Chapter 3 #2
“Well, the only thing I’m in danger of is getting bored to death,” I admitted.
“It’s been horrible so far. I used to love doing job interviews.
They’re kind of like first dates; you’re supposed to dress up and impress each other.
When did it change?” I frowned, looking down at my notes.
Even taking into account the failures of HR to find the right people for these interviews, the last guy had walked in wearing sweatpants.
“Don’t get me wrong, I believe in authenticity.
I believe in asking for the things you want, or you won’t get them.
So far everyone that I’ve seen looks amazing on paper, but when they walk in…
” I scowled at the papers on my desk, shook my head, and sank back into my chair again. “It’s so frustrating.”
“I am sure you will figure it out, as you figure out all things, Chosen. You are a veritable conqueror of problems.” Donovan took a seat opposite me. “In fact, now that I am here, I feel compelled to speak on a problem I am having—” Suddenly, he stiffened. His eyes flicked warily left and right.
“Are you okay?”
“I smell magic.”
“Oh. That’s probably the banwyn.” I waved my hand towards the corner. “We’re going to have to get the carpet replaced.”
“No. I sense a stronger magic.” Alarm buzzed through me for a second, but Donovan went on, frowning a little deeper. “It is familiar,” he growled. “Has my sister been here?”
“Oh.” My cheeks warmed again. “Yeah, she came in to check on me a little earlier.”
He inclined his head towards me. “Did she behave herself?”
“Yes,” I lied smoothly. “Cress is very, uh, professional. She was just testing out a new glamor.”
“Good. I will admit, Chosen, I am close to sending her back to our kingdom.” He exhaled wearily. “Unfortunately, I cannot afford to lose her at this stage. There are few who are strong enough to travel between Worlds, and I need the extra warriors. Especially now.”
Those last two words felt loaded with meaning. “Why now?”
“The problem that I have mentioned.” His expression darkened.
“Yesterday, Nate sensed a disturbance in the Under. An unbalancing, of sorts. He does not know what it means, and I am worried that it is Connor’s doing.
We need more information, so I sent Nate back to Faerie to see if he can slink closer to the entrance of Morganna’s domain, and, perhaps, hear something. ”
I blinked. That was too much information, and none of it made any sense. I started with the most obvious question. “What realm is the Under?”
“It is not a realm, nor is it a World.” Donovan pulled his bottom lip through his teeth in a disturbingly sexy gesture as he gathered his thoughts.
“It is the place that lies beneath all the Worlds. The non-physical plane, the place where restless spirits reside. It is where thoughts and dreams and memories live on, forever.”
Oh. He was talking about the underworld. The afterlife, purgatory, the astral plane. I knew enough about religion to follow this one. “So… the Underworld in Faerie is unbalanced somehow?”
“I should clarify this point. It is not just the fae Under. The Under is just one place—a non-physical domain that lies under all realms in all Worlds,” he explained.
“There are no borders or boundaries or gates like there are in the Over. The fae Under is the same place as the human Under, or the vampire Under, or the shifter Under. The only difference is the perception of the spirit who goes there.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“Remember that analogy of the Worlds as the jacket and trousers and the fanny package, and the individual realms are the pockets on them?” At my nod, he continued, “The Under is the person wearing the clothes.”
“Oh, I see. But there are different… perceptions of the Under, for different species?”
“Yes, because our experiences on this plane of existence are different. It is still the same place, but it would feel unique to who you were when you were alive. If you linger in the Under, eventually you could find yourself perceiving other things—strange, alien things, which are the non-physical concepts of other beings in other realms.”
I gnawed on my lip for a second. “I think I’m getting it. So, say, someone from a trouser realm would fall through a hole in the trouser pocket, and find themselves on the leg of the Under, because that is what is familiar. But from there, they could travel along the skin to anywhere on the body?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“So why did Nate have to go to Faerie?”
“It would have been too difficult from here, although technically not impossible. It is easier for him to linger on the edges of the Under while he is in Faerie, because that is what is familiar. Otherwise, he might not understand what he is seeing and hearing and sink too far.”
I squinted at him. “It’s not… like… like Hell?”
