Page 67 of Witchbane

“This is it,” Nick said softly. “All that’s left. Underhill is dying.” Nick pointed to an area far in the bottom corner. “This is where I retrieved you and your mate from. That will be gone soon.” Some distance away there was another large section that looked like a bigger version of the block we represented on the map. It swirled with darkness, fire, and smoke. Like a living thing instead of a spot on a map. “It’s all collapsing. There isn’t much that remains.”

I let the words run through me, wondering at the implications. Underhill nearly gone. What then? Had the last of the fae abandoned this world? Would they die in the human world? What about Kiran and Nick? And what if we didn’t findApain time?

“How much time do we have left?” I really hoped I could open a doorway and get us all out. “There’s not a way to stop it, is there? Other than maybe me dying…” I thought maybe that’s what Underhill wanted. To destroy me, consume my power to save itself?

“That won’t save it anymore either,” Nick said. “Too much has been lost. If the fae hadn’t completely abandoned Underhill… if Underhill hadn’t turned the fae into food,” Nick shrugged. “Lots of what-ifs in the face of the death of a world.” He waved a hand at the books around us. “Tales of the lost, and some of dying worlds. They read like fiction, but I’m beginning to think very few are.”

The small village area we’d arrived in, caught on fire, the heat jumping from a tiny sliver to a full flame as I felt the warded hut go. I gasped, feeling it in my chest, as something tugged at the kitsune. The fire wasn’t far now, though in reality, probably hundreds of miles away. I needed to findApa,and get us all the fuck out of here.

“You said there is one last door,” Liam said. “Open to the other world. Is this it?” He pointed to the other block on the map. It looked like something had spilled ink across that area, a misprint or a mishap with something black and viscous like slime. It was odd because it seemed to swirl and shift, that mix of smoke and fire, rippling.

“Yes. The monsters gather there. Near the door. Underhill picks them off as it needs to. People still stumble through, becoming food for the monsters, and the monsters feed Underhill. No one else comes through. If your father was here, he may not be alive.”

And that settled like a lump in my throat, a sense of guilt, grief, and rage. Not getting to tell him how much he’d hurt me, and how his poor attempts to save his blood son had scarred my soul, and yet not being able to save him. Liam wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close.

“Is there a way to track anything? Find out if he’s still alive?” Liam wanted to know.

“What you see is what is left. Nothing is safe anymore,” Nick said. “Any living thing that remains would be either here at the castle, or there near the gate.” He pointed to the sanctuary we’d gone to yesterday to practice doors. “This is the last sanctuary. And it too will soon be lost.” The smoke and flames were closing in, the wall of trees I remembered starting to burn.

“Fuck…” More time must have passed than I could have imagined. “How fast is time passing here?”

Nick shrugged. “Years to your days. Not that we spend a lot of time counting.” His tone was rough and angry. “We are stuck in a dying world. What should we do while it collapses around us?” He looked around the room. “I’ve read every book in here twice. Mapped out a dying world while it burns around us. What is left to do but wait for the end?”

I took a step back, unsure how to help and if I wanted someone else’s anger directed at me. He’d been here a long time. Time moved faster here; he had said. Which was why in the few weeks since I’d been to Underhill everything had changed. Liam stepped between us, keeping his arm around me to help ground me.

“None of this is Seb’s fault,” Liam said. “He hadn’t planned to come here. He didn’t make the fae leave.”

“But I did bring Nick here,” I said. “I was unable to bring him home. AndApawent through a portal I opened. Wesley went through too, but he got out. Maybe he knows whereApais.”

“Wesley?” Nick asked.

“The white stag,” Liam said. “Or at least, a white stag. He’s fae. Says he’s related to Seb. It was shortly after the last time Seb was here and saw you, and met Kiran. At least in our world. That was years ago?”

Nick shrugged.

“Nick…”

“Decades? Does it matter? I’ve lost count. I know if I were still mortal, I’d be dead. Does that help? Does it make you less angry that I chose Kiran?”

“I’m not angry that you chose him, more that he’s using you,” I said.

Nick waved a hand at me. “He doesn’t need me. Do I help ground him, yes. But he’s never needed me. What he offered was a chance to survive and I accepted. I don’t regret that. I only wish there was more I could change. Stop blaming yourself for my fate and change something. Or we will all be dead.”

“The corruption is taking him over,” Liam said, referring to Kiran.

“Slowly, but yes,” Nick agreed.

“Will you change too?” I wondered if I’d condemned Liam in another way. What if we couldn’t get out of Underhill?

“It’s likely he’ll feast on all of us before that happens,” Nick said quietly.

“What about all the rest of the fae? The big names?” Liam asked. “The queens and such, are they all dead? Or in the human world?”

“As far as I know, most of them crossed the veil years ago, afraid of what the corruption would do to them.”

“But they are less powerful?” I wondered if it stripped their immortality too.

“I guess?” Nick shrugged. “Since I’ve not been there since I was a kid, I can only speculate. Kiran has been trapped here long enough he doesn’t know either. They could have power of their own in the other world. The portal you opened here in the library was not in Underhill.”