“You are in Valhöll,” she said, instead of answering me.

  She turned away without adding more, and my pride forced me not to beg for water or something to eat.

  “How long’s it been?” I asked aloud.

  “Time is irrelevant in here,” Xavier said from his cell.

  “Did they feed you?”

  He laughed. It was bitter and sounded a little too wet for my liking. Xavier might be responsible for making me what I am, and he was a conniving, murderous bastard at the best of times, but if he died, I’d be alone in here. His company was better than nothing.

  “Of course not. They do not feed their prisoners. They feed from them.”

  “What do the Ljósálfar eat?” I asked.

  “Ljós. Light. And whatever makes them happy.”

  I studied his shadowed form. He wasn’t using his Shadow Walking talent, even if the cell wasn’t coated in silver and magic, he was looking way too weak to be able to do that. But the cells were naturally dark, and he was curled up in the far corner; as if he wanted to get as far away from me as well as the warrior women.

  “Do you even have any Light?” I asked.

  Two red-rimmed eyes lifted to stare at me.

  “I make them happy.”

  And that sounded a bit too disturbing.

  “So,” I said, having to look away from all that creepiness, “if we’re not in Isoleth’s castle, where are we?”

  “Everywhere and nowhere. Valhöll is both in Ljósálfar and not. Some say it’s attached to Fólkvangr.”

  “I don’t speak fairy,” I growled.

  “Elysium, little one. Odin’s realm. Not Nut’s.”

  Fuck me.

  I turned away and started to pace.

  “There is no escape,” Xavier said as if reading my mind.

  “You might have given up, but I haven’t.”

  “You think I didn’t try at first?”

  “Clearly, not hard enough.”

  “I’ve been here for centuries, Daughter. My only escape is when they let me out. And then I am leashed to one of them for the duration.”

  I stopped pacing and turned slowly to look back at him.

  “Centuries,” I murmured.

  That didn’t make any sense. I’d been what I was for two - no, probably more like three now - months. He’d turned me. Well, he tried, but it went wrong.

  Did it go wrong because of the fairies?

  Did he turn me because they made him do it?

  I sank down to the dirt floor, my legs suddenly weak.

  “Why did you turn me?” I whispered.

  “My last attempt at escaping,” was all he said.

  His last attempt at escaping was to create me. What did he expect would happen?

  I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath of air I didn’t need.

  “You thought I’d come when you called, and I’d get you out of here,” I said.

  “Their attention was elsewhere, I had but a minute or two to act. You happened to be the closest human I could reach with enough Light to survive the turning.”

  “I didn’t survive!” I snapped.

  “No, you became something other.”

  I shook my head and then grabbed fistfuls of hair and tried to breathe without screaming my throat hoarse.

  “Got to hell, Xavier,” I muttered.

  “I am already there. Valhöll is just an antechamber. When Odin calls not even Nut can save us.”

  “Could she save us now?”

  “Stop clinging to false hope! There is no escaping!”

  I refused to believe that.

  I lay back down on the dirt floor and studied the cavern’s ceiling. The way I saw it, I had two options. Dig myself out of here or force the warrior bitches to open my cell door and make a mistake. Of the two, I thought digging was the safer bet. But magic coated the floor and ceiling; my only options for manual labour.

  Still, I wasn’t as far gone as Xavier was. I wouldn’t need to feed for another couple of days. Of course, the part of me that is still human could have done with a glass of water. I narrowed my eyes at the rear wall of my cell. It was damper back there. There had to be moisture of some sort.

  Scrambling up to my feet, I approached the earthen structure behind the iron bars. A trickle of something shiny dribbled down one portion. I put my finger to it and then licked the tip. It tasted dirty, but it was definitely water of some description. I just needed to collect it.

  I stared down at what I was wearing. Jeans. T-shirt. No shoes or belt, but they hadn’t taken my necklace. Which happened to be an enamelled, oversized marijuana leaf. I detached it from the chain and started to work it into a bowl-type arrangement. I’d got so used to wearing kitschy adornments, that I’d forgotten this one was my latest effort to get Doug to cringe. But although Doug hadn’t seen it, I was glad for the little game we played.

