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If there was anyone in existence that could help me remember what I’d done to Nadia and Viktor, it would be him.
The teleportation stone in my hand connected to the market, and a rift of energy split the air in front of me. Most witches could support a rift on their own without a stone, but Viktor and I had never been able to channel the sort of power required to breach the border. Our abilities were limited to death, and a small amount of energy that we could channel into other things.
Tucking the stone into my pocket as the door opened, I slipped through the rift and into the market.
10
Market Madness
The rift let me out onto a raised platform, offset from one of the main tunnels. The air in my house had been cool and inviting. On the other side, it was thick with steam and the stench of boiled meat. Behind me lining the wall was a dormant portal, shaped like a giant mirror.
I walked down the three brick steps and found myself surrounded by food stalls and supernatural creatures of all different shapes and sizes. Fae made up most of the market's typical customers and shop owners, but there were people of every species to be found in the tunnels. Both good and bad. A lot of them were the kind of creatures that you wouldn’t want to see walking down the streets of New Orleans, or any other major city. The very sight of an ogre’s true form, or a goblin would send the human world into a panic.
Sidestepping the nearest vendor shouting at me in Deep Fae, I tried to get my bearings. I only understood every fourth or fifth word but I needed to concentrate. Getting lost inside the market was far too easy. Every tunnel tended to look the same if you weren’t careful. It was Matteo that taught me how to navigate around. If he hadn’t, I never would’ve found my way back out that day.
Initially, I’d mistaken the gold and silver discs for decoration. But in reality, they were etched with a Deep Fae directional symbol and a number. All you had to do was remember which marker you started at and then follow the line backwards from wherever you got lost.
I spotted a silver dot over the door to a hookah bar three stalls down and sighed. The teleportation stone had dropped me two tunnels below Matteo’s shop. I was in for a climb. Dodging a group of half-elves haggling over the price of their meal, I slipped through the crowds and found a ladder built into the wall. It was slick with condensation and smaller than some of the other staircases throughout the market, but it served its purpose as I hoisted myself up into the tunnel above.
I stepped off the ladder, right into a crowd of people. From what I could tell, they were bunched together watching a set of elvish dancers swaying to ethereal music. I tried to push through, but a tall man with dark green skin and small tusks protruding from his lower lip shoved me back.
Magic roared inside me, and I lifted my hand to throw him with a burst of telekinesis. My fingers flexed, the power burned, and—
“What the hell are you doing?” snapped a familiar voice as my cousin’s form popped into existence in front of my nose.
I leapt back and nearly slipped down the hole I’d come up through. “Shado!”
“What the hell are you doing in the Borderlands?” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips.
“What areyoudoing here?” Shado was the last person that should ever be in the Borderlands. All her life she’d been a pacifist. The market chewed up and spit out people like her every day. One visit, and they were never the same.
“I was worried about you,” she said. “After what happened, I thought you might do something stupid. So here I am, astral projecting right into the middle of you doing something stupid. Are you insane, coming to the Border—”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re astral projecting from the morgue, and I’m the one who’s crazy?”
“I locked the door. I’m not an idiot. Now tell me why you’re here. This place is full of nutjobs!”
I tried to cover her mouth with my hand, but my fingers went right through her astral form. Ice shot up my arm and I cringed. Moving through an astral ghost or a projection always felt like getting splashed in the face with a bucket of ice water.
Shaking the pins and needles from my fingers, I hissed at her, “Quiet!”
“I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her voice. “But it’s true.”
“I’m here to see if I can track down some answers about what happened to Nadia,” I said, stepping around her.
The dancers were moving down the tunnel away from us, taking the crowd with them. I waited for an opening, then darted to the other side and up a set of red stone stairs. They let out into a smaller tunnel that only had shops lining one side of the wall.
Moving to the center of the walkway, Shado fell into step beside me. “What kind of answers? Was Nadia here before she died?”
“No, there’s something here that can help me remember what happened. Something that can tell me why I killed her,” I said, rubbing the tension from the back of my neck.
“You didn’t—Whatever. What is this thing that can help you?”
“A friend.” I shrugged.
“God, getting information from you is like pulling teeth,” she grumbled. “Which friend? Anyone I know? Anyone I should be worried about?”
I shook my head. Matteo’s tunnel was unusually quiet. Shado’s voice was the loudest in earshot, and the vendors had all pulled their carts inside their shops. We’d passed by a few fae and witches walking from door to door, but it was nowhere near as crowded as the lower tunnels. It was a dead zone. Even the air felt thin and empty.
