my head back and laughed. His face was yellow and caked with more mud than Shiloh and Aylen used on their customers when demonstrating the rejuvenating properties of fae sediments.
Remo grumbled, rubbing his hands down the sides of his face, only managing to heap more wet earth onto it.
Tears formed in the corners of my eyes. “I will never let you live this down, Farrow.” I laid my hand on my belly that was still vibrating with the dregs of my laughter.
He glowered at me.
One glance at his face, and my wild giggling resumed. I didn’t laugh often, but when I laughed, I laughed hard.
He muttered a medley of unsavory Faeli curse words under his breath. “Where the hell are we, prinsisa?”
That knocked the laughter from my lungs and the smile off my lips. “What do you mean? Didn’t you come to break me out of here?”
“Break you out? No. I followed you in, because . . . because I’m obviously an idiot.”
“What?”
“I’m an idiot.”
“That’s not why I said what, Remo. Although I agree that you’re an idiot, on many levels. I said what to you not knowing where we are.”
Remo’s eyes seemed to shoot out the same lethal laser beams used in human warfare.
“You really don’t know where we are?”
“Why don’t you enlighten me, Trifecta?”
“Wait, does that mean you didn’t come to get me out . . .?”
“Get you out? It’s a portal. I’m sure the princess of Neverra can get herself out.”
He was right. I could surely get myself out. Unless the portal was locked. I decided to keep worst-case scenarios at bay.
“So, you really didn’t know about this place?” I asked, even though his severe exasperation showed through his facemask.
“No, I really didn’t.” He swiped more muck off his face and flung it aside.
A new shiver coursed up my body, this time not from the bite in the air, even though the air was really cold. “It’s a prison. Created by your grandfather. And mine.”
His pupils shrank. “A prison?”
I bit my lip but tasted moist earth, so I released it. I wanted to wipe my mouth on my sleeve, but my black suit was as ochre as the faerie glaring at me.
Remo’s gaze skated over the field we’d landed in, taking in the ring of green cacti and cloud-filled sky. When his eyes returned to me, they seemed somehow darker and sharper, less trusting . . . not that they’d ever seemed that trusting before. “How do you know about this place?”
I flicked a clump of mud off my leg. “Joshua Locklear.”
Remo’s skin color rose in the few spots he’d wiped clean.
I sighed. “I owed him a favor, and he claimed it. Asked me to look into the rumor he’d caught of a supernatural prison. He thinks his sister might be in here.” I gestured around me.
There was no wire fence, no magical barrier either, as well as no doom-colored structure that remotely resembled a prison, so I doubted anyone actually lived here.
I hugged my arms. Why wasn’t my fire kicking in? “Are you cold?”
“Cold?” Remo’s eyebrows dipped toward his nose. “No, I’m not cold. What I am is fucking pissed off. A prison! You fucking led me into a prison?”
“Led you?” I asked indignantly. “You followed me. I didn’t sprinkle salt into your palm and hold it to a portal.” My tone held all the heat my body craved.
I got to my feet, my legs heavy with mud. I needed to burn the gunk off and get the hell out of here. I raised my palms and conjured up my fire, then held my hands over my thighs, waiting for them to ignite and burn off the pounds of grime clinging to my suit’s carbon scales.
Neither flame nor smoke appeared. I concentrated harder. After what felt like a full minute, my gloves were still flame-free. I looked at Remo, who’d also gotten to his feet. “Do you have fire?”
He flipped his palms over. “Of course I have fire.” He turned much less vehement when he too failed to produce flames. “What the hell?”
My heart picked up speed, going almost as fast as the magnetic subways that crisscrossed every large city on Earth.
I focused on my feet, trying to drive fire into them, but unless our kalini felt more icy-needle than flame in here, then my veins were all out of heat. My pulse quickened, and the chill permeating my skin sank deeper. “Can you fly?”
His forehead was so furrowed it created trenches in the thick mud