The sorcery books were easy to recognize when I found them, because they were decorated with all sorts of strange runes and symbols. There were books of spells and rituals, books about theory, books about the origins of sorcery in human societies. But would any of these be useful? Most of them looked like they were widely circulated publications that anyone could get their hands on.
Then my eyes fell on a book that was stuck backwards into the shelf. When I pulled it out, the cloth-bound cover was stained and frayed at the edges; any dust jacket was long gone. Only the title was printed on the spine: The Trial of Charles Byrnes.
I opened it to the title page and read the line below: “An account of the criminal trial of Charles Byrnes, sorcerer, accused of opening a portal between the worlds.”
My eyes widened and I turned a few more pages to the table of contents. Yes: there were descriptions of Charles’s notes and materials, all entered into evidence against him. It was practically a how-to guide in copying his methods, if he’d truly been successful at what he’d attempted.
I started to tuck the book into my bag, hiding it under the others, and then I paused. Did I really want to go through with this? The knowledge in the book could be dangerous. And Mom had already proven that she was willing to do dangerous, terrible things just to have her way. Her friends could be even worse.
Akasha would be caught in the middle, with no one to protect her. I couldn’t leave her to that. After she was safe, I would tell Glen what I’d given her and hope that the faeriekin knew how to counter it.
I made sure that the book was completely hidden, arranged my face into a smile, and went back down the stairs to the others.
I lifted my hand to Glen when I returned. “I think I’ve got enough to keep me busy for a while. Thank you.”
By the time that I met Zil at school on Monday morning, my stomach felt like a permanent knot and my head hurt from the strain of thinking about what I was going to do. I’d opened the book and closed it again half a hundred times but never got past the first few pages. I didn’t really want to know what information I was giving them.
Zil took one look at me and smirked. “Did you have to do something terrible to get it?”
I handed her the book, wrapped in a newspaper so no one would see it, and looked away. “Just take it.”
She glanced at the package and slipped it into her bag. “I’ll let you know what they say. It depends on how useful the information is to us.”
Against my will, my eyes lifted back up to her face, and her satisfied grin made me angry. “What do you get out of it, anyway?”
The pookha’s ears twitched and she cocked her head to one side. “I’m done playing by their rules. The Fae say magikin are the equals of you humans, but I don’t see us treated that way. So I choose not to let their court boss me around anymore.”
“I don’t understand,” I said with a shake of my head. “Just because you don’t like their parties is no reason to hurt people.”
Zil leaned closer and pinched my cheek. “I’ll tell you all about it sometime, if you like. For now, run along with your friends. I’ll be in touch.” She blew me a kiss and left.
I was stunned into silence, and I stood there for a long moment. Every time I saw her, it felt like my whole world turned upside down.
11
A New Lead
Rosmerta
During the first week at the Burbages’ house, I dug through my old journals and papers, searching for a way out of my current situation. Everyone told me that we needed to leave the county, maybe even the state, and start over somewhere new with fake names. I stubbornly refused to leave our home. I would fight back against the Seelie so they couldn’t arrest me. There had to be another way.
I’d all but forgotten about Elizabeth talking to my daughter until she came back from school on Monday afternoon and called us down to the kitchen.
Elizabeth was grinning from ear to ear. She pulled out a small rectangular object wrapped in newspaper and handed it to me. “Rosa gave this to me today. She stole it from the library up at the faerie castle.”
I tore off the paper and glanced at the book inside. It looked like some boring legal history. “Hm, interesting. You said she stole this from her friends?”
Akasha let out a little squeak of surprise. “That doesn’t sound like Rosa at all.”
Elizabeth chuckled to herself. “She looked so nervous about it, too. I bet she’s never broken a rule in her life.”
Her mother swatted her shoulder. “As if that were a bad thing!”
My eyes narrowed. “Did you give her a hard time?”
Her eyes darted sideways, a sure sign of guilt. “Well, no,” she started to say. “I mean, maybe I teased her a little, but I didn’t mean anything by it. It just felt good to see her come down a peg or two.” She looked up at me again, her eyes flashing with defiance. “She thinks too much of herself.”
“Hey,” Akasha butted in. “Only I get to tease my sister.”
“How is that going to help us?” I folded my arms. “The idea was to get close to her. Whether you send her on a wild goose chase in the wrong way to distract her, or you can actually get useful information out of her, don’t you think that it will be easier if you’re nice to her?”
She sat back heavily in her chair. “I guess so.”
Mary shook her head. “I didn’t raise you to be rude like that. I taught you to be understanding and compassionate for other people.”
I held up my hand to stop the lecture and leaned closer to look directly at the pookha. “Do you dislike Rosamunde enough that you think you can’t do this?”
Her head snapped up. “No, but—”
“Yes or no.”
“I can be nicer to her,” Elizabeth spoke softly, but she met my eyes steadily.
