I hurled the cold magic at the retreating shifter, grunting as I did so.
The ice hit his flanks and spread quickly, up his spine, along his legs, and to his face. In a manner of seconds, he was frozen. I watched with almost a detached gaze as the beauty of my spell overcame the powerful shifter and turned him into a solid piece of ice. A sculpture.
I waited, expecting him to melt and continue to run, to fall, something. I didn’t think it would work right away.
But it did.
Tavlor clapped me on the arm. “Good job.”
I reveled in his compliment. I was sure it was difficult to get one of those from him.
“But we better hurry now,” he said, returning his sword to its sheath.
He was right.
Since these shifters failed, there would be more coming. The problem was, we didn’t know when they would be here.
We turned and darted to the portal. We ran straight past my wolf ice sculpture and kept going. The spell was already starting to fade. I wished I knew if he would be alive once it finished melting or if he was dead. I wouldn’t be around to find out.
We arrived out of breath and stood before a wall of trees.
“This is it?” I asked him as I struggled to get my breath back. I placed my hands on my knees. I probably looked like a hot mess to Tavlor, but at least right now, I didn’t care.
We were almost out.
Tavlor nodded. “Yes,” he said. How he sounded so nonchalant, as though the run didn’t affect him at all, I had no idea. “I will open it, but you will need to tell me where we’re going.”
Frustration clawed at me and I groaned. I tugged my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know,” I said. “We enter my mother’s realm via a small village. I can see it in my head, but other than that, that’s all I know.”
The locket around my neck practically sang with vibrations. The sound pierced my ears, and I closed my eyes, as though that would help mute the sound. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
“Shit!” I exclaimed, covering my ears.
I grabbed for the locket and my mother’s voice rang true.
The town is Adare, Ireland.
I looked at Tavlor. “The town is called Adare. It’s in Ireland.”
Tavlor took his sword and plunged it into the trees, closing his eyes and speaking his native Fae tongue. The sound was melodic, like a song I didn’t quite understand.
The trees began to rustle. He pulled the sword from the branches.
The wind picked up and magic began to swirl before us in the silver swirling portal.
“Let’s go.” He nodded towards the portal.
I stared at him. “You’re coming with me?”
He took my hand. “Yes, of course.” He looked at me as though I was mad for suggesting otherwise. “I need to make sure you arrive safely.”
With fear and apprehension pulsing through me, I squeezed his hand tightly.
He gave me a look that seemed to imply it would be all right, he would be with me, and I nodded back. I was glad he was here. I was glad I had him.
Together, we stepped straight into the whirling vortex.
It was just like the other times I’d gone through a portal. There was nothing different about it, simply because it was a portal in the Fae realm. This relieved me, and I nearly snickered to myself about how worried I was for nothing. There was the same strange nothingness, a cold stillness. Then, we stumbled onto the cobblestones of the alley way from which I’d last seen Aunt Alison.