Page 18 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

Diego pulled him back down with a chuckle. “No, certainly not. I’ll take simple, now and then.” He stroked Finn’s hair, silent for a moment. “Okay. So if I open the Veil, say, in the little park two blocks down from my old apartment, would you remember how to get to Tia Carmen’s?”

“You wound me. Perhaps I did not like the city, but that does not mean I shut my eyes the entire time I dwelt there. Besides, the scent of her cooking would lead me if I became lost.”

“You’re joking, right? In the thousands of smells there, you can pick that out?”

“How do you think I found my way back to you the first time I ran away from you, my hero?”

“Oh… This might work, after all. What do you plan to look like when you step through?”

“Myself.”

“ Querido , think. What would happen if a naked pooka suddenly stepped out of thin air in the middle of a public park?”

Finn traced circles on Diego’s chest. “I suppose you are suggesting the pooka in question might be detained by the authorities. I’ll go as a dog. Humans like dogs.”

“Better, but maybe a little conspicuous. Someone might want to find out who such a beautiful dog belongs to.”

“Crow?”

“Perfect. Just don’t go tangling with anyone named T-Bird.”

“Pardon?”

“Movie reference. We’ll watch it sometime when we get home.” He sighed as Finn snuggled closer. Home . He hoped the day would come when they would have a homecoming, though he had the feeling the world had changed irrevocably for them both.

Finn shivered in the evening breeze. The cold rarely troubled him, but this was an inner chill.

The thought of leaving Diego’s side again sent spears of ice down his spine, a sensation he could never quite pin down as either premonition or mere anxiety.

He had promised he would do this, though, and there were dozens of reasons he would not fail Diego.

“Send someone else,” Morrigan had told Diego quite bluntly.

While Diego had defended him in his calm, reasonable way, Finn hadn’t spoken a word on his own behalf.

She was right. He was a coward and had no sense of honor in the way other fae did.

Even now, waiting for the Veil to open, he wanted to run and hide in the river, terrified of facing the noise and confusion of the poisoned city again.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the clean air while he could.

Running now would prove her right on all counts and bear out her assertion that he was, indeed, unworthy of Diego’s love.

He had heard a hundred times about true courage being the ability to carry on despite fear but he did not feel the truth of it in his bones.

Fear was simply fear. If one acted despite it and through it, one was simply stubborn or stupid.

Perhaps both.

“All right, I think I have it,” Diego said with a nod. “Finn? Mi vida , are you ready?”

Finn conjured a smile from somewhere and searched his recent memory for something to ease the tension in Diego’s jaw. “Let’s rock and roll.” It worked—Diego’s beautiful laugh sluiced over him like soft rain.

“You’re certain you’ll be all right? That the smog won’t keep you from shifting or lay you out flat?” Diego leaned over to kiss his jaw.

“I will not breathe the poisoned air long enough, love. An hour or two, no more.”

A touch on his arm startled him.

“Be careful, Fionnachd,” Nathair whispered. “Hurry back.”

So many reasons not to fail… He gave Nathair a quick hug, then went to stand by Diego.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold it open, querido .” Diego gave him a quick kiss. “So if you come back to the spot where you crossed and the door’s closed, wait there. Somehow I’ll get it open again to retrieve you, okay?”

“Fair enough.”

“Do nothing rash, Fionnachd. Be visible as little as you can,” Eithne cautioned softly. The implication hung in the air. Humans were savage and brutal, and destroyed the things they did not understand, but no one knew this better than Finn did.

“I have lived in this city, beautiful one. I know what I’m about.”

Diego shot him a raised eyebrow, but apparently chose not to contradict him.

With Eithne’s hand on his right shoulder and Morrigan’s on his left, he closed his eyes and spread his arms, palms up.

The gesture was so like the first Taliesin, Finn’s heart lurched.

But then, Diego was the first Taliesin and all the subsequent ones, just an older soul now and less innocent.

The first Taliesin had learned to work the world’s magic because he had been untouched by the weight of centuries, undamaged.

He’d simply opened his heart and let the flows lead him.

Diego, though, wounded and barricaded, had learned by raw courage and snatched up bits of instinct. He forced the flows to come to him.

The fine hairs at the back of Finn’s neck stood on end as Diego pulled the magic to him, a huge reservoir of power. With more time, someone here could have taught him finesse and control, but time was not in abundance.

