The Shattered Dark (25 page)

“You’re sure a fae will be waiting?” Lee asks.

“Yes,” I say, praying I’m not lying.

We pass the warehouse. I think this is the right location, but a thin line of trees
separates the road from the bank of the river. At the speed we’re driving, I won’t
be able to see the blur in the atmosphere. Too bad Sosch isn’t here now. He’d beeline
straight for the gate and—

“There’s Aren,” I say, and my heart finally starts to beat
easily again. He’s alive and he doesn’t look hurt, thank God. He’s standing on the
bank of the river with two other fae. It’s not quite an army, but it might as well
be. Kyol is here.

Paige slams on the brake.

Unbuckling my seat belt, I say, “We have to make a run for it. Fast.”

I don’t have to tell them twice. They open their doors the same instant I do, and
we’re running, sprinting for the riverbank. I can hear the cops behind us, climbing
out of their cars and yelling at us to stop.

I’m certain I can keep ahead of them—I have a little too much experience running for
my life—but Paige doesn’t. She loses too much time looking over her shoulder. A particularly
quick cop grabs a handful of the back of her shirt.

Ten years ago, I left her at Bedfont House, and she took the blame for our escape
attempt. I won’t do the same again.

I stop so quickly the officer on my tail barrels into me. I have the foresight to
drop to a crouch, causing him to flip over me. He lands spread-eagle on the ground,
and I’m up again, sprinting toward Paige. I ram my shoulder into the cop holding her.
Paige is fighting back. She’s able to get loose. I grab her arm and pull her toward
the gate.

But we’re surrounded.

“Hands where we can see them,” a female officer yells. All the cops have their batons
out.

Light flashes in my peripheral vision. I turn that way, see Aren and Kyol step out
of two fissures just outside the cops’ circle. No one looks their direction. They’re
invisible to normal humans.

“This way,” Aren says.

I start to tell Paige to run, but she’s apparently already decided to make a move.
She leaps toward the small gap between two of the officers. The officers close in,
one raising his baton.

Aren bats the baton away when the human swings, causing it to narrowly miss Paige.
The second officer’s baton comes close to hitting me, but I duck. Then Paige and I
are outside the circle, catching up with Lee, who’s doubled back to help us.

“Go!” I yell at him, but he waits for Paige, steadies her when she trips. Then they’re
both running for Trev, who’s waiting at the riverbank.

I’m right on their heels, but an officer is nearly on top of me. I don’t slow down
or look back, but there’s a thump when he hits the ground just behind me.

“Faster, McKenzie,” Aren says. There’s no doubt the fae can keep the humans off us.
Keeping them off us without them noticing that their efforts are being sabotaged by
an invisible force is another question.

But we’re lucky. We make it almost all the way to the bank without another problem
from the cops. In fact, we’d probably make it to the gate and disappear from this
world without another hiccup if Kyol didn’t appear in front of Paige. She grabs Lee’s
arm and skids to a stop.

“They’re rebels!” she says, eyes going wide.

Shit. She knows more than I thought she did if she recognizes the
jaedra
tree etched into Kyol’s armor.

“I’m with them,” I hiss, shoving her forward.

“What?”

No time for explanations. The river is a good five feet below the bank we’re standing
on. “Jump!”

But she’s still backpedaling. Aren grabs her, yells at Trev to open a gated-fissure,
then he throws her over the edge. Her scream is cut off by a splash.

Either Lee doesn’t care whose side I’m on, or he’ll go wherever Paige does because
he jumps into the river after her without protest.

Trev goes in next. I make a move to follow them, but I’m tackled to the ground, and
not just by one person. There have to be at least three cops on top of me.

I slam my elbow back, try to raise my knee to one of their guts, but an officer punches
me. Another one slams a baton into my ribs.

My breath whooshes out of my lungs. I manage to keep fighting, to get my arms between
my chest and the man pressing his full weight against me. I shove with all my might.

