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Menolly sighed. “Hairball? Oh, Kitten, I’m sorry. I’ll make sure Iris grooms you more. Or I can brush you if you like. Let me know which you prefer.” As she spoke, I opened my mouth, and the glob of gunk ricocheted out of my throat, onto the braided rug. It would have to be the rug. It was always the rug, or the bedspread, or the pillow. Never the floor. Nope, no matter how hard I tried, I could never land one on the hardwood floor, where it would be easier to clean up.
As soon as the hairball was free, I shifted back. I’d had enough playing kitty cat for one night. I stretched and yawned as I shimmered back into bipedal form and blinked. Menolly grinned at me as she cleaned up the hairball for me.
“Playing nudist, I see?” She ran her eyes up and down my body in an exaggerated leer.
I glanced down. Oh shit, I’d changed into cat form when I was naked. No wonder I hadn’t been wearing my usual collar. “Very funny,” I said, grabbing my sleep shirt and yanking it over my head. It was chilly, so I fished out the magenta pajama bottoms to match and slid into them, then hopped on the bed and crossed my legs. I searched through the nightstand drawer until I found my stash of Snickers. Tearing open the wrapper, I bit into the gooey treat, sighing as the taste of chocolate coated my throat.
I stared at the candy bar. “Sometimes, our mother’s people get it right, and when they do, they get it right in a big way.”
Menolly shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. At least not now. But I remember when Mother brought home the bag of chocolate Kisses from one of her trips. We were what . . . I don’t remember . . . little, though. Camille had barely started her training with the Coterie of the Moon Mother. They were good, I remember, but almost too sweet for me.”
“Nothing’s too sweet for me,” I mumbled, taking another bite of the chocolate bar. “You aren’t going to let it drop, are you? About Chase?”
She shook her head. “You need to talk to him. One way or another, you have to come to terms with this.”
“I thought you said we were doomed.” I stared glumly at the pattern on the comforter. I’d picked out one with a swirl of roses and ivy, and now I thought maybe I should trade it in for a SpongeBob bedspread, or something with monkeys on it. Something whimsical to make me laugh.
“I still think you are, but that doesn’t mean you can leave it like this.” She stood up. “Whatever happens, I’m here for you. But don’t push me out of the loop, Kitten. I love you, and I care about you. Even when I’m being a total badass bitch.” She kissed me on the forehead and headed toward the door, stopping to peer over her shoulder. “By the way, while you and Camille are back in OW, if you get the chance, try to scrape up a few toys for Maggie. Something she’d like to play with that would at least introduce her to her home world. I want her to know both Earthside and OW culture.”
I nodded, smiling, but said nothing. Menolly was playing mama to Maggie. She was following in the steps of our own mother, but if I told her that, she’d pooh-pooh it. I finished my chocolate and turned off the light, sliding under the covers. Finally, somewhere near midnight, sleep caught up to me, and I fell into an exhausted, dreamless slumber.
Camille, Morio, Smoky, Iris, and I stood at the entrance to the Hydegar Park portal. One of the random portals to open up over the past few months, it was in the corner of a small, two-block-square park that the city had let grow wild. Luckily, the park was seldom used, and we’d gotten away with assigning an elderly—but still powerful—elf to watch over it.
Sent by Queen Asteria, Mirela dressed like a bag lady so as not to attract attention and spent her days in the park. At night, she cast a temporary seal on the portal, but it never held for long; the energy of the portal dissolved it. By morning the seal dissipated, and Mirela was once again camped out in the park, watching to make sure nothing nasty got through. In case it did, she had a cell phone and our numbers, and we’d hear about it in under five minutes.
The portal led straight to Darkynwyrd, problematic because the dark forest bordered the Shadowlands and shortly thereafter, the Southern Wastes. Should the beasties who prowled the woods there realize that the portal had opened, there would be plenty of creatures who would take delight in crossing over to wreak as much havoc as they could.
