Chapter 8
eight
I waited.
The whole day I waited there, sitting on the ground, back against a tree, eyes on the Aetherway.
When I tried to break through that first time in the morning, I passed out. Dad tried to hide his joy when I woke up seconds after. He tried to hide how happy he was that the Aetherway hadn’t let me through, but the gleaming in his eyes was there.
I didn’t blame him, though. He had no idea what was at stake, what any of it meant. He had no idea—and I was going to keep it that way.
He decided to go to work that day, and he was confident that he would find me home when he got back, and Fiona and Betty stayed with me for half the day.
Then they each went back to the house to get food when they got hungry, Fiona first, and then Betty, and I stayed there still, waiting.
For the Aetherway to recognize me.
For the ink on my skin to disappear somehow.
For Rune to come out from the other side and take me back.
Neither happened.
When the sun began to retreat behind the horizon, I had no choice but to follow the girls back home.
They were worried sick, and though they’d both been happy that I hadn’t gone through initially, now they weren’t.
Now they kept looking at one another in panic, as if asking each other what to do next, and neither had a clue.
I hated to do this to them, I really did. That’s why I said I was tired, that I hadn’t slept all night, and that I was going to bed early.
Strangely enough, I did sleep. Must have been more exhausted than I realized. It was the kind of sleep where you didn’t even feel yourself sleeping. Just nothingness—and then you woke up.
Not usually in the dead of the night, though, yet the round clock on the nightstand said it was just after one in the morning.
So quiet. So…dark in the bedroom, but this time I didn’t call for light.
I just stood up and jumped off the bed. My body felt rested enough no matter how early it was.
The sky outside my window was the same as it had been every night I’d looked at it from here throughout my life.
I saw the moon showing just a little less than half of herself, surrounded by stars.
She looked so elegant. So big, compared to the moon in Verenthia.
I felt her as if her silver light was pressing against my skin.
Just like that tattoo had done while I’d tried to get through the Aetherway.
The light of the bathroom hurt my eyes when I went in and locked the door. Took my shirt off and stood half naked in front of the mirror. Looked my reflection in the eye.
A miracle I didn’t scream. I looked less like myself than I thought I would, and so much more like Veyra. God, I didn’t even know her last name. The dead Ice Queen, and I could have sworn to you that she—not I—was staring back at me now.
I’d changed so much, even if my family didn’t see it. Nothing about me was the same, not physically, not mentally, not emotionally. And as much as it made me want to cry, I held myself back, bit my tongue.
Because nothing was over yet. I could still fight.
I could cry when it was over, however that might look.
For the first time, I looked at the ink on my skin, extending in senseless shapes all around my right shoulder, down to my elbow.
Parts of it touched the base of my neck, too, and to anyone looking, it was ink.
A tattoo, nothing more. But I saw the shadows.
I knew the shadows that had attached themselves to my skin.
The same kind of patterns and swirls as Rune’s mark, and though they looked like a tattoo, they were anything but. They were magic. They were alive.
And as long as I had them on my skin, the Aetherway was not going to let me through.
Rune said I was stubborn once, and I believed him.
I really was. Maybe that’s why I put my clothes back on, took the small mirror and a pair of sneakers from my bedroom, then snuck out of the window soundlessly.
Nobody was up—Dad and Fi were long asleep, and they’d never heard me sneaking out before, so I wasn’t worried.
Which was why, when I heard the footsteps coming from the side of the house the moment I stepped off the back porch, I froze in place and all the alarms in my head went off.
Half of me prepared to fight and run. The other half was certain that it was Rune, that he’d finally made it across Verenthia, to the Neutral Lands and into the Aetherway. He finally came for me.
A second later, Betty stepped from the side of the house with an angry look in her eyes that didn’t match the way she’d styled her blue hair—in cute, curly pigtails—very much.
She stopped there, crossed her arms, and shook her head at me. “I knew it. You’re a fucking traitor, Nilah Dune.”
My jaw almost hit the ground, but the shock of seeing her had already faded. “Traitor? What the hell did I do?!”
“You were going to sneak out without me—and don’t you dare try to deny it. I saw you staring out the window earlier.” Betty came closer. “You could have texted me.”
My mouth opened and closed for a moment.
