“We found Arlen and Drake,” I said. “We have to find the others to get out of here.”
“Let’s go,” Sorcha said. “I like this memory less than the sprite does.”
We hurried on. After a while, the corset disappeared, and I was back in my other clothes.
“Thank God,” I said. “I was about to pass out.”
“Quite the fashion for a time,” Sorcha said. “The courts always had an obsession with mimicking human fashions, sometimes far later than they were popular in your world.”
“Have you hit the ’80s yet?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure it’ll be impossible to respect a king with a mullet.”
The landscape became a garden full of rose bushes—black petals all around.
“This looks familiar,” I whispered.
“It’s not the same,” Sorcha murmured, but she sounded unconvinced.
We found the cat watching a small girl and boy play, chasing each other amongst the bushes. The girl had long golden hair. The raven-haired boy’s face blurred, even in the memory. The boy caught the girl and swung her around in a circle. Their laughter travelled on the air.
A shadowy figure grabbed the boy and pulled him away. He reached out for the girl. The figures faded into the mist, leaving the little girl standing alone. A wispy black kitten attacked a rose bush. The girl picked up the kitten and wandered away.
“Bekind?” I whispered. “Whose memory is this?”
The cat came over and sat at my feet with her back to the memory. More secrets. Bekind was the biggest enigma in my life.
“We should… we should see if Arlen and Drake are okay,” I said.
We headed back the way we had come. On the way, we found Anya kneeling beside a pond. Her shoulders shook with sobs. She had a baby in her arms. She kissed the baby’s head before laying the child in the water. Horrified, I ran to her and pulled her out of the memory.
“Cara?” she whispered.
I looked back and saw a ghostly woman drowning the baby. I turned away again, feeling sick. We couldn’t prevent the deeds because they had already been done. We were stuck in memories of long-forgotten souls.
“We need to get back,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She rubbed her cheek, frowning. “No. I feel like I’ve been stuck in a nightmare.”
“You’re okay. Sorcha’s fine. We have Realtín and Bekind. Drake is back with Arlen. Let’s go.”
She linked her arm through mine. “No Líle?”
“We’re missing Grim, Líle, and Dymphna. And the horses.” I wanted to cry, thinking of Dubh.
Drake was conscious when we returned to Arlen.
“He has a headache, but otherwise he’s fine,” Arlen said. He looked at Anya. “Are you…?”
“I’ll be okay,” she said, moving closer to him. “It’s strange out here.”
I nodded. “It’s weird. Some of us see the memories; some of us are a part of them. How do we stop that from happening again? How do we keep from losing each other?”
“Sticking close together, perhaps,” Drake said. He didn’t look well. “I’m so sorry, Cara. I remember…” He shook his head.
“Sorcha stopped you from doing anything,” I said, but I felt a little uncomfortable, too. “We need to look for the others. And the horses. We’ll never get home without them.”
We walked in a group, all of us touching each other in an attempt to stay together. The mist grew denser, and soon it became difficult to breathe. If I looked closely, I could see figures in the mist, playing the roles the memories forced them into. The air thickened with tension and pain, grief and anger.
“This is a terrible place,” Arlen said. “There’s so much horror here.”
“I saw a war,” I said, desperate to get it off my chest. “A mountain of bodies. No wonder the way to the Fade is so easy to find. Only an idiot would walk into this mess.”
I was interrupted by shouting. After a few steps, I heard the clang of swords meeting. We came upon a meadow, the mist swirling around our feet. In the centre, Líle and Dymphna were desperately trying to kill each other.
“Watch out,” Arlen said. “Stay out of reach of their swords.”
“They won’t see us,” Sorcha said. “They’re in battle. We didn’t exist in the memory. If we pull them apart, they might be torn from the memory.”
“Carefully then,” Drake said. “Arlen, help me with Dymphna.”
We separated and rushed at the pair, carefully avoiding the swinging swords. While Arlen and Drake grabbed Dymphna, the rest of us tried to stop Líle. Her muscles bulged as she struggled to shake us off. She spat words at a misty figure in front of her. Bekind wound around her feet and helped us trip her up, wrenching her from the memory. Sorcha, Anya, and I fell heavily with Líle on top of us. I tried to cough, but I was too winded.
