"Can you feel the magic in the air?" Caraid asked me. "The remnants of sacrifice and ritual made to Hades or Hel?

"Maybe both."

I did. Now that he had pointed it out.

I had noticed the lack of magic miles before we reached the outcropping that gave us a clear view of Limerick. But this was different. It was as if the air was charged with static electricity. The magic from the Nexus being siphoned was enough to affect the Tesseract, the four-dimensional cube shape, that aligned with and gave structure to the powerful Nexus pools.

But what Caraid had identified was more. A layer of death magic coating the entire region. An intrusion to nature and life that was within the purview of Sidhe control. This layer of death had ripped the control of the land from the Sidhe and was the reason the city seemed abandoned. One of the Gods of the Afterlife had claimed this city.

Magic followed certain rules. It wasn't an unknowing source of energy that allowed the impossible to happen, as most people believed. A practitioner using magic tapped into that fourth dimension, where magic originated in the same manner that ley-lines and Nexus pools aligned. Each time I cast a spell, I created a Tesseract that gave form and shape to the spell I was casting. The Tesseract molded the channels and formed the magic that would respond in the manner I required.

Will, intent, and command made up three sides of the four-dimensional Tesseract, magic provided the extra dimension needed to complete a type of circuit that channeled power. That was the major difference between magic and glamour. Glamour and illusion were constructs of the mind. Psychic manifestations used empathy, telepathy, and telekinesis to give substance and meaning. Magic allowed a user to control the structures involved in the creation of the Tesseract, allowing the user to circumvent the physics of the natural world.

The Tesseract acted as an overlay, subverting [Law], and allowing the user to impose his Will, Intent, and Command working as an addendum to what should be to what could be.

That was the reason the Sidhe of this world could use illusion and glamour when their magic began to fade. Glamour did not subvert or replace [Law], it simply shaped expectations. [Fairy] acted as the bridge between magic and Sidhe, allowing the Sidhe to link and connect with the Tesseract. The construct required that connection to allow magic to work.

It was the metaphysical apparatus that gave rules and structure to the unexplainable. A compact between what was real and what could be made real. It guided and determined how magic worked.

The Leanan that was siphoning the Nexus had circumvented those rules, and I began to believe she had managed because of the land's corruption. She had managed to find a weak spot among the four-dimensional Tesseract that gave the order to magic and she did so without the bridge that circumvented the chasm between magic and reality that [Fairy] provided.

"She's in the castle," Balfour informed us.

He had managed to co-opt some of the newly restored fey from somewhere along the way and was in the process of creating an intelligent service as adept as what he ran on Talahm. The fey weren't as capable at stealth and ignoring wards as the Aziza, but they were small and nimble enough to get into almost any area.

They were also fast. Their wings and ability to glide and fly using the currents of magic gave them an edge when it came to speed.

"You've already scoped out the entire city?" I asked.

"Not all of it," he admitted. "There are areas that I will have to scout personally, places that have been warded, and the fey can't enter. But the castle's wards and defenses have been deactivated or destroyed, so they were able to enter there. And that is where they found her."

"Did they find any signs of undead or the presence of demons?" I inquired.

"No, Milord," Balfour replied.

"Show me what they discovered," I said, not certain how to reconcile the miasma of death that blanketed the area with no signs of undead to power that corruption.

I watched as Balfour released a spell to control the wind and summon one of the Demi-fey. A miniature man, perfectly shaped and appearing to be an Unseelie with wings, was quick to respond.

Stolen novel; please report.

He was dressed in gossamer threads of the finest silk. Cloth spun and woven with a dexterity that far outstripped even the most talented Seelie seamstress. He could have been mistaken for Seelie, but his colorings tended towards shadow and darkness. The Seelie were too proud or too hidebound to embrace the darkness and the advantages that the medium provided.

A gestalt of mind and illusion began to take shape as Balfour and the Demi-fey worked in tandem to create an illusion, shaping it to build a glamour. The area around us changed from field and outcropping to a room of cobweb, dust, and darkness. I was surprised the woman hadn't claimed the throne room until I noticed the pool of liquid magic that was gathering.

