The Unseelie War (The Unseelie Shadows Chronicles #9)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“Motherfucker—”

“As you’ve said.”

“Motherfucker!”

“We have established that, Ava.”

“But what the—the actual fucking hell?”

“Mm.” A thoughtful pause. “I do not believe this is ‘actual’ Hell. Though, perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps you have pulled it here with the rest.”

She had thought she understood chaos before this moment. Her life before the Web had been turbulent. The Web itself had been unpredictable. Tir n'Aill had been alien and dangerous.

But this?

This catastrophe unfolding before her eyes was beyond anything she could have imagined.

What had she done?

Ava combed her hands into her hair and stared at the chaos in front of her. There was no other word for it other than that—chaos. Pure, unmitigated, and utter chaos.

The first thing Ava had noticed upon awakening wasn't the way the sunlight felt different against her skin or how the air smelled different.

It had been the sound of a car alarm echoing in the distance—a perfectly ordinary, perfectly human car alarm continuing its mechanical distress call beneath a sky that no longer belonged entirely to Earth.

She had been sitting in the grass for several minutes now, trying to process what she was seeing.

Serrik stood beside her like some dark sentinel, solid and real and impossibly present outside the dreamworld of the Web.

His physical manifestation was, disturbingly, one of the least alarming aspects of their current situation.

Because the full scope of what she had accomplished was becoming terrifyingly clear.

The meadow around them looked innocent enough.

It was dotted with dandelions, clover, and a few scattered oak trees—it was the kind of pastoral scene that belonged on a postcard.

But beyond the tree line, she could now see Boston’s skyscrapers.

Which, fine, she lived in Massachusetts.

That wouldn’t have been that bonkers, having moved a hundred and-some-odd miles from where she had entered the Web to where she’d exited it.

Except for the fact that she was pretty damn distinctly sure that the Empire State Building was in Manhattan.

And the Chrysler Building.

And there was no mistaking the Statue of Liberty.

The spires of Manhattan stabbed at the sky like broken fingers, mixed in right next to the John Hancock Tower, the Customs House clocktower, and the Bunker Hill Monument.

New York was close to Boston, as big cities went. But it wasn’t that close.

Never mind the fact that some of the buildings were floating—actually floating—untethered from gravity or rational sense, their shadows falling upward into a sky that couldn't decide if it wanted to be afternoon blue, twilight purple, or morning orange.

Silvery threads that definitely belonged to the behind-the-scenes area of the Web stretched between skyscrapers like cosmic spider webs, and as Ava watched, the Chrysler Building slowly rotated ninety degrees and began drifting west.

“This is really happening,” she muttered, more to herself than to Serrik. “This isn't some fever dream or sick joke. I actually—”

“Merged three realms of existence into one chaotic amalgamation that violates every natural law I can think of, and likely several more.” Serrik sounded more amused than upset. “Yes. Quite thoroughly, I might add.”

She shot him a look. He was still facing the sun, his eyes closed, that eerily peaceful expression on his face like he was at a spa instead of standing in the middle of a multi-world, reality-shattering apocalypse.

“You seem awfully calm about this.”

“Do I?” He opened his golden eyes, tilting his head slightly. “Mm. I suppose it may simply be because—and do not take this as harshly as it may sound—I do not care at the moment.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

His lips twitched in a small smirk. “That is precisely what I meant when I said ‘do not take this as harshly as it may sound.’ It is not currently at the forefront of my focus.” He held out his arm in front of him, palm up, and stared at his fingers as if they were foreign to him. “I can feel my hand, Ava.”

Furrowing her brow, she turned her attention away from the city. “Okay?”

He flexed his fingers then formed a fist before straightening them again.

“I can feel the sunlight on my skin. Do you not understand? I am no longer defined simply by dreams and nightmares. I am…once more real.” He smiled, and there was something almost boyish about it.

“I find myself experiencing, for the first time in, perhaps, centuries…something akin to joy. Or, perhaps, it is just because watching you destroy the established order of all reality by accident is deeply, deeply satisfying.”

“Serrik.” Ava pushed herself to her feet, swaying slightly as the world seemed to tilt around her.

