“Let me,” Here said as it appeared beside them as misty and undefined as before.
“Who are you?” Holly demanded, bristling with fear. “How did you get through my shield?”
“I’m the dimension you’re currently standing in,” Here told the teen patiently.
Holly took a deep breath like she was about to flip out all over everyone on the boat, but then she sagged, too tired to care about one more weird thing happening to her that day, and grumbled, “Whatever, man.”
“So you can talk to anyone now?” Clayton sounded sulky. Mal thought it might be because he liked feeling special, being the one person in the group who could talk to anything.
“Now that my captors are dead, I can talk to anyone I want.”
The world shimmered around them and reformed. The boat didn’t move, but suddenly it was upright and everyone was on firm footing.
Mal went to the railing to see a small body of water surrounding them. The boat was now in a tiny pond with a dock connecting it to the cavern. A water sprite poked its head out of the hole in the hull and stared at the water dubiously.
“I could have done that,” Mal complained. He didn’t need some misty mother fucker showing off in front of his mate.
“You would have given me indigestion,” Here said dryly. “So I thought I’d save us both the trouble.”
“I thought you were exhausted from making a million tiny barriers,” Clayton said.
“I was. I took a nap,” Here said, like it should have been obvious.
It wasn’t. The last time Mal had exhausted his resources, it took him a hell of a lot longer than an hour to recover himself. Not counting when Clayton had helped him earlier, of course.
Here must be one hell of a powerful creature. How had it gotten invaded in the first place?
“Your parents invited more people inside me, and it’s making me anxious. Can you tell them to leave?” Here made a shooing motion toward the commotion happening on the other side of the cavern. Bits of mist swirled off its incorporeal arms as it gestured, and they vanished into nothing.
Clayton turned to see a swarm of silver-clad soldiers surrounding Naerith and discussing something intently. “Ah, yes. They would be the queen’s soldiers. They’ll leave once they’ve gathered up all the kidnappers.”
Here huffed in annoyance. “I’ll save them the trouble then.”
Once again, the world shimmered, and suddenly, there was a pile of battered, burned, and terrified kidnappers next to the soldiers, tied up and thoroughly demoralized. Naerith looked up and over at the boat, and Clayton waved cheerfully.
Here drifted over to Naerith, and after some shouting and hand waving, Naerith recalled all the soldiers and their captives to a portal.
See? Reality did whatever Mal told it to. He told it to give Naerith whatever it took to get him to leave them alone, and it gave him a stable portal.
It was great to be Mal.
Just as the last soldier went through, the portal began to warp and fizzle, cycling wildly through all the colors of the rainbow.
Naerith started shouting and shoved his wife at the portal, pointing at her and then at it over and over again, like it would be helpful.
Elena shot a glance at Mal and made a gesture that was probably considered incredibly rude among the fae, then she rubbed Naerith’s shoulder soothingly. She made a cutting gesture with one hand, and the portal vanished with azhwoop.
Okay. Amostlystable portal.
She stormed over to Mal, shouting, “They’d better all be safe at the castle now, Mal.”
Mal waved a hand lazily. “They’ll be fine. My essence got bored. It was just messing with you.”
At least that’s what he thought had happened. He’d make sure to check in on it later.
If he remembered.
“You’d better be right. Son-in-law or not, I don’t let anyone mess with the safety of my people.”
