Chapter 6
Callum
Stumbling out the other side of the Veil, I barely take two steps before opening a portal in front of me. I’m through it in a heartbeat, stepping back out at the gates of the demon court.
Carved directly into the side of a high, craggy mountain peak, the gates are magickally sealed and well guarded. They soar high above, an impressive showcase of the court’s grandeur and the magick required to build and maintain it.
As I approach, I draw immediate notice.
“Callum Kersgrove,” I say by way of greeting. “Requesting entrance to King Eren’s court.”
“We’re not expecting any visitors this evening,” one of the pair of demons standing sentry—a young soldier who I don’t recognize from any of my prior visits to court—says warily.
“A last-minute request,” I amend. “I seek an audience with the queen.”
He looks at me like I’m something he just scraped off the bottom of his boot.
Goddess, these courtiers.
Pompous, arrogant fools, the lot of them. It’s a blessing my work for Myron doesn’t bring me here often.
Not that it helps my case much tonight. An unfamiliar demon, requesting access to the realm’s queen.
Even I would turn me away.
“The king and queen are not entertaining guests tonight,” he says, with a haughty edge to his voice. “And if you don’t have a formal invitation from a standing member of the court, then I can’t—”
“Finn,” I interrupt. “Finn Nighfall, son of Lord Nighfall. If you give him my name, he’ll issue me a damn invitation.”
The guard looks like he’d rather choke on broken glass than oblige me, but the mention of a lordling must be enough incentive for him.
“One moment,” he says with a long-suffering sigh, and disappears into a portal.
The other guard tilts his head, studying me. “You’ve been here before.”
“Aye.”
“On what business?”
“Private business.”
He snorts a laugh. “Keep that up, and even if you get your invitation, he won’t let you in anyway.”
I grunt a reply, and decide silence is probably the wiser course.
A few minutes later, the first guard returns.
“Lord Nighfall’s son is not in court. And the Lord himself says he’s never met you.”
Another grunt. The Lord has met me, but I’m not surprised he either doesn’t remember or has no interest in vouching for one of his intractable son’s friends.
“So, you’d best be on your way,” the guard continues, dismissing me with another haughty tilt of his chin.
He turns to go back to his post nearer the gate, and I step forward.
“Now, wait just a damned—”
In a flash, both guards have turned back toward me, hands resting ominously on the hilts of the swords at their waists.
“Wait for what?” The guard sneers. “Wait for you to give me the name of another courtier to bother at this late hour? Some fantastical story about why you need Queen Allison’s ear?”
“I need to speak to her about a witch I met.”
The words are out before I’ve fully thought them through. The first guard just scoffs his derision, but the second looks at least marginally more interested.
“In this realm? We’ve been told all the witches who cross the Veil are supposed to come straight here.”
Well, I know at least one witch who didn’t follow those rules.
“Not in this realm,” I say slowly, some ridiculous part of me not wanting to confess anything that might get my obstinate mate in trouble. “In the Middle.”
“The Middle?” the first guard says with an incredulous shake of his head. “They’ve barely started venturing beyond their own realm into this one, and you expect us to believe one just so happened to find herself all the way in the Middle?”
Before I can answer, the second guard speaks up again.
“Was she in trouble? In need of assistance or rescue?”
The flash of a memory in my mind, so clear and keen it almost seems real.
A blond-haired, emerald-eyed witch with moonlight streaming over her. Strong, fast, undaunted.
“No. She’s not in need of any assistance.”
“Then what do you need from the king and queen?”
“I want… I wanted to see if the queen knows her. If she… if she could tell me who this witch is.”
Even as I speak the words, I hear how pathetic they are. As if the ruler of this entire realm has time to make introductions. And that’s if she even knows my fierce little mate at all.
The first guard scoffs again. “In that case, you can get in line to make your petition with the rest of the realm when the king and queen hold open court in a week’s time.”
A week’s time.
Goddess, I don’t know if I’ll last that long not knowing who she is.
Evidently done with the conversation, the first guard returns to his post. This time, I don’t call after him.
I’m about to give up the idea completely, to open a portal and retreat somewhere I can tend my wounded pride, when the kinder of the two guards stops me.
“Who is she to you, this witch?”
Perhaps he can see it on my face, or hear it in my desperation, because when I meet his gaze, it’s filled with knowing, with sympathy.
“She’s…”
It feels wrong to say the word to this stranger.
My mate rejected me. I don’t even know her name. I hardly have the right to make any kind of claim on her.
“It’s just important that I find her,” I say instead, and the hollow lie of omission sounds false even to my ears.
