Seraiah shifted in her saddle, trying to ease the cramp that had taken up residence in her right thigh. They should be getting close to Ren’s cabin now. Then she could get off this horse.

  It had only taken three days for the Summer King to deliver on his promise and present her with the vision potions she had asked for along with more of the transportation ones. All the vials were tucked safely away in the faery provided saddle bags. Since only one horse remained of the three they had arrived with, the faeries had also given them new mounts. She had no idea where they had gotten these horses. Maybe like the food, they’d been stolen from humans. Either way, it meant the three of them each had their own mounts, and when Virelai and Ren returned, they would have two more. It would make traveling anywhere as a group much easier.

  Kai had wanted to go straight to Nyrene using the transportation potion until Wisteria had informed them of what she had learned from Maescia. The potions apparently cost time from their lifespans. The faery hadn’t been clear on how much, but Seraiah thought it must be the amount of time it would have taken to travel to the destination on foot. With the two she’d used already, she must have lost several weeks.

  They’d ultimately decided to return to Ren’s cabin and inform Kestrel and Eryx of what they had learned. Kestrel, Seraiah knew, would be very upset with them if they went to Nyrene without her. Plus, they were also waiting to learn what Ren and Virelai found from their visit to the dragons. They should have made it to the dragons by now and could possibly be on their way back to the Seelie Court. She’d at first thought to wait for their return, but Kai had insisted it was better to leave before the Summer King changed his mind.

  Seraiah had left a message with Maescia to tell Ren and Virelai they’d returned to Ren’s residence. She had to hope the faery wouldn’t play any games with them and would actually deliver it.

  If it came to it, she could always use the mark to summon Ren.

  “Are we there yet?” Wisteria asked, voicing the question Seraiah had wanted to ask.

  They rode single file with Kai and the lead, Wisteria in the middle, and Seraiah bringing up the rear. Over the top of Wisteria’s head, Seraiah got a view of Kai turning back to look at them.

  “Do you see the break in the trees?” He pointed to where a patch of sunlight showed through the trunks.

  “That’s the cabin?” Wisteria asked.

  “That’s the clearing for the cabin, yes. Unless I have my directions wrong, in which case we are lost.”

  “Don’t even jest about that,” Seraiah muttered under her breath.

  Thankfully, in a few moments, it turned out Kai had been right. Their horses stepped from the trees into the clearing, and Ren’s cabin came into view.

  One figure stood outside, staring at them. It only took Seraiah one glance to figure out it was Kestrel. Kestrel ducked her head inside the cabin, and then Eryx and Papa came out to join her.

  “Well,” Kestrel demanded as they dismounted. “Did you learn how to deal with the shadows?”

  “Not yet,” Seraiah said, as her feet touched the ground. The cramp in her thigh had her wincing. Hopefully, with a little walking, it would disappear.

  “What do you mean? Where’s the other two? You didn’t sell them to the Summer King, did you?”

  “I considered it,” Kai said, undoing the straps holding the saddlebags to his horse. “Let us take care of these horses and then we can explain everything. It will be faster if you help.”

  Eryx had already come up to help Wisteria with her horse, and Papa was making his way over to her.

  “I can do it myself,” she said, when Papa reached her. “You don’t need to bother your arm.”

  “My arm is much better,” he told her. “Don’t have to keep it tied up anymore, so it’s best if I use it to regain my strength.” He moved his arm around to demonstrate, and Seraiah relented, letting him help her by lifting her bags off the horse.

  “Be careful,” she warned him. “There are breakable vials in there. I’ll take it into the cabin if you will take care of the saddle.”

  Papa released the bags to her, and she left him to the work of unsaddling the horse. She still didn’t know how to talk to him after their last conversation. It would be better if he could go back to the human world away from the faeries, but she supposed even that wouldn’t be safe. There was nothing left for him in Ratha, and Baromund wasn’t any better. She supposed he could go to the capital, but with nothing to his name, she didn’t know what he would do.

