Glasses behind the bar cracked and shattered, the sharp pieces flying. Steel beams in the walls and ceilings bent toward the vortex. The Fae trio were going to collapse the building along with everyone who hadn’t escaped, including Indira. I dashed toward the bar to shield her.
Before I could get to her, three kinds of magics wrapped around me, shielding me from the flying glass shards and the raw power surging in the air. After securing me, the kings trained their attention on each other again, their power tearing into each other.
If this feud didn’t end now, one or all of them would die.
Fear hammered in me, ice filling my blood. As much as they frustrated me, I couldn’t bear to lose any of them. I wouldn’t allow it!
There was only one way to stop the duel—getting between them. They wouldn’t harm me. They got into this stupid fight because of me. I knew that I was probably in way over my head, but I had no choice. The ruthless Fae kings had lost all reason in their fit of jealous rage. I had to gamble that their magics wouldn’t destroy me before they destroyed everything.
I roared and, like a flash, I dashed into the expanding vortex that was now bigger than a truck.
“Don’t, Evelina!” Rydstrom shouted, trying to withdraw his shadow power and starlight. “Stay away!”
“No, Evie!” Terror filled Rowan’s voice. “You’ll get hurt!”
“What have you done, Evie?” Baron also tried to leash his power.
But it was too late for them to rein in their massive powers. The vortex had become self-sustaining, and I stood in its eye.
A battle call beat in my bloodstream, a new power in me rose from a long slumber, and it wasn’t the shadow fire. My shadow fire had no use in this conflict. A whorl of vines shot out of me, holding onto the vortex of starlight, fire, and ice. And then the three Fae kings spun around me, not by their choice. I was now a magnet to them and their vortex.
Light, wind, and shadow twirled around us, engulfing us. Pain lanced through me. The Fae kings stretched their hands, roaring, unable to reach me.
They couldn’t shield me, not from this. Tears blinded my vision as agony threatened to shatter me, the pain not from the vortex, but from my effort of taking it with me.
I screamed. The dizzying, painful whirling intensified. My vines vanished, unable to hold the vortex any longer.
But then, luckily, the screaming vortex was gone.
We fell in a vast meadow. I stumbled at my clumsy landing, dumbfounded at what I had just done. But at least I stopped the death duel between the Fae kings.
A force called me like a burning song in my blood, and I wheeled to face a vertical flame that extended from the heaven to earth.
I knew exactly what it was—the Veil.
Chapter 26
“How did you shift us here, Evie?”
Rode on your battling vortex, obviously. I rolled my eyes at Baron’s question, though none of them saw it since they were behind me.
“It’s not possible,” Rowan breathed. “How could you find the Veil, Evie? It’s hidden and closed to all except the most powerful Fae.”
Rydstrom was the only one who hadn’t demanded an answer.
I ignored them, still irritated and drained from the vine magic I’d wielded, and staggered toward the Veil like a moth to the flame.
“Don’t go to it, Evie.” Rowan slipped his arm around my waist to stop my advance. “It’s too dangerous. If you don’t have enough power to cross it, the flame will consume you.”
“She won’t cross. Let her go, Winter King,” Rydstrom warned. He appeared on my other side the next second. It seemed he wanted to hold me instead. Starlight hissed in his palms.
“Stop it!” I snapped. “You won’t fight again and put me in danger here.” I shook my head in disgust, not caring one bit about the shame swirling in their eyes. I shook off Rowan’s arm, just in case they got into a battle over me again.
These Fae were as unpredictable as a ticking bomb.
The Veil stole my attention again, the song of flame and frost, midnight and dawn beating harder and harder in my veins. I involuntarily stretched my hands toward it, answering with a silent song of my own—a lullaby from genetic memory.
The thin line of flame expanded to two columns of fire, and they kept opening for me until the gap was wide enough for four people to walk through.
I peeked inside. A