Energy I could call.
“Hear me,” I muttered as I pressed my palm flat against the wall. “Hear my call, being of the darkness. Come to me…obey me.”
A prickle of magic coursed through the stone into my arm, and I gasped at the feel of it. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, rooted in anger and anguish and a bottomless need for vengeance; one that might never be sated.
I looked up to find those red eyes staring at me as though its head were cocked.
“Leave,” I told it while the others looked on, poised to act at the drop of a hat. The red eyes blinked twice before the creature scrambled closer, ignoring my warning. Blades sparked as they sliced through what looked to be a leathery hide, then scraped along the wall. There was no blood, no gore—no nothing. Their weapons had passed right through it, as though it were made of nothing. For a moment, I wondered if it was an illusion created to test how easily I would scare.
But then the would-be illusion snatched Kat up by her hair, lightning fast, and held her face next to its monstrous teeth as the ceiling grew higher, pulling her out of reach. Its jaw hinged open wide, and fear shot through me as she scrambled to get away—tried to fight it off. But just as the blades had, her hands went right through it. Bright blue eyes full of terror met mine, and I could see the resignation on her face.
“Let her go!” I screamed. A blast of air shot through the corridor, knocking us down—and Kat from the creature’s grasp. She fell on Knox’s boys, and Grizz scooped her up and wrapped his arms around her as though they were all the protection she’d ever need.
The creature shrieked again, then dove for me, red eyes blazing in the dim light of the tunnel. I lifted my palm to thwart it, and blue fire shot upward. Its dark, shadowy form dispersed for a moment, then solidified again on the ceiling behind me.
“You can’t kill it,” Knox said, frustration tainting his tone.
“Maybe not,” I replied as I pushed past the others to get closer, “but maybe I don’t have to.”
The creature cocked its head as I approached, and I let my anger rise like a wild and feral thing, pulling that vengeful magic from the air around me. Knox laid his hand on my shoulder, fueling me further, and my rage flared to life, pulsating all around me, pushing me to the edge of madness. “Bow to me,” I commanded, my voice not my own. The shadow being dropped from the ceiling, snarling, and cowered at my feet. “Return to where you came from and never come back.” It dared to inch closer and snapped at me again. “GO!” I roared.
With a parting screech, it shimmied up the wall again, then darted back into the depths of the path we’d already traversed. Not until those glowing red orbs disappeared did any of us speak.
“Did I pass the test, Etherian?” I yelled, my anger and his still rushing through my veins. “Have I proven myself to you? Have I earned your trust as an ally in your quest for vengeance? Or do you wish to waste more time playing these games?”
His silence was unnerving, and with every ragged breath that escaped me, my anger waned, leaving me with a clearer head—the kind capable of thinking before speaking. One that realized that baiting an angry, exiled fey was probably not the best idea.
“You have proven yourself resourceful, but not necessarily capable of all I need,” he replied, as though bored. But under that air of indifference was a note of surprise; of hope that maybe, just maybe, I was a horse worth betting on.
“What the fuck else do you want?” Kat growled, her threshold for bullshit having clearly been met.
“A body…”
“We’ll drop a ton of them,” she replied. “Take whichever you like. Now, about that exit—”
“I want my body,” he clarified. “If you can deliver that, then you can leave. Only then will you have proven your worth.”
I looked at Merc and Knox with dread in my eyes. I wasn’t a fucking necromancer, nor did I aspire to be one. This wasn’t like Kingston, where I could just undo what I’d done. This was something else entirely. Something far above my pay grade.
“How?” I blurted out. “How can I give you something that doesn’t exist anymore?”
“If I knew how to do it, bastard princess, I would have already done so.” Spoken like a typical fey asshole. “But might I suggest that you do so quickly…who knows when the fey might show up in your realm to destroy everything you care about that still remains there?”
With panic growing inside me, I felt a hand wrap around mine. I looked up to find Grizz staring down at me with an incredulous expression. An incredulous human expression…one he could only wear because of the transformation he’d been magically given by my father.
“Of course,” I whispered.
“Have you already found the solution to your impossible problem?” Etherian mocked.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“What if I told you that I can’t get your body, but I know someone who can? Someone not here now, but who would gladly return with us to do what you ask.”
The walls around us began to move again.
“I would say that it’s unwise to toy with me.”
“I’m not!” I screamed as Grizz pulled me closer. “My father is the warlock lord. He’s given human form to my guardian, and his power has allowed his dead brother’s essence to remain in our realm, contained within his raven familiar. I see no reason he can’t do what you ask.”
“But you’re not certain.”
“How can I be? I’ve never asked him to do something like this!”
“If this is a trick, I will make you pay dearly for it.” The walls stopped moving and drew back until we were no longer standing in a corridor, but a vast stone room—the same one we’d landed in when we’d arrived. Seconds later, all those residing in the Ether stepped out of the shadows again. The worst case of déjà vu gnawed at my mind. “The witches will remain here,” he continued, “as collateral to ensure that you return.” I could see the tension in their faces, the stakes of being left behind even higher than before, and I certainly couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t have wanted that fate, either. “But are they enough, I wonder? Are they enough for you to risk eternity inside my hell?” Before I could answer, I felt my arm jerk as an unseen hand ripped Grizz from me and hurtled him toward the ceiling where he stayed, splayed across it like a bad horror movie.
“Grizz!” I screamed. I threw my hands out and fought to pull him back with magic, but Etherian’s power overrode mine. His mini-realm; his power source.
“Yes, this one will do,” Etherian mused, and I saw Grizz flinch, as though an invisible hand stroked his cheek. “Bring me your father and pray that he can do what you promised, bastard princess. And don’t make me wait too long.”
Grizz let loose a howling roar as his arm was ripped free of its socket and dangled down toward us like a limp corpse held in place with only skin. Anguish burned in his warm brown eyes as he stared down at me and silently told me that I should not return under any circumstances. That I should leave and never come back.
Tears streamed down my face as I shook my head. “Never,” I said, my voice cracking with emotion. “I’ll never leave you—”