“Because the realm we’re in is trying to spit us out,” he said flatly. “The stones are anathema to the Silvers. Once you remove them from your pouch, the realm detects them and, like an infected splinter, endeavors to expel them. The only reason you go with them is because you’re holding on to them.”

“Why are they anathema to the Silvers?”

“Because of Cruce’s curse.”

“You know what Cruce’s curse was?” Finally, someone who could tell me!

“I’ve been wandering worlds in this place for what feels like bloody forever, and I’ve learned a thing or two. Cruce hated the Unseelie King, for many reasons, and coveted his concubine. He cursed the Silvers to prevent the king from ever entering them again. He planned to take all the worlds inside the Silvers and the concubine for himself. Be king of all the realms. But a curse is an immensely powerful thing, and Cruce cast it into a vortex of unfathomable power. Like most things Fae, it took on a life of its own, transmuted. Some say you can still hear the words of it, sung softly on a dark wind, ever changing.”

“Did he succeed in keeping the king from his concubine?”

“Aye. And because those stones you carry were carved from the king’s fortress and bear the taint of him, the Silvers reject them, as well. A short time after that, the king was betrayed, he and the queen battled, and he killed the Seelie Queen.”

“Was that when the concubine killed herself?”

“Aye.”

“Well, if the Silvers are trying to spit us out, then won’t they eventually send us back to our world?”

He snorted. “They aren’t trying to spit us out back to where we came from, Mac. They’re trying to restore the natural order of things and spit the stones back to where they came from.”

I inhaled sharply. “You mean every time we use them, whatever realm we’re in is trying to send us to the Unseelie prison? What happens? Do they miss?”

“I suspect none of the realms has enough power on its own, so we’re being swept toward it, like a broom across a vast floor, through as many dimensions as possible.”

“Each time we get pushed a little closer?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, maybe,” I tried hard to be optimistic, “we’re a million realms away.” Somehow, I didn’t think so.

“And maybe,” he said darkly, “we’re one. And the next time you ‘shift’ us, we’ll end up face-to-face with the Unseelie King. Don’t know about you, but I’d rather not meet the million-year-old creator of the worst of the Fae. Some say merely gazing on him in his true form will destroy your mind.”

Some time later, Christian announced our clothes were dry. I listened to his clothing rustle as he dressed. When he was done, I got up and moved toward my clothes, then stopped dead in my tracks, staring at him.

He gave me a bitter smile. “I know. It started happening shortly after you fed it to me.”

I’d seen him nude. I knew he had crimson and black tattoos on his chest, part of his abdomen, and up the side of his neck, but the rest of his body had been unmarked.

It was no longer. Now his arms were covered with black lines and symbols, moving just beneath his skin.

“It’s spreading down my legs and moving up my chest,” he said.

I opened my mouth but didn’t have the faintest idea what to say. I’m sorry I fed it to you to save your life? Do you wish I hadn’t? Isn’t it better to live to fight another day, no matter what?

“It’s something to do with the dark-arts part of it. I feel it surging in me like a storm.” He sighed heavily. “I suspect it’s because of what Barrons and I tried to do on Hallow’s Eve.”

“And what was that?” I fished.

“Called on something ancient that we should have let slumber. Invited it. I keep hoping I’ll find him, but once we were sucked into the vortex, we got separated.”

I stared. “Barrons got sucked into the Silvers with you on Halloween?”

Christian nodded. “We were both in the stone circle, then it vanished, and so did we. We flashed from one landscape to the next like someone was flipping channels, then suddenly I was in the Hall of All Days, and he wasn’t. I may not care for the man, but he knows his dark magic. I’ve been hoping we can find a way out, if we put both our minds to it.”

“Uh, I hate to break it to you, but he already has.”

Christian’s eyes flared, then narrowed. “Barrons is out? Since when?”