Page 4 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom (Faeted Seasons #2)

Lou winced under the pressure of Vareck’s harsh grip. “She neglected to mention that.”

Farris came back with a tray full of stew, utensils, cloth napkins, and several pewter mugs.

He set it all down, adding a big basket of fresh baked bread.

“It’s water for ya’. I’m not givin’ a bunch of angry redcaps ale.

Ya’ all look close enough to battlelust as is.

” Then he left again, though I noticed him hovering near the bar top by the kitchen door.

Eavesdropping, perhaps, or just staying close by to make sure we didn’t destroy everything.

Corvo sat up on my lap, scenting the air.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say no to a good venison stew.

” He reached his paw up and dipped it in my bowl, catching a piece of meat with his claw before he pulled it onto the table with a splatter of gravy.

Instead of being grossed out and scolding him, I let him eat.

Better he was occupied with food given his penchant for making situations worse.

Atlas sniffed softly, cracking his knuckles after the innkeeper had retreated to the safety of his kitchen. “I’d like to know more about this Irene.”

“And where we can find her,” Darroch added with a single nod.

Vareck waved them off. “It’s taken care of.”

Cadoc tilted his head at the king. “Is she dead?”

Vareck’s brows lowered, sensing the challenge. “No.”

My brother pursed his lips. “Then it’s not ‘taken care of’.” Cadoc looked at me with judgment. “This is the poon you mated yourself to?”

A piece of meat came shooting out of Corvo’s mouth. “He called you a poon!” He nearly choked on his laughter, almost rolling off my lap. Vareck glared at his familiar, then took a deep breath.

“For once, I agree with your brothers,” my dad said, and my mother rolled her eyes.

I sighed, long and loud. The testosterone in the room was too much.

“Cadoc, stop being a dick. Lou, just ... fuck off. Dad, not now, please . Sadie should be our focus, right? If she was looking for me, it would stand to reason she would have come to Faerie. I couldn’t tell her about the contract, but she figured out a lot about my work without me saying much. ”

My dad took a moment, then released a breath, conceding. My mom dipped her head, giving me a gentle nudge with a look of hope. “Do what you do best, dear. We’ll be quiet.”

I pressed my lips in a tight smile, thanking them for dropping it, and then began to center myself.

Reaching for my power, I searched for the gold line that would lead me to my sister.

Energy flooded me. My surroundings blurred as I pushed everything I had into finding her.

I heard the muffled comments from my brothers about the vibrant shade of green my eyes had turned.

I felt the soft vibrations of Corvo’s purring on my lap as my hand rested on the soft fur of his back.

Seconds passed. Maybe minutes. I saw nothing.

Not even a flicker. When I let it go, my voice quivered. “I have no path.”

My mom choked out a gasp, covering her mouth with her hand. A sheen of tears threatened to spill. “Does that mean she’s dead?” Never in my life had I seen my mom scared. It nearly broke me.

“I could only be so lucky,” Lou grumbled.

A short whistle sounded as Cadoc’s knife flew through the air at a remarkable speed. Vareck’s reflexes were swift as he moved his hand out of the way. Lou grunted, leaning forward slightly. He reached for his shoulder. “What the fuck,” he growled, wrapping his hand around the hilt of the blade.

“Leave it where it is.” Cadoc pulled another knife from his side and began twirling it. “Or I’ll pin your hand to your chest with the next throw.”

“Do it anyway,” Fearghal egged him on. “Just for fun.”

Cadoc ignored him, pointing the blade at Lou while he spoke, his voice menacing and low. “You’d better hope she’s alive, leprechaun. If we find her otherwise, your luck will have run out. Nothing, and I mean nothing , in this world or the next will save you.”

“Meera? You have no path. What does that mean?” my dad asked, his arm wrapped around my mother’s shoulders as they waited for me to answer.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t mean she’s dead. She’s just not in Faerie, or ...”

“Or what?” my mother said quickly.

I took a breath. “I can’t track to realms I haven’t been to before. I’ve only been to three.”

“I thought you could track between realms,” Cadoc interjected, and the hope in his voice pulled at my heart.

“I can. But I don’t get a direct path. It’s more like a feeling? The direct path appears when I’m in the same realm as what I’m tracking. All it means is that Sadie isn’t in Faerie.”

“But you should feel a path to her, right? Something,” my mom urged. “If you don’t feel a path at all?”

