Reluctant Adept: Book Three of A Clairvoyant's Complicated Life (32 page)

That's odd.

Maybe our connection was more like the one I, along with all the tenants in my building, shared with the djinn. The djinn were incorporeal. They didn't have blood to share. So, instead, each tenant was bound to the djinn's circle, essentially becoming one of their summoners.

Now that I thought about it, this made a lot of sense. Caiside and I weren't blood-bound to each other, per se. We were each bound, individually, to the
ríutcloch
.

With that in mind, I directed my will at the talisman, calling on Caiside in the same way I called the djinn and was instantly rewarded with the subsonic tremor of a connection.

Caiside?

The response I received was baffling and it took me several seconds to figure out why.

First of all, unlike my communication with Tíereachán, I had zero sense of the speaker's emotions. It was a bit like receiving a text message, except instead of reading the words on a bright screen, they streamed directly into my brain. Once I got past that weirdness, I realized he was speaking Silven. And by the speed of his words, he was anxious to know why I wasn't responding.

I hope you speak English,
I thought to him.
Otherwise this is going to be a short conversation
.

Haltingly, the following words came to me:
You? Or is this yet … another cruel dream? Do you … torment me … spirit?

Spirit? I'm no spirit. My name is Lire and I'm with several people who are concerned about you. They think you're being held prisoner somewhere. Is that true?

Right about the time I'd decided to repeat my question, his response came to me:
Udh, tani hessio … antìgaid nunn. But it cannot be. Nothing pierces the enebráig. You are a figment. Begone … drogleum. Cease tormenting me.

Caiside, in English, please. I don't understand Silven,
I reminded him.
Where are you? Do you need help? Is someone holding you prisoner?

But all I got in response was more Silven with several words repeated over and over, as if he was chanting something.

"What does
drogleum
mean?" I asked the room at large.

"Dream," Kieran offered.

"More like a bad dream," Tíereachán corrected, "Or spirit."

Kim nodded. "Agreed."

"What about
enebráig
?"

Kieran's pinched gaze flicked to Tíereachán and he uttered something in Silven.

Tíereachán frowned. And he wasn't alone in that response. Everyone who understood Silven looked either alarmed or displeased or both.

Before I could get an English explanation, Fisk volunteered something that was no doubt contentious because the room exploded in a riot of raised voices, everyone to my right talking at once, so that, even if they hadn't all been speaking in another language, it still would have been difficult to make heads or tails of the conversation.

As I slipped my glove back on, Alex leaned over to speak to me.
"It doesn't matter if he thinks you're a dream. You spoke to him. Bring him here. He'll realize you're for real when you grab him. He's not stupid. He'll know you're helping him."

After turning the idea over in my mind, I couldn't argue with it. My reason for not bringing Caiside here, earlier, was because I didn't want to nab him without warning. But now that I'd spoken to him through the necklace, Alex was probably right. As soon as Caiside felt my magic, he'd realize I wasn't a dream. I was real and I intended to help him. And, if this ended up being a huge misunderstanding, if he wasn't a prisoner, I could send him back. No harm, no foul.

Given my understanding of the situation, it seemed like a reasonable conclusion at the time. So, in my defense, it's not as though I acted without thought, okay?

It was afterward, when I was dazed by nausea and the stifling atmosphere, that I realized my mistake.

Of course, by then, it was too late.

Using the
ríutcloch
, I reached through the
conduit to wrap my magic around Caiside, feeling the echo of my decisive efforts reflected back through our connection as I deftly cataloged his body. I thought it was strange that I could feel my own magic traipse over my skin as I applied it to him, but dismissed it as a side effect of our mutual connection through the beacon.

Moments later, when I had his body wholly within my grasp, his resonance chiming through my mind, I yanked him toward me, intending to drop him behind Alex's chair.

Bizarrely, my world heaved and spiraled in response, constricting down to a blurred point at the center of my vision. Feeling weightless, Tíereachán's aggrieved bellow resounded in my ears and sliced through my mind before darkness consumed me, instantaneously severing our connection.

It all happened so fast, I didn't even have time to gasp.

I flew sideways in absolute darkness before striking a cool, hard surface. I landed skewed, my shoulder hitting first, preventing a more painful and potentially serious blow to my head. As it was, pain shot up the side of my neck and the wind whooshed out of me. Still spinning from an inexplicable force, my body whipped over to my stomach and my left arm twisted cruelly up behind my back. A monstrous weight fell on me, crushing me flat.

Blinking against the dizziness and struggling to get air, I came to my senses, prone and restrained, the cause of my confinement breathing heavily against the side of my face. He spoke sharply, his foreign words coarse yet musical, right next to my ear.

Oh my God! What the hell is happening?

I reached for my magic, desperate to get away from this surprise attack and found …

… nothing.

No power.

No magic.

No escape.

It felt distinctly as though I'd fallen backward, butt first, to find that my chair had dematerialized when I wasn't looking.

Still ranting incomprehensibly, the man on my back yanked my wrist harder, sending an agonizing jolt of pain all the way up my arm and through my shoulder.

Sobbing, I cried out, "Stop! God! Please stop!"

To my shock, my attacker did. In fact, he released me.

Woozy, I managed to roll over and come to my knees. I slumped, bracing my hands on the cool floor. Everything felt sickeningly off kilter. I tried to pop my ears, but the futile effort didn't alleviate the odd pressure inside my head. It took more than a minute of taking deliberate, steady breaths before the feeling of nausea passed. When I was pretty sure I wouldn't throw up, I eased back to sit on my heels, smoothed my disheveled hair out of my eyes, and got my first clear look around me.

