“Look at me. You need to get off the board. Just one step. That is all.” One step, and she will be safe. One step, and I will be able to reach her. I stretch my hand toward Nia’s immobile frame.
She lets out the smallest whimper, but the sound is too much for the plank, and the thing snaps in two.
Nia’s scream slices through me as she plunges into the void.
I race to where she stood only a second ago, searching for a way to save her, but there’s nothing I can do except suck in a deep breath and leap.
Dropping like a stone, I follow the haunting sound of her cry to where she tumbles into darkness.
Into nothing.
Her cries fall silent when I reach her.
Her eyes are closed as if she’s fallen asleep, limbs flailing akimbo as she tumbles. I wrap myself around her, holding her thin frame to mine, whispering that it will be all right even though there is no hope of survival.
Darkness thickens.
Pain explodes through my skull. My back. Followed by nothing at all.
22
“When possible, always travel in pairs.”
— Surviving the Unseelie Lands, Author Unknown
The blackest night I’ve ever known cradles me in its midnight embrace. I pry my eyes open to blink at where the stars should be only to find more endless darkness. My entire body feels as if it’s been trampled by one of those beastly unicorns the Unseelie use as mounts.
The outline of a tree with broad leaves stretches above me, with a large gap where the branches look as if they’ve been torn from the thick trunk.
Water rushes in the distance, soothing in its familiarity.
Memories flow on its tide.
Maddox missing. Possibly wounded.
Me going to the bridge to find him and?—
Oh no.The bridge.
It . . .
Itbroke.
The last thing I remember is the panic in Maddox’s gaze before fear consumed me, swallowing me whole.
I press a hand to my heart. Still beating.
How is that possible? I should be dead. Passed to whatever lies beyond the veil?—
The ground beneath me shifts. Groans.
I’m not on the ground at all but on someone.
I manage to move my aching body enough to see who has been dragged into the darkness with me.
Straight, proud nose. Mouth that should be smiling. Lashes longer than any man has a right to possess.
“Maddox?” My voice breaks in a pathetic croak, as if I haven’t had a drink in centuries.
