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“Can you show me?”
“If you give me that.”
“After you’ve shown me,” I tell him, leaving it out. “There will be no exchange until I know you’ve kept your word.”
He glares at me then looks behind him at his friends. After a brief, silent conversation—pixies can communicate telepathically with each other—he shifts back to me and nods. “Very well, then. Let’s get on with it.”
Wings flickering faster than my eyes can see, he begins to fly toward his friends, they fall into line with him—three males and one female—who continue to shoot smiles in my direction. My stomach churns.
Pixies are a fucking handful.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Raffe?” One of my men, Larson, questions from behind me.
“It could be a trap,” Paulina adds. Her golden eyes dart around us, scanning every inch of the forest for movement.
“It could be,” I agree. “We need to keep our eyes out. Why don’t you fly up, keep an eye for us up there?”
She and Larson nod as they unfurl their wings, the glamour shielding them from view fading moments before they take to the sky. The pixies don’t even bother to look back at us. After a few minutes of silence, they stop just before a large tree.
Falcon turns back to me and holds out his tiny hand.
“Where is it?”
“Right there. Can ye’ not see it?” He gestures to the tree, so I narrow my eyes and take a closer look. There’s the smallest shimmer, a tiny flicker of light where it doesn’t belong.
With no more hesitation, I hand him the dagger, and the pixies take off.
Larson and Paulina land with a heavy thud and join me near the tree. “Ember would have noticed if she’d stepped into a tree,” Paulina comments as she gets closer.
I reach out with my hand and press my fingers against the bark. It moves, waving like liquid beneath the contact. “There must be more than one,” I tell her.
Fuck if there could have been worse news. More than one tear? That means there’s no way of knowing what the fuck comes out of them. How many more are out there? How many places are the two worlds blending together?
“Rafferty.”
I turn back toward Larson. Eyes wide, he gestures straight ahead, and I follow his hand. Just ahead, creatures have gathered silently. Their skeletal forms are covered in needlelike spines. One crunches down on a chunk of bone while the others watch us with gaping holes where eyesshouldbe.
They creep forward, moving like four-legged spiders.
“What in the bloody hell are those?” Paulina demands.
I wish I didn’t have an answer for her. “Damned souls.”
“What?”
“They must have slipped through the Veil. They are supernaturals who are left to rot in the in-between. Forbidden from moving on.”
“Oh, shit.”
“How do you know this?” Larson questions.
“Because I spent some time in the Veil when we imprisoned Ailis.” They creep closer, and my skin begins to tingle due to their proximity. “We need to leave. We cannot kill them, and they will absorb our life force if given the opportunity.”
Larson looks horrified. “They can’t die?”
I shake my head. “Not easily. You need fire—and a lot of it.”
Without another word, he touches my shoulder, and we dematerialize, though the screech of the souls as we left will forever ring in my mind.
