“Your father has been transported to Dhuinne. No doubt the bloodsucker has been scrambling for a way to convince you not to do something foolish to try and get him back, even though he knows there is no safe way for you to reach him.”
The truth of those words burned. “Something like that,” I muttered.
“Did you wait until he fell asleep to sneak out and speak to me?” Now the barest hint of amusement colored the Fae’s tone.
“Yes,” I told him, “I sure did. So, what can you do for me?”
“Do for you? In what capacity, demonkin?”
“Don’t play dumb. Can you get me into to Dhuinne? Can you get me to my father?”
Albigard sighed. “Yes, and very possibly. But those are not the questions you should be asking.”
I steeled myself, because I already suspected what the answer to my third question would be. So I asked a different one. “Can you get my father out of there, once they have me as a prisoner instead?”
There was a rather long pause.
“Well?” I pressed.
“That... was not precisely the question I expected.”
“That’s nice,” I snapped. “So what’s the answer?”
“The answer is... perhaps.” Albigard paused again. “If your intention is truly to give yourself over to the Fae Court, it may be possible to negotiate your father’s release in exchange.”
“Okay, great.” I stood up, pacing next to the tall wooden fence in an attempt to release some of the nervous jitters building inside me. “When can we leave? I’ll have to sneak out and call a cab or something so I can meet you, but I should leave before Rans wakes up and—”
I stumbled to a halt, my words trailing off as a burning oval appeared in the air in front of me. Albigard stepped through, and the portal collapsed in on itself, disappearing. He looked... wilder and less civilized than I remembered, clad in loose pants and a soft shirt that exposed the dark web of tattoos climbing up his collarbones to stretch toward the base of his throat. His feet were bare in the brown-tipped summer grass of the suburban back yard.
“Uh...” I began, staring.
His sharp brows drew together. “Come. I am about to make an enemy out of an ally. I would prefer to gain some tangible benefit from the move before the inevitable battle ensues.”
“How did you know where I was?” I blurted.
His tone grew dry, and his expression sour. “You drank my mead, demonkin. You also tried to drink me.”
“And that means you can track me down now, just like that?” I asked in disbelief.
He gestured around us, as if to say, well, obviously. I dragged my thoughts back to the practical. Did it really matter, given what I was about to do? Pretty soon, every Fae in existence would know exactly where I was. I had to fight a shudder at the idea, my resolve wavering for the first time.
I shoved my fear down and away. Don’t think about it. Just act. Think of Dad.
“Fine. When can we go?” The longer I had to wait, the less I trusted myself not to have second thoughts.
Rather than answer in words, Albigard swept his hand in a circle through the air, and a new portal opened in front of us. He gestured me through, and I forced heavy feet to step forward. To step through.
I held my breath through the disorientation, unsure if I’d be stepping out into Dhuinne, or the basement cells in Albigard’s house, or what. It turned out to be none of those things. Instead, Albigard emerged to stand next to me in what must have once been a parking lot, before nature made a spirited attempt to reclaim it.
Ahead, a large, square-cornered institutional building lay in ruins. It appeared to be from the 1940s or 50s. The windows were long gone, leaving dark, gaping eyes in the structure. Rusty, acid-rain streaks ran down the exterior walls.
“What is this place?” I whispered, my voice feeling intrusive in the early morning silence.
The portal closed behind us with a wave of Albigard’s hand. “Abandoned hospital. It’s positioned on the ley line that leads to the Hill of Tara.”
A small shiver ran up the length of my spine. “Is this where my father was transported from?”
“No. That was further west of here.”
I remembered the series of dots on Derrick’s map, and wondered if the Weekly Oracle crew had EMF detection equipment hidden somewhere on the premises. Certainly, the place looked like vacation paradise for ghost hunters.
Albigard was already striding toward the front entrance of the derelict building, and I scrambled to follow him. “So,” I asked, catching up, “how does this work? Another portal, this time all the way to Ireland?”
I’d never been out of the country before, I realized with a small pang. Never even left the small, bi-state area comprised of Missouri and Illinois until Rans had jetted me to Atlantic City a few days ago...
No. Don’t think of Rans right now.
Albigard threw me a dark, side-eyed look. “Not exactly.”
He strode deeper into the decaying building, as though following an invisible trail. Then we were descending a questionable looking staircase, and—seriously, what the hell was it with Fae and basements? But the answer became clear a moment later, when we approached a patch of dusty light, the beam filtering in from a high, narrow window in the outer wall. It illuminated an area where the concrete floor had been dug up in chunks, revealing bare, dark earth beneath. I thought I could see worms and pill bugs crawling around in the damp dirt.
“A moment,” Albigard said, before closing his eyes and murmuring in that unfamiliar language he sometimes used. He gestured down the length of his own body. The loose sleep clothing he’d been wearing dissolved, replaced by soft buckskin boots that laced to the knee, fitted breeches in a shade of dark forest green, a shirt of unbleached linen