Page 6 of Can you take it?

Once again, a friendly laugh poured from the blond man. “So you’re new here. I thought I could tell by all the memento newness radiating from you. The filthy beggars were wasting their last bit of life on the dust.”

Memento? Dust?

As we walked farther into the room, I realized that it wasn’t so much a room as it was a huge foyer-type area with exits surrounding it, forming a circular room. Sunlight caught my attention, and I strained my neck to see what the cause of the phenomenon was. They couldn’t have sunlight down here, could they? With a few strategic steps, I was able to get a better look and see three extra-large windowpanes with black trellises covering them, each allowing a small amount of sunlight to peek through. “Dust?” I turned from the window to face the man. Something about the way he was looking at me caused a stir of adrenaline in my gut.

“Fairy dust. Ya know, to fly?”

“The saltshaker?” I asked, taking a step back. The way he was looking at me also made me want more distance between us.

He snorted. “Yeah, the saltshaker, except it’s not a salt-shaker. It holds fairy dust. It’s a drug. You sprinkle it on your skin and get the sensation that you are really happy. If you left loved ones, you get to see their faces again, see what they are doing—ya know, spy on them for a few minutes. They can’t see you, but it doesn’t matter. The dusters call it flying because you feel so high from seeing everything you left, you might as well be flying. That’s a nice necklace you’ve got there. Is it rare? From the royal jewels?”

“Something like that.” I tucked the pendant back under my shirt. We were standing in the middle of some sort of party. Low, melodic music flowed through the space as more and more strangers bumbled into me even though we stood off to the side. Where had Walter gone? Should I be worried that he’d disappeared?

The stranger abruptly moved too close to my side. “Ya know, memento. As soon as you arrive in Tartarus, you have a full tank of memento. It’s all your memories, just here it’s used like currency. What you’ve got is gonna get you in some big trouble down here. I’m just looking out for my new friend. Why don’t I hold on to some of it for you and keep it safe? You can trust a fellow Seelie. The pendant too? We’re friends, right?”

Son of a bitch. Of course he wasn’t just a kind Seelie stranger; he was a piece-of-shit Seelie that had been horrible enough to earn a place in this shitland.

I glared at him and had the sudden urge to bash his head into the wall just for talking about taking Cal’s pendant. “Nah, I’m good. Listen, I’ll catch you later, man. I’m going to find my friend.” I slapped his arm, imagining it was his face and turned to walk into the crowd. Something sharp suddenly pressed into my back, halting my steps.

“No. I saved you back there. You think I don’t recognize you? Prince?” He pressed the blade’s tip harder into my back. “I don’t know how you got here, but by the way you tucked that necklace in, I’d say it must be quite valuable. Hand it over and while you’re at it, give me all of your memento. You won’t be needing it after this anyway. Poor fucker, you wouldn’t last a day here.…and you won’t. Give me what I want.”

Maybe it was the Tartarus scabies, or maybe it was something else, but when I snatched the knife from him and held it to his lying throat, it felt good. He hadn’t even realized what I’d done until it was too late and the sharp bite of steel threatened to slice under his jaw. The color drained from his face, and he held his arms up wide. “It was just a welcome joke, come on. A little razzing.”

“That was really stupid—what’s your name?” Suns, I wanted to smash his face in.

“Ja-Jarrod,” he stuttered.

“That was really stupid, Jarrod. You do something like this again and I’m going to⁠—”

“Prince Aurelius.”

The entire crowd stopped what they were doing to turn to see where the deep voice called from. Even the music stopped. My head snapped in the direction of the voice to see the creator of the powerful call backlit ominously as he stood in front of the sunlit windows. And there was Walter. He looked like a little boy standing next to the large man. Not just because he was at least a full foot shorter than him—but because the man exuded an aura of power unlike any I had seen. It was stifling and intriguing. You wanted to hide but you also wanted to get closer to it—to him.

