Grave Visions(88)

The soul collector looked pale under his tan, and his hazel eyes, cast downward, were haunted. He saw me looking at him, and his shoulders sagged as he shook his head. He looked . . . defeated.

Of course, his girlfriend was currently in the arms of another man.

Damn it.

I shoved against Falin hard enough that when he released me, I stumbled back two steps. He reached out to steady me, but I stepped around his arms, forcing my shaky legs to take me toward Death.

“I couldn’t save you,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “You’d lost consciousness before I reached you, so I couldn’t touch the plants binding you. He had to cut you free.” He jerked his head toward Falin without opening his eyes. “I didn’t even have breath to offer you to bring you back. All I could have done was take your soul or leave it in your dying body.”

I reached for his shoulder but he ducked away from my touch.

“I’m fine,” I said. Shaken, definitely. Scared, yeah. But aside from the pain in my throat and chest, I really was fine.

Death caught my hand before it dropped. “Not because of me.” He pressed a light kiss against my fingertips.

Then he vanished.

“Who is here?” Falin asked, stepping up behind me.

It said something about how well he knew me that he asked which invisible entity I was talking to instead of assuming I was suffering from shock or hallucinating. Yeah, maybe I talked to people on different planes of existence a little too often.

“No one,” I said, still staring at the spot where Death had been. Then I forced myself to turn away. “No one else is here.” And there were other things I needed to worry about right now than the emotional landfill that acted as my love life.

Like the amaranthine tree. And the fact Jenny was still out there.

• • •

“We could cut it down,” I said, staring at the sapling. The trunk was no thicker than my thumb, and my dagger was enchanted to slice through nearly any material. It would be easy.

Falin frowned at me. “It’s considered taboo to harm amaranthine trees. They are sacred to Faerie.”

“So what happens to it then? Will the courts build another bar around it, like the Eternal Bloom?” The tree was deep inside a federal nature preserve—I doubted the government would like it if the fae announced they were commandeering this land. “Any clue what it’s doing here anyway?”

Falin appraised the sapling. “There are many different kinds of doors to Faerie, but amaranthine trees are always permanent doors and are epicenters for belief magic to filter in from the mortal realm. A new tree hasn’t appeared naturally in recent memory, and from what I’ve heard, all attempts to propagate one has failed.”

We both stared at the tree. Clearly someone had succeeded. We were far too close to the tree in the Eternal Bloom for this one to be natural.

“Is there any way to tell where it leads?”

Falin walked around the tree. I’d considered trying that when I first saw it, but okay, I admit it, I chickened out. Now I held my breath as he rounded the back of the sapling. I waited for him to disappear into Faerie, but nothing happened. He returned to the spot where he’d started and shook his head. “Maybe whatever means was used to create it couldn’t duplicate its doorway properties.”

“Or maybe it just needs to mature more,” I said, because while it might not be a gate we could travel through yet, the tree was definitely syphoning belief magic. I hadn’t been able to identify the trail of magic I’d followed to the tree, but now that I knew what I was looking at, it made sense. The Bloom drew in so much magic in a continual stream that it built up around the building in a gradual way; a gradient change that was likely responsible for the mixed realities in the VIP room. This young tree had such a thin stream of magic that it was almost more noticeable because of the thin but concentrated strand I’d all but tripped over.

“You couldn’t compel Jenny Greenteeth to respond when you tried to summon her. You said any denizens or independents of winter should have no choice but to respond to the court’s knight, unless they were noble or sworn to a noble. I assumed that meant the latter since she didn’t appear when you called her, and she’s in winter’s territory without signs of fading. But with the tree so close to where she made her home . . .” I trailed of, organizing my thoughts. “Could she be tied to another court entirely? Here to guard the tree as a new court establishes a foothold? The tree providing her tie back to her own court and supplying the magic needed to sustain her?”

“Maybe, but it’s doubtful. With no gate, all the magic the tree is absorbing is likely fueling its own growth.” Falin knelt beside the tree and brushed his thumb over its smooth bark. “Most likely she is tied to a winter noble, possibly one who formed some manner of alliance with another court.” Falin frowned down at the sapling. “But this tree’s existence makes no sense. Faerie naturally balances the territories when the doors shift. Different seasons wax and wane in power as the year passes, but adding another door would only encourage Faerie to split territory differently the next time the doors moved. The seasons always remain relatively balanced.”