Midnight Enchantment (36 page)

He’d done all this. He’d broken into Piefferburg, allied with
the Summer Queen, channeled more Phaendir hive magick than any of them could ever remember an archdirector channeling, and he’d blown this building up when he’d known—
known
—the Shadow Queen, her flunkies, and the book were all inside.

He’d thought he’d won.

Yet she lived on.

He remembered thinking before he’d entered Piefferburg that no one but Labrai, Himself, would stop him from achieving his goal. Labrai had stopped him. The defeat of the fae was not His will.

Labrai was not with him. This time he was sure.

Gideon stumbled back, hand to his head. What was going on? Why was he having these doubts? He never had doubt, not where his god was concerned.

Labrai was not with him. Labrai did not want this. Perhaps Gideon had been working against his god’s will this entire time.

Or perhaps Labrai didn’t exist at all.

Gideon turned to regard his brothers, who stood in a clump not looking as celebratory as they had a moment ago. They shared a hive mind, and it was possible that one little seed of unease in his brain had grown roots and spread like an ivy of doom.

“No,” Gideon whispered. That couldn’t be allowed. It was their faith in Labrai—
their faith
—that kept the walls up around Piefferburg.

If their faith faltered, they would lose their ability to imprison the fae.

Gideon turned to the destroyed building with a start of realization. This was the doing of the Book of Bindings. This was magick affecting him now. He
had
been too late.

His god had deserted him wholly and utterly.

Gideon closed his eyes and raised his hands to the sky. “Oh, Labrai, Father of us all, give us strength in our time of need. Deliver us from this threat in our midst. Everything I do, I have done it in Your name, oh, great Father…”

Nothing. Silence.

Labrai doesn’t exist. You’re praying to no one.

It was a whisper in his mind, a sickening breeze blowing through his consciousness.

“Labrai!” Gideon fell to his knees, the rubble from the collapsed building digging in, slicing his skin open and making blood run. “Hear me! Shine Your light upon us. Hear our cries!”

Silence. The Phaendir behind him moaned, and Gideon scrabbled in his mind, searching for the place where their consciousnesses met. Coldness touched his skin.

The walls were wavering.

Gideon leapt to his feet and whirled. “No, my brothers, we cannot allow this. Hold fast, hold strong!” He glanced around at the sluagh and goblins. The monsters seemed to sense that the Phaendir were troubled and that maybe, just maybe, the magick that protected them was faltering.

One of the hooded Phaendir stepped toward him, arms outstretched. “Labrai has forsaken us.”

“No! It’s an illusion! It’s only faery magick! We can fight through this! Labrai is with us!”

But even he didn’t feel the truth in those words.

Gideon lowered his arms as his Phaendir brethren turned, wandering away from him, looking abandoned. In that moment, he knew it was lost. Everything was lost. The small niggle that Gideon could feel of their shared hive mind blipped out of existence, just like one might turn off a television.

The barriers collapsed.

The sluagh and the goblins descended on the Phaendir in a pack. Snarling. Ripping. Screaming. It happened all over the city. Blood flowed and gobbets of flesh and slivers of bone flew.

Gideon watched, uncomprehending, then fell to his knees once more. This time not in supplication to his god, but in despair.

He screamed as the sluagh and goblins descended on him. Claws shredded his suit, left bloody furrows in his skin that reminded him of the marks left by his cat-o’-nine-tails. Teeth ripped into his arms and legs, tearing away chunks.

The last things Gideon saw were the alien mouths of the sluagh chewing his flesh, snarling around mouthfuls at each other for their share of the feeding.

“NIALL!”
Elizabeth re-formed, gasping his name.

She pushed up from the cobblestones and glanced around, seeing she wasn’t far from Piefferburg Square. All the stores had been looted, their doors thrown open and their front windows smashed.

Her heart stuttering with panic for those she cared about, she darted into a vandalized clothing boutique and helped herself, carefully noting the name of the place and vowing to send money to the owner for the things she took.

She quickly dressed in a pair of jeans, a heavy black cable-knit sweater, and a pair of boots, then hurried through the side streets to the square. The fastest way back to Niall was cutting through the heart of the city to reach the
ceantar dubh
.

All around her people were screaming that the walls were broken, the fae were free! But others were yelling that the Phaendir were loose in the city, the Shadow Queen was dead, and all was lost. Everything had devolved into total chaos, and she didn’t know what was true.

The only thing she knew was that she needed to find Niall and her mother.

Concern for both of them tightened her stomach and made
her chest ache. Never in her life had she been so worried. She really hoped that Niall and the others had managed to escape before Gideon had taken the place down.

But she doubted they’d had time.

The thought of Niall being crushed in a pile of rubble broke something deep inside her.

“You bastard,” she muttered as she pushed past a group of fae who were fleeing in the other direction. How dare he make her love him? How dare he make her care so much?

A tall water fae with blue-tinged skin stopped, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her. “The walls are coming down!” The woman’s eyes were shiny with excitement. “I can’t believe it! We’re finally free!”

In her head it sounded like,
Your mother is somewhere choking to death all alone
.

Elizabeth glowered at the water fae for a moment, then pushed past her. The next person who grabbed her and yelled in her face was going to get smacked. Forcing her way through the half-celebrating, half-fleeing throng, she continued on.

Near the statue of Jules Piefferburg, someone grabbed her by the shoulder. She rounded on the person, a diatribe ready on her tongue. As soon as she saw Niall’s face, her scowl turned to joy.

She threw herself into his arms. “Sweet Lady, Niall, I’m so happy to see you! I worried that building…
Gideon
.” Her words trailed off and she fell silent, gripping him as hard as she could, tears pricking her eyes and emotions clogging the back of her throat. “I thought you were dead.”

