Somewhere in the distance, a lycan howled at the full moon. Afterward, all went silent except the incessant chirp of insects.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Shelton said, the statement surprising me both for the sincerity in his voice, and the shock of broken silence.

"Uh, sure. Poop happens, I guess."

He snorted. "Yeah. It sure does." Shelton checked the time on his phone. "The old man likes to stay in the Fairy Garden Estate."

I felt my forehead pinch. "What kind of man stays in a fairy house?"

"Bunch of women named these gardens if you ask me," Shelton said with a laugh. "Don't even get me started on the Unicorn Garden." He motioned me to follow him down a path I hadn't taken before which curved through the rear garden, past the meadow where Vallaena and I practiced, and around the imposing stadium. The path bordered the forest where the tragon lurked, and up to an iron gate flanked by tall stone walls.

I stopped in shock and stared at the landscape through the iron bars of the gate. A crystalline pond sat in the middle of a glade. A shaft of pure moonlight shined on the water, where a group of figures splashed each other, laughing and giggling. The yellow brick road continued past the pond and into a dense forest. Lights of every color glittered in the trees, like thousands of tiny light bugs.

"Holy farting fairies," I said, borrowing one of Shelton's scatological phrases. "This looks amazing. Are those really fairies?"

"Geez, kid. How many times I gotta tell you there ain't no such thing?" He pushed through the unlocked iron gate.

"Whatevs," I said, and followed him down the path.

As we drew closer to the pond, the figures abruptly stopped splashing, and the shaft of moonlight faded. Shelton pulled his staff from a pocket and snapped it to full length. I realized I hadn't brought one, and felt naked even though my magic wasn't much to brag about.

The barest pat of dripping water was all the warning we had before two wet figures appeared in front of us. Wood groaned and creaked, and my jaw almost bounced off the ground as several trees tore themselves from the ground and surrounded us.

A beautiful and very naked woman stood next to a heinously naked man, their eyes full of suspicion. I forced my eyes north of the border, desperate not to see man junk of any kind.

"What is your business?" the woman asked in a pure melodic voice.

"We're here on official business to see the Primus." Shelton said.

"Lies!" said the man, his voice every bit as pure and musical as the woman's. "Take them," he said, presumably to the trees.

Giggles bubbled from every direction, and girls, naked but for leaves and foliage draped over their generous curves, appeared from behind the trees, their eyes sparkling with mischief. One gripped my bicep, and suddenly, my feet rooted themselves to the ground. I tried to move, but even my supernatural strength wasn't enough to uproot them.

A savage snarl peeled the man's lips from his teeth. "Get rid of them."

Chapter 38

I hardly had a chance to yelp in surprise at the sudden development. "Why are you going to kill us?" I asked, still straining without results against the force holding my feet to the ground.

The angry man looked confused. "I said nothing about killing you, fool. They will escort you from the garden."

Shelton growled and stopped struggling against his own captors. "Fine. You want the truth? I'm here on unofficial business. The Primus is my absentee asshole father, and I have to warn him about a nuclear friggin meltdown about to blow everyone in Queens Gate to hell. You happy now?"

The man's face flashed to surprise, and then alarm. "He speaks the truth."

"Children, release them," the woman said.

The girls slid their hands away, and the pressure holding my feet to the earth vanished. I almost stumbled backwards as the girls danced back behind the looming trees.

"You may pass, wizard," the woman said, smiling.

Shelton brushed at his sleeves, grumbling something about dryads, and stomped down the path. I hurried to keep pace.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"Security. You think the Primus would stay out here without guards?"

I looked around at the dense forest. Giggles echoed from the dark spaces between the trees. I switched to night vision. Hundreds of glowing eyes flickered on and met my gaze. My heart screamed and cowered behind my guts. I very quickly switched night vision off. "Uh, Shelton? We're being watched."

He snorted. "Try not to think about it. We've been cleared by the Lady of the Pond."

"Is she related to the Lady of the Lake?"

He shrugged. "Might be cousins. I dunno." Shelton's gaze took in the thick woods to either side of us. "Just don't go off the path. You're not supposed to do that."

