I wasn’t sure if that was meant to guilt me or was a threat that I might owe my father a favor, which he could call in at his discretion. Either way, it was a true enough statement. I’d called him several times when all other avenues had closed on me. With a sigh, I retrieved my purse.
It looked as if I was off to see daddy dearest.
? ? ?
It wasn’t until the driver showed me into the house and led me all the way to the second floor to stop in front of the suite that had, until recently, belonged to my sister but now contained an accidental pocket of Faerie, that the nagging suspicion at the back of my brain beat through my exhaustion and screamed that something was off. Cracking my shields, I studied the driver’s profile. Under the generically familiar face was another, stranger, more striking face. A face that hung in a place of honor at the statehouse.
My father’s face.
“I should have known,” I whispered as he opened the enchanted locks on the door. “You never would have sent a staff member to retrieve your witchy daughter from the Magic Quarter. Tongues might wag.”
My father glanced over his shoulder and grinned. It was one of the most genuine expressions I’d ever seen on him. “You do have a bad habit of seeing through glamour. I simply wanted to test the ability. I take it by how long it took that you have to See intentionally.”
I didn’t answer. I don’t think he even expected me to, because his grin only grew at my silence.
“Come in, come in,” he said, ushering me into the room and shutting the door behind us. I felt the magic in the door relock as it closed.
I shuddered at the feeling. I didn’t like being locked in this room. Well, honestly, it wasn’t this room that was the problem. It was the next. Formerly Casey’s bedroom, it was now the scene of some of my worst nightmares. Mostly because a few months ago I’d nearly died there. As had my sister. Oh yeah, and I’d nearly been the trigger that could have ended the world. Nothing big, right?
It took more effort to cross the sitting room and enter the bedroom than I’d like to admit, each step twisting my stomach as my clenched fists shook by my sides. But when I crossed the once-invisible line that marked the circle, everything changed.
I’d been here a few weeks back, so I already expected the maddening mix of merged realities. The pockets of Faerie and the land of the dead that spilled into human reality were splashed around the room like a Pollock painting, the realities bleeding and merging in ways they were never meant to do. But no, that was no surprise to me. What stopped me in my tracks was the sudden lightness I felt. Like my exhaustion had fallen from my shoulders and I could float if needed.
I don’t know if I made a sound or if it was simply my expression, but my father stopped and his grin fell away. He didn’t just look at me, his eyes scrutinized me, a frown growing across his face.
“You’re unwell. You should have answered my calls earlier,” he said after an agonizingly long moment.
“Because that would have prevented a virus?”
“Alexis, you do not have a virus. You’re fading. I did not expect it to happen quite this quickly, but from the looks of it, you’re teetering into the second phase. I imagine you’ve been feeling rather exhausted for weeks now.”
I had been, but that was because I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks, wasn’t it? I couldn’t be fading. Could I?
The fae were said to have been fading before the Magical Awakening. Lack of belief was literally erasing them from the world. That was no longer an issue. In fact, there were rumors of old legends awakening in the few wild spaces left in the modern world. The fae were no longer fading, and surely I, in particular, wasn’t.
His eyes scanned my face and I could feel him noting my doubt. “Have you ever asked yourself why there are no unaligned fae? All either belong to a court or have taken the vows of the solitary fae.”
I shrugged. “Because the ruling monarchs take exception and make their lives miserable?” Or at least, that was what was happening in my life currently.
“Do try to take this seriously,” he said, the reprimand in his voice clear. “Fae must join a court or be granted the vows of the independent fae because it is through their court Faerie sustains them. The more powerful the court, the more fae it can maintain. Without a solid tie to a court, there is only the most tenuous tie to Faerie and the fae will fade.”