Page 63 of Invidia

I fell silent as Selene, my superior, ran past me looking frantic, grabbing my arm on the way and dragging me with her.

“What is it?” I asked, alarmed by her frenetic demeanor. Selene was always calm under pressure.

“Austin. Austin has gone through to the human realm, I can feel it through the mating bond.” She paused in what must have been the through point, but we could both sense that it was flooded with light on the other side. “He was visiting with Tallulah earlier.”

My entire body went cold. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t put it together until afterward. That you two were the couple everyone was talking about.”

“Yes,” I rasped, confident that everything that had been said was terrible.

“I can’t pass through realms, I’m pregnant.” Selene didn’t give much away, but the despair in her voice was clear if you were paying close attention. “Even if I could, wherever he’s being kept is flooded with light.”

“We’ll find some darkness, there has to be some. And once we do, I’ll go through.”

She nodded. “Thank you. But first, go to Elverston House and check if Tallulah is there. I suspect not, but…”

I suspected not, too. The persistent bad feeling that had been niggling at the back of my mind wasn’t lessening.

“Does the king know?”

“He’ll need an update. Elverston House, update the palace, then come back here,” Selene instructed.

I nodded once before sprinting for the portal outside the palace, shouting instructions at a few members of the Guard as I went.

As much as I wanted to think there was no way Tallulah could have gotten past without me noticing, the chaos had been the perfect cover.

I sprinted for Elverston House as fast as my legs could carry me, conscious that it had been a while since I’d fed, and I wasn’t at my strongest. In any other situation, it might have been disastrous, but my terror for Tallulah and the baby was more than enough to keep me moving.

Elverston House looked dark and imposing as I ran up the path, ignoring the boundary line that had been set for Shades.

“Tallulah!” I yelled the moment I was inside. I jogged straight up the stairs, inhaling deeply for any trace of negative emotions that may have lingered, and finding nothing.

There was an odd scent in the air though, something I couldn’t quite place. Something… unpleasant. Unnatural.

I followed it to a cupboard upstairs and yanked open the door, stumbling backward in shock, when I realized I was staring into the in-between. Or at least, a path to it.

How could this be? There was no entry room built into Elverston House, or into anyone’s house, for that matter.

As much as it didn’t make sense, the evidence in front of my eyes was irrefutable. Though, even as I watched, the caspite seemed to be dissipating in the orb light that was coming through from the corridor behind me, which wasn’t something that happened in regular entry rooms. This was… artificial, somehow.

Unnerved, I checked all the upstairs rooms for inhabitants, finding them empty, and lingering in Tallulah’s room for a few extra moments until the aching pain in my chest subsided.

Austin was definitely in the human realm, and the fact that he was in a bright room surrounded by light on all sides suggested he was being held prisoner there. If Tallulah had been with him then, I was almost certain she still was now, but I did a sweep of the downstairs anyway before rushing to the palace, hoping against all hope that she was there.

Neither of them would just leave. Neither would go voluntarily. Perhaps, I might have assumed the worst once and thought Tallulah would do anything to get away from me, but not anymore.

The newcomers had to have something to do with this.

The palace was in uproar, with most of the court crowding into the dining hall, though it seemed more by chance than through organization.

“Evrin!” Meera said, grabbing my arm and looking up at me with panicked eyes. “I can’t find Tallulah.”

I nodded curtly, the reality of the situation settling in. Fortunately, the king and queen pushed through the crowd to get to me at that moment, so I didn’t have to explain everything twice.

“Austin is in the human realm. Selene can follow the mating bond to his general location, but it’s a brightly lit area with no obvious entry point. He was visiting Tallulah earlier today.” Meera sucked in a shocked breath. “I went to Elverston House to verify it for myself, and there seems to be some kind of temporary entry room inside a supply closet, though the caspite was vanishing even as I stood there watching it.”

I’d expected them to be as baffled by this phenomenon as I was, though of course, they had access to information that I didn’t.

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