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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

S errik watched as Ava learned to wield magic for the first time. It was a thing of beauty.

Tedious.

But a thing of beauty.

Idly, he had begun to toy with one of her wild curls, wrapping it around his finger before releasing it, again and again, as she focused. She did not notice. And for the longest time, neither did he. He put his hand down the moment he realized he was touching her.

She sat, staring at the apple, entranced, for what might have been hours in her time. The dream world, this interstitial space he brought her to—worked differently than the waking world. And truth be told, he oft lost track of the passage of the minutes himself. Imprisonment for centuries would be liable to have that effect, he supposed.

So he stayed there, sitting beside her now, watching as she tried to find her way through the corridors of his power like a mountain spring weaving its first path to the ocean.

Not because a desperate need had inspired her to, such as with Rig, but because she was searching for it. Learning to wield magic purposefully, in lieu of reflexively, would be a key and important skill for her. She would not survive long if she could not aid herself mindfully.

Without ripping catastrophically large items through space and dimensional walls, that was. Watching her destroy the treacherous Rig had been a rare moment of delight for him.

To be able to pull an object of such size and scale so effortlessly through dimensions without even flinching…without even recognizing the magnitude of what she had done?

Perhaps she mistook the horrified stares and sudden trepidation from the other fae as being related to the murder she had committed. How wonderfully human of her, to think that any of the others would do anything but laugh and celebrate the death of one of their own, especially accomplished in such a wonderfully flamboyant fashion.

No, it was the manner of his execution that now made them unsure of what to do with their new co-inmate. Save, of course, for the ever-scrutinizing Nos.

He was quite glad that Ava had decided to be done with him and his companion Ibin. He had not looked forward to scheming a method of being rid of them. However, a plan may still be needed. Ibin’s desire to protect Ava—and sway her from his side—was a powerful one.

His thoughts could not seem to linger on them long. For they always returned swiftly back to Ava.

Could she do it a second time, he wondered? Break the laws of reality twice over? Work her magic here, in this dream-state, where it should be impossible? Simply because she did not know it was so?

And the look on her face as she had sat there, back against the tree, staring at the buckled metal contraption? He had wished with every fiber of his being that he could have appeared beside her and told her not to dismay—that what she had done had been a beautiful display of what she would become.

Ripping several tons of iron and steel from another world with no knowledge of what she was doing and, as far as he could tell, minimal effort on her part. When she grew more confident in her power—when she had any sort of practice, any sort of footing, she very well may be the one to shatter his prison.

A war raged in his chest. A tempest that had seized him for as long as he had been alive. A battle between his natures that he kept locked away as the world kept him. But it did not stop his thoughts.

It did not stop his desires.

How he wanted to stroke her hair. To capture her lips in a kiss. To crush her body against his. To pin her to the floor and take her like the bestial side of his nature demanded. To sink his fangs into her throat, flood her with his venom, and claim her. To make her his , as his body and now quickly his soul was demanding he do.

Little butterfly, what have you done?

Ripping holes through the dimensions—a task that should have been impossible, even with the grimoire. A task that should have left even the most talented witch drained and exhausted.

She was talentless. Raw. Unfocused. With all the elegance of…well, a several ton metal wreckage. But she was pure, untapped potential. There was the power of a burning star within her.

A power that he could wield.

She was meant for this.

Meant for him.

He did not believe in the gods. Oh, he knew they existed—he had been borne by two, after all. But he did not believe that he would ever, in any sense, have the support or backing of any of them.

But someone— something— had sent his little butterfly into his Web, spurned by tragedy. But who? Who wished to see him succeed, now, after so many centuries of failure? Who had sent him the one soul he might need to see his task complete?

It was too much of a coincidence otherwise.

He was not one to take this gift for granted. And what a gift she was. It wasn’t until he felt his venom on his tongue that he realized he had begun staring at the vein in her neck.

Death could not come for her, no matter how much of his poison he pumped into her veins. He could sink her deep into bliss. Take her to the heights of the stratosphere without a care for stopping her heart. Claim her in his true form, without fear of her weeping in horror and disgust at the sight of?—

Perhaps the realization of her inevitable rejection of his being would have shaken him out of his reverie. It might have been sufficient to drive him out of his cloud of lust that had him inching closer to her, his fangs extended and dripping venom, ready to sink into her sweet flesh.

But the simple fact of the matter was, he never had the opportunity to discover whether or not he would have stopped himself from claiming the girl without her knowledge.

Because that was the precise moment in time when the apple… changed.

Ava screamed.

The apple was no longer an apple.

Well. She did it.

Go her.

Yay.

Huzzah.

She’d succeeded in changing it.

Kind of.

Six apple trees, clumped far too close together than they would have ever grown normally, burst into existence.

The marble floor cracked and shattered as the roots suddenly upended it, sending splinters of the stone flying in all directions. She covered her face with her arms and pulled her legs up to try to protect herself.

