But nothing looked familiar in the shifting forest. When had so many mushrooms grown up? There were round caps poking up everywhere on the ground and up the trunks of the fuzzy trees. Some of them were glowing, too. It was all so bizarre.
Maybe I could use a spell like the dowsing rod to find my broom again. If I could just fly, then I was sure I would be able to find my way again. But I’d lost the stick that I’d used to dowse before, and now when I looked down at the ground, I didn’t see any discarded sticks or fallen leaves. The mud that had been left behind by the melted snow was gone. The ground seemed to be covered in perfectly even dirt.
A liquid, deep voice that could have belonged to a man or a woman laughed behind me.
I whirled around and looked to see who was there. The voice laughed again to my left. I spun to follow it, but I couldn’t track it. Was I confused by the magic around me, or was the voice moving? I couldn’t tell.
“You’re lost,” said the voice, and then suddenly she was standing in front of me: a tall, angular woman robed in a cape of black feathers.
“Morrigan,” I gasped in surprise, then forced myself to scowl at her to hide my awe. “Where were you when I needed help months ago?”
“Stuck on the other side,” she said, looking past me into the forest. “You haven’t come to visit in a while. Where are your allies?”
I folded my arms. “Turns out that I work better alone. I got your gate open. What’s my reward?”
Morrigan shook her head. “There’s a lot more work to do before anyone can see the fruits of their labor.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “Fortunately, I brought allies of my own.”
I looked behind her and saw more Fae and other creatures stepping out from behind the trees. Dryads and satyrs, kitsune and pookhas, and even the two crow men from Rosamunde’s description.
I stepped forward in surprise. “You’re the one who took my daughter? Where’s Akasha?”
Morrigan’s brows drew together in a slight frown as she looked off into the distance, as if seeing something very far away. “Akasha has gone outside the circle of magic from the gate, and beyond my influence.” Then she focused back on me with a smile and gestured for one of the Fae to step forward. “But I have brought someone else who wants to see you.”
A Fae knight, dressed in dazzling silver armor embellished with brilliant crystals (no doubt fashioned from moonbeams and stars, or some other fanciful nonsense), stepped forward. When he took off his helmet, I realized that he was part human, and then I recognized Sir Allen. He also looked down at me with a disapproving frown.
“Akasha came to free me from the prison in the castle,” he said stiffly. “Rose, you should have told me that she’s my daughter.”
“She’s my daughter,” I snapped automatically. He had the worst timing. Years of watching the girl grow up under his nose and he never suspected a thing, even without a spell to control him like my husband. Allen was pretty, but he was an idiot. “I raised her. Now I want her back. What have you been doing with her? Forcing her to free criminals and get into trouble?”
Morrigan laughed, a sound that was starting to get on my nerves, and shook her head. “She chose to free her father herself. And you know that she became a criminal the moment you both opened the gate. We’re all wanted by the Seelie now. It’s in our best interests to work together.”
I shook my head imperiously back at her. “I work alone.”
The Fae raised her eyebrows at me. “Oh? And what plan do you have now, lost and alone in the woods, without your broom?”
I glowered back at her, trying not to show how uncertain I felt. To be honest, I’d worked so hard just to get to the point of opening the gate, I hadn’t bothered to figure out what would come after. I knew that it would cause chaos and threaten the Seelie Court’s hold over the county, but I hadn’t been prepared for what happened or known how to use it against the Seelie. I also had withdrawn from my allies, reluctant to trust anyone else after the mess they’d already made, so I had no one to turn to for advice now.
“My plans are a secret,” I said at last. “I’ve been betrayed before. And I’m not lost, I was just making my way to the castle to confront the Count. I figured that walking in would be less conspicuous than flying.”
Morrigan swept aside her cloak and held out a broom in one hand. It looked much smaller when she held it, but I recognized the knobby wood handle, so I knew it was mine. “So you won’t be needing this,” she said in an offhand tone. “And I suppose it also wouldn’t interest you to hear that Count Duncan is already dead.”
Was it a trap? Somehow I didn’t believe she was telling the truth. I looked at the only person there I knew personally—Sir Allen.
He grinned and spread his hands wide. “I killed him myself. Cold iron weapons are forbidden on the castle grounds, but as one of his personal guard, I knew where he had a sword hidden. I drove it straight through his heart.”
The glee in his tone as he described killing the Count made me pause. I had done many terrible things by now, but I’d never considered killing another person, and I didn’t think that Sir Allen was a cold-hearted killer, either. A bloody revolution wasn’t my plan, more of a peaceful protest.
But that line had already been crossed without me. And I realized that if I didn’t want the revolution to continue without my input, I would have to agree to work with these people, because they were clearly holding the upper hand.
I stepped forward and accepted my broom from Morrigan, lifting my chin to meet her gaze. “Very well. I can work with a group if we can agree on shared goals. I see that you’re not at the castle. Is there no way to take control of it without further deaths?”
She shifted from one foot to the other and glanced over at the knight. “Well, I think first we had better discuss what we all know, and then evaluate our resources before we move on. And perhaps you could talk to the other local Unseelie who were working with you. They met with us originally, but they left when we planned the attack on the castle.”
