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“She loves you.”
“I know that. And sometimes it’s just not enough. One day you’ll understand.” He heaved himself up and took himself off to his room.
“I already do,” Starling said to the space he’d left behind.
“We can kick him off the team,” I told her.
“Make him go away so I don’t have to deal with him, like you did with Officer Sean?” She rolled her eyes at me. “Yes, of course I knew about that. It’s sweet of you, Gwynn, but I end up feeling like you think I can’t handle stuff for myself.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know, which is why I’m not insulted. Yet. My decision stands. If he chooses to come with us, he can.”
*
The next morningwe began the climb into the Glass Mountains. It had been a bad dream night for me and I felt as thin and brittle as the razor-edged peaks rising above us. Starling had shaken me awake at one point, saying that I’d been shouting so loudly, a few Brownies had rushed to our defense. Darling Hercules slept beside me for the rest of the night, his purring soothing me, but not loud enough to cover the sounds of the Wild Hunt shrieking through the treetops. I could only hope they didn’t prey through the mountains. As it was, I lay awake for the rest of the night, listening and wondering what the hell I was going to do when we reached Titania’s palace.
We rode on narrow paths through steep-sided ravines, the horses’ hooves sometimes slipping on the slick surfaces. The terrain wasn’t truly glass—at least, not this low down—but more rocky with glassy inclusions. Obsidian rocks jumbled up against boulders of clear crystal. Loose pieces of what seemed to be precious jewels sometimes showered in minor landslides, set loose by unknown creatures following us from their vantage along the ridgelines.
Larch, sure-footed and tireless, led us through one valley and into the next. Each night I touched the globe as lightly as I could, rose up and traveled the distance to Titania’s palace and back, then pointed the way to him.
I avoided looking inside. It only seemed to make things worse.
And each night we camped under worse circumstances, on flat diamond surfaces that no pile of blankets could soften. Larch and Athena took turns standing guard, though I assured them that no one could get through the force field. I hoped. I hit my store of magic for it every night, sure that Starling, Fergus and I would not withstand the cold. Darling took to sleepingonme, which I didn’t mind that much, since his distracting weight kept me grounded in my body, breaking through the nightmares to remind me that they weren’t really real.
Or, at least, not real enough that I’d actually sliced off my hands. I breathed a sigh of profound belief to awake in the morning—or move from the one reality to the other—and see that my hands remained attached.
One morning we awoke to muffled light, and my heart lurched me out of drowsiness with a great thump. Snow had fallen, clinging to the force field instead of sliding off, shrouding us from the world. The air inside felt thick and close, making me worry for what might have happened if enough carbon dioxide had built up that we wouldn’t have awakened at all.
I used a bit of magic to heat the field enough to slide the snow off before I popped it, saving us from a dousing of snow—something Darling thanked me for, as he rarely did. I fretted as we rode, wondering if I dared protect us again that night. Perhaps Larch or Athena could alert me if it began to snow, but then what? Maybe I could heat it enough to keep the snow from sticking, but that would be a constant energy drain I couldn’t afford. Unless I stabilized it with the globe, which exacted its own toll.
“My lady sorceress?” Larch’s voice broke through my reverie. I’d been riding dully along, immersed in my thoughts, Darling on the riding pad behind me, under my cloak. Starling, Athena and Fergus all looked at me questioningly, which meant it wasn’t the first time Larch had tried to get my attention.
I was getting really tired of people giving me worried looks. “What?”
He pointed. The path before us, already no wider than my arms outstretched, narrowed and began to climb up a sheer-sided peak, brilliantly clear and cold blue in the center. Above, Titania’s palace glittered, lethally lovely.
“We’ll have to leave the horses here and walk up.”
“They can’t stay alone.” Not like we could turn them out to graze in this sterile wilderness of stone.
“I’ll stay with them,” Larch agreed. “Someone of my kind would stand out among Titania’s crowd.”
I realized he was right—in all the visions, I’d never seen a Brownie among Titania’s jeweled throngs of admirers. Spoke well of the Brownies, I thought.
“We’re all going to stand out,” Athena observed. “Unless Gwynn can magic us up some disguises.”
“Maybe so.”
“We’ll see,” Starling put in firmly. “Let’s get up there first.”
Fergus, eyes glued to the palace looming above, dismounted and strapped his sword to his belt. He pulled out various other tools and supplies, fitting them into various pockets of his cloak. Abruptly he looked more like a champion and not the drink-sodden Irishman oozing bitter regret.
“Hold up there, Prince Charming,” I told him. “We can’t just charge up there and storm the castle.”
He flashed me an impatient and arrogant glance. Did he look younger and slimmer all of a sudden?
“You may do as you wish, lady sorceress,” he sneered, making it clear he didn’t think much of my abilities. Given what he’d seen so far, I hardly blamed him. But the attitude seemed way out of line. “The end of my quest is in sight. I must reach out and grasp it.”
