Midas was a direct descendent of Natisha’s. He had family in her pack. The same pack that sold him to a cruel goblin for use as a gladiator in the arena matches that earned Midas his scars, inside and out.
“Your call.” I tossed a smile back at him. “I can go either way.”
Truthfully? Faerie would be easier, if also trickier, to escape.
Honestly? The void, for us, was unsurvivable. There was no food, no water. The spirits who called this place home needed none of those things. We could only live as long as the food in our packs allowed.
Still, I let him decide, and it wasn’t an empty gesture. I was all about the follow through.
“Faerie.” His warm hand landed on my shoulder. “There’s no other choice.”
Turning my head, I kissed his knuckles. “We can find another way.”
“There’s no time.” His comforting touch lifted. “We can’t know for certain how slow or fast time moves here. That will change again when we reach Faerie. We have to keep on schedule as best we can and hope we haven’t missed the battle when we come out the other side.”
That particular outcome was one I had sunk a great deal of effort into ignoring.
The three of us wouldn’t make or break a flat-out war. That wasn’t how battles worked. Often, it boiled down to numbers. Who had the most people? Who cared more if those same people died horribly?
We didn’t have the numbers. Strategy was our best bet at winning. We had no time for second-guessing.
Our absence would be felt on the battleground, if it came to that, but this mission was more important.
When this nightmare closet went offline, it would cut direct routes to and from the coven’s strongholds. They would be forced to rely on mundane means of transportation, which would slow them down. They would also be dependent upon the practitioners already at their disposal. Buh-bye, reinforcements.
Best of all? Those lethal outfits they so loved to wear? They would get put in deep storage. For good.
“There.” Remy pointed out a row of tombs where one door stood taller than the rest. “It smells like…”
The arch had been carved to fit the existing architecture, but rather than stone, its center reflected us.
“…the sea.” I followed her, unable to resist the humid warmth swirling the air. “Weird.”
We exited the stairs and went to investigate what might be our first tether. I don’t know why they were called that. I mean, okay, they tied one location to another. Big whoop. If this one was any indication, they struck me as more like the Einstein-Rosen bridge portal devices from Stargate. How much cooler was that? These could be faegates. Or witchgates. Both had merit.
Tilting her head to one side, Remy pursed her lips. “Does the architecture remind you of anything?”
“You mean like the gateway that spit us out onto the stairs?” I noticed the similarities too. “I’m guessing we blew our first mission objective. The tether to Buckhead was behind us, on the stairs.” I tipped my head back. “Now it’s way up there.”
“You were distracted at the time.” Midas grimaced, no doubt recalling his grand entrance. “I surprised you, and then I rushed you. It’s not your fault.”
“Live and learn, right?” Remy chucked me on the shoulder. “We’re probably the first non-sacrificial, non-coven lifeforms to enter the archive. Cut yourself some slack.”
“Yeah.” I tried, I really tried, but it was hard. “Live and learn.”
“Wonder where it goes?” She ran a hand along the designs carved into the doorframe. “I can’t read it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I summoned Ambrose, who exited my body in a prickling rush of sensation. “It won’t go there for much longer.”
The shadow studied the faegate while tapping a finger against his lips.
“Well?” I watched him, my gut drawing tight as he considered it. “Will draining its power pull the plug?”
He stuck out a hand and dipped it side to side in a maybe gesture.
“We’re old pros at breaking wards. Do you think this will work the same way?”
Hands tucked into my back pockets, I hid their trembling from the others, but not from Ambrose. The bottom line was, I was about to supercharge him. How he reacted would determine if we made it out of here alive.
No pressure.
“You hungry?”
“Always.”
The silken whisper might have been my imagination. I mean, another name for dybbuk is devourer.
Therefore, it wasn’t rocket science to conclude Ambrose would always be game for a snack.
“He…spoke.” Midas cocked an eyebrow at my shadow self. “That’s new.”
Well frak.
So much for that hope.
“He sounds how a honey butter biscuit tastes.” Remy goggled at him. “Mmm.”
“That’s how he hooks suckers.” I shoved her shoulder. “He has to be appealing for his schtick to work.”
Rich laughter tickled the fringes of my hearing, and Ambrose wrapped an arm around my shoulders, as he had seen Midas do countless times.
Leaning in, he almost brushed his lips against my ear when he said, “This will be fun.”
A shiver rippled through me, and I palmed his face then shoved him back. “Get thee behind me, Satan.”
Ambrose laughed again, clearly tickled by the reference, and strolled toward the witchgate.
Hmm.
Nah.
I got it right the first time.
Faegate definitely sounded cooler.
“You know more about Christianity than I do about your religion,” Midas noted. “I should fix that.”
That he cared enough to want to learn about Hecate, about how necromancers communed with their goddess, mattered more to me than when or if we ever got around to immersive lessons.
“We’ve got time.” I rested against him. “I have my entire public-school career to thank for what I know.”
In addition to the nuts-and-bolts education I received, I had been coached in the study of humans. How to blend with them. How to befriend them. How to integrate into their society, since my Society viewed Low Society necromancers as framework to hold the High Society aloft. Religion was a part of that, and it was fascinating to cobble together a belief system that integrated the world I was expected to belong to and the one I had been born into.
“Are you ready?” Ambrose turned back toward us. “I have finished translating the sigils.”
Shock that he could read them popped my eyebrows into my hairline. “They’re instructions?”
“They explain how to power the tether, yes. They also describe how to return it to its restful state.”
“Feed it magic to open it.” I could see I was right in his expression. “Drain the residual power to close it.”
“Just so.”
“All right.” I checked with Midas, who nodded, then turned back to Ambrose. “Let’s do this.”
“This will hurt,” he warned, glancing back at me over his shoulder. “Brace yourself.”
Midas threaded our fingers and wrapped an arm around my middle, ready to support me.
The fingertips of Ambrose’s right hand touched the uppermost sigil, and light exploded around me.