A knock on the door nearly had me jumping out of my skin.

"Taxi's here," Trixie called through the door. Her footsteps echoed through the hall as she walked toward the tattooing room.

"Great! Thanks!" Chad said, shouldering his bag. I stepped in front of him, quietly unlocking the door before he could notice and held it open. He walked out of the room and gave a wave to Trixie and Bronx before stepping into the lobby. Trixie followed him with wide eyes, but she said nothing.

As he opened the front door to leave, I stepped in front of him and extended my hand. "Take care of yourself, please," I said, struggling to keep the waver out of my voice.

Chad gave a little smile, clearly confused by my sudden shift in emotion. I knew I was acting strange when he had no memory of us meeting before today, but I couldn't hold it back. This was going to be the last time I ever looked at my brother, ever talked to him.

He took my hand in a firm grasp and shook it. "I will. You too. Thanks again for the great tattoo."

And then he was gone.

I don't know how long I stood at the front window, staring out at the empty street where his taxi had been before Trixie joined me in the lobby. Her long arms wrapped around my waist and she pressed her head against my shoulder. She didn't ask any questions. Just stood there, leaning against me.

"When I left home the last time, I knew I wouldn't ever see my parents, brother, or sister again, and somehow it didn't hurt as bad as it does now," I said in a rough whisper. "For the past couple days, he's been at my apartment when I got home. We ate pizza, drank beer, laughed at movies we never got to watch together until now. In the span of a couple hours, he went back to being the best friend I ever had. I think I let myself dream that we could have this friendship now that I was away from the Towers. But he shook my hand, looked at me, but didn't see me. He doesn't remember me and he never will again."

"Is he safe now?" Trixie asked, her arms tightening around me.

"Safer now than if he stayed and remembered."

"Then it's for the best."

She was right, but it did little to ease the pain. I was clinging to the hope that handing Reave over to the Ivory Tower council would help with the pain. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was going to pay for touching my family, for destroying lives.

27.

A SOFT SCRATCHING sound on gla.s.s rose over the fading chords of a Perfect Circle song playing through the speakers. I looked up as Trixie stepped away from me, also searching for the source of the sound. We turned toward the front door to see a little demonic face peering through the gla.s.s at the top. Duff was hanging upside down, clinging to the top of the door as he stared at us with his impish grin.

Bronx stepped into the lobby as I opened the door to let the hobgoblin in. Extending his leathery wings, he caught the wind as he dropped so that he could easily glide into the shop. He circled the lobby once, wagging his fingers at Trixie before lightly landing on the gla.s.s case that served as a counter. Duff puffed up his little chest and threw his wings out wide as if trying to warn off Bronx before he took a couple sniffs of the air.

"You got a cat in here?" he asked, c.o.c.king his head at me.

"No cat," I said as I shut the door.

"You sure about the cat? I can smell a cat here." He scuttled around the case, gazing over the edge and down through the gla.s.s, searching for Sofie.

"I'm sure. The cat's not in the shop today," I rea.s.sured him. He nodded, sitting down on the case with his wings gathered behind his back. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to let him rest. "Did you find him?"

"We almost lost him a couple times, but he's not sneaky enough," he said with an evil chuckle.

"Where is he?"

"Home."

My stomach did a sickening little flop at that single word, but I pushed the feeling down and clenched my hands into fists along the end of the case. "He's hoping for a little safety in numbers to work in his favor. Where are they now?"

"That's the strange thing," he said with a shake of his head. "They're close. The Svartalfar are never near when another Court is close, and I know that the Summer Court is in the immediate area."

Trixie's hand grabbed my wrist, her nails biting into my flesh, drawing my gaze to her stricken face. I covered her hand with my free one. "I'm sure they're only in town to stir up trouble, but we both know that their problems have already been taken care of."

She nodded stiffly, forcing out a breath, but her grip didn't immediately ease on my wrist. I had a feeling she wasn't going to relax until she knew the Svartalfar had left the area or that the throne of the Summer Court was secure. With any luck, the queen and king were already working on that.

"Was he tracking the one who has the information?" Trixie inquired. I nodded.

"Reave?" Bronx's deep voice swept through the room. He was frowning, a look of worry in his eyes.

I nodded. "He was using my brother as a delivery boy for the info, but I made a slight change of plans in hopes of protecting him. I'm going after Reave next."

"What do you mean you're going after him?" Trixie snapped. Using her grip on my wrist, she pulled me so that I was forced to turn and look at her. Fear clouded her lovely eyes and cut lines of worry around her mouth. "If you know where he's at, can't you send some message to the Towers telling them? Let them handle it."

