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“Fuck!” he cursed.
Ahead of us, the portal was beginning to take shape, but the spellcaster appeared in front of it, blocking our path. Colbolt picked up the pace, his hooves slamming hard against the concrete. If he was too quick, we would overshoot the portal before it manifested. If he was too slow, that spellcaster was going to turn us into a block of ice.
And I was powerless to stop him.
Gullie suddenly flew out of my hair and surged ahead, leaving a trail of green Pixie dust in the air behind her. “Gullie!” I screamed, but she couldn’t hear me.
I had never seen her fly so fast before. She had shot past me like a bullet, her body glowing more brightly by the second. As the spellcaster went to wind back his arm and hurl a bolt of magic at us, Gullie’s body suddenly shone like a small, green sun. Colbolt lowered his head, and I shut my eyes to shield them from the light, having succeeded in opening the portal only a fraction of a second before.
The bolt of magic that was meant for us never came. Colbolt grunted, then leapt into the air. I felt my stomach lurch and tilt, and when we landed again, it wasn’t on solid concrete, but on crunchy snow. We were back in Arcadia, the cold air caressing my skin, a fluffy flurry of snow circling around us.
Opening my eyes, I turned around and concentrated on dismissing the portal—on shutting it as quickly as possible. That bastard spellcaster was far too quick for me again, and he managed to slip through just as the portal shut, locking us in Arcadia once more. Only before he could lift his hand to attack us again, Valerian hurled one of his daggers at the Fae’s chest, and this time, it hit the mark.
The spellcaster’s eyes went wide, his body turned suddenly rigid, and a trickle of blood spilled from his lips. He then fell face first into the snow, limp, and dead.
Panting, gasping, wordless, I let the moment roll over me. We weren’t in Lysa anymore, we weren’t on Earth anymore, and Malys’ thug lay dead in the snow. I had never seen someone die in front of me before, had never witnessed another person’s bloody death. But despite the gravity of what I had just seen, there was only one place my mind instantly went to.
“Gullie!”
The word shot out of me like an explosion. The portal was shut, the snow falling listlessly around me. With my eyes closed as they had been, I hadn’t seen where she had gone, hadn’t seen her fly through the portal ahead of us or after us.
Frantic, panicked, I went to throw myself off of Colbolt’s back, calling out to her like a mad woman… when Gullie replied.
“Would you stop yelling?” she croaked. “I’m here.”
“Oh, my Gods, Gullie,” I breathed, turning around to find her tucked in Valerian’s other hand.
“I caught her as we went through,” he said.
Gullie pulled a thumbs up. “Plucked me right out of the air,” she said, her voice weak, and strained. “I’m impressed… and tired, and hungry as hell. Doing that takes a lot out of me. I’m also surprised I didn’t burn his eyes out.”
“I wasn’t looking. I guessed.”
I threw my arms around Valerian’s back. “Good guess,” I breathed. “And thank you, Colbolt. You’ve saved our lives more times than I can count.”
Colbolt snorted, shook his head, and then padded the snow. He was also breathing heavily, but he wasn’t injured, and neither were we. The only problem now, though, was to figure out how much time had passed since we were on Earth. We had left Lysa during the morning, now it was night, but was it the same night?
“Where did I bring us?” I asked.
“Shouldn’t you know that?” asked Valerian.
“Generally, yes, but I had to guess… I’m not sure where I’ve put us.”
Valerian handed Gullie over to me, then he hopped off Colbolt’s back and walked around the area to get his bearings. Meanwhile, Gullie sat upright. “I’m going to try to reach Melina,” she said, “But that little stunt I pulled has left me a little wiped out. This could take a minute.”
“Do what you can,” I said, although I wanted to tell her to hurry. I wanted Valerian to hurry, too. Fate had given me thirteen days, and we were already…Gods… I’d lost count of how many days I had left. Travel between worlds was disorienting, even more so when you left one place in daylight and came back at night.
“Lysa is… that way,” said Valerian, pointing west. He turned north and said, “Windhelm is that way, which puts the witch’s safehouse somewhere over there, and the Frost Giant mountains…” he pointed north west, “Over there.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“Certain. I put us at about two days to the mountains.”
“Two days… we don’t have any food or supplies.”
“We’ll hunt,” he said, coming back to us. “We’ll forage, and we’ll take shelter where we can find it. It’ll be rough, but we’ll make it.”
“With how much time to spare?”
