Page 30 of Beyond the Veil (Endangered Fae #4)

“I wish I could say these past few days have all been a dream, corazón.” Diego hugged him tight, his warmth steadying Finn as nothing else could.

“Ah, well, if wishes had wings. How do you feel?” Finn reached up to stroke Diego’s face, warmed even further when he leaned into the touch. Diego’s seizures came when he was under too much physical or mental duress but he hadn’t suffered one yet.

“A little tired. Much better now that I’m not so worried about you. I do need to find Nusair to see if he’ll show us his door.”

Ah. Too busy scheming to wallow in worry. Good. Finn planted a tender kiss on Diego’s lips as he sat up. “He’s not far. I have his scent if you’d like me to find him for you.”

“Such a relief to see you feeling better. I was starting to—” Diego broke off on a strangled laugh and pulled him into a fierce embrace. “No. I won’t even say that. You’re all right now. Even if it takes years to get out of here, you’re here with me and you’re well again.”

“He still loves me after all this time.” Finn leaned back to shoot his husband a grin as he stood and pulled Diego up with him. “That alone gives me strength for conspiring. Onward, shall we?”

Diego’s smile was like the sun after a winter storm, the smile Finn had thought lost for a time.

The things he had done while soul-shattered had been the actions of another man, but of course, Diego hadn’t seen it that way.

He still didn’t and had whispered to Finn one night that he would never be able to atone for those things.

He blamed himself too much, in Finn’s opinion, but Diego had always felt responsible for everyone he touched, for the whole world sometimes.

He was better, oh, so very much better, than he’d been those first dark days after his rescue, but it had been a long road.

It had required a journeyman’s travels, as Diego had used every moment of his exile to learn from any fae who would teach him—dragon, bane sidhe, trolde, spriggan, selkie.

Awareness that he was often his own enemy and a deeper connection to the world had allowed Diego to find his balance again, to become this steadier, well-grounded man.

But Finn still woke sometimes to find him staring into the night, the sorrow in his eyes quieter but still as deep as the Salmon’s Well.

It will always be there, Fionnachd. Accept his happiness as a gift and accept that there must be sorrow as well. He had nearly lost track of his surroundings while he scolded himself, so he only had time to turn Diego and nod at the door at the end of the corridor before Nusair wandered through it.

“Finally. I was just coming to ask if Diego needed to perform some convoluted sexual act to wake you. True love’s reverse cowboy or something.” Nusair’s snide comments would have been more convincing if the anxious scent hadn’t rolled off him so strongly.

“Ah, and you were coming to watch? I don’t mind onlookers but it makes Diego rather uncomfortable.”

Diego rolled his eyes at them both. “No exhibitionism for me, thank you. Nusair? The door?”

The djinn shrugged. “Come on, then. Though I don’t see how it can help.”

He led the way to one of the closed cell doors. Finn had assumed they were all locked, but this one opened easily. Nusair waved at them to follow and once they were all inside, Finn stared about in confusion.

“But it’s simply another cell.”

“It’s meant to look like one, yes.” Nusair nodded to the far wall. “But you have your collar off, pooka-boy. Is it really just another cell?”

Finn stared hard at the far wall. While he knew something was off, he wasn’t certain what, exactly.

“It’s as if it’s not a wall. Clearly it is, but something…

” He paced around the room, placed his hand against the stones and yanked them back in shock.

“It’s a burrow! That is, it’s hollow. Water goddesses help me, I swear there’s a great bloody hole back there. ”

“If it’s a door, it’s a well-camouflaged one.

” Diego approached, examining the stones with narrowed eyes.

He ran his hands along the blocks from one side of the wall to the other, tapping on the stone from time to time.

“It’s veneer. Right here in the middle. Not real stone but plastic or composite made to look like it.

The light’s bad in the cell, or we’d probably be able to see the difference right away. ”

“So now you’ve seen it.” Nusair gave a weary shrug. “Wonderful. Fat lot of good it does us.”

“Faith.” Finn gave Diego a wink. “Patience.”

“ Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into ,” Diego said with a laugh. “Or sometimes to shrink into, I think.”

“Shakespeare?”

