Covenant's End - Ari Marmell Page 0,95

access to the power and the authority of the Hallowed Pact. Not all of it, not enough to whisk her away or strike dead the creatures who threatened her. Not enough to alter the physical world.

But the fae weren't creatures of the physical world, not entirely. At their core, no matter how they manifested, they were creatures of spirit. And spirit…

That was an area where the gods had tricks—and, in Olgun's and Adrienne's case, allies—of their own.

Just before the last of his conscious essence vanished from Widdershins's presence, Olgun drew on his new powers, his new knowledge. Between the worlds, he yanked open a door that normally swung only one way, and with everything he had, he called out his need.

He called, and they answered. Not for him.

All four of them, for love of her.

She couldn't begin to tell, at first, just what she was seeing. She assumed it to be some optical illusion, some combination of the dark and the storm, the pain and the tears. Some random lights and movement, blurred into the illusion of something more.

Until it occurred to her that she wasn't dead. That Lisette hadn't moved in for the kill, was…

Was backing away.

Utterly confused, Shins wiped the back of her hand over her eyes—wincing at the pain as she used her injured arm but unwilling to relinquish the rapier—until she was able to see.

And she saw, but had her unnatural enemy not been retreating before them, she would never, ever have believed.

They were scarcely visible, merely shimmering forms in the glow of the lamps and the lightning. Rain and wind passed through them, rippling slightly but otherwise unaffected. First two, then a third, and a fourth appeared in the road between the two combatants. Somewhere, from no direction she could name, Widdershins heard the slamming of a distant gate.

Lisette was screaming something, her voice still coiled and slithering around those of her unnatural allies, but Shins didn't catch a word of it. She was too busy staring, trying to make out some sense of detail among the nebulous figures. And though she should have been able to see no such thing, she did.

Widdershins choked, having literally forgotten to breathe. Her rapier clattered on the cobblestones, and it might only have been the wind that still held her upright.

The first of the phantoms looked her way, raised a hand to tip his broad-brimmed hat in a friendly, informal salute. He drew his own rapier from beneath a dark tabard, which flapped about him without the slightest relation to the gusting winds. A tabard on which Shins could spot the faintest hint of the fleur-de-lis, ensign of Davillon's City Guard.

He couldn't be here. But she'd have recognized him anywhere.

“Julien…?”

He didn't seem to move, took no obvious steps. Yet suddenly he was elsewhere, no longer standing before Shins but beside Lisette. With a high-pitched, buzzing keen, a thick slab of shadow detached itself from the swirling darkness around her, briefly assuming a humanoid form with misshapen, frog-like legs. The shriek ended; the two figures clashed, slamming together in absolute silence. They were still dueling, ghostly blade against inhuman hands and tongue, as they faded again from sight.

And if that had truly been Julien, the others must be…Oh, gods…

She felt it, then; Widdershins knew that smile, even if she couldn't make it out. A second apparition, its long transparent hair tinged with gold, raised a hand in greeting, her invisible smile widening further still. She stood at the slightest angle, as though one leg supported her weight less well than the other. Then, like the first, she flickered and was gone, stripping the leaf-and-thorn-clad fae from Lisette as she passed.

Widdershins, Lisette, the entire street began to glow, bathed in a wave of haunting light. It emanated from a heavy staff, shaped like a shepherd's crook, held in the hands of someone clad in heavy—perhaps ecclesiastical—robes of office. He didn't even approach Lisette, this one. He laid a gentle hand on Shins's shoulder; she knew, somehow, that it was gentle, even though she couldn't feel a thing. A single step, and he raised his staff on high, until the light grew blinding. He was gone when it faded, but so were the bulk of shadows around Lisette, all the many lesser fae who had served her along with the most terrible three.

That left only one. Shins cried openly, now, reaching out for him no matter how futile she knew the gesture to be. He reached out, too, his fingers passing