  The leaf when done looked ridiculous, but when I placed it at the base of the wall where the water ran down, it started to gather moisture. It would be a while before I had enough to drink. Having achieved something productive, I rubbed my hands together and looked around the rest of the cell.

  Xavier hadn’t said a word while I’d been doctoring my marijuana leaf. But I sensed his eyes on me.

  I paced the cell, checking the magic for weaknesses. Every time I stopped and tested reaching for my Light, a sharp shard of pain pierced through my skull directly into my brain making me suppress a moan. By the time I’d made it all the way around and not found a millimetre gap in the Fey protection spell, I was sweating, shaking, and growling uncontrollably.

  The only saving grace was that there was enough water in the leaf for me to drink.

  I sipped my libation and stared at the door to the cell. Sanguis Vitam and Light were both out, but was brute strength?

  I didn’t have a chance to test that theory, because right then three warrior women stepped into view. What annoyed me the most about this entire situation was that they didn’t come through a door that creaked and warned you they were about to walk in on your private moment. They simply appeared out of thin air and stepped into view.

  It was hard not to jump, but I managed.

  “Hi,” I said when what I wanted to do was squeak.

  “Creature,” one of them said.

  She was the one in charge from back in Wellington, I noted. Although they all wore the same outfit and carried themselves the same way, they did have distinguishing features. This one had a pointed chin that marred her beauty slightly. And her eyes were too close together, but that might have been me just being uncharitable.

  “Warrior woman,” I said in reply.

  “I am Valkyrja.”

  “Is that your name?” It sounded a bit too much like what they’d called themselves back on Earth.

  “My name is Heliqa. I am Herra of the Valkyrjur.”

  A cold chill washed through me. Aliath called himself Herra of the Hár Lords. It meant Lord or Elder or something. It definitely meant the one in charge.

  “Are you a princess?” I asked. Aliath was also a Prince of Dökkálfa.

  “We are all Odin’s children.” She indicated the two women with her.

  But I wasn’t sure that was an answer. I didn’t know who Odin was. Other than what Xavier had said about him being in the Fey equivalent of Elysium.

  “OK,” I said. “What now?”

  “The Queen wishes to meet you,” Heliqa said. She tilted her head to the side and studied what I was wearing. “But first we must make you presentable.”

  I wasn’t sure what I feared most. Meeting the Queen. Or what these warrior women called presentable. Somehow I doubted it would include leather armour and a shiny sword on my hip.

  She waved her hand in front of the cell, and it opened inward. Well away from touching her Fey skin. Fairies didn’t like iron I was guessing. They sure as hell loved silver.

  All three women stood back to let me out of the cell, the silver in their hair glinting in the flames from nearby torches. The door to the cell clanged shut behind me, and I spun to look at what had been until that moment a prison but also something to call my own. I had no idea where they would take me, but I had to stop acting like a prisoner and gather as much intel as I could manage.

  “Great,” I said. “This way?” And started marching toward where they had come from.

  One second I was walking through the dank dungeon, the next I was stepping into a great hall.

  The shock of it almost made me stumble. But when I felt something settle on my wrist, I stopped moving altogether. A beautiful bracelet wrapped around my right arm. Silver with intricate engravings. I hadn’t even seen one of the women move. It had simply appeared as soon as I had materialised in this great hall.

  I didn’t reach for my Light to know I still couldn’t touch it. The bracelet had replaced the cell.

  I looked up and noted a few of the warrior women’s kin were dotted about the place. A couple were sparring with swords but had stopped at my appearance. One was lounging on a sofa eating grapes. Another was reading. Three were playing cards at the table.

  “This way,” Heliqa said, moving off toward a door at the rear of the hall.

