I caught sight of Kai standing by himself. That reminded me that I had one more thing that I had to do. I walked over to him. “Thanks for all of your help with everything.”
“Yeah,” he said, “no problem. You let me know if you need anything else.”
I smiled and stepped closer, reaching out to touch his arm. “I can think of one more thing you could do for me.”
Kai started to smile back. He raised one eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“I need a date for this Saturday. Are you free?”
“Hm, let me check my schedule.” He put his arms around me. “Did you have any other crazy adventures planned, or will this just be a regular date?”
“I don’t know what a regular date is, but I think I can come up with something crazy for us to do.” I leaned forward and kissed him.
I got through that school day somehow. Everyone tried to ask me about my mom, but I ignored the gossip, and my friends helped to deflect questions away from me, too. I sat next to Kai all day long, and he held my hand. I tried to concentrate on getting back into the swing of school and the new normal for my life.
When school ended, Ashleigh and Glen were waiting for me when Heather and I came out of the photography lab. Their faces told me right away that something was wrong.
I felt the little bubble of calm that had been around me all day disappear. “What happened?”
Glen cleared his throat. “I just got a call from one of my grandfather’s assistants. The Council reached a decision about your mother.”
I didn’t think things would happen so fast. I took a deep breath to steady myself. “They already reached a verdict?”
Ashleigh shook her head. “Nothing that final. They’re going to investigate the allegations against her and find out the truth before they take any permanent action. But right now, it looks serious enough that they decided to put a temporary restriction on her powers. There’s a ward over the house and her store so that she can’t perform any magic.”
“That’s good, though,” I said, but their expressions were still too unhappy. “That means that she can’t try to do something to me for breaking her spell. I’m safe.”
Glen put his hand on my shoulder. “When your mom found out what the Council did, she took off. We don’t know where she is anymore.”
I looked up at the sky. I could not absorb this information right now. I always thought that I would have one more chance to talk to her, at least to find out why she had done this. To tell her how I felt.
Next to me, Heather gasped. “No! You mean that she’s running rogue out there somewhere?”
Glen nodded. “Our best trackers are already working on it—”
“Rosa!”
We all turned to look and saw Kai running toward us from the main school building.
He stopped next to Ashleigh, barely out of breath from his sprint. “Rosa, I had to make sure that you were still here. Your mom came before class was over—”
“Mom is here?” I spun around and looked at the parking lot, at the road in front of the school, up at the sky—nothing. There was no sign of her car or her broom.
Kai shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know which way she went. But she took your sister with her. I was afraid that she came to take you, too.”
Glen had already taken out his phone and started dialing. “I’ll tell the trackers that she was seen here. Maybe there’s still time and they can catch her.”
“Akasha wanted to get the rest of her books. She could have gone home.” I turned to Glen. “Can you give me a ride to my house?”
“Of course.” He looked at the others. “We’ll all go.”
There was no sign of my mom’s car in the front driveway. I unlocked the front door and ran inside. Downstairs, everything looked the same as I had left it the day before. I ran upstairs to check the bedrooms.
Akasha’s room didn’t look like it had been touched since she packed yesterday morning. The boxes of books were still on the floor, and her closet was full of all the toys and other things that she didn’t take to the castle.
I ran across the hallway to my mom’s room. A few drawers in the dresser were sitting open and half-empty. Some of my mom’s clothes lying in piles on the floor, as if she had packed in a hurry. The closet door stood open and I could see that her organized system had gotten messed up in there, too.
I had one place left to check. I went up the second flight of stairs into the attic.
The room had been stripped bare. All of my mom’s magical tools, all of her herbs and other ingredients that she stored up here, totally gone. The furniture was pushed all over the room. Boards were missing from the walls and floor, leaving behind little dark holes, all empty now. I would never know what she had been hiding.
Then I saw something on the wall across from me. One of the shelves had been pushed away from it, and behind that I could see part of a drawing—something scratched into the wood.
I stepped over a fallen chair to get closer and pushed the shelf the rest of the way aside. I stopped and stared at what I had revealed.
It was the image of a half-lidded eye, surrounded by a thorny vine, and above that was a rose. The symbol of the Unseelie Court.
