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22
BREE
Bree stood on the battlements, the taste of Taveon’s lips still lingering on her own, the wind whipping through her hair. In the distance, clouds of dust stormed toward them. The thunder of footsteps echoed through the silent castle as they waited for the enemy to approach. Overhead, the moon cast brilliant silver beams onto the stone, but for once, the sight of it made Bree uneasy.
It was too dark, too quiet. Just how the demons wanted it, she suspected.
Norah stepped up to her side, donned in full fighting leathers. She held a glittering sword in her hands, and there was a lift of her chin that was all defiance. “Have you seen them yet?”
Bree shook her head. “No, just those dust clouds. It won’t be long, however.”
“We need to find out how to join the realms together, Bree. We won’t live fighting them like this.”
“You’re right.” Bree’s heart thumped. “But how are we supposed to do that? We don’t have time to hunt for answers. They’ll be here any minute now.”
“Which is why you need to go and start searching for it now,” Norah announced. “Find out what you can before the castle falls.”
Bree turned toward her. Surely she hadn’t heard her right. “The army is going to attack this castle.Now, Norah. I can’t just run off on some wild goose chase.”
“It’s not a wild goose chase if it leads to our victory.”
“Norah.” Bree pressed her lips into a thin line. “I’m a Redcap. In my wolf form, I’m a great fighter.”
“I know you are, Bree. You’re incredible.”
“I sense a but coming.” Bree gave her a look. “I know you better than anyone, Norah, and that face right there is full of a but.”
Norah laughed. “Your face is a butt.”
Bree couldn’t stop the grin that curled her lips. She’d missed her friend dearly. The tumultuous fae realms had torn them apart, more than once. Every time they found each other again, it felt like nothing had changed. Norah was the queen of the fae. Bree was all sorts of things tossed in a blender and then heated at three hundred degrees. A Redcap, a light fae, and something else she didn’t quite understand. Something that came from Taveon. She was a bit of everything.
And yet, they were both still the same girls from back in New York. Even up here on the battlements of an ancient fae castle facing an army of demons from another realm. They had changed so much, but they also...hadn’t. Bree hoped they could hold on to that.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” Norah said as a cold wind rustled the hair around her shoulders. “When you came through the Faerie Ring, what did you do?”
Bree cocked her head. “What do you mean? I just walked through it.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
“And is that...a problem?” It shouldn’t be, but the look on Norah’s face made Bree’s muscles tense.
“I closed the Faerie Ring,” Norah said. “I used the power of my mother’s sword, and I closed it. I thought that was the only way to protect Otherworld.”
It took a moment for Norah’s words to sink in. She hadn’t known that Taveon had dragged Bree through the Faerie Ring, and so she’d closed it to keep the dark fae out of Underworld.
“Maybe it didn’t work?” Bree asked. “Because I clearly had no trouble going through it.”
Norah shook her head. “Nope. It worked. I tested it after I closed it. So did Kael. Neither one of us could go through it anymore.”
“I don’t understand. If you closed it, how was I able to go through it that day?”
“Exactly.” Norah stared into Bree’s eyes, her words heavy with meaning.
But Bree didn’t fully follow. “Someone else must have opened it then, right? But who?”
“Youdid.”
Bree blinked. “But I didn’t, Norah. All I did was walk through.”