The guard nods, still looking so damned sympathetic, and I finally turn to go. I open a portal and step through without a backward glance.
I’ve got a long way to go, so as soon as I exit one portal I open another, then another, leaping between well-established routes through the realm.
It takes an immense amount of magick to portal directly over long distances, much more than I care to expend tonight, so I make my way slowly and carefully back to my place in Traverdale—a city at the edge of the realm’s western plains, set in a lowland on the coast.
A hub of trade and travel and culture, it bustles with activity even at this hour as I step out of my final portal in one of the city’s designated drop zones. I move quickly out of the way to avoid being bowled over by some other late night traveler.
From there, it’s a short walk through winding, cobbled lanes that take me past a market—a few stalls still open offering late night eats to passing demons—and several streets filled with shops that peddle wares from all across the realm, until I reach the building that’s been my home for a decade.
Situated above a shoemaker’s shop, the apartment isn’t much to look at, but it’s served me well in my coming and goings from Traverdale. A quiet, safe place to rest my head for a night or two before I’m sent off on some new assignment.
Myron, the demon I’ve been working for these past ten years, lives on the other side of town. The more affluent side of town.
If this were any other day, I’d be up and off to see him bright and early to get a new assignment or report back on the latest errand he sent me on.
I’d be in his office as soon as it opens, hands clasped behind my back, wearing my most neutral, polite expression, ready to take my marching orders and get back on the road.
Tonight, though, I’m barely thinking of Myron.
I won’t be heading to his office tomorrow. In fact, I’m hoping to avoid him for as long as I reasonably can. How long that will be, I don’t know. He holds the contract which binds me to his service now, and for the foreseeable future, so at some point he’ll use that leash to yank me back.
But tonight I can’t make myself care.
I can’t make myself do anything but play and replay those stolen moments from the Middle.
Green eyes and golden hair.
A hard, glinting defiance in the jut of a sharp chin and the tilt of full lips into a scowl.
A furrow of worry, or maybe doubt, on a lovely brow, just begging to be kissed away.
Goddess, what’s wrong with me?
Is this what it is to have a mate? This… this… longing?
This agony?
Because that’s the only word for it, the churn of wanting and regret, of worry and irritation, of the soul-deep need to follow and find and make sure she’s safe.
I don’t even know her name.
Lighting a lamp near the bed, I sit heavily on the edge of the mattress, wings drooped behind me. The lamplight illuminates the sorry state of the place—the threadbare rugs and dust in the corners, the sparse, worn furniture and the loneliness which permeates every inch of the single-room dwelling.
Irrationally, I find myself trying to see it through her eyes.
What would she think of this place? Or, maybe more apt, what would she think of having a mate who lived in it? What does she know of demonkind, what does she expect? One of her kind mated and married the king of the entire realm, and I can’t imagine I’d be much of a prize in comparison.
Dangerous paths to wander down, even in my mind.
There’s no reason to expect she’ll ever see this place, no reason to believe she’d ever want to.
There’s no reason even to think she’ll want to see me again, that I’ll ever find her, that…
With a muttered curse, I lay back on the bed, heedless of my wings or the awkward press of them beneath me. I shake my head, though whether it’s to chase away the hounding thoughts or simply in disgust of what a wreck one single evening has made of my mind, I don’t know.
Whatever the case, it doesn’t work.
My thoughts race, and my heart grows heavier with each passing moment.
And yet, even at the bottom of that endless well of despair, a light.
A memory from earlier tonight won’t leave me alone. It tugs at the corner of my mind—a warning and a hope all rolled into one.
My witch, listening so intently to my conversation with Pytri.
She eavesdropped long enough to hear about the fae queen’s bounty, to learn the details about when and where the gathering will be taking place.
She was interested.
Perhaps interested enough to seek the bounty for herself.
The thought of my mate in Faerie puts a heavy leaden weight into the bottom of my gut.
How durable are these humans? How canny? What kind of magick does my mate possess and will it do anything to protect her there?
Fae are cruel, fickle beings, and they love tormenting the weak.
Not that my mate seems very weak, but in particular, fae have a fondness for toying with humans, for capturing and keeping them like playthings.
If I’d had any lingering reservations about going to Faerie and the fae queen’s court, they’ve all evaporated. If there’s even the slightest chance my witch will be there, I have to go.
Instinct stirs in my chest, and I can’t make any kind of sense of it.
Dread, that my mate will enter that cursed realm.
Hope, that I might see her there.
A chance.
Maybe my only chance to find her again.