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  “Maybe to some people, but not to me. And… you shouldn’t be trying to do this all on your own. Like I’ve said so many times, Isabelle and I want to help.”

  He looked up at her, and his face was suddenly deeply haggard. “I’m not sure there’s a way out, Kel. I… I made that bargain, and I wouldn’t take it back. I had to. I’m… I’m glad I did. But…”

  She reached out and took his hand. “We’ll figure out a way.”

  Squeezing her hand, he let it go and pushed back from the table. “You’re right. Thanks, Kel. I’m sure we’ll figure something out. Thanks for your help.”

  “Of course.” But she could tell he was only brushing her off.

  “I’d better go get ready for tomorrow. Will you meet us just outside the main gates at eight?”

  She nodded. She wasn’t fooled. She hadn’t convinced him at all. Whatever his plan was, he was still keeping it to himself. She needed to talk to someone about it. Isabelle. Isabelle would have some ideas.

  After Finn had left, Kel curled up in her chair by the fire and closed her eyes. Her thoughts turned to Finn’s invitation from Morthil.

  You’re not thinking of actually going, are you? Smoke asked.

  What’s the harm in talking to him?

  Besides the fact that he’s going to possess and kill your brother who he already took an eye from? And beyond that, why would you even want to?

  Why did she want to see him? She wasn’t entirely sure herself. Part of her distrusted whatever new information he had given Finn. Part of her was curious.

  Smoke made a resigned noise

  But more than that, Kel thought, he was the one person in existence who was like her.

  28

  Kel

  As she walked through the King’s Table, she listened to the mutterings of its inhabitants. The high voices of the mice, the anxious scuttling and buzzing of the beetles and ants.

  The last light was fading as she opened the door with Finn’s key. She sealed the door behind her, making her way slowly down into that watery hall. She pulled the copper from it, then stepped into the water.

  It was like stepping into liquid glass. She sank into it up to her knees, then her thighs, then her stomach, light glowing around her. As the water closed over her head, she opened her eyes, watched the world swirl in bright flashes of multi-colored lights. She was moving through heavy, viscous liquid, down into a place below the real world. The voices of the animals grew louder, although at the same time, farther away.

  Up ahead, she saw a pinprick of red light, and as she drifted towards it, it grew into a bright cluster which coalesced into visions.

  A bright, turquoise lake, high in the mountains, ringed by treeless crags, snow still clinging to their peaks. Ten peaks, looking down, and on one end of the lake, a citadel, with a balcony overlooking the smooth green waters far below. It was evening, the sunset reflecting red and gold on the mountains, and there on a large balcony were two thrones looking out across the lake.

  One of these thrones was empty; on the other sat a man.

  They regarded one another without speaking for several moments, Morthil tapping the arm rest of his throne with his long nails. His hair was long and stringy, bits of his face seemed to be rotting away, peeling from his bones.

  “So. Kel,” Morthil said. “Nice to finally meet you, little sister.”

  “We’ve met before.”

  “Hopefully these are better circumstances. Sit.” He gestured to the other throne. Something far down in the lake below was thrashing, struggling without disturbing the mirror-smooth surface.

  “What is this place?” she asked, not moving.

  “What does it look like to you?”

  “A palace on the side of a cliff, overlooking a lake ringed by mountains.”

  His red eyes glowed. “Sounds pleasant.”

  “What does it look like to you?”

  “A pit. Filled with the bodies of everyone I’ve killed. Above me—” He paused. “Mine is equally pleasant. You and I project here what we wish to see.”

  Whatever the thing was, it thrashed a final time and sank below the bright surface of the water.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “What is what, sister?”

  She shivered, despite the warmth of the evening. “That thing in the water.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” His face split into a rotting grin. He looked about, pausing his tapping, then eyed her. “I haven’t had much company these last ten years.”

  He looked like he expected her to be afraid of him. “Must be lonely.”

  He laughed. “Ah, little sister, you haven’t encountered much that has given you difficulty, have you?”

  She gave an involuntary glance at her missing hand.

  “Oh, I suppose Ruith did give you some trouble. Of course, you killed her, Faraern said.”

  Sent her down into something like this world, more like, Kel thought, remembering Ruith’s yellow eyes in her dream. Morthil picked at the edge of his throne. After several seconds he looked up, and his eyes were sharp, searching.

  “Thank you for coming to speak with me, little sister.” He looked up into the darkening sky, his eyes focused on something Kel couldn’t see. “Not many would speak with the likes of us.” His expression hardened, hurt and anger flashing in his face. “You and I are… well, we’re a threat to the world.”

  Something flashed on the dark ridgeline behind Morthil. Light flickered, and she thought she heard something call out in pain.

  “Have they begun to grate on you yet?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The humans. Their petty concerns. Their ridiculous, pointless lives.”

  “No.”

  He gave a mocking laugh. “You lie. Or, if you don’t, you’ll see what I mean soon enough.”

  “You’re half human, too,” Kel said.

