“Jago’s birthday is coming soon. Or maybe the day has already passed.” In the darkness, Huck saw a silvery tear slip down her cheek, and he brushed the drop aside.
“We’ll celebrate with him when we get home,” he said. As best he could tell, they were deep underground. Fortunately, a small stream of cool water flowed through the back of this cave, trickling through impossibly narrow openings. It meant they always had water, something they’d learned to be grateful for. Huck believed they were not too far from where they were taken. Their captors weren’t very communicative, so information was hard to come by. The worst part was not understanding why.
Their cave had only one entrance, and outside was a warren of tunnels. They didn’t have a guard posted outside, but they never got far before they were seen and carried back. He tried to work out their location, but the efforts had been a failure. Every intersection led to five ways out and identical intersections with just as many exits. They never managed to travel more than fifty metres away and never saw anything that would help them find an exit. Everything looked the same.
Their captors were rough and unpredictable. After the last time Huck tried to discover the way out, he’d suffered a terrible beating that had him bruised and weak for a long time. He was only just starting to feel strong enough to try again. He needed something to distract them. But these strange creatures were simple and single-minded. They were tall, bent creatures with sickly pale skin that was cold to the touch. Their bony and drawn faces looked horrible enough without the scraggly patches of hair growing in clumps on their heads, set off by a dim red gem pressed into their foreheads. All the ones Huck saw seemed to be male, with shrivelled sex organs dangling between their twisted legs.
“I have an idea,” Huck said. “We should venture out in quick jaunts. One of us goes to the intersection outside. I have a bit of metal on my belt buckle. We use it as a stylus and put a rune by one exit, then we come back here. When the coast is clear, we go out again and make the same symbol by another exit. Marking a trail is the only way I can think to make any progress.”
Demi shivered. “Are you sure you’re ready? Are you well enough?”
“I’m sore, but I need to get moving before I lose my mind. I’m thinking if we mark the way with runes, we should be able to keep track of where we’ve been before. If they do catch us, at least we won’t repeat ourselves or wander in circles when we start again…as long as they don’t obscure the runes.”
Demi didn’t answer. The lack of enthusiastic response disheartened him. In the beginning, she’d led the way. Now, she cried more often. She was in danger of giving up. He needed to do something, make some progress, give her some reason to believe they could escape.
“I’ll go the next time someone comes with food, because I think they pay less attention then,” Huck said. “I’ll come right back after I make the first rune. We have less chance getting caught if we aren’t wandering aimlessly.”
After a pause, Demi said, “Maybe we should follow them. They have to be getting these animals from somewhere. If we can discover where they hunt, maybe we can find a way out?”
The plan struck Huck as dangerous, but at least she was brainstorming again. “Okay. We can try your way.”
“If that doesn’t work,” she said, “we’ll do the runes. It’s a good idea. Carving on each intersection may take a while, but we’ve got nothing else to do.”
They’d developed a routine of helping each other stretch, of doing what exercise they could in the small space. They’d become a team and learned to sense each other’s moods. After the first few weeks, they’d talked through things he’d never revealed to anyone else.
Over time, he’d settled in to their friendship, begun to see her as a woman, not simply as a romantic interest. Now she was like a part of his own mind, closer than any lover or even a member of his family. When they held each other, the mood wasn’t sexual, but survival.
If they did escape, he didn’t know what their relationship would be on the outside. They had forged a deep connection and would probably always share something special, but his love for her had grown into something entirely different than he’d expected back when he first met her.
After they stretched, they talked about a distant memory, as they so often did. Demi was leading in to an incident from her high school years when they heard one of their captors approach.
When the creature shuffled into the doorway, he brought a waft of foul-smelling air with him. Oddly, he didn’t carry food. He began to babble at them in harsh, guttural tones. To Huck’s ears, the language sounded strangely familiar. He couldn’t pick out specific words, but he wondered if they were speaking a variation of the fae tongue.
He slipped a protective arm around Demi. The creature towered over them and was soon joined by three others. Huck had begun to notice certain individual traits, although the creatures did look very much the same. One might have larger eyes and the other might have more bow to his legs. This one had a strange and distinctive feature. Instead of one gem between his eyes, he had four, arranged in a diamond formation.
Demi scooted toward the back wall, shrinking away from the monsters, and Huck moved with her as more of them fit into the room. They were agitated and angry, unlike any time he’d seen before. A sick dread filled his stomach. There was no way the two humans could defend themselves if the creatures grew tired of keeping them alive. They seemed angry at Huck and Demi, but more frustrated than hostile.
Finally, the one who’d entered first threw something on the ground in front of Huck. He opened his mouth and bellowed, a deafening sound. Both humans covered their ears. Then the creatures went still, waiting.
“What is it?” Demi asked, her voice trembling.
“I can’t tell from here. Should I pick it up?”
Demi inched forward. “They brought it to us for a reason.” Moving slowly under the watchful eyes of the twisted creatures, she reached out and extended her hand toward the small object on the floor. The leader of the group nudged it with his foot, sending the small thing skittering closer.
Keeping her gaze locked on the creatures, she felt around on the filthy floor and picked the object up. Huck could almost hear them holding their breath, waiting.
“What is it?” Huck said.
“A stone,” she told him. She knelt a few feet ahead of him, but when he scooted up closer, their captors shouted, so he stopped moving.
She turned to look at Huck. “It’s a talisman,” she said. “I haven’t seen this particular one before, but I’m sure it’s druid made.” For the first time in a long while, a smile crept to her lips. “This feels like Munro’s work.”
Munro?
How would these creatures get something that belonged to him? Had Munro been captured too? Or was he out there, looking for them? Huck’s mind reeled as he considered the possibilities.