  Seraiah took the bags of vials into Ren’s room and placed them on his desk. The Summer King hadn’t said when he expected to next hear from her, but she doubted he would wait long for news. Even if they decided to try for Nyrene, she’d likely need to have another vision before then.

  When she returned outside, the others were finishing up and leading the horses to the makeshift pen they’d constructed the last time they’d been there.

  “Now explain what happened,” Kestrel said, when all three horses were inside the fence made of fallen logs.

  Kai looked to her, and she gestured for him to go ahead. She let him do most of the talking, while she and Wisteria provided more detail when it was needed.

  As they talked, Kestrel’s expression grew grimmer and grimmer.

  “I need a moment to think on this,” Kestrel said.

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  Eryx nodded. “Why don’t we all go inside and prepare the evening meal?”

  Seraiah hadn’t been paying attention while they were speaking, but the sun had sunk to the edge of the horizon.

  The six of them returned to Ren’s cabin, and tasks were divided up. Seraiah found herself next to Kestrel, helping her chop vegetables they’d found growing in a tiny neglected garden behind the cabin.

  “I’m not sure I like this idea of Kai’s to go straight to Nyrene,” Kestrel said, keeping her voice low.

  “I don’t either,” Seraiah said. “Leaving aside the effects of the transportation potions, there is still too much we don’t know. I think I’d feel better about it after another vision and if we could see what Ren and Virelai have learned.”

  “Assuming they come back,” Kestrel said.

  “They will.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “Mostly certain. They have reasons of their own to see this through,” she said, thinking of the growing shadows on Ren. She hadn’t told anyone about that, and no one had commented on her own shadows.

  “So if you were to take the vision potion now, it would be three days before you wake up?”

  “More or less,” Seraiah said.

  Kestrel paused in her chopping. “They won’t be back before that. We’ll still be waiting. Is it possible for someone to go to them with the transportation potion?”

  “It might be. Would be a risk though, and then there is the side effect of the potion itself.”

  Kestrel waved it off. “It would be worth it if we learned something. What are our other options other than wait for them to show up?”

  Seraiah bit her lip, thinking. “I could try to reach them in a vision. At the very least, it would allow me to see their location, but perhaps I could also get a message across? Otherwise, there’s always the mark.”

  “I’d rather not force you to use that since we don’t know what it will do to you.”

  “Can’t be any worse than what the faery potions do,” Seraiah said.

  “What do you think is best? Most of these options require you to sacrifice something. You should be the one to decide.”

  “Waiting is obviously the easiest,” Seraiah said, “but there are too many unknowns, and we lack the time. I think I would try the vision potion first, and if I can’t make contact, I could see where they were and use a transportation potion to get to them. I would leave using the mark as a last resort.”

  Kestrel nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”

  Seraiah shot her a smile. “Now I just have to explain it to Kai.”

  “He won’t like it, of course,” Kestrel said, “but some things must be done.”

  Kai, it turned out, did not argue.

  “There’s no use changing your mind once you’ve decided something,” he said when she asked. “Like many things, I would prefer you not do this, but I understand the importance. Just please, please be careful.”

  “I will,” she’d promised. Then she’d asked to be alone. “You may check on me later if you’d like, but you do not need to watch over me here. I don’t want to wake up and find you’ve stayed at my bedside for three days.”

  Kai reluctantly agreed, and Kestrel promised she would ensure he didn’t.

  Seraiah claimed Ren’s room to use for her vision and prepared herself for sleep.

  Even though I won’t really get any sleep.

  She decided it would be best to focus on Ren, since she was using his room and had the connection to him through the shadows. She figured he would be easiest to find, and knowing Virelai, she might purposefully ignore her.

  Seraiah fished a potion out of the saddlebags and rolled it through her fingers. After she was finished with Ren, she’d try to see Sterling as well, but she knew it was unlikely. There were times she’d visited multiple places in one vision, but it was not a guarantee. She might need another vision after this one to check up on Sterling.

