“I just need the fey king’s body!” I shouted, my anger breaking through my stupor. My magic tried to permeate the thick stone of the Ether, but it was even harder to reach than before. In my periphery, I saw Knox and Merc moving to help me, but their movement didn’t go unnoticed. In a blink, the two of them found themselves pinned against the stone walls to my left and right, respectively.
And all the while, our reinforcements were leaping into the black abyss to meet their ends because of us. Because of me.
“And you can’t kill him—or the queen—without my help,” Etherian hissed in my ear, “which you seem to be taking for granted.” As he spoke, I realized that there would be no reasoning with Etherian. I was playing chicken with a madman, and that was a losing game for certain.
Merc and Knox slid higher up the wall, suspended by an invisible appendage that appeared to be choking the latter and messing with the former’s head. Merc clutched his skull, breathing like a wild animal, while Knox struggled against Etherian’s vise-like grip. “So now I must find a way to properly motivate you while making the ramifications of another betrayal painfully clear. I don’t wish to revisit this again.”
“Let them go!” I screamed as I pressed against my invisible captor. When he didn’t budge, I closed my eyes and began chanting, calling up whatever power I could in the bowels of Faerie. Etherian laughed at my meager efforts and threw me across the cave like a ragdoll. Grizz snatched me out of the air (again) and staggered back a step or two with the force. Reinhardt, Kat, and Kingston surrounded me, as though they could battle the unstable fairy entity, while Foust, Brunton, and Jagger tried to help Knox, and Jase and Dean did the same for Merc.
“What will make you take me seriously, Piper?” Etherian asked as his power swirled around the room. “I cannot kill your lovers because they are too powerful to lose in the battle against Larken and Phineas, but I wonder…”
A scream rent the air in the cavernous space as a witch was plucked from the crowd and dangled above us like a puppet on a string.
“Do we need her?”
The coven queen screamed something just as the witch snapped in half backward and fell to the ground, broken and dead.
Again, his power circled the room. A dangerous game of Russian roulette combined with musical chairs was afoot, and I could do nothing to stop it.
“What about him?”
One of Merc’s enforcers shot into the air just like the witch, and I pled for his life, to no avail. His head ripped from his body and flew across the room. Blood rained down upon us before his corpse fell on top of the dead witch.
“Should we keep playing this game—”
“It’s not a game!”
“—until you understand what’s at stake for those you care about? Until you understand the price of deceiving me?”
“I understand!” I shouted, rage building deep inside of me, pulling energy from the center of Faerie itself—the parts that extended past the Ether.
“Do you?” he boomed in response.
Simultaneously, everyone else in the room rocketed into the air, suspended by a slighted psychopath who held a grudge like a motherfucker. Panic like I’d never felt before surged through my veins as I watched my life flash before my eyes, because even though my life was not in immediate danger, those of everyone I’d ever cared about were.
If I lost them, there would be nothing left to live for.
“What if I make amends by giving you something else you want?” I shouted, doing my best to remain focused on Etherian and to draw more power into me.
His silence dragged on, but nobody died, so I took it as a decent sign.
“Another empty promise?”
“No! Not an empty promise,” I said quickly. “Something you want more than anything—even more than your body.”
More silence.
“Name it—and do not disappoint me. You will not like the result.”
“Let them go, and we will make sure that Phineas’ power is intact when you get his body—”
“Piper!” Reinhardt yelled at me, but an invisible force silenced him, and I prayed it wasn’t permanently, given the way his head wrenched backward.
“I mean it! It’s yours. But you won’t get it if you don’t put them down unharmed and open the portal back up.”
More fucking silence.
“If you try to betray me again—”
“I didn’t before, and I’m not now. You’ve made your point abundantly clear,” I said, my confidence and magic gaining strength, prepared to fight Etherian if his paranoia was unwilling to subside. “Put them down or you’ll get nothing…”
I could practically feel him staring at me as though he were corporeal again, breathing down my back as he decided what his next move would be. Then, one by one, our entourage was slowly lowered to the ground unharmed, and I let out a harsh exhale. The portal reopened and I stared at it, my heart in my throat as I waited for others to fall through—for the rest of the army to arrive.
Seconds turned to minutes, and still no one appeared. I looked around the Ether at about half the numbers we had amassed, and bile rose in my throat.
“Fear not, bastard princess. You should have more than enough soldiers to win your war against the royals. With my help, of course.”
I swallowed back that vile taste and tried my best to pull myself together. If they were dead, then I would not let their deaths be in vain.
“Then we’re agreed?” I asked, seeking confirmation that his deadly tantrum was indeed over.
“We are, provided you keep up your end of the bargain.”
I kept my uncertainty from my face, knowing I couldn’t guarantee him anything of the sort. “Good. Then let’s get this fucking show on the road.”
Merc, Knox, Grizz, and my father stormed over to me, each with a different but equally scathing expression on his face. I knew exactly what they were thinking, but it was hardly the time for that argument. Kat, ever the solid wingman, looped her arm through mine and pulled me toward an opening in the Ether that hadn’t been there seconds earlier.
“You mean fucking shitshow,” she said with a wink that nearly eclipsed the fear burning in the depths of her cool blue eyes. Nearly.
“This tunnel will lead you above,” Etherian said, his voice echoing from down the stony corridor. “Once we are above, you must stay within the borders I create. They will be narrow and difficult to hold. One misstep and you will fall outside that protected space and into Faerie, where you will undoubtedly be detected at once. So tread lightly, bastard princess.”
No pressure.
“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s your plan?”
“I agreed to get you to the fey royals, and I will. Everything beyond that is up to you. Kill them however you wish. You’ve faced them both before, have you not? Are you not the queen’s progeny, a princess mixed with the magic of the other realm?” I didn’t bother to answer. “My only suggestion would be not to take your time—and not to listen to whatever they say as their deaths await them. They both have poison tongues. They will lie and scheme with their very last breaths. Do not trust anything that leaves their mouths.”
Great. Super helpful.