Chapter Three
Sid had fallen into a nightmare so strange she had no idea how to dig herself out of it. As she stared, the creature eased her away, stood, and his body shimmered and disappeared, to be replaced by a gigantic, thick creature with tiny eyes and skin the color of gray rock.
He had shapeshifted into a… a… troll?
As a human deadhead, she knew almost nothing about magic other than what she read in magazine articles or saw in the news. But from what she had gleaned from idle conversations with others, she was fairly certain of one thing.
It took tremendous Power to shapeshift into a shape that was either bigger or smaller than the original person. The two-natured Wyr accomplished the shift the most easily, as their animal forms were literally second nature to them.
But whatever this creature was, he wasn’t Wyr, and this troll was so much bigger than the creature that had carried her through the forest it meant he had Power, a lot of it.
Realization flared. He had probably been the black horse that had caused the accident and carried her to this unknown place. The kind of deliberation that had gone into her kidnapping was chilling.
She shrank back as the huge troll bent over her, but tied as thoroughly as she was, there was nothing she could do to stop him from picking her up again.
He trudged ahead, following a narrow footpath that wound through the woods, until Sidonie could smell a hint of woodsmoke on the breeze that blew gently through the trees. Soon he stepped into a large clearing that held several buildings—a long, larger building and a few typically English-looking cottages.
Her view was obstructed, and it was making her crazy that there was literally nothing she could do about it, but she could hear a sudden flurry of movement, a sharp exclamation, and as she craned her neck, she saw they had been surrounded by several tall people.
The newcomers weren’t human any more than the creature that had kidnapped her. They were dressed in dun and green uniforms, colors that would disappear easily in a forest, and they had weapons. Some of them carried both guns and swords.
Sid took in the hard, wary expressions on their angular faces along with the signature golden blond hair they all shared, but it was only when one of them turned to shout an order to the others and she caught a peek of one pointed ear that she could place their race. They were Light Fae.
“What are you doing here?” the Light Fae male asked sharply.
The fake troll came to halt. Without warning, he dropped Sidonie. Unable to do anything to break her fall, she groaned as she made bruising impact with the ground.
The troll said in a deep voice that sounded like grinding rocks, “Tribute for the Queen.”
Forcing herself to breathe evenly, Sidonie latched on to the word.
Queen. The Queen must be the female the creature had referred to. She would be Light Fae, like her soldiers. One of the Elder Races.
The Elder Races were magical creatures that lived alongside humans, with demesnes that often overlaid human boundaries. Then there were Other lands that were connected to Earth by a series of crossover passageways. Most modern technologies didn’t work in Other lands, which were intensely magical places, but she had read interesting articles on the inventive ways people had adapted many modern conveniences.
As a nonmagical human, Sidonie knew only the basics of Elder Races politics and terminology, mostly concepts she had gleaned in school. She had once been invited to play a concert for Niniane Lorelle, the Dark Fae Queen in the Other land of Adriyel that had passageways connecting to Chicago.
While that Queen had been willing to pay an exorbitant amount to make up for the time slippage between Adriyel and Earth, Sidonie hadn’t been able to work the trip into her upcoming schedule for the year, so she had reluctantly declined. The charming and persuasive Dark Fae ambassador had wrangled a promise out of her to consider the trip in the future, but they hadn’t yet agreed upon a date.
In Great Britain, there had to be any number of Elder Races, demesnes, and their individual rulers, but Sidonie only knew of one Light Fae Queen—Queen Isabeau of the Light Court.
While the thoughts raced through her mind, she waited for the Light Fae leader to denounce offering a human being as tribute for anything.
Instead, the male said impatiently, “What’s this? The troll clan has already offered its tribute. We received the shipment this morning.”
Wait, what? No denouncement? This was utter insanity. Nobody offered a thinking, living being as tribute, at least not in modern society as she knew it. Outraged fury pounded under her skin, and she chewed on her gag as furious words piled into rocket launchers in her head, readying for ignition.
The troll rumbled, “We was gonna add this ’un in, but we got her late. Plays music real good.”
“And now, thanks to your bumbling, she’s seen this encampment. But she’s a musician, you say?” The Light Fae male looked down at her and heaved a sigh. “Oh, very well. Next time keep your tributes to items that are easier to transport.” As he turned away, he ordered one of his men, “Put her in a holding cell until we’re ready to leave.”