"You know that won't work. Do you think the Towers would bother to sort out who knew what? No. They'd exterminate every dark elf in the area."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," she said in a low, hard voice.

"You don't mean that." She looked away from me, but I put my hand against her cheek and turned her face back to me. "I won't let them exterminate another group. And even if they did, it wouldn't stop them from coming after me later. I need to deliver Reave to the Towers personally."

"You're going back?" She whispered her question so softly that I barely heard it, but there was no missing the horror in her expression. "You can't go back. They'll kill you. There has to be another way."

"If I don't go, they'll kill me. They're going to question Reave before he's killed. My name and my brother's are going to come up. I have to try to control the damage if I'm going to have any chance of saving either of our lives. I have to go," I said, hating myself for the pain I was causing her.

Her voice drifted to me, weak and thready. "There has to be another way." She sounded as if she were being haunted by visions of my dead body. Unfortunately, she had already seen that once. I'd prefer it if she'd never have to repeat that experience.

"There's not," I said firmly, then looked up at Bronx, who was watching with his usual unreadable, stoic expression. "If things go badly and I don't come back right away, I've left a copy of my will in the back room. It can't be executed until I've been missing for eighteen months, but it contains all the information and pa.s.swords you might need to keep the shop going. I'm leaving everything to you and Trixie."

Pain exploded across my cheek, jerking my head around to look down at Trixie's tear-streaked face. "How can you talk so calmly of dying? If you go after Reave, I'm not sticking around here, waiting to hear whether you've been killed or not. I can't do it."

The pain tearing through my heart was infinitely worse than the temporary pain in my cheek. But I pushed it back, keeping my tone hard and even. "That's fine. You've got somewhere safe to go now."

She gasped, taking an unsteady step away from me. "You've planned this all along. It's the reason you've helped the elves."

"When I started, it was about making sure you could stay here with me, but recently, yes, I needed somewhere you could hide safely if I failed."

A bitter smile twisted on her mouth. "Well, you succeeded in that, because I'm not waiting here for news of your death. I can't. Not again." Trixie turned sharply on her heel and stalked out of the room, sliding past Bronx and into the back. I could hear her heels pounding on the floor until she reached the back room and slammed the door behind her. Duff stood and glared at me for a second before shape-shifting into a pixie so that he could easily dart off through the parlor after Trixie.

"She's scared," Bronx said, and I nodded in a jerky motion. "But you know she'll be here when you get back. We both will be."

I narrowed my eyes at the troll. "Why aren't you asking to come with me?"

"Would you let me?"

"No."

The troll raised both eyebrows at me and gave a little smirk. "And that would be why." He shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders as he laid his hands on the countertop. "Seems like it's a magic users' party anyway and we trolls aren't so strong at magic." His light expression slipped away and he frowned at me. "I would go with you, though. I'd take on the Svartalfar and go with you to the Ivory Towers."

"I know. I'd choose you guarding my back over a hundred warlocks anytime."

"Thank you."

I smiled weakly. "Watch over Trixie for me."

"Of course."

There was nothing left to say. I was merely wasting time because I didn't want to go charging after Reave into the heart of the Svartalfar nation. I didn't want to risk my life to capture him, only to take my life in my hands again when I delivered him to the Towers. Despite all my planning, this wasn't going to end well. It couldn't. But I had to keep moving. The longer I delayed, the more people were going to be hurt.

Pulling my wand out of my back pocket, I turned and opened the front door, sending a little electronic chime through the shop. As I expected, the hobgoblin darted from the back of the shop. He settled on my shoulder, one small arm resting on the top of my head while his long tail wrapped around my biceps. He had to give me some directions to Reave's location. We stepped out into the cool night air, ready to hunt down a dark elf.

28.

THE DARKNESS SEEMED impossibly thick around us despite a velvet sky full of stars and a half-moon hanging overhead. As my eyes soaked in what little light there was, I started to pick out a thick swath of trees surrounding us. There was a feeling of empty s.p.a.ce directly in front of me, as if the earth suddenly fell away. I decided to trust the feeling and not step forward.

I had used a teleportation spell to take the hobgoblin and myself across more than a hundred miles, leaving us close to where the dark elves were huddled. Duff had given me the mental image of the spot, promising that it was a safe distance from where he had last seen them.

