Page 1 of The Unseelie War
CHAPTER ONE
“Motherfucker—”
“As you’ve said.”
“Motherfucker!”
“We have established that, Ava.”
“But what the—theactual fuckinghell?”
“Mm.” A thoughtful pause. “I do not believe this is ‘actual’ Hell. Though, perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps you have pulled it here with the rest.”
She had thought she understood chaos before this moment. Her life before the Web had been turbulent. The Web itself had been unpredictable. Tir n'Aill had been alien and dangerous.
But this?
This catastrophe unfolding before her eyes was beyond anything she could have imagined.
What had shedone?
Ava combed her hands into her hair and stared at the chaos in front of her. There was no other word for it other than that—chaos.Pure, unmitigated, and utterchaos.
The first thing Ava had noticed upon awakening wasn't the way the sunlight felt different against her skin or how the air smelleddifferent. It had been the sound of a car alarm echoing in the distance—a perfectly ordinary, perfectly human car alarm continuing its mechanical distress call beneath a sky that no longer belonged entirely to Earth.
She had been sitting in the grass for several minutes now, trying to process what she was seeing. Serrik stood beside her like some dark sentinel, solid and real and impossibly present outside the dreamworld of the Web. His physical manifestation was, disturbingly, one of the least alarming aspects of their current situation.
Because the full scope of what she had accomplished was becoming terrifyingly clear.
The meadow around them looked innocent enough.It was dotted with dandelions, clover, and a few scattered oak trees—it was the kind of pastoral scene that belonged on a postcard. But beyond the tree line, she could now see Boston’s skyscrapers. Which, fine, she lived in Massachusetts. That wouldn’t have beenthatbonkers, having moved a hundred and-some-odd miles from where she had entered the Web to where she’d exited it.
Except for the fact that she was pretty damn distinctly sure that the Empire State Building was in Manhattan.
And the Chrysler Building.
And there was no mistaking the Statue of Liberty.
The spires of Manhattan stabbed at the sky like broken fingers, mixed in right next to the John Hancock Tower, the Customs House clocktower, and the Bunker Hill Monument.
New York was close to Boston, as big cities went. But it wasn’tthatclose.
Never mind the fact that some of the buildings were floating—actually floating—untethered from gravity or rational sense, their shadows fallingupward into a sky that couldn't decide if it wanted to be afternoon blue, twilight purple, or morning orange.
Silvery threads that definitely belonged to the behind-the-scenes area of the Web stretched between skyscrapers like cosmic spiderwebs, and as Ava watched, the Chrysler Building slowly rotated ninety degrees and began drifting west.
“This is really happening,” she muttered, more to herself than to Serrik. “This isn't some fever dream or sick joke. I actually?—”
“Merged three realms of existence into one chaotic amalgamation that violates every natural law I can think of, and likely several more.” Serrik sounded more amused than upset. “Yes. Quite thoroughly, I might add.”
She shot him a look. He was still facing the sun, his eyes closed, that eerily peaceful expression on his face like he was at a spa instead of standing in the middle of a multi-world, reality-shattering apocalypse.
“You seem awfully calm about this.”
“Do I?” He opened his golden eyes, tilting his head slightly. “Mm. I suppose it may simply be because—and do not take this as harshly as it may sound—I do not care at the moment.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
His lips twitched in a small smirk. “That is precisely what I meant when I said ‘do not take this as harshly as it may sound.’ It is not currently at the forefront of my focus.” He held out his arm in front of him, palm up, and stared at his fingers as if they were foreign to him. “I can feelmy hand, Ava.”