“What the…?” Líle said.
Laughing, Arlen helped her to her feet. I rolled over, feeling a little sick.
“Grim’s not here!” Realtín screeched. “Where is he?”
“We’ll find him,” Drake said.
Anya and Sorcha stood, but I couldn’t move. Drake helped me up, and I shoved at Líle.
“You big oaf,” I choked out. “You couldn’t just snap out of it like Dymphna did.”
Líle looked at me in surprise. “What happened to you?”
“You squashed me,” I snarled.
“She didn’t know what she was doing,” Sorcha said.
“Easy for you to say,” I said. “She landed on me. And we need to find Grim before Realtín explodes into sprite confetti.”
“Come,” Drake said. “We need to hurry. This place… we need to get on.”
“Where are the horses?” Dymphna asked.
We walked away as two duelling mist-figures killed each other.
“Maybe they’re with Grim,” Anya said hopefully.
“Grim was on Dubh,” I said, recalling that with some relief. “They’re probably on the other side, waiting for us.”
“Probably,” Realtín said shakily.
We passed more scenes of violence and despair. I tried not to look, but it was impossible to keep my eyes away. I glanced at Drake. He shrugged, but he appeared to be about as worried as I felt. We came to a cliff, and I froze, my mouth opening wide in horror. Grim stood at the edge, his arms outstretched.
“No!” I screamed.
There was no mist anymore. The cliff was real. Grim was in danger.
I ran toward him. Somebody pulled my arm to stop me. Realtín flew past. I thought she was trying to save Grim, but she curled around his neck, ready to fall with him. I brushed off whoever held me back and ran. As Grim toppled back, I leaped forward and managed to grip his ankle, but my wrist twisted painfully. I struggled to keep hold of him.
With a clatter of hooves, Dubh appeared out of nowhere. He stretched his neck over the precipice and chomped his teeth down on Grim’s shirt. The horse helped me haul the brownie and sprite to safety. I backed us a little bit away, sat on the ground, and hugged them, tears running down my cheeks.
Somebody took the pair out of my arms, but I couldn’t move. I was shaking too much. I looked over the cliff and sucked in a breath. The drop was about three stories, ending in an ocean. Waves crashed violently against the cliff, and as they ebbed, large rocks became visible. Looking down made me dizzy, so I raised my eyes.
I noticed the beach and a familiar-looking lighthouse. Some memory of my childhood sparked to life. I saw my brother and me running along the sand, looking for shells to decorate the sandcastle he had helped me build.
I pointed at the beach with a shaking hand. “I’ve been there. I’m so close to home.”
Drake knelt next to me. “You can’t go home that way. It’s too dangerous.”
I waved at the water. “But it’s right there. The human realm is right there.”
“The Watcher told us that the divide between realms was at its thinnest here.”
“But we could bring Brendan that way. W
e could avoid going back through the Hauntings and the marshes and every other bloody horrible thing.”
“The rocks,” he said, pointing down. “And even if you survived the fall, you could get drawn out to sea, or worse, somewhere deeper into the fae realm. And this is too close to the Fade, Cara. Time is not what it seems here. You could get stuck in the past for all we know. It’s not safe.”
Feeling oddly homesick, I let him pull me to my feet and lead me back toward the others. Grim looked dazed. Realtín hadn’t let go of him yet.
“Put them on Dubh,” Sorcha said impatiently, “and let’s get out of here.”
Dubh led the way after that. The rest of us were too rattled to do anything but follow. Grim shook and shivered along with Realtín on the faery horse’s back. I couldn’t help looking back at the familiar sea that was so close, yet so far away. I wondered what my mother was doing, if Zoe had noticed I was gone, if anybody cared that Ronnie hadn’t returned to work or if the world had changed at all because the faery realm had a new king. Anya wrapped an arm around my waist.