The conference room was gone. In its place, I knelt in a cavernous, sparsely furnished, monochromatic room. Oddly, there were no windows and, stranger still, everything, including the floor, walls, ceiling, small table, single utilitarian chair, bookcase, and unadorned bed were all carved from a creamy yellow stone that reminded me of limestone. If there were doors or windows, they weren't apparent. The room was dimly lit, every surface seeming to radiate a subtle glow, giving the impression that I'd been confined to a stone bubble that floated inside a sea of light.

A male sidhe, the room's sole occupant, stood in front of the massive bed staring at me with an expression that could only be described as enraged puzzlement. As soon as I laid eyes on him, I realized what had happened.

Somehow, when I attempted to yank Caiside to Earth, I'd been pulled into his world instead.

It had to be. Like the figure I'd examined with my TK, this man was tall and thin. He was at least as tall as Fisk, but where Fisk was a solid wall of muscle, Caiside appeared almost ethereal. Of course, it was all relative. After feeling the whole of him on top of me, I knew this guy was no featherweight. He wore beige drawstring pants and nothing else. No shirt. No shoes. His smooth skin was paler than the stone that surrounded us, making the defined muscles of his slender torso appear even more chiseled than they might have otherwise. When my gaze made it to his face, his blue eyes were narrowed with suspicion as he examined me with a keenness equal to my own.

"Well, there goes my theory that sidhe are genetically incapable of having curly hair," I said, eying his long brown ringlets as I indecorously wobbled to my feet. "Although, I guess the jury's still out on copious body hair. Or anything but perfect, luminous skin."

My inane comment earned me his perplexed frown, but even scowling, the man was beautiful. Of course, that went without saying when it came to the sidhe.

Staring at him, I rubbed my wrist and rotated my neck and shoulder, relieved to discover I'd suffered nothing worse than some bruises.

"Human, you may dispense with your pathetic attempts at seduction," he said, his voice sounding rustier than a dilapidated chain-link fence. He cleared his throat and, gesturing dismissively, he croaked, "Alone one season or twenty, it matters little. Your charms do not entice. Inform Evgrenya, her newest ploy, while somewhat … interesting, will not— " Eyes widening, his mouth snapped shut, cutting off his haughty command.

He charged toward me, faster than I'd have expected a lanky six-foot-four man to move, his expression fierce. "How did you come by this?" he demanded, his ragged voice echoing through the cavernous space, as he, none too subtly, made a grab for the pendant hanging between my breasts.

Pressing the pendant protectively to my chest, I darted to the side, barely escaping his ham fist. "Keep the hell off me. Where are your manners?" I backed away, putting more than a body length between us. "Alex gave it to me. He also said you were smart enough to figure out that I'm trying to help you." I looked him up and down. "Apparently, he was wrong. I swear to God, when I get back home, I am kicking that vampire's ass into next week."

He froze. "Alexei? He … still lives?" His expression turned pained, and I wanted to slap myself for being so bitchy. It was starting to look as though he really was here against his will, held hostage by Evgrenya, judging by his earlier comment.

"Yes. And he's worried about you. I think he's been worried for a long time, but it took him a while to find someone he could trust to use this." I opened my palm, allowing the pendant to hang freely.

He shook his head, his eyes growing shiny with emotion. "All these years … and he is yet more honorable than any sidhe."

"Yeah, well …" I glanced around the room uncomfortably, giving him a chance to compose himself. "I'm glad to hear you say that because I'm pretty sure we're dealing with a worst case scenario here, and he swore to do something for me in case that happened."

I searched my mind for my link to Tíereachán, but not surprisingly, found nothing.

Fasten your seat belt Dorothy, 'cause Kansas just went bye-bye.

Musing on the all too appropriate
Matrix
movie quote, I spun on my heel to more thoroughly examine my surroundings. Unfortunately, the effort left me no closer to spotting a way out. "I swear, one of these days I'm going to learn my freaking lesson. No good deed goes unpunished."

"You should not have come," Caiside announced.

"Tell me something I don't know," I groused, meeting his gaze. "No offense to you or this lovely locale, but I wasn't planning to show up here at all. What I
tried
to do was use my magic to pull you through this thing's
conduit"—I flicked the pendant— "but per goddamned usual, instead of a rescue, I'm dealing with yet another clusterfuck."

At his shocked expression, I added, "Pardon my French."

He blinked at me. "Mademoiselle, your manner of speech is almost as …
remarkable
as your dress." He scanned me up and down and marveled, leaving little doubt that 'remarkable' was a polite way of saying 'scandalous.' "You are no figment, my imagination could not have conjured such a thing. You are
Anóen
. It must be so for Alexei to bestow the
ríutcloch
."

My brows went up. Had he concluded, in his raspy but no less cultured accent, that I must be real because of my coarse words and distressed skinny jeans?

"You think
I'm
bad," I muttered. "Just wait until you get a load of Fisk and his Bowie knife."

He straightened. "Lord Fisk? You speak of … Lord Jonathan Fisk?"

"Lord?" I think my jaw bounced a few times after hitting the floor. I almost laughed until the implication of our exchange penetrated my dense brain.

Caiside had been here for over a century.

Unlike Fisk and the others, he hadn't experienced the gradually changing times or seen his compatriots reinvent themselves as the years went by.

I sure had a difficult time imagining Fisk in the role of a titled lord, though.

"I think you'll find things have changed a lot while you've been here. The John Fisk I know isn't a lord. He's a— " I pressed my lips together, resisting the urge to say something unflattering and admitted, "I'm not the best person to ask, but I will say, he's a good guy to have on your side in a fight."

I cocked my head to the side, studying him. "So it's true—what the amhaín and the others suspect. You've been here for a long time … held prisoner by Evgrenya? She's been— " I snapped my teeth together as heat rushed to my cheeks. "Does King Faonaín know? Is he involved in this despicable scheme too?"