“There’s a lock,” Sara pointed out.
Tristan took the padlock in his palm and closed his eyes.
Tabitha knew these guys were supposed to be magical. Sara had explained all about how she had rescued Dorian from the enchanted mirror.
Tabitha had felt the magic herself, and had even seen a fae creature trapped in a piece of that mirror in the middle of a stormy midnight.
But something about watching the padlock spring open in Tristan’s hand in the middle of an otherwise normal sunny day gave her the shivers.
“Let’s go,” he said, dropping the padlock at his feet.
The four of them headed into the shadowy entrance of the old castle. A decrepit old grandfather clock was the only thing decorating the interior. A puff of wind from the door scattered dry leaves across the black and white checkerboard floor.
Sara led the way into the conservatory, and the others followed.
“We have to work fast,” she said. “If I get caught in here, I could get into big trouble at work. We’re technically breaking and entering right now.”
“I’m not sure what we can really do, my love,” Dorian warned her.
“Let’s just take the frame off the wall,” Sara suggested. “Then we can reassemble it somewhere else. That would work, wouldn’t it?”
Dorian didn’t answer, but he did try to help her lift the frame of the mirror off the hooks that held it to the wall.
It didn’t move.
Sara stepped back and Tristan wordlessly took her place.
The two huge men tried to lift the mirror but even without most of its glass, it wouldn’t budge.
“I can grab some tools from my car,” Sara offered.
Dorian turned to her, shaking his head sadly. “The portal to Midnight is tied to the house,” he said. “The mirror won’t come off the wall. And even if it did, it wouldn’t work anywhere else.”
“It won’t?” Sara asked.
“No more than the front door would let you go anywhere if you took it out of the doorframe and put it on a wall,” Tristan said coolly.
“That’s why the whole house was moved in the first place, and not just the mirror,” Tabitha chimed in as she put it all together.
“Right,” said Dorian. “And even then, the house had to be moved somewhere special, somewhere that already held the magic needed to bridge the veil between our realms.”
Tabitha thought about what Helen Thayer had told them, about this whole area being affected by some kind of magical portal. If it was all true, then Dorian’s idea made sense.
Beside her, Sara sighed and leaned into Dorian’s chest.
He stroked her hair unconsciously as he gazed at the mirror frame, his brow furrowed.
Tristan observed them with an expression of open disgust.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tabitha said. “And I say we take out the two pieces we taped in there. That way we have the Gan Ceanach and the naiad with us even if we can’t get back in.”
“Good thinking,” Dorian said, nodding.
Tabitha watched as Sara pulled down the shards of glass and Dorian wrapped them in cloth and stowed them carefully in his pack.
The pieces of the mirror allowed them to see the view through the eyes of the creatures that had escaped when Sara had shattered the mirror and freed Dorian. Using the shards was their best hope of tracking them down before they caused too much trouble.
A few days ago, Tabitha wouldn’t have believed any of this.
The Kings of Light and Darkness were standing right in front of her, and a sense of gloom battled with the bright happiness in her heart.
But that didn’t explain the way it skipped a beat every time she thought Tristan might look her way.
Tabitha had been sure something exciting was about to happen. She was ready for an adventure, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready for this.
2
Tristan
Tristan watched his brother’s intimate interaction with his mortal queen and fought the urge to voice his displeasure.
Dorian had released him from his own frozen prison. He knew he should be grateful.
Instead, he found it impossible to concentrate in the presence of their obvious canoodling.
In Tristan’s experience, humans were fine - mostly harmless, fun to toy with. They could also be cruel in ways that were surprising if you underestimated them. But primarily, they were like animals in a petting zoo - soft and domesticated - wholly focused on their next meal and their next fuck.
They were not equal to the fae.
It sickened him to see his brother wrapped around the little finger of a creature whose existence on this earth was closer to the lifespan of a housefly than to his own.
“Penny for your thoughts,” the one called Tabitha said.
He scowled.
He wanted to be mad at his brother, but the other mortal kept distracting him. It would be easier to ream out his brother for falling for a human if he didn’t find this one so alluring.
He’d felt her essence call to him like a siren the minute he’d come into view.
It was most likely because he had been frozen for so long. All his senses were flowing, and his power seemed to be surging as well. He could feel the warmth and good nature singing between the members of their little foursome.
“I should go to my office,” Sara said. “I can try to find out why they’re locking this place down. Tabitha, maybe you can take Tristan to find some clothes?”
“I have clothes,” he said indignantly. They were nice clothes too - sturdy boots, supple leather breeches and a belt buckle with a copper wolf symbol.
“You, um, need a shirt,” Sara said politely. “And maybe some other clothing that fits in better with what humans wear nowadays.”
“Why would I want that?” he asked honestly. Taking steps to do anything more like humans sounded very unappealing to him.
“They don’t remember us in this world, brother,” Dorian said.
“Then it’s high time they were reminded,” Tristan declared.
“Humor me,” Dorian said. “Observe them first, my way, then decide.”
Tristan shrugged.
In truth, he had no reason not to let this human spend her coin on his garments. Anything to get him away from his brother.
“Take him to the Gap, by the fountain,” Dorian advised Tabitha. “There’s a squire there called Marcus who will equip him most handsomely.”
“I’m not pulling garments out of some ditch,” Tristan said.
“Oh, it is not an actual gap,” Dorian laughed. “That is the name of the merchant. And look at the pockets. These humans have clever ideas of where to put them. If you purchase cargo pants you will have even more pockets. But Sara preferred these more snug-fitting breeches.”
Dorian admired the pockets in his own trousers, Sara smiling over him like a proud mother.
“This place has made you soft and silly,” Tristan declared. “More so than usual, at any rate. I will help you recapture the creatures you recklessly tried to domesticate. But when that task is complete, I will return to our realm.”
Sara looked up anxiously at that.
Tristan wondered why she should care if he left. He was not about to offer his services as a nanny for their half-mortal spawn, if that’s what she was hoping for.