I landed hard on my feet, my ears popping in the sudden shift from the wind-torn Guildhouse to a dim, quiet room. I didn’t know where I was. It was Vize’s destination, not mine. The room appeared to be an office with a bed tucked in the corner. I sensed several elven body signatures, including Vize’s, but no one had been there recently.
I hesitated. As much as I wanted to know where Vize had hoped to escape to, I didn’t have time to investigate.
I focused my inner vision on the entrance to the Guildhouse. The swirl of the tunnel formed again, and I spun across the darkness to a spot of daylight in the distance. I tripped onto the sidewalk under the Guildhouse portico. A brownie guard shoved me to the side. “Get down! Get down!”
Essence-fire slammed into the roof above. Chunks of granite cascaded into the street, and I ducked behind a column. Shouts drew my attention across the square. A block away, people filled the street—fey folk, yelling and shooting essence at the brownie security guards and police. In the air above them, Dananns and other fairies tangled with Guild agents.
I stood before the shattered front doors under the dragon’s head. “What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“The Unseelie are attacking. They have breached the dome,” the brownie said. He was fighting his boggart side; but from the length of his claws, he was going to lose it soon. He growled, his jaw lengthening with exposed teeth, and sprinted across Park Square toward the fighting. While I didn’t delude myself into thinking Eorla would take me into her confidence, outright battle wasn’t her style. She was a diplomat. The attackers weren’t her people. They had to be Donor’s in disguise.
Where are you? Briallen sent. The sending was followed by another, then another, each more frantic than the last, like a flurry of mental voice mails. I didn’t have the ability to respond. I debated using the spear to join her, but the tower she was in was now disconnected from the rest of the Guildhouse. Donor and Vize were somewhere in the main section. My strength was fading against the power of the spear. I hated ignoring her, but I had no choice.
I stepped over broken glass into the lobby. A Guild agent by the elevators raised his hand at me. “You may not enter.”
“I already have,” I said.
The agent’s hand glowed white as it welled with essence. I didn’t engage him, but opened my mind to find Meryl’s essence. My body essence danced along the spear, searching for her as I had done once before, in TirNaNog. This time I knew what I was doing. As the agent’s hand released its fire, I let the spear run free, and it pulled me into its twisting tunnel of darkness and light. I landed on the threshold of Meryl’s office, taking a step to keep my balance. I was getting better at teleporting.
Meryl shoved her computer mouse away. “Dammit, Grey. I was going to beat my best time.”
“No, really, I’m fine. Stop asking,” I said.
She grinned. “I knew that. As soon as Briallen told me what happened, I figured out what you did.”
“She’s okay?” I asked.
“Making her way down what’s left of the tower as we speak,” she said.
“What’s this about an Unseelie attack?” I asked.
She typed on a blank keyboard wired to the black-box system behind her. “Can’t tell. Cameras are down on that side. Security channels are saying it’s Eorla’s people on the attack.”
“Can you reach her?” I asked.
She tilted her head at me. “Not with the lockdown.”
“I got through,” I said.
She pursed her lips and cocked her head at the spear. “Something tells me that thing goes any damned place it pleases.”
I pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll try Rand.”
“Uh . . .” she said.
I closed the phone. “No signal. Vize and Donor are loose in the building,” I said.
She tapped at her keyboard with idle fingers. “Yeah, I’ve been tracking security movements. They’re going up instead of down. I’m betting on the roof. Nice vantage point for an aerial pickup.”
I leaned over to see the building schematic on her screen. “That’s a pretty strange path.”
“But smart. They’re sticking to the older parts of the building. The surveillance cameras suck there. When they pass from one section to another, they trip a ward alarm,” she said.
“That takes intimate knowledge of the Guildhouse. Someone’s helping them,” I said.
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time the Guild had a traitor,” she said.
“What’s the fastest way to the roof from here?” I asked.
“Security’s locked the elevators in the lobby. That’s manual, so I can’t do anything from here. Unless someone flies you up, it’s the stairs,” she said.
“Not thirtysomething flights,” I said.
She pointed at the spear. “What about that thing?”
I knew Donor’s and Vize’s body signatures. In my mind, I focused on the spear, and the tunnel funneled opened. “Wish me luck,” I said.
Meryl jumped from her chair. “Wait! What are you . . .”
She was too late. I was gone, clinging to the spear as it sliced through the darkness. Essence-fire greeted me as I landed in a corridor. I ducked into an office. My head rang with noise, a constant thump against static hiss.
“You’re not getting out of here,” I shouted.
The spear flared and pulled at my left hand. The damned spear was still bonded to Vize, and he was trying to call it. I tightened my grip, using both hands to hold tight. A sudden release of pressure tossed me against the wall. He wasn’t getting it back.
Soft flutterings wafted through the air. They were close if I could feel their sendings. The floor vibrated. I moved away from the door as the vibrations increased and the wall cracked. The building groaned around me. Something was about to give way. I didn’t think it smart to stick around and watch. I focused the spear toward Meryl’s essence as the floor began to crumble. I gripped the spear and soared through the dark tunnel again.
I fell outside Meryl’s office. The spear flew from my hand and rattled across the stone pavers. I grabbed it, afraid Vize would try to call it. Meryl was at my side, helping me up.
“What the hell happened?” Meryl said.
“Donor tried to kill me,” I said.
“Imagine that. He took out an entire floor,” she said.
I leaned on the spear. “Not him. The building stone was ripped apart. That was dwarf work.”
She brushed at my hair. Her hand came away tinged with blood. “Your skin is speckled with blood. Your body can’t take the stress of the spear without a shield.”
I kissed her on the top of her head. “It’ll have to.”
I jumped again, seeking out Donor’s essence, and this time found myself on a stone spiral stair. Three body signatures trailed upward. I paused. Two, I recognized. I opened my sensing ability. The dark mass in my head sliced down my right arm, keen on the chance to seek out essence. The third essence was dwarven, with a tantalizing familiarity.
The dark mass pressed hard for release, shadow welling out around my hand. It touched the body signatures with a sense of disappointment. They were vapor, residual essence from a person passing through, not enough to sate the desire of the darkness, but enough for me to tag it—Thekk Veinseeker.
I jumped and made an awkward landing on the winding stairs higher up in the towers. I ducked as Thekk swung a fist at me. He missed, punching a hole into the stone wall. As he pulled his hand free, deep orange essence spidered from his fingers, and the wall fell across the stairs.
I scrambled back, holding the spear out to ward off anything thrown at me. “I thought you retired, Veinseeker.”
“One never retires from defending one’s king,” he said. He slapped his palm against the ground, and the steps between us collapsed. I leaned back as pavers slid toward me in a wave. Between his brute strength and raw ability, I wouldn’t last against him in a physical fight.