Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(62)

The camera zoomed closer, and she was right, it looked like a person-sized rip in reality. Crap. I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I turned toward Falin. His expression darkened, his ful lips pressing tight. He tore his gaze from the screen and fixed on me.

“Did you?”

I shook my head. I’d ripped open those smal , dimesized holes when we’d fought the ravens, the hole in the Quarter during the first construct attack, and, of course, the room-sized hole I’d created in my father’s mansion, but unless I’d merged reality from a distance or the tears moved, I hadn’t caused this one. I squinted, searching the fuzzy screen of my old TV set and trying to make out details of the tear’s location.

The cameraman panned, zooming out to pul Lusa back on the screen. She rehashed information about the tear in the Quarter and about what the officials were currently debating. Come on, Lusa, tell us where you are.

As she spoke, someone crossed directly in front of the tear, pausing to look at the camera. Because the camera was focused on Lusa, the person’s face was blurred. I was pretty sure the figure was male. His height was hard to pretty sure the figure was male. His height was hard to judge, though he was tal er than the tear. He wore a long dark coat, which even after the sun set, was far too warm. A passerby? A gawker?

“Can you tel who that man is?”

Falin tore his gaze from the TV long enough to frown at me. “What man?”

“That one.” I pointed to the figure in the background, and Falin’s frown turned puzzled. “You can’t see him?” I asked.

He shook his head. Okay, then. That meant, most likely, that the man was a ghost or a soul col ector. The tear in reality scared me, but the fact that it was present at the edge of the river and that there was a spectral figure near it worried me even more.

“This is Lusa Duncan with Witch Watch live at Lenore Street Bridge, signing off.”

I was on my feet before the last words were out of Lusa’s mouth. I had my purse over my shoulder and was halfway out the door before I realized Falin wasn’t with me. True dark had fal en and he stil had my keys, which meant I wasn’t driving myself anywhere.

“You coming?”

He stared at the TV and shook his head. “I don’t think you should go anywhere near that tear.”

“What? Why?” I hadn’t been the one to rip reality. I was sure of that. I hadn’t been anywhere near the Lenore Street Bridge recently, which meant someone else had the ability to merge planes of existence. I wanted to find out who.

Maybe there was someone out there who could teach me h o w not to merge reality. Also, the riverside location worried me. Cal it a hunch—which was surely nothing definite—but a twisting feeling in my gut told me the tear needed to be checked out in relation to my case.

Falin shook his head again. “Alex, what you can do, when you make the land of the dead manifest in the mortal plane or bring the Aetheric here, is cal ed planeweaving. It is a fae ability.”

fae ability.”

“You think?” The fact that the ability had gone into hyperdrive around the Blood Moon when, supposedly, my fae soul had awakened, was a good indication of the connection between the two.

Falin ignored my sarcasm. “Planeweavers are rumored to be responsible for a lot of things. The folded spaces, the fact that Faerie and the mortal realm touch only in smal doorways, the fact that the fae can’t reach the Aetheric . . .

There are legends and myths that date back even farther than the oldest living fae’s memory.” And that would be a long time. He stepped forward. “But, Alex, planeweavers don’t exist anymore.”

“I think I’m going to beg to differ on that one.”

One side of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. “Yes. Of course you exist, though it would be best if the courts don’t learn what you are. What I mean is that there are no fae planeweavers in Faerie. No feykin planeweavers either.”

“And outside Faerie?”

“If the courts knew about a planeweaver, they would be in Faerie whether they were mortal, kin, or fae. Which is why, if you don’t want to be dragged off to Faerie, you need to keep your head down. The tear in the Quarter already has rumors circulating in the courts. You can’t be seen near that one.” He pointed at the TV screen and then reached out and smoothed a loose curl behind my ear. “Official y, as far as anyone in Faerie knows, the only planeweavers that exist are a pair of mortals. They serve the high king, and rumor says they are the only reason he’s held the high court for over a mil ennium—but they are changelings, mortal captives of Faerie, which is as good as saying sterile, so there wil be no more from their lines. I’ve heard rumors that the Shadow King has a changeling planebender, which is similar though not quite the same. Again, his planebender is a changeling, mortal, and the end of a line. There were apparently more mortal planeweavers in centuries past, but fae planeweavers have been extinct since the age of fae planeweavers have been extinct since the age of legends.”

And recently the legends had been returning.

The dread I’d been feeling since Lusa’s special report had aired intensified, and the clenching in my stomach moved to my lungs until it was hard to breathe. “I’m not a legend. But whoever opened that might have been.” I nodded at the screen, which was replaying Lusa’s footage.

I’d already faced a legend forgotten in time—I didn’t want to think about how much worse a legend not forgotten might be. “So now what?”