But the chaos had only just started. Because these trees were huge. The boughs that stretched upwards toward the ceiling suddenly swung down, overloaded with ripened fruit.

Inertia was a bitch sometimes.

The trees shot upward from the ground as they hurtled into existence from downward to upward.

The branches that were overfilled with fruit, were now overfilled with projectiles. Apples hurtled down at them at the speed of a pitching machine’s baseball.

Sure, it probably wouldn’t kill her—apparently she couldn’t die—but in the one spare moment she had to think about the situation, what ran through her head was simply?—

This is gonna fucking suck.

Suddenly, she was knocked flat to the ground. She wasn’t sure by what at first. But as the sound of apples hitting the marble surrounded her, she realized nothing was hitting her.

Well—almost nothing—apples hit her legs. Which hurt. It felt like getting punched repeatedly in random places. “Ow! Shit!”

But nothing was hitting her upper body. Or her head. Which seemed unlikely. Blinking her eyes open, she lowered her arms.

Serrik.

He’d pushed her to the ground and thrown himself over her. He was caging her in, protecting her. His head was ducked, and the look on his face was one that told her that he, too, didn’t precisely enjoy being pelted with apples.

When it seemed that the last one had fallen, they were lying there in a puddle of ejected fruit. Some had split from the impact with the marble, but some seemed shockingly intact. Probably the ones that had hit them.

It was clear that Serrik was, to put it mildly, rather put out by the whole experience.

God, he was so beautiful. She had the urge, very suddenly, to lift her head and kiss him. To just grab him by the collar of his shirt and yank him down on top of her.

The realization hit her like, well, a basket of apples.

She wanted him.

But he was a monster. A monster bent on the genocide of his own people and total war. And he had trapped her here with him.

He was dangerous. He was her enemy.

And she wanted him.

His gaze was boring through her again, pinning her to the spot. The silence stretched between them. Did he feel the same way? Did he want her? She was just a stupid little human to him. And he had all the emotive abilities of a brick.

No. He didn’t want her. She was making things up in her head.

Picking up one of the apples near her head, Ava held it up between them. “I grew trees?”

Shutting his eyes, he lowered his head, and let out a beleaguered, quiet laugh.

“You did not grow trees. Somewhere in this mess is the original apple. You tore trees through space from your world.” He retreated, nudging several apples out of the way to sit beside her. “I suppose I should make pies. Or cider, with all of these.”

Sitting up, she cringed. Her legs ached. “Are you all right? I feel like I’m going to bruise.”

“While that was hardly pleasant, I will be fine. I—” His words were cut off as a stray apple fell from the tree and smacked into his shoulder. With a frustrated growl, he stood and offered her a hand up. “I wish to no longer sit beneath these trees.”

Taking his hand, she laughed as he pulled her to her feet. “I can’t say I disagree. I—wait. I didn’t change the apple?” She frowned. “So I failed?”

“No. This has been an enlightening experience. For me, at least, if not for you.” He cast a thoughtful glance at the trees for a moment, before leading her from the room. “Your gifts are…ill-suited for small tasks, it seems.”

Ava could almost watch the gears spin in his head. He was plotting. No, he was scheming. She’d never met anybody who actually schemed , but Serrik definitely schemed. “You’re saying I’m a bazooka and you had me trying to swat a fly.”

“I do not know what a bazooka is, Ava.”

The flat, unamused tone in his voice made her laugh. “Sorry. A big weapon that shoots rockets.”

He shot her a look.

“Right.” She laughed again. “Rockets are…explosive devices? They go pppssh ” —she mimed a rocket going through the air with her hand— “boom.” She mimed an explosion.

God, she was such an idiot.

“I believe you have earned yourself a drink.” Serrik ignored her description and headed toward what looked like a bar buried within his collection of furniture. “I, myself, am currently in need of several.”

That was a loaded statement if she’d ever heard one. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“A great many things, I’m certain. You will have to strive to be more specific.”

Rubbing her face with her hand, she followed him. “Are all fae as infuriating as you?”

Serrik smiled at her, a sardonic twist to his lips. “Far more so, I assure you.” He poured her a drink straight out of a bottle. It was amber. She assumed it was a whiskey of some kind, which was fine by her. When he handed it to her, she sniffed it.

No, it was scotch. Which was also fine, even if wasn’t her favorite. “All right, then let me be more specific. What specifically about my ‘bazooka problem’ is leading you to drink?”

“Your…penchant for tearing items through the veil of dimensions, my little butterfly, is going to cause a great deal of unpredictable issues for us both, I fear.” He poured himself a double and downed it in one go, before refilling his glass. “I therefore am going to recommend that you only use the grimoire or magic at all if you deem it absolutely necessary.”

