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In answer, Derrick reached to grasp the nearest birch tree. It was slender enough he was nearly able to encircle it with one hand, and its branches trembled overhead. The tattoos on his arm flared to life with a green glow that seeped into the tree itself, illuminating veins within the white bark in swirling, intricate patterns. The tree shivered in reaction, its branches groaning and growing with a speed that staggered even my understanding of magic. I stood gaping as the branches curved, reaching toward the second birch tree, their leaves tangling together until they made a perfect archway.
With a burbling sound akin to a brook over stones, water cascaded down from the apex of the archway to splash against the forest floor. The space between the two birch trees shimmered like the surface of an undisturbed lake, dark at its center so that the forest behind could no longer be seen.
Derrick withdrew his hand, and I closed my mouth at last. When he turned to me, his expression was quizzical. “Have you never been to Fairy, Miss Grayson?”
“No, of course not,” I said, Nana Bess’s warnings ringing all the louder in my head. “Only reprobates need to go there.”
That full mouth of his tightened, and his expression was quite unreadable. “You have had a singularly unique upbringing, Miss Grayson.”
“Thank you, I think.”
I knew it wasn’t a compliment. In fact, I was mostly certain he suspected me of serious criminal activity. But of the two of us, he was the kidnapper. Or at least, he aided and abetted kidnappers. I was fully justified in not trusting his word on the matter.
Still, I needed to talk to Nana Bess.
Derrick gestured me to the archway with a little bow. “After you, Miss Grayson.”
With one last scowl in his direction, I took a deep breath and stepped into the watery gateway.
Chapter Nine
It was not a simple transition from Earth to Fairy. Chill water passed over my face, not glacial in temperature, more like the welcome feel of a slow river in the heat of summer, and I was at once plunged deeper, tugged forward by some unseen force. All around me was murk, what I might have thought silt swirling through the depths, but it glittered and drifted with purpose, coming to settle on my skin with a prickling, needlelike sensation. Rays of light pierced through the blue-green, and I realized of a sudden that I was being drawn toward that light, and that it felt like home.
Impossibly, a song came through the water, not voices but the mellow notes of a violin. I released my breath and a single bubble of air formed before me. It warbled and drifted, not moving up and away as nature would normally require, but rather seeming to take listless course about me.
My lungs began to strain.
Could I breathe here?
Was it worth it try?
There was a sense of something stirring outside of my view, something ancient and predatory, and I tried to hurry myself along, tried to swim for the light. But I could not move. My feet had disappeared into silt, and I was sinking. Or it was rising. I couldn’t tell. The runestone in my palm throbbed to aching life, and every bone in my body echoed the sensation.
I reached for the light, desperate and terrified, and tried to kick my feet free, but the silt cemented around my ankles.
Thrashing, I tried to reach for my ankles, but my blasted dress billowed in the water, drifting in the way. Pinpricks of light swarmed the edges of my vision and my lungs screamed for air. Frantic, I pushed at the fabric of my skirt and seized my knee, hoping some extra leverage would help drag at least one foot free.
There was resistance, I felt my ankle wiggle, but the silt did not free me.
A hand grabbed my wrist and pulled, dragging my attention away from my problematic skirt and the suction hold silt had on my shoes. Relief surged through me, and I grasped the hand back, trying to see the face of my rescuer, but the light was blinding now. My shoes came free of the silt, and I was at once released, propelled forward with a speed that might have alarmed me had my lungs not still been aching. I felt the transition from water to air on my skin and fell forward, collapsing into Derrick’s solid frame.
He held me upright and I could hear him calling my name over and over, asking if I was all right but I was too busy taking in large gulps of beautiful, beautiful air to answer. Water puddled onto hardwood floor and my dress was a sodden weight about me, its skirts brushing my calves to chill my skin.
“Nora?” Derrick asked again.
“I’m all right, I’m all right,” I panted. “Maker help me, am I all right?”
“What in blazes just happened?” said an altogether unfamiliar voice.
With my lungs starting to realize the air around me wasn’t going away anytime soon, I was able to turn my attention to the speaker. He was a man, dark haired and taller than Derrick by a good inch or two. Slender boned but undeniably powerful, he had the air of an aristocrat, and I was at once both entranced by him, and frightened. His jacket was discarded on a small wooden chair, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, leaving the coil of tattoos in his skin on full display. He had eyes the color of the sky at twilight, and his skin glowed bronze in the candlelight, and he was frowning at me as though I were a spider that had just crawled into his home.
Derrick’s grip on my elbows held firm, which I was grateful for because my legs were still threatening to give out.
Two Constables?
Maker help me, what had I gotten myself into?
“Cade, meet Nora Grayson,” Derrick said with no small amount of exasperation. “Nora, this is Elliot Cade.”