“Oh, for the love of—” Sorcha turned to face me, her eyes sparking with anger. “Switch it off!”
“What?” I asked, stunned.
“Stop feeling so miserable. You’re infecting us all. Give it a rest.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Nobody cares. We’re all stuck here. You’re not the only one, but you’re the one making the rest of us feel awful about it.” To my surprise, her black eyes glittered with tears. “We don’t need this, Cara.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. There was nothing else to say. The fae usually enjoyed my over-the-top emotions, even going so far as to try to provoke those kinds of reactions in me.
Drake walked on the other side of me, his hand in mine. I tried to bite down on my emotions and to rebuild my walls, but it was hard. In the fae realm, I felt more out of control than ever.
We exited the Hauntings. The horses were waiting beyond the mists and memories. We couldn’t celebrate, though, remembering all the things we had seen and felt. We had tougher obstacles in front of us, and then we would have to brace ourselves for the Hauntings once more.
Chapter Sixteen
Beyond the Hauntings lay a deep, blood-red canyon. As we approached, the horses kicked up rust-coloured clouds.
“Where are we?” I whispered, awed by the sheer size. From our height, it appeared as though the crevices were engravings. Some kind of silver metal reflected through the maroon.
Bekind turned into her human form for the first time since the Watcher’s home. “There’s a cave below us, at the bottom. I was told it leads to the rift in the Fade.” She moved closer to the edge. “If you look down, you’ll see that the red rock turns black at the very foot. That area is closest to the rift, so it’s the most obvious decay from the Fade. But that makes it our guide. We make it down there, and we’re closer to the Fade.”
“How do we reach it?” Arlen asked, looking wary.
I was wary, too. The height was dizzying when you looked over the ledge.
“We walk,” Bekind said, “and climb in places. Once we reach the cave, we’ll have to crawl through a tunnel of some kind.” She looked at Arlen doubtfully. “I’ve no idea if you’ll even fit.”
“I’ll fit,” he said firmly. “So this is it? One more walk, a climb, and then we’ll be inside the Fade?”
Bekind hesitated. “It’s not quite that simple. There are sections to the Fade. Each one passes farther inward until you reach the Nether. The outer section is where the shades gather to protect the bridge to the Wall of Souls. Beyond that, I’ve no idea what trials we might face. But at the entrance, the fenris waits, forever guarding. If we manage to sneak in the back door, we might go unnoticed.”
“So we’ve a real chance of survival,” I said. “We can actually do this.”
“If our luck holds out,” Bekind said. “I can find the way, but we could lose each other. If that happens, you’ll have to do it all yourself. You’ll have to cross the bridge to the Wall of Souls, reach in, and call Brendan’s name, declaring repayment of a life debt.”
“We won’t lose each other,” I insisted.
“You’ve been holding out on us.” Dymphna wagged a finger at Bekind. “This is the Frozen Valley, isn’t it?”
Bekind flushed. “Technically.”
“It doesn’t look frozen to me,” I said.
“It’s what’s inside that counts,” Dymphna replied. “They say the red sand is dried blood from millions of souls encased under the dirt and that the god of death buried them alive to soak up their power. They’re still in there, frozen in eternal life, their veins forever bleeding out to nourish the earth.”
“Jesus,” I whispered. “You people are so freaking morbid sometimes.”
Dymphna smiled at me. “You did ask.”
“The god of death. That’s your thing, right, Sorcha? So we’re cool here. No vengeful god’s going to bury us or anything.”
Sorcha’s smile was grim. “Death doesn’t always come from vengeance. We should move quickly. The wind is picking up. We don’t want to get blown over the edge.”
“The horses won’t make it all the way,” Bekind said. “But they’ll take us at least some of the way. They’ll have to stand guard and wait for us when we enter the cave.”
“Let’s hope we won’t be in the cave for too long then,” Drake said.
“We should move,” Arlen said, gazing up at the sky. “I’m not looking forward to travelling in the Frozen Valley in daylight, never mind at night.”
