The numbing warmth within Skye’s body brightened to a glow of sparkling life. She stirred, flexing her limbs. Strange pains shot down them, quickly soothed by an iron strength. Her bare feet and arms darkened to the grayish brown of fir bark, and her fingers and toes elongated to digits that could grip, climb, rip, strangle. Her body shrank, but it delighted rather than alarmed her: she was becoming distilled, concentrated to an essence of wild strength. After this, she could change into so many other shapes.
Her tribemates released her arms. She leaped up, landing in a crouch on her new wiry legs and fingertips, admiring the mobile, tough creature she had become. The T-shirt and shorts hung absurdly loose on her now, and she plucked at the fabric and laughed—a cackle that twirled into the notes of a song. The tribe screeched in celebration. The music bounced into life again, matching her song and lurching the notes around in improvisation.
Her mate cackled in answer, and she turned to beam at him. He was changed too now, wiry and strong and desirable, his teeth sharp as he grinned at her. He leaped upon her, tackling her against the boards, and she fought back, the two of them tangling and rolling and tearing the ridiculous human clothes off each other.
Slide growled in frustration. Redring shoved him away. “They may have each other tonight, Slide. You can try for her tomorrow.”
“And I will scratch out your eyes,” Skye said to Slide, as she clutched her mate close to her. Her voice squeaked and rasped now, a beautiful sound. “I am not tired of this one yet.” How good it felt to speak whenever she wanted!
“And I’ll fight you for her,” her mate told Slide, latching his arms around her. “I’ll keep her a long time. You’ll see.”
Their tribe watched, egging them on with laughs and jests. Her mate set to gnawing at her neck, a rough but delicious sensation. She held onto him with all four limbs. Through the dancing goblin feet she caught a glimpse of the human liaison, still lying bound and gagged on his side, his gaze locked on the pair of them. A tear ran down over his nose, and he closed his eyes. Flowerwatch touched his head gently, then crawled to the railing and peeked over, as if standing guard against intruders.
None of it mattered to Skye. She hadn’t a care in the world. She rolled with her mate and enjoyed the music and watched the lanterns swing in the cold wind, tiny snowflakes tumbling down through their beams.
Livy shed actual tears of relief when the underwater path began sloping upward again. “Here I was thinking it was a good idea to stay on the island tonight,” she muttered. “Jesus.”
A glowing jellyfish bobbed up next to her. It morphed into a gnome-like blob, and opened a gelatinous mouth to speak. “No matter where you started, there would have been a water path. It is built into the magic.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Fae rules didn’t make sense. She’d been reminding herself of that, with a serious serving of resentment, all through this wet, creepy slog.
To her best understanding, the goblins had set up their lair such that the only easy way into it was through their own path; and the only other way in, the hard way, was this one: several layers of defenses that had to be opened for you by the other fae, one element at a time. Or maybe that wasn’t the goblins’ plan at all, but it was the only way the locals could help her do it. Or maybe the locals wanted to test her courage: no magic sword or monster to slay, just a scary path to take. At its end, a magic ring to grab hold of, which a monster of sorts happened to be wearing.
Madness. Still two more elements to go before she even got to that end.
All taken into account, she completely understood why no one had managed to break this curse in several generations so far. As solutions went, this was complicated, frightening, and nonsensical. Not many people would attempt it, and that was assuming the locals even showed up for them, which she gathered they rarely did. She was lucky; they “liked” her.
The slope climbed, steep again, so that now when her knees slipped she slid backward. She fought on. Barnacle-covered rocks poking through the seaweed served as handholds. She was thankful she’d worn ski gloves, though the barnacles’ sharp edges were cutting dozens of slits in their outer layer. Creatures both fae and ordinary glided past her bubble, but she’d become determined about ignoring them and keeping her eyes on the path.
The slimy green gave way to mud, then to rocks. She switched back to walking, though as soon as she stood, her spine seized up in pain from the prolonged crawling. Wincing, she pressed her hands to her lower back and kept forward, her legs stiff.
Cold poured down over her. She jolted with a gasp, thinking she’d broken her bubble again. But looking up she found sky: dark, cloudy, night sky, welcome and gorgeous. The frigid air washed down around her, smelling of fresh snow, colder than the water by probably twenty degrees.
She sucked it in and let out a long breath. “Oh, thank God.” A few yards up, she dragged her weary feet past the last two glowing sand dollars on the beach and stood on dry land again, shaking. She looked back at the island where she had started. Such an innocent body of water between here and there, a calm little stretch of black. She knew she’d never look at it again without a vivid recollection of its dark depths and the creatures that swam there.
She turned toward the forest, and barely had time to wonder what her next element would be when a lightning bolt zapped a tree with a deafening crack. The force of it smacked through her body. Orange flames erupted in the branches. Though the trees stood at least forty feet from her, she felt the blast of heat. All the snow on the beach melted within seconds. Flames licked the fir, madrone, and cedar trunks, searing them black. The fire spread up the trees and out to both sides, leaving a ribbon of dark air between two patches of inferno.
The fire path.
Livy could hardly breathe. Fear rooted her to the beach.
She’d been near forest fires before, never this close, but close enough to be afraid she wouldn’t get out in time. Part of her job in the dry summer months was to assist with dispatch for wildfire-fighting crews, and sometimes she had to go help flush out citizens in the affected area, or take up a station on a nearby road to keep people from entering. There had been a couple of times when the fire had changed direction unexpectedly and roared toward her, and…she still suffered nightmares from it.
Livy had written papers in college about how wildfires were a normal and necessary part of the forest ecosystem. She got that. But they killed firefighters and trees and animals, and she detested and feared them for it. Now she had to walk through one? It wasn’t just some illusion—or if it was, it was a hell of a convincing illusion, because she could feel the heat, smell the smoke, hear the sap crackling.
The path was safe. She had just crawled beneath the earth and under a hundred feet of water. She could face this. Skye lay on the other side, in the hands of beings about to take her away forever.
Livy told her feet to move, and a moment later they obeyed. She walked forward.