“Was it by your hand?” Michael pressed her, and the queen stepped forward. The walls started pulsing with light, and the room grew colder.
“I grow tired of wolves in my court. Leave now.” She waved a hand, and the walls flashed right before I felt power slam into my stomach.
I flew backward through the air, and the world went black.
I was tumbling, twisting, turning until the ground slammed into my back. I thought traveling there with Van had been bad, but this was worse. So much worse.
The world seemed to be staying still, but my stomach had other ideas. I rolled, smelling the grass under my hands a second before I lost the contents of my stomach.
I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth when I was done. “What the hell was that?”
“We were just booted from court.” Michael reached a hand down, but I couldn’t take it. Not yet. Not while the world was still spinning. “Where is Van?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t throw him out. Not like us.”
“Should we be worried?”
Michael was quiet for a second before answering. “No. He’ll be fine. He’s not just any fey. He’s—”
“How’d it go?” Meredith’s voice called out to us, and I looked behind me to see her running toward the two of us.
If Meredith was here, that meant the queen had kicked us out the door to her underhill. Which meant we were in Ireland.
“Cosette called me to keep an eye out. She thought you might end up here.” Meredith stopped a few feet from us. Her hair had streaks of hot pink in it today, but she looked happy. Strong. Safe.
But as her focus moved from Michael to me, all I could see was the pity and sorrow in her eyes.
“What did you find out?” Meredith asked.
I shook my head and stared into the night. I couldn’t speak. I’d been stupid to hope that we might find something concrete from Helen, but now that hope was gone. All I was left with was emptiness.
“They don’t have her.” Michael’s voice sounded like it was far away, even though I knew he was standing beside me.
All I could think was how I’d failed. Again. I hadn’t gotten an answer, and
worse, I’d nearly succumbed to the queen. The anger I’d felt was gone, and all I had now was regret.
I was an idiot. Why did I think going to the queen was a good idea?
“—the fey did at one point have her,” Michael said.
That had me standing. “What?”
Michael gave me a small smile. “You didn’t catch that?”
No. I’d heard, but…
“The queen was behind this.” Michael sighed. “But Tessa’s not in any of the underhills anymore, and Helen doesn’t know where she is. Which means someone put her somewhere and purposefully didn’t tell Helen. In case she was asked, she could speak plainly on that point alone. We’ve got no proof and no way to hold her to any consequences, even if we did. So…”
Meredith let out a string of colorful words, ones that would’ve made my mate smile.
I looked at Michael. “I thought that if they didn’t have her, then that was one less place to look. It would be easier if she was in our realm and—”
“That’s true, but now that we know for sure that they did this, then we also know that their magic is hiding her. Which isn’t nothing.”
“Right.” Damn it. Even if this was the most we’d learned about Tessa’s kidnapping, it wasn’t enough to find her. “What now?”
“We go to the witches. It has to be fey magic that’s hiding her. Claudia couldn’t break through it, but maybe some other witch can,” Michael said. “Your bond is still there. All we have to do is remove the fey magic from hiding it. Once you can see the bond again, you can find her.”