“But Piper,” Kat shouted at me as Grizz dragged me into the breezeway with Merc right behind, “the sun is rising...”
“It can’t be,” Reinhardt replied. “It’s only three in the morning.”
I looked at Merc with panicked eyes, realization dawning like a brick to the face. “It’s Faerie...it’s fucking with our time.”
“Or the fey queen is—to neutralize the vampires.” Merc’s tone was ice and fire and regret mixed into one.
“What do we do?”
He looked at me like it might be the last time he ever did. “We fight.”
“But—”
He turned to Knox, then his brothers, then the few enforcers that stood in the foyer, protecting the perimeter and the stairs as the fey guard attacked.
“Do not fail her, Trevor Knoxville,” he said as he walked out of the breezeway like every bit the vampire king he was, headed for the stairs and the fey that appeared from a portal in the middle of them.
“Merc!”
“Go!” he roared before he launched himself into the mob, blades shining in the light of the room.
All the non-vampires rushed into the breezeway as Knox shuttled them out of the foyer. Then the door slammed shut, and my heart stopped cold.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“We can’t leave them!” I shouted, but my words were drowned out by the crowd crammed into the tight space between the security doors.
“They will die the second they set foot outside,” my father replied, his tone harsh enough to snap me back to reality. My mother had succeeded in dividing our forces.
One by one…
“No,” I said, determination creeping up my spine to steel it. “No...I can fix this.” I looked at my father. “But I’ll need your help.”
“Anything.”
I looked at the coven queen and Sherry. “And yours.”
“Name it.”
“We’re going to need that shield in place the second we set foot outside to keep us from view. My father and I will do the rest.”
Sherry shoved her way to the front of the group, chalice of blood still in hand, though I had no idea how. If much had been lost on the journey, no one mentioned it. Instead, she began to repeat a spell over and over again, soon joined by more witches. As their voices rose, Sherry dipped her hand into the cup, coating it in the deep red, viscous liquid. Without skipping a beat, she wiped it across her face.
The chanting grew in speed as Sherry did the same to each of the witches. Her macabre finger-painting continued as she made her way through the entire crew—all that remained—marking them with my blood. Once she finished, she drew a blade across her palm and pressed it to her cheek, melding our blood together. Smoke billowed out from under her palm, and she winced in pain.
A sharp twang lanced through my face, then disappeared.
“It is done,” she said, smirking slightly. “We won’t have long, but maybe long enough to get this shit done.”
“Only one way to find out,” Knox said as he pushed through the group to the door. He looked at Reinhardt, then at me. “Let’s do this.” Without hesitation, he shoved the door open and bolted out into the vast driveway, the rest of us tight on his heels.
Sunrise and emptiness greeted us, but we knew it was a trick—that Sherry’s blood spell had worked—so we continued on. Time was of the essence.
I pressed my hands to the ground and called forth the healing energy that had saved me and so many others in the time since I’d learned it was mine to use. The second I finished, I turned to my father and grabbed Knox’s hand.
“We need to shield the sun,” I whispered. “I think I can call for darkness and clouds to cover it over if you can tether it to the perimeter, since you’ve warded it before. Can you do it?”
My father contemplated my question for only a moment. “Bring the darkness, Piper. I will do the rest.”
I squeezed Knox’s hand, and the burst of power that surged from him nearly knocked me over. My eyes went wide as I quietly called for the black of night over and over again. I could feel the magic of Faerie trying to interfere, but it could not override my connection to both it and the Earth, and soon the orange glow of the sun was masked by an eerie darkness, softened only by conjured moonlight. I watched as my father, eyes closed, stretched and molded that blanket of darkness until it covered the entire property and tucked itself into the ground along the borders.
“Will it work?” I asked, hoping up on hope that it would.
“I hope so,” was his only response.
“Liam—can you portal in and get the others?”
“I will.” Without another word, he disappeared from sight. I scanned the area for any sign of my mother and her army.
“I can feel her magic,” I said quietly. “She’s close—or she was.”
“Your actions should draw her out.”
“I have a better idea,” Knox said, determination in his stare. Before I could say a word to stop him, he ripped his shirt over his head and scrubbed his face clean. The second his shirt hit the ground, a portal appeared and Etherian emerged.
Which meant my mother couldn’t be far away.
“Where are your friends?” the rogue fey asked, eyeing Knox keenly.
“Inside, killing your new allies.”
Etherian barked out a laugh. “I have no allies. I have only self-interest.”
“She’ll have you killed if you succeed, you know that, right? She’ll keep killing anyone with Phineas’ power until it’s hers.”
“She will try,” he replied with confidence he shouldn’t have had.
“Maybe...if you can get it from me first.”
Reinhardt grabbed my arm and turned me toward the trees at the back of the mansion. “There,” he whispered. “She’s there.” I looked at where he pointed in the distance and saw her in all her crimson-clad glory. “I have a wrong to right, Piper,” my father continued as the man-bear snarled behind me. “It is time I do that.”
Grizz and Reinhardt bolted toward the tree line where the queen watched the battle between Etherian and Knox, still unable to see the rest of us. Kat, Foust, Jagger, and Brunton weren’t far behind. I started to follow, then ran right into Liam as he appeared before me from a portal. Enforcers spilled out into the middle of the yard; enforcers not marked with my blood and Sherry’s spell. Merc caught my arm and looked at me, so many unspoken words in the depths of his eyes, but the moment was cut short by the sound of Sherry screaming as though she were being torn apart.
“I can’t hold it any longer!”
The cloak of invisibility snapped, leaving us all visible to the fey queen. I could practically feel her anger as we came into view. My mother and her army flashed through a portal and converged on us seconds later. Chaos ensued as the fey guard slammed into us like a tidal wave. The witches and warlocks threw up a barrier, shielding everyone behind them from the onslaught, but my father, guardian, and friends were near the tree line, outside that bubble, and I watched as the queen turned her attention to them. Her hand raised, and all I could see was Drake’s plucked and dying body in my mind—my mother’s promise to destroy everyone I loved, one by one.