  Seraiah settled herself on the bed and uncorked the vial. In one quick gulp, she downed the potion and lay back on Ren’s bed, closing her eyes and picturing him in her mind’s eye.

  The potion did its work.

  A steady thumping filled her head, almost like a drum, growing louder in the dark. When her vision cleared, revealing the world around her, Seraiah realized it wasn’t a drum at all, but hoofbeats.

  With a jolt of panic, she discovered she was on the back of a horse racing across a plain. Night had fallen, and stars glittered in the sky overhead. She didn’t know if she could fall off a horse in a vision, but she didn’t want to find out. She looped her arms around the person in front of her, who could only be Ren.

  Thundering up on their left flank was Virelai, her auburn hair streaming out behind her as she leaned forward and urged her horse to go faster. Neither of them seemed to notice her presence, so Seraiah took a moment to figure out where they were.

  She could see Mt. Tybort looming behind them, but if these two were headed back to the Seelie Court, they were going the wrong way. In fact, if she didn’t have her directions mixed up, it looked like they were aiming for the portal.

  Had Kestrel been right about them? No. No, there must be some other reason they weren’t headed back to the Seelie Court, and she would find out.

  Ren abruptly shifted, pulling back on the reins to slow his horse.

  “We’re close,” he said to Virelai. “We can cross over now, or we can camp here for the night.”

  “How far away is the city?” Virelai asked.

  “A few days, and hopefully, my connections are still in Daralis; otherwise, we’re going to have a hard time.”

  What could these two be planning?

  “As if it wasn’t going to be hard enough to find this spell that the Winter Queen may or may not already have,” Virelai said, pushing her windblown hair out of her face.

  Seraiah jolted upright. Spell? What spell? Is that what they had learned from the dragons?

  “Ren? Can you hear me?” Seraiah tapped his shoulder. Her finger didn’t go through him, but he didn’t seem to feel it either.

  “Let’s camp here,” Virelai said, “and cross tomorrow.”

  “Ren!” This time Seraiah grabbed his shoulder and shouted in his ear.

  He gave no reaction. It was like with Sterling all over again.

  But wait, maybe I could use an object to get their attention.

  The horse had come to a full stop, so she slid to the ground and picked up the nearest rock. It was about the size of her fist and should make enough noise. She lifted it up to eye-level and then let go.

  Ren’s horse snorted and danced sideways.

  “What did you do?” Virelai demanded.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said.

  Seraiah quickly picked up another rock and tried again.

  “Quit it. You’re scaring the horses.”

  “I swear it’s not me.”

  “Who else could it be?” Virelai said. “We’re the only ones here.”

  “Come on, Ren. Think. Figure it out. You can do it,” Seraiah said.

  Ren dismounted and almost walked into her.

  “Seraiah? Is that you?”

  Virelai snorted. “Why would it be her?”

  “She said she could touch things in her visions. I’ve heard her moving rocks before.”

  “But why would she be here?”

  “Something must have happened? I don’t know. I don’t have any other explanations unless you know of some invisible creature that lives around here.”

  Virelai sniffed. “Unlikely.”

  Seraiah picked up another rock and scratched out the word ‘yes’ in the dirt and dropped the rock next to it.

  Ren’s attention snapped to the noise. “Look!” He pointed to the word illuminated by the full moon. “I was right. Seraiah, listen to me. If you are here, we are going to the human world to look for a spell. The dragons said there is a spell that can be used to transfer Sterling’s magic into someone else without killing her. We can save her with this spell.”

  Well, that explained why they were at the portal. She had so many questions, but darkness had already begun to creep in around the edges of her vision.

  “Seraiah?” Ren asked, staring at the word in the dirt. “Did you understand me?”

  As quickly as she could, she erased the first ‘yes’ and added a second one. She tried to write the word cabin as well but only got the first two letters done before the vision sucked her away.