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Hadeus’s eyes roll back, and his face slackens. He’s passed out, the pain too much for him.

I concentrate on what he said, trying to make sense of it. Ruskin did once explain that water portals were less stable than the permanent gates that took you from realm to realm, but that doesn’t give us any idea of where they ended up.

Yet when I look up I see that Destan’s eyes are wide and his face is pale. Hadeus’s description meant something to him. I know it.

“What is it?” I say. My heart rate quickens. Whatever it is, I know from his reaction it can’t be good. “Des, tell me,” I demand. “Where has he gone?”

Destan swallows.

“I think…I think he’s trapped in Interra.”

Chapter 2

“And what is that?” I ask, not sure I want to hear the answer.

“The midplane—the space between realms.”

Between realms. I don’t need Destan to elaborate for the words to send my stomach into freefall, but he goes on.

“It’s the place in between Faerie and Styrland where nothing lives—nothing nice anyway. It gets referenced in old tales—you know, the place where monsters dwell and naughty children get sent?” Destan rambles as he worries at the handle of his knife.

“But it’s real?” I say, my throat suddenly dry.

“I—I don’t really know,” he stammers, sounding more uncertain than I’ve ever heard him before. “No one I know of has been there, but what Hadeus said—about sunlight not being able to touch it? That’s how Interra is described in the old tales: ‘The darkness that’s never seen the sun.’ If Evanthe’s spell destabilized Ruskin’s portal, it seems possible they got stranded there.”

A portal. A doorway to another world. If that’s how Ruskin got there, that’s where we need to start.

Hadeus releases a groan, which makes me jump, but he doesn’t fully wake.

“We need to do something about him,” I say, nodding to the fae lord. “Then we head to the nearest gate.”

Destan squints at me.

“What are you planning?” He knows me well enough to sound nervous.

“A way to get Ruskin back, but I’ll get to that later. Where’s the closest gate to here?”

I haven’t got the full shape of my plan yet, but it’s formulating, and I know we don’t have time to lose. The dull pain is still there, pulsating through the bond. I don’t want to give it an opportunity to get worse.

Destan lifts his eyes to the sky, thinking.

“In Unseelie, probably. I think they have one close to the border. Not that I advocate going waltzing into their kingdom just to use their gates, but seeing as we’re going there anyway…” He shakes his head. “I never thought I’d consider Unseelie a safer place than my own kingdom.”

“And I never thought you’d turn out to be a master torturer,” I say. “But life is full of surprises.”

Here beyond the mountains, the Unseelie Kingdom reminds me of Styrland, with its green grass and the stone dwellings rising up ahead of us.

“Low Fae settlement,” Destan says, squinting at the horizon. “This’ll do.”

We dump Hadeus, still bound and unconscious, at the milestone on the road into the village. Destan thought I was soft for insisting on bandaging Hadeus’s wounds before we left him, but I pointed out that if we were going to leave them open to get infected, we might as well kill him anyway—and it seemed reckless to risk losing the only bargaining chip we’d have if the Wild Hunt caught up to us again. We could use Hadeus’s location as a last-ditch piece of leverage.

We keep an eye out as we travel, but it’s the early hours of the morning, and thankfully we don’t see anyone. Running into some Unseelie right now could be as troublesome as coming across the Hunt again. We can’t be sure we have any friends—Seelie or Unseelie. Anyone we meet could be another foe.

We’re only a few miles further when it hits me again. My vision narrows, and I must slip from the horse, because hands grab me as I gasp for air.

It’s the bond. The background levels of discomfort swell and break their banks, flooding me with waves of agony. This can’t just be Ruskin’s pain—no one could survive this. Somehow, I know this suffering belongs to both of us—the pain of separation, the fear of loss, and something being ripped loose from the tie that binds us. I can’t name it, but as much as I know Ruskin is in danger, I also know that being so far apart from him, having him not just in a different realm but lost between them, is causing its own kind of damage.

“Eleanor! Eleanor, can you hear me?”