Wayfinder

Twenty-five

“What does that even mean?” Kelly asked the question, but it echoed Lara’s stunned sentiment. She released Kelly’s hand, taking a few quick, useless steps to Dafydd’s side, but he warned her off with a sharp shake of his head.

“I’m not sure what will happen if more power is introduced to the magic,” he said through his teeth. “And mortal magic—”

“—disrupts elfin. It must be Mrs. Moloney, Dafydd. She’s still nearby, and Oisín and I didn’t have to be especially close to Emyr to ruin his scrying spell.” Lara backed away, though she couldn’t retreat far enough to remove herself from Dafydd’s space. “Is that it? Would the land itself reject you if it thought you were too influenced by mortal magic? Emyr said it was fond of Oisín.”

“And if Oisín was here, we might face less difficulty.” Dafydd ground his teeth. “Yes, it might well be unwilling to let the worldwalking door be opened if it feared a mortal influx. The spell is of the land itself, Lara. It has that ability. What concerns me more is I cannot break free.”

“I can free you.” Aerin sounded both certain and doubtful. “Reaching the earth here for you is unlike trying to stabilize the de-tek-tiv. He needs a light touch, and I am unsure if this world will allow me to connect with it so delicately. You need only be grounded. But it might—”

Dafydd gave a short hard laugh. “It might strip my power from me a second time. Better that than being caught with my hand in the cookie jar.” He fell into English for the last few words, making Lara bite down on an equally sharp laugh and garnering Aerin’s frown. She had understood the rest of what he’d said, though, and crossed to him, hands uplifted to call power.

“Wait.” Lara’s voice broke and she fumbled for the worldwalking staff strapped across her back. Dafydd’s glamour still hid it, making her hands ache when she touched it, but its presence behind her had spared her the headache, and almost even the memory, of carrying a magicked weapon. “What would this do?”

“Oh, just destroy the hospital,” Kelly half-shouted. “Are you crazy, Lara? You saw what that thing did up in the Catskills, and you want to unleash it in the middle of Boston?”

“Dafydd might be able to mitigate its effects. Emyr said it didn’t like Seelie royalty, but Dafydd used it safely enough in the Catskills. It was only when I took it that things went wrong.” It was pure guesswork, music lying flat and useless rather than making a promise or a lie of what she hypothesized. Lara shook the staff, frustrated by her own magic’s tendency to cut in and out. A month earlier her inability to determine truth in conjecture would have only been normal; now it seemed a failure, and as if returning to her home world had reined in her talent’s exponential growth. It was a gift born of the human world, but to reach its full potential, it seemed the magic-steeped Barrow-lands were necessary.

But that was perhaps no surprise. Truthseekers had been hunted out of existence, in Dafydd’s world. The land, a living, active thing in its own right, had waited aeons for a magic like hers to come into it again. It wasn’t impossible that it had poured itself into her power, encouraging it to heights she never would have imagined possible.

“Do not.” Ioan’s exhausted voice stopped Lara. He was sitting up, braced in the chair Aerin had put him in, and his color had improved in the little while since they’d taken him from the secure hospital wing. “The last royalty to use that weapon shattered Annwn with it. I would not see such a fate visited on your land, Truthseeker.”

“It might not—”

“And it might.” Ioan sagged as if the few words had spent all his reserves. “Aerin. Will you lend me your strength? Perhaps two royal scions can do what one cannot.”

That, unexpectedly after the music’s silence in her own guesses, rang false. Lara shook her head, alarm spiking through her. “It won’t work, not as long as Mrs. Moloney and I are near each other, and I don’t know where the nurse was taking her. Maybe she’s gone, but—I don’t understand,” she added more fiercely. “Inherent magics work fine. Dafydd’s lightning wasn’t compromised by being around me. Why doesn’t spellcasting work?”

Dafydd lifted his free hand, the other still caught in the golden tear in space. “I haven’t tried the lightning with more than one mortal talent nearby, Lara. It could fail. Shall I?”

