Page 67 of Samhain

“I need to talk to them. I need?—”

“Miriam…” my mother called.

“Alexei!” Marcus cried. “Save me, Alexei! Save me! I need your help.”

“C’mon.” I grabbed Lex’s hand and set off toward the left. Any second, we’d duck around a tree, and there they’d be. Instead, a big structure loomed in the distance and when we got close enough, the ruins came into focus.

We’d found it!

Mum! Da!

I skidded to a halt, digging my heels into the dirt to stop myself. Ivy and Carter had beaten us there, but that wasn’t what made me freeze. A tall, brunette woman wearing a long, flowing white gown stood in front of the structure.

Ashley.

“Welcome back,” she said, her voice holding a metallic tin-like quality that made her seem otherworldly. Her presence lured me in, seemingly safe and entrancing. “It’s been a while. Follow me.”

20

Carter

“What’s going on?” Ivy asked, trailing after Ashley. The question had been on the tip of my tongue since we rounded the bend and saw her standing in front of the same ruins where we’d once married each other.

Ashley shook her head. “This was a bad time to come asking questions, Ivy.”

Two years ago, she’d given us the orientation on Killwater and the surrounding area. I remembered the tattoo of the vines going up her arms. Now, I wanted to shake her to get her to spill her secrets. I wanted to know what her sister had done to us and how to undo it.

“You chased me in my dreams,” Ivy said.

“I did,” Ashley agreed, apparently nonchalant about the whole thing. “I’m glad to see you again, but I do wish you had come another night.”

The last time, I’d been too drunk and high to notice when we crossed over into Faerie. Now sober, I discerned the shift immediately. A strange warmth settled on my skin as my chest tightened, suddenly full of the heaviness in the air that wasn’t there before. There was no door, no portal, no jilt in the atmosphere, only the acknowledgment of the magic inside my body balancing the magic outside of it.

The world had changed, and yet…stayed mostly the same.

“What do you want with us?” Ivy asked, bringing me back to the conversation.

“That ring, for starters,” she said. “When you leave here, you’ll hand it over and never return to look for it.”

Ivy raised her eyebrow as if to suggest, That’s what you think.

“It’s a key to the portal between realms,” Ashley said, scowling as she glanced over her shoulder. “My sister and I created it together. She was never meant to give it to you.”

“Where is Siobhan?” Ivy said. “I need to talk to her.”

“Hmm. Gone.”

“Gone?” Lex glanced between me and Miri.

“After she cast the gift on you four, she was banished from Faerie,” Ashley explained, a hint of despondent sadness in her tone. That didn’t sound good. “Fae aren’t supposed to meddle. Not anymore.” She shrugged and frowned. “I love my sister, but she always was a sucker for a damsel in distress.”

“Hey,” Ivy balked. “I wasn’t a damsel in distress.”

Ashley raised an eyebrow and pursed her pixie lips. “She overheard your sob story and after that, she couldn’t leave you alone. She said you were important.”

“How?” I asked.

“No clue.” Ashley turned and continued walking, leading us farther into the woods. “Siobhan has amazing instincts, and she’s never wrong. But the queen had forbidden it. Siobhan knew the consequences. Now, she lives with them.”

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