1. Cress
My heart was still a thrumming pulse in my ears when we emerged onto a dirty back street. Flies buzzed around what smelled like days-old garbage left to fester in a weak winter sun. The air was nippy and stagnant and the neighborhood beyond silent.
We took a few moments to rest and regroup as the whole pack of survivors emerged into the light. Those who’d lived through the fight we’d fled from were in various states of injured, unconscious, or exhausted. We’d walked for what had felt like hours through an underground tunnel lit only with red bulbs, giving us the bare minimum to see by. Worse, there’d been no cell service while we made the trek to safety, so I had no idea if Mom and my sister, Carly, were okay.
Healers like my friend áine wove between the ranks of guardian witches, Crystal Court fae, and my coven, mending the worst of our injuries. They’d been too busy stabilizing those most hurt throughout our trip through the tunnel to fix the more minor scrapes and bruises we all seemed to have, and by the time áine’s bouncy hoofed stride came my way, she had mere sparks and curls of green magic left on her earthen-toned fingertips.
“I’ll be okay,” I told her, though I wasn’t sure that was entirely true. I barely saw her concerned frown, too busy watching my phone’s screen as I restarted it, hoping it would find a connection.
Physically, I was fine. I should count myself lucky, because the vampire Garroway had interrupted my coven’s petition to the Crown Coven with a small army of assassins and enslaved witches, and yet here I was, alive. Terrified, but alive.
My phone buzzed in my hand. Several messages and missed calls flashed across the screen, all from Mom.
“My mom’s safe. She found a hospital and is pitching in there,” I told áine with a trickle of relief, cut short when I saw Mom was also asking if I’d seen Carly. My thumbs moved as I spoke, asking Mom for a name or location of this hospital.
Many of us needed more medical attention than could be applied on the fly, like Ben’s brother, Lucas, whose unconscious body Geo was now carrying in his gargoyle form. Both of my boyfriends were distracted from me, speaking in low tones and inspecting Lucas. I understood the worry Ben wore openly. Our healers had revived almost everyone who’d passed out, but Lucas remained limp and wan in Geo’s arms.
áine shifted on her cloven hooves. “I, uh, have to tell you some bad news,” she said quietly.
My belly soured. I didn’t think I could handle anything else going wrong after watching so many people die to summon a truly evil being, the soul-hungry goddess Myuna.
It’s too late for me, bright soul.
God, I was going to be sick. I’d done my best to put it out of mind, but a world-ending creature had just arrived on Earth behind us. And she had Phaeron.
“I’m pretty sure someone closed the pocket dimension,” áine continued. The faun paused to wait for the inevitable questions.
“What do you mean, closed?” I asked.
“There’s pressure in the air above us. Maybe you feel it a little bit? Well…it’s really oppressive for me. It’s my fae magic.” Her deer-like ears pinned back, and she winced, like she noticed it so much more by talking about it.
Pocket dimensions were rooted in fae magic and a complicated concept I still didn’t fully understand. An individual fae could create a space that existed just for them, like an extension of the natural world. Together, a large enough group of fae could declare a leader and invest their powers into a Mother Tree, which would anchor the space and make it into a pocket dimension that could further be augmented by the magic of other supernaturals. These places existed completely out of a normal human’s awareness.
We were in Cerris City, a supernatural metropolis parallel to Washington, D.C., and I had felt a change in air pressure sometime after Myuna’s arrival but thought little of it. Now that áine mentioned it, I closed my eyes and lifted my chin, letting the crush of voices around me fade to background noise.
There was an oppressive force in the air, like humidity. I wouldn’t want to go for a run right now, as my whole body felt extra heavy. “I do feel it,” I concluded. “What does this mean for us, though?”
“The Protector of the Mother Tree has sealed off any entrances and exits to the pocket dimension. We’re trapped,” she said grimly.
“Shit,” I muttered.
My heart doubled its beating, making my whole body quiver with fear. I checked my phone again and tapped the address Mom had sent me. One of my supernatural-exclusive apps popped up with a map and a blue line connecting my phone’s current location with the hospital as a destination. It was several blocks away.
I looked around and spotted Madigan Ashbough, my friend Roe’s mother, huddled up with a small group, undoubtedly discussing what to do next. Madigan was also known professionally as Mad Ash, a storied guardian witch who headed up a company that protected important items and people. She’d led the survivors to safety and was the best choice for the leader of our mixed group while Phaeron was gone.
áine moved on to offer what was left of her magic elsewhere when I went to approach Madigan, phone in hand. With her Crystal fae husband, Orthus, next to her, I assumed she already knew we were trapped. They turned to look at me, along with the rest of their group.
Madigan’s suit of armor, made of red crystals from Orthus’s court, gleamed and sang a soft note of harmony in the sunlight from portions of facets that weren’t blemished by drying blood. She’d removed the helmet that made her look like an old-fashioned knight, having balanced it on the handle of her geode-formed hammer that she had resting head down. Waves of orange hair stuck to her neck from where they’d escaped her low ponytail.
