The Glass Man (15 page)

A roar of cheers thundered. All rose to their feet, shouting and throwing triumphant fists into the air.

Donovan’s eyes followed a circuit from his watch to the stained glass window and back to me. I gestured to Sebastian with my eyes, hoping my father would realize he needed to be more subtle. He gave a tiny nod, sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers along the arm of it.

“And now, my darling.” Parthalan sashayed to me. “Our time has come at last.”

“What?” I squeaked. “I mean, already? Isn’t there some sort of ritual first with, you know … words?”

“Oh, there’s a ritual.” He snickered as he traced my bottom lip with his finger. “It begins when I finish peeling the last bit of clothing from your delicious body and spread you upon the altar like the kingly feast you are.”

I managed not to throw up. With a thundering heart, I took a step back, but Parthalan lurched forward and grabbed me by the upper arms. I considered begging. I considered pretending to faint or something equally degrading. My pride wouldn’t allow it. Instead, I held his gaze, my breath puffing out in short bursts.

He kissed me hard, grunted as he pulled me off balance and dragged me toward the altar. The fae shouted, urging us on like a rowdy horde at a titty bar.

I panicked when my bare behind pressed against the velvet blanket. I jerked my head to the side to search for Donovan. A hush fell over the crowd. The kiss broke, and we both looked up.

A swirling, purple cloud descended from the ceiling and engulfed us in an ice cold mist. I shivered from the contrast of Parthalan’s warmth and the frosty blanket around us. It had a pulse and spoke, but I couldn’t understand what it said. My heartbeat slowed in contrast to Parthalan’s amplified rhythm. Our skin glowed light blue. A moment later, the mist evaporated, took the glow from our skin and the chill from the air.

Parthalan released me and held his arms out. “What is this?” He screamed into the ceiling. “You have given your word. Even the dead will be held to their oaths.” He paused for a long time. His posture sagged. Slowly, he turned back to me. The dark intent in his eyes made me scramble over the altar before I looked at him again.

His inky hair blazed around his head, and his eyes had turned to blue fire. “Tell me, Lila. Tell me Liam did not have you while you stayed at that human dump.”

I opened my mouth but closed it again when I found no air to speak with. Avoiding questions usually served me well, so I went with that. “Why would it matter?”

“Tell me!” He pounded a fist down on the altar. It split in two, and the entire room shook. Nobody else made a sound. “The only reason the ancestors would not grant us a mating is if you are already mated before the Goddess.” He punctuated each word with a sharp inhale. “Now … tell … me. Before I get angry.”

Hell.
If that wasn’t angry, I didn’t want to see what was.

Parthalan darted around the altar. I shuffled to the far side to keep it between us.

“Lila!” Donovan shouted. My head snapped toward the dais in search of him. He stood beside it, shifting his feet.

The door in my head opened. Liam’s voice whispered through my mind.
“Take cover. Now!”

I sighed. When I shook off the initial euphoria, I dove behind the stone platform. A moment later, the stained glass window exploded behind the dais into a startling burst of color and sound. The glass hit Parthalan, throwing him back a few feet and onto the floor. He screeched and clawed at his face where shards protruded in a few places.

Behind me, cries of pain and terror rose in crescendo until the sound hurt my ears. When I looked back at the rest of the fae, I saw nothing that would cause them to writhe on the floor and scream the way most of them did. Many scrambled for the door at the back as if fleeing an unseen beast, but it wouldn’t open. Some lay motionless in the aisle, glassy eyes open. Others slumped over their thrones or benches, unconscious—or maybe dead, I couldn’t tell.

Someone yanked me to my feet. I turned and punched him in the face. Garret groaned and threw back the hood of his black cloak.

“Shit, I thought you were one of the Sluagh,” I shouted over the screaming horde. “What’s happening?”

He didn’t say anything as he tugged me toward the far side of the dais, his eyes bright. Blood trickled from his nose.

A high, piteous scream burst from Parthalan’s lips. He arched his back where he lay on the floor, threw his hands out as though someone stabbed him repeatedly in the belly.

Donovan’s illusions.