One of the men hauled her to her feet. The fake troll gave Sidonie one last inscrutable look then turned away. She watched his massive figure amble back into the forest the way he had come.
As the troll disappeared, Sidonie thought, I won’t forget what you did to me. She turned to study the Light Fae leader’s features. I won’t forget any of you.
I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but you will regret doing this to me.
I will make sure of it.
* * *
After the troll disappeared, the soldier slung her over one hard shoulder and carried her along a path to another clearing with more buildings. Then he put her in a primitive prison cell, with honest-to-goodness bars, a rough cot, bare stone floors, and a dirty, horribly basic latrine that offered no privacy whatsoever. She had a small, high, barred window that let in sunlight but gave no real view outside and nothing else.
At least the Light Fae soldier untied her wrists and legs so she could move around. As soon as her hands were free, she had to fight the urge to hit him. The violent impulse might bring short-term relief to the rage and fear beating through her veins, but in the end, it wasn’t a strategy that could go well for her.
Instead of giving in to her feelings, she stood rubbing the circulation back into her wrists while she watched him lock the cell door.
I’ll remember you too, she thought.
After he left her alone, she looked around. The cot was made of some kind of crosshatched leather strung tight on a frame. No pillow, no blanket.
There was no running water, and apparently no electricity or heat either, she saw as she glanced at the ceilings that were bare of any light fixtures. This place was strange and disturbing, almost as if it had nothing to do with the modern England she had been visiting only just yesterday.
Her hands prickled painfully as circulation increased. Giving up on her wrists, she rubbed her arms in an attempt to generate some warmth. Even though the day had turned sunny, the thick cover of trees kept the temperature mild, and the walls of the building were constructed of thick stone that emanated a damp chill.
She was glad she was still wearing the soft cashmere hoodie, jeans, and sneakers she had slipped into for the drive to the airport. Thanks to her kidnapper, the T-shirt under the dirt-streaked hoodie was ragged, and her jeans were smeared with grass stains and blood, but if she were still wearing the thin spandex outfit she had worn for the concert, she would be freezing her ass off.
Her kidnapper had said Vincent, Tony, and the driver would live, and she didn’t think he had lied to her. He had said scary, crazy stuff, but as far as she knew, no falsehoods.
“Buck up, Sid,” she whispered. “Vince and Tony will be looking for you.”
At least they would be looking as soon as they were able to. How badly had they been hurt in the crash? How long would it take for the news of her disappearance to hit the tabloids?
Some time ago she, Vince, and his wife, Terri, had talked through strategies for a variety of extreme scenarios.
In the event of her disappearance (how they had chuckled at the unlikelihood of that), the security company was authorized to offer a reward for any credible information on her whereabouts.
They were also authorized to conduct transactions, in case she had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. After the first two stalkers, she had taken Vincent’s advice and now carried an insurance policy that would cover any ransom up to five million dollars.
So they had mechanisms in place to handle almost any situation, but none of it brought her any comfort, because what had actually happened was completely outside any scenario they had discussed.
They had no protocol in place for how to deal with crazy magical creatures bent on enacting an elaborate scheme of manipulation and revenge. No protocol to handle something like this.
Human trafficking was a crime that mostly involved victims who were too poor and vulnerable to protect themselves against it. Life had skidded so far off the path of anything that seemed remotely feasible she felt utterly adrift and more alone than she had in years.
Someday I’m going to look back at this, she told herself. And while I’m never going to laugh at what happened, I’m going to be grateful I made it through alive. Someday this experience is going to be in the past, and I will know what it feels like to seek revenge myself.
As foreign as the concepts were to her, nursing her anger was far better than sinking into depression or giving up. They gave her something to focus on, somewhere to direct her rage.
Desperate to take some kind of action, she started counting the strips of leather in the crosshatched cot. There were twelve strips in length and thirty-six strips across. Anxiety knotted her stomach. Had she counted right? She started over. Twelve and thirty-six.
Then again. Twelve and thirty-six.
Maybe she needed to touch them to be sure. Compelled forward, she moved her fingers along the crosshatching, whispering to herself as she counted. After going over the leather strips fifteen times, she pressed both clenched fists to her forehead and forced herself to step away from the cot.
