest, that I would survive in this clime to reach it.
Kicking up snow as he skidded to a halt beside me, Ambrose, still in his hound form, barked once.
And I heard it.
Wait a minute.
The snow. He’d affected it. It dusted my pants. He had weight and heft in this realm. The bark had been real, audible, not another of his mimes. That meant he could change shape and speak to me here. He had a voice. Any question I thought to ask him, he could answer in this place.
Assuming I could con Bishop into bringing me back again.
Questions bubbled up in me for Ambrose, but I couldn’t get my lips to cooperate. They were too numb. I had no control over my facial expressions either. All exposed skin was sheeted with thin ice that crackled as I moved, forming and reforming, as if it wanted to frost me into an ice sculpture and keep me as a bright spot of decoration for the barren landscape.
Gulp.
With a whine in his throat, Ambrose leaned against my leg. A subtle warmth filtered through that side of my body until sensation returned to that hand. At his urging, I looped my fingers through his collar, which I shouldn’t have been able to feel, and let him feed magic into me until I almost felt normal.
“Thanks,” I said when I was able, and it drew Bishop’s attention. “He’s real here.”
“He’s always real,” Bishop countered, the color leaching from his skin and hair until he began to resemble the landscape. “The difference is, he’s soaked up enough ambient energy to manifest. He probably can’t do human. Yet. But that size or smaller, yeah. He can make himself tangible.”
The glamour Bishop used wasn’t a charm, and he always wore it. Always. He was simply so powerful that if he decided to be perceived a certain way, then that was how he would be seen. And here, in his element, he didn’t waste effort on dulling the sharp edges of his appearance.
“You didn’t think to mention that before you brought me here?”
“He could kill you.” Cheer honed his voice into an arctic blade. “He could rip out your throat, lap up your blood, and chew on your bones. But it would kill him. He would die with a full stomach, but he would die all the same.”
Anticipating my instinctive recoil from his graphic words, Bishop tightened his grip until the bones in my hand grated against each other.
“None of that.” He smiled, his teeth sharp-edged and gleaming. “You’re my guest.”
A rumbling threat from Ambrose earned an equally vicious snarl from Bishop, but he eased up on me.
Maybe, assuming I survived this, I wouldn’t return to bump gums with Ambrose. Or ever again.
Except in my nightmares. Yeah. I could see this place coming back to haunt me.