The substrate of the castle had collapsed at some point, opening into a tunnel or rift that intersected with the Nexus. That path allowed the condensed magic the Nexus held to leak, to collect until enough liquid mana gathered to create a reflecting pool.

The Leanan was standing transfixed. She might have been mistaken for statuary, her lack of movement was so profound. She was as beautiful as any other Sidhe. Even shrouded in shades of gray and without that emotional spark that gave truth to life, she managed to exude a beauty that was realized even without that vibrancy.

Some might have compared her to an ice queen. Her features were frigid, her entire bearing cloaked in indifference. She was sitting, her legs folded to the side, with one hand dangling into the pool of magic. The fey that had spied on her was able to see into the etheric and mapped the streams of magic at work. Every fey was a spark of [Fairy], they were magic incarnate. So, it was no surprise he was able to watch as the Leanan drained the magic and channeled it to feed herself.

The fey observed the process that was being used, a type of cultivation where the magic was drawn inward, cycled through the body, before accumulating at her heart point. As I watched the woman gather and cycle the magic, I realized why the ambient magic for the island was decreasing. Her attempts at compressing the magic into a heart seed were amateurish at best, but she was having some success.

She was losing more magic into the surrounding environment than she was able to hold or claim. And that cycled magic, instead of harming the Nexus pool, was feeding the layer of death magic that should have faded over time. She was increasing the potency of the magic as she cycled. Purifying and filtering any elemental affinities that might have stained the energies gathered.

The magic was returned cleansed, but the little she managed to claim, and then store was more than enough to offset the wasted magic that was affecting the surrounding area. That static electricity that we were feeling would continue until she reached harmony. A balance between the filtered magic that she released, and the raw magic that the ley-lines were feeding her through the Nexus pool.

A deeper glimpse into the reflecting pool of magic expanded our understanding of how she was able to do what she was doing. Her hand wasn't resting casually in the water as it first appeared. She was clutching the hand of her previous soul bond.

The young man teetered on the edge between life and death. He had to be a Changeling; no mortal could survive what he was being forced to endure. His body would break down and fail, only for the power that he was languishing in to forcefully heal him. This divide between life and death was what allowed the death energy that saturated the area to not only remain intact but strengthen.

The Leanan was able to siphon that extra energy each time a burst of healing took place, and as long as she held onto his hand the connection between Nexus, her bonded, and herself would remain. As long as he was submerged in the waters of magic, she would be able to subvert the Tesseract that combined the four dimensions and steal the magic that should have been held safely within the Nexus.

She hadn't breached the walls of the quantum cube that combined to make the Tesseract. Will, intent, command, and magic remained inviolate. She had simply tossed a bit of logjam into the dimensional waters, creating enough of a dam to divert the stored energy.

I had my doubts as to the sustainability of this method. Magic, now that [Fairy] had been restored, was almost a living entity unto itself. With the return of [Fairy], it wouldn't be long before the Wild Magic made itself known, and what the consequences might be for someone audacious enough to steal from a Nexus that [Fairy] claimed could only be disastrous.

A calamity in the making, and one that my presence would expedite. I was blessed by the Wild Magic and had gained its attention and affection long ago. It followed me, wisps of the oppressive power always wafting around me. Playing games and tricks wherever I went.

As playful and innocent as those wisps of Wild Magic could be, it could just as well be capricious and treacherous. Wild Magic might be mine to call, but it could not be compelled to answer that call. And the Wild Magic unleashed and angry was a fearsome thing. It gathered the power of nature unleashed, of earth deeply hidden, and of things best left forgotten when stirred to anger.

And when it acted or reacted because of anger or possessiveness, it was at its most dangerous. As if the largest tsunami, the splintering of the greatest iceberg, an avalanche of massive proportions, and the eruption of the deepest volcano were combined to mete out punishment.

The Wild Magic was a Universal force. A Power that was just as deep and nuanced as Gwyn ap Nudd or any of the Gods. This Leanan Sidhe had been able to corrupt the Nexus that had formed here because the Wild Magic was not known to these people. But with the return of [Fairy], that would change.

But for this woman, the knowledge of what the Wild Magic was, or what it could do, was imminent. Her fate sealed sooner than it might have been because I had seen what she was doing. And the Wild Magic that followed me had taken notice as well.