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Luc’s eyes flew open as he gasped. The fabric covering on the couch was the first thing he saw. Asleep. Fuck. He’d been asleep. He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and shook his head. Unsettled, he attempted a deep breath to clear the dream from his body, but it lingered like tree sap on skin.
“Luc!”
He jumped up from the couch and spun to find Nix striding across the room toward him. He looked terrible. His brother’s usually impeccable attire was haphazard, his hair a fright as if he’d been yanking at it so it stood on end. “Auri’s in trouble.” He paced.
Luc sank back onto the couch. “What do you mean?”
Nix’s arms flew out to his sides. “I don’t know. She’s just… I can’t feel her.” He tapped his chest. “No. I can but it’s…” He swallowed and shoved his hands into his hair, pulling.
“Brother,” Luc said, his heart still racing with the strange dream, pulsing against his waking mind. He took a deep breath. “Why don’t you sit for a second. Breathe. Tell me what happened. She can’t just be gone,” he added. “They’re safe at the cottage.”
Nix flopped into the closest chair, his elbows to his knees, his hands still holding his hair. “No. Not gone. But there’s something wrong with the cottage. No. The hedge.”
The hint of something important tingled at the base of Luc’s neck. “What do you mean?”
“After leaving Auri at the cottage, I returned with Lachlan to the inn. You know” –he waved his hand around– “so they could have their family conversation.”
“You and Lachlan?” Luc chuckled. “That sounds… engaging. I can’t imagine what you talked about.”
“What it’s like to be a god,” Nix said, jumping up again and pacing. “He bored me with details about his royal highness…ness. But that’s beside the point. When we went back, Lachlan can usually find the entrance to the hedge, whereas I can’t—it’s the magic that blocks me—us. It doesn’t block him, well, not anymore because of Tarley, I guess, that and he’s mortal.”
“You’re rambling.”
“Sorry. He couldn’t find it.”
“Couldn’t find what? The hedge?”
“No. The hedge is there.” He made an incredulous snort. “There’s no entrance.”
The giant hedge from his dream appeared in Luc’s mind. Surely a coincidence. “Why?”
“That’s just it. The hedge is… different, Luc. It was like a behemoth had grown in its place, completely changed. We hadn’t been more than a couple of hours. And the thorns.”
Luc’s gut tightened. “What did you say?” His heart compressed with awareness, though his mind wanted to doubt what he was hearing even as snapshots of his dream resurfaced.
“I don’t know what... It’s hard to explain. Like being in the spell. Like the enchantment. It must be. The hedge that was around the cottage has changed, and neither Lachlan nor I can get through. My power was useless. As usual.” Nix sunk onto the couch and put his face in his hands. “If something has happened to Auri–”
“Can you take me?” Luc asked, needing to see it for himself, to calm the pressure that was compressing his innards, making him feel like he might implode.
Nix stood. “Yes.”
Sol drained away, and the Whitling Woods formed around them, the fall foliage hinting at the coming winter. Reds, oranges, and yellows vibrant in the deciduous trees, and the evergreens offered deeper shadows. The air held the bite of the coming winter.
Luc reached for his light, recalling too late it was gone. He crossed his arms over his chest, instead. Around them, there was a flurry of activity. Soldiers bustling to and fro erected tents, built pens, and lead horses with wagons, making a camp.
“What is this?” Luc asked.
“Lachlan. He’s freaking out.”
“He did just get married, and his new bride is…” Luc turned, and the words caught in his throat before his breath unhooked. He sucked in a ragged gasp. “Holy fuck.”
The hedge—the one he’d been in all those months ago—reached high into the sky, stretching as far as the eye could see. The broad leaves had grown and were wrapped with vines upon vines like coiled snakes. And there were thorns. It was the hedge from his dream.
“I wish I could agree that it was something holy,” someone said.
Luc looked to the speaker. Lachlan—the crown prince of some random neighboring country—stood next to him, looking up just as he’d been, just as Nixus was on Luc’s other side. Lachlan looked about as good as Nixus, his hair a mess though perhaps a touch more put together. No god-yoke, Luc figured.
“This is from the Netherworld,” the young prince said, hands on his hips, then pointing at the monstrosity as if it would yield to his command. “And I need it gone. I need my wife–”
