“No!” The queen’s voice cracked through the hal . “After them, al of you. Detain her.”
I whirled around. The queen’s ice guardians surged forward in force. Even the two that were holding Caleb released him to grab their swords and join the fray. Caleb looked at me, looked at the man in the rift, and then turned and fled in the opposite direction. I didn’t blame him.
More shadow wraiths flew out of the rift to hold off the fresh assault of ice guardians, but the ice guardians weren’t the only ones coming. Falin darted forward, parrying blows from the wraiths.
“Alexis, hurry,” the stranger said, holding out a hand. He was definitely no white knight here to save me, not with al his oiled black armor that nearly blended in with the shadows around him, but he was definitely rescue of some sort.
A sword passed through the air inches from my chest—
and PC. The white crest of hair on the top of his head fluttered and he trembled. I have to get out of here. I glanced at the fae stil extending his hand toward me. Wel , the winter court was a bust for the accomplice and Hol y anyway. Maybe I’d have better luck elsewhere. And maybe I can manage not to piss off the ruling regent.
Tucking PC under one arm, I gathered the skirt of my gown with the other hand, hiking it up to my knees, and then I ran for the rip. The man reached for me. I dropped my skirt I ran for the rip. The man reached for me. I dropped my skirt and grabbed his hand just as someone grabbed my arm.
The stranger hauled me forward, up and through the tear.
The ice cavern vanished; the hand on my arm didn’t.
I stumbled into an enormous anteroom fil ed with giant gothic arches and spiraling columns. And Falin fol owed.
The fae who’d pul ed me through turned, leveling a sword that reflected no light, as if it were crafted of pure shadows.
He swung at Falin, who jumped backward. Falin lifted two daggers long enough to be short swords.
I stepped between them, my back to Falin. His hands immediately closed on my arms, the flat of his blades pressing against my bare skin.
“Don’t hurt him.”
The stranger cocked his head. Then he turned toward the rift. “Now, boy,” he yel ed, and a robed figure I hadn’t noticed standing to one edge of the tear stepped forward.
The figure was the size of a child, but that didn’t mean anything, as fae ranged in size from very, very smal to enormous. He thrust his hands into the space on either end of the tear and seemed to grab the hole at the very edges. I stared, amazed, as he tugged the rip, closing it. The shadow court’s planebender? The tear was less than a foot wide when an ice guardian reached it. The guardian dove for the opening, his sword leading, pointed directly at the planebender.
“Down!” my rescuer yel ed, charging forward.
The planebender hit the ground as a dark sword swung over his head, parrying the guardian’s blow. The stranger grabbed the ice wrist and shoved, trying to force the arm back through the opening while avoiding the frozen blade.
The planebender rose to a crouch and grabbed the edges of the tear again. I could feel the magic—not Aetheric energy but a magic that felt both foreign and extremely familiar. He tugged, forcing the tear around the guardian’s arm.
“Knight,” the queen’s voice said, cutting into the room
“Knight,” the queen’s voice said, cutting into the room through the stil partial y open rift. Falin cringed behind me.
Crap. “Knight, capture the planeweaver and—”
A loud crack snapped through the air, fol owed by the sound of ice shattering. The queen’s voice broke off in midsentence, and the guardian’s arm, stil clutching the sword, fel to the ground. It melted immediately, leaving only a large puddle behind the planebender, and the tear in Faerie knitted itself back together, closing without so much as a seam.
My jaw dropped. I could feel it hanging open in amazement, but I couldn’t seem to convince it to close. The planebender stood, dusting his hands on his trousers, and the stranger nodded at him.
“Wel done,” he said affectionately and reached inside the hood as if tousling the wearer’s hair. There was no decay in Faerie, so I couldn’t glimpse anything under the shadowy cloak, not even a glimmer of his soul. The dark fae then touched the figure’s shoulder, and as if he’d been dismissed, the figure scurried away into the shadows. Then the fae turned back toward me. “Now what do we do with him?” He nodded over my shoulder at Falin.
Falin’s fingers tensed around my arms. He leaned forward until his lips were level with my ear. “My queen commanded I capture you and . . . I guess the ‘and’ is left to my discretion.” He made the last bit sound suggestive enough that heat rushed to my cheeks—and some lower places—despite my best intentions.