And he flies off me.

I’d love to take credit for that, but Aren is there, knocking off a second cop. The
third one still has me, though. I twist, throw my hip into him, and manage to get
about half an inch away.

Flopping to my back, I bring my right knee up, prepared to ram my heel into his chin,
but fae arms close around me. I’m wrestled away from the human. We roll toward the
bank of the river, stop at the edge just long enough for the fae to press an anchor-stone
into my palm.

I close my hand around it.

Meet the fae’s eyes.

“Hold on,” Kyol tells me.

I wrap my arms around his waist and tighten my grip on the stone as he rolls us one
last time.

We go over the edge. I catch a brief glimpse of Paige splashing in the Thames beside
the gated-fissure before Kyol and I fall into the slash of light. The In-Between steals
my breath away, but the shock of the cold, empty nothingness is muted beneath another
shock.

The British officers never once saw the fae because they’re invisible to normal humans.
They’re invisible to normal humans, but Paige knew they were rebels.

Paige saw the emblem carved into Kyol’s
jaedric
armor.

Paige
saw
them.

Paige
has the Sight.

K
YOL AND I
roll into the Realm. Into Corrist. I hear a shout go up from the wall, an alarm being
raised, but the fact that we’re both still breathing tells me we’ve fissured into
a safe zone. Even if we hadn’t, Kyol is on top of me. His arms are braced on either
side of my body, caging me beneath him. They’d have to kill him before having a chance
of harming me.

Kyol doesn’t move immediately. Neither do I, mostly because the right side of my rib
cage is killing me, but also because I can’t with him positioned above me. He stares
down, and his silver eyes look bright framed by his dark hair. He’s looking into my
eyes, which is totally understandable considering my face is right under his, but
then—just for the briefest second—his gaze dips to my mouth.

Suddenly, I’m completely aware of our position, of the way the length of his body
presses against mine. My right arm is around his waist. My left grips the tight muscles
in his forearm and it’s as if my thoughts trigger my
edarratae
. Lightning licks its way into my palm, up my arm and shoulder, and I feel my face
blush with heat. I break contact immediately, but Kyol still doesn’t move. He focuses
on my eyes again, and doubt surges through me. Not doubt about Aren or the way I feel
about him, but doubt about the way Kyol
feels about me. I don’t know if he told me the truth when he said he was okay with
our breakup.

A throat clears to my left. “I can take her now.”

Aren’s voice breaks through whatever’s holding Kyol frozen. He rises off me, acknowledges
Aren with a nod, and steps back.

Aren crouches beside me. A frown creases his forehead as I slowly sit up. At first,
I think he’s searching for a reaction, trying to pick up my feelings toward Kyol.
I know it still bothers Aren, my ten-year pseudo-relationship with him. I haven’t
been able to convince Aren that I would have left Kyol even if I didn’t have Aren.
I left Kyol because I wasn’t myself when I was with him. I was careful with my thoughts,
my words, and my actions. I tried to become someone I wasn’t all because I wanted
to be worthy of him.

I don’t feel that way with Aren. If we work out, it will be because
we
work, not because we’re changing ourselves to meet the other’s expectations.

Aren doesn’t say anything about Kyol, though. Instead, he glances toward the silver
wall, then asks, “Can you make it to the palace? I shouldn’t heal you out here.”

“Do I look that bad?” I ask as I look down at myself. “Oh.”

I’m still covered in the human girl’s blood. I don’t think any of the red stains on
my clothing are mine. I have a few bumps and scrapes, bruises from being trampled
at the club, and my cheek hurts from the remnant kneeing my face, but my worst injury
is my ribs. One or two might be cracked. The officer landed a good blow with his baton
there at the end.