“Yes and no. Restless spirits do linger there, unable to move on, but that is only because some find it difficult to face the energy they put out during their lifetimes. If you have not learned the lessons you were supposed to learn during your time in the Over, they will haunt you in the Under. But it is not just the place you move through when you die, Chosen. It is the domain of everything non-physical. It is the place of archetypes, gods and goddesses, thoughts, feelings. Dreams and nightmares.”
I nodded slowly. That made sense. Some of the things I’d dreamed about in the past were wildly fantastical and otherworldly.
It wasn’t a great leap to imagine that my unconscious thoughts had left the familiar place of human dreams and were drifting through the hellish landscape of a strange fairy underworld, rather than the normal mundane underworld.
Which brought me to my next question. “And Nate can go there? To the Under, I mean.”
“Not exactly. He is under strict instructions not to go too deep, but only to see what he can hear from the edges of the Under.” Donovan’s expression grew somber.
“Nate is a rare creature. He has ventured into the fae Under twice already. Both times, it required an immense sacrifice to bring him back.”
“He died?”
Donovan nodded.
“Yeesh.”
“You are correct,” he said darkly. “Yeesh. The first time he expired was in the dungeons in my castle. I’d gone down there to free him and found his breath leaving his lungs for the last time.
I frantically performed the rites to revive him, trying to pull him back to his body.
He lived a hundred years in the Under in those few minutes, though, and he’d formed a bond with Morganna, one of the goddesses who resides in the fae part of the Under.
During the magical rites to revive him, she appeared in the mirror and confronted me. ” He grimaced. “She is terrifying.”
I found Cress scary enough. I couldn’t imagine how terrifying a goddess of the Under would be. “Go on.”
“Apparently, my attempts at reviving him irritated her. She was extremely fond of the young Nate and considered him like a young family member. Because his body was still warm, I bargained for his return. Morganna required a sacrifice for her hounds to release Nate’s spirit back to me.”
“What did you sacrifice?” I whispered.
He hesitated for a second. “One of my toes.”
So, a goddess in the fae Under had a puppy who had eaten one of Donovan’s toes.
A warm feeling bloomed in my belly at the story, mostly because it spoke to his character.
Donovan, as a young prince, heir of a fae realm, had sacrificed a body part to bring back a kid—a prisoner in his dungeons—from the dead.
He literally gave up a part of his body to save a kid he didn’t even know. It was so selfless, so noble. It made me fall in love with him even harder.
“Go back to the original problem,” I said, forcing myself to focus. “Nate sensed an imbalance in the Under?”
Donovan hesitated for a second. “Unbalancing is perhaps not the right word, for the Under has no substance, so it cannot be balanced in the first place. More accurately, Nate sensed a thrum. A chime, as if a monk’s bell has been rung too loudly, and the sound is echoing throughout the whole world.”
“Are there any consequences?”
“Every action has consequences. As above, so below. We need to find out what caused the chime to ascertain what those consequences might be. But Nate knows for sure that something has changed, and I do not think it would be wise to ignore it.”
“Okay.” I tapped my pen on my notepad, itching to take notes. “Does he have any theories? What do you think it might be?”
“It would usually indicate that something unnatural has occurred. Something has moved between physical and non-physical, or vice versa. A similar disturbance happened when I pulled Nate out the first time—the exchange for my physical toe for his non-physical spirit. Normally, I would not pay too much attention to it, as magical practitioners have been playing games with Death since the beginning of time, so these disturbances aren’t necessarily rare.
But if Connor is involved, it can mean nothing good. ”
I tapped my chin, thinking. Who had been closest to the Under lately? “What about the assassin, Purg? I squished him with a bus. Maybe he died, you know, properly. And Connor pulled him out of the Under.”
But Donovan shook his head. “Purg has been drifting on the edges of the Under for centuries; if he were to expire now, it would not make so much of a ripple.”
“And I suppose there’s no chance in hell that Connor would sacrifice one of his little toes to get his assassin back.”
Donovan exhaled heavily. “As much as I like to think that my brother’s soul is capable of redemption, unfortunately…
you are right, Chosen. Even before he started devouring blood and becoming corrupted, I do not think there was ever a time when Connor would give up part of himself for another. Not even for me,” he added quietly.
He sounded so sad. I itched to reach out to him. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.