Page 31 of Mountain Man's Muse
“Can we get them back?”
“Not soon enough to save ourselves.” She hesitated. “And we’d make escape impossible for anyone else.”
His jaw worked, and she knew he was torn. But of course he would not sacrifice others for himself. “You can’t tell me the queen sprouts mushrooms from her dustbin every time she wants to mess with us humans.”
She flushed at the note of exasperation in his voice. “She has her own rings, but of course those may not be used upon pain of death.”
“Pain of death? I think we’re well past that risk, don’t you?”
She turned at the next corridor and sped into the darkness. A few wisps had caught up with them while they debated; a bad sign, since the black dogs would be following the same trail. But the faint light let them move faster.
“There are places in the faedrealii that remain the same no matter how the illusions of the court change,” she told him. “One of those will be a permanent gate, our way out.”
“Sounds like a chance.”
The featureless hallway turned sinuous, curving so that they could see neither far ahead nor far behind. The gray walls echoed with their footsteps.
From behind, the hounds bayed again, an eager note that threaded through the curves to taunt them.
Josh grimaced. “Not necessarily a good chance.”
“We’re almost there.” Adelyn pulled them around another curve.
Raze the Ruiner stood in the way, almost—but not quite—invisible in his gray robes.
Adelyn gasped. “No.”
Josh sprang ahead, spear raised.
The vizier slashed out. The wide-bladed athame shone in his hand and knocked the spear aside.
Josh staggered toward the wall but instantly whirled, the pistol in his hand. “Back off,” he snapped. “Unless fairies fly faster than iron bullets.”
The vizier paused, hand still raised with the dagger exposed. “I am not here to fight you.”
“Really?” Josh challenged. “The knife must have confused me.”
Raze chuckled. “Such a simple human.”
“But better armed.”
Slowly, the vizier lowered the athame and sheathed it at his belt. “As humans have always been.” He turned his fathomless gaze on Adelyn. “I take it you found the missing hunter.”
She lifted her chin. “You might stop us, but not him. And he will find a way to free others who weary of the queen’s reign.”
Raze sneered with scorn as withering as Josh’s iron. “Who do you think will reign in Ankha’s stead?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“The walls of the faedrealii are crumbling, and what the queen holds, she holds only with the power of lies, threats, and memories of past glory.” The vizier shifted his gaze to Josh. “But your world stands to lose even more, should the fae break their bonds.”
Josh held his hand out to Adelyn. “Whatever I lose, I won’t lose her.”
Raze smiled thinly. “You think your world is ready for a snake-haired girl who cries a king’s ransom in jewels?”
With the warmth of Josh’s hand over hers, Adelyn took a step forward. “His world is cows and dogs and stars and other runaway fae. They take me as I am.”
The vizier’s lips twisted toward a laugh. But in the end he only sighed. “Then take this too: a message to the hunter and his sylfana who would fight a war against the queen of the steel-born. Tell him there are battles even a fae cannot imagine.”