The power inside her was still there, still humming beneath her skin like electricity, but it felt…

different. Bigger. Less contained. Like it was standing there right beside her like a roaring fire.

Or more like when Book was at her side or—

Reaching for the satchel at her side, she frowned. Book was gone, but that made sense, she supposed. It was a creation of Serrik’s, and it had served its purpose. She was almost going to miss the ever-present thing.

But now wasn’t the time to focus on that.

She had bigger problems to deal with. Like three smashed together realities and two fae demigods with perhaps mixed designs on said realities.

One of whom she wasn’t sure she knew what to do with.

“People are going to die. Are probably already dying. Because of what I did.”

“Oh, most definitely.” His expression sobered. “The question merely remains: What do you intend to do about it?”

Before she could answer, the air shimmered like heat waves, and Puck materialized before them. His silver hair was disheveled, his usual manic grin replaced by something that might have been genuine concern. He clutched a modern tablet against his chest.

“Well, if you haven’t gone and done it.” Puck huffed a half-laugh.

“If it isn’t the architect of the apocalypse and her spooky spoody new frenemy-to-bestemies-to-bestemies-with-benefits.

How’s it feel to be the person who butt-fucked three planets like a champ?

” He held up the screen to her with both hands like a toddler would hold up his favorite drawing, and with just as much pride as the toddler would.

“What?” Ava stared at him dumbly. On the tablet she could see what looked like a news broadcast, though the image kept flickering between different channels in all different languages, captioned in English.

“—reports of impossible creatures roaming the streets of Tokyo—”

“—floating buildings have appeared over downtown Los Angeles—”

“—silver threads in the sky that some witnesses claim are singing—”

“—evacuation orders for anyone within fifty miles of what authorities are calling ‘distortion zones’—”

“—sleepwalking masses unable to be woken up, oblivious to the disasters—”

Puck swiped the screen, revealing new horrors. A suburban neighborhood where every house had transformed into something from the darkest fairy tales—the original ones, the ones that devoured children and delighted in suffering.

A highway where cars drove through clouds, their passengers screaming as they found themselves suddenly airborne. A shopping mall where massive trees had erupted through the floor, their branches heavy with fruit containing tiny, swirling galaxies.

“Half the world seems to understand that something catastrophic has occurred,” Puck continued.

“The other half appears to believe this is all perfectly normal, like they’re just dreaming—they're going about their daily routines as if reality-breaking chaos is simply part of life now.

But this is only what's being reported. The real devastation is happening in places where cameras can't reach. The entire city of Prague is now floating two thousand feet above the Sahara Desert.”

Ava felt nauseous. “Turn it off.”

“There's more,” Puck said grimly. “Humans are attempting to coordinate a response, but every time they use their communication networks, the signals get tangled in Web threads and emerge as haikus. Very eloquent poetry about the end of the world, sure, but freakin’ haikus, lady. What’ve you done?”

Despite everything, despite the magnitude of the disaster she'd caused, Ava felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in her throat. It was that or she was going to scream. Or cry. “This is insane. I didn’t mean…”

“Yes. Well.” Serrik seemed displeased about the arrival of Puck.

He was staring at the smaller, silver-haired fae as though he had just smelled a particularly bad odor.

“It has been done, regardless of what you might have intended. So, I will repeat my question before this…thing appeared. What do you intend to do about the damage you’ve caused, Ava? ”

“I don't know!” The words burst out of her, carrying more force than she'd intended. The ground around her feet cracked, spider-web patterns spreading outward through the earth, and she watched in horrified fascination as tiny, jagged flowers began growing from the fissures. Not normal flowers—these had petals that looked like they were made of razor-sharp obsidian glass. She remembered something she’d learned in one of her classes about obsidian being sharper than steel. “Oooh—oooh fuck. Oh fuck—”

“Deep breaths. Deeeeep breaths.” Puck stepped carefully away from the dangerous blooms. "Panic only make things worse.”

“I don't know how to fix this.” Tears stung her eyes. “I don't even know if I can. I don’t really know how to control this.”

“Well…Not sure if this makes you feel any better, but you’re not the only one.” Puck flicked through his tablet again, showing her more clips.