If she thought going on tour was stressful, it was nothing compared to this. To try to distract herself from getting trapped in more OCD behavior, she studied the details of her surroundings more closely. Goose bumps rose along her arms.
Everything looked… historic. Was that the right word?
Walking over to the bars of her cell, she ran a finger experimentally down one. The slightly rough surface disturbed her more than anything. They were strong, well made, and sturdy, but they had not been generated by modern machinery.
There were fourteen bars.
Fourteen.
Fourteen. Agh!
She tore herself away from them, stepping back to turn in a circle. The lock on the cell door, the cot itself, the window—none of it looked sleek or mass-produced, or as if it had come from the industrial age.
She felt as if she had almost traveled back in time, or… or as if she wasn’t quite on the same Earth she knew anymore.
As if she wasn’t on Earth at all, anymore.
Her throat closed as panic threatened to set in.
What would it be like to travel through a crossover passageway? She had always wondered, but she didn’t know. She had read stories of how deadhead humans experienced crossovers, but she’d not yet visited an Other land herself. She had thought her hypothetical trip to Adriyel might be the first time.
Since she had no magic, she couldn’t make a crossover passage on her own. A deadhead had to be touching someone with magical ability in order to make a crossing, and she had always known she would have to rely on someone else with magic to walk her through the passage. The most common way was to hold hands.
The stories told of a strange, surreal experience as travelers watched everything around them change while they traversed a passageway. But would she have had that experience if she’d simply walked from the middle of one forest clearing to another?
The soldier had thrown her fireman-style over his shoulder, and her head had dangled upside down. It hadn’t exactly been a priority for her to study her surroundings closely as he’d carried her down the path. She had been too busy staring at his ass and wishing she either had the courage or the lack of sense to bite him.
If he’d carried her along a passageway to an Other land, they didn’t need to put her in a cell, because she didn’t have the ability to get back to Earth on her own. She couldn’t contact any of the Djinn who owed her favors—without telepathy, she could only reach her Djinn contacts by phone, and even if she still had her cell, phones didn’t work in Other lands.
Suddenly she could no longer fight back the rising panic. Rushing to the cell door, she shouted, “Hey! Hey! Do you realize how many crimes you’re committing by putting me in this cell against my will? You can’t keep me here—I’m a Canadian citizen!”
No one came. As she paused, a deafening silence pressed against her eardrums. As far as she could tell, she was the only one in this horrid little building. They didn’t care enough to respond, and that frightened and enraged her more than anything.
Hours passed. Finally her own body’s needs forced her into using the latrine. She did so quickly, in case someone came, and afterward she flung herself onto the cot. From there, she counted and recounted the bars in her cell door and watched the light from the high window shift and eventually dim.
Her violin had been in the trunk of the car. Was it all right?
That violin was her most treasured possession. Crafted by the famous French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, it was nearly a hundred years old, and acquiring it with her own hard-earned money had been one of the biggest triumphs of her life.
She wanted to ask one of the more Powerful Djinn who owed her a favor for a much rarer Stradivarius, but she hadn’t yet worked up the nerve, and in any case, that wouldn’t feel the same as it had felt to buy the Vuillaume for herself.
She chewed her lip bloody as she fretted about her violin, but there was nothing she could do and no way to get any answers.
Eventually hunger set in, along with boredom, cold, and exhaustion. She curled herself into a small fierce ball as she worried at her dilemma like a dog gnawing at a bone.
While her kidnapper had made Isabeau out to be dangerous, even cruel, how much could Sid trust of what he had told her?
He hadn’t been impressed when she’d mentioned she had money, but maybe the Queen would feel differently. Almost everyone liked money, and they liked accruing more of it. The possibility of collecting five million dollars in ransom should mean something, damn it. The insurance certainly cost enough.
And who had her kidnapper been stalking? She knew nothing about Isabeau and the Light Court, other than the fact that a Dark Court existed as counterpart to it. Her kidnapper hadn’t mentioned a name—just referred to he and him.
Whoever he was, he liked Sid’s concerts. She might find an ally in him.
She had to face some cold hard facts. If she really had been transported into an Other land, she might find it hard to get justice for her kidnapping. The demesnes on Earth cared far more about interactions with human societies, but the demesnes from Other lands had a much greater degree of self-reliance.
