Page 59 of Ties of Bargains

They’d survived the perils of the Fae Realm together. Perhaps, together, they could survive the confrontation waiting for them in the Realm of Monsters.

Standing between them wearing her harness and leash, Daisy licked their clasped hands, nuzzling their hands with her nose as she begged for a scratch.

“See? Daisy will take care of both of us. We’ll be fine.” Harm grinned and reached around to awkwardly scratch Daisy rather than let go of Val’s hand.

Val gave Daisy a scratch with the hand that held the dog’s leash, but she couldn’t match Harm’s smile.

Instead, she tugged her hand free of Harm’s, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the threefold cord. She held out one end to Harm. “We’ll need to put this back on.”

“I’ve missed being tied to you with a magical rope.” His grin never wavering, Harm took the end of the offered cord.

“Well, I certainly haven’t trusted you farther than ten feet from me here in the Fae Realm.” Val held up her own end of the cord. “You’re liable to be eaten by a giant sand crab or something the moment my back is turned.”

“Too true.” Harm loosened his end of the cord. “Together?”

“Together.” Val slid the cord over the wrist with the cuff at the same time as Harm did his. She tried to remind herself that they, most likely, could get the cord off again as easily as they had the day before.

But she still couldn’t stop the tightness in her stomach, a guilt she’d never felt before at placing that cord on another’s wrist. Even if he’d placed it on himself this time.

She was done with all of this. Done with holding another person captive. Done with squashing the niggling feeling in her chest that what she was doing was wrong.

It was time she did something right for a change.

“So what happens now?” Harm gestured at the sand dunes stretching before them.

While it wasn’t necessary with the cord stretching between them again, Val clasped his hand again, tightened her grip on Daisy’s leash, and set out down the ridge toward the shimmers and shadows that moved in ripples across the dunes before them. “Now we step through one of those patches of shadows into the Realm of Monsters. The barrier between the realms is thin here. Those shimmers lead to the Human Realm while the shadows are rifts into the Realm of Monsters. It’s why we had such a problem with monsters last night.”

Harm grimaced and sidestepped to avoid the edge of one of the shimmers. “Do the monsters ever get into the Human Realm here?”

“All the time.” Val shrugged as she tugged him around another shimmer. “The desert human kingdoms aren’t as peaceful and monster-free as Tulpenland.”

“Remind me never to travel to a desert kingdom even in the Human Realm. Or, at least”—Harm grinned and swung their clasped hands—“not without you and Daisy to protect me.”

Val would have come up with a quip back, but a black rift opened up before them. “Time to go. This will hurt a bit.”

Then she dragged Harm into the rift.

Darkness closed around Harm,shredding his skin, his mind, his deepest self, like the claws of some beast. He tried to stumble forward, but he felt as if he was somehow outside of his body, not sure what way to go or if directions even existed anymore in this nothingness of blackness and pain.

Then Val’s grip on his hand tightened, and he was dragged from the darkness into a scorching, gray desert. He dropped to his knees in the dry sand of the Realm of Monsters, gasping and patting at his chest, half-expecting to have his hand come away bloody. But no, the only blood on his shirt was old and dried.

Daisy whined and pressed against Val’s legs, the dog’s tail tucked beneath her belly.

Val let go of Harm’s hand, reached down, and scratched Daisy’s head. “That will be the second to last time we do that, girl.”

“That was…awful.” Harm climbed to his feet and brushed off his trousers, pretending he wasn’t shaken to his core. He touched his arm, checking that the sheath with the iron knife remained safely in place. Iron knives, it seemed, couldn’t go in magical pockets, as iron counteredfeeënmagic. “Is it like that every time?”

“Yes. There’s a reason fae only live in the Realm ofMonsters if they are forced to do so.” Val didn’t reach for Harm’s hand. At the moment, they could be nothing but captive and mercenary. “Come.”

A desert similar to the one they’d left behind stretched before them. Except that here the landscape burned far hotter, even though there didn’t appear to be a sun in the charcoal-gray sky.

At least the desert they’d left behind had sun-bleached green brush, deeper green cacti, and roadrunners dashing after skittering lizards, a place bursting with life despite the heat.

The desert before them was truly dead. Any plant life was black and rotting while the only movement was from the occasional monster scuttling through the shadows.

Val stalked into the dead desert, a hand on the hilt of her knife, her other hand gripping Daisy’s leash. Harm stuck close to her side, swallowing back his unease.

After a short trek, they came to the edge of a canyon. Below, a cluster of huts constructed of random bits of wood and animal hides filled the canyon. Gray and black smoke wafted from the various fires while the figures offeeënmercenaries strode between the shelters.

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