“Refine further. Where?”
She rapidly sorted through everything she’d learned about the place during her brief sojourn inside with Christian, came up empty-handed and told him irritably, “I’ve not seen enough of the mansion to isolate a preference for any one location over another.”
Barrons said, “Even if you had, you don’t think like a man. Were I the Unseelie King who’d built an infinite house for my woman, I wouldn’t want to have to go looking for her every bloody time I wanted to see her. I’d have a way to summon her. And I know where I’d want her. The Book is headed for the concubine’s bedchamber.”
Then they were at the brick wall, behind the bookstore, at the very spot she’d once made the decision that had cost her five and a half years of her life.
“He kept calling her ‘the queen’ so I was thinking it had to be somewhere in Faery,” Jada groused. Cruce had been doing it deliberately to mislead, and it had been effective.
“I made select comments to which he responded, yielding more information than he’d intended,” Barrons said. “He needs us. He can’t touch the spear. He can’t kill the queen. Withholding information was his only leverage.”
“We can’t afford to be wrong.”
“I spoke with Alina, while waiting for you. She confirmed the Sinsar Dubh’s presence at this precise spot mere minutes ago.”
“Does she know what she’s sensing is Mac?”
“No, and I didn’t tell her. Every second counts. Move.” He surged into the Silver concealed in the brick wall and vanished.
Squaring her shoulders, Jada leapt in after him.
A partially eaten Rhino-boy lay on the floor in the white room, keening and gnashing his tusks, clutching the oozing stump of an arm.
“She’s rebuilding her strength,” Lor said grimly.
Leaping over the savaged Unseelie, Jada dashed into the next Silver after Barrons, with Fade and Lor close behind. A chill of déjà-vu kissed her spine but now was no time for memories of the day fourteen-year-old Dani had leapt so fearlessly and blindly into one of these very Silvers, only to end up adrift in the Hall of All Days. Nor was it time for memories of the afternoon she’d entered one of the Silvers with Christian, and loosed the Crimson Hag on the world. After years of having to leap into whichever ones she’d been lucky enough to find, discovering the hard way where they led, she harbored a special hatred for the Silvers.
As they raced into the White Mansion, down dazzling alabaster corridors with high arched ceilings and tall, sparkling windows that framed a snowy garden and ice-crusted maze, Barrons opened the pouch he carried and tossed one of the stones over his shoulder for Lor to catch. The tall muscular blond palmed it and slipped it into his leather jacket.
White marble floors turned to sunny yellow, rose to turquoise then bronze as they moved deeper into the infinite, ever-changing White Mansion.
“You do know where you’re going, right?” Jada demanded, catching the cool blue-black stone Barrons tossed her and tucking it into the outer pocket of her backpack.
“Inasmuch as anyone can ever know where the fuck they’re going in here,” Barrons growled. “Mac has no more certain sense of direction in here than we do. Look for crimson floors, they lead to black then to the boudoir.” He tossed the fourth stone over his shoulder to Fade, who was bringing up the rear.
There was a sudden commotion behind them. Vicious snarls met with cool laughter. She skidded to a halt, whirling.
Cruce stood behind her, encased in a shell of translucent, shimmering walls, clutching the fourth blue-black stone in an upraised fist, while Fade flung himself repeatedly against the barrier, with no result.
The Unseelie prince smiled at them icily. “Going somewhere?”
AOIBHEAL
There was no escape from the king’s side of the boudoir either.
The nearly invisible towering door set into the smooth black walls of his bedchamber failed to respond to her imperious command. Nor did any of her magic affect it. She was as trapped on his side as she’d been on her own.
She snorted. He’d always held on to her too tightly. That had been precisely the problem. Everything had to be his way.
She’d loved him when she first met him. She’d loved him still, at the end. But she’d realized love wasn’t enough. It was possible to love someone who was completely wrong for you. You could waste your entire life loving that person, doing enormous damage to each other and the world around you.
She’d never wanted to live in his cage but she’d done it for him, hoping he would one day give up his mad quest to turn her Fae and be happy with what they had. Hoping he might eventually return to her world with her. All those eons he’d worked alone while she slept alone they might have been living, loving, creating.
At first, upon installing her in the exquisite White Mansion, he’d spent every night in her arms, anywhere and everywhere: in her bed; in his; sprawled in one of the eccentric tower rooms that opened to the sky, counting stars between kisses; on the floor of her closet; atop an enormous grand piano. They’d splashed their love from end to end of the ever-changing, ever-growing mansion while she’d drunk the nectar of galaxies from his lips, tasted infinity in his arms, and decided it might not be so bad to live forever, as long as she was with him.
At first they had no time for anything but each other. Their love had blazed like a supernova. But darkness began to eat away at their light. A silent, seething fixation had been born in him the day the queen refused his request to turn Zara Fae.