“The ice is neither cold nor slick,” Nori said, misinterpreting my hesitancy. Of course, she had no way of knowing I’d passed this way before. She made a sweeping motion with her hand. “It’s just a hallway. A passage that joins places.”
I nodded, falling in step behind her again. When Rianna had brought me here, I’d seen Faerie only with my eyes. This time my psyche reached across the planes, but as soon as I’d stepped around the pillar, the wisps of Aetheric energy and the rot of the land of the dead had vanished. Both had been thin inside the Eternal Bloom, but they’d been visible. Now they were gone. Did my shields suddenly snap back in place? I stared around as I walked. The ice-encrusted walls glowed with some force I’d never seen before, and shimmering glyphs of power floated on the surface of the carved guardians. Well, I definitely didn’t notice that last time. Clearly I was still seeing multiple planes. But . . .
“Nothing decays here, does it?”
Agent Nori turned toward me. “There are ancient battlefields from the early ages. The fallen still stare at the sky, the red blood soaking the ground.”
A “no” would have been sufficient.
I continued to look around in amazement. I knew I wasn’t seeing primarily with my eyes—or possibly not with my eyes at all. I was seeing Faerie as it was, just pure Faerie with its strange magics and interesting concept of reality. And it was beautiful.
Agent Nori paused. “A moment,” she said, and then seemed to shake herself. The double image around her shimmered, the human face vanishing so that only the sharp, blue-tinted fae mien remained. A sigh escaped her as she stretched, and her iridescent dragonfly wings caught the light from the frozen stars as she fanned them behind her.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, earning me another look, which on her now-foreign features was either bemusement or confusion. I couldn’t tell which. “Being wrapped in the glamour,” I said to clarify.
“It is . . . confining.”
“Then why do it?” I didn’t really expect her to answer. I was talking because I was nervous, and silence made the strange icy hallway more ominous. “Fae depend on mortal belief, and yet most fae hide behind glamours. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to be seen? If the glamour is also uncomfortable . . . ?”
“I’m not like you, born in a world of iron. Nor have I spent enough time in the mortal realm to build the tolerance that many of the independents boast. I must wear my glamour. It helps insulate me from the poison. But here . . .” Her wings blurred as she lifted off the ground. Now that we were in Faerie, Nori acted more relaxed, friendlier. Apparently that stick up her ass was glamour. Not that I wasn’t thankful for the change.
For a moment, I thought she might flitter away. Then she glanced back at me and tugged her suit straight, as if the movement helped her regain her serious role, but she didn’t land. Flight was clearly more natural for her.
“Hurry up,” she said, and I got the distinct feeling that she barked the order only because she felt the need to reestablish her authority.
I didn’t resist, but matched the pace she set. After all, she didn’t know it, but she was taking me exactly where I needed to go. As I walked, I fumbled Holly’s amulet out of my purse. Relief washed through me as the charm woke. She was alive. And she was here in Faerie. I frowned. Somewhere. The charm urged me in several different directions at once. Either it was malfunctioning or the landscape of Faerie confused the magic. The latter wouldn’t surprise me, not with the way doors worked. The layout of Faerie could have been designed by Escher.
The guards—or at least, similar guards—I’d seen on my first trip to Faerie nodded to Nori as we passed, clearly recognizing her right to be in the halls, and she led me on a twisting route through the icy caverns. She finally came to a stop in front of a doorway. I peeked around her to look inside. It was a small, empty room. I frowned. And where does it really lead?
“This is it,” she said. “In you go.”
Right. Well, only one way to find out where I was going. I walked across the threshold and stepped not into a small room but into a cavernous ballroom filled with people.
The room was massive, the ceiling lost in shadows far above my head. Thousands of snowflakes fell lazily, sparkling in light coming from no discernible source. The only time I’d left Nekros for an extended period was when I was in academy, and that had been even farther south. I could count on my fingers how many times I’d seen snow, so I couldn’t help smiling as it drifted around me. I held out my hand, but the snowflakes vanished as soon as they touched my skin, not even leaving a drop of moisture behind.
I looked around. Music filled the great ballroom, the singer a deep baritone whose voice seemed to bypass the ears so his melody was heard by the very soul. I wanted to close my eyes, to just enjoy the sound of his voice, but I couldn’t rip my eyes away from the dancers. Fae of every shape, every size, every color, and every nature swirled across the floor. None wore glamour, and I’d never seen so many fae in one place before. I couldn’t even name all the kinds I saw. I’d expected the court to be filled with Sleagh Maith, and their strikingly beautiful faces were evident in the crowd, but most of the dancers had horns, or wings, or tails, or tusks. They danced in large circles, wearing fashions that might have come right out of King Louis XIV’s court in France during the golden days of the arts.
