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“It’s okay,” I told her, “he listens to me.”
I hoped.
Chapter 25
Midnight
‡
If the loss of memory feels like a wormhole, then its return feels like having an amputated limb sewn on in the wrongplace.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “MemoryInconsistency”
“Get us outof here, please.”
The Dog flashed white fangs in his canine grin and ran to the door, looking back at us to follow. Starling, bless her, mastered herself and edged around him to lift the latch. Athena spun around, her face blanching, little dagger thrust out. “Thrice damned Titania!”
“A friend. Let’s go.”
The Dog dashed down the hall and I ran after, each jarring step amplifying the throbbing in my hands. The cat inside me relished it, using that opening to push at me, to escape the cage of my body.
“He’s headed for the ballroom!” Athena shouted behind us. “Don’t follow him there!”
“He’s our way out. We have to trust him.” I called back.
She snarled some kind of obscenity in reply.
We burst into the ballroom like a cannonball rocketing through a flock of parrots. Brightly dressed fae flew in all directions, scattering before the Dog with cries of excited terror. Except the partygoers already fastened to various sadistic machines in various states of undress and bloodiness. Apparently the festivities had been well underway.
I tried not to look as the Dog gleefully plunged through the crowd, seizing and tossing aside bodies. Athena touched my arm gently, gaze fastened on my grotesque hands. “Gwynn…”
“Later.”
The Dog had cleared a path and we ran after him, climbing the grand staircase and hurling ourselves outside to the wide glassy courtyard.
Something shifted in the air, an abrupt change in barometric pressure. The ground moved under my feet, a minor seismic shift. The Dog scented the air, giving an excited yip. Starling gasped and Athena whispered, “Midnight.”
With the screeching sound of claws on glass, magnified through the mountain range, the Wild Hunt arrived.
Giant bearded men and vicious blonde Valkyrie creatures pounded through the air on horses made of night and bloodthirst. Hounds poured between their hooves, living ink. The guards scattered and we cringed back, ready to join them, to run from this fire back into the frying pan.
But the Black Dog leaped forward, baying a challenge. The hounds, now visible, now a thread of fang in the dark, circled him. I must have cried out and started forward, because Starling and Athena now held me between them.
The Dog and the Hounds engaged in a snarling fight, shimmering in and out of sight. The Veil had thinned and they moved between worlds. Now in this one, now in another.
A massive hunter shining with ancient power waded into the fray, swinging a broad-bladed sword and bellowing. Kicking the Hounds aside, he lifted the sword, bringing it down in a merciless arc toward the Dog.
“I challenge you!” A voice rang out. A man, bold in shining armor, stepped out of the shadows. The hunter answered on a shout, turning to face the new foe with relish.
“Is that…Fergus?”
“I got him out with the chatelaine’s keys while Athena watched to see what happened with you.” Starling’s fingers dug into my arm. Fergus had flung back his helm and engaged the mighty hunter with surprising ferocity, shimmering with heroic magic.
Amazing.
The Black Dog barked with urgency, now standing king among a pack of cowering Hounds. The other hunters galloped through the night, wheeling in circles.
“They’ll hold off until the challenge is complete,” Athena tugged me forward. Starling dropped my other arm and ran beside us.
