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“We had to do something. Myst would have killed us.” I shook my head. “I do believe I need to learn how to use the power of the stone, but we were in a tight spot. I now understand what Lainule and Ulean were warning me of about the fan. The power is immense. It will—and has—changed me. I came very close to being carted off by the winds.”
“We’d better get back to the warehouse.” Chatter glanced at the sky. “We are near morning, thank heavens. I’d say another ten minutes until dawn, which means Myst and her hunters should be hiding from the light.”
“We’d better get moving.” Grieve stood, holding out his hand to me. “Are you tired?”
“No, I’m strangely exhilarated. And the rest we had in the realm of Summer helped me a lot. What about you?”
“Same here. A little weary but with the adrenaline of the fight, and the sleep we got…I’m good to go.” Chatter glanced at Rhia and she nodded the same.
I gratefully accepted it, allowing Grieve to pull me up out of the snowbank in which we’d been sitting. “Do you know what day this is? We went in on Monday.”
Chatter squinted, closing his eyes. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t know. But you have your phone. Better call Peyton.”
“I’ll have to leave a message—they’re probably in the realm of Summer with Wrath and they won’t get the message till they pop out.” I pulled out my phone. “I hope Kaylin got away.”
“Yeah, so do I.” Rhiannon looked around. “Where the hell are we? Do we even have a clue? The forest looks the same to me here as it does anywhere. We could be twenty miles in, or we could be ten minutes from the road.”
I punched in Peyton’s number and left a message. Then I tried Kaylin. No answer. Sighing, I left my phone on and shoved it into my pocket. “Which way?”
Grieve glanced up at the growing light. “There—that’s east. We head to the west.”
As we started slogging through the snow, I began to notice that I felt odd. Odd in a way that didn’t feel sick, so much as…changed. Something had happened to me. I pulled the fan out of my pocket. More than once, both Lainule and Ulean had warned me against using it too much, and I hadn’t known why. Now I stared at it, wondering if I’d have the courage to ever use it again.
Chatter hadn’t given me back my knife, and right now I didn’t ask for it. Truthfully, the ferocity of my feelings scared the fuck out of me. It reminded me all too clearly that in another life I had been Myst’s daughter. I didn’t want to remember that, but every day it was becoming clearer that I was going to have to accept that fact and learn to use it rather than run from it.
Myst had been scared of me, when the wind and bloodlust from the obsidian were controlling me. And we needed her to feel fear. We needed her to hesitate, to falter while she thought things through. Every time we could put her on her guard, throw her off kilter, was one more inroad we had to destroying her.
As we plowed through the snow, my phone jangled. By now, it was obvious that morning had arrived, even though all signs of the sun were obscured by clouds. So Myst and her cronies were in hiding.
I pulled out my phone and answered.
“Cicely here. What’s up?”
Peyton sounded relieved. “I’m so glad you’re okay. You are okay, aren’t you? It’s been two days and we were beginning to worry.”
So we’d been in the realm of Faerie for two days this time. This losing time thing was a little intimidating. “Lainule—is she still alive?”
“Yes, she is hanging on—barely. Kaylin arrived back here with the heartstone a few hours ago. But Wrath says you must be the one to present it to her. Where are you? Are you near a road?”
“I don’t know…we’re walking west, in the woods. I have no clue how far we are from a road. Can Wrath fly over the Golden Wood to see if he can find us? He knows where the cedar is, though we don’t seem to be anywhere near that at this time. We came out a different way than we went in.”
Peyton’s voice echoed as she spoke to someone else. After a moment, she came back on the phone. “Yes, in fact, he’s headed out the door now. Stay put, out from under the trees so he can see you. The moment he sees you, he’ll land, and then you call me back.”
“Where are you? Did Luna’s sister make it in?”
“Yes, and we have some wonderful news. Well, potentially wonderful. But that will keep. Hurry and position yourself at a point where Wrath will be able to see you. As for us…well…we’re in Lannan’s mansion. Several things happened while you were gone and they weren’t all good. And Cicely—be careful. Leo and Geoffrey are on the move, and they aren’t going to stop hunting down you and Rhiannon. Be cautious.”
As she hung up, I glanced around. “Let’s get to open ground and then we wait for Wrath. And be careful. Watch out for any day-runners that might be Geoffrey’s or Leo’s men.” I didn’t have to warn them that Rhia and I were being hunted. They already knew that.
As we struggled through the deep snow, looking for a clearing, it occurred to me that Geoffrey and Leo were almost as dangerous as Myst. More so, because they knew we could kill them. I may have jangled Myst’s nerves, but for now she still claimed most of the game board for her side. Geoffrey and Leo, on the other hand, were playing from the place of “nothing much to lose.” And men—or vampires—who had nothing to lose were far more deadly than someone who had a reason to use common sense and caution.
Chapter 13
We’d been walking for about ten minutes when we found a meadow, with a large boulder in the center. We huddled near the granite slab, waiting, and within twenty minutes, I looked overhead and saw the great horned owl. Wrath. He’d found us. He circled high, getting his bearings, then slowly settled to the ground, turning back into the King of Summer as he landed. I ran over to him.
“We found the heartstone. But Myst almost caught us. Kaylin took the gem and dreamwalked out of there.”
“I know. He was there when I left.” My father stared at me. “He told us about the end fight. How did you escape Myst?” His gaze pierced into me and I knew I’d have to tell him what had happened. Everything, without censoring myself.