I needed to get my bearings before we started out. I had no idea where the hobgoblin had taken me, just that it had been south of Low Town and my shop. Cupping my hands in front of my face, I blew a slow, steady breath into them as if trying to warm them. The air curled around my palms, brushing against my fingers as I willed it to form an almost solid ball. Closing my eyes and turning my head away, I gave one more push of energy into the ball of warm air before tossing it up into the sky. When I looked back, a ball of energy hovered a few feet above me, casting the area in a soft, white glow.

Shadows lunged and thickened where they tightly clasped to trees and in deep hollows. There was a drop-off directly in front of me. I couldn't tell how deep it was, but I wasn't willing to find out the hard way. I could see a path leading off to my right that seemed to snake through the forest. The trees were heavy with leaves and the brush was thick on the ground, hiding all sorts of predators, but then I wasn't counting on sneaking up on the Svartalfar. No one snuck up on an elf on its home turf, not even a warlock.

Turning around, I saw a stone formation rise up behind me. The glowing orb ducked in closer at my command, showing that two openings had been cut into what would have been a rock wall. A rush of anger flooded my veins and I silently cursed the dark elves for ever stepping foot in this place.

"Angel Windows," I said, my eyes dancing over the rock formation. "They had to come here."

Duff shifted on my shoulder, one tiny fist tightening in my hair. "That's what the humans call this place. You know where we are?"

I nodded, turning toward the path, the glowing orb shooting out in front of me. It hovered high so my night vision wasn't destroyed, but cast enough light to keep me from walking off the edge of a cliff. "Yeah, I used to camp here. We're in Red River Gorge, but the dark elves aren't supposed to be here. This is part of a national park. The government set up ma.s.sive swaths of land for the fey to live undisturbed, but they aren't supposed to be living in the parks."

Duff's chuckle was soft, as if he was afraid of drawing attention to us. "The elves go where the earth calls. The boundaries of the government are just lines on a piece of paper. If the elves choose to hide in the forest, do you think anyone can find them to evict them from the land?"

A sigh slipped from me, knowing he was right, but it made me feel uneasy knowing how many times I had come camping down here alone. Red River Gorge was part of Daniel Boone National Park, and was lined with some of the best hiking trails I had ever found. The sandstone that filled the park had been worn away over thousands of years to leave dozens of amazing formations such as natural bridges. I had wandered down most of the trails, and yet I found something new and beautiful on each trip. Angel Windows was a favorite formation of mine. I always tried to visit it as well as Princess Arch and Rock Bridge when I was in the park.

The only problem with Red River Gorge was that it was not a place you wanted to walk through in the dark. The entire park was a series of valleys and peaks. If you weren't one hundred percent sure that you were in a valley, there was a very good chance that you were going to walk off the end of a cliff and fall down into a steep ravine. Every year, several people died in the park from falls. I was hoping not to be one of them as I picked along the narrow path that led to the main road.

As we came to flatter ground, Duff flew off my shoulder and zipped up ahead of me. Slipping past the reaches of my meager light, he disappeared into the trees as if he were made of them. I was hoping that he was going to scout out ahead and get our bearings before we were faced with the Svartalfar. I wasn't worried about him betraying me to Reave, simply because the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had attempted to kill his friend for her organs. As a warlock, I wasn't much of an improvement, but at least I hadn't tried to kill the pixie. That had to put a point or two in my favor.

The darkness eased back as I stepped into a gravel parking lot at the head of the trail. Duff darted back to me, keeping a wide distance from the glowing orb.

"He's where I last saw him. It's another rock formation, like the opening of a cave at the top of a steep rise. I don't know the human name for the place. Gage, why must humans name everything?"

A small smile lifted one corner of my mouth. "I don't know. Maybe it gives them a sense of ownership."

He gave a little snort as he grabbed his tail and twisted it between his two hands. "You said 'them.' Aren't you human?"

His question made me stop. I hadn't even noticed my choice of words. When I had lived in the Ivory Tower, Simon had taught me that I was no longer human, but after I left, I felt sure that he was wrong. I wasn't so sure anymore. Maybe it was all the magic I had been using lately, the power coursing through my body, or even the echo of memories from Gaia's garden, but I didn't feel as if I belonged to that race any longer.

"I don't think so," I whispered. "I think it's the same way that a vampire or lycanthrope is no longer human. They may have started out human, but in the end, they're not."

"Does that make you sad?"

I shrugged. My sense of ident.i.ty was the least of my concerns. "It is what it is. Was Reave alone at this cave?" I abruptly changed the subject back to the reason I was standing in the middle of a gravel parking lot in Red River Gorge during the blackest part of the night. I didn't want to think about my humanity, or the lack of it, when I was in the middle of hunting down another living creature.

