Page 114 of Fallen Court

“You aren’t taking me with you,” I informed him, burying my fear beneath layers of bravado.

“I’m not here for you.” His voice echoed like he was calling from somewhere farther than limbo, and he gestured around us. “But I had hoped you might walk when the veil was thin.”

Relief mixed with annoyance. I’d come here for concrete information. Not riddles. “You interrupted something important.”

“This is important. I have a message for Lach.” He waited for me to nod. “His time is nearly up.”

“Is that a threat?” My voice cracked despite my best efforts.

“A warning. Nothing more.” I might not have believed him, except for the intensity shining in his eyes.

“Has the Wild Hunt found a way around the ward?”

He ignored my question. “The Cabal moves against him. It would be wise for Lach to seek alliances with other courts.”

“What cabal?”

But, with his message delivered, he started to fade. I lunged for him, ready to force more answers, but my fingers closed on empty air as he vanished entirely. I was alone with more questions now than before I’d come.

Shadows twisted and writhed around me, coalescing into shapes that were neither here nor there. I stiffened, my pulse racing as more phantoms began to emerge from the murky boundaries of this place. But before another spirit could manifest, a force gripped me—a sensation like being caught in a powerful undertow. A scream ripped from my throat as I was thrown off-balance and swallowed by the haze. Shadows tightened around me, and I fought, dragging me deeper until I couldn’t breathe even as more screams clawed out of me.

And then everything went still.

I blinked against the abrupt shift in reality, my lungs burning as I registered the snuffed candles before me. Then a table. Finally, the rest of La Belle Dame seemed to settle into place, along with Willow sitting across from me. Only now, her hands were pressed firmly over her ears, and I realized I was still screaming. I clamped my mouth shut, gripping the chair like a life preserver.

“Looks like you’ve just seen a ghost,” Willow teased. She spun a finger in a circle, and the overhead lights came on. “Did you get what you were looking for?”

I stared at her, the echoes of Gran’s information and Goemon’s warning bouncing in my still-dizzy brain. For a minute, words failed me, but I finally managed to shake my head slowly. “Information, yes…answers, no.” My voice sounded distant, hollow, as if part of me was still adrift in limbo.

“And the ring? What did your Gran tell you?” she pressed, chatting like I’d just gotten back from a nice, normal luncheon.

“She said the ring has always been mine,” I murmured, twisting the band with a frustration that had become all too familiar. “But if that’s true, why can’t I take it off?”

Her face fell as the ring refused to slip from my finger.

“Maybe it’s time to talk to an alchemist,” she suggested, leaning back in her chair and offering me a sympathetic smile. “Someone who can see how the spell works.”

“Maybe…” I trailed off, the idea stirring a flicker of hope within me. “I might know someone who can help.”

“Good.” Willow eyed me curiously, her brows knitting together. “Did you encounter anyone else while you were…wherever you were?”

I hesitated. Parts of it were already slipping away like a dream, but Goemon’s warning remained bleak and stark in my mind. “No one of consequence.”

Willow nodded, although her eyes told me she sensed there was more I wasn’t sharing. But she didn’t push me. Maybe she also knew that truth, like enemies, always lurked in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to emerge.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lach

It was colder than it had been a few hours ago—colder than normal for New Orleans even in November—as I made my way through the Quartier in the early hours before dawn. Ghosts walked the streets tonight, unseen but felt in the unnatural chill. Even though the click of my boots on the cobbles was my only companion on the deserted street, I felt the spirits watching me.

I wondered how many of them I knew.

Or how many of them were on the other side because of me.

And tonight, Cate had faced the world of the dead alone, because—as usual—I was playing ringmaster to a shit circus someone else had started. I didn’t even want to consider what could have gone wrong with the séance.

Brothers were proof that the gods had a sense of humor—a twisted fucking sense of humor. Shaw seemed hell-bent on causing trouble, running around with a vampire as if he were invincible and dragging Channing with him. Not that he couldn’t make messes of his own, but maybe I was more forgiving because one of them had brought Cate into my life. And now they were picking fights they couldn’t win with witches, for fuck’s sake.