Page 34 of A Song of Air (Fae Elementals #4)

E v stared helplessly , hopelessly, at the spot where Bryson had disappeared. It had been a second. A single fucking second where she’d been there one moment and then she was falling, falling... And then nothing.

The seconds that followed were chaos. His head spun as his mind tried to grasp what had happened. Where she could possibly be. And when Bryson’s familiar shrieked through the air, swooping low to dig her claws into him in retaliation, when that Fae bastard, Weylyn, rushed into the circle and disappeared himself, Ev knew what it was.

“What the actual fuck just happened?”

Ev dropped to his knees, the impact ricocheting up to his fucking skull. He could only stare numbly at the place they’d disappeared through. He blinked several times, almost as if hoping that when he next opened his eyes, Bryson would be standing back where she was instead of gone from his sight.

“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered weakly, though he wasn’t sure anyone could hear the regret in his tone. The sorrow that funneled through his very soul.

“Where did they go?!” This voice was the Seelie prince’s.

Ev felt his body being jostled. He felt himself being pulled to a stand, his body shaken while his brain rattled within his skull.

His vision cleared enough to find the Seelie Prince standing before him, his vicious glare a feral, frenzied thing as he shook Ev with his Fae strength, just enough to make Ev grit his teeth in pain.

“What the fuck did you do?” he challenged.

“I didn’t mean to,” Ev choked out. “I didn’t... I wouldn’t... oh, gods.” He felt his legs give out from beneath him, but only the prince’s hands kept him upright. All he really wanted to do was fall onto the ground and weep.

He hadn’t meant to shove her. His anger had gotten the best of him. His rage had made him blind to what he was doing, to their surroundings. He hadn’t—

“Release him,” Arlo’s cool voice interjected.

Ev suddenly found himself falling, dropping to the ground into a heap. And he couldn’t bring himself to get back up again. His nails crawled into the ground, creating dentures in the earth, as if he could somehow create a crater big enough and find Bryson hiding beneath it.

But no.

Bryson was gone.

And she likely wasn’t coming back.

“Where the fuck did they go?” Valerio demanded. He stared at thin air, like maybe they’d reappear again somehow.

Julius carefully circled around the mushroom circle, cautious and not getting too close, though his boots scuffed the dirt outside of it.

Above them, Bryson’s familiar let out distressed cries of anguish.

And the three Elementals could only stare at the spot where Bryson and Weylyn no longer were.

Shula let out a breath. “Mushroom circles are portals,” she finally said.

Everyone froze in their tracks. Iona’s gaze snapped up to her mate’s, and Julius’ grim expression all but confirmed Shula’s words.

“But... how?” Clay demanded.

Julius let out a sigh and stepped away from the treacherous circle and closer to the group. “Some places in the human lands are seeped with Unseelie magic. Places like this,” he gestured at the circle, “are like Ley Lines of their own. They hold traces of portal magic from when Unseelie illegally jumped between realms.”

“I didn’t mean to! I swear I didn’t!” The human man, Everette, was still sprawled across the ground, his nails digging into the earth as he wet the grass with his pathetic tears.

The Resistance stared at him with barely concealed disgust before dismissing him entirely.

“We need to try and find a mind link back to Weylyn, then,” Valerio urged. “See where they are. Get Uric to open a portal to where they landed.”

Julius shook his head. “I don’t think it works like that. Who even knows if Weylyn landed in the same place as Bryson—”

“We have to try!” He turned to Shula, Iona, and Corvina. “Could you get a sense of where Bryson is?”

The three Elementals stared among themselves, worry etched over their every feature.

“I can’t sense her anywhere near us,” Corvina said softly, gently, like she was waiting to be reprimanded for an answer that did not appeal to anyone.

“What if you used the stones?” Clay asked, placing a reassuring hand on the ball of her shoulder.

“We can try,” Iona agreed.

Shula nodded grimly as she reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out a map and several stones. She knelt on the ground, splaying the map out before the other Elementals followed to their knees.

“Ready?” Shula asked, holding her palms and the stones face up over the map. The other Fae followed suit, cupping their hands beneath Shula’s.

Valerio watched with bated breath as they channeled their magic. The energy around them seemed to crackle and buzz. Everyone was quiet as they watched.

Everyone except the sniveling human, chanting his apologies over and over again to the ground.

Suddenly, the three women dropped the stones and watched them land.

Three in Ielwyn, where they currently were.

One in the Valley of the Dead.

The fifth bounced along the map.

The final one...

It landed further south.

Right in the middle of the Unseelie Court.

“Fuck,” Iona cursed, her eyes wide on that single rock all the way at the bottom of the map.

“Mana save her,” Corvina whispered.

Shula closed her eyes then opened them once again. “Bryson is in the Unseelie Court.”

The human whimpered and cried, louder now. “I didn’t mean to! Bryson, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Beside Valerio, Uric sighed and looked at the human with a curled lip. “Pathetic,” he whispered.

“The Unseelie Court,” Valerio echoed. He shook his head back and forth, as though his brain were filled with cobwebs he was trying to dispel.

He tried to think past the panic. Past the looming doom of what would come if he failed to get both Bryson and Weylyn out safely. The things his father would say. The venom he’d spew Valerio’s way. He could hear him now. He could feel the pain of the punishment down his back. A phantom agony both physical and mental.

He would make it hurt, and he would not cease to tell Valerio of how he’d failed. Again.

Yet above all that there was a more harrowing worry. For Bryson and though he hated the Fae, for Weylyn as well.

They’d crossed the Ley Line before. They knew what laid south of the human border.

Iron. Iron monsters.

And death.

And as he stared at the little rock placed carefully along that spot on the map, Valerio despaired and feared.

And he wondered if he’d find them alive... or if it would be too late.