Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(126)

Time is running out.” He peered into his hourglass again.

Time is running out.” He peered into his hourglass again.

I stared at the rushing sand and again asked, “What happens when it runs out?”

“A moment in time, nothing more. But one I do not wish to miss.”

Right. “Let’s go.” We had a shadow to find and a ritual to stop.

“This would be the one,” the nightmare kingling said as the shadows in the nightmare realm separated to show the one, or real y, the shadows, that he meant.

The shadows danced, leaping and twisting against the pale sand. Not just one or two shadows either, but more than a dozen, al in constant motion. I stared at it. This can’t be right. There was too much movement. Too many people.

It looked more like a party.

“Perhaps a little farther from the action.” Kyran lifted his arms and the shadows slid across the sand. The shapes that replaced them were large and too formless for me to decipher what had cast them, but at least they were stil .

“This, I think, shal do nicely,” he said.

I nodded. As long as we ended up safely in the city we had a better chance of finding the accomplice— not Rianna, please not Rianna—than if we were stuck in Faerie. I waited, but Kyran made no move to lead us through the shadow.

“I have a confession,” he said, turning toward me. “This is the door you need, but I can’t open it.”

What did he mean he couldn’t open it? Falin’s hand on my waist twitched.

I swal owed around the lump suddenly lodged in my throat, but tried to keep my voice level as I asked, “Do we need another shadow?”

Kyran shook his head. “My power does not let me open doors into the mortal realm. But yours wil .”

doors into the mortal realm. But yours wil .”

Damn. And this would be the catch. “What happens if I open a door?”

“You can freely walk from the nightmare realm to the mortal realm until dawn moves the shadows and the realms no longer touch.”

No wiggle room in that statement, so it had to be true.

What does he stand to gain? It hit me suddenly. “If we can walk through, the nightmares can, too.”

“Very good,” he said with a smile, genuinely pleased.

“Alex, what is he talking about?” Hol y whispered, stepping closer to me. I hadn’t told her anything about the whole feykin planeweaver thing. Looked like I’d have some explaining to do—if we survived this. But not now.

I shook my head. “Later, Hol .” I focused on Kyran again.

He stood with his hands in his pockets, al his weight on one leg, the other knee slack, as if whatever decision I came to made no difference to him. “What wil the nightmares do in the mortal realm?”

He shrugged. “The same thing they do here. Cause terror. Fear nourishes them.” He glanced at the hourglass.

Only a thin line of sand remained in the top globe. “You are running out of time.”

I looked at the hourglass. “What happens when the sand runs out?”

He smirked. “Ah, final y, you’ve asked three times,” he said, and I remembered too late that three was often significant. A weight stretched between us. It wasn’t quite the same feeling as when a debt opened, but it was the same sort of magic. “The hourglass counts the moments until al doors open when the planes merge—or the moment in which that is prevented. Hard to say which, but one way or the other, it wil happen soon.”

Damn. He real y had been screwing with me this whole time. I glanced at the hourglass. At the rate the sand was fal ing, it had maybe twenty minutes until the top globe ran out of sand. And then the world as we know it will change.

out of sand. And then the world as we know it will change.

Or someone will stop the ritual.

I swal owed the bitter taste in my throat and stared at the shadows surrounding me. A few hours of nightmares, or a world where all known and unknown realities converge. Or maybe I was overestimating my evolvement. Maybe the col ectors would stop this al on their own. Or the cops. Or some random good citizen who just happened to stumble by. But can I take that gamble?

I looked at Falin. “What do I do?”

He shook his head. “I would say the lesser harm for the greater good, but I cannot make this choice for you.”

“I’m voting for stopping the bad guys,” Hol y said. She was a DA—her life was al about putting the bad guys away. She wiped her palms on her silk PJ bottoms.

Nervous sweat? “I guess this wil be a little more hands-on than my normal approach,” she said, flashing me a weak smile. “But someone deserves a hefty serving of revenge.”

Nightmares it is. Except one problem. “I don’t know how to open a door.” I’d tried before; it hadn’t worked.

“Yes, I did see your attempt in the shadow court,” the kingling said as he circled the hourglass.

“Yo u saw?” That meant he’d been watching me long before I’d fal en through that nightmare. For al I knew, he’d sent my bad dreams.

He clasped his hands behind his head so his elbows framed his face. “The planebender bent Faerie—hence the name. He took two places that normal y don’t touch and shoved them until they col ided and a door could be opened between them. Very messy and very forceful. Your power is not. It is not your nature to shove realities around. Your power is to weave planes together.”