d.a.m.n. When I'd first seen Rianna under the Blood Moon, when she'd still been Coleman's bound and subservient Shadow Girl, she'd worn a gray cloak. No. I couldn't suspect my childhood friend of being a heartless murderer.

Or could I?

I'd felt the killer's hope, her joy in that circle by the river. Tiddlywinx had said the witch wanted to be with her love. If the ritual was opening a way to be with true love, that might cause a lot of hope and joy. Love can cause great and terrible things.

I sank down on my heels, falling away from Holly as I clutched my own knees.

The pieces fit. The timing fit. Rianna knew what I could do. She'd asked me for help around the same time this started. She'd also returned my dagger, which was now following me around and had a tendency to tear holes in reality when used. It fit.

"Alex, what is it?" Falin asked, staring down at me.

I looked around. This room might be in my own castle. It couldn't be Rianna. But it all fit.

No, not all. What about Desmond? I suspected that he loved her, and there was nothing keeping them apart. And if Rianna was the accomplice and already hunting me when I came to Faerie, why didn't she trap me then?

So it doesn't all fit. I breathed out a sigh as that little bit of hope created enough room in my chest for me to breathe. But not much. The sick, dread-laced feeling still gripped me hard.

I stood and turned toward Kyran. "You said you can get us to Nekros without pa.s.sing through the winter court?"

He flashed me a grin. "My dear, I can most likely find the shadow of the witch you seek, but I believe we must hurry. Time is running out." He peered into his hourgla.s.s again.

I stared at the rushing sand and again asked, "What happens when it runs out?"

"A moment in time, nothing more. But one I do not wish to miss."

Right. "Let's go." We had a shadow to find and a ritual to stop.

"This would be the one," the nightmare kingling said as the shadows in the nightmare realm separated to show the one, or really, the shadows, that he meant.

The shadows danced, leaping and twisting against the pale sand. Not just one or two shadows either, but more than a dozen, all in constant motion. I stared at it. This can't be right. There was too much movement. Too many people. It looked more like a party.

"Perhaps a little farther from the action." Kyran lifted his arms and the shadows slid across the sand. The shapes that replaced them were large and too formless for me to decipher what had cast them, but at least they were still. "This, I think, shall do nicely," he said.

I nodded. As long as we ended up safely in the city we had a better chance of finding the accomplice-not Rianna, please not Rianna-than if we were stuck in Faerie. I waited, but Kyran made no move to lead us through the shadow.

"I have a confession," he said, turning toward me. "This is the door you need, but I can't open it."

What did he mean he couldn't open it? Falin's hand on my waist twitched.

I swallowed around the lump suddenly lodged in my throat, but tried to keep my voice level as I asked, "Do we need another shadow?"

Kyran shook his head. "My power does not let me open doors into the mortal realm. But yours will."

d.a.m.n. And this would be the catch. "What happens if I open a door?"

"You can freely walk from the nightmare realm to the mortal realm until dawn moves the shadows and the realms no longer touch."

No wiggle room in that statement, so it had to be true. What does he stand to gain? It hit me suddenly. "If we can walk through, the nightmares can, too."

"Very good," he said with a smile, genuinely pleased.

"Alex, what is he talking about?" Holly whispered, stepping closer to me. I hadn't told her anything about the whole feykin planeweaver thing. Looked like I'd have some explaining to do-if we survived this. But not now.

I shook my head. "Later, Holl." I focused on Kyran again. He stood with his hands in his pockets, all his weight on one leg, the other knee slack, as if whatever decision I came to made no difference to him. "What will the nightmares do in the mortal realm?"

He shrugged. "The same thing they do here. Cause terror. Fear nourishes them." He glanced at the hourgla.s.s. Only a thin line of sand remained in the top globe. "You are running out of time."

I looked at the hourgla.s.s. "What happens when the sand runs out?"