  “Don’t mind me,” I said as I walked past the staring fairies. “You guys don’t like men much, huh?” I added, noting their absence as I studied each female face.

  They were definitely the warrior women from back in Wellington. Valkyrjur she had called them.

  My steps slowed. I looked around the walls at the decorations. Huge tapestries depicted battlefields and the women that surrounded me riding white, winged horses. Swords flashed in the glint of a moon or a sun; blood splattered at their feet; silver hair flying; green eyes vivid; death on their lips and the silver-tipped arrows that they fired into the writhing mass of fairies battling.

  “Valkyrjur,” I said. “Valkyries.”

  This was Valhalla. Their home, their Hall of the Slain or whatever it was they called it. These women chose who lived or died on battlefields. At least, I thought that’s what they did in the Old Norse stories. The reality might be quite different.

  Not that any of this felt at all real.

  I took a step and then another until I caught up to Heliqa, who had been waiting patiently for my mind to kick itself back into gear.

  “Not many who come here are received by the Queen,” she said once I’d reached her.

  “Is it meant to be an honour or something?” I snapped.

  “The honour is meeting Odin, creature. Not our Queen.”

  With those ominous words, she took off again, and I was forced to follow her.

  We ended up in a small room. Clothes hung on racks and chests were spilling over with garments, but my eyes were all for the window and what I could see out of it. Rolling green fields and fluffy white clouds and here and there colourful flowers in little clusters. The sun didn’t reach me, but I half expected to see a unicorn prancing about out there.

  “I think I prefer how you decorate inside,” I muttered.

  The scenery outside changed immediately to reflect a storm-tossed sea and a shipwrecked galleon on it. People were still trying to scramble into lifeboats. Lightning struck and took out a sailor who was reaching for the hand of a boy.

  I turned away, knowing it wasn’t real.

  My eyes landed on Heliqa who stood statue still staring at the scene outside.

  “He is awake,” one of the women behind her said.

  “He is awake,” the other one added.

  I waited for Heliqa to repeat the words; they seemed to like to do things in threes if memory served. But she just kept staring at the ship and the sea and the lightning.

  “Herra,” one of the women said softly.

  “Dress her,” Heliqa snapped. And then she swept out of the room on silent feet.

  I glanced back over my shoulder briefly, but the sea had been replaced again by the rolling hills and too bright flowers. When I looked back, one of the Valkyries was holding up a ball gown. One of those Cinderella type ballgowns. All satin and lace and huge skirt with copious petticoats under it.

  “Pass?” I said warily.

  “The Queen will expect it,” the woman on the right said.

  “We must not offend the Queen,” the other added.

  Both looked out the window again. I checked, but it was still showing the grassy hills.

  I looked back at them.

  “You’re not wearing pansy-arsed dresses,” I said.

  “We are Vakyrjur. Warriors.”

  “I might not be a Valkyrie, but I am a warrior. They call me Nothus. I’m kinda badass where I come from. The boogeyman under the bed so to speak.”

  One of the women cocked her head to the side. Then her eyes widened. A breeze had me turning around.

  Lying across the windowsill was a dress, but it wasn’t anything Cinderella would have been caught wearing. It was dark green for starters, not froufrou pink. And it didn’t have petticoats under it. It was still full length and would hit the floor once I wore shoes of some description, but the fabric would sway, and there was a split in it. Enough to allow movement. The bodice was strapped, crisscrossed over the chest. The straps could easily carry weapons if I had any. The sleeves were long and cut in a V that would cover my hand; there was even a little hoop for my middle finger to hold it down. On the underside of the sleeve were sheaths. Minus knives. But they so wanted knives in them.

  “This,” I said. “I could wear. But only because I like the slit in it.”

  No one said anything. I looked back at the fairies. They looked scared.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re Valkyries. Never show fear.”

  They blinked and then looked at me, heads cocked to the side.

  “You will wear this dress,” one of them said.

  “Ah-huh,” I replied, shaking my head. I stepped out of my jeans and then whipped off my t-shirt. There was no point being self-conscious, it would only ruin my reputation. And I was going for cool, competent and kickass. Image was everything.

