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I glanced up at Smoky. “Something is feeding the mist.”
He gave me a faint nod. “I feel it, too. This is unnatural.”
Delilah slipped up beside us. “Shade just told me that he senses Netherworld energy here, but there’s something more. Something far removed from the spirit realm.”
Shit. What were we dealing with? As we wandered farther into the flurry of white steam rolling along the ground, my ankles began to tingle, and then the tingling moved up my legs and before I knew it, I was shaking like a leaf.
“What’s wrong?” Smoky reached down and cupped my elbow. “You’re trembling. Are you thinking about my father?”
“Yes, but that’s not what’s making me shiver.” I stopped long enough to tell everyone what was happening. “Anybody else feel it?”
Shade nodded. “I do, but it’s not affecting me as bad as it appears to be hitting you.”
Chase let out a short sigh. “I feel something—a discomfort, like a prickling—but I thought it might be the cold.”
“Hold on for a moment and let me suss it out.”
We had stopped near a bench. Trillian swept the snow off, and I gratefully slid onto the seat. I pulled my cloak tighter around me, then lowered myself into a trance.
“Just what’s out there? Who’s creeping around in the fog?” The mesmerizing strands of energy clouded my focus, and I shook them off.
Peel back layer after layer of sparkling mist cloaking the reality behind the magic. Dig into its core, seek the central thread. And there it is . . . a cold thread, a dark thread, steeped in the energy of peat bogs and old forests and bonfires deep in the grove at midnight.
Touching the strand, I sucked in a deep breath as it sang to me, reverberated through me like an electric fiddle, ripping out an ancient, keening reel. Like a live wire scorching the inside of my eyelids. I caught a glimpse of sentinel fir trees dripping with moss, and toadstools growing off downed snags. Silhouettes flittered here and there—sparkling with energy and yet the sparkles were shrouded in darkness.
Evil? Not really . . . and yet, not good.
Red eyes glimmered at me from the forest. An ancient entity, male, old beyond reckoning, he waited in the shrouded night.
Come, join my dance. You know you must, sooner or later. The Huntress must dance with the Hunter as the moon kisses the sun. Come, join me in a frenzied ring. You, guardian of the Dark Moon.
I shook out of the web being woven around me and realized that while I’d been in trance, I’d been warm—warm as a summer’s night under the stars. I could still smell rich roses, and honey wine, and the fragrant loam of the earth. The winter snow around me glared, stark and unyielding, and I longed to join the summons.
Clearing the catch out of my throat, I stifled the impulse to run toward the energy. As foreboding as it was, I still longed to reach out, to touch it, to embrace the entity waiting in the dark.
“What is it?” Delilah asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but it’s Fae in origin. There are several beings waiting down this path. Something dark and hungry—all scuttle and cunning. And the Hunter, I think. He’s old and crafty, waiting in the dark of the night. I want to shed my cloak and go running toward it.” I turned to Chase. “Show us the portal, please.”
Another five minutes of ever-increasing energy and we were standing in front of a shimmering blue field between two trees, off the sidewalk, to our left. Chase had been right—the thing looked just like a portal, only it had a distinctly different feel from the ones we were used to. Which meant it was either a different kind, or a mimic.
I motioned for Shade to join me. He was the most versed in magic now that Morio was laid up, and he’d have a better chance of helping me if some Big Bad came tumbling through.
He leaned down and whispered, “This portal stems from the ancient forests. Be cautious, Camille. Powerful beings inhabit the woodlands of Earth.”
Smoky cleared his throat, eyeing Shade as his lips neared my ear. I rolled my eyes. Dragons didn’t do all that well in the same territory; even a half dragon like Shade had territorial issues, but mix him with Smoky—whose full-blood dragon testosterone put most alpha males to shame—and we’d been breaking up sputtering matches for several weeks. As polite as Shade could be, he was still, beneath it all, part dragon, and that side had risen to the challenges Smoky had pushed forward.
I took a slow step away from him to calm Smoky down. Shade cracked a faint smile, and I realized he’d stirred the cauldron on purpose.
“A real jokester, huh?” I mumbled, then turned back to the others. “We can’t just walk through—we have no idea where it might lead. This has the energy of the Fae Queens written all over it, but I sincerely doubt they conjured it up. They’d summon it to their Sovereignty if they summoned it at all.”
“That makes sense.” Trillian stroked his chin. With his glistening obsidian skin, he was almost lost in the dim light. “But they might know what it is. What do you think about asking them?”
Delilah and I glanced at each other. The idea of asking the Triple Threat to come out here to help us wasn’t an easy decision. As much as I respected Aeval and Titania, I equally distrusted Morgaine. She might be our distant cousin, but she was out for pure power—her own—and I wouldn’t put anything past her in her attempts to claim what she could.
I slowly shook my head. “I don’t know, but—”
“Do you hear that?” Chase interrupted me, blanching as he turned toward the portal.
