Some time later, I sat in a glade of tall grass and white-barked trees, leaning back against a trunk, trying to get a grasp on my situation. It had taken nearly half an hour for me to stop shaking. I‘d wanted to run as far away from the terrifying monster as I could, but I needed those damned stones.
This day had not unfolded remotely as I‘d planned. I was having a hard time accepting where I was and what was happening to me.
I‘d begun this afternoon with a clear agenda: I‘d stepped into a Silver with the perfectly reasonable expectation (oh, God, did that sum up how warped my world had gotten or what?) of stepping out on the other side in my own living room, in my own world, where I would either rescue my parents from the LM‘s evil clutches, with Barrons‘ help, or die trying. Now here I was on some foreign world inside the network of the Silvers, which were—according to Barrons—a place that was virtually impossible to navigate and where one could stay lost forever, being attacked by one predator after another.
I‘d been absurdly, dangerously sidetracked. Things had taken such an unprecedented twist that I felt as if I‘d slipped down one of Alice‘s rabbit holes.
It was one thing to watch Fae invade Dublin and try to take over my world, to fight them on my turf. It was entirely another to find myself world-hopping via mirrors and mystical stones, forced to do battle on foreign ground. At least back home, I knew where to get the things I needed, and I had allies to help me. Here, I was screwed.
Events were going on without me back in my world, and I needed to be part of them. I had to get out of here! I had to save my parents, question Nana O‘Reilly, get into the Forbidden Libraries, figure out where V‘lane was, uncover the prophecy … The list was endless. But I was stuck on one of the worlds in the network of the Silvers, with a terrifying monster between me and stones that I didn‘t dare leave behind. Not only were they of use here (though risky), but I had to take them back to my world so I could use them there. If I needed any proof of how difficult the Silvers were to get out of—and survive in—I only had to think of Christian, who‘d been wandering lost for two months, and been on the verge of death when I‘d found him.
How would I survive two months? How would I survive two weeks?
What was happening to my parents?
I punched IYD on my cell phone for the hundredth time and, for the hundredth time, nothing happened.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. Barrons had gotten out of here.
How? Why hadn‘t he told me he‘d been sucked in with Christian? Why so many lies? Or, as he would call them, ―omissions.‖
I opened my eyes and checked my watch. It was still 1:14. Duh. I took it off and stuffed it into a pocket. The thing was obviously useless here. I was waiting for the monster to finish devouring the boar so I could go get my stones. I thought it had been at least an hour or two, but the sun hadn‘t moved in the sky at all since I‘d sat down, which meant either my sense of time was badly skewed or the days were much longer here than I was used to.
While I killed time, I sorted through my options. The way I saw it, I had three. Once I had the stones back, I could A: start hunting for IFPs, risk entering one, and hope it wouldn‘t trap me in a desert like the one Christian had gotten stuck in; or B: use the stones and hope that I was really far away from the Unseelie prison and they‘d send me back to the Hall of All Days or some other place with mirrors to choose from; or C: stay right where I was and hope that, even though IYD
didn‘t work here, Barrons would still be able to track me by my brand. And that the monster would move on and find something else to terrorize and kill. Otherwise, remaining in this area wouldn‘t even be an option.
Barrons was obviously familiar with the worlds inside the network of Silvers, considering how quickly he‘d gotten out. Which seemed to indicate he‘d been in here at least once prior to having been sucked in with Christian.
Of all my options, staying put and giving Barrons the chance to track me seemed the most sensible. Once before I‘d discounted his ability to save me, and I didn‘t want to make the same mistake again.
It had taken him four days to get out.
I‘d give him five to find me. But five was the max I would allow, because I was afraid I might start thinking, Yeah, but what if today is the day he comes? Then I‘d be afraid to ever leave. It was imperative I make firm decisions and stick to them.
That resolved, I stoked my courage, stood up, and moved stealthily to the edge of the glade, to see if I could reclaim my stones.
The monster was still eating. It stopped, raised its head, and sniffed. Was it looking at me through the trees?
I dropped to all fours and retreated inch by inch. After I‘d put some distance between us, I got up and ran back to my tree.
Why hadn‘t it killed me? Why had it stopped? Was I inedible? I knew sometimes animals were rabid and killed simply to kill. I‘d never seen such fury in an animal‘s eyes before. One of my friends had been bitten by a rabid dog, and I‘d seen it kenneled before it was put down. It had looked more frightened than angry. The gray monster didn‘t possess one ounce of fear. It was nothing but savagery.
Two more times I slipped through the glade to check. Both times it was still eating and showed no signs of stopping.
I returned to my tree, where I watched the sun crawl across the sky. The day heated up and I stripped off my coat, sweater, and jersey. I made a sling from the jersey, knotted the MacHalo in it, and tied it to a stick, hobo style.
I spent my time alternately worrying about Mom and Dad, trying to convince myself that Barrons had rescued them; Dani being at the abbey and what rash decisions she might make without me there to keep an eye on her; Christian and where he‘d gotten off to and hoping he‘d found food because I‘d never gotten the chance to give him one of my protein bars; and even V‘lane, for disappearing and never popping up again.
I couldn‘t think of a single thing to worry about for Barrons.
I pondered life, trying to make sense of it, wondering how I could ever have grown up believing the world a sane, safe, orderly place.
