Page 101 of What Hunts Inside the Shadows

Tying my life to his, knowing that it would prevent me from doing the one thing I still had any sort of control over. Keeping me from fulfilling my promise to Brann.

My brother. My guardian. I didn’t know what to call him anymore.

“That shouldn’t have been your choice to make,” I said, raising a brow. I wanted to be furious with him, but I was so tired of fighting. So exhausted with pretending he didn’t make my entire world spin and believing that I should hate him simply because it was what I’d always been taught. I couldn’t hold him to human conventions, because he wasn’t human.

And neither was I.

“It is my life, Little One. I get to choose how or when I live it. I choose to do it with you for eternity.”

“We should go,” Fallon said, glancing back toward the woods where we all knew there could be more Mist Guard gathering forces, waiting for back up. Mistfell wouldn’t hold in the long run, but it was the place where all the battles between the humans and the Fae would occur.

I released Caldris’s hand, stepping toward my mother. The serpents finally slithered away, retreating into the woods and back to where they belonged. Only the one who had draped herself over my shoulders remained, coming toward me so that she could wrap around my leg and coil her way up my body to settle on on her perch once more.

“Come with us,” I said to my mother, ignoring the look of shock on her face. “His mother will give you a safe haven in Catancia, and you’ll have a comfortable life. They’ll kill you if you stay here.” I knew without a doubt it was true, that they would take one look at the only remaining survivor and know without a doubt she wasn’t entirely on their side.

Particularly with Lord Byron lying dead at the boundary, his face covered in sand as the tide washed over him.

“I never wanted to go to Faerie,” she said, looking out over the water. A single ship sailed where the waters deepened, barely visible through the cloud of mist on the water. “But I don’t suppose I have any choice but to follow you now.” There was nothing left to tie her to Mistfell. They’d killed her husband, tried to kill her only daughter. “I knew you were special from the moment I fell pregnant. I felt it within me, whatever you were stronger than any babe should be. You took everything from me, and still it wasn’t enough.” She touched her legs, the part of her I’d been told started to pain her during her pregnancy with me. “But I would give all of that and more all over again to see you grow into the woman you’ve become, Estrella.”

“What?” I asked. My mouth dropped open in shock. I’d expected her to pass judgment for the fact that I’d fallen in love with a Fae, that I’d disobeyed what Brann wished for me to have him at my side.

“Sometimes, it is far braver to love the man the world has tried to convince us is a monster. You have always wanted to carve your own path, write your own future. Now you can,” she said, patting the top of my hand with hers. Holt took up his place behind her, shifting her chair to the edge of the sea.

“How do we get to the boat?” Fallon asked, staring out at the ocean. Imelda tilted her face up to the sky and the moon shining above her head, murmuring words in the Old Tongue. The water parted, the waves shifting to the side as a channel appeared in the middle of the ocean. The Wild Hunt went first, guiding their skeletal horses through the corridor she’d created.

We followed.

44

ESTRELLA

Mist floated through my fingers. The land of Alfheimr appeared slowly, the sandy beach leading up to a grass-covered hill. Atop it, a golden gate shone in the moonlight, a fence taller than anything I’d ever seen extending to either side of the gate itself. It traveled farther than I could see to both sides, fading into the distance.

Beyond the shimmering gold, snow kissed the ground, as if what existed on one side of the barrier was one season, and what lay within another entirely.

The Winter Court.

Rocking from side to side on the waves, the boat pulled up to the enormous pier jutting out from the land and two members of the Wild Hunt grabbed onto the rope and anchor. Hooking it over the dock itself, the nearly translucent figures jumped down onto the deck. The wood creaked beneath their feet, as if it hadn’t been touched in years. “Where did the Veil fall on this side?” I asked, looking around for a place where they might have been able to reach it.

“It extended to just outside the gates,” Caldris answered, a shadow moving his face as he stared at the gleaming gold. As if he was seeing the barrier that had once existed between us.

“But that means that the Veil was thick. It always seemed to sway in the wind,” I answered, thinking of all the nights I’d wandered too close. Of all the times I’d barely been able to refrain from touching the shimmering magic.

“We believe the Veil was actually two separate barriers. One was crafted from the flesh, the other from the bone,” Holt answered, stepping away as he helped lay down the gangplank that would allow us to walk off the ship.

“The Veils of Flesh and Bone,” Caldris echoed, placing a hand on the small of my back. Imelda took Fallon’s hand, guiding the more hesitant woman toward the plank.

“But who’s flesh and bone was it?” I asked, trying not to think of the implications beyond such magic.

“My mother’s husband’s,” Caldris answered as he ground his teeth in thought. “He gave his life to the Lunar Witches so they could form the Veil. That’s all we know, and my mother has never spoken a word of what she might know about the purpose.”

“Does she know anything?” I asked, wondering if he would even know her well enough to guess.

“I doubt it. Mab tortured her for more information. If she’d known anything, she’d have told her, I think he purposefully kept it from her so she couldn’t reveal whatever it was that he knew,” he said, watching as Imelda guided Fallon down the gangplank.

The dock waited for them, and I watched as they stepped onto the structure with shaky feet. We followed, the slope of the crossing tripping me up as I tried to function past the overwhelming dread in my body.

Something was wrong. Something in me was missing.

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