soon swallowed up, leaving us all alone in the big, echoing, empty space. Only not entirely empty. There was something . . .
“What is that?” I asked Ray, peering into the darkness.
His eyes narrowed, but they probably had the same problem with leaping aftereffects that mine did.
“I dunno. Gimme a sec.” He did something to one of the flanges, which abruptly caused all of our lights to go out.
And made those in the distance, approaching from all sides, seem that much brighter as a result. They looked like car headlights, getting closer. Because that’s essentially what they were, I realized. Only instead of cars, they were affixed to the sides of the feys’ strange crafts—what looked like dozens of them.
All of which were converging on our location.
“Well, fuck,” Ray said.
Chapter Nineteen
Dorina, Faerie
Our second waterfall was green. Or perhaps that was a trick of the light. There wasn’t much of it, even to my eyes. But some crystals in the side of the cliff where we’d taken refuge shed a faint, emerald glow.
I almost wished they hadn’t, as it allowed me to see Ray’s pinched and worried face as he examined me.
Outside the curtain of water, which was less dense than the one in our first cave, I could see the fey vessels patrolling. They knew we were here, as we had not had enough time to escape. They just didn’t know where.
But they were searching.
We had slipped behind the waterfall, into a slight depression in the rock, before they arrived, not having any other choice. It made us hard to see with our own lights extinguished, but hard was not impossible, and the fey seemed to have realized that we must be hiding nearby. Their lights had swept past us once already, but the falling water seemed to have confused them. I didn’t know how much longer it would do so, however, and I could not walk, much less fight.
This . . . was not how I had envisioned my end.
“It’s not your end,” Ray said harshly, reading my thoughts. “Stop it with that shit, okay?”
“I did not mean to distress you.”
“I’m not distressed!” he snapped, which might have been more believable if I couldn’t see his expression.
He scowled, which dislodged a pebble from beside his mouth. It wasn’t the only one. The fey’s blast had peppered him with bits of limestone, to the point that he’d resembled a rock more than a man. That was why he’d taken a few moments to rescue me; he’d been all but immobilized by the sheer amount of the weight that he’d suddenly taken into his body.
His system was still expelling pieces of it as he healed, leading to occasional plink, plonk sounds as his flesh pushed out yet another pebble, before closing up again behind it. He still had a way to go, however, leaving him looking like he’d been dragged along a gravel-filled road for a few miles. It upset me to see it, but I looked no better.
We made quite a pair.
“There’s nothing wrong with my expression!” he informed me. “It’s exactly what it should be seeing as how I’m stuck in Faerie, got a fuck ton of murderous fey on my ass, and—”
“And are partnered with a cripple.”
His head came up at that. He’d been bandaging my wounds, using pieces of a blanket he’d found under one of the seats, but now I had his full attention. And he did not look pleased.
“Okay, first of all, nobody uses that term anymore—”
“Partnered?”
“Crippled! It’s not PC, okay? It’s not even accurate. Just ‘cause part of your body don’t work anymore—”
“Ray.”
“—doesn’t mean you can’t be useful. You can pilot this thing while I fight them, for instance—”
“Ray.”
“—‘cause I’m not so bad at it myself, you know? You think Dory would have promoted me if I couldn’t throw down? I can throw down!”
“I’m sure you can. But there are so many of them—”
“So, what? We’ve had bad odds before.”
“Not this bad.” I looked at him seriously. “I have counted at least eight ships. If there are twenty warriors per ship—”
“There ain’t eight ships. You counted some of them twice—”
“There are eight. And possibly more on the way. You must leave me—”
“Bullshit—”
“Listen.” I caught one of his hands. “I am lame. My hands have stopped shaking, but my legs are useless. I have no idea if this is permanent, but it doesn’t matter. It is the case right now, and that means I will only be a drag—”