dreams.
“No.” Martin plucked a strand of grass and let it flutter out of his fingers, falling to the ground, as he studied the pond where the ripples were slowly fading. “Not unless we have some crazy-brave leman who wants to rescue her lover.”
“Or some crazy-dumb kelpie who thinks he can just march into the preter court and demand answers.”
He looked away from the pond long enough to give her a wry, self-mocking little grin.
“No, AJ doesn’t want to send anyone back there,” he said. “But he doesn’t want what we learned to be forgotten, either. You know that. They’ve been quiet for so long, trapped by the old restrictions, the difficulties in luring people into their grasp, that all we had were folk songs and legends. We need actual information to protect ourselves. Ourselves and humans. Firsthand reporting should last us another couple of generations before it’s out-of-date again,” Jan couldn’t argue with that. Humans only knew preternaturals and supernaturals as fairy tales, children’s stories, not real. They hadn’t been prepared, weren’t prepared for the truth. The weight of knowing kept her from sleeping, filling her dreams with worst-case scenarios and crushing guilt.
He rolled onto his side and studied her. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. It’s just... This morning I woke up, and it was the same as it had been every morning since we got back. That first rush of energy, when everything seemed like it was finally making sense, that we knew what to do, do you remember? It’s gone. I can hear the clock ticking in my head, and we’re getting nowhere.”
Martin started to say something, a faint noise of protest, and let it trail off, unable to muster an argument, because she was right.
“No matter what we do to warn people, there are still going to be idiots who say sure, let’s run off with a stranger, give over our free will—” and she hated the bitterness, the anger that was in her voice but she didn’t have to pretend here “—there will always be enough idiots that they’ll be able to keep opening portals. And we don’t know how they’re doing it or how to close them. I don’t think we can figure it out.”
“Your team...”
“Good people. Smart people.” And never mind that most of them weren’t people at all, not in the human sense, but she’d gotten past that weeks ago. “But this is so far beyond us, it’s like...” Her hands waved in the air, signifying her frustration. “We’ve got theories, but that’s all. And AJ’s plan to find the runaway queen, use her to force them to leave us alone...it was a good idea, but they’ve gotten nowhere, too. AJ said the most recent tip didn’t pan out. We’re out of time, Martin.”
If this new magic the preters were using to open the portals was based on tech, or somehow influenced by it, they needed to understand how in order to stop it. And this morning’s meeting had once again established that they didn’t and couldn’t. Maybe it was a thing only preters could see, could understand. At this point, Jan wasn’t ruling anything out.
The portals were the means, but they weren’t the cause. Preters had always stolen humans, had always meddled, but they’d never hated before, not like this. Jan remembered her contest of wills back Under the Hill, in the other realm, and shivered a little. The preter queen had used knowledge of the portals to flee into this world and disappear, leaving her court and consort behind. That had been what had triggered this new behavior, their anger at this realm—their anger at humans.
The portals were the means, but the queen was the missing piece, the trigger and the solution.
“We need to find her,” Jan said. “And we need to find her now.”
Martin rolled over onto his back, looking up at the sky, but his hand reached out and gathered hers, fingers folding together. “So we will,” he said, his confidence unshakeable. “You just have to come up with a clever plan.”
Despite herself, despite or maybe because of the tension stretching her almost too tight to breathe, Jan laughed. And that was why she loved him, because he said things like that and meant them. “Right. I’ll get right on that, then.”
Chapter 2
The Lady Nalith, once queen of the Court Under the Hill and now in chosen exile, was satisfied—finally—with the workman’s efforts. She ran her fingers over the tangle of cords, then along the gleaming rim of the screen, careful not to touch the screen itself; she had no desire to interfere with the display, and even the faintest ghost of her fingertips could do that, she had been told.
“Remarkable,” she said, her voice almost a satisfied purr. “Not even in my old court was there magic of this quality.”
“It’s a plasma display, millions of these tiny cells between the glass,” the human began to say before being cut off by a sharp gesture with her other hand. She did not care what means the creature used. Her concern was not with the conveyance, but what it conveyed.
She stepped away from the screen and seated herself on the love seat, reclining back as though it were a throne, if one far more comfortable than any she had occupied before. On the newly installed screen in front of her, the figures moved and spoke, breaking into music and dance in seemingly random and yet perfect moments.
Opera, one of her new courtiers had told her. This was called opera. She did not understand the things the figures said, the clothes they wore, or the story that was being told, even after all these months of watching, but it did not matter. She could sit and watch and be enthralled by the display on the screen.
It amazed her, still, that in a world where so many were unaware of magic, unable to touch it, they could still create such things, almost carelessly, without notion of what they did. To pull wonder from nothing, beauty from despair, agony from mere thought...
Her consort would have scoffed to call this magic. Her former consort, she amended, eyes narrowing. Unworthy of her. He—all of them, those she’d left behind—had been blind, trapped. Only she could see. This new world, the wonders it provided. All hers now. And she would not share.
She rested her hand, fingers splayed across her chest, feeling the odd flare within. She had been cold for so long, she had almost not recognized the change when it came, had not understood what it was. Had not realized how much she longed for it, she who had longed for nothing before.
Her hold on this world was slight for now, still, but it would grow. Slowly, carefully, her presence a beacon for those who would fill her court, serve her whims. And the fire within her would grow, until it warmed her entirely.
“This is connected to the internetting?” she asked, tilting her head to follow the wires that disappeared into a hole drilled in the wall and from there she knew not where.
“It is.” The human opened his mouth to say something else and then reconsidered, properly gauging her mood. He was enthralled but no fool.
Two human-creatures had come to install this internetting the first day she’d taken possession of the house. She had thought this one amusing and useful, and cast a glamour that he would return. Once he did, she had tightened her hold, binding him to her. He was old but strong, and his eyes were a pale, pale blue that made his skin seem ever paler. His graying hair and lined face should have repelled her, but this, too, in this world, instead fascinated her. Age and weakness...humans accepted them so casually, fought them so fiercely. It fascinated her as much as their creativity did.
In the old days Under the Hill, creative humans had been prized slaves, gems jealously hoarded. They were so fragile, their brilliance so brief, wasted on such short-lived, shortsighted creatures. Still, they were useful, then and now.
“You may sit,” she told the human, noticing that he was still standing by the screen, awaiting her next comment. He nodded, arranging himself on the low cushions by her feet, still tense from her reprimand. Nalith sighed. Fragile and far too sensitive. She let one hand rest on his shoulder to tell him that she was pleased with his work and there was no need to be afraid.
When