All That Falls

5 A Portal To Another Plane

We spent our time waiting for nightfall at the tavern in the town a little further down the mountain. Pollux and Rook shadowstepped to the town, preferring to avoid the embarrassing mortal labor of walking down the mountain on their own two feet. Lark offered to take me again but I refused. My gut was still roiling from the last time and I would rather trudge down that steep incline than puke all over the cobblestones in front of my colleagues. So Lark merely shrugged and fell into step beside me as I began the trek down.

"You said that man was in charge," Lark spoke suddenly once we were halfway to the town. I glanced his way before turning my attention back to where I was stepping so I wouldn't trip over a fallen rock.

"Wyn?" I asked. "He is. Of the camp, at least. This entire mission is his responsibility. Closing the rift is his responsibility. He's a field agent for the DAA. That's the Department of A—"

"I know what the DAA is," he grumbled.

"Right," I bit back through gritted teeth. "Well, whenever a rift opens up, the DAA assigns one of their field agents the task of closing it. Whenever the rift is proving harder to mend than others, Wyn requests help from Hadley and the university sends either my uncle or I to assist. Lately, I've been the lucky one."

"And when the minotaur came?"

"He ran."

Lark's lip curled in open disgust.

"Not an outstanding leader," he remarked.

"No," I agreed with a snort. "He's not."

"Why aren't you in charge?"

I glanced his way again.

"Why would I be?" I asked. "I'm just a professor and not even the head of my department. I'm here in a consulting capacity only and because the Dean of Hadley has some very useful connections."

"Connections that a DAA agent believes capable of calling upon another foreign power to help heal a monster-dropping rift?" Lark asked, raising a brow in my direction.

"I thought it better than telling him you're a supremely powerful magical being."

"Supremely?" he smirked.

I rolled my eyes, ignoring him, and forged on.

"If he ever got over the shock of it, he would turn you into our government for experimentation straight away. And that's not to mention the fact that you're from a separate plane of existence which you've been banished from for a little over half a century now. Some people might ask about why that is, you know."

"You didn't."

"No, I didn't."

"Why not?"

I could practically feel his gaze boring into me and so I looked over my shoulder as I answered.

"Everyone has the right to keep their own secrets," I told him with a shrug. "If you wanted to tell me, you would. Regardless, our deal still stands."

Then, because I was no longer watching where I was going, my foot slipped on a loose rock and I fell backwards. With a yelp, I braced myself for the sharp sting of hard ground on my frozen arse. But the hit never came. And I opened my eyes to find myself in the enigmatic Fae's arms.

"Our deal still stands," he drawled, the warmth of his breath heating my face as his eyes gazed down into mine in a way that should have made my skin crawl. I hadn't met many Fae but if any of them had ever looked at me the way he was looking at me now, I would have done everything I could to shrink out of my own skin. But somehow, with him, it wasn't menacing. I was as much a curiosity to him as he was to me. Perhaps that was naïve of me. But I didn't care. Not now. Not if he could heal the rift.