I sighed. “She might be in a realm I’ve never been in. Or she’s in a realm that doesn’t have passage between it and Faerie, so I won’t feel that nudge here. I need to go back to Earth and see what I can pick up from there.”

My brothers all cursed at the same time.

My dad swallowed thickly, and his eyes lost focus the way they did when he was thinking.

No doubt, he was mapping out risks and possibilities.

Finally, he refocused and looked at me. “We have no choice. If Meera can’t find her when we’re back Earthside, then we search the realms.”

I tucked a curl of my hair behind my ear, nodding in agreement. “We’ll need a witch for portals. Amelia might be able to help us?—”

“I’d leave her out of this one,” Lou said quietly. When I met his gaze, there was a stern crease to his brow, and a hardness etched in the lines around his eyes I’d never seen before. He gave the most subtle shake of his head.

“Why is that?” Vareck asked, covering him in shadow as he stood tall behind Lou’s chair.

Lou didn’t bother to turn around, and he answered without missing a beat. “Amelia’s prices are steep, as of late. And she doesn’t accept coin.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. Amelia was the only witch I really knew well enough to ask.

Vareck cleared his throat. “Kaia knows where portals are located in every realm, and where to find a witch that can help if needed.” Despite being in pain, Lou smiled as soon as he heard Kaia’s name.

“But this won’t be easy. Not every realm has a portal to the other eight.

There will be a lot of back and forth. It could take weeks. Even months.”

“She may not have weeks,” I said, fear causing my chest to constrict.

My family looked at each other, sharing a silent conversation before my mother spoke. “Then we’re all going.”

Corvo’s ears perked up. “Oh, this is like a family vacation!”

I poked him in the side, and he let out a small chirp. “No! That’s not what this is, and also, you aren’t invited.”

“Rude,” he muttered quietly, narrowing his golden eyes at me.

“Before we start realm hopping on a whim, we need to know a few things,” Vareck began. He picked up one of the cloth napkins Ferris had dropped off at the table and he tossed it at Lou. “Clean up. You’re bleeding on the floor.”

“Because I have a knife in my shoulder,” Lou said through a clenched jaw.

“Should have kept your mouth shut,” my father said. “Lucky it wasn’t Molly who got to you first.”

Lou took the cloth and tried in vain to wipe the blood and prevent it from dripping onto the floorboards.

Vareck stood by me, gently placing his hand on my shoulder in support, grazing his thumb in a soothing back and forth motion. “First things first,” he began, directing his question to Atlas. “You said you knew if you followed Lucian, you’d find Meera.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you go to anyone else before hiring him?”

“Sadie’s ex.”

“Jared?” I asked in surprise, not expecting my voice to squeak as I spoke.

Darroch chimed in with a slight chuckle.

“Yeah. Him. Fearghal and I went to his place to see if Sadie was there making another mistake. He gave up some information that saved his skin. Told us he’d seen Sadie at the Witching Hour about to beat up a leprechaun, claiming he knew where you were.

Gave us a perfect description of our friend here. ” He winked, giving Lou a wicked grin.

I stared at him deadpanned. “Was this information given under coercion?”

He shrugged. “Define coercion.”

“You’re such an idiot.” My nostrils flared as I exhaled a harsh breath. “How do you know he wasn’t lying just to get out of an ass-kicking from you two? You could have wasted valuable time if Jared had lied to you.”

“A few other patrons confirmed it, Meera. We’re not stupid,” Fearghal huffed.

I pinned Lou with a dirty look. “Funny how you didn’t mention this earlier.”

Lou tossed the bloodied napkin on the table.

“Sadie held an axe to my throat, and contrary to what they heard, I told her I didn’t know where you were.

I did, however, tell her I knew you were with the king.

I obviously didn’t lie,” he said, flicking his eyes to my brother, then back to me.

“Then Amelia dragged her off after she broke the rules and pulled a gun. That was the last I saw her. If you hadn’t been so busy throwing dishes and chairs at my head, I would have told you that. ”

I patted Corvo’s leg, gently nudging him to get off so I could stand.

He reluctantly complied, hopping onto the empty chair next to me and curling back up.

I looked at Vareck. “I have to go to the Arcane District. Start where she started and see what I can find.” He rubbed the back of his knuckles down my cheek.

“I’m coming with you,” he said softly, and I heard my brothers chortle in an annoying harmony.

“I don’t think she needs you to come with us, bud ,” my brother said with a snicker. “The Wyldes protect our own just fine.”

