A Trace of Moonlight (35 page)

Phin pawed at my calf, his ears flattening. “I’ll stay here with her. I can’t help where you’re going anyway, and she needs someone she can trust.”

I caught an approving look from Nobu and he bowed to the unicorn in an oddly elegant fashion.

Funny how the world ending leads to strange bedfellows.

The squire I’d seen before led a set of matching white horses toward us. Talivar mounted first, raising a brow as he indicated I should ride in front of him.

Ion boosted me up and into Talivar’s arms before mounting his own mare. “Watch over her while she sleeps, elf. What we attempt is extraordinarily dangerous—her body must be guarded at all costs.”

“Understood.” Talivar blew once on the horn, and the Hunt whirled away and disappeared through the Door they had come. The elf’s arms curled tightly around me as he kicked his own horse forward. “I love you, Abby,” he murmured in my ear. “Whatever happens . . . remember that.”

I tucked the words into my mind, folding up the memory of the sound of his voice at that moment. We stood on the edge of a precipice—like so many times before. Except this time the world really would end if we didn’t get things figured out . . . or at least be changed beyond anything I wanted to live in.

I kissed him, my lips brushing his cheek. “I love you too.”

He said nothing to this, but nudged the horse on beneath us. I caught Brystion’s eye as we approached
the Door where the Hunt had gone and the incubus waved before loping off in a different direction. Part of me shivered at the thought of leaving him behind, but he had to work this part out on his own. He certainly didn’t need an audience.

But what if he can’t reach the Dreaming at all?
My inner voice was less snide than usual, but it was a fair enough question. And not one that I had an answer for.

And then it didn’t matter because the Door shimmered before us. Taliver didn’t hesitate, plunging us through onto the CrossRoads. Melanie’s music faded away, along with the hum and buzz of so many OtherFolk in close quarters.

The silence and silver welcomed us, the horse’s hooves thudding upon the cobblestones and stirring up the dust.

“Just like old times,” Talivar murmured sadly.

A lump rose in my throat. It had only been a few weeks, but so much had happened. There wasn’t much else to be said and we rode in relative quiet after that. There was a rattle in his breath I didn’t care for and I made a mental note to make sure a healer looked at his lungs once we got out of this whole mess.

We approached the site carefully, though there wasn’t anything particularly interesting about it. A small grassy knoll with a rounded door carved into a thick boulder was the only thing of any great import. “That’s it?”

Talivar shook his head and dismounted, holding out a hand to help me down. “No. You’d think so, but the clever bastard Glamoured the real Door. It’s actually between those two trees. This seemed like a good place to set up a camp to wait for him to come out. This other door
appears to be someone’s idea of a joke,” he said dryly. “I suspect someone nipped if off a certain movie set.”

“But Talivar . . . you know the Key doesn’t have to work that way. He could use it to open the Door to anywhere, not just here.”

He exhaled sharply. “I know, but at least we’d still see that there would be some sort of activity . . . I don’t know. It’s the best I could come up with, Abby.” There was an exhaustion in his voice that spoke of not wanting to admit certain things, and there was no point in belaboring what couldn’t be controlled.

“All right.” I found a quiet spot beside the hill, and the elf laid his cloak upon it for me to sit on. The rest of the Hunt nosed around the tree line, living shadows drifting in and out like a restless tide of horses and hounds. I wondered aloud at their apparent lack of interest in the Door.

“The Hunt hunts. The prey has gone to ground and until the hounds pick up the scent, they will wait.” Talivar sat down and pulled me into his lap, tipping my head so it rested on his chest. He felt . . . hollow beneath me, but he planted a soft kiss upon my brow, his fingers stroking my cheek. “I will watch over you as you sleep. Whatever happens, you will be safe.”

I smiled wryly at him. “I know. I’ll see you on the other side. And maybe when we’re all done here, we can have a movie night? I’ve missed that.”

He chuckled. “As have I.”

I spared a last glance at the Hunt. I couldn’t quite keep a tremor of fear from rippling down my spine, but the elf kept up the rhythmic stroke of his hands in my hair, humming beneath his breath.

And then I slipped away.

T
he Heart of my Dreaming was eerily still, the crickets quiet. A slight rustle crept through the silver grass, and the wind had a salty tang to it. The sea rode upon my dreams, as though my nightmare sharks were rallying themselves to the cause.

I frowned. Perhaps they could be used in some fashion to break down Maurice’s inner barriers. I certainly didn’t give two shits if he was injured in the process.

Assuming we could find the fucker at all.

Melanie’s Heart had been hard enough to breach—and I
knew
her. We were friends. Something told me Maurice wouldn’t be quite so willing to let me inside and, given what a complete asshat he’d been this whole time, the gods only knew what he’d manage to do inside his own head.

First things first, though. I approached the gate, my gaze darting about. No sign of Brystion.

What if the incubus couldn’t come back this way? I would have to seek him out . . . assuming his own Heart still remained.

A sudden grating crash at the front gate startled me and I saw Sonja there, her eyes panicked. “Abby!”

I ran to the gate, throwing it open. “What’s going on?”

“I need you to come with me, right now.” She snatched at my hand, yanking me onto the path and in the direction of Ion’s Heart. “Whatever you’ve got inside of you, you have to give it back, right now. He’s dying.”

