Page 91 of Fractured
As we went through the gates, they asked us to move forward two at a time. There was a single guard with a leather binder in his hand, and he asked every person going through a single question: “Reason for visit?”
I heard only two of the people ahead of me in line saypleasure. The rest saidbusiness.
Such an ordinary response that it surprised me.
When it was my turn, I was not as afraid as I thought I would be. I walked alongside a man I was pretty sure was a Midnight fae wearing a hood as big as mine, and I answeredbusinesswith Vair’s advice. The guard didn’t even look at me twice.
That’s how we all went through in less than thirty minutes.
Just like that, I was inside the Midnight Court.
The guards wore armor here, too—made of black metal, with a silver crest of what I thought was a half-moon marking their chest plates. They were all Midnight fae, all with dark hair and dark eyes, but none of them really looked like Rune.
Vair padded beside me, silent as ever. The gates closed behind us with a groan, and then the soldiers stepped back, moved with their large swords attached to their hips, and took their positions along the inside of the wall that extended from either side of the gates.
It still shocked me how nobody even looked atVair. I couldn’t fathom how he could justbe invisibleto all these people, but nobody glanced his way, so I had no doubts. I was definitely thankful, but it was still weird as fuck.
The carriages and the people we’d come through with had gone their own separate ways. There were three wide roads ahead of us, separated by trees and buildings, lined with carriages, and Vair took me to the one on the far left. It was nighttime still, so I had no idea which part of this kingdom was stuck in never-ending darkness, but the outskirts of this court were no different than in the Seelie Court. Trees and buildings of all sizes made of wood and dark stones, blueish white fae lights hovering in the air, which I thought was pretty warm. My forehead was lined with beads of sweat, but it was summertime, so I didn’t even mention it.
Until Vair suddenly said, “It’s never hot in the Midnight Court.”
Considering there was nobody around us right now—the narrow streets we were walking were deserted—I spoke, too, under my breath.
“What does that mean?”
Vair looked at me again, not as afraid as before. “I don’t know.”
Ah, my favoritest answer.
“Well, do you happen to knowhowwe’re going to find the Seer of Shadows then?”
“Of course,” the lynx said, just as we reached the end of the narrow street and turned the corner behind a large four-story building. Vair nodded ahead. “She will be in the Midnight Palace.”
“Holy shit.”
The Midnight Palace rose like a fortress carved from dark stone and weathered metal, its towers uneven andsharp-edged. Whoever built them clearly hadn’t considered aesthetics—they lookedmonstrous.Or maybe that had been the point?
The walls were ridged and darkly reflective, almost glass-like, catching glints of starlight in strange patterns, making me feel like the building was blinking at me. As if I weren’t already spooked enough by the sheer size of it, even from such a big distance. At its peak, a narrow spire reached high into the sky, and light moved all around it, blinking in and out of existence—lighting boltswashing over the walls. The whole structure radiatedpowerand authority.
“We’re goingthere?” I said in half a voice because, fuck, to think that at least a part ofthatpalace was actually sentientand could lock doors and could trap me inside it forever…
“Move, Nilah. We have no time to waste,” was Vair’s answer.
So, with fear on my shoulders again, I had no choice but to follow.
twenty-five
It wasfar.
The sun rose in the sky, and it would have touched us had we been at the gates—but by sunrise, Vair and I had made our way around buildings and through forests, over rivers and past hills to get closer to the palace, and here there was only darkness. Shadows. Fae lights every few feet. It was so strange still to look up and actually see a lit-up sky and a dark one side by side.
I’d learned about it from the books in the queen’s bedroom in the Ice Palace, but I still found it hard to believe, even though I’d seen it before in Blackwater.
According to a book on the origins of Verenthia, what Helid had told me once was right—the continent was born between the stars Reme and Emer, one pulling from the future and the other from the past. Though they were mirrors of the same celestial body, they moved in opposite arcs, according to the book. Basically, like twin reflections circling an invisible axis, and that’s why light in Verenthia wasn’t shaped by time, but by proximity.
All the lands closest to Reme got sunlight regularly, every day, while those nearest Emer fell under a veil of eternal night, like Blackwater and most of the Midnight Court.
But maybe I should have been thankful for the darkness, because even when the fae began to come out of their homes to go about their business, nobody seemed to pay me any attention. I kept the cloak and the hood on at all times even though I was dripping with sweat everywhere, and the moment the fae couldn’t see my face, they seemed to lose all interest in me when I passed by.