He smirked. "Ah, finally, you've asked three times," he said, and I remembered too late that three was often significant. A weight stretched between us. It wasn't quite the same feeling as when a debt opened, but it was the same sort of magic. "The hourgla.s.s counts the moments until all doors open when the planes merge-or the moment in which that is prevented. Hard to say which, but one way or the other, it will happen soon."

d.a.m.n. He really had been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with me this whole time. I glanced at the hourgla.s.s. At the rate the sand was falling, it had maybe twenty minutes until the top globe ran out of sand. And then the world as we know it will change. Or someone will stop the ritual.

I swallowed the bitter taste in my throat and stared at the shadows surrounding me. A few hours of nightmares, or a world where all known and unknown realities converge. Or maybe I was overestimating my evolvement. Maybe the collectors would stop this all on their own. Or the cops. Or some random good citizen who just happened to stumble by. But can I take that gamble?

I looked at Falin. "What do I do?"

He shook his head. "I would say the lesser harm for the greater good, but I cannot make this choice for you."

"I'm voting for stopping the bad guys," Holly said. She was a DA-her life was all about putting the bad guys away. She wiped her palms on her silk PJ bottoms. Nervous sweat? "I guess this will be a little more hands-on than my normal approach," she said, flashing me a weak smile. "But someone deserves a hefty serving of revenge."

Nightmares it is. Except one problem. "I don't know how to open a door." I'd tried before; it hadn't worked.

"Yes, I did see your attempt in the shadow court," the kingling said as he circled the hourgla.s.s.

"You saw?" That meant he'd been watching me long before I'd fallen through that nightmare. For all I knew, he'd sent my bad dreams.

He clasped his hands behind his head so his elbows framed his face. "The planebender bent Faerie-hence the name. He took two places that normally don't touch and shoved them until they collided and a door could be opened between them. Very messy and very forceful. Your power is not. It is not your nature to shove realities around. Your power is to weave planes together."

"And why do you know so much about planeweavers?" Kyran only smiled. "This shadow exists both here and in the mortal realm. They sit directly on top of each other. All you need to do is tie them together so you can walk between them."

Oh, yeah, real easy.

But I had to try.

I handed PC to Holly. I didn't want to be holding him while I tried to manipulate unfamiliar magic. If something went horribly wrong, I didn't want him caught in the side effects.

Then I lowered my shields and focused on the shadow closest to me. I mentally reached for it, touching it with my power and trying to concentrate on the fact that it not only existed here but also was being cast by something in the mortal realm. At first all I saw was a shadow over sand. Then the shadow deepened, darkened, and I could tell it was being cast by a tree. Actually, more than one tree. I could see them. It worked?

A chattering sounded in the dark around me. Then the darkness surged forward. Somewhere behind me Holly screamed, but the nightmares weren't after us. They were aiming for the door and there was no stopping them. The nightmares poured through the door I'd opened-dozens, hundreds. Maybe thousands.

I swallowed, watching the monsters I'd released escape into the unsuspecting mortal realm. Let this have been the right choice. Then the nightmares were gone, the darkness strangely empty without them.

"What were those?" Holly asked, still breathless from screaming.

No one answered. Falin scowled at the opening, and I wondered if he still thought the reaper and accomplice's threat was more dangerous than what I'd released. But it was done now.

Kyran lifted the hourgla.s.s, using the pole it stood on as a walking stick. He d.a.m.n near skipped as he headed for the door. "Coming?" he asked, glancing first at me and then at the hourgla.s.s. Only a sliver of sand remained. "Looks like the end, one way or the other, will be soon."

Chapter 37.

I stepped through the shadow into total darkness.

Oh, the nightmare realm had been dark and full of shadows that were more physical than any shadow had a right to be, but during my hours in Faerie I'd become accustomed to seeing the world illuminated with no obvious source of light. When I stepped through the doorway I'd created, reality crashed down on me with a darkness that crawled across my vision and left me blind. The weight of the grave, which I'd been blessedly free from for several hours, also returned to bash its chilled fists against my shields.

"f.u.c.k," I whispered, my head swinging back and forth as I tried to make out something, anything.

