Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The walk toward the merged city took them through landscapes that shifted like fever dreams. What had been a simple meadow became a path lined with trees whose bark shimmered with the silver threads of the Web, their leaves whispering secrets in languages that had never been spoken on Earth.
The ground beneath their feet alternated between familiar New England soil and the moonlit pathways of Tir n'Aill, sometimes within the span of a single step.
Ava tried to keep her thoughts carefully neutral, but every stray emotion seemed to manifest around them.
When she felt overwhelmed, storm clouds gathered overhead.
When she worried about the people they might find, phantom voices echoed from the trees—cries for help that made her heart race and summoned more shadows from her fears.
“You must learn to control this,” Serrik said after a particularly vivid manifestation of her anxiety took the form of a pack of wolves that dissolved into mist when she focused on them. “Your emotional state will quickly become a liability.”
Gritting her teeth, she tried very hard not to lose her temper. She didn’t want to know what that’d do. “I’m trying, asshole. It's not exactly like anything I've ever had to deal with before.”
“No.” His golden eyes scanned the shifting landscape ahead. “It is not.”
Puck had been unusually quiet since they'd begun walking, his tablet tucked under his arm as he navigated the unstable terrain with inhuman grace. But as they crested a hill and the full scope of the merged city came into view, even he stopped and stared.
Boston—or what had once been Boston—sprawled before them like a wound in reality itself.
The familiar skyline was there, but it had been grotesquely twisted and expanded.
Skyscrapers burst up from the ground like they had punctured up from the crust of the earth, buckling the ground around them, their surfaces reflecting not the sky above but glimpses of other worlds, other realities.
The Charles River ran through it all, but its waters had turned silver and seemed to flow upward in places, defying gravity as it wound between buildings that existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously.
Streets that should have been paved with asphalt were now covered in what looked like living moss that pulsed with bioluminescent patterns.
Some of the buildings appeared to be growing branches, merging with the tree-like structures of Tir n’Aill.
In the distance, she could see what had once been the Public Garden, now transformed into a maze of towering hedge walls that moved and shifted when no one was looking directly at them.
“It's beautiful.” There was something sad in Puck’s voice. “And absolutely terrifying.”
Ava felt sick looking at it. This was her doing. Every impossible angle, every reality-defying structure, every person who might be trapped or dying in that nightmare landscape—it was all because of her.
It was all her fault.
They descended toward the city limits, and the first sign of human habitation they encountered was a small group of people huddled near what had once been a bus stop.
The stop itself had been transformed into something that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale—ornate metalwork covered in flowering vines, with a small thatched roof that seemed to have grown rather than been built.
But the people gathered there looked anything but enchanted.
They were clearly terrified, pressing themselves against the transformed structure as if it might offer some protection from the chaos around them.
There were five of them—a middle-aged man in a business suit, a woman with two young children, and an elderly man leaning heavily on a cane.
And surrounding them, like predators circling prey, were three fae.
Ava recognized them immediately, though she had never seen their kind before.
They were Unseelie fae, their appearances shifting subtly as she watched—sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrible, always otherworldly.
One appeared to be made of living shadow, its form constantly shifting and reforming.
Another looked almost human except for the fact that where its eyes should be, there were only points of cold blue light.
The third was the most disturbing—it looked like a child, but its smile was too wide and contained too many teeth.
They were playing with the humans. That was the only way to describe it.
The shadow-fae would dart forward, causing the humans to scream and huddle closer together, then retreat with what could only be described as laughter.
The one with the light-eyes was whispering something that made the elderly man weep openly.
The child-thing was simply staring at the two children with predatory interest.
“Oh no,” Ava breathed, starting forward. “I have to—”
Serrik's hand shot out to stop her. “Wait.”
“They're terrifying those people. We have to—”
“No. I will.” His voice was strange, distant. His golden eyes were fixed on the scene below, and there was something cold and dangerous in his expression. His jaw ticked as he stepped forward, a tension in his shoulders.
