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I hesitated. The man was more frustrated by my summon than anything else. If something happened to the castle, it would have been the first thing he mentioned. Tal was nothing if not efficient.
“What is going on?” I probably shouldn’t have wondered aloud. Getting right to the point would have been the proper move, but I was still too stunned to think clearly.
Was Rhoan in trouble? Tal probably wouldn’t think of that as pertinent information. If I thought of Rhoan as home and used that to step in-between while he was unreachable, then it made sense that my magic would fail.
My chest tightened as I chewed on the tip of my thumb. Tal cocked his head in confusion.
“What is wrong with you today? Did Beryl get into your head?” He stepped closer to put a hand on my shoulder. “Princess, you’re not acting rationally right now. You have me worried.”
A trickle of magic slithered over my skin. I jerked away from Tal and gaped up at him. He had some balls to try to cast a glamour over me.
Tal threw his hands up in surrender. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t Faust in a glamour.”
I couldn’t blame him after the trick Faust pulled earlier. He’d donned an illusion to look like Janessa, and it’s messed with all of our heads during the meeting. I sighed and wrapped my arms around myself.
It was time to get straight to the point.
“I can’t go back to the castle.”
Tal seemed even more confused than usual. “I know that it’s in disrepair, but the castle isn’t entirely unlivable. If anything, it’s far better than this little box that you keep coming back to.”
I gaped when he gestured to my small apartment. “That’s not what I mean! I’m trying to tell you that every time I’ve tried to step in-between, I’ve been blocked by something. I summoned you to make sure that the castle…that Rhoan wassafe.”
True to form, Tal said nothing. Magic rippled in the air around him. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. The man tapped into a deeper form of in-between and moved between breaths. The next heartbeat, he returned as if he’d never gone anywhere.
He spread his arms wide. “There’s nothing stopping me.”
My brow furrowed. “So…there’s nothing wrong? The castle is fine? Is Rhoan okay?”
He had to be. I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t step in-between. Hilda had come up against the same problem. That had to mean that there was something blocking us from the castle itself. Rhoan had to be okay.
But Tal didn’t answer. He pressed his lips into a firm line that drew me across the room. I fisted his shirt in my hands and shook him.
“Talk to me. Now.”
Tal reluctantly met my gaze. I knew because it took him several attempts to look me in the eye. “We have not seen him.”
“Rhoan is missing?”
Tal touched my forearm. “Now, I didn’t say that. I said that no one has seen him. Those are two very different things, princess.”
I cringed at the wordprincess. It was what Rhoan had called me when we’d been unable to tell each other how we felt. I didn’t like hearing it from the mouths of others even though it was my title.
“Are you talking about the warrior? The one that spends all of his time at the bar outside of the city?” Hilda asked as she peeked over the counter.
Without turning, I said, “He’s more than that to me.”
Hilda snorted doubtfully. “That man has been a mess since the day he was brought into this world. It would take several fae lifetimes to address everything that man has done wrong since coming into this world.”
“Be wary of your tongue, brownie. If you do not speak kindly of the princess’s lover, then you will find a force more frightening than any boggart in existence.” Tal yanked his shirt free of my fisted hands.
Though I hated to admit it, I appreciated the bastard. However, he could have bothered to tell me that Rhoan was missing. I hated how he tried to draw a line between missing and unseen. If Rhoan wasn’t there, then it explained why I couldn’t reach the castle through him.
I looked to Hilda. She’d been unable to step, too. That was something that I didn’t quite understand. We’d all watched the brownie transform into a boggart to distract Beryl’s Unseelie guards. There was no questioning that she was who she said.
That could only mean that one of the wards on the castle had kept her out. I told myself to keep an eye on her, but I wasn’t going to abandon her just yet. She seemed like a decent woman, even if she was a bit coarse and grating.
“I’m not coming home yet,” I told Tal. “Keep an eye on the castle for me. I need to find Rhoan.”
