Page 1

I tumbled through the portal with a half-crazed mermaid and what felt like an ocean of water. We shot across a large open space, falling, flailing, and, in my case, half-drowning. And hit what might have been a wall, or a mountain, or basically anything else, because I couldn’t see!

Or breathe, I realized. Or move, with a giant firehose of liquid slamming into me from behind, smashing me into the pale golden stone in front of me like a bug on a pin. And hard enough that I probably would have the pock-marked imprint of the rock permanently embedded into my cheek if I survived this.

I finally took a breath because it was either that or pass out, and it was half water, half air, which did not improve things. But the mermaid was determined and fierce and currently cursing, and I don’t just mean audibly. She was cursing the water out of our way as she hauled me off the stone, and even stranger, it worked.

The waves curled back on themselves as if offended or as if Moses had arrived to part them. Only it wasn’t Moses who stumbled out of the wash a moment later. It was two bedraggled-looking women, both on two feet because this mermaid could transform.

Of course, I’d learned that many, if not all, of the Margygr could. But I’d learned so much lately and had yet to really categorize or absorb any of it that I had just started accepting things. Which was why I didn’t react when a huge vampire grabbed me, spun me around, and planted a fang-filled kiss on my cheek.

I’d spatially shifted him through the portal a minute ago and thus saved his life, and he seemed appreciative. And so was a fey prince who usually hated my guts but was now clapping me on the back almost hard enough to force me to my knees. I’d saved him, too, by absorbing a bunch of power that some other merpeople had cast in a flooded, quickly collapsing room in another world.

The power had been intended for a spell to hold the ceiling up, or what was left of it, but hadn’t worked because it wasn’t just the room collapsing. It had been the whole world breaking apart and imploding or exploding; I wasn’t sure, as things had been pretty confused there at the end. All I knew was that the Margygr had been killed before they could direct their magic anywhere, and the rest of us had been about to follow suit until I grabbed all that power and stuffed it down.

I could do that, as my mother had been the goddess Artemis, and while I hadn’t gotten much from the godly side of the family tree, I could consume magical energy the same way she had. I couldn’t drag it out of someone like her, but had to wait until they coughed it up. Fortunately, the Margygr had, in preparation for a spell they’d never had a chance to cast.

Unfortunately, I’d used their energy up during our escape, and I currently thought that passing out sounded like a good idea. But I didn’t, as it would destroy whatever tiny shreds of dignity I had left. Which, as usual lately, wasn’t much.

My name is Cassie Palmer, and not so long ago, I was Pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world. But then Faerie happened, and I found myself a refugee washed up on Time’s shore somewhere I didn’t recognize. Because who could recognize this?

I stared around and didn’t understand anything. But then I was grabbed by the rest of our party, including a water-logged demigoddess named Bodil and a man named Pritkin, AKA my other half, my partner in crime, and the guy I was gonna drag to an altar if we ever got out of here, wherever here was. Because it was supposed to be Earth, but...

It didn’t look like it.

But before I could point that out, the water, which had been spewing out of the portal with enthusiasm, hitting the wall where it had tossed us and flooding the floor up to our knees, abruptly cut out. Our little knot stopped grabbing and hugging each other to stare at it, with what was probably varying levels of shock. Bodil, the oldest of us, abruptly sat down in the flood and went blank.

I sat beside her because it was either that or fall down, and I couldn’t get any wetter. Enid, the aforementioned mermaid, joined us. The men continued standing, maybe thinking it was more manly or because they were looking a little lost, too.

Fair enough.

It wasn’t every day you experienced the death of an entire world.

Or maybe, like me, they just had no idea where the heck we were. That was even more of a problem when the portal disappeared as abruptly as the water had. I guessed its energy had allowed it to persist for another few seconds after the destruction, but it was gone now, and with it went most of our light.

Most but not all, I thought, staring upward.

It was hard to see past the portal’s swirling red aftereffects, but I could tell we were in some kind of building. And while the little I could see was mostly sand-covered, it was man-made. Or parts of it were.

It looked more like a cavern that somebody had reinforced with a framework of heavy timber beams and reminded me of something I’d seen once, but I couldn’t think well enough to name it. But that was a ceiling high up there that sunlight was illuminating through a hole. There wasn’t much light compared to the portal’s previously blinding variety, but it was enough for Pritkin to decide to take a look.

“Take care of her,” he told Bodil, and could have been referring to either Enid or me. But considering who was weaving about like she would collapse any second, even while sitting down, I was pretty sure he meant me. I tried to stop, as it was embarrassing, but nothing happened.

