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Chapter 9

Croygen

The heavy, sticky air clung to my skin, making me miss the coolness of the cave—slightly. Caramel’s huffs grew more pronounced, pushing faster and farther, his hooves tearing through the terrain. It was a difficult dance. I needed to stay back far enough that they didn’t catch me, but near enough I didn’t lose them.

They were so close, the nectar still within reach. I couldn’t let it slip through my fingers again. Annabeth’s life was on the line. I would not fail her like I did Lexie.

A pinch of anxiety flared in my chest. The sun was lowering toward the horizon, notifying me we were heading north. Away from Shanghai, away from any port along the coast, and from the easiest route across land through India. Heading up toward Mongolia was asking for death. It may have been beautiful, but it was a harsh, unforgiving land, where only natives survived. And that wasbeforethe barrier fell. Now it was suicide.

We cut around a bend with vegetation so thick the trail was harder to see. I slowed Caramel to a trot, and a shiver went down my spine, countering the sweat beading at my temple. Magic pulsed and weaved through the trees.

I knew this type of magic…

Sliding off my horse, I snuck forward on foot, hearing a distant neigh of a horse. I tugged out a gun from my sheath, one of the many weapons I took off a victim in the dragon cave, and crept quietly, ready to fire.

My heart slammed in my chest, my muscles tense as I moved through the brush. Alarm pounded in the base of my neck like a drum. I could hear the horses and sensed they had stopped. Trepidation clogged my throat, my intuition already knowing, but hope kept the idea from fully materializing.

Slinking up behind some brush, I saw the five horses through the foliage nibbling on hay while the young boy brushed them down. Their fur was still sweaty from where the saddles used to be. He was the only one there, his pack on the ground with a bedroll suggesting he would be staying here tonight.

Waiting.

With my finger on the trigger, I searched for any kind of trap before I stepped out, my gun pointed at the boy. He let out a cry, his eyes widening, his body going still.

“Where are they?” I spoke in Mandarin, my head still jerking around, ready for Amara to step out with her new playthings.

The boy didn’t move or speak.

“I asked you, where are they?” I barked, moving in closer, my voice seething. “The people riding these horses. Where did they go?”

The boy swallowed, his hands trembling as he pointed a few yards away through the brush.

“They went through there.” His voice shook.

My gaze followed, dread swallowing me whole. My worst fear, the one I already knew deep down, was right before me.

Thick air rolled like an ocean wave, a glitch in the earth, a tear in the atmosphere.

A door to another place.

“No.” I heard a strangled cry whisper from me, my feet taking me closer like I was hoping it was a mirage. “No!” I bellowed, feeling everything not just slip through my fingers, but wash away in a tsunami.

When the Otherworld existed, fae doors were how fae entered and exited Earth’s realm. When the barrier between our worlds fell, the doors we used like airport terminals deteriorated into illogical rabbit holes. They could trap you inside, letting you out in desolate places across the world, only to vanish from that spot, leaving you stranded. They were harder to see now because of the magic in the air, and there were a lot more of them since the worlds blended. They had no rhyme or reason, like a computer system with an internal glitch. There were only two people I knew, Ember and Lorcan, who were able to make their way through them, and I had no understanding of how they did.

Most would walk through and never be heard from again. It was similar to getting in a car with someone so drunk they weren’t capable of even standing and hoping for the best.

And my chance at saving Annabeth’s life just walked into one.

The nectar was gone.

I stared at the ripple in the atmosphere in disbelief, my shoulders sagging with despondency. Energy hummed at my skin; just through this wave of magic was Annabeth’s life and probably Kat’s life too. If the vow didn’t kill Katrina, Batara would.

A thought nibbled at the back of my brain. Why was the boy still here? Where was his father?

Whirling around, I strode up to him, my intensity forcing his feet back in terror.

“Where is your father?” I growled, looming over him. “Did he take them through?”

He tried to open his mouth, but only a squeak came out.