He cupped the back of her head and held her close, murmuring into her hair, “And I thought you hated me.”

She pushed away from him. He didn’t have a mark on him, not even a spot of soot or rubble. “I wish I did. It would make things easier. What happened? Have the walls fallen like everyone is saying? What’s going on?”

Niall shrugged. “My guess is as good as yours. All I know is one minute we’re chanting the spell from the Book of Bindings and Gideon is outside slamming the building with Phaendir juice. Next thing I know the building explodes, I’m falling into nothingness, then,
pop
, we all show up here in the middle of the square. Me, Bella, Bran, Aeric…everyone. Even Blix, Taliesin, and Bran’s stupid crow.”

He motioned to his right, and Elizabeth saw the Shadow Queen, Gabriel, and everyone else. The Shadow Queen had begun collecting a crowd of fae from every social stratum, all looking for leadership.

She frowned at him. “What happened to the book? To Gideon?”

He shrugged again. “The book is gone. The Phaendir also appear to be gone, or at least scattered. Literally.” He paused, wincing. “We keep finding pieces of them everywhere.”

“No one knows what happened?”

“Not for sure. The fae who were near the building in the
ceantar dubh
say that after the building collapsed, the Phaendir began wailing about how Labrai had deserted them, then Gideon’s barriers gave way and the sluagh and goblins broke through.”

Elizabeth swallowed hard and hugged herself. “That means it’s true. The walls have fallen.”

“We haven’t seen any Phaendir around that are, well, whole. If there are no Phaendir—”

“There are no walls.” Cold fear fisted in her stomach. Where was her mother?

“I didn’t understand the words of the spell we chanted, but Aislinn says she did. She says the spell in the back of the Book of Bindings created a mental illusion for the Phaendir. Essentially, it took away the Phaendir’s faith in Labrai long enough for them lose their hold on the wall. She thinks when they lost the power of their hive mind and their protective magick, that’s when the sluagh and goblins moved in.”

She looked around, still seeing the sluagh wandering. “But the sluagh is still here.” A seed of hope for her mother bloomed. “If—”

Niall shook his head. “The Summer Queen is still alive. They’re waiting for her protective shields to falter.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wish you would stop saying that.”

“I wish I had other words to use. Better ones.” He pulled her against him and wrapped his warm, strong arms around her. She closed her eyes. “I don’t.”

“Elizabeth! Niall!” It was the Shadow Queen’s voice.

They turned to find the crowd in front of the Unseelie Queen part, everyone looking at them. The only person Elizabeth saw was Thea, who stood at the base of the statue. The moment Elizabeth recognized her, she broke away from Niall and ran toward her. “Mom!”

She came to a skidding halt, flying into her mother’s arms. Thea embraced her, holding her close. It took everything for Elizabeth not to sob. Her mother didn’t need that extra emotional weight on her right now. She had more than enough to bear as it was.

“Elizabeth,” her mother whispered. “The walls have fallen. I can feel it.” There was happiness in her voice instead of the grief and fear she would have expected.

Elizabeth raised her head and took a step backward. Her mouth worked, but she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Her mother’s gaze met hers and there was sadness there. “It’s time. The sprae are starting to leave.”

A moment later Elizabeth’s eye was caught by a twinkling. Elizabeth looked around her, staring into the sky. Lights flickered and twinkled all over the city as the sprae rose. She backed away, turning in a circle. “No,” Elizabeth breathed. “Don’t go.” Fisting her hands at her sides until her fingers ached, she watched helplessly as they went no matter her wishes on the subject.

Oh, sweet Lady, this is not fair.

Her mother came to stand beside her, watching them leave.

A strong hand squeezed her shoulder. She looked up to see that Niall was there, with a hand not only on her shoulder, but one on Thea’s as well.

Shoving off his touch, she whirled. “You don’t get to be here, Niall. This is your fault.”

The accusation wasn’t fair and she knew it, but she needed her anger right now. Rage rose up within her and she embraced it, wrapped herself in it like armor. It was better than feeling grief and fear, better than the dread of the certainty she was about to watch her mother die right in front of her.

Thea bristled. “Stop it, Elizabeth! You’re making things worse than they need to be.”

She turned toward her mother, fighting tears. “I’m not the type to just accept the inevitable.”

“You are a fighter, but you have to know when to bend during winds of change. If you can’t bend, you’re going to snap in two. Everything changes, my girl. You have to learn to let go.” Thea looked at Niall. “You’ll be there to catch her, won’t you, Niall? You love her. I can see that. No matter what she says, what accusations she hurls,
you love her
.”

Niall’s gaze had fastened on Elizabeth’s face. “More than anything.”

“She loves you, too,” Thea answered. “Don’t let her run away from you.”

Niall smiled, his face softening and his eyes filling with love. Elizabeth’s resolve wavered. “I don’t scare that easy,” he said. “Don’t worry, Thea.”

Elizabeth looked between them. They were ganging up on her, not allowing her the rage that comforted her in the face of what was to come. Thea stood in the middle of the square, the Black Tower smoking behind her, face upturned to the afternoon sky and a small smile playing around her mouth. Snowflakes fell gently onto her cheeks. All around them the sprae rose, like embers of a fire, swirling into the air and taking her life force with her. Still, Thea seemed calm—at peace.

If her mother couldn’t be mad at Niall over this…how could she?

Elizabeth let out a long, slow breath and closed her eyes. The rage leaked out of her body, little by little. It was like transforming into her water self—giving in, surrendering. Letting go. Flowing.

“Elizabeth.”

Her eyes opened to see Thea swaying on her feet. Niall was there, catching her before she fell. He lowered her to the cobblestones.