So I just sat there, swaying gently, as he and Alphonse, the big vamp, and ?subrand, the silver-haired fey prince, climbed up a sand drift that must have been three stories high to peer out of the hole in the roof.

Alphonse made it first, which seemed to piss off ?subrand, who was right on his tail. Pritkin, whose wet blond hair was shining like a beacon in the spill of sunlight and who wasn’t part of the other two’s dick-measuring contest, brought up the rear. Leaving us three girls alone, although a demigoddess older than the pyramids probably didn’t qualify for that term.

Neither did I, although I was only twenty-four. My blond hair held no gray, and my blue eyes were unlined, but as Indiana Jones once said, it wasn’t the years; it was the mileage. And mine was... kind of a lot.

Enid, though, was a fresh-faced teenager and wasn’t looking like someone who had just lost her entire world. The sunlight turned her wet red hair to flame and gleamed in her wide hazel eyes. She’d been wearing a servant’s tunic when she transformed and had managed to keep it on despite hauling my exhausted ass through the portal, so she was dressed, if badly.

But damn, she made it look good.

Especially now, with her hand out, palm up, to catch the glistening rays of a foreign sun. Only... it wasn’t entirely foreign, was it? She was part fey but part human, too, and right now, she had a look of intense hunger on those stunning features.

A second later, she was back on her feet and running up the slope after the guys with an almost feral intensity.

“She’s wanted to go to Earth for years but stayed back to help others,” Bodil told me. “Her skills with glamourie are impressive and were useful when we needed to hide someone.”

She was talking about Enid’s ability to conceal half a face full of scars, which had been given to her by a jealous fey who couldn’t handle that a little half-human mutt of a girl was better looking than her. I guessed that had encouraged Enid to work on one skill above all others, and starting so young, she had become amazing at it. Normally, the smooth perfection of her skin was flawless, even close up.

It had allowed her to help Bodil and a handful of others to free the most endangered slaves of the so-called Green Fey, the ones whose court we’d just escaped, and get them to Earth. They were the descendants of humans brought to Faerie centuries ago, whether by choice or not. And many, like Enid, had never seen their home world.

She wasn’t going to be seeing it at its best right now, I thought grimly, as the reason her adoptive world had just vanished from existence was operative here, too. And it looked like Bodil’s thoughts were traveling along the same lines. The beautiful ebony face under its impressive cascade of tiny black braids was no longer blank but almost fearful, if someone so formidable could be described that way.

It seemed unlikely, as I’d just seen her take on an army of elder demons, buying us time to escape a collapsing world, but there it was again. A furtive look, a widened eye, a downturned lip. Bodil was sensing something I wasn’t, and she didn’t like it.

“Get them back!” she said suddenly, gripping my arm.

“What? Who?”

“Everyone! Now!”

I didn’t know how she expected me to do that, but it didn’t matter. Because here they came, pouring back through the crack in the ceiling, looking like they’d seen a ghost. Or a god, I thought, as a great eye appeared in the crevasse a moment later, peering down into the darkness.

It was blue, the size of a car, and surrounded by pale blond lashes. But it wasn’t the size that had me reeling from a relief so palpable that, for a moment, it was more dizzying than my exhaustion. The creature I feared the most had blue eyes, but his made this color pale into insignificance. If it hadn’t, in my current state, he wouldn’t have needed to kill me; I’d have probably had a heart attack all on my own.

As it was, everyone froze, including Bodil and me, and then, without the need for discussion, we slowly sank into the tide still surging around us.

It wasn’t deep, even though we’d brought a massive amount of water with us. The room we were in was cavernous and had dispersed much of the flow. But the sand that had blown in through the ruined roof had piled around the space, leaving a concave depression where we lay and where some of the water had gathered, forming a pond.

But ponds were not frequently found in the desert, where we looked to be, something that seemed to have occurred to our visitor. He obviously couldn’t see very well, as the room was dark, and the sunlight outside probably made it seem more so. But some of that sun was playing off the water around us and had caught his great eye. He’d probably glimpsed motion from the guys and come to investigate, and now...

He was punching the ceiling with blows like a pile driver, causing cracks to spider everywhere and pieces of rock to cave in.

Shit , I thought but didn’t say, as I didn’t know how good a god’s hearing might be. I flipped over instead and started half crawling, half swimming, even as the first pieces of rock began splashing down around us. They hit with crashes in the shallow water, which wasn’t deep enough to cushion the blows, sending liquid flying, waves churning, and screams echoing in my head that I wouldn’t allow myself to utter.