As Garret and I cleared the dais, Donovan moved to the side. Liam stood amongst the glass confetti on the floor, still naked, still beautiful and without a mark on him. The sight of him eased a pain I hadn’t noticed around my heart.

Donovan nodded to me, sprinted toward Parthalan, his eyes fixed on something in the crowd beyond.

“Come on!” Liam shouted.

I’d never been so glad to see another person in my life. I sprinted and threw myself around him. He pried me off and shook me. “No time, we have to go.”

“What happened to the window? How did you get here?”

“Not now!”

“What are we supposed to do?”

He dragged me by the arm toward the window, while I searched over my shoulder for Donovan.

“Get on my back,” Liam said. When I hesitated, he shouted, “Now, Lila. Now, now, now!”

Brow furrowed, I slid my arms around his waist. Garret pressed himself against my back and held on to me. A hundred questions lined up in my head, but I didn’t say anything.

Parthalan wasn’t screaming anymore, but the rest of the conscious fae continued to cry out. Donovan stood a few feet from the king, blood gushing from his nose. Unbearable pain invaded my heart.

Liam pressed his hands over top of mine. “Whatever you do, don’t look down, and don’t let go.”

“What do you mean?” I shouted. “We’re going to jump? No! I’m not leaving here without Donovan.”

When I tried to let go, Garret forced my arms around Liam’s waist again. “This is the way my father wants it,” Garret said with a wavering voice.

Liam tried to maneuver us closer to the gaping wound where the window had been, but I dug my heels into the floor. I struggled against Garret, who was clearly stronger than he appeared. A single tear made it passed my lashes as I looked back.

Parthalan had climbed to his feet, clutched the broken altar for support and cast a demon stare at my father. Wind swirled around him, lifting his hair in a dance above his head. His skin glowed, and his eyes darkened when his gaze landed on the three of us at the window. My skin prickled under it.

I roared and dug my heels into the floor. “Let me go. Donovan!”

Liam strained to move us forward. He teetered at the sill. “I’m sorry. There’s no other way.”

A moment later, I could only watch as my father crumpled to his knees, his eyes on me, a sad smile on his lips.

Liam jerked me off balance and dove out the window. Donovan’s pained cries chased us down as we fell.

I screamed, clutched Liam tighter, breathless as terror squeezed my throat.
“Go back! I can save him if you give me back my power. You have to go back!”
I screamed through our link.

After a long free fall, Liam’s muscles writhed beneath his skin like snakes in a sack. I held my breath when feathers burst from his body, drowning my vision in white. His body grew impossibly large beneath me. His neck and head disappeared into a feathered mass. Gigantic wings unfolded and beat against the air moments before we would have crashed into the cobblestone street.

Instinct forced my hands beneath the feathers, and I grasped two of the thick quills at their base. The owl, at least twice my length, pushed against the wind, carrying us higher, then banked to the right. He turned his head. One bright yellow eye blinked at me before he turned away again.

I started to plead, but the rational part of my brain knew it was futile. No amount of begging could change the fact that my father had died to save me. My soul shattered, and my stomach seized with the pain of deep loss. How could fate be so cruel? To give me my father for an hour only to steal him away again? My brother. Liam. Both in danger because of me. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing them, too. Garret squeezed me tighter as the wind grabbed at us, but he said nothing. He pressed his face against my bare shoulder, his hot tears wetting my skin. He’d lost his father, too, but I couldn’t comfort him yet. We had to get away first.

Parthalan would be on the warpath after what we’d just done. None close to me would be safe.

I wondered where Liam would take us.

“We’re going through the portal,” Garret shouted as if he’d heard the question I never asked. The roaring of the wind against my ears made me strain to hear him. “But the Sluagh will come for us. We might not make it.” He laughed, but it turned into a sob. “I’m not sure if I even want to.”

I sighed and, with a herculean effort, pushed my sorrow down and sealed it up. “Don’t ever say that to me again. I will die before I let them take you back to the Glass Man.”

19

The liquid sky darkened to black as we approached the tall wooden doors of the portal building.

“They’re coming!” Garret squeezed me hard.