I smiled to myself. So there was something that they needed from me—my contacts. I noted also that the other prisoners from the castle hadn’t come with Sir Allen. So I might be able to persuade Angelica and everyone else to help us if I could first get Morrigan’s bloody crew to agree on no more assassinations. “Right, then. I would also like someone to go and find my daughter. You say she’s outside of the gate’s influence, but surely the magikin could go out into the normal world to find her.”
Morrigan glanced back at the crow men and nodded, and they took to the sky. She looked back at me with a smile. “Agreed. The first thing you can tell us is how you opened the gate.”
29
Scattered
Rosamunde
Dandelion and I were walking along the tunnel that had opened up through the woods. I noticed that the woods had changed since the last time I had been in them. Now the trees were all sorts of colors, and looked like they had sprouted some kind of fur on their bark. But as long as I was confident we were going in the right direction, I didn’t really care what the scenery looked like, so I didn’t worry about it.
I did wonder how long it would talk us to walk, but we hadn’t gone far at all when Dandelion suddenly put up his hand to stop me.
“Shh.” He looked up into the trees as if he were listening to something, then he stopped and beckoned me over to the nearest tree. “Try not to make any loud noises or sudden movements.”
I hunched behind the tree like he told me and looked around to see whatever had stopped him. And then I heard voices speaking just down the path.
“I opened the gate to win our freedom, not replace one oppressive monarchy with another,” Mom’s voice carried clearly through the woods. “Where is Akasha?”
I looked up at Dandelion and raised my eyebrows questioningly. Of course we’d found Mom, that was who we were looking for. Why had we stopped?
But he shook his head and kept his hand up to stop me, and then I he
ard another voice reply.
“Akasha has gone outside the circle of magic from the gate, and beyond my influence.” The voice was richer and deeper, almost masculine, but I realized it was that woman, the ex-queen of the Unseelie.
My eyes widened. She was the one who had been holding Akasha, but now she said that she was somewhere else. Outside of the circle of magic? Why had she left?
We stayed hunched behind the tree a little longer, listening as Morrigan and Mom verbally sparred back and forth about what was the right way to handle the Seelie Court. I also heard Allen’s voice in the mix, confessing to killing Count Duncan. I realized by the sound of rustling in the forest around us that there must be a very large group with Morrigan, probably all of the Unseelie who were working with her—and they’d found Mom before us. It didn’t sound like they were going to leave her alone anytime soon.
So Dandelion and I crept quietly back down the path, and with a wave of my hand I closed the tunnel behind us, because it could have led the Unseelie right to us. When we managed to get a safe distance away, I let out a sigh of relief, but then my frustration returned.
“Now they have Mom,” I complained. “Of course they would want her. You said that she controls the gate, and there’s no way we can go fight off a whole group of Unseelie to get her back now.”
Dandelion nodded gravely. “I think it’s time to look into plan B.”
I had a sinking feeling that I already knew what his “plan B” was going to be. “We have to find Akasha. Because she’s the other person who opened the gate.”
He tapped me on the nose with one long, skinny finger. “Exactly. It’s that, or find the Fae who made a pact with your mother. It’s the only truly effective way to strip away her powers.”
I blinked in surprise. “I thought that the Court had some way to do that. That’s part of what they wanted to arrest her for.”
“If they’d been able to just take away her magic, don’t you think they would have done so already?” Dandelion said with a half-shrug. “They can punish her for misuse, and they can put up blocks and wards to prevent her powers—although in Rosmerta’s case, their inability to find her kept them from doing that very well—but the pact is between a witch and a Fae, and it’s only the Fae who can take back what they have granted.”
“Well, that’s got to be easy, then.” I spun on my heel and tried to reorient myself toward Quiggs Mountain and the castle. “Someone must know who the Fae is, then we just pop into the Otherworld and find them. If they knew what she was doing with her powers, I’m sure they’d take them back.”
He sighed and shook his head. “You would be surprised—”
“You said that the tear in the Veil was hurting both worlds.”
“Yes, but—” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder to the group of Unseelie we’d overheard plotting. “There are still some who are trying to use the opportunity for their own purposes.”
I gripped my broom. “I think it’s worth a try. But how about this—we just split up. You go find Akasha, because she didn’t even want to talk to me last time I saw her, and see if you can convince her to help. Meanwhile, I’ll go to the castle and ask about her Fae.” I was getting tired of running all over the place.
But Dandelion shook his head again. “Splitting up didn’t work last time. You were distracted by your friends for almost a whole day, and we really can’t afford to leave this open much longer.”
“Okay, fine.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to focus my thoughts. Then I opened them again. “Which one do you think we should do first?”
“I’m going to leave that choice up to you.”
Of course he was. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and rummaged around the bottom of my purse. After a moment I found a coin and tossed it up into the air. “Call it.”
“Heads for your sister,” he said.