I nodded. “Okay, good. So, we got the book from her. What should we do next?”
“Whoa, hang on.” Mary shook her head. “She did something for you already. We need to give it some time and think about if she should still be involved.”
Elizabeth looked over at her mother, and I recognized the expression on her face: anger, disappointment, and yet still hoping for approval. How many times had I seen Rosamunde give me that same look? She just wanted her mother to see her as a young adult instead of a child, ready to handle responsibilities and make her own choices.
Maybe if I’d been willing to give my daughter a little bit more freedom, I wouldn’t be in this position. But I was still afraid for her.
I took a deep breath. “I promise you, again, that I don’t want Elizabeth to do anything dangerous.” I held up the book. “I think she’s proven herself with this, though, and with a little guidance she can continue to do well.” I looked over at Akasha. “And it would be nice to know more about how Rosamunde is doing these days.”
Akasha nodded in agreement.
Mary gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know you want to keep some kind of connection to your girl. I just don’t want to risk mine.” She glanced at Elizabeth. “If you think you can do this, then I guess I have to let you try.”
Elizabeth reached across the table and squeezed her mom’s hand. “I won’t let you down, I promise. I actually like Rosa, I just feel awkward around her lately.” She bit her lip as if she were going to say more, but stopped herself.
I leaned forward. “Why is it awkward?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s like she’s got a secret all of the time, and she doesn’t want to tell anyone. It makes her seem closed off.”
I nodded slowly. “Well, but you know her secret now, because I’m sure she didn’t want to talk about the situation with me. If you’re understanding and you listen, then I’m sure she’ll open up to you.” I hid a rueful smile. “Rosa does love to talk.”
“Uh-huh,” Akasha chimed in.
Mary smirked at me. “I wonder where she got that from.”
Elizabeth brightened and straightened up in her chair. “Yeah, I guess I do kn
ow.” She held up her hand. “Oh, can I suggest something?”
I nodded.
“She was asking questions like, what’s the big deal with the Unseelie.” She almost bounced in her chair as she talked. “She’s curious about what we’re trying to do. Can I tell her more? Maybe she’ll come over to our side.”
I bit back a snort of disbelief. Rosamunde would never understand my side of things. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You can tell her that we’re evaluating the book and whether or not we’ll trust her, and in the meantime, you’ll give her the highlights of our group’s philosophy, why you believe in the cause. Who knows, your enthusiasm could be catching.”
Mary and I shared a knowing look. We hardly had an organized group, let alone an official philosophy. The Unseelie Court of Fae had been banned from Earth for a long time, and we didn’t know what they would do if they were able to return. Those of us on this side of the Veil were a weak resistance to Seelie rule, each with different goals. I wanted anything that was an alternative to the current court’s regime, a chance to mix things up and hope I came out better than before. I was a desperate woman grasping at straws.
Elizabeth rubbed her hands together. “I can do that. Anything else you want me to tell her?”
“I think that’s quite enough for now,” Mary said firmly. “You could get in trouble just for spreading dangerous propaganda if the wrong people overheard you. I know you think she can say she was never involved in any illegal activities,” she added, looking at me. “But just spreading ideas can call out the witch hunt for Unseelie—if you’ll pardon the expression.”
I laughed without humor. Magic users had protections under the law now, but once any human who dealt with Fae or any otherworldly creature would be hunted and killed. Even still, I knew people worried about what magic could do, hence the laws that restricted the types of spells that I could cast. “A witch hunt indeed.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “What about my freedom of speech? And my right to assemble? This is a free country, Mom, not some fascist dictatorship.”
Mary sighed. “Freedom of speech won’t let you joke about carrying a bomb in the airport, and faeriekin feel the same way about any hint of the Unseelie. Use your common sense.”
I nodded. “So be careful.” I lifted up the book. “In the meantime, I’ll have to study this to find out what kind of use Rosamunde thinks it will be to us. She could be feeding us misinformation.”
I took my time studying the book that Elizabeth had brought, The Trial of Charles Byrnes, which dated back to the 1850s. The implication was strong: a sorcerer had tried to create a gate through the Veil into the Realm of Faerie, one that the Seelie Court didn’t police. There were many possible uses for such a gate, and as I turned the idea over in my mind, it took a little time for me to see the opportunity that had inspired Rosamunde to give me this particular book.
Then I realized what was staring me in the face: an unguarded gate would allow the Unseelie access back into our world.
I called Mary up to my room that evening, because we needed to have this conversation alone. She sat down in the desk chair, while I perched on the edge of the bed. I handed the book across to her.
“The knowledge in this book is dangerous,” I said in a low tone. “There are only bits and pieces of the method in here, but enough that I might be able to piece them together. I can’t believe that the faeriekin knew how powerful this book was to let a child get her hands on it, or that Rosamunde thought to give me this.”