Witch Hunt
Fae of Calaveras #2
In memory of Gary Wright
Contents
Prologue
1. Cave City
2. On The Run
3. A Warning
4. The Unseelie
5. Host Family
6. Family Dinner
7. Ghost Town
8. Letters
9. First Test
10. The Castle Library
11. A New Lead
12. Playing Hooky
13. Lie Detector
14. Unseelie Meeting
15. Best Friends
16. Ashleigh's Birthday
17. Travel to Faerie
18. Break the Code
19. Tested Again
20. Planning for Valentine's Day
21. Teens Can't Be Trusted
22. Three-Month Anniversary
23. Mixed Feelings
24. Suspect Akasha
25. The Final Test
26. Furious
27. Forbidden
28. Defy the Unseelie
29. A Trade
30. Freak Out
31. The Counter Plan
32. Valentine's Day
33. Preparations
34. Facing Mom
35. Final Confrontation
Prologue
Rosamunde
The day after I burned down Mom’s garden was complicated.
I had to go to school like nothing had happened. Everyone was groggy the morning after Halloween, but there were still tons of rumors floating around the tiny school. Was my mom using an illegal spell to control my family? Did I break it myself? Was the Faerie Court going to arrest my mom?
Some questions I could have answered easily—yes, I broke the spell—but I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I was trying to talk Dad into filing for divorce, and we’d have to find someplace new to live. I didn’t know how Mom would react. And I was still waiting to hear what Count Duncan would decide to do about Mom breaking the law.
So I ignored the gossip, and my friends helped to deflect questions away from me, too. I sat next to Kai all day long and he held my hand, letting everyone know that we were officially a couple now. I tried to concentrate on getting back into the swing of school and the new normal for my life.
When school ended, Ashleigh and Glen were waiting for me when Heather and I came out of the photography lab. Their faces told me right away that something was wrong.
I felt the little bubble of calm that had been around me all day disappear. “What happened?”
Glen cleared his throat. “I just got a call from one of my grandfather’s assistants. The Count reached a decision about your mother.”
I didn’t think things would happen so f
ast. I took a deep breath to steady myself. “He already reached a verdict?”
Glen shook his head. “Nothing that final. A task force was assigned to investigate the allegations against her and find out the truth before they take any permanent action. But right now, it looks serious enough that they decided to put a temporary restriction on her powers. There’s a ward over the house and her store so that she can’t perform any magic.”
“That’s good, though,” I said, but their expressions were still too unhappy. “That means that she can’t try to do something to me for breaking her spell. I’m safe.”
Ashleigh put her hand on my shoulder. “When your mom found out what the Count did, she took off. We don’t know where she is anymore.”
I looked up at the sky. I couldn’t absorb this information right now. I always thought that I would have one more chance to talk to her, at least to find out why she’d done this. To tell her how I felt.
Next to me, Heather gasped. “No! You mean that she’s running rogue out there somewhere?”
Glen nodded. “Our best hunters are already working on it—”
“Rosa!”
We all turned to look and saw Kai running toward us from the main school building.
He raced up and threw his arms around me so tightly that I could barely breathe. “Rosa, I had to make sure that you were still here. Your mom came before class was over—”
“My mom is here?” I spun around and looked at the parking lot, at the road in front of the school, up at the sky—nothing. There was no sign of her car or her broom.
Kai shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know which way she went. But she took your sister with her. I was afraid that she came to take you, too.”
Glen had already taken out his phone and started dialing. “I’ll tell the hunters that she was seen here. Maybe there’s still time and they can catch her.”
“Akasha wanted to get the rest of her books. She could have gone home.” I turned to Glen. “Can you give me a ride to my house?”
“Of course.” He looked at the others. “We’ll all go.”
There was no sign of Mom’s car in the front driveway. I unlocked the front door and ran inside. Downstairs, everything looked the same as when I’d left it the day before. I ran upstairs to check the bedrooms.
Akasha’s room didn’t look like it had been touched since she packed yesterday morning. The boxes of books were still on the floor, and her closet was full of all the toys and other things that she didn’t take to the castle.
I ran across the hallway to my parents’ room. A few drawers in the dresser were sitting open and half-empty. Some of Mom’s clothes were lying in piles on the floor, as if she had packed in a hurry. The closet door stood open and I could see that her organized system had gotten messed up in there, too.
I had one place left to check. I went up the second flight of stairs into the attic.
The room had been stripped bare. All of Mom’s magical tools, all of her herbs and other ingredients that she stored up there, were totally gone. The furniture was pushed all over the room. Boards were missing from the walls and floor, leaving behind little dark holes, all empty now. I would never know what she had been hiding.
Then I saw something on the wall across from me. One of the shelves had been pushed away from it, and behind that I could see part of a drawing—something scratched into the wood.
I stepped over a fallen chair to get closer and pushed the shelf the rest of the way aside. What I saw made me stop short.
It was the image of a thorny vine curled into a counter-clockwise spiral, and above that was a rose. The symbol of the Unseelie Court.