Tiny flashes of light sparkled in the dark, but did nothing to reveal the lurkers in the woods. My hearing picked up the faint pitter-patter of countless feet pacing through the trees on a course parallel to ours. More feminine giggles echoed from either sides of the path. I knew women were dangerous, but these chicks were downright creepy. After a few more minutes, we finally emerged from the forest. The path continued through a wide green lawn with bushes grown into all sorts of fantastic shapes and sizes. I didn't have time to take it all in before Shelton marched up to the front door and yanked on a string attached to a bell.

A brass golem immediately opened the door, its neat black and white suit indicating without a doubt it was a butler. "He is expecting you," the golem said, waving us into the foyer without another word of explanation. "Would you like a drink while you wait? Tea, perhaps?"

"Nah," Shelton said, following the brass construct into a slightly larger room with benches and chairs. It reminded me of a doctor's waiting room. He dropped into a seat, and grabbed an Arcane Daily scroll off the table. The butler performed a concise bow, and wandered off.

"Did the lady tell him we were coming?" I asked.

"Yup." Shelton unrolled the parchment, looking for all the world like a man doing some light bathroom reading, just without the accompanying odor.

A brass golem in a French maid outfit wandered through, dusting the furniture, and singing in an admittedly pretty voice.

After a good fifteen minutes, during which I felt certain the Primus was probably drumming his fingers on a table, and making us wait in the name of bureaucracy, the butler returned. "Right this way, good sirs."

We followed it down a wood-paneled hallway lined with lush red carpet, and into an office furnished with intricately carved bookshelves, tables, and a huge desk. Jarrod Sager sat behind the desk, and motioned to two red leather chairs facing him.

"Please sit."

"If that will be all, sir?" the butler asked.

"Yes, thank you," the Primus replied.

Shelton regarded the chair for a few seconds, as if deciding whether he wanted to spite his old man by not sitting. A shake of his head accompanied an audible sigh, and he dropped into the seat. "Let me start by saying I don't want to be here." Sager opened his mouth to respond, but Shelton shut him up with a backhanded wave. "I don't want to hear it," he growled. "If it weren't important, I wouldn't have come."

"I understand," Sager said, his voice sounding a little strained. "However, there are proper channels to go through for official business." He put an emphasis on the word.

"Yeah? Well, this can't wait." He nodded to me. "Go ahead and tell him."

My mouth wouldn't work for a moment, frankly because I'd expected Shelton to tell him. My brain also couldn't decide what to say first, and decided a question might be in order. "What is the Gloom Initiative?"

Sager's eyes darted between me and Shelton. "I'm sure if you went to the library and looked over newspaper archives, you could answer that question."

Shelton leaned forward. "We don't want to hear the crap you fed to the masses. We know there was more to it, or you wouldn't have used me to find and arrest people who opposed you."

His father's eyes flared. "I believe I've heard enough of this nonsense. You should go. Now."

"I ain't leaving until you tell me," Shelton said, standing, his hand clenching and unclenching by his side. "Because I ain't too happy about it. In fact, all that crap with Aerianas broke something inside me. Maybe my sanity. Maybe I'll just take out that anger on you right here and now."

Sager stood, a worried look on his face. "Leave this instant!"

"Not without saying what I came here to say, you lying sack of gerbil droppings!" Shelton thundered. "You used me to railroad people into prison without a trial for that stupid Gloom Initiative. Well, guess what? You don't even have to tell us what it's for. We know it's so you can hide the friggin Cyrinthian Rune from Daelissa. We know about the arch holding the rune, and we know it's about to blow Queens Gate to kingdom come. That's why you wanted your project to succeed, so you could hide it." He stood panting, as if it had cost him strength to force the words from his mouth, and then said one more thing in a calm sad voice. "That's the reason you tooled your son and threw him away when you were done."

Sager face-palmed, and dropped into his chair. "Damn it, son." He groaned. "You're right. I fed the public a lie—or at least the truth blended with a lie. The project was twofold. It was publicly commissioned to find alternate travel methods to the arch network. However, the secret objective was to open a rift between here and the Seraphim realm. Only after the initiative was underway did I think it could be used to hide the rune, provided I could find it."

"The Seraphim realm?" Shelton said, his expression growing confused.

I didn't need to have detective skills to realize in a split instant what Sager's words meant. Sager and Vadaemos hadn't worked together exclusively. They'd been working for someone else all along. I grabbed Shelton's arm. "We've got to go now!"