Page 91 of A Song of Air
And she likely wasn’t coming back.
“Where the fuck did they go?” Valerio demanded. He stared at thin air, like maybe they’d reappear again somehow.
Julius carefully circled around the mushroom circle, cautious and not getting too close, though his boots scuffed the dirt outside of it.
Above them, Bryson’s familiar let out distressed cries of anguish.
And the three Elementals could only stare at the spot where Bryson and Weylyn no longer were.
Shula let out a breath. “Mushroom circles are portals,” she finally said.
Everyone froze in their tracks. Iona’s gaze snapped up to her mate’s, and Julius’ grim expression all but confirmed Shula’s words.
“But... how?” Clay demanded.
Julius let out a sigh and stepped away from the treacherous circle and closer to the group. “Some places in the human lands are seeped with Unseelie magic. Places like this,” he gestured at the circle, “are like Ley Lines of their own. They hold traces of portal magic from when Unseelie illegally jumped between realms.”
“I didn’t mean to! I swear I didn’t!” The human man, Everette, was still sprawled across the ground, his nails digging into the earth as he wet the grass with his pathetic tears.
The Resistance stared at him with barely concealed disgust before dismissing him entirely.
“We need to try and find a mind link back to Weylyn, then,” Valerio urged. “See where they are. Get Uric to open a portal to where they landed.”
Julius shook his head. “I don’t think it works like that. Who even knows if Weylyn landed in the same place as Bryson—”
“We have to try!” He turned to Shula, Iona, and Corvina. “Could you get a sense of where Bryson is?”
The three Elementals stared among themselves, worry etched over their every feature.
“I can’t sense her anywhere near us,” Corvina said softly, gently, like she was waiting to be reprimanded for an answer that did not appeal to anyone.
“What if you used the stones?” Clay asked, placing a reassuring hand on the ball of her shoulder.
“We can try,” Iona agreed.
Shula nodded grimly as she reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out a map and several stones. She knelt on the ground, splaying the map out before the other Elementals followed to their knees.
“Ready?” Shula asked, holding her palms and the stones face up over the map. The other Fae followed suit, cupping their hands beneath Shula’s.
Valerio watched with bated breath as they channeled their magic. The energy around them seemed to crackle and buzz. Everyone was quiet as they watched.
Everyone except the sniveling human, chanting his apologies over and over again to the ground.
Suddenly, the three women dropped the stones and watched them land.
Three in Ielwyn, where they currently were.
One in the Valley of the Dead.
The fifth bounced along the map.
The final one...
It landed further south.
Right in the middle of the Unseelie Court.
“Fuck,” Iona cursed, her eyes wide on that single rock all the way at the bottom of the map.