1
Cave City
Rosamunde
Two months later, I stood shivering in the snow waiting for Sir Allen. It was New Year’s Day, and I was tired from staying up the night before, celebrating the holiday with my friends well past midnight. Tomorrow we’d all have to wake up early and go back to school. I should have been curled up in front of a roaring fireplace, sipping hot tea and cuddling with my amazing kitsune boyfriend, Kai.
But there I was standing on top of a frozen snowdrift, staring at the dark windows as if they could give me some answers. I’d lived my entire life in that house, until that fateful Halloween when Dad, my little sister Akasha, and I had packed up our things so we could escape before Mom came home from work. At the time, we hadn’t had a plan or another place to live—although the faeriekin had promised to let us stay at the castle until we got back on our feet. All we knew was that we were afraid and we had to get out.
Now I wanted nothing more than to find Mom again, and get my sister back. Sir Allen, one of the hunters who were investigating her disappearance, had agreed to meet me and give me an update on their progress.
A generic black sedan rolled up on the street, snow crunching under the tires. Sir Allen climbed out of the car alone. The faeriekin wore a black business suit instead of armor, but he still looked like a knight, with defined muscles and stiff posture. He tipped his head to me out of respect, but he didn’t smile.
“Good morning, Miss Rosamunde.” His eyes flicked past me to the empty house. “Was there some reason why you wanted to meet here?”
I shook my head. “No, just here for the memories.”
I’d spent weeks chasing down the source of Mom’s spell and traced it, finally, to the garden that surrounded this very house. I couldn’t see most of the signs of the fire I used to destroy it; snow covered the scorched earth, and the blackened plum trees in the front yard were starting to fall down under the weight of the winter storms. Yet when I stood there, I could smell the smoke and feel the heat of the flames on Halloween night, crackling as they consumed the source of my mother’s most powerful magic.
There were no clues left for me here anymore, no comfort in remembering a childhood built on lies. I looked up at the house one final time, first up at my old bedroom window on the second floor, then up to the attic, where Mom had kept her witchcraft tools and supplies. I still had a key for the door, and I could go inside if I wanted, but I knew what I would find. Dad and I didn’t feel comfortable living there, in case any magic remained.
I looked back at Sir Allen. “How is your search going?”
His face clouded. “There are no new developments.”
“Really?” I stared at him, but his face gave away nothing. I folded my arms. “You’ve been saying that for months. You’re telling me that with all of your magic powers and resources, you can’t find anything about Mom or Akasha?”
He tipped his head to me again. “The Count apologizes for the lack of progress, and he understands your frustration—”
“I’m not looking for apologies,” I snapped. “What about the Unseelie? Did you track any of them down?”
He blanched at my mention of the forbidden group. Centuries ago, Unseelie had fought Seelie, the two rival factions among the Fae and magikin: the Seelie wanted to live as equals to humans, but the Unseelie saw us as inferior creatures who could be used as disposable tools to further their plans. Locally, Count Duncan had driven the Unseelie away over a hundred and fifty years ago, and they were supposed to be totally gone. But I’d found evidence that Mom was working with them, and I would bet they were helping to hide her now. I didn’t know what her connection to the dangerous group was, but it suggested far more scary things than just one illegal spell on my family.
Sir Allen drew himself upright. “We have not been able to corroborate your story of alleged insurgent activity.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Their symbol was on her wall!” I pointed to the attic.
He shook his head. “When we looked, there were no symbols in your house or Rose’s Garden,” he said, naming Mom’s magic store in town. “Nor were there any traces of black market spell components in either location. A secret organization right under the Count’s nose—that could never happen. I assure you that so far as we can tell, Rosmerta was working alone.”
I clenched my hands into fists. “I know what I saw. They must have removed the symbols somehow. Don’t you have a test for that? Signs of magical tampering?”
But the knight just shook his head and looked at me with pity. He must have thought I was crazy, paranoid, or both. “We will continue to search. We sent descriptions of both your mother and sister to all other Courts and human authorities. My guess is that she has fled the state, if not the country. She’ll turn up sooner or later, though. No one can run forever.”
I wouldn’t accept that. I had to find Mom before she could ruin Akasha’s life any more than she already had. “I don’t think she would go far,” I said with a shake of my head. “Someone here is helping her. If you can’t find her, I’ll find them. I know better than anyone how Mom thinks.”
I turned my back on the house and hopped back on my broom. Soon I was soaring up into the sky above the tops of the giant sequoias. I hadn’t learned anything new from my visit, but my resolve was strengthened. Things could never go back to the way they were before I knew the truth, but I would get my family back, and we would make a new life together. If I was the only one who could find my mom’s spell and break it the first time, then I had to be the one to beat her now.
All I needed was a clue to get me started.
Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set Page 26