"The bulk of his people have gathered there. Maybe you should wait. We can hide among the trees and wait until he is alone before attacking."

"Can't. He's not going to leave his people. Right now he's confident that I'm the only one who knows he's the one with the information. He thinks that I won't hunt him down while he's surrounded by other Svartalfar." Reave was almost right. Facing the dark elf nation alone was suicidal. They were warriors, born and bred. If the world didn't stand on the brink of war, I might have considered Duff's suggestion. But I couldn't wait. Time was slipping away from me.

I did have one thing in my favor. The Svartalfar were fantastic liars and deceivers, Reave being among the worst. I was hoping to use that fact against him.

"Time for you to head back to your own people. I need to handle this alone."

Duff's face crumpled as he looked over his shoulder, back the way he'd come, and then at me. He was debating following me. Hobgoblins were sneaky little devils that could get in and out of most places using a mixture of magic and cunning.

"If anyone has a good shot at capturing you, it's the Svartalfar and we both know it," I said with a frown. "I won't be able to help you if things get ugly. Even if I survive this, I won't be the only warlock in the area. Get out of here. Tell your friend that we're even now."

Duff nodded. Lifting higher into the air, he gave me a little wave with a sad look before disappearing into the woods.

I was alone in the darkness, which now seemed to crowd closer despite the glowing orb hanging overhead. The wind ruffled the leaves and the sound of chirping crickets and frogs could be heard, but the world I knew slipped away from me. There was no rush of cars, no electric hum of appliances, no shuffling of people's footsteps or the brush of fabric. I was a warlock alone in the domain of the elves.

Tapping down the fear clawing at my heart, I took a deep breath and drew in a swell of the energy circling around me. The spell was a simple one. I had been to this cave on more than one occasion, but I had always walked the long trail back to it. That, I would not survive tonight. The path was a narrow one, with a steep mountain on one side of it and a sharp drop-off on the other side. The trail ended in a type of bowl as you stepped into the cradled embrace of a wall of rock on three sides and a thick copse of trees directly behind you. While the trail was long and winding, the worst part was the climb up to the cave I had always called Rock Coliseum, as the ascent was a steep bank of broken rocks that slid out from underfoot as you climbed. There weren't many places that were worse for a fight with a dark elf in Red River Gorge.

I released the energy with a word. It swirled around me before plunging through my chest. The glowing orb went out and darkness consumed the world. A second later, I was speeding through the trees, but I couldn't feel the biting wind or the sharp brush of tree branches as I pa.s.sed. I was reduced to little more than energy as I flew to my destination almost as fast as a thought.

My flight came to a screeching halt and my feet settled on a large flat stone at the bottom of the sharp rise to the cave. Again, I raised my cupped hands to my face and blew, creating another light orb, but this time, when I flung it out into the sky, it multiplied until more than a dozen hung in the air, lighting the area. The dark elves stepped silently out from behind trees and stood in the black mouth of the opening in the rocks that formed the cave.

"Hear me, King of the Svartalfar, I have no quarrel with your people. Send out Reave and I will leave without striking at them," I shouted. My voice bounced off the high rock walls and echoed back toward me before becoming tangled in the line of trees at my back. For nearly a minute, there was only the sound of the wind in the trees. I could see the dark elves within the shadows created by my orbs, but no one made a sound. They waited to hear the decision of their leader.

"Quite brave of you, warlock, to come to our home alone," one Svartalfar called down to me from the edge of the opening. He was a large man with a shock of white running through his long black hair. His voice wasn't soft and melodious like Reave's, but rough and coa.r.s.e like a piece of splintered wood. "While I'm sure you're powerful, we do have you outnumbered. You may kill some of us, but you won't kill all of us before we get you."

With a wave of my hands, I rose in the air until I was eye level with the old king, but hovering in open air. "I have no wish to slaughter your people. I want only Reave."

"Ah . . . but as much as I hate to admit it at times, Reave is one of my people. He's proven to be useful, so I find myself reluctant to hand him over to you." The king's face was sharp and angular, lined with deep scars. One long scar slashed down through his left eye, leaving it a blind milky white. Unlike those of the Summer and Winter Courts, the kings and queens of the Svartalfar weren't born to their roles. To rule the dark elves, you took the position by force and you defended it until another stole it from you.

"Would you give him in trade for a service rendered?" I asked.

The question gave the old king pause as he stared at me skeptically. "What service would you offer?"