My ribs creaked, and I grunted. “You need to go faster, Liam. God, there are so many I can barely see the sky.”

“Look, I’m just learning to fly this thing, so shut up so I can concentrate!”

“What do you mean, just learning?” I’d assumed he’d purposely omitted the fact that he could transform into an owl from his list of skills.

A moment later, Liam gathered his wings close to his body and we crashed through the doors. His wide shoulders grazed the opening. The building moaned. A jagged shard of wood sliced my arm and knocked me sideways, but I held on, yanking one of his feathers out in the process.

“Ouch! Goddammit, that hurt!”

“We almost fell off! Thanks for your concern.”
Thinking about how to survive the next few minutes took my mind off darker thoughts.

Inside, Liam couldn’t spread his wings out, so he crouched and hopped to the back of the chamber. He pushed off, and we burst through the ceiling. I buried my head, certain it would be smashed against the marble.

A rush of cool air turned warm as we appeared in the middle of the Grand Canyon in a nosedive toward the bottom. With a few thumping flaps of his wings, Liam changed direction and headed for the upper lip of the cliff.

“Why is it night here already?” I shouted back to Garret. “It was dawn when we went in, and that couldn’t have been more than three hours ago.”

“Time moves differently in the Black City.” He shifted closer to my ear. “Dun Bray is different, so I heard. It moves along with the human world.”

“How do the Unseelie usually leave the Black City? We came out falling.”

“Parthalan controls the gateway. If he doesn’t want someone to leave, they’ll fall. Anyone else will appear on the top of the cliff where we jumped.”

Moments after we cleared the upper ledge, a black swarm of Sluagh boiled over the rim in pursuit.

“Shit!” I shouted. “I didn’t think they’d follow us through. Where is Seven Gates?”

“It’s in Northern Ontario.” Garret’s voice was hollow and unemotional. “Too far. We’ll never make it. Even if …”

“Even if what, Garret?”

“Nothing.”

I hadn’t the time or patience to deal with cryptic shit. I peered over my shoulder. A fast-moving storm of Sluagh approached, their black wings carrying a sheen from the muted moonlight. I shivered in the damp air and the punishing wind. Clouds covered most of the sky, drawing an ominous blanket over the land.

Liam dove toward the ground. The g-forces pressing against my body made me lightheaded. I strained to hold on.

When we slowed, I sat up straighter for a better look around. “What are you doing? They’re right on top of us.”

“Trust me,”
was all he said.

A series of twitters rang out before a dozen or so birds rocketed out of a treetop in front of us. Liam banked hard and followed the birds, pushed harder than he had since we’d narrowly missed the cobblestone below the Unseelie Court. The thrumming of his wings boomed like a death-march drum.

The Sluagh broke around us like black water around a rock. They encircled us completely, except for a narrow path in front. I found them above and below us, too. “Now what?” I asked. The day wasn’t improving.

Garret tensed behind me, muttered something I didn’t understand. The air around the song birds vibrated and glowed.

My heart sank. “What are you doing to them, Garret?”

“I’m not as strong as my father is … was,” Garret said against my ear. “I need something living to attach the illusion to.”

“I don’t want anyone else dying to save me, Liam. Just drop me and take Garret away from here.”

“Don’t be stupid,”
he said.
“They volunteered. It’s a necessary sacrifice.”

Garret touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Illusions exploded around us, mirror images of us. They flew in different directions while Liam dropped toward the ground.

A triumphant screech burst from Liam’s owl mouth as we hit something. A high pitched mewling came from below. Two of the Sluagh fell, crushed in his talons. Could the undead still die?

The rest of the Sluagh broke into chaos. Guttural hissing sounds mixed into a terrible symphony. Garret continued to chant in a broken voice, his trembling arms encircling my waist. Grief and fear radiated from his body like a frigid winter wind.

Once we reached the tops of the trees, Liam leveled out and flew away from the dark mass. The Sluagh followed the birds. Each time they tried to grab the illusion of me, they found nothing but air. Their screeching rose in volume with every failed attempt. A moment later the bird beneath the spell would plummet, broken, to the ground. Garret had somehow made us invisible to the feathered devils.

