whether they were communicating telepathically, or whether they were just trying to stare each other down.
After a few long moments Puck looked away.
“Now, my niece,” Daharan said, turning to me. “I believe you wish to return to your world, and have had some difficulty doing so.”
I nodded, and Puck glanced at me in surprise.
“You want to go back to Chicago? To the Retrievers? But I brought you here to keep you away from them,” Puck said.
“No, you brought me here to manipulate me into doing something for you that you were too cowardly to do yourself,” I said. “The fact that I needed to escape the Retrievers was just a happy coincidence for you.”
“You always think the worst of me,” Puck said, the twinkle back in his eye.
“That’s because you always prove me right,” I said. I addressed Daharan. “So, do you think you can help me get out of here? I tried to open a portal myself but the world wouldn’t let me. The fae told me that Lucifer had closed all the ways out of this place, but I found a permanent portal across the ocean.”
“The fae told you that, hmmm?” Daharan said, looking significantly at Puck again. “Yes, Lucifer did close all the ways to and from here, save that one. It is just possible, with the right manipulation of magic, to come into this world. But the only way to leave it is that permanent portal.”
My heart sank. “So I’ve got to cross the ocean.”
Daharan nodded. “Yes. But I will help you. It will take less time for my dragon form to take you there. However, there is a catch.”
“There always is,” I muttered.
“The portal does not lead directly to your world. You must pass through it to another place, and then you can go on,” Daharan said.
“And where does the portal lead?” I asked, dreading the answer.
Daharan looked at me, and the flames in his eyes burned more brightly than before.
“The land of the dead.”
8
“THE LAND OF THE DEAD,” I SAID. “OF COURSE IT DOES. Because I’m already in trouble with the Agency and I need to be in even more hot water.”
Daharan frowned. “Why does Lucifer not clear your way with the Agency? Particularly since you collected Evangeline at his behest.”
“You know about that?” I asked.
“I know much more than you think I do. Either of you,” Daharan said, with a pointed look at his brother. Puck shifted uncomfortably in the sand.
“Well, anyway,” I said. “Lucifer likes to see me get out of my own jams. That’s why he wouldn’t do anything about the Retrievers coming after me. And it wouldn’t matter, anyway. They’ve got it in for me—Sokolov and Bryson and probably some faceless members of the board. Bryson’s got a personal problem with me because I, um, might have physically harmed him at one point or another.”
Daharan raised an eyebrow at me.
I wasn’t going to go into detail about how I’d let Nathaniel torture Bryson. I hurried on. “But mostly they don’t like that I managed to squeeze out of my eternal contract with them. Nobody at the Agency ever thought it would be possible.”
“Yes, they believe you could incite rebellion amongst the Agents, cause them to give up their duty,” Daharan said. “It is foolish. None of the other Agents has your powers or your bloodlines. Were you not one of us, you would have been entirely unable to throw off the mantle of death.”
“I’m not sure it will help my case if they know that,” I said. “They’re already afraid of me as it is. And a lot of bad stuff has happened to Agents because of me.”
Ramuell and Antares breaking into the Agency with a horde of demons, killing indiscriminately. Agents being taken and used for Azazel’s experiments. Yes, the Agency had a lot of grief it could lay at my door, even if most of it was indirect.
It wasn’t really my fault that my enemies used innocents in their quest to get to me. But I carried the burden of those deaths anyway.
My stomach grumbled loudly, breaking the tension and the silence. I grinned in an embarrassed way. “Sorry. Can’t remember the last time I ate.”
To my surprise, Daharan turned to Puck with an angry look. “Did you not think to feed the girl before you put her through her paces? She is with child. She needs nourishment.”
He muttered something to himself, and a picnic blanket appeared on the sand. And on the picnic blanket there were . . .
“Pancakes!” I said. I’m not ashamed to admit that I dove for that plate like Beezle going for the popcorn bowl.
There was a whole spread, with orange juice and a bowl of brightly colored, cut-up fruit, and every kind of pancake topping I liked—butter and syrup and fruit jams. There was even bacon, and it smelled so heavenly that I almost fainted in ecstasy.
“Slowly,” Daharan said. “You will make yourself sick.”
I nodded, and carefully cut up one pancake on my plate after drowning it in butter and syrup. I ate slowly, letting my shriveled stomach adjust to the idea of food again.
While I shoveled food in my mouth—in a careful, measured way, of course—Daharan indicated to Puck that he should follow him. The two of them wandered down the beach.
I was definitely curious about what they were discussing, but I was probably better off not knowing. The less I knew of the plans of Lucifer’s brothers, the better.
I was sure I could trust Daharan, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t also harboring a secret plan for world domination, or some desire to see one or more of his brothers destroyed. I didn’t want any part of that. I sincerely hoped that Daharan wouldn’t help me get to the portal and then ask for some unnamed favor later.
Down the beach, Puck turned to Daharan, his face angry. He was gesturing wildly, obviously furious. Daharan faced him with crossed arms, and he seemed unmoved by Puck’s performance.
I ate until I couldn’t eat anymore, and the little guy inside my belly beat his wings happily. Now that I was full, I felt sleepy again. It seemed like all I’d done in the last couple of days was deal with insanely stressful situations and then pass out as soon as they were over. But I could feel my eyes closing, my mind drifting.
I was warm and I was safe, and so was my child. I had no fear.
When I woke it was night, and I was no longer on the beach. Daharan cradled me in a kind of sling that hung from his front claws. The ocean rolled away beneath us, and the wind blew in my hair. It should have been uncomfortable, but the heat emanating from Daharan’s body kept me warm, and I wasn’t worried that he would drop me. I drifted off again.
The next time I opened my eyes the sun was blazing, and the ocean was gone. Below us were the spiky peaks of mountains. I felt wide-awake and refreshed for the first time in days. I felt like I could take on anything— the Retrievers, the Agency, Evangeline, even Alerian. Well, maybe not Alerian. But I felt a lot better than I had for a while.
I reached up and put my hand on Daharan’s claw so that he would know I was awake. He snorted in response, and kept flying. We were close to the portal now. I wondered how long I’d been asleep, and how long we’d been flying.
It is a much different experience to be carried by a flying dragon than to fly yourself. The dragon moves a lot faster, for one. I’d never been in an airplane—I’d never had any need to be in one—but I imagine that dragon flight is not unlike jet flight. The ground was much farther away than it would have been if I had been flying myself, and it seemed like we were passing slowly over it, though I knew we were covering dozens of miles every
