Where is she? We can see her in your soul.
Gwyn ap Nudd slammed his spear point-first into the ground at an angle, trapping Gerard’s weapon beneath it. He used the pole weapon as a crutch to hold his weight and kicked Gerard in the face hard enough to send the other god flying through the air. Blood splattered on the snowy ground, the scent of it hot in Jono’s nose, but he couldn’t worry about that, not when he had a furious immortal coming at him with murder in those molten eyes.
“Enough!”
The word was ripped from Jono’s mouth, but the voice wasn’t his. Between one heartbeat and the next, he gave in to Fenrir’s demand for control so that Jono didn’t die on the spear point that came to rest against his heart.
Gwyn ap Nudd was a frozen specter of death before him, holding back on murder only out of courtesy for another immortal. The god’s mouth twisted into a snarl, the point of his spear burning through Jono’s shirt to scorch his skin.
He never felt any pain.
“Cousin,” Gwyn ap Nudd bit out. “You are not welcome in my domain.”
Jono hated how his body no longer listened to him but knew giving up control to Fenrir was necessary in a situation like this. His mouth moved, but it wasn’t him speaking, and that would never stop being strange.
“I think there is a bargain to be made between our sides. Will you listen to what this one has to say, cousin?” Fenrir asked with Jono’s mouth.
Patrick’s dagger pressed against the spear point digging into his skin, white heavenly fire crackling around the matte-black blade. Jono wrestled control back from Fenrir because the god allowed it, letting himself take a step back from the threat as Patrick knocked the spear-point aside.
“Back thefuckoff,” Patrick snarled, edging between Jono and the immortal who hadn’t moved.
Jono shook his head as hard as he could, trying to clear it of Fenrir’s presence. His thoughts were sticky, as if they weren’t his own, but Patrick’s hand gripping his arm was a steady, grounding touch he leaned into. Gwyn ap Nudd watched them with narrowed eyes before finally straightening up in a smooth movement, his spear leaving a trail of light in the air as he spun it around to rest the butt against the ground.
“If you kill them, then Ethan wins, and all our godheads are at risk, not just Órlaith’s,” Gerard said.
Jono spared him a glance, seeing that Gerard had gotten back to his feet with Keith’s help. His mouth was a bloody mess, and even as Jono watched, Gerard spat out a tooth. Gwyn ap Nudd never even looked at him.
“My daughter,” the immortal ground out. “Where is she?”
“Safe,” Patrick said.
“I do not believe you.”
Patrick dug his mobile out of his phone and unlocked it. Jono watched him scroll through his pictures until he came to one of the dark-haired changeling in puffy winter clothes and a jacket that made her look like a starfish. A different, older fae child held the girl, both of them staring at the camera with curious looks on their small faces.
Patrick turned the mobile around, shoving it toward Gwyn ap Nudd. “Is that her?”
Gwyn ap Nudd stared at the mobile without moving for so long Patrick had to tap the screen to keep it from locking up again. Finally, the god took the mobile in his hand, thumb hovering over the picture of the changeling.
A downdraft of cold air had Jono looking up at the sky as the Wild Hunt descended, settling in a circle around where his group stood on the hilltop overlooking a strange land. The lead rider he remembered from the bar guided her ghostly, undead horse forward. She only stopped when one of the Hellraisers refused to move, the man gripping his rifle with steady hands, even though it wasn’t aimed at the dead.
Gwyn ap Nudd gripped his spear tight enough the silver gauntlet he wore scraped together at the delicate joints, the sound singing in Jono’s ears. Then he rapped the butt of his spear against the ground three times, each hit making the ground shake as if an earthquake was happening, throwing everyone off balance.
“Agorwch y ffordd,” Gwyn ap Nudd said, his voice ringing through the winter air.
A distant rumble grew louder, similar to how an approaching storm sounded as it neared shore. Jono’s ears popped and his stomach swooped low in his gut. The full moon offered enough illumination for him to see the mist surrounding the hilltop they stood on rise into the air before suddenly sinking, as if someone had taken the earth in giant hands and dropped it.
The way Jono’s brain rattled in his skull, it sure seemed like it.
Jono blinked away the spots in his vision, looking around at where they were—still at Glastonbury Tor, but the sky looked lighter at the horizon with the encroaching dawn light. The mist stretching out around the terraced hill wasn’t so dense he couldn’t make out the lights from a city in the distance. The wind howling over the hilltop sounded more like an element and not the screams of the dead. Snow crunched under his feet, though it wasn’t falling as it had been in New York.
“The Wild Hunt is gone,” Sage murmured.
Jono scanned their immediate area, seeing she was right. The Wild Hunt was indeed gone, even if their leader was still present and still a threat, his ghostly hound ever a faithful companion beside the god.
St. Michael’s Tower was easier to see in the dawn’s light, standing tall and ominous against the cloudy sky. The wind blowing over Glastonbury Tor was icy and cold enough to burn his lungs when Jono breathed it in.
“Where is she?” Gwyn ap Nudd asked in a low voice that rumbled between them.