“Darroch!” my mother shouted. “That’s the king of Faerie . You’ll mind yourself and shut it, now .”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “They mean well ... for temperamental assholes.”

“Darroch, is it?” Vareck said, keeping his formidable stance, but clearly at the end of his patience with my brothers’ antics. “While I appreciate your enthusiasm in protecting Meera, I wasn’t suggesting I accompany her. I will be with her. She’s my?—”

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” I interjected with a nervous laugh, standing up and putting a hand on Vareck’s chest. I widened my eyes at him in a desperate attempt to keep him quiet, pleading with him not to say the words he was about to say.

A frown creased between his brows; his icy blue eyes darkening as though a storm were brewing.

Despite his obvious displeasure, he remained silent.

I knew we’d have to talk about the whole mate thing, but I wasn’t going to have that conversation in front of my family.

After an intense silence, he inclined his head. “We shouldn’t all go to the same place. We have to split up.”

“What do you suggest?” Atlas and my dad asked, almost in unison. They were often so much alike.

“Meera?” he said, turning to me. “You know your sister best.”

“Okay ...” I blew out a breath, running through scenarios in my mind.

I had to think like her. Where she would go, and what she would do.

She’d be on a murderous rampage, so I knew she had her axes and bracers on her.

Maybe her gun. Unless someone took them from her during capture.

If she was captured. “If she comes back before we find her, the first place she is going to go is home, and then the gym.”

My parents looked at each other, then nodded in agreement. My mom snapped her fingers harshly, grabbing my brothers’ attention like she was training a pack of dogs. All four of them straightened their backs, listening. “Fearghal. Darroch. You run the gym while we’re gone.”

“What? No?—”

“No arguments,” my dad interjected, pointing at the two of them. “Meera’s right. She’ll go there if no one is home, and we need to keep the family business running.”

With reluctant mumbles, a chorus of “yes sir” ended the conversation.

“The rest of us should split up in the Arcane District,” I suggested, and chewed at my thumb nail while I considered further. “We start at the Witching Hour and decide which direction we go from there.”

“And what do we do with our Lucky Lou here?” my mother asked, angling her head toward him as though he were yesterday’s trash.

“Your family and nicknames,” Lou muttered with an annoyed shake of his head.

Vareck assessed the leprechaun, considering our options. “He may be of some use still. He’ll need to be escorted to the dungeons.”

“I’m going with him,” Cadoc said. His tone didn’t leave room for pushback, though it didn’t appear that Vareck had planned on disagreeing. On the contrary, the twist of his lips made it clear he rather liked the idea.

“Done. Corvo,” Vareck started, and the cat opened an eye, peering at him with displeasure. “I need you to get Drayden.”

Lou audibly groaned, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like “not again.”

The cat made a sour face, his whiskers bunching up as he muttered mockingly. “Corvo, do this. Corvo, do that. Corvo, I need clothes. When is it ever, ‘Corvo, let me adore you?’ Or ‘Let me feed you fresh fish, Corvo.’ Never.”

Then he popped out of the room.

Atlas and Fearghal jumped out of their chairs, staring at the spot where Corvo had just been. “What in the nine realms!”

“You get used to it,” I said, shrugging. “Mostly. It’s when he shows up in the weirdest places that throws you off.” Which reminded me, I still wanted to talk to him about why he was at Irene’s last night.

“Who is Drayden?” my mother asked, reaching over for a piece of bread and using it to soak up the stew before she took a bite. It had to be cold by now. I wasn’t even sure she was truly hungry, or if she was just stress eating. We had that in common.

“After Kaia, he’s next in command,” Vareck answered, and Corvo popped back in the room, appearing on the table near a bowl of stew.

“He’ll be here shortly,” he said, dipping his paw in and grabbing another piece of meat.

“Fucking great,” Lou muttered, shifting in his chair. He looked like he was going to be sick, and it had nothing to do with the knife embedded in his shoulder.

“Not your favorite person, I take it?” He shook his head.

“Drayden holds a grudge longer than anyone I know,” Vareck said fondly. “And Lou is at the top of that list. How long has it been now, Lucian? Twelve years?”

“Thirteen.”

I snickered. “You always said you thought thirteen was a lucky number.”

“Beginning to reconsider that, lass. My luck might be running out.” Lou glanced at the stone hearth, rubbing his palms over his pants in an anxious gesture I’d never seen from him before. Then the flames began to hiss and spark.