Page 47 of Witchbane

Liam yanked me away from the goo. His lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear him. He dragged me behind a nearby pillar, and I wasn’t sure what he expected to come out of that portal next, but I blinked away spots from my sight as I tried to read his lips and shake away the confusion.

“Stay here!” Was that what he was saying?

Nick caught Kiran, holding him up, and pulling him free of the amputated limb, as the rest of the arm vanished into the portal. My hearing sprang back with the wailing cry of the monster as it vanished into the portal.

Liam was muttering, “Not the time to be without wolf strength.”

There was wind and noise echoing through the open portal as though bigger things were on the way. My portals didn’t usually stay open long, fading and vanishing on their own in seconds. But this one didn’t seem to be going away on its own. I thoughtclose.

The opening shattered. It wasn’t even a happy flicker out and gone like a candle flame. It burst, flinging out shards of dark matter like black ice. They pounded the room, eating into wood finishing and walls like daggers. A loud thwack of thuds, several striking the pillar where we hid. I prayed none hit Kiran or Nick.

After a few seconds of silence, I wondered if I’d lost my hearing again, but Liam’s breathing was heavy. The ringing continued, making everything sound a bit tinny. I looked him over, searching for a wound, and fearing the worst, but he was unhurt. His eyes were huge and he clutched me hard, hands woven into my fox fur.

I licked his face, then nipped his chin. He’d pay for that tail tug later. He sucked in a relieved breath.

“Everyone okay?” he called.

“Alive,” Nick called back.

The ooze was spreading across the floor, eating through the layers of stone like acid. Liam edged around it to grab up my discarded clothing and tossed it my way. He really had a thing about other people seeing me naked. I changed behind the pillar and tugged everything back on. Nothing was going to fix the frizzy mess of my hair unbound after a change. It would be as fluffy as a fox tail soon enough.

“How bad is it?” Liam asked Nick who had dragged Kiran to a chair.

“I am fine,” Kiran said. His words came out in wheezes with his breath. Crushed. He was some sort of all-powerful fae prince, right? He could heal that, couldn’t he? I didn’t think I could.

“You’ll need to eat,” Nick said softly.

A moment of silence stretched between them, heavy and tense.

“Can I bring him something?” I asked. What did the fae eat? Fae food? Did it have normal ingredients?

“Bring one of the little ones,” Kiran said quietly.

“It won’t be enough,” Nick protested. He pointed to the pile of sludge and the remains of the giant hand. “It’s eating away at the magic. How will you heal yourself and fix that?”

“My fault. Shouldn’t have made him open the portal.”

“Bravado bullshit,” Nick agreed as though it was a conversation they had regularly. “Doesn’t mean we all need to suffer. They will understand. They benefit too.”

The light from the window flickered. For a second I thought I’d misinterpreted it, that maybe something big had passed by. Had the giant come through somewhere else? Or been drawn to the palace?

Then it happened again, not something passing by the window, but almost as if the entire palace flickered. A matrix on the fritz. I gasped and held Liam’s hand even as the palace returned. The oozing fluid kept burning its way across the floor. Devouring Kiran’s magic, I realized. The very magic that held this sanctuary together.

“If the door had never been opened…” Kiran groused.

“You’d be bored and likely have corrupted Underhill yourself,” Nick pointed out.

“I wanted to explore the new world,” Kiran said.

“Which is why they locked you up. They thought you’d take their magic from them.”

“No, they did that themselves. The sidhe did always claim to be better than everyone else. Didn’t matter whether it was light court or dark. Two sides of the same coin. Useless, pretty monsters.”

“We find you useful,” Nick teased, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

“Useful,” Kiran glared at him.

“Pretty too. Does that help?” Nick offered. “Should we tell them about your mother, the ice queen? It had become quite the legend when I was a kid. I don’t remember the song anymore.”