“Keep walking.”
I took another two steps around the tree, and the world seemed to slide around me. I wasn’t moving, or at least it didn’t feel like I moved in space, but the warm amber light in the bar smeared into darkness, and a cooler, bluer light fil ed the air.
I looked around: the bar was gone, the tree was gone, and I stood next to a giant pil ar carved from shimmering glass. No, not glass. Ice.
The air had a bite to it, but it wasn’t cold, and surely not frigid enough for the enormous pil ar beside me, but though the ice shimmered, the intricately carved fae dancing in spirals up the pil ar were sharp, the details too precise for spirals up the pil ar were sharp, the details too precise for the pil ar to be melting. My eyes fol owed the dancing fae up the column until it disappeared into a glassy ceiling that sparkled like hundreds of smal stars were caught in the frozen mass. Music emanated from somewhere, the soft, plucked notes mournful.
“This is Faerie?” I asked. Where are the fae? There was no one here, unless the carved ice sculptures lining the wal s were alive. Which was possible.
“This is a hal way. Little more.” Rianna crooked her arm through mine. “We shouldn’t tarry.”
She set a brisk pace, al but dragging me down the long passageway. I expected the smooth ice floor beneath us to be slick, but it was no worse than walking on marble. The only light in the passage was from the stars caught in the ice overhead, but it provided more than enough il umination, even for my bad eyes. I reached out with my ability to sense magic. The very air buzzed with enchantments and magic. It was as if I were drinking the magic of Faerie in with every deep breath. I tightened my shields before the buzz of magic overwhelmed my senses.
We’d made it only a couple of yards when three figures stepped out in front of us. At first I thought the statues real y had come to life, but these were fae of flesh and blood. Not that we could see a lot of that flesh. Al three wore hooded cloaks as white as freshly fal en snow, and in the gap where the cloaks fel open I could see intricate armor that looked like plated scales carved from blue-tinted ice. Two blocked our path while a third moved to intercept us, a sword naked in his hand.
“You’ve entered the winter court’s territory. Identify yourselves and your purpose,” the guard with the sword said, coming to a stop directly in front of us. This close, I could see thin, shimmering lines of glyphs tattooed across the exposed skin of the guard’s face and hands—at least I thought they were tattoos, though the ink glimmered like hundreds of ice crystals tracing the man’s skin.
hundreds of ice crystals tracing the man’s skin.
Welcome to Faerie.
“I’m the changeling Rianna, currently in Stasis. And this is
. . .” She glanced at me, squeezing my hand once before dropping it. “My dear friend. I have permission to use this hal to travel between Stasis and the mortal realm.”
The guard held out his hand, palm up. “Let’s see it, then.”
Rianna dug a thin chain out from under the col ar of her dress and tugged it over her head. A blank pendant shaped like an ice crystal hung on the end of the chain, and she dropped it in the guard’s palm.
He whispered a musical-sounding word and the pendant glowed a deep cobalt blue. With a nod, the guard handed the chain and pendant back to Rianna. “Fol ow me. I’l escort you to the door.”
Rianna fol owed silently, so I did the same. Desmond brought up the rear, his nails making the softest clinking sounds on the ice. At first I tried to memorize our route, but as the guard led us down one identical hal way after another I lost track of how many lefts and rights we’d taken.
I’ll definitely need a guide to get back out of this place.
Final y the guard stopped. He gave Rianna a nod and then stepped aside, motioning us to a doorway. Except it wasn’t a doorway at al . It was a large archway set into the wal .
I stared at the unbroken ice wal inside the arch. “Um.”
“It’s the door,” Rianna said, locking my arm with hers again.
“It wil take us anywhere we want to go in Faerie, as long as we know where we want to go. Now you have to trust me.
And don’t let go.”