“This is wrong, Liam,”
I thought to him.

“We never expected the Sluagh to chase us so quickly, but we arranged this as a last resort just in case. Now don’t make a sound, or their sacrifice will have been for nothing.”

A pained screech in the distance met my ears, then another, and another. Pain tore my heart from my chest, and I collapsed against Liam. Where there should have been sorrow came rage. So many dead: the birds, Liam’s sisters, so many of the humans. My father. My hands quivered, the pain searching for a way to escape. Nobody should have had to die for me. I wasn’t worth it.

“I’m sorry about Donovan,”
Liam said.
“He had to be close to them in order to keep up such a large illusion. He knew what he was doing.”

“I wondered who my father was my whole damn life. I didn’t even get a chance to know him, and now he’s gone.”
A sob escaped before I could stop it.

“Jesus. I swear, I didn’t—it doesn’t matter.”

• • •

By the time Liam touched down beside a rock face hours later, the sun had poked its fiery head above the trees. A great emptiness inhabited me. My thoughts and emotions were locked up in a box deep in my throbbing head. I slid from his back and sat on the grey rock.

A blaze of white light flashed behind me. Liam groaned.

“Lila?” Garret’s meek voice came from behind me. His footsteps padded closer.

“Don’t touch me.” My voice sounded lifeless.

“I didn’t … if there was … I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “Everybody’s sorry. Well, take your sorry and shove it. Sorry won’t change anything, so just save it.”

Liam stomped around to face me back in his regular body. His fingers tugged on the zipper of a pair of jeans. I wondered where he’d found them, but I didn’t ask. “He risked his ass so you could live. We all did what we had to.”

I jumped to my feet. “Maybe I don’t want to live like this! Did you even consider that? You could have told me about what you and Donovan had planned.” I swallowed around the mammoth lump in my throat. “I could have found another way.”

“If I could have gotten into the castle without Sebastian knowing, things might have been different, but I couldn’t. Gaoth, the wind spirit, with the help of the Goddess, carried my messages to Donovan, and his to me at tremendous risk to himself. Your father and every one of those birds knew what they were doing, so stop being so fucking selfish. They loved and believed in you enough to trade their lives for yours.”

“Your …” Garret started, opened his mouth a few times. “But …”

Liam palmed his forehead. “Shit, he didn’t know?”

“He does now.” I stared into the surrounding brush, but didn’t really see past my own dark thoughts.

Garret cleared his throat a few times as if the words were getting caught. “So … you’re my sister?”

My mind had wandered so far away that all I did was nod. My head filled with shadows and echoes of sounds I couldn’t bear to hear again. My throat constricted.

“You’re supposed to fix everything, so you have to live,” Liam said. “That’s what your mother wanted.”

A fresh wave of grief stole my air for a moment. “Don’t talk about my mother.” I turned and stomped away. “How did you get away from Clancy?”

A pause stretched the silence into something painful. “I shifted and crushed him.”

My gasp came with the close of my eyes.

“Jesus. Would you rather he’d killed me, instead?”

All logical thought fell beneath the tremendous weight of loss. I bent over and retched, but nothing came out—my stomach empty of all but pain, like the rest of me.

Liam held out a small bottle of water to me.

I snatched it from his hand and drank. “Where’s the gateway? I need to get away from you.” I needed to get away from my life and the images tormenting me, to crawl into a hole and never come out.

“I don’t fucking believe this. Fine, you want to blame me for everything? Great, I’ll take it. I’d rather you hate me forever than live with myself if I’d failed you. It’s not just you or me at stake here, so you need to pull it together. You have some hard choices to make and more sacrifices to endure before this is over.”

I crossed my arms over my red corset while Liam and Garret strode past me. Garret shot me a pained look over his shoulder before he turned forward again. He seemed smaller, younger. I couldn’t cope with anything other than the rage chewing at my soul.

Sacrifice. How many will fall in my name before it ends?
I couldn’t live with myself as it was, so how could Liam expect me to go on as if nothing had happened and knowing more blood would be spilled? My voice of reason agreed with him. I was acting irrationally. At that moment, I didn’t care.