  I snorted to myself as I stepped into the dress, which proceeded to slide up my body and wrap itself around my frame without any assistance from me or the Valkyries.

  “Whoa,” I said, as the fabric clung to me, the crisscrossing straps cinching in tight, cupping my breasts and making it look like I actually had curves for once. “Who did that?” I asked.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

  Heliqa returned then and took in the scene. Me in a non-froufrou dress, the two Valkyries staring at me in wonder, and my breasts all up and out there on display.

  “Whaddya think?” I asked, spinning in a slow circle. “All I need is a dagger or two on the arms, and I’d be set.”

  I felt the weight of the daggers instantly. It took everything in me not to reach for them and give their presence away. I swallowed, and then pasted on a nonchalant smile.

  “Shall we do this?” I asked Heliqa.

  She stared at me. Then stared at the dress. Then flicked her eyes out the window.

  Then she nodded her head and turned on her heel not waiting for me to follow.

  “Thanks,” I muttered to the women, or it could have been to the room at large.

  But really, it was to whoever had given me those daggers and armed me in a dress I could actually move in.

  It wasn’t until I stepped out of the room and into somewhere else, having done that fairy trick of walking through space to get somewhere, that I registered the silver bracelet was gone.

  Ah, my Dark Shadow said, stretching inside. It is good to be back.

  Yeah, it was. But why were we back at all?

  25

  Tricked

  “A word of warning,” Heliqa said as we approached a massive door covered in scary carvings of dead and dying things, “do not ask so many questions of the Queen.”

  I closed my eyes and cursed my idiocy. I’d been firing questions at the Valkyries as if I was out for a Sunday walk. This was no park and fairies were no walking companions. Asking questions here could lead to a dangerous bill being tallied. Aliath had warned me, and often let me get away with the odd question without racking up debt. But the Queen wouldn’t.

  I wondered briefly why the Valkyries had.

  And then the doors opened onto an opulent setting.

  Fairies milled around the outside edge of the enormous room we walked into as if they didn’t dare cross into the light cast by the multiple chandeliers hanging down the centre of the grand space they were in. They were dressed in a vibrant display of colours. Scarlets and sapphires, rubies and amethysts. Someone was wearing sunflower yellow.

  Their hair was pure silver. Not white blonde or anything remotely seen on humans. And their eyes shone with the type of illumination only seen in the movies. On the likes of werewolves. Or cats if their eyes were green and not yellow. Power emanated from them in prickling waves and chimes floated softly on the air.

  I reached for my Light automatically, relief coursing through me when it answered without causing a brain aneurysm, and wrapped it around me like a cloak. The Dark Shadow added her Sanguis Vitam, turning what would have been the equivalent of a bulletproof vest into military grade body armour.

  We had to be careful not to show how unaffected we were. The moment Isoleth or her Valkyries realised I was armed would be the last moment I breathed free air.

  Not that the air was free in here. It was layered in complex combinations of scents and tastes. From pungent and spicy pepper to bittersweet dark chocolate to a disturbing amount of indulgent chocolate mud cake. They had contempt for me and fear of me and some, disgustingly, had a shit-tonne of lust. I was guessing for me, but I chose not to dwell on that.

  I scanned those present, trying to see a friendly face amongst the number of sharp teeth on display. But I didn’t know many fairies and those I did know were mainly of the Dark variety. I was surrounded now by the blinding brightness of the Ljósálfar. And aside from Heliqa who walked beside me, I didn’t know a single name amongst them all.

  Except of course Isoleth’s.

  The Queen of the Light Fey sat on a throne of thorns. I noted absently that they were similar to the thorns that adorned the Valkyries’ heads. The Queen, though, wore a crown of antlers. Like some ancient Viking ruler who brought the poor beast down with a spear and a hand forged sword then skinned it and wore its fur as a cloak, its antlers as a headdress.