I was about to push myself up to go check on my stones for the fourth time when I heard a twig snap.
My head whipped around.
The monster was crouched on all fours, no more than twenty feet away from me. It stared though the tall grass, head hunkered low, yellow eyes glittering. Was it done with the boar and hungry for me now?
I grabbed my hobo stick and coat and shot up the tree so fast I think I gouged sod from the earth. Heart in my throat, I flew from limb to limb.
I hate heights as much as I hate confined spaces, but halfway up I forced myself to stop and look down. Could the monster climb? It didn‘t look as if it should be able to, with what I estimated had to be four hundred pounds of muscle plus all those talons, but in this world who knew?
Especially with the weirdly fluid way it could move.
It was on the ground beneath the tree, on all fours, tearing at the grass where moments ago I‘d been sitting.
As I watched, it found my sweater. It pierced it on long talons and raised it to its face. I gasped. The sweater wasn‘t the only thing of mine it had. Tied to its rear horns by a leather drawstring was my rune-covered bag.
The monster had my stones!
When it finally wandered off—with my sweater knotted around one of its hind legs—I descended the tree. After a long, internal debate with myself, I shrugged and began to follow it. I was furious at the latest turn of events.
Why had the damned thing picked up my stones, and how—with those lethal talons—had it managed to tie the bag to its horns? Wasn‘t knot-tying pretty damned evolved for a prehistoriclooking beast? And what was the deal with my sweater?
It realized I was following it, stopped, turned around, and looked at me. My instincts screamed for me to tuck tail and run again, but there was something strange going on here. Although it bristled with fury, it hadn‘t taken a single step my way.
―Those are my stones and I need them,‖ I tried.
Feral yellow eyes narrowed, unblinking.
I pointed to its horns. ―The pouch. It‘s mine. Give it back.‖
Nothing. There wasn‘t a flicker of understanding or anything remotely resembling intelligence in its gaze.
I pointed to my own head and mimed removing a bag and tossing it away. I mimed untying my sweater from its leg to drive my point home. I indulged in a small fit of charades, with many variations on the theme. Nothing. My efforts yielded no more fruit than an interrogation of Barrons would have.
Finally, out of sheer exasperation, I did a little dance, just to see if it would have any reaction at all.
It stood up on its rear legs and began to howl, revealing an alarming number of teeth, then dropped to all fours and lunged at me, over and over again, drawing up short each time, like a dog on a leash.
I went perfectly still.
It was almost as if it wanted to attack me, but for some reason it couldn‘t. It stilled, too, growling, watching me carefully with narrowed eyes.
After a moment, it turned and glided away, muscle and madness.
Sighing, I followed it. I had to get my stones.
It stopped, turned around, and snarled at me. It clearly didn‘t like me following it. Too bad. When it began moving again, I waited where I was for a few seconds, then followed at a more discreet distance. I hoped it had a lair that it would take the stones to, and when it left again to hunt, maybe I could steal them back.
I followed it for hours, through meadows and finally into a forest near a wide, rapidly flowing river, where I lost it among the trees.
Daylight ended with disconcerting abruptness on this world.
The sun had been inching across the sky most of the day, but at roughly five o‘clock—or so I assumed by its angle to the planet—the blazing ball plummeted faster than the one in Times Square on New Year‘s Eve. If I hadn‘t been squinting up through the trees at that precise moment, trying to decide how much time I had left to find a place to hole up for the night, I‘d neither have seen nor believed it.
In the blink of an eye, day was over and it was full, pitch night. The temperature dropped ten sudden degrees, making me grateful I still had my coat.
I hate the dark. Always have, always will.
I fished out my MacHalo, dropped it in my haste, picked it up again, clapped it on my head, and began squeezing on the lights. Since the brackets had snapped off, I moved some of the lights around, wishing I‘d made Barrons‘ version of my creation, without brackets. I‘d never admit it to him, but his was more efficient, lighter, and brighter. But, in my defense, it was far easier to improve upon an invention than to actually sit down and invent it. I‘d made something from nothing. He‘d merely tweaked my ―something.‖
I don‘t know if I heard it or just sensed its presence, but suddenly I knew something was behind me, no more than a dozen feet to my right.
I whipped around and caught it in the harsh white glare of lights on the front of my helmet. Squinting, it shielded its eyes with an arm.
For a moment, I wasn‘t sure it was ―my‖ monster. It had darkened like a chameleon from slate gray to coal black, and its eyes were now crimson. I might have mistaken it for something else, a distant cousin to the monster I‘d been tracking, except for the pouch of stones tied to its black horns.
It snarled at the lights. Its fangs glistened ebony, long.
I shivered. It looked even more deadly than it had before.
I squeezed off the front light, and it lowered its arm.
What now? Why had it come back? It hadn‘t seemed to want me to follow it, yet when I‘d lost it, it circled back for me. Nothing about it made sense. Might it eventually weary of the pouch banging into the back of its head with every step it took and toss it away? Why did it still have my sweater? How was I going to survive the night? Would it kill me in my sleep? Assuming I ever managed to relax enough to sleep!
If it didn‘t kill me, would something else? What was nocturnal here? What did I have to fear?
Where would I dare try to sleep? Up a tree?
I was starved. I was exhausted and completely out of ideas.