“No, caro , Gandhi.”

“What are you two idiots babbling about?”

“Give him a moment, please.” Diego held out his hand. “Maybe give me your clothes, Finn, while you decide.”

“So thoughtful.” Finn yanked his shirt over his head, slipped out of his pants, and handed them to Diego. “Would have taken me a few moments to find my way out of the pants, I expect.”

He concentrated on thoughts both small and flat, packing away the large portion of his mass for later. Diego and Nusair grew taller until even Diego’s foot looked enormous. Finn waved one of his new legs experimentally. Good, good. Not too difficult to maneuver.

“Stinkbug’s sort of an odd choice, isn’t it?” Even Diego’s voice seemed huge and distant.

“Not a bit of it.” Finn gesticulated with a front leg, knowing his voice coming from a bug would seem incredibly odd. “Now I’m quite flat. I doubt the door’s so well sealed that there are no cracks. As a stinkbug, I will find them. I’ll return as soon as I can, but be patient.”

He tried to fly a bit to the door, but gave it up after wobbling clumsily a half-inch off the ground.

It was far too much like attaching wings to a luggage cart.

Grateful that both his companions stood carefully still so they wouldn’t squash him, Finn trundled to the door and began poking about the bottom edge.

Sure enough, he found a little indentation in the concrete floor where he could slip underneath.

Even as a stink bug, it was a tight fit, but the ungainly trolley cart of the bug world was far better suited for slipping between than for flying.

When he reached the other side, he stopped and shifted to badger—safer in case he ran into something that liked bugs for supper—and found himself in another corridor.

This one seemed more tunnel-like, though, since it immediately sloped downward, quite badger-appropriate.

He had expected, since Nusair was certain the door would lead to the same part of the prison the human ingress door did, that the passage would turn and turn again.

It did not. There was a gradual curve and after the tunnel descended perhaps fifteen feet underground, the slope began to rise again.

Not through the prison at all—under. Why would it go under?

He finally reached the end of the tunnel-corridor at a metal ladder leading to a round door in the ceiling. A quick shift to raven to hop up the ladder, then back to stink bug got him through the odd round door where he emerged…

Outside.

That was strange. After a moment’s thought, he shifted to jackal, an animal that was unlikely to arouse suspicion for the brief time he needed the shape to see more clearly.

Yes, outside the prison. The round door came out not far from the square room Diego called the command center, perhaps a hundred yards from it.

Between the door and the room sat the helicopter’s concrete roost, though the flying vehicle was nowhere in sight.

Finn believed he understood. The helicopter brought prisoners.

The humans were taken through the square room and into the prison, there to be set loose to survive or not among the other prisoners.

Nonhumans were taken through the tunnel directly to the corridor with the locked cells.

The transferring guards would have no contact with the human prisoners and the human prisoners would never see the ‘monsters’ who were brought to the locked cages.

Most likely, a human could make sense of such things.

Finn surely couldn’t. One of the guards atop the wall turned to watch him, so he snuffled at the round door like a curious jackal would and loped off behind the square protruding room.

He rested in the shade of the building, panting, heart pounding. More careful. Need to be more careful.

Still, he wanted to remain a bit longer, to glean all the information he could.

He took a deep jackal breath and quickly shifted to scorpion.

Not his favorite shape, but not something anyone would question.

He shifted right and left and moved his poisonous tail carefully.

Creatures with more than six appendages were difficult at first. He always felt he wouldn’t be able to keep track of all the legs to walk correctly.

As usual, it took a few false starts, but once he stopped thinking about all the legs, his body moved easily.

Quickly, before some bored guard decided target practice using scorpions would be fun, he scuttled under a rock near the building and settled in to watch.

Evening was closing in but he would be able to observe the guards for a while longer.

His patience was rewarded when the thup-thup-thup of a helicopter became audible, heading directly for the prison.

From his vantage point, Finn had a clear view of the roost. The helicopter landed and eight humans in guard uniforms leaped out and entered the building.

Perhaps twenty minutes later, eight different guards came out and boarded the helicopter, which started its engines up with a whine and a windstorm of blades.

It rose back into the air and took the guards away.