Oh, goodie. That was all she needed. To be trapped in a magical world that was trying to torture her in fun, new, and exciting ways—and to be a colossal disappointment on top of it. “I guess when you fantasize about being whisked off to a fantasy world, you never stop to honestly consider if you’d be any good at it.” She sipped the scotch. God, it burned. Whatever. It was booze. She stared down into her glass, not wanting to look up at the fae. “I guess I’m shitty at it.”

She didn’t hear him approach. Just saw movement as he walked up to her. “Ava.”

She didn’t look up.

He crooked a finger under her chin and turned her head to look at him. She was on the knife’s edge of crying again, and she really was sick of crying at this point.

“You are not a failure. Far from it, in fact.” He rested his palm against her cheek. His touch was warm, and she fought the urge to lean into it. “You stand perhaps the highest chance of success at breaking the seals of any of my attempts thus far.” The slightest smile crossed his features. “I am simply bracing myself for the chaos you are about to rain down upon us all.”

“And apples. And trains.” She smirked. “But mostly chaos.”

“Indeed.” His smile deepened. But like thin ice in the sun, the moment quickly melted. He lowered his hand and headed to a table of papers, gesturing for her to follow. “Now, you will need to find the door that keeps me here. Which is a task easier said than done, as the Web does not often desire to stay in the same configuration for long.”

“Cool, it’s a sentient Web-maze-thing.” She took a sip of the scotch. The burning was getting less obnoxious the more she drank it. She supposed that was how alcohol worked. “Why not.”

“It is not a maze.” The statement felt significant. Heavy. She had no idea why.

“Okay, not a maze. Sorry.” Yikes. She stood next to him and looked down at his collection of papers.

He gestured at one of them—a sketch of what looked like an enormous, Baroque mirror. It was skinnier in the middle than at the top and bottom, almost resembling an hourglass. The silvered backing in its circular center was shattered into three shards. “It is not simply enough to find the door. You must locate the three glass keys, shards, that will allow the door to be unlocked. They are earned through trials that must be completed.”

“Trials.” Squeezing the side of her neck, she winced at the tension there. “This is starting to sound like a bad video game. Tell me there isn’t an escort quest. I hate escort quests.”

Serrik stared at her blankly.

She waved a hand at him. “Never mind. Continue. Trials.”

“The door is sealed in such a way as to ensure the individual who seeks to unlock it must be fully committed to its opening.” The dread and misery in his voice was painted on thick. Whatever these trials were, it was clear he didn’t want her to do it any more than she did. It sounded personal.

“Meaning?”

“You will find out soon enough.”

Yeah. It was personal. She shook her head. “Okay, so, I have to wander around the Web and look for a big broken mirror that looks like this. Then, I get to wander around for keys that I get after I fight three mini-bosses—sorry, complete three trials. ” She did it that time on purpose. “Good thing we’re both immortal, right? I have plenty of time.” She tried to sound a little upbeat about it. It went over like a lead balloon.

“You do not have time. May I remind you that both those from within and from without will be coming to see what opportunities you might bring them.” He sorted through his papers, before finding another one. It was an illustration of two people—one, she recognized, if only because she’d seen him in artwork before. Valroy, the Unseelie King. Beside him, a young woman with a fiery mane of red curly hair. Her skin was tinged green, and a crown of gold sat atop her head. That must be the Seelie Queen Abigail. She had a mild, almost kind expression on her face.

“She looks nice.”

“She is fae. ” Disgust leaked through his impassive, stony exterior. “Though she was once human, she has long forsaken her born people. Remember that.”

“She was—whoa. Talk about a ladder climber.” She chuckled. “All right, well, then if I have to speed-run the Web to find the door, how do you recommend I do that?”

“You will need to solve that problem on your own, I fear.” Serrik folded up the sketch of the mirror, then folded it again, until the parchment was a neat square. He handed it to her. If she wasn’t mistaken, she detected the slightest hint of jealousy in his voice. Or maybe distrust. Or maybe both.

“Can I bring things back with me?” She turned the parchment square over in her hand.

“I suppose we are about to find out. You have managed to rip enough things through realities. I do not see why this would prove a challenge.” He glanced over his shoulder back at the room where she had summoned the apple trees. “I really must think of something to do with all those apples…”

She laughed. It wasn’t meant to be funny. He wasn’t cracking a joke. But the direness of the situation, combined with how stupid the apples were, and his confusion over what to do with a cubic fuckton of them, just set her off.

“What is funny?” He arched an eyebrow at her.

“Nothing. Sorry.” She released a breath, forcing herself to stop laughing. Even though his bemused expression wasn’t helping. It wasn’t helping at all. “Got it. Quest objectives—find spooky mirror door. Ask Book for directions and hope it helps me. Try not to put too many holes in reality or get eaten along the way.”

“You have a fascinating way with words.” It was clear how little he thought of it.

She shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

“We shall see how well it aids you.” Turning to her, he placed his hand on her shoulder.

She felt the dream begin to fade.

“Rest, Ava. Now, I fear, your journey begins in truth.”