Chapter 6
No one moved. I spotted the fairy with dusky purple hair, the one who’d been part of my kidnapping, and pointed the sword at him. The hilt felt warm in my palm, buzzing with energy.
“Call off your people.” There. My voice only shook a little bit. “The bounty has been claimed.”
The fairy’s eyes were glued to the sword. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “The Realm Breaker. But how?”
“I think you should be running, not asking questions.” The sword’s weight pulled at my tired muscles, but I kept it level.
His gaze lifted to the glowing pathway now shimmering out of existence like fading liquid moonlight running up into the night sky, then back down to the sword in my hand.
With a slight nod, he fled. We all let him go, and the rest of his people scattered like leaves in a storm.
I tried to avoid looking at the bodies on the ground—some still, others twitching in pain.
Instead, I searched frantically for each of the guys, my heart calming only after I’d found them all standing.
Then I looked for Braxton. After a moment of worry that knotted my stomach, I spotted him too, blood-spattered but alive.
He helped clear a path for Crispin and Mistral to reach us, followed by Elena with several other elves.
Crispin’s shirt was torn, his hair all over the place, and blood dripped down one side of his face. But of course he was smiling, and I knew it wasn’t just for me.
Reaching me, he leaned one elbow on my shoulder, then quirked a brow as he looked down at the blade I had lowered to the floor.
“Dude, you’re dripping blood on me!” I stepped away.
As I turned to look at him, he reached his fingers toward his forehead, dabbing at the small gash there. He lowered his fingers and looked at the blood. “Considering I was wounded protecting you, you would think you would be proud to soak up my blood.”
“Gross.” I handed him the sword so he could observe it without dripping on me.
Ringo got brave enough to emerge from my tangled hair as all of our allies gathered around.
Anyone who had been in the Circus but not part of the fight had cleared out when it first happened.
Fortunately since it was a known haunt of magical beings, there was no sign of human police to break things up. We tended to handle our own.
Crispin twisted his wrist, observing the blade. I was pretty sure it was some sort of metal, but looked like it was made from mother of pearl. I had no idea how I’d used it to make that glimmering pathway in the sky, but it had faded away now, leaving only a rather conspicuous hole in the ceiling.
The sword flashed with glittering light in Crispin’s hand as he turned it.
Noticing the flickers of light, he extended the blade in front of him, pointing the sharp end toward the ceiling.
The longer he held it still, the more the glimmers of light solidified, forming a pattern in the air between Crispin and the sword.
“It’s not just a blade to sever the pathways. It’s a map.”
While the guys stood closest, several werewolves had come to observe the sword, and the elves and fairies were muttering amongst themselves.
A few angelics and gargoyles stood further back, both white and stony wings blood splattered.
We had actually done it, at least in part.
Step one was complete. Now I just had to fulfill my part of the bargain and create new pathways for everyone to their home realms.
And oh yeah, not get eaten by the darkness when we formed full pathways rather than the smaller ones we’d planned.
Oblivious to my thoughts, Crispin turned the blade once in his wrist, then brought it back to the original position. The constellations in front of it changed. “Well that’s useful. So where shall we go first?”
My eyes were drawn instantly to Mistral, remembering how he had been at the waypoint. How he so badly wanted to believe it was his home realm. To know that everyone there was okay. Meanwhile, Crispin only came through fifty years ago. They knew that the elven realm was safe at least that recently.
I met Mistral’s eyes. “Your realm first. We need to be prepared though for whatever comes through.”
“Perhaps we’ll travel to the waypoint first,” Crispin suggested, his voice sounding distant as he continued to flick the blade, displaying new maps. “You can cut a path from there to the goblin realm. See how things look before completing the pathway in the other direction.”
Penelope loudly cleared her throat. “I fulfilled my end of the contract. My pathway should be first.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes and huffed, “You didn’t even do anything.”
“That is besides the point. I was available to help. I simply wasn’t needed. The terms of the contract—”
“State that you’ll get your pathway within a week,” Sebastian finished for her. “That was the bargain since you wouldn’t tell us which pathway you wanted.”
Penelope’s lips pursed, but she didn’t argue.
I turned to Braxton and Warrick with Elena and a few more elves and werewolves.
“You’ll need to be prepared in case anything follows us back through.
” I looked directly at Elena. Her quiver was nearly empty, and I wondered how many people she had hit with her arrows.
“Maybe discuss best practices with Silvana while we’re gone.
She and her people fought these things off for years. ”
Sebastian stepped away from watching Crispin with the Sword.
I found I was completely over being mad at him.
Things could’ve gone far differently if he hadn’t been quick enough to come through and face my grandfather with me.
“It may be far different when all of the darkness can coalesce.” He gave me a meaningful look, probably not wanting to state in front of our allies that my great grandfather thought the darkness could destroy entire realms. That he thought it should destroy entire realms.
I shivered at the thought. “Well hopefully we can fight it off in bits and pieces before that can happen.”
Sebastian tilted his head. “That is not the deal you made,” he said vaguely, considering I had made too many deals to count.
But I knew which one he was talking about. “No, the deal I made was to reopen the pathways. I didn’t say anything about what I would do with the darkness.”
He smiled at me. “Would it be vain to say you learned from the best?”
“Yes, but vanity suits you just fine.”
“Touché.”
Before we had a chance to be too proud of ourselves, Varian pushed his way through the crowd. He made it as far as Braxton and Warrick before the two werewolves moved to stand in front of him.
Huffing, he stepped back far enough to see the rest of us.
His pale pink hair was still neatly combed and judging by the lack of stains on his cream slacks, he had avoided much of the fighting.
“My people have fulfilled our end of the bargain. If you are to go to the goblin realm first, I will join you.”
“Your cities are nowhere near ours,” Mistral countered. “You would need to cross an ocean to reach your people.”
He flicked his hand in my direction. “Surely she can take me there.”
“And if we meet with the darkness upon our arrival?” Mistral countered.
Varian’s eyes narrowed.
“I might be killed,” I said. “Then you would be stranded in the goblin realm with a bunch of shadow creatures. Surely waiting in the Crystal Vale for a nice safe pathway is the better option.”
He wrinkled his nose, but finally said, “Very well.”
Charla, the leader of our angelic allies, lifted a hand to cover her laugh.
Once Varian stomped away, Braxton and Warrick stood aside for her to approach.
Her white wings were on full display, and her summery blue dress was bloodstained and torn.
She didn’t seem in the least bit bothered by it though.
“What has become of Marcie? I cannot find her anywhere.”
I looked at Sebastian, then back to Charla. “Yeah, we don’t trust her anymore.”
Her brows lifted, but she didn’t ask any more questions, like where was my mother, for instance. I was keeping that one on a need to know basis, lest our tentative allies decide I was only healing the pathways for one reason.