We walked along the towering rock face for a while. Liam stopped in front of a rounded opening, ten feet high and only wide enough for one person to slip through.

“There are seven of these along the rock,” Garret said. “My father said that if you enter without knowing the right door to take, or what path to take once you’re inside, you’ll wander forever, lost inside the rock.”

“Why is everything so fucking complicated with these people.” I walked up to the opening. “So what do I do now?”

Liam paced, his glare pointed at the ground.

My energy surged behind the barrier at his silence. If I’d had my energy at that moment, I would have broken him into a pile of kindling. Warnings went off somewhere in the back of my mind, but I ignored them. “Give me back my Light.”

He stopped and looked up. “No.” He resumed pacing.

“It’s mine. Give it back.”

“Or what? When you get inside and have some time to grieve, to accept the way things are, I’ll release your energy and be your humble servant. For now, I’m in charge, and I say no.”

I kicked at the stone. A chunk flew against the rock wall with a clack. I turned and ploughed my fist against the stone over and over until pain sang up my arm in a brutal wave.
One pain to take away another.
When I finished, I turned and leaned against the cool rock. My hand throbbed, occupying my senses so other hurts didn’t reach me.

“Are you finished?” Liam pressed a hand against the wall and leaned toward me.

I tried to slow my intake of air, but my lungs faltered, strained and weak. “For now.”

“Then let me see it.”

My eyebrow shot up. “See what?”

“Your hand. It looks like raw hamburger.” He reached for it, but I jerked it away. I tried not to let the pain show on my face, but by the look on his, I hadn’t succeeded.

“Stop being so Goddamned stubborn!”

Before I could turn away, he grabbed me, hooked a foot behind my ankles and pushed me to the ground.

A grunt expelled from my lips. “What the hell are you doing? Get off me!”

He straddled me and grabbed my forearm where blood trickled down from my mangled hand. “Now be still, or I swear I’ll hogtie you.”

His skin against mine injected a warm, delicious heat, but I didn’t let on. I glared at him as he looked over my hand.

“Must have been some shale in that wall.” He turned my knuckles toward the light. “You hit so damn hard you’ve got at least two shards of it right down to the bone. I need to dig them out before the skin heals around them.”

“Just do it and get off me.”

“I can distract you while Garret does it.” He cleared his throat and sat up. “If you want.”

I looked over at Garret, who had turned a pale shade of green. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
What did he mean by distraction?
“Do it.”

Liam shook his head and cursed under his breath. He pulled at my skin to get at the pieces, but his fingers were too thick and his fingernails were chewed to scraps. “Garret, go over to where Karo stashed everything. I asked him to drop a first aid kit here just in case.”

“Who’s Karo?” I asked.

“He’s the Regent of the owls up here in Canada. He had some of his brethren drop supplies for us.”

“Can you talk to all animals now?”

Liam tugged on my skin again. I winced, buried it under a scowl.

His eyes swept my face. “No, just the birds and only when I’m in owl form.”

Garret came back with the kit.

Liam flipped it open, fished around and came out with a pair of long metal tweezers. He leaned close to my face. “This is going to hurt.”

“You think?”

As he dug around in my flesh with the tweezers, a piece of rock connected with bone. I flinched. He gave one hard yank and pulled out a tiny wedge of grey shale, hardly worth the pain it caused.

Dizziness swept over me.

“I’ll give you a minute before I do the rest.”

I shook my head. “No. Get it done.”

After a shrug, Liam pulled out one more piece that broke off, making him dig deeper for the rest of it. I cried out as fire raged up my arm. He closed up the skin as well as he could and bandaged me from fingertips to wrist.

“You don’t need to worry about infection, at least,” he said when he finished. “The fae heal quickly, and we’re immune to most illnesses that afflict humans.”

When he climbed off me, I rolled onto my side and clutched my arm to my chest. He squatted down in front of me and brushed my hair back from my face. If the pain hadn’t been so terrible, I would have moved away. Part of me wanted to have the distraction of his touch, the pleasure to counteract the pain, but my pride and anger wouldn’t let me ask him to stay.