We rode along the cliff until Grim pointed out a trodden pathway that curved down into the valley. Dubh led the way, and the other horses followed, albeit reluctantly.
“You two can wait with the horses,” I told Grim and Realtin.
They both shook their heads. “You might need us,” Grim said.
The steep path seemed to go on forever. The ledge widened a bit, but the ground was more like sand than earth. Trickles of crimson liquid leaked from it in small rivulets.
When we reached the end of the path, Bekind peered down as a cat before transforming again. “The horses will have to wait here. We can break to eat then climb the rest of the way.”
We sat on the ledge, our legs dangling over the side as we ate.
“Is it safe?” I asked. “The climb, I mean. Obviously the Fade is not so safe.”
Drake shrugged. “It’s the only way down.”
Líle’s hand shook as she put a piece of meat in her mouth. I worried about her, but I didn’t know how to help.
“What happens inside the Fade?” I asked. “What if the shades come after us?”
“Then we run, you idiot,” Sorcha said.
“And if someone gets left behind?”
“Then may the gods show them mercy.” She sounded afraid. If a dealer in death was scared, I should be terrified.
“What if we can’t find Brendan?” Anya asked in a small voice. “What if he’s already lost to us?”
“Then we know we’ve risked our lives for nothing,” Sorcha snapped. “Eat your food.”
After we ate, we reluctantly began the descent. The red muddy earth didn’t become black; it just darkened until it looked that way. As we climbed down, I tried not to look down, so I wouldn’t think about how high up we were. My fingers sank into wet earth and came away red as blood. At first, it horrified me, but as they became stained with a berry colour, I tried to convince myself it was some kind of mineral or fruit—anything but the blood of millions. The terrain grew muddier and slipperier the more ground we covered.
The soil stuck to my fingers in clumps like damp, bloody sand, making it harder to grip. My foot slid off a rock, and I clutched at earth that came away in my grasp. With a scream, I fell, grabbing wildly at nothing. Arlen caught me as I skidded down past him and slammed me against the cliff wall. He held me there with one arm. The surface area was less stable than sand, and I feared we would both end u
p hurtling to the bottom.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I have you. Easy now. Hands first, get a firm hold. Good, Cara. Now your feet. A good grip, a little to your left. You’re fine. You’re not going to fall. It was bad luck, but I have you. Okay?”
I nodded, doing as he said even as I shook with fear. I knew I was safe with him there, but what if he missed me next time? Or worse, what if I dragged him down with me?
That experience shook everyone, and we moved more slowly. Bekind was already at the bottom, having jumped nimbly from tiny natural ledge to tinier natural ledge until she hit the base of the canyon.
Sweat ran down my back with every move. I heaved a sigh of relief when, finally, my feet hit solid-ish ground. I stood at the bottom to watch the last of our group descend. The end section was the steepest, and the more people who climbed down, the smoother the surface became. Soon, only Drake was left.
“Careful,” I called. “We’ve made it way steeper, I think.”
He was agile and made the climb look easy. But then a portion of the wall fell away, him along with it. I screamed, but he didn’t panic. He half-turned and used his wings to slow his descent a little. His knee got skinned against a jagged rock and blood streamed down his leg. But when he reached the bottom, a triumphant grin was plastered on his face.
Then he took a step and crumpled. I reached out and caught him. His face had turned paler than usual, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
“Dizzy,” he said. “Think I hit my head.” He rubbed the side of his head gingerly. His hand came away bloody. He gave me a wry smile. “There we go.”
Dymphna moved to his other side, and we lowered him to the ground. I knelt next to him while Anya took a look at the wound.
“Nasty,” she said. “But he’ll be okay. Maybe he should stay here, though.”
“No,” Drake said. “Give me a minute. I’ll be fine.”
She did her best to clean the wound. She used the pinkish water from a nearby spring to avoid wasting our drinking water. Drake held my hand tightly as Anya worked.
“Ten minutes,” Arlen warned. “Then we’re going. If you can’t stand…”
I searched in my bundle for one of the blue leaves that counteracted dizziness. For good measure, I gave him a leaf for pain, too.