Page 17 of Lunar Desires (Celestial Magic #2)

My magical GPS found him in Faerie, inside a cottage in a frozen landscape somewhere in the far northern corners of the world, tucked away, curled up on a bed, breathing heavily.

The image wasn’t clear, and neither were the details on his exact location. Vague, mostly hidden from me.

I focused harder, pouring more energy into my magic, stepped out of the blurriness of the cottage into a freezing night.

Tree. Apple tree. Lots of apple trees. Orchard. Blue. Blue apples. Dappled in frost, mist licking at the base of their trunks. Snow covered the ground, indented with footprints heading in all directions.

Cold. Cold. Cold.

What is this place? I asked.

Somewhere far, far, far… my power answered.

Helpful.

There must have been some shadow magic at work here for the details not to start becoming more clear. I sensed a wrongness about the place. Not a falseness, but a darkness wreathed in secrets. A part of Faerie out of the norm, tucked away from prying eyes like mine.

Man, the cold reached me, getting into my bones, which shouldn’t be possible. My magic didn’t interact with the elements like this.

I shivered, putting everything into pinpointing this location.

Nothing. Only the blue apples of the orchard and the cold slap of the air in my face.

“I sense you there, intruder,” a voice spoke from behind me.

I turned, seeing nothing but mist creeping across the ground toward the dense forest ringing this area.

We were inside a huge clearing. I saw that now. A frozen pool sat beside the cottage, an equally frozen river snaking into the trees.

People didn’t tend to sense my scrying, let alone speak with me.

For the time being, I didn’t answer.

“I sense you, witch,” the woman’s voice added. Croaky, deep, unnerving enough to make me shudder. “I do not see, but I feel your prying magic.”

I remained silent.

“Scrying,” she said. “Scrying and poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” She cackled, the sound startling an owl in the orchard. The white bird took flight, heading for the forest.

Footsteps crunched in the snow, moving around me.

She must be hidden by fae magic—presuming she was fae. Making her a powerful fae, if she could pull this off.

Man, this was confusing. How and why would Jonathon be here in Faerie? Especially in some far-flung corner.

“Heed this warning,” the fae said, her invisible self only few feet away from me judging by the fresh indents in the snow.

“Do not come here in the flesh. For there will only be pain. I will suck the marrow from your bones and pick your sinew from my teeth. Before you die. Long before you die. There is only suffering here.” She moaned with what I perceived to be pleasure.

Unpleasant.

Why was she warning me when eating me sounded like pure joy?

“There is nothing here for you but death,” she reiterated. “Eventually.” She cackled again, her footsteps crunching away in the direction of the cottage.

“Who are you?” I finally asked.

The footsteps paused. “Ah. Such a delicious voice.”

The air seemed colder. “Answer me.”

“Have you no manners?”

Seriously? “Please.”

“Why would I tell you anything, Sweetvoice?”

My skin prickled with goosebumps. “Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll name you as I wish. You are hereby, Sweetvoice. My Sweetvoice. One day we will meet. One day you will pay for prying, for ignoring my warning.”

And I’ll rip the spine from your body and beat you to death with it. “I only asked you a question.”

“One question too many,” she replied, the footsteps approaching me again. “It is done. I warned you.”

“You warned me not to come here,” I rebutted, “not about asking questions.”

Keeping her talking helped me unravel the veil draped across this place.

A cackle. “Do not cry over your mistake.”

“I’m not. You’re making it up as you go along.”

Apples. Apples. A frozen place. A dark place with a sky choked with gray clouds.

Humming in my skull, the threads unwinding.

What is this place, I repeated.

“I shall do as I wish,” the fae responded. “A nosey witch gets one warning, one chance.”

This is… This is…

“Not big on context, are you?” I countered.

“Amusing.” No cackle this time.

This is… This is…

“I will enjoy playing with you when we meet,” the fae said. “My Sweetvoice. My Sweetvoice. He comes to me against all odds, drawn like a moth to a flame. Here he shall burn, here he shall languish in pain. Here his blood will sate my greatest hunger. Here he will spend many a year of torture.”

“Years? Sounds horrible.”

She cackled this time, just as the location became clearer, a barrage of information hitting me.

In the north of Faerie, the lands of Winter, far behind Winter City, was a small peninsula.

Surrounded by a violent sea, ringed by a deadly forest filled with wicked dangers.

A forbidden place where no sensible fae walked.

Cut off by a wall of fae magic maintained by the Winter Queen fifty miles south of the peninsula’s southern border.

For the safety of all.

To keep the wickedness at bay.

My magic pulled me up, giving me a bird’s eye view, showing me the pink shimmering mass of the wall, dragging me closer to see more. It stretched east and west for miles, completely covering every inch of land, towering above me at a great height. Locking the badness behind it.

On the very tip of the peninsula, in a small clearing of the forest before the trees gave way to a shore of ice, was Blue Orchard. But I didn’t receive any further details from there.

My magic flitted between vague details and a full rundown. This was somewhere in the middle. I’d have to couple this with some research to acquire more information.

What about the sea? I tried asking my power.

All information stopped there, leaving me breathless and freezing.

“Shit…” I wheezed, a dizzy wave inside my skull.

I’d have to shut this down in a few minutes. But not until I’d tried sneaking an extra slice of this cake.

“You have seen this place?” the fae inquired. “You have crossed another line, Sweetvoice.” Crunch, crunch in the snow, the footprints inching closer. “Doom rests on your head. I look forward to the day I ring its bell.”

We’d see who butchered who first. “Why is that man in your cottage?”

A brief pause before a long exhale of breath. “He is not your concern.”

“He is very much my concern.”

The footprints moved away, stopping beside the cottage’s porch, the wooden structure smothered in frost and blue moss.

“You have observed the wall of magic, have you not?” she asked.

I still couldn’t see this fae, her magic hiding her well. But I knew she was rancid, inside and out.

“I’ve seen it,” I said.

“I will break it. I will watch it fall and walk the lands of Faerie again. And I will not stop there, Sweetvoice. Revenge waits as a ripe apple, waiting to be plucked.”

Someone’s bitter.

“Do you understand me, Sweetvoice?”

Jonathon Aurora, my magic whispered, moving away from the cottage.

What was this?

My power pulled me away from here, back into my world.

There and here. He is both there and here.

I opened my eyes in the car, a trace of icy air licking at my body.

No. How was that possible?

There and here. He is in Faerie and here.

My magic found him in Bournemouth, the neighboring town to Coldharbour. Walking the streets.

“Drake?” Riley said.

And my power found him again, this time in Coldharbour, in a hotel near the train station, and also about half a mile down this road. Waiting.

What. The. Fuck. How could he be in four different places at once?

“S—”

Before I could tell Jake to stop, blue light engulfed the car.