  “We’re much more than that, sister. Better than the humans, better than the Ael. You’ll see. I know we will have many more conversations like this. You and I could sit here for a thousand years, as the humans run around above us, making and unmaking, building and destroying. Two thousand years, ten thousand years, millions of humans will have come and gone, and it will still be you and I, sitting here. You’re young, you haven’t seen it yet, haven’t felt what it’s like, but you will, soon. The blink of an eye, really.” He leaned forward, his gaze suddenly warm. “The Ael have faded, they’re gone.” He leaned back, grinning idly. “To be honest, it doesn’t really matter to me whether I get the fire mage’s body. I’ll get one eventually. Or make one. Or you could make me one.” He glanced at her, but she didn’t move.

  Kel wondered what Morthil wanted from her.

  “I see you don’t trust me. Of course not.” He straightened, and a bit of skin flaked off and fell from his face. “But it doesn’t matter, Kel. You and I have the rest of eternity. You’ll come to see that, eventually. Humans will come and go and come and go, and the Ael will be only echoes.”

  Morthil leaned further forward and reached for her hand. His remaining skin was cold. “It’s going to be a long, lonely existence together, sister.”

  Her skin started to crawl. She pulled back, but his hand was locked tightly on hers. “You and I… we’re better than the others. We are everything our bastard of a father hoped we would be.”

  Kel tried to imagine what a thousand years, what ten thousand years, of existence was going to be like, but it felt like she was turning inside out, like an infinite emptiness was opening up inside her. She pulled her hand back gently.

  “You may not care about the humans, Morthil, but I do. I understand why you wouldn’t. Maybe… maybe when I have lived as long as you… or if I had been treated the way you have by the Ael… maybe I would feel the same.”

  He pulled back, his lips stretching in a sneer. “Oh, how magnanimous of you, sister. How very, very generous.”

  She watched him evenly. The splashing resumed below them, more fra
ntic this time. Something was struggling to get up to the air, but the water kept closing around its head.

  “I want to understand where you’re coming from,” she said. “But I won’t let you hurt them. And… if you want anything to do with me, you won’t hurt them either.”

  “Ah, manipulation. Yes, now you know there is something I want, so you use it against me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “No? Is that not what you just said? Did you not just threaten me?”

  Kel shook her head, trying to clear it. Technically, I suppose that was a threat. A reasonable one, though.

  “I’m leaving now,” Kel said firmly.

  “Come back soon.”

  Kel knew she wouldn’t.

  As she lifted back into the air, feeling that viscous fluid around her again, she thought she heard something, far below, scream for help. A second later, Kel was gone, back standing next to the bright water, the light glowing up through the pool illuminating the bones.

  29

  Kel

  “OK, slowly now,” Finn said. Kel stood on one side of him, Isabelle on the other. Agnes and the earth and water mages lined up behind them.

  The barrier had a slight yellowish tint, and the images behind it wavered like mirages.

  The monster was at least ten feet tall, a strange shifting mass of stone and ice grinding against itself, with eyes of different sizes and shapes all across its body. It had several arms and tentacles and a large, hooked talon on one end. It paused its roiling and regarded them as they approached.

  Kel reached out to it with her mind. What was this thing? It was in incredible pain, whatever it was. And it kept shifting this way and that. She couldn’t meld with it like she could every other living creature she’d ever encountered. Something in it kept sliding out of her grasp.

  A pair of watery eyes opened in the creature’s side. It watched them, looking too tired to fight, its eyes dulled with pain.

  It’s going to be all right, Kel tried to tell it, and it shifted. What are you?

  It tried to say something, but a grimace twisted its features.

  “All right,” Finn was saying. “Get ready. Everyone together now.”

  Kel focused on the creature, looking for the places where naturalist magic flowed through it. There was a lot concentrated on the underside.

  “Now.” Finn said, and she gently reached out, ever so carefully tugging on the energy and pulling it out towards her. She took a seed from her pocket, tossing it to the ground, and directed that magic into the seed.

  The creature groaned and turned over, then cried out again. The other mages were doing their work, too. Kel could see the water pouring out of it, draining in little trickling streams onto the dust. Flashes of flame spread through the dry grass around it.

  The creature gave a horrific scream; it reached out desperately, trying to pull the magic back into itself. Its many eyes wide and terrified, its arms scrabbling, reaching out and attempting to pull itself back together.

  Kel!

  The word shrieked across her mind, and with it, the flash of an image. Golden eyes in a severe face. Ruith.

  “Stop!” Kel said, and the mages stopped immediately. Finn and Isabelle turned to look at her.

  Kel swallowed. “It’s an Ael.”

  “What?” Isabelle said.

  “It’s an Ael. One of…” She had been about to say ‘my people’, but stopped herself. It felt too strange.

  “Are you sure?” Isabelle asked. “How do you know?”

  “It knows who I am. It… I think it’s trying to speak to me. It showed me my aunt just now.”

  “Well, can you ask it to stop trying to kill us?” Isabelle asked.

  Kel looked at the creature: miserable, exhausted. It rammed the barrier, then slumped to the ground.