I stood just inside the doorway—which on this side appeared to be a large gothic arch—and gaped. It’s like I stepped into a dream. Except dreams always felt slightly fuzzy and unreal. This ball whirled around me in full color, deep sounds, and, I realized, a mix of intoxicating scents, like walking by a bakery next to a kitchen cooking any food you could ever desire. My mouth watered, and I turned to see banquet tables lining the walls, each piled with meats, breads, and sweets. Do not eat Faerie food, I reminded myself, though my stomach was pretty sure the risk was worth taking.
“Welcome to the winter court,” Nori said, floating around me. She snatched two frosted champagne flutes off a tray carried by a fae with floor-length vines of mistletoe growing out of the top of her head. Nori handed me one glass and then motioned me forward.
I accepted the glass, but I didn’t drink the glistening blue liquid inside. The amulet in my palm had finally made up its mind. It wanted me to head back out the door. Which made sense—there was only one door to this ballroom and Holly wasn’t present. Of course, that didn’t mean the accomplice wasn’t. I attached the amulet to my charm bracelet. The large ruby felt heavy around my wrist, but I wanted access to it without having to dig under my dog every time I wanted to check the charm.
As Nori led me into the throng of dancers, I stretched my senses, scanning the crowd for magic. I searched for any signature of magic, even the smallest charm, that felt like the spells in the copper disks that animated the constructs. Nothing. Not a single charm or spell. The dancers stepped aside as I passed, some casting curious glances at me, others smiling, flashing all manner of tooth, tusk, and fang. A Sleagh Maith with hair so pale it was almost transparent lifted his glass in a silent toast as I walked past. I smiled but didn’t return the gesture. I didn’t know the rules here. Best to err on the side of caution. I kept scanning as I walked, my free hand idly rubbing the top of PC’s head. Then I saw a familiar face.
Caleb, glamour free so the skin left visible above his elaborate coat and cravat was pale green, smiled at me. It was a big, boisterous smile displaying lots of his flat, dark green teeth—and it was completely at odds with the dire warning in his eyes. But he made no move to speak to me as he turned back to his partner, a fae who looked like she’d been carved from living ice. As he stepped forward I noticed the cord of ice binding him to the dance floor.
I did a double take. The chain was thin, hardly substantial, and it vanished into the icy floor, stretching to accommodate his dancing steps before vanishing again, but I had no doubt it constrained him.
I scanned the crowd again and noticed that several of the fae were tethered with cords that dripped down their ankles and disappeared into the floor. Prisoners? Not all of them. Not even most of them. But enough to be more than a small number, and all were the wilder type of fae who tended toward declaring themselves independent of a court.
I frowned at the extravagant ball around me. Extravagant farce might be more like it. The magic snow falling around me lost its charm, the beautiful and horrendous dancers their appeal. I was gritting my teeth by the time we broke free of the crowd of dancers to approach a dais of carved ice.
The singer I’d been hearing stood at the base of the dais, his pointy elbows sticking out at awkward angles as fingers with their too many joints plucked notes from a large harp. His oversized nose bobbed, his voice lifting in melodies that would pack any concert hall. As I approached, he fixed dark, reproachful eyes on me. Malik. An icy cord bound him in place, but he never missed a note.
Above him, in the center of the dais, a woman sat on a large, glimmering throne of ice. Her soul shimmered a brilliant silver under her already pale skin, making her radiant as she gazed down at me with a stare that threatened frostbite if met too long. Her features were sharp enough to wound, but her red lips were plump, offering a touch of soft femininity to her face. Icicles dripped like diamonds from her long gown and a glimmering layer of frost encased the perfect dark curls falling around her face.
Even if she hadn’t been on the throne, I doubted she could have been mistaken for anything but a queen. She was breathtaking, and I stared. I couldn’t help it. She was the kind of beautiful you wanted to be near, hoping it would rub off. I wanted to make her smile just to see the expression soften her face. To make her laugh to know if her voice would be musical. I stumbled forward, barely aware of my own feet. From the bag still slung across my chest, PC let out a loud, happy-sounding yip.
I blinked, snapped out of my daze by the sound. Oh, I still felt the need to make the Winter Queen smile, felt it with every nerve in my being, but the need was no longer all-encompassing. Enchantment? I didn’t know, but I would be more careful from now on. I looked away and realized for the first time that she wasn’t alone on the dais. Beside her, standing with one hand on her shoulder, was Falin.