That was the problem with goblins and trolls and any number of other denizens of Otherworld. The more trouble they caused, the more butt-slapping, back-patting bullshit went on back in their native watering holes. It was like a men’s locker room, only worse. And the women were just as bad. I’d only met a few goblin wenches, but they were just downright nasty.
Camille waved at Mirela. “Hey, we’re ready. Anybody around this morning?”
Mirela shook her head. “Nobody stirring but the birds, and even they have been uncommonly quiet. There’s a storm brewing—thunder, it feels like, and lightning, and heavy dark clouds coming this way.”
Iris sat down beside her on the bench. “You’re right about that. I’ve sensed it since I woke this morning. Camille, you’ll probably be able to, too, if you close your eyes and focus.”
We’d decided to bring Iris with us because she was an expert with plants, and she’d be able to ferret out a Panteris phir plant without any problem. Maggie was tucked away in Menolly’s lair, and we’d left Rozurial to watch over the place. Vanzir had been sent packing for the day. Not that we didn’t trust him, but we preferred to err on the side of caution.
The elf motioned to the two trees that created the framework for the portal. Sometimes portals were erected between standing stones, other times they were dependent on trees or cave entrances or even large boulders. In Hydegar Park, one of the trees was oak, the other cedar. Guardians both, and sentient, though they would not speak to me. I could sense their watchful natures, observing us, taking in all that went on around them. Earthside forests kept to themselves. Compared with our woodlands back home, they were quiet and sometimes sullen, resentful of those who had destroyed wide swaths of thicket and copse.
The energy flowed between the trunks, alive and vibrant and new. The portal had been dormant for who knew how long, for at least a thousand years, and had woken to life a few weeks back. Rogue, independent of the spirit seals, the new portals’ opening signaled a breakdown in the energies dividing the realms. Even if we found all the spirit seals, even if we regained the third one from the Demonkin, who knew how long the system would maintain itself?
Aeval, Morgaine, and Titania—the three Earthside queens of Fae—insisted the Great Divide had been a colossal mistake on the part of the Fae, that it had altered the energy holding the realms together in such a manner that backlash was inevitable. Perhaps they were right.
Smoky examined the trees. “The energy isn’t stable. I think this could close on its own at any time. We run a risk traveling through it.”
“We have no choice,” I said. “If we use Grandmother Coyote’s portal, we’ll have a long journey to travel to reach Darkynwyrd. This should hold up for the trip there. And the trip back. I hope.”
The fact that the dragon considered it risky made me nervous. Smoky wasn’t afraid of much. In fact, the only real things I’d seen him wary of were the Autumn Lord and—to some extent—the werespiders. But I wasn’t about to nix our plans now. I needed that plant. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if I disobeyed a direct order from Hi’ran.
Camille shrugged. “We might as well give it a try. If we get stuck over there, we’ll just have to find another portal to come home through. It’s not the end of the world.”
I flashed her a silent thank-you and marched up to the nexus point between the tree trunks. “Here goes nothing,” I said and, seeing the others were behind me, stepped into the swirl of light.
CHAPTER 11
Walking through a portal is a little like putting on a suit of armor and gallivanting between two giant magnets. It’s like being torn to tiny bits within the blink of an eye. Then, suddenly the magnets disappear, and a whirlwind spins you back into one piece again. The whole experience isn’t really painful, but it’s definitely dizzying.
I hadn’t been home in a long time. When Camille and Menolly made the trip to Aladril a few months back, I’d been jealous as hell. Now it was my turn. Too bad our destination was Darkynwyrd, but at least with Morio and Smoky to back us up, we weren’t in as much danger as we would be otherwise.>Suddenly hungry, I filled my plate and began chowing down as we sorted out our plans. We were too tired tonight, and tomorrow we had a trip to OW to make. But come tomorrow night, we could drive up into the mountains and search for the cave. And—with a little luck—we’d find the seal before anybody was the wiser.