“Don’t you dare.” It was true, though: he’d never called lightning when Oisín and she had been near to one another. Lara knotted her hands around the staff, frustration surging through her. “We’re going to have to try Aerin’s magic to get you free, then. What happens if a grounding spell goes wrong?”

“Earthquakes,” Aerin said serenely. “But this is not a spell, Truthseeker, any more than that which makes you draw breath is a spell. It’s part of me, and can be extended as I extended it to you while you rode.”

“I thought that was a spell!”

“Your failure to understand doesn’t change its inherent qualities.” Aerin curled her arms around Dafydd, suddenly seeming more solid than ever before, as if becoming part of the earth in a way Seelie—and even humans—generally were not.

Lara’s power had objected to the worldwalking spell, to the wrongness of tearing through time and space. But of the magics possessed by the Seelie, only the glamours had been disruptive to her magic. Nothing else had a component that lied to the eyes; as Aerin said, the gifts they possessed were no more striking to a people born of magic than the ability to breathe.

And to her astonishment, the truth of that rose up as Aerin gathered Dafydd close. Song washed out from the Seelie woman in long slow notes, the same kind of profound fathomless music Lara had once discovered buried within the earth. Similar, not identical: there were aspects to Aerin’s magic that spoke of a connection to a land very far from Lara’s own. But there was enough in common that when she reached deep, searching for a response from Lara’s world, it was able to answer. Strength welled up, calm, steady, unhurried, and filled Aerin with the earth’s living magic. She caught her breath, clearly sensing the same off notes that differentiated the Barrow-lands from Earth, but she braced herself and the music changed ever so slightly, two disparate magics adapting to each other. “Mortal lands,” Aerin whispered roughly. “Immortal magic is uncomfortable being worked here. Release him, and we’ll disturb you no more.”

Power surged out of her, connecting Dafydd to Lara’s world in the same way Aerin herself was. No: the music changed instantly, not recognizing Dafydd and his lightning magics as it had recognized Aerin’s bond with the earth. It seized him like a cat with a rodent, shaking and rattling ferociously.

He tore free of the worldwalking door, a shout of pain accompanying the ripped magic. But the earth had no intention of letting the invader go. Its slow music had the tonality of a threat, a recognition of a thing that didn’t belong. Aerin’s presence intensified, her own slightly alien song determined to show the similarities between what she was and what Dafydd was. “Different from mortal lands and mortal magics,” she agreed, as though the earth itself could hear and respond to words. “But not dangerous.”

A lie, whether she meant it as one or not. The earth far below bellowed, a roar that reminded Lara all too clearly of how the ground and sky had been rent asunder by the worldbreaking staff. She lurched forward, catching Aerin’s arm, and thrust her own desperate reassurance into the growing earth storm: “I know you remember. I remember, too. But it wasn’t this magic or this man who hurt you in the Catskills. Listen to my words, to my song. I’m a truthseeker, and you know what I say is true.” She might have felt foolish, shouting at the world itself, except Aerin’s approval was evident, and Lara clearly recalled the living earth responding when she had first wielded the worldbreaking weapon.

And the earth seemed to recall her, as well. A grumble rolled through its music, but it abruptly fell away, releasing Dafydd from its grip. He collapsed, Lara bearing his weight as Aerin released him and staggered the few steps back to Detective Washington’s side. She fell against him heavily, hands planted on his shoulders, and for the second time, magic rushed from her, pouring into Washington. The music changed again, becoming truer than it had been when captured in either Aerin or Dafydd’s frame. It knew Washington, knew him in a way the earth had known Lara as well, recognizing him as mortal-born and part of its domain. It embraced him more willingly—more willingly, even, than it had accepted Lara and her brand of mortal magic—and a note of sorrowing darkness came into the music.