If nothing else though, perhaps this male could help her cross back over to Earth and go home again. That was the most important thing.
As night came and her cell fell into darkness, the air chilled even further. Thirsty now, very hungry, and shivering from the cold, she thought she would never be able to sleep, but eventually she slid into an uneasy, miserable doze.
A sharp clang of metal against the bars jolted her awake. Heart pounding, she stared around her, disoriented.
“Awaken, human.”
She focused on the Light Fae male on the other side of the bars. She hadn’t seen him before. He carried a beaten metallic bowl and a cup that he shoved through a space at the bottom of the bars. She asked, “Can I talk to someone in charge?”
He threw her an indifferent glance. “You’ll be talking to someone in charge soon enough. Eat. We leave for the castle shortly.”
Castle? She would bet her next year’s salary he wasn’t talking about any castle on Britain’s list of historic sites.
Swallowing in an attempt to ease her dry throat, she asked, “Are we in an Other land?”
He paused in the act of turning away, gave her a sharper look, then barked out a laugh. It sounded contemptuous. “You don’t know? I will pass on the information that you have no Power.”
Feeling stung, she ground her teeth. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, human,” he said impatiently. “You are now in Avalon, and you are subject to our laws, our Queen. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better things will go for you.”
With that, he strode out, leaving her staring after him. The ground felt unsteady underneath her feet as the enormity of what he had said rang in her ears.
She really was no longer on Earth. Not only had she been transported to an Other land, she was in Avalon.
Avalon, the land of apples and faerie, fabled for its beauty and danger. She had remembered that Isabeau was a monarch of the Light Fae, but she had not even realized that Isabeau was Avalon’s Queen. Her knowledge of the Elder Races demesnes in Great Britain was that sparse. Angry at her own ignorance, she clenched her fists.
And without any magic, she had no way of getting home, at least not without help. Much as she hated that guard for his scorn, he had a point. She was going to have to lose that ignorance and learn as much as she could, as fast as she could, if she had any chance of coping with her new reality.
She was still shaking as hunger compelled her to go inspect the contents of the metallic bowl. Inside there was a plain hunk of bread and a piece of hard cheese. The cup contained water. Carrying both to the cot, she ate every scrap, and she drank all the water too.
After eating, she had barely finished taking care of some private business when the same guard strode to her cell door. As he unlocked it, she said, almost conversationally, “I was kidnapped and brought here illegally, you know.”
“Out,” he said as he stood back and held her cell door wide. He didn’t tie her up or threaten her with any other kind of confinement.
He didn’t really have to, did he? Simmering with fury again, she strode out. “Do you have any reaction to what I just said?”
“Not my place to have a reaction. I just follow orders.” He put a hand at her back and shoved her so hard she stumbled. “Move.”
How much evil had been committed by people who claimed they were just following orders? Regaining her balance, she clenched her fists and barely managed to keep from lashing out. If she lashed out, she would get tied up again. She might even get beaten.
That was okay. If he followed orders, he wasn’t who she wanted to talk to anyway.
She wanted to talk to someone who gave the orders. That would be the only way to change her situation.
He led her to the back of an empty wagon and made her climb into it. Sitting in one corner, she wrapped her arms around her knees as she watched an entire squadron of guards gather. Most of them had horses, and several drove wagons that were stacked high with barrels and boxes. Some of it, if not all, had to be the real trolls’ tribute.
Her kidnapper had known enough about the Light Fae to know when the tribute would be delivered, and where, and he had used that knowledge to insert her into the situation without causing suspicion. The calculation behind that was chilling. He might have cried when he held her, but that hadn’t stopped him from planning the details of her kidnapping with precision.
Despite her continued tiredness and worry, she grew fascinated by watching the Light Fae work at assembling a wagon train. She had never seen anything like it before.
If someone gave a signal to start, she missed it, because suddenly a wagon pulled out, then another. Eventually the wagon carrying her as its sole cargo lurched to a start and fell into line behind the others. The guards on horseback arranged themselves at either the head or the back of the train.
For most of the day they traveled through dense, overgrown forest. Quickly growing bored with the monotonous scenery and sore from the constant jostling, Sid counted all the wooden planks in the wagon bed several times over, then she tried to brace herself in the corner to doze.