“I’ve had worse injuries,” I tell Aren as I stuff the anchor-stone I’m still holding
into my pocket. His gaze moves to the scar on the right side of my throat. That’s
not what I was referring to—I don’t remember the cut hurting at all, actually—but
it throbs now, and it’s difficult not to reach up to touch the raised skin. Aren put
a sword to my neck three weeks ago. We were in Lyechaban, and I think that day might
have been the last day we were enemies. He should have killed me then. The rebels
were so close to losing the war, and Lena ordered him to cut my throat if I didn’t
read Kyol’s shadows. Kyol had just captured Naito, and I was still
stubbornly defending the king, but Aren couldn’t do it. He couldn’t slide his sword
across my neck.

He swallows, and his silver eyes seem to darken with regret. They do that every time
he looks at the scar. I’ve never actually told him that I forgive him for what he
did. Maybe some part of me still holds it against him.

He offers his hand. As he’s helping me to my feet, a flash of something white in my
peripheral vision catches my attention. It’s a chaos luster on Lee’s skin. He’s standing
a few feet away. Water pools around his feet as he stares up at the wall of silver
stretching into the sky. I can tell he’s never seen it before. His eyes are wide.
He’s slightly off-balance. I’ve been in and out of the Realm enough to adjust quickly
to the difference in the atmosphere. It has a lighter touch here, almost a buoyancy
that can affect your equilibrium. It’s clear Lee isn’t accustomed to it. Has he been
to the Realm at all before?

Has Paige? I have no idea where the remnants might have kept them and…

I look around. “Where’s Paige?”

A fissure rips through the air in answer. Trev rolls out of it with my friend, my
friend who is
not
supposed to be able to see the fae. She’s soaking wet and pissed. Kyol and I fell
through Trev’s fissure before we hit the water. I don’t envy Paige or Lee, going through
the In-Between like that.

Trev tries to keep a hold on her, but she throws back an elbow, getting a lucky hit
on his chin. She almost slips free then, but Trev grabs her ankle, keeping her from
scrambling away. This time, he locks his arms around her like a straitjacket.

“Having trouble controlling your human?” Aren asks, grinning.

Trev glares back. “I was told this human didn’t have the Sight.”

Aren’s grin fades. He looks at Paige, who’s still struggling to get free. It’s obvious
she can see the fae holding her. It’s obvious she sees Aren and the rebel swordsmen
closing in on both sides of us.

Some humans with the Sight make it through their entire lives without knowing they
have it. Fae rarely stay in the
human world for an extended period of time, and when they do, they tend to keep to
rural areas, away from tech and, therefore, away from humans. But Paige has met Kyol
before. She’s met Aren. They’ve both let her see them on occasion, and she acted like
they were normal humans, like she couldn’t see their chaos lusters. There’s no way
in hell she wouldn’t have noticed the lightning.

“Paige,” Lee says, moving toward her with his hand outstretched as if to say “calm
down.”

“They’re rebels, Lee,” Paige hisses.

“I know,” he says, almost to her side. “It’s okay.”

“You know? It’s okay?” she practically snarls.

“Paige.” I walk toward her, too. I don’t know how she can see the fae, but I don’t
believe she’s lied to me all these years. “I tried to tell you before. They haven’t
been holding me captive.” Not this whole time, at least. “I’m on their side. I’m helping
them. The fae lied to—”

Lee kicks out without warning, landing his heel squarely on Trev’s chin. Trev’s head
whips back hard enough to make me wince, and Paige wiggles free.

Lee grabs her arm and pulls her to her feet. Then he spins, putting himself between
her and the fae swordsmen who’ve just arrived. His knees are slightly bent, and he’s
tense, as if he thinks he might really be able to take on the three armed fae facing
him.

“Karate?” she says, crossing her arms. “How stereotypical of you.”

“It’s
jujitsu
, Paige, and you’re welcome.”

This guy might be connected to the vigilantes, but he’s standing up for Paige. If
he doesn’t turn out to be a complete jerk, I might like him.

“They’re not going to hurt you,” I say, moving toward them. “Let’s just calm down
for a second.”