It wasn’t Rune. It wasn’t Lyall or Seelie guards or anybody at all who’d want to hurt me. It was Betty.
“I thought you were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you up.”
A short laugh. “Since when?!”
“Since I’m planning to go try to sneak out of this world in the middle of the night. Since then.” I grabbed my hips. “Why are you even up right now? It’s two in the morning.”
“Because I know you, traitor. I knew you wouldn’t be able to wait till tomorrow.”
I flipped her the bird. “Suck it, asshole. I was gonna wait, but I woke up and didn’t really have anything better to do.”
“A text—that’s all you had to do. Type a text,” Betty spit, then started walking ahead, straight into the forest, muttering under her breath about getting stabbed in the back by your best friend.
I was still trying to calm the racing of my heart when she turned her head and snapped, “Coming or what?” As if she couldn’t care less that it was the middle of the night for real, and that my dad and Fiona were in the house right behind me, sleeping.
Nobody heard, though. At least no lights came on for another moment, and I didn’t wait longer before I followed Betty into the forest.
“It’s dangerous out here at night—did that occur to you?” I muttered, though I knew she didn’t care. She never really was afraid of anything or anyone. Betty had more balls than any person I knew. I always envied her for it.
“Pfft. You got actual magic and I’ve seen it with these eyes. A damn lion wouldn’t scare me now,” she said, waving her finger in front of her eyes.
“And if I make it?”
The silence that followed was deafening, and I wasn’t even thinking about actually making it tonight.
Then Betty said, “I’ll survive. Don’t you worry about me.”
I sighed. “Of course, I worry.”
The smile she gave me. “You’re not going to get out of here tonight, babe. But we can still try.”
She was absolutely right, of course. I rolled my eyes just for show, but the part of me that believed her was terrified. That part of me didn’t know what the hell to do with the knowledge that I might have to stay here another day. Maybe even longer.
What a funny little joke my life had become. Several days ago I’d been held hostage by a building, and I’d been stuck there, desperate to find my way back home.
Now that I was home, I wanted to get back to Verenthia, but I was stuck here, too.
Really fucking funny. The universe was a true comedian when it came to me.
Betty nudged my arm. “Hey, cheer up. It’s not so bad.”
“It is! Remember the part where it hurts a lot when I try to get through?” She knew this. She knew everything by now, even the parts I hadn’t allowed myself to even think about yet. Not here. Not without Rune.
“Then try not to think about it,” she said, and she did walk like she couldn’t care less what was around us in the forest. It was dark, and the deeper we went, the denser the trees, the thicker the canopy over us.
I had no choice but to make another light ball so we didn’t run into a tree somewhere, and I wasn’t afraid, either.
I doubted any animal would want to come near me, and if fae had crossed the Aetherway and were coming our way, we’d see them. I hoped.
“What did you do last night? Did you sneak another beer from your old man? Because I was going to but then I nearly slept on the toilet when I sat down to pee, so I figured I’d just go to bed.”
“Nope. Dad keeps those wine bottles as decoration in his bedroom,” I said. “I did some online searching for Verenthia, thought maybe I could find some kind of information.”
“Nope. Already tried that when you first left,” Betty said.
“Yep. Looks like it. I think I even posted on a social media app—not sure which.”
“No, you didn’t,” Betty said.
“No, I think I did,” I said with a flinch, the memory just coming back to me now.
“I think I asked any Verenthian who saw my post to contact me or something.” Yep.
That was exactly what I’d posted, and now I was cringing at the mere thought.
“Ugh. I made an ass of myself, didn’t I.
” I must have been way more exhausted and drunk than I first thought.
“Babe, I get notifications when you post on all platforms. You didn’t post anything anywhere,” Betty said, grinning now, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
The relief was instant, even though I was pretty sure that I typed those words and hit Post somewhere.
“Well, fuck. I guess I imagined it.” And I’d be forever grateful that that hadn’t been real.
Betty laughed, like it wasn’t the middle of the night, and we weren’t in the middle of a dark forest.
She was right, though. No animal and no person could get to us if they tried, but still. If we’d been in a Mysthaven forest, we’d have had no choice but to be cautious.
We’re not in Mysthaven, I reminded myself.
We were on Earth. There was no magic here. No sorcerers. Just animals—and men.