A hand closed over my mouth as an arm snaked around my waist and I froze, a scream brewing in my chest. But the arm dragging me backward was a familiar warm without being hot.

Falin.

I let him move me as I continued to blink, trying to focus. Cloth brushed against bark as he pressed us both into the cover of a tree, but still I couldn't see. I blinked at the impenetrable darkness filling my vision. It didn't help. I was blind. I probably had been since the fight with the hydra. Faerie just liked my eyes better.

d.a.m.n. I cracked my shields, trembling as the first traces of grave essence dug deeper into my psyche, but as I released my shields, the shadows parted.

"Cut the light show," Falin hissed, his voice a harsh whisper.

"I need to see." Because I definitely wasn't hot on the idea of walking around blind, especially if Kyran was correct and this was near the accomplice's ritual. I looked around, trying to get my bearings.

When I'd first realized the shadows were cast by trees, I'd thought we were in a forest, but now I saw we were in a small wooded patch in one of Nekros's parks. In the distance I could hear the rush of the river, and a few feet in front of the tree Falin had pressed me behind was a large, emerald green wall.

A wall that was breathing.

"Is that a dragon?" Holly asked from where she knelt behind an unkempt bush huddled against my tree. Her fingers trembled as she clutched the amulet that she once again wore around her neck with one hand and PC with the other. Or maybe it was PC trembling. He was remarkably quiet, so he obviously realized something was wrong.

"A construct," I said.

"Yeah, and there are two more," Falin whispered as he eased his daggers out of their sheaths.

His blade glimmered in the moonlight drifting through the tree limbs as he pointed. On the other side of the clearing a blue dragon stretched wings that must have been twenty yards across, which caused a silver dragon to pause as it paced the outskirts of the clearing. No, the dragons weren't pacing. More like patrolling.

The three constructs were guarding a circle that had been erected in the center of the clearing. The barrier buzzed a faint red in my senses, preventing me from feeling the magic inside the circle, but I could see the energy and it swirled in a chaotic storm. The shadows we'd seen in the nightmare realm truly were dancers. They spun and leapt through the air as the magic whipped around them like they were cogs in a giant magical conductor. And in the very center of the circle stood a hooded figure playing a pair of panpipes that looked a little too real in my second sight. The relic the collectors are searching for.

"Come on, be here," Holly whispered as she patted her pockets. A smile broke across her face and she pulled out her cell phone. She cued the phone to display our GPS location-the riverwalk park not far from the Magic Quarter-and then dialed 911.

"Tell them to bring the really big guns," I muttered, staring across the clearing. The accomplice stood inside the circle, but where was the reaper?

He wasn't in the clearing, or in what I could see of the trees beyond. I peeked farther around the tree and Falin dragged me back.

"You'll give away our position. Look at me," he said, and then reached up and placed his palms over my eyes. When he pulled back an extra weight pressed against my face. I lifted my fingers, but he grabbed my hand, stopping me. "They're just sungla.s.ses to dampen the glow of your eyes, but don't touch. Your magic tends to screw with glamour."

Good point. I dropped my hand as I peeked out from our hiding spot again. Still no reaper, but we did have the accomplice. Death said to summon him once I located the accomplice. I activated the spell he'd pressed into my skin and a blaze of unfamiliar magic surged through me, building, until it burst from my skin.

I rubbed my gloved hands over my arms to chase off the tingle the spell had left behind. Well, now I know how a flare gun feels. I looked around, expecting Death to just miraculously appear. He didn't.

Okay, then. I glanced back at the ritual. Magic continued to build in the circle as the dancers twisted and jumped. I shivered, remembering the pain I'd felt in the last ritual site.

"We've got to disrupt that spell." The amount of energy in the circle had grown thick enough to stain the air like multicolored fog. I blinked. That can't be. Clutching PC, I peeked out from our cover. Falin grabbed my shoulder as if he was afraid I'd rush into the clearing, and I pressed myself against the tree. "Is it just me, or are the tops of their heads vanishing?"

