I scanned the gloom between the trees seeing nothing but…gloom. “Um, Ursula…?” And then I spotted it, a slender sliver of light cutting a vertical path through the air.
“You see it, don’t you?” The witch asked.
Yeah, I saw it. “What is that?”
“A rift,” Ursula said. “We believe it leads to the fae realm and the missing human children.”
“It’s a wild and dangerous place,” the witch said. “A dangerous place. Not for the likes of us.” She shook her head quickly. “Witches are defenseless over there.” She looked warily at the rift and shuddered. “Those poor children. They must be so scared.”
A fresh prickle ran over my skin, and an icy hand gripped the back of my neck. I looked to Ursula. “You want us to go through there, don’t you?”
Ursula winced. “Actually, I need you to go through. Alone.”
Now, I was no coward, but I also wasn’t a fool. “You want me to go into a wild, dangerous place where I’ll be defenseless, alone?”
Ursula gripped my hands and looked at me earnestly. “Do you honestly think I’d ask you to do this if I thought you’d be defenseless?”
“Okay, either I’m hearing things, or you’re chatting shit.”
“Witches can’t use their magic in the fae realm,” Ursula said. “Regular, normal witches…” She gave me a pointed look. “You’re no normal witch, Cora. I’ve seen you bypass wards, and your access to miasma needs no coven bond.”
The teacher’s gaze flicked up to mine in shock.
Yep, my existence wasn’t common knowledge. Neither were my abilities. Only a select few knew, and it looked like this independent witch was now amongst that number. Thanks, Urs.
“You’ll be able to use your power,” Ursula said. “I know you will.”
Yeah, I would, but not for the reasons she believed. My power didn’t have the same restrictions as theirs because it didn’t all come from miasma. The majority came from somewhere else, somewhere that only a handful of witches had access to. But I didn’t want to dwell on that, or the responsibilities that came along with it. I’d made a decision not to go down that road months ago.
“That isn’t normal,” the witch said.
Yeah, I was no normal anything. I was a tulpa with access to the miasma that witches used and something more. I was a witch created, not born. I was an anomaly, and there were children at risk that needed saving.
Time to don the cape.
I unclasped the amulet from around my neck and handed it to Ursula. I couldn’t afford for my power to be muted in the fae realm. “Keep this safe until I get back.”
It was time to head into the creepy rift.
Chapter Three
The rift winked at me, taunting me to come take a look-see, and the logistics of the task ran through my head.
“How big is this place, and how will I find the children?” I turned to Ursula. “I mean, it’s been two days. Whoever took them has a huge head start.”
“Time used to run faster in their realm,” Ursula said. “But something’s broken, and now their time runs parallel to ours. The children won’t have been taken too far. They’ll need time to adjust to the fae realm, so they’re probably camping out close to the rift.”
“Adjust?”
“They take babies and children because the young are mutable. The fae realm can literally alter them, but some reject the change, and in those cases, they’re returned to this side, mutated and unrecognizable.”
“You clear up the mess?”
“We haven’t had to for decades,” she said. “I mean, there was no way for us to save the children—not until now.”
Not until me. “I don’t understand why they’d take human children if they’re going to alter them anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Ursula said. “The fae realm has been a mystery to us for the longest time, and the fae that move to our world are pretty closed lipped about it.”
I knew what she meant. I’d tried talking to Leana about it a couple of times and bam, shut down. “And yet you seem to know a hell of a lot about it.”
She blushed. “I have a source.”
Wait. “Are you dating a fae?”
Ursula pulled a pouch from her pocket. “Drop one of these every few meters to mark your path and lead you back to the rift.”
I peered into the pouch at the white seeds inside. “Breadcrumbs?”
“Better. These won’t get eaten. Trust me, Solaris swears by them.”
“Solaris, huh? And when do I get to meet him?”
“Her,” she said. “And soon.”
I gripped the pouch, gave Ursula a jaunty salute, then strode into the rift.
I’d gone through a rift before, into an awful evil place called the Eye. It was the reason I’d bonded with Jasper. I’d needed him for that trip, but this, I could do alone. Heck, not like I had a choice.
My skin pricked like a thousand needles were having a stab, and then I was in a dark forest, not much different from the one I’d left, except the air here was sickly sweet, like gone off fruit, and it felt thicker as it navigated my lungs.
My boots were planted firmly on a dirt track, a path hewn by obvious foot traffic, and yep, there were three pairs of tiny shoe prints pressed into the earth and another set of barefoot prints with large, splayed toes. I bet it was a bitch to find boots that fit those feet.
But this was a bingo moment for me.
A nice little trail to follow.
I dropped a seed and looked over my shoulder at the silver slash in the world.
I’ll be back, Way Out. “Okay, fae fuckers, where are you?”
I set off along the path, eyes flicking from the footprints to the edge of the track where shit could be lurking, waiting to pounce. This place looked normal, but it felt whacked out and off. My gut squirmed, and it took everything in me to keep moving forward. Six seed drops later, the sound of music drifted through trees to my left, and sure enough, the shoe prints veered off that way.
Was this another call for a bingo? I was about to find out.
I dove into the brush, leaving the path behind. Branches tried to scratch my face, but I batted them away, following the strange, haunting melody that left an ache in my belly. The silvery rays of moonlight that had been lighting my way were blocked by the leafy canopy above. I dropped another seed and then another as the music grew louder. Light flickered up ahead between the trees—the flames from a campfire.
This had to be a bingo, surely.
The urge to make a jump and shift into the clearing up ahead was an itch at the base of my skull, but my instincts warned me to minimize the use of my power here, to only employ it if absolutely necessary.
The music and the crackle and pop of the fire masked the sounds of my approach, then the clearing was visible through the trees. Three small shapes sat huddled together, eyes heavy with sleep. The human children. They looked so tiny and fragile, and kind of eerie with firelight dancing across their cherubic faces.
Another figure sat across from them with its back to me, but I caught sight of long gray hair and a green flat-cap. He prodded the flames periodically, making them jump and dance.