“Serrik. Don’t. Please. I—Serrik!” But it was too late. He was gone. “Damn it—”
Gone, but not vanished. He moved with inhuman speed, covering the distance to the bus stop in a split second. The shadow-fae turned just as Serrik reached it. And Ava could only watch as its form began to shift into something more defensive.
It was too late.
Serrik's hand passed through the shadow-fae's chest, and the creature's scream was like the sound of breaking glass. It collapsed, its form dissolving into smoke that dissipated on the wind.
Serrik held its heart in his hand, black ichor dripping from his fingers. He squeezed it, tossing the remains to the ground with a sickening squelch. Ava tried not to be sick.
The other two fae spun to face this new threat, but Serrik was already moving. The one with the light-eyes raised its hands, and cold blue fire erupted from its palms. Serrik simply walked through it, apparently unaffected, and grabbed the creature by the throat.
“Disgusting.” He seethed. “Harming mortals—is that all you can think of? Is it your only purpose in this world?” Serrik's voice carried across the distance, and it was nothing like the calm, measured tone Ava had grown accustomed to.
This was something ancient and terrible, something that had ruled nightmares for centuries.
A caged animal that was finally free. Waiting to strike.
The fae creature tried to speak, but Serrik's grip tightened, and there was a sound like breaking crystal. The light in its eyes flickered and died, and its body crumbled to dust.
“Serrik, stop!” Ava was running now, Puck close behind her. But they were too far away, and Serrik was lost in bloodlust.
The child-thing had backed away from the humans, its too-wide smile replaced by an expression of genuine fear. It raised its hands in what might have been surrender, but Serrik was already reaching for it.
“Please,” the creature said, and its voice was actually that of a child, high and frightened. “Please, I was only playing! I meant no harm!”
“And do you think I believe you?” Serrik didn’t hesitate.
Golden threads burst from his hands and filled the air around him.
They were barely visible—only glinting in the strange mix of light from the three skies above them, reflecting it back.
Ava had to grab Puck as she skidded to a halt to keep them both from running straight into the strands.
She knew exactly what they were capable of.
And now, so did the childlike fae.
Its eyes went wide as it froze. Thin lines of blood appeared crisscrossing its body.
And it fell to the ground in pieces.
A moment later, Serrik gestured with his hands, and the golden threads vanished. He glanced back at Ava and Puck over his shoulder. “It is safe now to approach.” His voice was thick with something she didn’t recognize in him.
Something she’d never heard before.
And it made her stomach clench in fear.
This was the creature in him that was consumed by rage. By revenge. Not the icy, calculating spider, but the exiled prisoner who wished every one of the fae dead.
And she had set the beast free.
Then it was gone, replaced by his usual controlled calm.
Slowly, carefully, she approached. Puck was hiding behind her. “You killed them.” She wasn't sure if she was accusing him or simply stating a fact.
“They were tormenting mortals.” He fixed one of his lace cuffs. “They were causing harm.”
Ava looked at the huddled humans, who were staring at Serrik with a mixture of terror and confusion. The elderly man was still weeping, but now she could see that his tears were silver—literally silver, like liquid metal.
“What did they do to him?” she asked Puck.
“I think…they showed him his dreams.” Puck tilted his head to the side slightly, looking genuinely confused. “Huh. The dreams he lost when he grew old. Odd. I wonder why.”
“It’s…it's beautiful,” the old man said through his tears. “I can see them all again. My wife, my children when they were young, the house we built together. But it hurts. It hurts so much to see what's gone.”
Ava felt something twist in her chest. The fae hadn't been torturing the man—they had been giving him a gift, in their alien way. A gift that was also a curse, because that was what fae gifts always were.
“The barriers between dreams and reality are gone,” Puck said quietly, approaching the group with his hands visible and non-threatening. “You have to be careful, very careful with what you wish for.”
Serrik was staring at the dust on his hands.