Everyone peeked out to see. Holly threw a hand over her mouth and made a small strangled noise, but she didn't scream. Falin only nodded, his face grim.

Goose b.u.mps p.r.i.c.kled over my skin, my dread reaching the saturation point and trying to pour out of my skin. Death had said souls were the fuel of life, and I'd thought he was hinting only at the souls powering the constructs. But this ritual . . . I stared at the slowly dissolving bodies. This ritual was being fueled by the dancers-by their movement and by their very essence, body and soul. Those feet . . . All those feet. All lefts, and none with tool marks. And when I raised the shade, the foot had forgotten it had a body, and it had danced. It was the dance. They would dance until there wasn't enough left of them to complete the next dance step. Until they were only a single foot. We have to stop this.

I turned to Falin. "I suppose suggesting that you shoot the piper would be too easy a solution to actually work?"

"We were in Faerie," he said with a grimace. Which means no gun. "The only weapons I have on me are the daggers, but they're enchanted and would never make it through the circle."

d.a.m.n.

"So we have to break that circle." But how?

"I have an idea." Holly said. "Can I borrow a knife?"

I nodded and squatted as I struggled with the skirt of my gown. Curses burned my tongue as I wrestled with the material blocking my boots, but I bit them back. Once I drew the dagger, I pa.s.sed it to Holly and she handed me PC. The small dog's ears quivered, but he looked up at me with eyes that trusted I'd get him home safe. I wished I had the same confidence.

Holly used the dagger to sc.r.a.pe a sheet of bark from the tree and I felt her tap into her stored magic as she used the blade to carve small runes into the bark. Her magic surged, settling into the makeshift charm, and she let out a breath that sounded like she'd been holding it a long time. Jabbing the blade of the dagger into the dirt by her feet, she lifted the bark, examining the carvings. Then she pa.s.sed it to me. "Disruption charm."

I accepted the charm, feeling it tingle over my fingers. d.a.m.n, she was good. I couldn't have crafted this charm on a good day, and she'd done it without a ritual or a circle and with only the magic she had stored on her person.

With a disruption charm, all we would have to do was touch it to the circle and the charm should bring the entire barrier down. But first we'd have to get the charm past the dragons guarding the ritual.

"Think you could hit that circle from here?" I asked, pa.s.sing the charm to Falin.

Falin balanced the bark-turned-charm in his hand, bouncing it to check the weight. Then he shook his head. "It's too light. I'd never be able to throw it that far."

Which meant that one of us had to carry it to the circle. But how do we get past the dragons? I chewed at my bottom lip. One dragon we might be able to take. It would be a h.e.l.l of a challenge, but probably not impossible. But three? I shook my head. We needed help.

Where are those collectors? I poked at the spell again, just to make sure I'd really activated it the first time. No rush of magic this time, so I trusted that the first wave I'd felt worked.

"I have another idea," Holly said, but her eyes didn't meet mine when I turned. "We can cause a disturbance, draw the dragons away, and someone small, someone who wouldn't be noticed, can affix the disruption charm to the side of the circle."

"Someone small?" That definitely knocked Falin out of the running, and I was far from short. Holly was pet.i.te, but I didn't think she meant herself. Her eyes darted to where PC sat in my lap. "No. No, no, definitely not. Holly, he's a dog."

"He's tiny, and the dragons are huge. They probably won't even be able to see him."

She had a point, but . . . I clutched PC closer. Still shaking my head.

"It's not a bad plan," Falin said. "Though I suggest we plan to become dragon bait only if they notice PC. Holly and I can take positions on either side of the clearing and you can send him at the circle from the center. If one of the dragons notices him, the person closest will attack. I'm sure the beasts are charmed to protect the circle from humanshaped threats, not from tiny dogs."

His argument didn't make my head stop shaking. If anything, it made me dislike the plan more. If someone did have to distract a dragon, that someone would be alone. I didn't like it. Not at all.