“I’m going to try to activate the rune,” she said. But unless the object had been created with her blood talents in mind, she would be unlikely to succeed. Could Munro have left the artefact for them on purpose? Was he trying to tell them something? “I can feel the flows, but they’re faint. Maybe if I—”
The creatures went into a frenzy. One struck her hard enough that the impact made a sickening thud.
“Demi!” Huck shouted.
The talisman flew out of her hand, and the creatures set upon her. Before Huck could reach her, he’d been kicked by an oversized foot. His mind not listening to reason, he tried to claw his way to her, but he only succeeded in angering one to the point that it turned its violent attentions on him. He didn’t stand a chance. Later, when all the creatures had gone, he lifted his head and saw her form, lying in a heap near the opposite wall. She wasn’t moving.
“Hurry, Munro,” Huck whispered. “Don’t give up. Come find us.”
∞
Joy stepped through the Mistgate first, followed by Munro. While they waited for Alyssa, who was clearing away any evidence of their passage on the other side, he told Joy that Anna was a druid.
She didn’t appear surprised. “I suspected, from what she said about her brother, but I don’t have the talent to be certain. You saw her abilities with your pipe?”
He nodded. “Maybe I shouldn’t have left her behind,” he said as Alyssa appeared through the gate.
“I believe you did the right thing,” Joy said. “She would impede your search for Huck, and should you bring her here, you might find it difficult to say no if she insisted on accompanying you. Your doubts are natural, but I concur with your choice.”
Munro was grateful for the statement. He’d never felt so conflicted and distracted as he had in the past few months. Huck and Demi’s disappearance wasn’t his fault, but he felt responsible for finding them. In his previous life, he’d been a police officer. He had the training and skills no one else in the group had.
As far as Anna, the druids’ strength increased with every one of their number, but he had an obligation to keep her safe, for Huck’s sake. Sending her home to her worried family surely was kinder than bringing her here where she would begin a process of irreversible change. He might have just left her behind, but wandering the Colorado forests alone wasn’t exactly the safest place to be, even if she moved competently and had successfully tracked him, despite Alyssa’s efforts to confuse her.
Alyssa shifted, a fractional motion betraying her impatience. Munro glanced her way, and she stilled. She’d begun accompanying Munro on most of his searches within the human realm. Never once had she complained about the thin air, devoid of magic. Acceding to his every command, she often anticipated his needs. They’d developed a silent communication, and the Mistwatcher seemed to understand his moods of late. He was grateful for her companionship and how hard she tried. The search for Huck and Demi had become his mission, his obsession. Alyssa grasped that more than anyone else. He didn’t need to explain to her why he felt responsible for finding the missing pair.
Munro sighed and went to the pedestal that controlled the Mistgate and put a small token in the shimmering pool of water on the activation stand. It absorbed the water magic and the portal vanished, leaving nothing but a towering arch of the finest Tvorskane marble.
Munro had to acknowledge that he needed a few days’ rest. He felt like he might drop. A good meal wouldn’t do any harm either. “Thank you,” he said to both of the faerie women. “I appreciate your help.”
“I’m only sorry my power couldn’t reveal the site’s secrets,” Joy said.
“Thank you for trying,” he said, making an effort not to let his devastating disappointment show. His failure to make progress in his search wasn’t Joy’s fault.
Leocort appeared from the direction of the Druid Hall. “My lord druid,” he said and saluted.
“I’m going to Caledonia soon,” Munro told the head Mistwatcher. “Where’s Rory? I wanted to speak with him before I left.”
A frown flickered over the Mistwatcher’s face, then vanished. “I’m not sure, my lord druid.”
Munro grumbled. The Scottish lad had grown more and more unreliable with each passing day. It was time he took his responsibilities seriously and quit his nonsense.
“What about Lisle?” he asked. Even though they hadn’t been successful, he made a point to keep her updated on his search for her granddaughter.
“In Ceòthan with Lord Druid Sheng.”
“Bloody hell, isn’t anyone around?” Munro wasn’t sure what he thought about this so-called Kingdom of the Mists, but he couldn’t stop them building the city. The Druid Hall needed its space and resources anyway, but the project was growing out of control.
“Lord Druid Aaron and Lord Druid Douglas returned,” Leocort said.
Munro glanced up at the stars, judging the time. Hell, Eilidh was expecting him in Caledonia an hour ago. He didn’t have time to talk to them all. “Please find Rory and send him to me. I’ll be in my suite. I need a bath before I meet with my wife. She’s probably been back from Eirlioc Falls for hours, and I’m already late, so I might as well get clean before I go.”
“As you command,” Leocort said. Despite his behaviour being perfectly correct, Munro thought he detected a note of distraction about the Mistwatcher. He’d been that way for months, probably worried about Demi. She’d been the one to bring him here from Ashkyne, and since then, they’d developed a close friendship.
No matter how understandable Leocort’s distraction, Munro had no patience left. The constant reminders simply added to his burden of responsibility for finding the missing druids. “I’ll find Rory and the others myself.”
Within minutes, he’d found Rory. He, Aaron, and Douglas were eating a meal in the druids’ dining room. Munro signalled to one of the attending faeries. If he was going to take time to bathe before meeting with Eilidh, he may as well eat too.
“Ah, good. You’re here,” Aaron said. “My bond with Joy told me she’d returned, but I haven’t seen her yet. Any leads?”
“Not really,” Munro said. “Anna Webster followed us. I’m not sure where she picked up our trail, but I’m impressed she was able to stay with us.” He didn’t want to say that she never would have been able to keep up if Joy’s blindness hadn’t slowed them down.