The young man narrowed his eyes. “Fae? Or human?”
She yanked her cloak tightly around her body and sifted him into a different, far-off city.
He stood there, gaze fixed on her face, awaiting her reply.
She’d had no idea what fate befell queens who transferred their power before their time, and was discovering it the hard way. His question was a valid one. She wasn’t sure what she was anymore either.
She glanced at the debris on the cobbled street, spied a bottle, stooped, seized and shattered it, shoved her sleeve up and used the bit of glass on her arm. A thin line of blood formed.
Then vanished.
“You’re Fae then,” he said. “If so, you have power enough to leave this place, don’t you?”
Of course, to hell with the king’s portals he could so easily manipulate. She was free of the Silvers and could now sift. She instantly transported herself to the Isle of Morar to refine her plans.
Nothing happened.
She opted for a tiny, inconsequential bit of magic and tried to make a sudden fall of snow where only she stood.
Not a flake, not a flurry.
She knew then. The passing of the power had taken all her power, even that which was not part of the True Magic. Undoubtedly, the O’Connor possessed it now. Now she knew why queens waited until they’d nearly evaporated into that mysterious, shadowy realm to which some of the Fae went, before yielding their reign.
They became powerless. Yet remained immortal. A hellish existence.
She smiled with bitterness that would once have turned the entire city into a glacier of sufficient width and depth to spawn an ice age.
The planet was dying. The portal behind her was closed.
She was trapped.
Again.
Powerless.
She didn’t know this world. Had no idea how to survive on it.
“Come,” the man repeated, extending a strong hand. “I’ll help you.”
Zara ignored the hand but moved to join him.
JADA
I stood, at dawn, in the pouring rain in the suburb of Kilmainham, south of the River Liffey, west of the city center, staring at a nondescript area of high stone wall that ran the entire circumference of Kilmainham Gaol, enclosing the former prison-turned-museum.
The irony hadn’t been lost on me the day I’d exploded from the Silvers to find myself home in Dublin—after so many years of wandering with no idea where I was—that my gate to freedom was tucked inside a prison wall.
I remembered that night. I’d hit the ground running, drawn up short, turned and stared back at the wall, committing the location of the portal to memory.
Rule number 1 in my “Entering a Silver Handbook”: Remember the way back. You never knew when retreat might be preferable to the world you’d landed on. At times I’d had to backtrack ten worlds to discover a new direction to go.
Once I had the precise location locked down, I’d stalked away from the wall. Spying a trash Dumpster, I’d hurried over and begun rummaging in the debris.
Rule number 2.9: (2.1 was for dangerously primitive worlds, 2.2 for hostile beasts, 2.3 signs of an unknown civilization, and so on.) If the world was advanced enough to have trash Dumpsters, it usually had newspapers. Find one and read it. The sooner I acclimated to the world, the more seamlessly I could move around on it.
I’d found a balled-up rag that night—the Dani Daily.
I’d stared blankly at it then spun, staring back at the wall, able to recognize it from a distance as I’d not been able to up close, realizing Kilmainham Gaol loomed beyond the wall.
I’d turned in a slow circle, trying to process that I was home. After so many bloody years, I’d finally found the Silver that took me back to Dublin.
Now, of all times.
“Bloody hell! Bugger! Fuck you, you stupid fucking stupid fucks!” I’d leapt into the air, shaking both my fists at the distant stars.
Then I’d dropped to the ground, clutching my balled-up paper, wondering with a small part of my brain what moron had thrown away my immensely entertaining and informative news flash, while also wondering why it was still there five and a half years later, while also trying to decide with the largest part of my brain what the hell I was going to do.
I was screwed.
I’d stretched out on the ground and cried. Sobbed until I couldn’t breathe and my head was splitting. After I’d done that long enough to make myself even more miserable, I began laughing. Eventually, I went cold as ice.
So, this was how it was going to be?
We’d see about that.
I wasn’t the teen I’d been five and a half years earlier. I’d thought my childhood was challenging but my years Silverside had made my childhood seem like…well, child’s play.