On my next swing, a concussive burst of magic hit him from my left side, and I stumbled as the arc of my staff met nothing but air as he was thrown, bodily, across the courtyard. He impacted the far wall behind us, hitting the stones with a low thud and dropping into the muddy, churned snow at the base of the wall in a boneless heap. “Ow,” he said, sitting up to rub his head.
Shocked, I turned to find Celeste standing barefoot in the doorway to the keep, still in her sleeping shift with her hair in wild disarray from her slumber. Her wings were out—spread wide in an obvious threat display. She was an avenging angel, her chest heaving for air and fire in her eyes, her cheeks stained pink from the cold and her teeth bared in fury at my cousin. She lookedmagnificent.
“Do. Not. Touch. Him.” The words she growled at my cousin carried clearly across the courtyard and my eyebrows nearly rose into my hairline.
“She broke the rules,” he complained before plopping himself back into the snow to catch his breath.
I was pretty sure this meant she was well enough to leave now.
Chapter 23
Grim
“Wherewillyougo?”my grandmother asked from where she sat behind a heavy, ornate desk located in one of the keep’s lower-level drawing rooms. There were half a dozen ledgers spread out in front of her and a forgotten plate of partially eaten breakfast that had been delivered to her just after my mother left to return home. Nikolai was pretending to convalesce in one of the armchairs near the drawing room’s large fireplace while Brishta wrapped his head in a swath of clean, white gauze. Yelena sat in another armchair openly judging him, her elbows propped on the armrests and her fingers laced in front of her chest, her mouth turned down in a disgusted grimace.
I tore my gaze away from the bizarre spectacle of Brishta fussing over my immortal, nigh-impervious cousin while he sprawled in his armchair, happily soaking up all the attention, and blinked down at my wife, trying to order my thoughts so I could answer my grandmother. Celeste was tucked under my arm on the couch opposite the armchairs, absolutely mortified—with her face hidden in her hands, wings gone, and wearing a dress from the trunk my family had delivered from her home. “We could… return to my apartment in the Void,” I suggested, looking up at my grandmother. I knew as soon as the words were out that it wouldn’t work. If ghouls were a problem here, they would only be worse in the Void. And even though Celeste would no longerdiein a land without environmental magic, that didn’t mean she would be comfortable there.
Grandmother Zdenka’s face paled, and she looked at me like she questioned my intelligence.
“Or… we could go to Dry Gulch?” I tried.
Yelena interjected, “Why Dry—Oh, right. That’s where your mortal friend is.” She waved a hand dismissively, suddenly distracted again when Brishta tutted at Niko as she finished with his bandages and bustled out of the room with a peppy goodbye. “How long are you going to let this farce continue, Niko?” she asked after the door clicked shut. “You’re not injured.”
“I was!” he objected, opening his eyes briefly to glower at my sister before closing them again to bask in the warmth of the fireplace.
“I’m sorry!” Celeste muttered for the eightieth time from behind her hands. She’d spent the entire morning apologizing, and my cousin was loving every second of it, hamming it up in the worst way. I gently squeezed her to let her know all was well. No amount of telling her he was fine had made any difference.
“But you’re not injured anymore,” Yelena scoffed. “Blood or no blood, the wound is gone already, so why are you being such a twit? Victor’s given you worse knocks on the head in every match you didn’t think to hobble him so thoroughly.”
Niko only bothered to open one eyelid as he lounged indolently in his chair. “Not every match,” he retorted haughtily. “She wanted to bandage my head.” He gestured toward the door where Brishta had left and shifted to cross his legs at the ankles. “Was I supposed to tell her no when her bosoms were two inches from my face? The woman can bundle me up like a mummy for all I care.”
My grandmother raised her hand to forestall my sister’s reply, closing her eyes while taking a bracing breath. “How would you get her to Dry Gulch?” she asked me, clearly done listening to the bickering. “Will you go the long way?” She was referring to travel within the Boundlands, whichwouldtheoretically be the safest choice for Celeste.
“She’s not well enough,” I said with a slight shake of my head. Extended travel would be too hard on her while she was still recovering—several grueling days of riding down out of the mountains and then over a week by train to the other side of the continent. Our best option was to use the Void Gates. I’d never had to travel extensively this way myself, but I would have to learn. Celeste would never be able to use the underworld portals as reapers do—that was a one-way trip even for other immortals not born to our people.
My grandmother sighed, understanding immediately. “I’m not sure how I feel about her being in the Void, even for a short time, but that’s my nerves speaking and not my trust in your abilities, Vitya.” She pressed her lips together and studied my new wife in silence for a time before addressing her. “I’m incredibly pleased that your magical abilities have returned, Princess.”
Celeste lowered her hands and balled them in her lap, still clearly embarrassed but straightening her shoulders and engaging my grandmother as she continued.
Grandmother Zdenka’s voice was gentle. “I want you to be able to use your magic at that level to help defend yourself in the coming years if something were to happen and you needed to do so. I am distressed, however, that you felt frightened enough to use your magic like that even with our family surrounding you as we are. What can we do to help you feel safe?”
“I wasn’t worried about myself,” Celeste responded. “I thought they were trying to kill each other!”
“That’s… not entirely inaccurate,” Nikolai grumbled to himself.
“I had no idea they were merely sparring. They were moving so fast that everything was a blur. I heard you warn Victor about watching out for his cousin—”
“Rude.” He shot an irritated look at our grandmother, who ignored him entirely.
“—and that’s all I could think about last night. I woke up to find them fighting and suddenly my magic was justthereand I used it.” She turned to Nikolai with a plaintive look painted across her face. “I’m so sorry. I really am.”
I narrowed my eyes at him in warning and Yelena slowly moved to grip her armrests with tense fingers, clearly ready to leap from her chair and strangle our cousin with her bare hands.
“I’m fine! I’m fine. All’s forgiven, darling. It hurt for mere seconds, no more,” he assured Celeste with a rueful smile as he adjusted the silly bandage on his head. “I would never try to kill our Vitya. His siblings are old and boring.”
Grandmother Zdenka sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I understand your need to get away from… all ofthis,” she told me, waving her hand vaguely to encompass the whole room, “but please keep her safe.”
Isatonthewindow seat studying the route that Elara had sent me for our Gate travel based on the Gates she used to reach Bhalden’s Post after I first arrived with Celeste. Gate hopping as a means of long-distance travel between the human world and the magical realm was not a straightforward endeavor like the portals through the underworld were. Gateways were permanent and had been created over time without any real order to their placement. This meant we would need to travel via multiple Gates scattered throughout both realms to end up where we wanted—to get from Bhalden’s Post to Dry Gulch would involve stops in Amsterdam, São Paulo, and Seattle within the Void, as well as Snowgard and Oar’s Rest here in the Boundlands.