The coin seemed to hover in mid-air for a moment, caught by some local distortion of gravity, but I blinked and the illusion was gone. I slapped it down onto the back of my other hand, then revealed it. “Heads. Looks like we’re looking for Akasha first.”
I tucked the coin away in a pocket and stuck my broom out at an angle, preparing to fly. “The only thing we know is that Akasha isn’t in the circle of magic anymore, so I guess the first thing we do is get out of this mess. I don’t even know how far it reaches now.”
Dandelion nodded. “Once we’re past the border, one of us may be able to locate her magically, as long as she’s not being shielded somewhere. After you.”
The circle of magic had grown so large that we had to fly over a hill before we could even see the boundary. But as we crested the summit, I saw San Andreas lit up with sunlight, which was a welcome sight after so many hours in twilight—but then I realized it was actually too bright. The little city looked like it was encased in some kind of glowing bubble or dome that was keeping the magic out. I could see to either side that the magic had continued to spread around it, but the main part of the town was untouched.
At the center of the dome was a building that I could recognize from far away—Mark Twain St. Joseph’s Hospital, the place where Dad worked. I almost smacked my forehead when I realized how obvious it was. Akasha must be there. Dad was the first person she would run to when she had a problem, probably as soon as things went south with her biological dad.
If she’d turned her back on both Allen and Mom, then maybe I could actually manage to talk to her this time. I began to feel hopeful for the first time that day.
I caught Dandelion’s eye (I still wasn’t used to seeing him flying alongside me) and pointed to the hospital. “We’ll look there first. Dad’s probably worried about me, too, so I can check in with him.”
The hospital parking lot was full, and there were cars parked all around it on the street. The ambulance bay was a hub of activity. We had trouble finding space to land at first, but when people saw us coming, they cleared out of the way with frightened murmurs. Some of them walked away in a hurry, but a circle formed around us at a wary distance, as if waiting to see what we would do.
Normally I would have locked my broom into the bike rack, but something about the way they stared made me clutch it tighter. I looked over at Dandelion as his wings disappeared.
He lifted his head high and offered his arm to me as if we were at another elegant Court party. Then he led me straight through the thick of the crowd as if they weren’t there, striding confidently toward the lobby entrance, and they parted before him with startled looks.
“Do you think magikin are attacking people?” I whispered to him as we went in the front door.
“Whether they are or no, these people obviously believe they are, and the rumor is enough,” the Fae muttered back at me.
The lobby was full of people waiting, but Dandelion swept past all of them and turned on his most charming smile at the receptionist seated at the front desk.
“Mortals only,” the receptionist snapped before either of us could say anything. “Leave now or I’ll call security.”
I gaped at him in surprise. The community hospital was supposed to serve everyone, human and magikin alike. “Don’t our taxes pay for this hospital?” I snapped back at him. “You can’t just turn people away.”
“There’s a state of emergency.” The receptionist picked up the phone.
Dandelion put his hand out to stop the anxious man. “This girl is human,” he said smoothly. “And she’s just here to find her father.”
The receptionist pulled back from the touch and began speaking loudly into the phone. “Yes, Security, there’s a Fae attempting to use mind control magic on me—Don’t touch me!” he added to Dandelion, over the mouthpiece.
Dandelion slowly withdrew his hand, and his charming smile faded a little. “I have done nothing to threaten you.”
I nudged him back a little and waved at the receptionist to get him to focus on me again. “Hey, over here. Human, see? I’m just looking for Dr. Alda, my hu
man father. We don’t want any trouble.”
The receptionist put down the phone and squinted at me suspiciously. “Do you think that I’m going to fall for that? Dr. Alda is already with his daughter.” He pointed at my broom. “And if you’re human, why do you have that?”
I sighed in disbelief. I’d been coming to this hospital to see Dad my entire life, and so had Mom, and they’d never given us trouble before. “Witches are still humans! And Dr. Alda has two daughters. I’m the older one, Rosamunde. Is my sister Akasha here? I need to see her, too.”
The receptionist scowled and looked around to the elevators. “Why isn’t Security down here yet?”
A middle-aged woman clutching a paper slip came up to the desk next to me and glared at the receptionist. “This would go a lot faster if you just told them what they wanted to know instead of arguing with everyone! There are a lot of us waiting here, and you’re not calling numbers!”
The woman turned to me and pointed at the cafeteria. “Your father and your sister went in there about half an hour ago to get some food.”
“Thank you,” I told her, and hurried into the cafeteria before the receptionist could threaten us with security again, pulling Dandelion along with me.
Most of the tables in the cafeteria were full of strangers, but I spotted Dad’s head above them in a corner of the room, and hurried over. Sure enough, he and Akasha were squeezed at a little table for two. They were talking, but Dad saw me when I got close, and he jumped up out of his seat.
“Rosa!” He grabbed me in a big hug. “Oh, thank goodness! I’ve been so worried about you.”
I hugged him back awkwardly, trying not to poke him with the broom handle. “Yeah, sorry about that.” When he let me go, I pulled my cell phone out of my bag. “This died when—when things happened,” I finished lamely, glancing over at Akasha. “I think it’s bricked.”
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