  “I… I can’t seem to reach it,” Kel said. Again, she reached out, and again she was met with that implacable, sliding mental surface.

  “This is working, Kel,” Finn said, an edge of desperation in his voice. “Even if it is an Ael, they’re just manifestations of energy, right? We’re not hurting it; we’re just sending it back to the non-physical place it comes from.”

  Kel shook her head. “No. No, we’re killing it. We’re ripping it apart, can’t you see that?”

  Finn looked from her to the creature.

  “Kel, if we don’t get rid of it…”

  “We’ll find another way. I’ll find another way.” She reached out, collecting the little streams of water, the licking flames, and pushed them back into the creature.

  “Hey!” the water mage said. “Ow!”

  “I’m sorry,” Kel said. “I can’t let you do this.”

  Finn looked at her long and hard. His single eye sharp. “Kel, we can’t hold it back forever.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  Isabelle took his hand. The thing behind them shook itself, then shrieked and threw itself against the barrier. A resounding crack went through it, and everyone scrambled back a few paces.

  Kel reached up, found the broken places in the wall, and knit them back together again.

  “Give me one day.”

  Finn nodded. “All right, one day.”

  30

  Kel

  As much as Kel wished she could avoid this place forever, she needed information. And there was only one place she knew she could get it.

  The air was colder this time, on that rocky precipice above the lake. Now in the water not one but a multitude of living beings thrashed. They were piled, one above the other. The surface of the water roiled with them. Arms and legs, all struggling to breathe, to fight each other to the surface. A wave of nausea rose through her, but she swallowed it back down.

  I’m going to help you. Just hang on. Not much longer.

  “Oh, you can’t help them, little sister.”

  “They’re Ael, aren’t they?”

  “Yes. And they don’t deserve your pity.”

  “They don’t deserve to be tortured.”

  “They would do the same to you. If they were able. If they’d have known you were alive.” He inclined his head to her missing hand. “You have proof of that already.”

  Kel flexed her vine fingers. “She thought I was like you.”

  “And you are, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  He leaned forward, and his face changed for a moment. A shimmering vision overlaid his rotting features. A handsome, clean cut face, with a high brow and clear, wise, kind eyes. He reached out, touched her cheek gently.

  She pulled back, out of reach of his hand. He smiled and shrugged, his handsome eyes twinkling.

  Kel’s insides went icy, but she tried to keep her fear out of her face. I’m strong. He can’t hurt me. I’m at least as powerful as he is. Except he would do things to get power that Kel would never consider.

  “Please, tell me what you know.”

  He considered her, smiling. Then something shifted in his expression. “I can see that you care about this. You’re wrong to care, but you do. I might have felt similarly, if I didn’t know what I know.”

  I see through your act, Morthil.

  “I can tell you don’t believe me.” He slouched almost petulantly in his chair. “But it’s all right. I understand why you distrust me. It’s the truth, though.” He nodded to himself, that handsome face wavering only for a moment. “All right. The Ael are in pain because of what I did. To magic. When I split it apart to give it to humans—something none of them has once thanked me for by the way—it split magic itself straight down to its core.” He eyed her, and she wondered if he was hoping this impressed her.

  “The Ael live in that realm below the physical. And they are made of it. When I split that realm, I split… them.”

  “How did you split it?”

  He gave her a cunning smile. “Ah, now that is too big of a question to ask, little sister. Even for you.” He steepled his fingers and looked at the sky. “Not that there�
�s anything you could do about it. But… still.”

  Kel rubbed her arm with her good hand.

  Morthil stood, moved nearer. “Now, that’s enough of that. Why talk about the Ael? Or about humans?”

  She took a step back.

  “Thank you,” she said firmly. “I’ll be going now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. But thank you for your help.” Without waiting for his answer, she slipped away, out of that place, and landed back in the real world, her hand going to her chest. She sank to her knees, gulping great breaths of air and shuddering.

  31

  Sarai

  “That was insane,” Agnes said, storming down the hall in front of Sarai. “Absolutely insane.”

  Sarai had to admit, it was one of the stranger things she’d ever seen. “Is that kind of thing normal around here?”

  Agnes whirled around. “Normal? What do you think? A crazy monster rips off the top half of the tower? How could that possibly be normal?”

  Sarai shrugged. “I mean, a severed head popped out of my trunk and I told you your leader had asked me to assassinate him. You seemed pretty fine with that.”

  “Yes,” Agnes snapped. “That was completely logical. It fit with all the evidence. This. This is insane.”

  “Well, I’m glad there’s a line somewhere.”

  Agnes huffed and spun around again, continuing her mad rush down the hall.

  “We need to find out exactly what is going on. I’m not killing Finn if he’s the only one who knows what’s happening. On the other hand, what if we have to kill him to stop this?”

  Sarai drifted silently along after her, her eyes darting down the side passages, noting the people they passed. They stood in terrified knots, clustered in groups of three or four, and eyed her and Agnes anxiously as they passed.

  They stopped at a large door; Agnes pounded on it, then threw it open without waiting for an answer.