The spark leaped to Diego’s hand, his brow furrowed in fierce concentration. Finn shifted to crow in preparation, the view from less than knee height a bit odd as the opening in the Veil appeared. A wooden bench, a tree, and a street lamp resolved on the other side.

“Is it the right place, my hero?” Crow-Finn called out.

“Yes.” Diego got out between clenched teeth. “I know that tree. Go, querido . Hurry. I don’t think I can hold this long.”

With a rush of wings, Finn leaped into the air and hurtled through, a midnight-black missile on a fae-born wind.

The dense, unclean air hit him with brutal force, and he fought to stay aloft.

Exhaust from a thousand vehicles competed with the stench of rot and unwashed human, cold iron and sharp, sulfurous fumes.

At least the park was relatively quiet, empty of humans save one, a man who ran with that peculiar gait they called jogging .

Not running for the joy of it or because he was pursued, but because if he did not, he would grow fat and unhealthy. Strange way to live.

“Mi vida?” Diego’s thoughts interrupted his. “ Are you there? Have you found the way?”

“Just on my way now. I have it.” Storm and thunder, he had let himself get distracted already.

He flew to the edge of the park, and the street did look familiar.

With two false starts, he managed to find the right direction, then despaired when he found Diego’s old apartment building.

All the windows stared at him with empty eyes, all the same. He had no notion which one was hers.

A passerby startled as he landed atop a newspaper box on the corner, but he ignored the man’s curses. He cocked his avian head to the side and tried to recall how far up Tia Carmen’s apartment would be. Six sets of stairs? Eight? Ten? Why, by all the world’s waters, couldn’t he remember?

Wait … A scent reached him through all the other odors, a complex, heady mix of spices, chilies and cocoa— mole sauce.

Finn let out a triumphant caw and soared toward the eighth floor, straight to the window from whence the heavenly scent wafted.

White hair gleaming in the lamplight, Tia Carmen worked at her stove, stirring the pot of sauce Finn loved so much.

By all the gods, she was a beautiful sight.

He let out a sharp, corvus call, but she didn’t hear, so he resorted to banging on the window with his thick beak. Her head came up, a frown on her face, then her white brows shot up when she spotted him on the window ledge.

With slow, deliberate movements, she took the spoon from the sauce, covered the pot, turned down the fire and came to open the window.

“ Buenas noches, Senor Corneja ,” she said politely. “Are you hungry? Is that why you knock?”

“It’s me, dear lady, it’s Finn.”

“ Ay dios! Dulce , what are you doing here? Where is Diego?”

He hopped inside and shifted to his own bipedal form on her kitchen floor, and nothing would do but she had to fetch blankets to cover him and tea to warm him while he explained as quickly as he could where Diego was and why he had come.

“So las hadas , they are dying?”

“It would appear so.”

Her eyes lost focus a moment as she pondered. “I must go then. This cannot be. Must not be.” She took Finn’s arm, pressed him down into one of the kitchen chairs and plunked a plate of enchiladas in front of him. “Eat, querido . You are too thin again. Too worn. I need to get some things.”

She brought a green tapestry bag from the closet and bustled about the kitchen gathering this and that while Finn happily tucked into his impromptu dinner.

“Finn? Did you find her? Are you coming?” Diego’s thoughts sounded thin and harried.

“I’m here with her, my heart.”

There was a long pause, followed by a trickle of irritation. “ You’re eating? I’m struggling like hell to keep this damned door open and you’re stuffing your face?”

“She is not ready, love. I merely wait for her.”

“ Carajo …Finn…please ask her to hurry.”

“ Tia Carmen? Diego says—”

“I hear him, dulcito . Tell him he does not need to shout so loud.”

Finn hid a smile behind a mouthful of mole-smothered chicken. He had always known she was more than the kind, grandmotherly face she showed the world, but she did surprise even him from time to time.

“ Entonces , I am ready,” she said finally, her bag looped over her arm. “Where do we need to go?”

“Not far, dear lady. To the park down the street.”

She sighed. “He could not pick somewhere an old lady could walk safely at night? I wish you could walk beside me, but I have no clothes for you, so I guess you need to be a crow again.”

Finn held up a hand and shifted to a more suitable form. He looked up at her, letting his tongue hang out in a doggy grin. “I will be your guard dog.”

“Perfect. And such a pretty dog.” She stroked the black fur of his thick ruff. “ Bueno . I will be safe with my fierce protector.”