“Knight, ensure the planeweaver accompanies us back to court,” she said before turning and stalking onto the sidewalk.
I grumbled under my breath, but the queen’s command didn’t surprise me. In fact, the part I hated the most about the whole thing was the stab of betrayal I felt at Falin’s “Yes, my queen.” He didn’t have a choice. I knew he didn’t. I knew he was her creature. And yet there it was. He’d broken my, admittedly fragile, trust on the night of the Equinox. I’d thought he couldn’t hurt me anymore, emotionally at least, but his simple acceptance of a command that was blatantly against my best interest felt like he’d gathered the broken shards and ground them into my chest.
I stepped out of the fluorescents of the parking garage and into the near dusk on the street. Night approached earlier each day this time of the year, and the streetlights hadn’t quite caught up yet. Or maybe it wasn’t quite as dark out as it appeared to my bad eyes. I’d left my shields cracked, but only enough to make what had been vague outlines in the brightly lit garage into recognizable shapes. Out on the darkening streets, my natural vision failed me, leaving me with only the swirls of color from the Aetheric plane and decaying reflections from the land of the dead. It was enough to prevent me from running into anyone, but not enough to make out details.
I felt vulnerable, unable to truly see the pedestrians on the street, to recognize who might pose a threat—and I took a moment to feel sorry for myself that I’d reached a place in my life that I considered the fact any crowd might contain a threat—but nothing was wrong with my ears, and from the gasps and whispers I could hear, no one was paying attention to me. No, everything I heard pointed to all eyes being on the disheveled woman striding down the sidewalk with a giant sword. Which was probably for the best, as Falin was bringing up the rear with what looked a hell of a lot like a dead body in a tarp. Actually, that was exactly what he carried, so no big surprise. I hoped he had it glamoured because that was the kind of thing that would draw attention, and if we didn’t get off the street soon, the police.
Thankfully, we weren’t far from the Eternal Bloom.
I’d be able to see once we reached Faerie—for whatever reason, the magical damage my eyes had taken over the years vanished inside Faerie—but there was still more than a block to walk and then there was the Bloom itself. While the bar may hold a pocket of Faerie, I couldn’t see there much better than in the mortal realm.
Opening my shields made the world around me pop into focus, even if it was a slightly different version of the world than everyone else on the street saw. There were more planes of existence than I had names for, and while my psyche seemed to naturally focus on the ones I intentionally interacted with on a regular basis, I occasionally caught sight of others that changed the street into an alien world of glittering crystal, or made the buildings bleed color where they’d absorbed strong emotions. I kept the bubble shield that reined in my psyche in place and tried to ignore the less normal aspects—if I focused too much on any one plane, I was more likely to accidentally touch it, and possibly draw it into mortal reality.
We reached the steps of the Bloom without incident. One of the trolls worked the door tonight. I recognized his particular shade of blue skin and hulking size as a bouncer I’d run into several times before. He wasn’t the brightest.
“Check iron and sign ledger.”
“You’re blocking the door,” the queen snapped.
The bewildered troll looked around, as if unsure of which door she meant. The queen made a harsh sound, somewhere between a curse and a growl. She lifted the sword, pressing it to the trolls jugular. His large eyebrows knit together, but he shuffled only one step sideways.
“Sign ledger?” he asked again.
“I got it,” I said, slipping around his hulking form. The queen made an inarticulate sound, but she didn’t say anything else as I jotted my and Falin’s names in the ledger. I didn’t actually know the queen’s name, and she wasn’t likely concerned with arriving back in Nekros at this exact time, so I left her and her remaining council members off.
Mollified, the troll shuffled his enormous girth aside until he revealed the door to the VIP area. “Check iron.”
“No iron,” Falin assured him, and then gestured for me to follow the queen into the bar.