“No.” Aerin’s voice was harsh but pleading. “Only hold him. Cradle him. Do not take him into your bosom. He is not yet meant for the barrows, not if the mortal healers are strong. Only lend him the stamina he lacks, so that time and determination might make him well. He will be yours in time, as all mortal things are, and he will come to you in body as all mortal things do. Let him live this little while yet, safe in your embrace.”

Earth magic thrummed, deep song that vibrated the small bones of Lara’s ears, then settled in contentment. Traces of its long slow notes lingered around Washington, an answer to Aerin’s request. After long moments she released her hold on the magic, song falling away as she lifted her head, exhaustion evident in every movement. “He will live. If he is strong, he will live.”

“That’s fantastic.” Pure truth made Kelly’s voice a thing of uplifting music, but her tone was edged with panic. Lara, still supporting Dafydd, turned to find her friend pressed against the door, using her body weight to keep it closed. A resounding thump echoed from its far side, the door jumping, and she bared her teeth as she put her weight against it more heavily. “That’s fricking fantastic, but we’ve got another problem. How the hell are we going to get out of here? There’s a goddamned riot squad outside the door.”

Lara flinched as the door thumped again, bewilderment coursing through her. “How do they even know something’s wrong?”

“Oh, because everybody in here’s been shouting for the past five minutes? Would somebody please do something?” Kelly shouted herself. Aerin took a handful of swift steps across the room, abandoning Washington to instead enfold Ioan in her arms. The look she gave Dafydd was as expectant as any Emyr had ever commanded, and Lara felt him draw himself up, preparing the glamour that would hide them from mortal eyes.

Felt, too, the line of tension that ran through him, and she spoke before he did: “The magic’s gone, isn’t it. You’re cut off?”

“I am. Not so exhaustively as before, but—”

“We don’t really have time to debate the details!” Kelly snapped. The door jolted again and she yelped. “Guys, I can’t hold this. The only reason the door’s not already open is they’re probably trying not to kill me on their way in. You, Ioan, prince-guy. Can you do the big glamour magic and hide everybody? And I mean everybody?”

Ioan blinked at her fuzzily, then, much as Dafydd had, deliberately drew himself together, clearly searching for his own power. Lara took a breath to protest, then swallowed it on another realization: “You can understand her?”

Aerin shot Lara a brief uncomprehending glance before her gaze cleared. “Yes. What have you done?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Out-of-tune music spun through the objection, searching for an aspect of truth. Lara pressed a hand against her temple, trying to push the automatic truthseeking away. “It doesn’t matter right now. Ioan, can you—”

Like his brother, Ioan shook his head. “Annwn’s magic hasn’t deserted me, but I’m simply too weary, Truthseeker. A glamour to hide us all is beyond me.”

Frustration rose up, though Lara kept sharp commentary behind her teeth. Dafydd had glamoured not only four people, but a vehicle, while so drained of magic he could barely maintain consciousness. Either his will or his inherent power was greater than Ioan’s, though in Ioan’s defense, he had sustained a head injury where Dafydd had not.

Aerin, cursing so vividly the meaning was lost to translation, dragged a glamour into place herself. “I will not be able to hold this as long as royalty might,” she warned as she and Ioan faded away. “We have very little time.”

“Ow!” Kelly ran forward, getting out of the way as the door flew open and security, including the fit older guard from before, burst through. Doctors, nurses, even Dickon Collins, flooded through after them, voices lifted in concern and outrage before one, then all, took notice of Dafydd, still standing in Lara’s embrace.

He was radiant: she hardly had to look at him to know that. Radiant and utterly inhuman, with the fine chiseled features of the Seelie race no longer hidden by blunting glamours. Even human, he was beautiful, but his eyes were brown, not amber, and his slim form looked ordinary, not sculpted. Worse, with the glamour gone, the padded tunic and leggings that he’d worn under the discarded armor looked all the more out of place, enhancing every aspect of his inhumanity. Lara’s heart lurched as she looked at him, taking in every aspect of his slender allure. Without fully meaning to, she stepped in front of him. He was the taller by several inches, impossible to hide, but a knot of determination unlike anything she’d ever known lodged itself inside her. The intruders might want to take Dafydd away, but they would go through her to do it. She wished she had a weapon and the knowledge of how to use it.

