I stop walking. “The whole province?”
He looks back, gives me a single, solemn nod.
Lena’s right. This false-blood is different. Sethan didn’t even have a whole province declare support for him, and he was a true Descendant. Of course, Aren and the rebels kept his identity secret for as long as they could. Did this false-blood do the same thing?
“Who is he?” I ask. “Three weeks ago, he didn’t exist.”
“Three weeks ago, we were focused on Caelar and the remnants,” Kyol says. He starts walking again, and I fall into step beside him. Caelar wasn’t a false-blood. He was one of the king’s swordsmen, and after Kyol killed Atroth, he organized the soldiers who opposed Lena taking the throne.
“We don’t know the false-blood’s name,” Kyol says after a moment. “His elari call him the Taelith. It’s an old word that means anointed one.”
“Haven’t they all thought they were anointed?”
“An entire province has never believed it before,” he says, his gaze focused on the river. His emotions are locked down tight, but I feel an echo of sadness in him. Kyol loves the Realm. That’s why he always put its needs before mine. It’s always been a violent world—for my whole lifetime and for his—yet that hasn’t discouraged him. He’s devoted his life to protecting it, and in his quiet, steadfast way, he’s always been optimistic about its future. He’s clung to the hope that the bloodshed could end.
That optimism seems diminished now.
The urge to wrap my arms around him, or at least to take his hand in mine, is almost overwhelming. Instead, I pull my cloak tighter around my body.
We’re almost to the river. I can make out the blur on its bank that marks the location of the gate. The guards aren’t watching our approach anymore. They’re focused to our right. I look that way and see Kynlee. She’s walking toward us with two escorts. Trev is one of them. That almost makes me laugh. If I weren’t protected by the fae he’s pledged his loyalty to, I’m certain he’d be the first in line to collect the bounty on my head. He really ought to direct his anger elsewhere, though. I’m not the one giving him shitty assignments like babysitting tor’um.
Kyol doesn’t say anything when he sees her, but an echo of the shock he felt when Lena mentioned a tor’um fissured me to the Realm leaks through our life-bond.
He looks at me.
“I know,” I tell him, because what else can I say? I was completely out of my mind when I came here.
His emotions soften for an instant, but his hard, neutral expression doesn’t change.
“They’ll fissure you both back to Earth,” he says, indicating Trev and the other fae with Kynlee. “If you happen to need me . . .”
He’ll feel it if I do.
“I’ll be fine,” I say out loud.
He nods. When Kynlee and her escorts reach us, he says, “Good-bye, McKenzie.”
I watch him walk away. One step. Two steps. Three. It feels like a gulf opens between us.
“Hey, Kyol,” I call out.
He turns. The Realm’s cold night air ruffles through his dark hair and wraps his cloak around his body.
“I’m really glad you’re okay.”
• • •
A month ago, fissuring between the Realm and the Earth twice within an hour would leave me disoriented for a few minutes. This time, I’m not even slightly dizzy. That’s definitely a good thing, but it makes me uncomfortable, too. I’m not the same person I was a month ago.
The other thing that’s making me uncomfortable?
Kynlee.
I watch the tor’um as she sinks into the passenger seat. Trev and the other fae brought us back to the Vegas gate so I could get my car, and even though she looks semi-innocent sitting there silent with her arms crossed, she can’t be.
After starting the engine, I ask, “What is it you want?”
She toys with a tear in the fabric of her seat, not looking at me. “What do you mean?”
“Why did you fissure me to the Realm?”
“You asked me to,” she says, like I was asking her to pass the salt at dinner.
“No, I asked you to call someone who could do it.” My memory is murky, but I’m pretty sure that’s true. “You volunteered too easily. You didn’t even know what a gate looked like. Have you ever fissured before?”
“Yes,” she says, looking up long enough to throw a glare my way.
I make a U-turn, then glance at her, my eyebrows raised.
“Once,” she adds.
I stare a little longer.
“Three years ago,” she mutters. “Across my living room.”
I should so be dead right now.
“Traveling through the In-Between is dangerous,” I tell her. “There has to be a reason you risked it with me. So, what is it you want?”
“I don’t want anything,” she says, sinking back into her seat.
“Kynlee.”
“I don’t,” she says. “Look, I was just curious. My dad hardly ever talks about the Realm. I wanted to know what it was like. I’ve asked him to take me there; he won’t.”
“That’s it? Seriously?”
“That’s it,” she says.
Great. I’ve aided and abetted a teenage rebellion.
“Your dad lives in Vegas with you?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She stares out the passenger window.
I turn off the highway. “The city doesn’t bother you?”
“The city?”
“The tech,” I say. “The city’s tech doesn’t bother you?”
“Oh.” She rolls her eyes. “That’s why we live here. All the tech on the Strip makes the chance of a fae coming here and finding us practically zero. I get headaches sometimes, but I just pop a Tylenol.”
I guess she doesn’t have to worry about the tech damaging her magic. It’s already wrecked.
Kynlee gives me directions to her neighborhood. It’s close to the library, and it backs up to a newly renovated shopping center with a Walmart, a big electronics store, and several clothing chains. By the time I pull up to Kynlee’s house, it’s well after dark. Even though it’s still hot as hell outside, I pull on the light sweater I keep in my car in case the library is cold. My pants are crunchy from the dried blood, but they’re black, and it’s dark. Someone would have to take a really close look to notice the stains.
“You can go,” Kynlee says, when I get out of the car. “I’m fine.”
I follow her to the porch anyway.
“Seriously, I’m fine,” she tells me. “Thanks for bringing me home. See you later.”
“I want to talk to your dad,” I say, when she opens the door.
“That’s okay. Thanks. Bye.” Kynlee steps inside. I’m pretty sure she intends to shut the door in my face, but before she does, a man—a human man—steps into the entryway.
“You’re late,” he says, glaring at Kynlee. All I can do is stare. I’d assumed her dad was fae. More precisely, I’d assumed he was tor’um. I used to think fae didn’t live in my world—they just visited it and left after they got what they needed—but two months ago I met a group of tor’um who lived outside Vancouver. They were living fairly normal, human lives there. In the Realm, tor’um are looked down on and are all but shunned. At least they were when King Atroth was in charge. Lena accepts them, though. She and her brother were friends with the tor’um in Vancouver. In fact, Sethan died trying to protect them from Atroth’s fae.