A lance of pain tore through my chest and I followed her without a word, skirting over the dimly lit path. Behind me, I caught the shadowed silver edge of fins sliding through the darkness, but I shoved them away.

Not now.

Defense or not, I wouldn’t use them against the incubus. I’d inadvertently done it once before and it had driven a wedge between us. I couldn’t bear it if it happened again. And I had the distinct feeling that whatever was going to happen now, it would make my previous Dreaming encounters look like a cakewalk.

“What happened?”

“He managed to make it to the Dreaming via the CrossRoads, but instead of the route we normally take here, he ended up in that odd little Heart of his. He’s stuck there and it’s draining him.” She shook her head, moving even faster. “He’s not letting me in. You need a mortal soul to sustain a Heart. I don’t know what’s going on inside.”

Another burst of speed and her wings spread wide. “Come on,” she snapped. “Use your power. You’re not helpless.”

I shook myself, realizing she was right, and pulled the Dreaming about me in my usual silver bubble of
light. Floating along, I was able to increase the pace until we arrived at Brystion’s Dreaming Heart.

Which was almost completely engulfed in fire.

“Jesus, we have to get him out of there!”

She whirled on me in frustration. “I know!”

“Ion!” I screamed his name, the flames leaping higher as I approached. “I’m coming in now, Ion. I’m giving it back to you.” I didn’t even know what
it
was, but clearly there wasn’t going to be any other way.

Trusting him not to fry me senseless, I hurtled my little bubble into the rising wall of searing heat, burning me through my shield. All around me, the forest crackled, pine trees disintegrating like blackened paper. I hurried on. He’d be in the center.

But when I got there, the cottage lay in a smoking ruin, the thatched roof nearly gone, and my heart broke to see his careful work destroyed so quickly.

Where was he? There was no sign of Ion’s daemon side like before, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

Looking at how the fire encircled the cottage, I realized that it was burning
outward
, rather than closing in on the little house.

The door to the cottage creaked open, a puff of soot billowing out. Coughing, I stepped inside, uttering a cry when I saw him curled into a ball in front of the fireplace. Trapped in some oddly fashioned half-form, he was neither human or daemon, both gray-skinned and hairy with eyes the glazed gold of fading embers.

“Shit.” I knelt beside him, heedless of anything else, and grabbed a clawed hand. “Ion! Ion, wake up. It’s me. Wake up!”

He let out a hesitant groan. “Can’t seem to hold on to this place,” he muttered. “Can’t control it.”

“Take it,” I begged him. “Take the power back.”

“Don’t know how. Not sure I can . . . like this.”

“Bullshit.” I opened the KeyStone channel between us, searching for a way to TouchStone him. If he was partially human, then he was partially OtherFolk. If there was something there, I could feed myself into him.

Emptiness answered my metaphysical probing, like I was shouting in an empty room.
Please, please, please
 . . . I shoved in deeper, even as I realized what little contact we had would not be enough.

“Thirsty,” he mumbled. “So thirsty.”

Not for water, I realized. Dream-eater, he was named. But he couldn’t drink my dreams while we remained here in his . . .

“Come on.” I tugged on him, staggering to my feet. “We have to go.”

He blinked up at me blearily. “Go where?”

“Someplace you can eat. You can’t sustain yourself on your own dreams . . . you’ll just be devouring yourself.”

A frown crossed his face as he worked it through. He gave me a weary smile, his golden eyes taking on an odd humor. “That actually makes too much sense.”

“It explains a lot,” I agreed. I held myself steady as he pulled himself up, his arm thrown loosely across my shoulder. “You’re going to have to stop the fire in the trees, though. I’m not sure I can carry you and shield us both at the same time.”

“Amateur,” he snorted.

“Look who’s talking.” I pulled my shields around us as tight as they would go, trying to reduce their circumference.

“Anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are?”

“It’s been mentioned a time or two.”

We limped out of the cottage, his face squeezed in concentration. The flames wavered and then damped down.

“Won’t be able to hold it for long,” he said hoarsely. His feet were bent at an odd angle, as though he’d tried to transform into his daemon form and failed. I shifted beneath him to try for a stronger grip around his waist.

“Sonja is waiting for us outside the gate.”

He nodded, hissing as his naked foot crunched on an ember. “Feels so real.”

“Well, it’s not. Remember, you control this place.”

“Mmmph.”

“Yeah. Now you know how I feel, every time you guys spout off about relying on physics too much.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” he muttered, but the flames died down a little more as we retreated from the cottage. He spared a single glance back at it and sighed. “It was nice while I had it.”

“I know.” I squeezed his hand and tugged him forward. Time enough later to figure out what to do about it . . . if there even was a later.

Which led to another interesting thought.

The previous times he’d drunk my dreams had always required some form of sex . . . or at least my orgasm. I was hardly in the mood for that sort of thing at the moment. Not that it would have mattered, before. Being an incubus had its perks, and one of them was to emanate a sort of sexual desire that could override most sensibilities.

He no longer had that . . . but maybe I did.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’ll tell you later.” We were at the gate of his Dreaming Heart. Sonja paced outside of it with a restless flap of scarlet wings.

“There you are.” She yanked on the gate until her brother stroked it and it rolled open. The succubus snatched at him, pulling him into her arms. “You asshole.”

“Nice to see you too,” he coughed.