The worldbreaking staff came to life with the thought, humming urgently for her attention. Against all wisdom, Lara reached over her shoulder, drawing it from its bindings one fistful at a time, until she pulled it free and held it in front of herself at a crosswise angle. Power rushed through it, so eager to be used that the ivory vibrated in her hands. It could wreak havoc, it promised: it could make certain no one would take Dafydd from her. All it needed was her command. Less than that: tacit permission, almost granted by the act of drawing it, would unleash its magic. Nothing mortal would stand in its way.

Dickon, cautiously, said, “Lara, don’t make this worse than it has to be.”

“I don’t want to.” Truth shivered through the words, so cold she hardly recognized her own voice. “Believe me, I don’t want to. But I won’t let anybody take Dafydd.”

“What is he?” One of the doctors spoke, less angry than baffled, despite the disruption in her hospital. She watched Dafydd as avidly as Lara ever had, though her interest seemed more scientific than romantic. “He’s like the other one in the secure wing. What are they?”

“People,” Lara whispered. “They’re people, even if they don’t look like us. They’re not for experimenting on or dissecting or questioning. Please, just leave us alone. We’ll go away and won’t bother you again, but I will not let you take him from me.”

The doctor flashed her a look of genuine sympathy, though it was riddled with less kind pity as well. “Do you really think that’s your decision, miss? Do you even think it’s mine?” She took a step forward and Lara lifted the staff.

Power crashed from the weapon, invisible but potent, a barely controlled wave that made all the equipment in the room surge and beep frantically. The doctor spun toward Detective Washington, concern for her patient slightly greater than fear or interest in Dafydd, and she shot Lara an accusing look as she checked the detective over.

Lara’s knuckles went white around the staff, her whispered “No” directed at it alone. “No. Not unless there’s no other way.” She felt it struggling against her will, against the truth she invested in her words, and had an instant of wishing the weapon was slightly more alive than it was, so she could threaten it more effectively. The only thing she could potentially do was break it for disobeying, and that would have repercussions far beyond any she could anticipate.

“Nurse. Double-check this, please.” The doctor’s voice sharpened and two of the nurses broke away from staring at Dafydd to join her. The equipment had settled back down, beeping and thrumming regularly, but the doctor scrolled back through information on one of the machines, a nurse at her elbow.

“He stabilized,” the other woman said after a moment. “A few minutes ago, his heartbeat stabilized from the arrhythmia we’ve been seeing the past four days …”

“An improvement that wouldn’t have happened without Dafydd.” The truth stretched but didn’t break. Without Dafydd, Aerin never would have come to Boston; without Aerin, Washington’s vitals wouldn’t have stabilized, not as quickly as they had. Lara moved for the door, trusting boldness over rationality. “Call it a fair trade, Doctor. Let us go without a hassle.”

“Wait!” Hope shot through the doctor’s voice and she gestured around, obviously meaning to encompass the hospital as a whole. “Can he do this for everyone?”

Regret made a sharp place in Lara’s heart. “Not any more than you could. I’m sorry.”

Disappointment, but not surprise, etched itself across the woman’s face. Lara could see conflict in her eyes, an uncertainty as to whether she should have them detained, and Lara gave a quick nod toward the door, hastening Kelly and Dafydd out before the doctor made a decision. The dreadful noise of a full glamour at work slid through her mind as Aerin slipped past as well, leaving Lara the last to abandon the room full of hesitant hospital staff. Dafydd scrubbed his hair forward, covering his ears, and hunched his shoulders, head down as they hurried for the elevators and for escape.

Seconds later, Dickon Collins’s voice followed them: “Hang on. I’m coming with you.”