The man was Kaohs, the god of Tartarus. There was no one else it could have been.

I shoved stupid Jarrod away from me, keeping my eyes on Kaohs the entire time. His dark eyes glinted with humor as he watched me tuck the blade into the back of my belt, as if he found it adorable to hold a knife. Walter moved his head and beckoned me to join them.

As I walked through the still crowd, no one moved a muscle until I made my way over to Walter and Kaohs. They turned and walked out the door, and it wasn’t until I stepped out myself that I heard the music and crowd return to their loud state behind us.

I shut the door and felt the heat of the sun on my face, but disappointment pulled at my spirit. Having been a SunTamer, I had a closer relationship with the sun than almost anyone. I worked with the sun and held the gift of wielding small fractions of it—or at least I had before I gave up my powers to come here. This sun, however, was not real. It, like so many things in this place, was nothing more than a liar. Though it wasn’t real, it made me realize how much I missed the feel of the afternoon sun heating my skin or the touch of liquid heat in my palm when I called to the sun and managed to create a bright and fiery ball of power in my hands. I would miss that feeling forever. I hoped Cal loved it as much as I had.

I turned around to the scent of sweat mingling with fresh jasmine and the sound of angry hooves slapping at the ground. A barren field of crumbling dirt was fenced in with tall wrought-iron posts. Men clad in heavy black armor, each atop a muscular onyx stallion, scrambled aggressively through the fenced-in area. Was that smoke or steam coming from the horses’ nostrils? Holy suns, they were intense. Each time I thought my eyes had landed on the biggest horse and rider, I was proven wrong as a more muscular, agile rider would cross their path and knock them from their horse. The air was filled with angry desperation. I stole a quick look at the false sun, attempting to look away when a particularly aggressive rider rushed another man and proceeded to slam something into the small hole cut out in the armor of the man’s helmet, just above his eyes. Sharp cracks sounded when the man’s head violently exploded, sending pieces of his armor and flesh into the fence with a splatter of gold. He was—had been—Seelie.

My stomach churned at the barbaric sight. A large crowd of darkly dressed fae cheered wildly from their seats. It appeared to be some sort of a sporting event for the cretins.

“A foreign and unnatural sight for you to see, no doubt,” said Kaohs beside me.

A shiver tickled over the tops of my arms as I felt his power radiate into my space. Aside from the Fates and the weather goddess, I’d never been around any of the old gods. Most fae never saw them and many didn’t even believe they still existed, assuming that the gods were just lore at this point. I struggled not to stare at the man. I didn’t need to do anything that would upset the God of the Underworld, but it was impossible not to gawk. He stood a good bit taller than me, with a thick head of shiny, black hair peppered with bright silver strands at the sides just above his slightly pointed ears, making him look distinguished and experienced. His eyes were disarmingly friendly, shining at me with a reddish-brown hue that made me feel, somehow, like trusting him. His gray, long-sleeved shirt had clean lines aside from where it pressed out from his muscular build. His shoulders were definitely not fitting through Walter’s hidden floor corridors, that was for certain.

“Sir.” Why am I like this—sir?

His broad shoulders shook slightly with laughter. “Call me Kaohs.”

I nodded, still looking at the blocks he called shoulders. I wonder how much he could carry? Loads, I’d bet. “Kaohs.” He flashed a smile full of bright white teeth and put his arm around me, guiding me to the seating area with the other fae that surrounded three stone towers. I realized how dangerous and powerful this man really was once I caught myself eagerly smiling at him—the most dangerous creatures in the world were the ones that made you think they were harmless. At the top of each of the towers, elegantly dressed men and women shouted and laughed.

“I was not expecting you here, Aurelius, Prince of Seelie. Ah, but that is the way of the Fates. They like their secrets as much as the rest of us do. If I know them, they have something quite interesting planned for you. Seelie royals don’t come here without purpose.”

“Your shoulders are huge.” I snapped my mouth shut and debated lying under one of the equine beasts.