Of course now that they were all missing, it stood to reason they had gone somewhere to hide. They had been powerful enough to create one pocket realm, so why not another?
“But do we really want more fairies coming to this realm?” Seraphina picked up again where she had left off, her pace slowing as we neared the location of the old portal.
I gave her a flat look.
She met me with a deadpan stare of her own. “Just because you’re getting busy with a devil, some goblins, and an elf, doesn’t mean we should give fairies and the like free rein. And for that matter, creating a pathway to the hells seems insane. Do we need more devils like Penelope?”
I was hoping that wouldn’t come up again now that we had a contract with the devil in question, but shehadtried to steal their magic. It was a pretty big deal. “I get it,” I sighed, “ but it’s not for me to pick and choose between the realms. I have personally been attacked by fairies on multiple occasions, but they’ll still be getting their pathway.”
She wrinkled her nose, her eyes on the space where the portal used to be. “I suppose you have a point. I’m just glad we have our own barrier now to protect us.” She approached the open space, then waved her hand in the air.
We both stared blankly as a shimmering doorway appeared.
“Huh.” Seraphina lowered her hand. “I really didn’t expect that to work.”
“Ye-ah.” I chewed the inside of my cheek, watching the portal like something might come out of it. “Wasn’t the old pocket realm destroyed when the well was brought through? Why is this portal in the same place?”
“That is what we believed, but maybe it was like the other pathways, disconnected but not gone entirely.” She reached out toward the portal, pushing one hand through. It disappeared for a moment, then she brought it back out. She lifted her hand to observe it. “Well, nothing bit it off. Shall we?”
I hesitated. Expecting the guys to wait while I looked around the park was one thing. Expecting them to not worry while I went to another realm and they could no longer sense me was quite another.
“Eva,” Seraphina said, reading my expression. “My sister could be in danger.”
I glanced over my shoulder like I could actually see the distant gates, but we had walked pretty far into the large park. “Okay—” I hesitated. “But just a quick look.”
I dictated another text to Crispin, letting him know what we had found. Seraphina stepped through the portal first. I prepared myself for the shift, making sure Ringo was snug against my shoulder, but just as I was about to step through, the portal disappeared.
I reached a hand out, swiping at empty air. Cautiously, Ringo crept down from my shoulder, hanging off my sleeve for a moment before dropping to the ground. He approached the area where the portal had been, swiping a tiny paw in front of him. When there was nothing to feel, he turned his round eyes up to me.
“No, that was not supposed to happen,” I said.
He blinked his big eyes. “I figured.”
Gnawing my lip, I felt around for the portal one more time, but there was nothing there. I was getting a little better at sensing magic these days, and there wasn’t even a hint of it.
“Eva.” Ringo’s voice had gone high and raspy.
I turned abruptly, searching for whatever had scared him, then froze in my tracks. The thing standing amongst the treeswatching us looked almost like the guardian at the waypoint, only there were no stars swirling within it, just inky blackness. Even in the moonlit darkness, its form was clear—vaguely feminine, but there were no actual features. There were no eyes in the head that tilted to watch us.
“Run back to the guys,” I hissed.
Ringo skittered forward to cling to my ankle. “I won’t leave you.”
“Please. If anything happens, they’ll need to know what we’re seeing. You might not be able to cross the boundary without me, but you could still tell them what happened.” Because I was pretty sure I was seeing a piece of the darkness that must have come through one of the new pathways. Why it was here in the park, I wasn’t sure, but the nymphs must have used the magic of their well to flee.
Ringo clung to my ankle for a moment longer, then pushed off and darted through the underbrush. I relaxed ever so slightly—as relaxed as I could be as the shadow creature tilted its head in the other direction, clearly observing me. At least now Ringo was safe. And I had taken care of the other pieces of darkness. I could take care of this one too.
I made the mistake of blinking, then suddenly the creature was standing right before me. I realized it was about my height, and roughly my shape. Creepy.
Slowly, I held out my hands, ready to absorb it with the vortex. It mirrored my position, close enough that our hands were nearly touching—if you could call the appendages of swirling inky darkness hands.
“Why are you here?” I asked, jumping when the question was echoed in my own voice from the creature.
“I know you’re not me.”
Once again my words were echoed in a perfect replication of my voice. We had seen the darkness take on different shapes, but we had never heard it speak before.
“Screw this.” Though my words were echoed again, I focused on the power of the vortex to absorb the darkness.
