I frowned, tightening my grip when the ground bucked once again. “You mean, you’ve never felt an earthquakebefore?”
“Is that what this is?” She pressed her lips together into a tight line. “Earthquakes don’t happen here in Otherworld. That’s a human realm issue. Or at least itwas.”
Glancing around us at the books that were tumbling off their shelves, I thought back to how the skies had flashed with lightning back when the Autumn Court had been trying to take control of Otherworld. Those storms had been a rarity then, too, a signal that something wasn’t right in this strange realm. And now, we were experiencing another type of weather event that didn’t happen here. Was this a sign that the fae had once again started messing with the fabric of their lives? Was it happening all over again? And if so, what had set it off this time? After we had defeated Queen Viola that violent winter night, Alwyn and the my instructors had been convinced we would never again experience a storm in thisplace.
And yet here wewere.
There was no mistaking the rumble of the ground. This was an earthquake. Which meant...something had set the realm off again. Something that was strong enough to destroy the veryearth.
* * *
“IthoughtI might find you in here.” Rourke patted my stack of books and dropped into the library seat across from where I’d been camping out for the past five hours. “Trying to see if you can find some information about past earthquakes in Otherworld? Well, I can tell you now there won’t be anything about them in these books of yours. We fae have never experienced one here before. And I cannot say I am glad they have started to happen now. I thought our previous storms were bad, but this was something else. If the tremors had been much stronger, the Academy could have come tumblingdown.”
I sighed and leaned back in my seat. I’d spent a solid five hours flipping through each one of the books to my left, and I still had another stack of five or so I wanted to get through before dinner. During my intensive time reading, I hated to admit that I had almost forgotten about the earthquake that had rocked the hearts and souls of so many of the fae instructors. Earthquakes just didn’t happen inOtherworld.
And the fact that it had? It was only a herald of worse things tocome.
That wasn’t why I had come here though. I had more important things on mymind.
“To be honest, I’m not researching the earthquake. Alwyn told me the same thing. You’ve never had one here before.” A pause. “I’ve been looking into theRedcaps.”
Rourke lifted a brow. “The Redcaps? You do know that if there is anything you would like to know about them, you can come to me or Kael, though Finn or Liam don’t know as much about them as we do. We’re your instructors. I know you’re angry with us for making that agreement, but we’re still here to help you, Norah. Don’t you think it’s time we put our disagreements aside and return to yourtraining?”
“You won’t know the answer to this particular Redcap question, and neither will any of the others,” I said, leaning back in my chair so that I could better look up into his handsome face. “And yes, Iwillreturn to training. But only if you all agree to stop making deals about me without even letting me know they’ve been done. This is the kind of thing we should agree on all together. This is the kind of thing that I should be aware of, atleast.”
He pursed hislips.
“What?” I crossed my arms over mychest.
“Well, that was quite a commanding thing to say. You’re beginning to sound quite Queenly, mylove.”
The smile drifted from my face. “I do not sound Queenly. Let’s not get ahead of ourselveshere.”
“Hmm.” He lifted a book from a table, flipped in his hands, and eyed the spine. “So, what is your question about theRedcaps?”
A beat passed. “You probably won’t likeit.”
He set the book down and met my gaze. “Tell me what your question is,Norah.”
“To be honest, it’s less about the Redcaps and more about the human changelings who are sacrificed for the Tithe. I’m trying to find out if there’s some other way we can keep the pact with the Dark Fae while also saving all those lives. You’ve seen what it does to the humans. It’s notright.”
Rourke regarded me carefully before answering. “From what I hear, Queen Marin had these same questions and concerns. And, as far as I can tell, she found no solution. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have continued on with the tradition. Marin spent a lot of time here at the Academy and at the facility for the human changelings. She cared for them. She tried to help them. In the end, there wasn’t much she coulddo.”
Tears burned my eyes as I desperately tried to hold on to the hope that I could change things. “But surely there must be some otherway.”
“The Dark Fae want to keep this realm on a tight leash, but they also want to feed on the energy of the human realm. As long as we keep sending more and more newly-created Redcaps into the human realm, and as long as our own babes are necessary for doing so, they can accomplishboth.”
“So, it’s the energy they want,” I said slowly, trying to wrap my mind around his words. Understanding these creatures of chaos felt almost impossible, but I had to remember that they weren’t like anyone I had ever met before. Their logic and their rules were different than the fae of this place and the humans of my old world. It reminded me of what Finn had said in the forest. What is the one thing that drives us forward? What makes us do certain things? If I could find out what the Dark Fae wanted, maybe I could give it to them some otherway.
Rourke gave a nod. “Our realms are all inexplicably linked together. Ours cannot exist without theirs, and theirs cannot exist without ours. Even humanity is linked to us all, and magic is pulsing at the very heart of it, even though humans rarely see that kind of powerthemselves.”
“Okay.” A beat passed. “But what does this have to do with the Redcaps and energy and theTithe?”
“The magic of the Dark Fae is present in this realm. It’s in the air and in the soil. We aren’t affected by it because we’re fae ourselves. It’s there pulsing in the background, but it does us no harm. Just as our magic is present in theirs. But the humans? The Dark Fae’s magic doesn’t seep into their realm. So, when the humans are brought here, they are corrupted by chaos of it. It makes the humans transform into Redcaps, a creation that resembles the beasts that stalk the Dark Fae’srealm.”
“So, it’s notourmagic that corrupts the humans. It’s the Dark Fae’smagic?”
He gave a nod. “Precisely.”