“She must be desperate to win your trust back,” Mary said. She looked inside the book, and her eyes widened. “Does this do what I think?”
I nodded. “Imagine a gate that the Seelie Court didn’t control. What could we do with that?”
“If they didn’t just find out about it and take control of it right away,” Mary said with a frown. She held up the book. “Obviously, they managed to catch this guy.”
I wondered if pessimism was a common trait among pookhas in general, or just the Burbages. “They haven’t caught me yet.”
She looked up at the ceiling. Processing the idea was taking her some time, just as it had with me. “Well, if you could open your own gate, then you could get into the Otherworld without them knowing about it or stopping you. I suppose the usefulness of that would depend on what you found on the other side.”
“You could also let people from the other side come here,” I said gently.
She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “We could overrun them with numbers.”
She stood up and started pacing the room. “It’s not fair that we should be bound by the rules that the Fae and humans agree upon, because those serve your races alone and leave nothing for us. We’ve waited for this chance, but are we ready to start a revolution? A run on the borders?”
I stared up at her. I’d never seen Mary so animated about anything before. “We’d need more help,” I said slowly. “This is too big for us.”
Mary nodded. “A few people crossing over could get caught, so we would have to hide them. A big group might change things too fast. We need to plan this out to do it the right way.”
I looked off into space, my mind racing to take in this new information. How did you plan a revolution? I wanted wide-scale change that would save me now, but how to do it?
I sighed and closed my eyes. “So do you think this is a potential solution? To let people through freely, and challenge the court?”
She dropped back into the chair and stared at me. “I—I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to start some kind of fight. Do you think the human government would listen to us if we brought them proof? Would they be able to withdraw their current treaty with the Seelie Court?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. I think most humans like the conveniences of magic—magitek is growing so popular because it means that anyone can use magic in a limited way, but it feels safer when it’s confined to an object with one purpose. They’re afraid of magikin, and they’d rather that someone more powerful than them, like the Fae, were the ones to handle your kind.” I looked up at Mary. “It could come to a fight after all. Revolutions aren’t peaceful or easy.”
She stiffened. “But they’re necessary.” She handed me the book. “The first step is to see if you can figure out how to create this gate. Once we have the knowledge, then we can decide the right way to use it.”
I looked down at the old book in my hands. “It’s not really my area of expertise, and I don’t know if I have enough here to go on, but I will study it.”
12
Playing Hooky
Rosamunde
I was afraid that I wouldn’t hear back about the book for a while, after my letter had taken several days to get a reply. I was happy to forget about the nasty thing once I wasn’t hanging onto it any longer. I was surprised the next day when Zil snagged my arm in the hallway on the way to the dining hall for lunch, and started pulling me toward the exit.
“Let’s ditch the rest of the day and go eat somewhere more fun,” she whispered in my ear.
I stopped short. “Ditch school?” I wasn’t in the habit of skipping classes. It was Tuesday afternoon, time for my favorite class, photography. Heather would notice that I was gone. But what if Zil was pulling me away to go meet with people who knew where Mom was?
I looked at her hopefully. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere important,” she said, shrugging away my deeper question. “I just thought we could go hang out. Lunch is my treat.”
I wanted to say no, to go back to the safety of my friends and leave the pookha. Then I thought about how she teased me the day before for being afraid to break the rules. What if this was another test?
“Okay,” I said, forcing a smile. I followed her out to the parking lot and we tucked my broom into the back seat of her car again.
Zil got in the car, and looked back at my broom. “How fast can you go on that thing, anyway?”
I was usually happy to t
alk about flying, but I stared straight ahead now. I didn’t trust this girl enough to take her for a ride with me. “It goes fast enough. Not as fast as a car, but up here in the mountains it’s actually better because I can go straight.”
Zil chuckled as if I’d told a joke and started the car. She drove away from the school in silence.
I dug in my bag for my cell phone and sent text messages to Kai and Heather, letting them know that I’d left school early that day. I didn’t want them to worry about my disappearance. Kai, at least, would want an explanation about where I’d gone, but I would have to think one up later. I still hadn’t told him about my conversations with Zil.
I kept quiet for as long as I could, but the tension stretched out between us. Nothing went past the windows but trees and more trees, nothing for me to latch my eyes onto. At last, I cleared my throat. “Did you give them the book?”
Zil nodded without looking away from the road. “I did, yesterday. They said they need time to look at it and decide how useful it is.”
“Oh.” I looked down at my hands. The knot in my stomach was back, and my palms were suddenly sweaty. I rubbed them on my jeans. “What did you do to win their trust? Was it hard?”
Zil shot me a glance through narrowed eyes. “Not as hard as it’s going to be for you after you turned your mom into the authorities.”
I shrank back from her. “I’m sorry. I was angry at her, and I didn’t realize that things would get this—complicated.” I struggled to say something truthful without saying how much I was afraid of what the Unseelie could do.
Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set Page 35