They took a break at midday, and she got another hunk of cheese and bread, with another cup of water.
In the afternoon, they stopped at a few villages, where conversations occurred just beyond her hearing between the one Light Fae that she had identified as the wagon train leader and others that appeared to be villagers.
After the conversations, some soldiers led people to her wagon. As they climbed in, she studied them as curiously as they stared at her. Most were young girls, but a few were boys. All were Light Fae, and they were also quite a bit younger than she. Were they tribute too?
She tried talking to them a couple of times, but while they glanced at each other and shuffled uneasily, her attempts at starting a conversation were met with silence. A few of the girls stared unabashedly at her, their expressions filled with such fascinated repugnance, she was taken aback.
As Sidonie glanced around, it dawned on her—she was virtually the only person present who had dark hair and eyes. Also, her skin was pale and creamy, quite unlike the hue of the tanned faces that surrounded her. She might even be the first person these youngsters had ever seen who looked the way she did. Perhaps she was the first human they’d ever seen.
Compressing her lips, she settled into her hard, uncomfortable corner of the wagon and kept to herself after that. The passing scenery might be pretty, but so far, her first impressions of Avalon sucked.
That night they camped by a wide, lazy-looking river, and despite her problems, it was wonderful to get a few minutes by herself at the water’s edge to wash. Supper was the same fare as lunch and breakfast. She found a spot close to the warmth of a campfire for the night. Gathering up a handful of pebbles, she curled into a tight ball to keep warm as she counted them, while wild scenarios galloped through her head.
She could steal a horse (she had lived in New York for most of her life and had no idea how to ride a horse). And she could steal weapons (from seasoned fighters who had the weapons and knew how to use them). Then she could race back to the crossover passageway (which she couldn’t sense or use on her own).
Then, somehow, she needed to capture and force one of the soldiers there to walk her across to Earth, slip past the troops stationed on the other side, and walk until she made contact with normal civilization.
She had self-defense skills and some knowledge of unarmed combat, but those were all skills she had learned in a training environment. She had never had occasion to use what she had learned in an actual fight.
The likelihood of getting out of the wagon train encampment alive was slim to none, let alone facing the towering list of unlikely events after that. No, her only real hope of getting home again was if she appealed to someone in command.
In the morning, when she tried to approach the commander of the wagon train, a soldier stepped in front of her and forced her to go back to the area where her other travel companions stayed.
Simmering with frustration, she complied. No matter what the time slippage was between Avalon and Earth, her concert tour was almost certainly ruined now. Julie had to be worried sick, and both she and Rikki would have an administrative nightmare on their hands. Just the thought of it tied Sid’s stomach in knots. She’d never had to cancel a tour before.
But despite the amount of time she was going to lose on this journey, it appeared she would have to wait until she reached the castle before she could talk to someone who had the power to release her.
After sorting through her pebbles, she discarded the ones she didn’t like and slipped twenty-one small, smooth stones into her pocket. The second day of travel was hot and boring. Focusing on her pebbles, she counted and recounted them, and lined them up in rows on one palm, according to size.
Then according to shape. Then color.
Twenty-one. Twenty-one. Twenty-one.
Toward the end of the day, the wagon train climbed a long, winding incline in the deepening gold of evening light. Sid had made a few more attempts to talk to her young companions without any luck. Resting her head on drawn-up knees, she kept her mouth and nose covered to avoid breathing in the dust kicked up by the horses and wagons ahead of them.
Even as she thought for the dozenth time that surely they had to be stopping soon, a shout sounded ahead, and the wagon lumbered to a halt. Excitedly, the others in the wagon jumped to their feet. As they craned their necks, stood on tiptoe, and exclaimed, Sid stood too, more slowly. Shading her eyes, she looked in the direction everyone else was staring.
The ground fell away from the road in a massive rolling sweep. In the distance, across a rich emerald green land, a huge castle sprawled like a great tawny dragon. Wealth, age, and power were stamped into the stones.
A city crouched supplicant at its feet, and beyond both stretched a sparkling blue body of water.
Unwillingly impressed and intimidated at once, Sid wrapped her arms around her middle. It looked like they were nearing the end of their journey, and she should be talking to someone in power soon enough.