Animals don’t scream, I reminded myself as shrapnel peppered my back. And that’s what I was if any of my movements were somehow heard above. Just some desert creature, having squirmed in here looking for a drink and now flailing around desperately.

Not a person, not a human, and certainly not an out-of-work clairvoyant because my job didn’t exist anymore since the gods had returned and laid waste to two worlds. Like my power, which... hadn’t come back, I realized abruptly. So abruptly that I stopped moving for a second because that wasn’t how this was supposed to work.

I was on Earth now, which my little band had desperately tried to reach because that was where my power was strongest. It should have allowed me to shift myself out of here and flee backward in time before all this destruction happened to try to stop it. That ability had been gifted to the Pythias by the god Apollo millennia ago, but he hadn’t trusted us with the unfettered use of it.

Which, considering that I’d recently helped to kill him, was fair. So, he’d tethered his energy to Earth, meaning it could only reach me in Faerie when a portal was open between the two worlds. But I wasn’t in Faerie anymore; I should have access to it! I should be able—

To pay attention for half a second before I was crushed to death!

Fortunately, I was jerked aside by Bodil right before a semi-truck-sized piece of ceiling hit down where I’d just been daydreaming and would have flattened me. As it was, it came close enough for my arm to be strafed by the edge, which would have probably taken it off, except that I was dressed in dragonscale armor. Because Faerie was a scary place, but not as much as Earth, apparently!

Bodil took a wild-eyed second to internalize just how close that had been and then jerked me into the darkness and out of the patch of sunlight.

However, we soon ran out of room to maneuver at a sand dune taller than us, which we could have scaled but didn’t dare, afraid that the movement would draw the creature’s eye. We settled for flattening ourselves against it instead, while a giant fist kept hammering away overhead. I stared up at the rest of our team, who were hiding in the shadows under the jagged lip of the roofline, having squeezed between its shattered remains and the top of the dunes, staying out of the way of the fist but unable to come down as they’d be spotted sure as hell.

They were staring back at us or at where we’d just been. I really hoped they couldn’t see us because if they could, it could. And right on cue, my shiny silver armor went black.

Love you, Augustine , I thought fervently, remembering the designer who had crafted it for me. I wondered if he’d survived. I wondered if anyone had, with gods the size of skyscrapers prowling the damned landscape!

I wondered if I would ever have the chance to find out, as a massive arm reached into the sizeable hole and started feeling around the floor, searching...

For us.

And that tore it for Bodil, who had not spent her life skulking in the shadows, praying nobody noticed her. She was a warrior and wasn’t going out like this, accidentally smashed to death by a careless swipe from a divine hand. If she was going to die, she’d do it loudly and hurt her enemy as much as possible in the process.

I felt her tense beside me, saw the fire come literally back into her eyes as flames eclipsed their usual sharp black, heard her suddenly indrawn breath—

And threw myself at her, taking her down more from the surprise of my assault than anything else. We hit dirt and water both, with me fighting like a wildcat with the last of my strength and her staring at me as if I’d gone mad. And maybe I had.

The cumulative effect of the last few days—because boys and girls, that was all it had been, a COUPLE OF DAYS—would have done that to almost anyone. Especially since, in that period, I’d nearly been killed a few dozen times, been forced to fight creatures I’d never even known existed outside the pages of some warped mythology book, and then had a whole damned planet crash down around my head. And yet somehow, somehow , I was still alive, and she was not messing that up for me!

I had my heir to find, my power to regain, and two worlds to save, and Bodil was going to help me , all of them were going to help me , or a rogue god was going to be the least of their problems!

Bodil was staring up at me as if she’d heard all that, which... yeah. Mind reading was one of her gifts, wasn’t it? Just as well.

I’m not sorry , I thought at her as hard as I could. And while you might know demigoddess stuff better than me, nobody knows how to skulk around better than I do. I spent my whole childhood at it, I’m good at it, and that’s how we’ll get through this!

No bravado .

No crazy heroics .

No nothing, because this isn’t about us; it’s about our worlds. So we suck it up, we do the job, and since the job requires us to be alive, we swallow our pride and we hide. We crawl. We do whatever we have to because if we don’t, there isn’t anybody else, and there never will be.

Do you get it?

Bodil nodded, looking a little gobsmacked. But I guessed she agreed because she didn’t overpower me, which she damned well could have. Right then, anyone could have, as I felt terrible, with my magic sitting at zero and now my human strength almost gone, too.

That little dust-up had been really stupid.

Or maybe not, I thought, barely aware of it when the giant got bored, the arm was withdrawn, and sunlight flooded back into our gloomy little world.

And I folded like a pack of cards and went out.