Page 22 of Demon and the Raven

“I show it to you now so there will be no lies between us.”

“Thank you.”

“We found her at the site where the rift was in pieces. Not the one on Corvus, of course, but at the smaller tear by the river.”

I nodded.

“Whatever was asked of her, we can only assume she finally answered based on what happened to her.”

“And you have no idea who or what could have done that?”

She shook her head.

“I’m so sorry you lost her,” I said sincerely, and then the other part of what she told me sank in. “Wait, did you say where the rift was, past tense?”

“Yes, and that’s why I’m here. My lord bade me to give you the news that the small rift is no more.”

“What do you mean no more? That’s not possible.”

“I swear to you, I speak the truth.”

My body reacted before my brain even processed her words, and I shivered hard in response. “No,” I barely managed to get out.

Minute tears, not like the one on Corvus that an entire group of beings could move through at once, but an opening that would allow only one through at a time, could, in extraordinary circumstances, be sealed. But the only way it happened was when something or someone came through that was so powerful, it scorched and sealed the rip when it entered the new world.

“Yes,” she insisted.

“No, I believe you,” I made clear. “I’m just wondering what could have done that.”

“I know not, nor does my lord. We don’t travel the rifts. We have no need of them to come and go.”

I knew that.

Nymphs, like others who tracked and hunted across planes, had the ability to open and close doors to return those that did not belong in other realms. Smaller fae, like fairies, brownies, sprites, púcas, and goblins, to name a few, could slip in and out through practically any crack in the dimensional walls. Also, there were so many patches of magic left all over the world that could be used for crossing from one realm to the other, which accounted for new species of birds, insects, fish, and mammals that popped up from time to time. My grandfather would always point out something from the fae realm when he saw them on the news, knowing that was not simply the natural world at work.

“If a creature is nonsensical, you know it’s not of our realm,” he would say.

Conversely, when people saw extraordinary creatures, like a sasquatch in the woods, a dinosaur in a lake, or a man who was part moth, I never doubted. Those were portals of forgotten magic that allowed an entry and an exit at nearly the same exact moment, the delay accounting for the fuzziness of a picture, there one second, gone the next.

But a rift was needed for something powerful, like a god or goddess, to purposely travel between dimensions. Moreover, when something less than a deity, but stronger than a member of the fae, moved through a rift that was not meant for them, that could barely accommodate their power during the passage from one realm to another, the result was that the portal, once the destination was reached, was incinerated. It was like cauterizing a wound, the heat sealing the tear.

“Did you hear me?” she asked impatiently.

“Of course I heard you, but…” I was still shaking, absorbing her words and terrified of them at the same time. Because what she was telling me was that something very big and scary was in my town. And after working hard last fall to keep out an invader, only to have another show up now, I was both horrified and feeling like a huge failure.

“Why tremble in fear?”

I glanced at her.

“This cannot be changed. You have no recourse but to hunt down whatever dark thing crossed over and either kill it or send it on its way.”

I exhaled sharply. “You make it sound so easy.”

“Not easy. Simply the task at hand.”

Looking at her, at the resolve on her face, somehow made me feel better. And she was right. I was the guardian of Corvus, and Corvus was in Osprey, so therefore, much like the man I loved, I was responsible for the safety of the town. My town.

“Okay,” I said after a moment, walking a few feet away from her and then back, needing to move as I was nearly vibrating with nervous energy. “So do you or your lord have any thoughts on what could have come through?”