A Fey New World (The Godhunter #32) - Amy Sumida Page 0,13

men looked at Drake again.

“I didn't make the damn kingdom,” Drake growled.

“No, that would be me,” I said grimly. “I don't understand how it would be possible for the Dark Kingdom to affect the magic of Faerie like that. But then again, none of this should be possible.”

“It is possible,” Mallien said gravely. “Magic seeks the easiest path. If one way is barred to it, it will find another way instead of pushing harder.”

“But wouldn't it have to push harder to get through closed paths?” I asked.

“Perhaps it's easier for the magic to break through our seals than to traverse the Dark Kingdom and build new land. Establishing footholds here, on a firm foundation, would take far less energy than forming fresh land in Faerie.”

“Either way, it's something to investigate,” Lugh said. “Which is more than we can do here.”

“But we need to do something here,” I argued. “We can't just leave patches of Faerie unattended.”

“Then we won't,” Patrick said. “We ward them and cover them in a glamour.”

“I don't know how to cover other things in a glamour,” I admitted. “Only myself.”

“It's okay, A Thaisce, we do,” Arach said with a smile that was a touch condescending.

“Watch it, Dragon, or you won't be getting any Vervain-lovin' tonight.”

Arach blanched. “That is to say, you could do it if you wanted to learn.”

Lugh made the sound of a whip cracking.

Arach narrowed his eyes at Lugh. “I watch human movies, High Prince. I know what that means.”

“And?” Lugh grinned.

“And I don't care if you're the High Prince of Faerie. If you call me pussy-whipped again, I will burn all of your pretty hair off. We'll see how much Isleen likes you then.”

Lugh's hand went to his silken mane of snowy hair protectively. “My apologies, King Arach.”

Arach grunted with a satisfied air. “Shall we?”

“Hold on.” I held up my hands. “Are we really just going to cover this up and leave? We're essentially sweeping a fey mess under a carpet of magic. This is Faerie on Earth; we need to get it back to where it belongs.”

“Honestly, Queen Vervain, I don't know how to do that,” Mallien said. “This has never happened before.”

“You mean, this could be here forever?” Lugh asked in a horrified tone.

Mallien looked at the patch of fey flora and then back at us. “Yes.”

“Oh, fuck,” I repeated Lugh's earlier sentiments, too upset to use one of the child-friendly versions I preferred. Sometimes, the F-word is necessary.

“This isn't over,” Arach said to me. “We've faced impossible situations before and handled them just fine. We'll take care of this too. For now, we cover it up and cut it off from the humans. Then, we go back to Faerie and figure out what's pushing the magic this way.”

“Okay,” I agreed with relief.

The men, with the exception of Lugh—who didn't know how to glamour plants either, formed a circle around the magic-infected land and held their hands out toward it. A glimmer rode the air as they placed the fey version of a ward around the area. Then, a shimmer descended. The fey plants disappeared while normal grass and weeds took their place.

“One down,” I said as I pulled out another photograph.

Chapter Seven

It didn't take as long as I expected to hit all of the spots Jake had photographed. Unfortunately, not only was it merely a band-aid slapped on a catastrophe, but there were also likely several other locations that we didn't know about. I mean, really, what was the likelihood that Jake just so happened to find every place Faerie had seeped through and they were all in the UK?

“We're going about this the wrong way,” I said. “We need to find the open paths in Faerie and follow them to Earth. Then we can be sure that we've closed all of the paths and protected any patches of fey land that have formed.”

“We need to go home anyway,” Arach noted.

“Yes, to investigate the Dark Kingdom,” I agreed. “But I think we should locate the open paths first. These are a priority. If any more are open—and it stands to reason that there are—people or animals could be stepping through them even as we speak.”

“That will be harder than it sounds,” Mallien pointed out.

“Why?” I asked.

“These are not the original raths to Faerie.”

“The paths, you mean,” I corrected him.

“They are called raths, with an R,” Mallien insisted. “And they were never found hanging in midair as several of the ones we saw today were.”

“Raths were also called faerie mounds because they