I felt a crackle of fire within me for the muscle-bound woman and Hana Graygazer, who stood unmarred by combat on Madigan’s other side. She was an augur, capable of seeing the future. And judging by how she and her husband, also in this meeting of the minds, hadn’t fled with us, but still met us here…
“You knew this would happen,” I accused.
“I did,” Hana replied. She laced her fingers before her, the image of poise. She’d tied her pin-straight black hair back from her face in a practical style and wore worn traveling clothes, having changed out of the formal wear I’d last seen her in. She and her husband were some of the few around us with duffle bags at their feet.
That short, blunt answer didn’t satisfy me. “All those people died because we showed up to petition the Crown Coven today!” I jabbed a finger back toward the tunnel we’d just used to flee, my voice rising with every word. “Why didn’t you warn us? Why didn’t you stop this?”
“Watch your tone with her,” Madigan said flatly.
My whole body tensed. I had yet to give her a piece of my mind for tearing me away from Phaeron earlier. Which was foolish, I told myself, trying to get my emotions back under control. If she had left me, I might be a soulless husk right now. But I had no idea what’d happened to the princely dimensional after we fled. Was he alive? Was he between Myuna’s teeth or worse right now?
Hana shifted to put herself between Madigan and me. “It’s all right. Let her be angry. Cress, I apologize for withholding information from you.”
My lips quirked to the side. I had a distinct feeling there was a “but” following on the heels of this apology and about to ruin its sincerity.
“But I gazed hard into the gray for any other way and didn’t find one. Look around. What do you see?” Hana asked and barely gave me a chance to do as she instructed before she continued. “I’ll tell you what I see: standing around us is the team that will defeat Myuna the White. She was destined to be summoned to our planet. If not today, in Cerris City, where she can be contained…on Earth itself, where nothing would stop her from glutting herself on billions of souls.”
The moisture left my mouth at the thought. “But—” I began to protest.
“It had to happen,” Hana stated, steel behind every word. “At this time, in this place, with these people. I give you my word. Do you know what happens when a Graygazer denies their fate?” She gestured between herself, her husband, and the older gentleman sitting on a curb nearby, Kwan Graygazer. He was one of two members of the Crown Coven to survive.
I couldn’t help a cringe and the sting of moisture in my eyes. “Don’t say that,” I croaked. “The last time you said that to me…”
It was burned in my memory like a brand, along with the follow-up. Someone else dies instead. Often horrifically. Lanie, her daughter and my friend, had just sacrificed herself to prevent the Hungering Darkness from killing and eating the soul of a different witch. It was the curse of a talent augur—knowing when, where, and how they would die.
Hana’s dark gaze softened. “I know. And if it makes a difference, it hurt to lead us all on this path, knowing what you would have to witness and endure. Now, you came over here to suggest where we go next, right?”
I’d nearly forgotten I had my unlocked phone in hand, the map route waiting to be shared. “Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat and blinking rapidly. I offered the device to Hana, who passed it to Madigan. Orthus leaned over to look at the screen too. “My mom found the nearest hospital, and it’s not all that far from where we are.”
“The streets will be safe for now,” Hana shared.
That seemed to make Madigan’s decision easier. She exchanged a glance with Orthus before declaring, “A sound position for us to rest properly and plan our next steps. Let’s move.”
I stayed by Hana’s side as Madigan picked up her helmet and hammer, circulating the news that we were heading out. The group moved slowly toward a main street, with our leader up front, consulting my phone and its map. I was so used to having my phone disappear to be used by others that it didn’t bother me.
Madigan’s guardian witches and Crystal fae spread out to surround the perimeter of our group with fighters. Ben and Geo, still carrying Lucas, were pushed toward the center along with most of the members of my coven and all our assorted familiars. Roe supported Willow, who wasn’t the steadiest on her feet.
I could hear Roe also trying to encourage and comfort Wren. The blonde had just watched her father and boyfriend die senselessly. She muffled sobs into a handkerchief and wobbled uncharacteristically in the heels she’d worn as she shuffled along with the group.
I itched to go be with them rather than toward the back of the group with Hana. But I had a burning question for the augur who’d pushed us toward this situation that’d put the tears in Wren’s eyes and the grief in all of us for what we’d already lost.
“What about Phaeron?” I asked. Hana glanced up at me, her expression unreadable. “Did Myuna eat his soul? Did she corrupt him? Is…is he alive?”
“He’s alive, just suppressed by her presence,” she answered, measuring each word carefully. “His fate branches in several directions, and the most likely outcome is yet unclear to me. I am thankful, though.”
“Oh?” I asked faintly.
“You will have an opportunity to affect which fate he meets. Because of your influence, I have hope we will avoid the future where Myuna twists him into one of her monsters,” she stated. The thought made my insides feel like they were trying to wrap into a knot, drawing out a pain in my gut.
Hana was as serious as ever and I felt the weight of her words keenly. “But if she succeeds and he becomes corrupted, we’re doomed. Each and every one of us.”