Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set

by Kristen S. Walker

  Ashleigh let them out, then closed and locked the door behind them. Then she lighted several of the lanterns on the walls, so the room was fully illuminated, and muttered something under her breath. Suddenly an image of Akasha appeared sitting in one of the chairs, looking sullen.

  “The illusion won’t fool anyone who looks too closely,” she told me with a faint smile. “But it may be enough to buy us some time. Let’s go.”

  I followed her to the door, glancing back over my shoulder at the weird illusion, but I had to trust her. Ashleigh had never let me down before.

  Once again, she closed and locked the door to the study behind us, and walked back the way we had come. “I’m sorry,” she said in a loud tone. “Glen is too busy to see her right now, but I promise that your sister will be safe until he can hear her statement.”

  I followed her lead. “Can you do something to make sure she isn’t attacked here? I’m afraid that the Unseelie will want to hurt her when they find out she’s turned on them.”

  “I promise you, the guard on the castle has been tripled.” Ashleigh turned the corner into the main foyer, where guards were stationed at every door. “However, I will personally insure her safety.”

  She went up to the nearest guard and gave him instructions to send two men to stand watch at the door of the study we’d just left.

  I pretended to look reassured, and thanked her for the trouble. “There was something else I wanted to check out in the gardens, though. Will you go with me?”

  “Of course.” She smiled and took my arm as if we were at another faerie party.

  I fought to keep my expression calm and my footsteps even, but my heart was pounding as we walked to the end of the hall and the entrance to the gardens. But now the guards didn’t give us a second look. We easily went outside and headed for the Grove.

  31

  Sneaking Out

  Akasha

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the hallway slowly, but the Fae didn’t wait for me to see where we were. He took me by the arm and began walking at such a pace that I had to stretch my legs a lot to keep up with him.

  Not that it made any difference, because I soon learned that the hallway was a narrow servants’ passage, and each winding turn that we went down looked the same as the last. When I realized that I wouldn’t be able to remember the maze we navigated, I looked over at my guide, instead. Like most Fae, he was dressed in the fashion of a completely different time and place, but in even brighter colors than I was used to seeing on the immortal creatures. I remembered from previous encounters that he liked to stand out from the castle’s typical visitors.

  “Your name isn’t really Harry Houdini,” I said, keeping my voice low. “And I doubt that you’re just helping my sister as part of some pact she made with you years ago. What’s your real motivation? Do you want me to control the gate for you?”

  He gave me an offended frown and shook his head. “Of course not. The tear you put in the Veil is destroying my world as well as yours. I just want to close it as soon as possible.”

  My eyes widened at the thought of anything threatening Faerie. I’d only visited the place once, accidentally, but it didn’t seem like the kind of world that changed at all. “If it’s hurting your world, then why aren’t the other Fae trying to close it?”

  Harry shrugged. “Immortal or not, Fae can be just as short-sighted as humans. They see an opportunity and they’ll try to turn it to their advantage.” He paused at a corner and checked up and down the hall, listening closely, before going on. “And also, not everyone realizes how great the risk is yet. I’m under orders to deal with the crisis.”

  “Orders from who?” My eyes narrowed.

  He paused at another intersection and put a finger to his lips. Then, just ahead of us, a door creaked open and voices carried into the passage.

  “If the young count is going to arrest the girl, then why are we bringing her refreshments?” a man’s nasal voice echoed down to us.

  “It’s not your place to question,” a woman snapped back. “We’re still courteous. And don’t mention the arrest to anyone else. It’s supposed to be a secret.” She began rattling off a list of directions that I realized led right back the way we had come.

  I looked up at Harry with wide eyes. Ashleigh was right about Glen planning to take out his grandfather’s death on me. And while I felt incredibly guilty for what had happened, I hardly thought that it was fair I should take all of the blame.

  But more importantly, footsteps were now approaching us at a rapid pace. Within moments, the servant would round the corner and see us, and there was no place else that we could go.

  Harry gave me a stern look, warning me of something, then grabbed my arm and stepped to the side.

  Suddenly the world tipped upside down and I was falling through empty space. Wind howled in my ears and a riot of colors rushed past, so bright they were almost blinding. I flailed wildly, trying to catch hold of anything to stop falling, but though I felt different textures like cloth sliding through my fingers, there was nothing solid enough to grab.

  Then the Fae pulled my arm again, and the world wrenched sideways once more so that we were standing on solid ground.

  When he let me go, I bent over and threw up the soup from lunch. Then I braced myself with my hands on my knees and took deep breaths, trying to control myself again. But although we weren’t falling through a strange dimension, things still felt wrong, as if everything was tipped at a forty-five degree angle and the sun had turned red.

  I looked up and realized there was no sun at all. The sky itself was on fire.

  Harry was watching me with a sympathetic smile. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I only travel that way in emergencies. It’s not—comfortable.”

  I coughed and wiped my mouth. “Understatement.” I took another deep breath and straightened up. “Where are we?”

  “The Otherworld,” he said simply, and turned away. “This particular area is affected by the energies radiating out from the tear you created, just as your world is changed on the other side. We went through the Veil without using a gate, hence the momentary discomfort.”

  I looked around at the twisted trees in bizarre colors and realized that I did recognize the Land of Faerie from my previous visit, although I’d never seen the sky like that. “So people can travel without gates,” I said, watching him to confirm. “Why don’t they just do that?”

  Harry shrugged. “As I said, it’s not comfortable. Most people don’t know how. It usually happens on accident, when the Veil is thinner—or damaged, as it is now. And I have a particular artifact that permits me to travel freely.”

  He lifted a chain out from underneath his shirt and showed me what hung there. It was only a small disc, but I recognized the golden material that glowed brighter than the fiery sky.

  “You have a dragon scale,” I said, eyes widening. “So that’s what lets you do it.”

  Harry smiled and tucked the amulet away quickly. “Yes, I thought you might have seen one before. The one that went missing a few months ago?”

  I nodded. “We used it to open the gate. Zil gave it to us after the first gate opening failed.”

  “Where is it now?” His eyes bored into me.

  I held up my empty hands. “I don’t know. I think I saw it become the gate. The opening started in the middle of the scale and just kept spreading out from there.”

  He frowned. “There’s a very angry dragon who would like that back.”

  I flinched. “Well, don’t tell him that I lost it. It’s not my fault. I didn’t know what would happen.”

  Harry cleared his throat and pointed at something through the trees.

  Oh, no. No way. There was not something very large and gold and glowing just through the next stand of trees.

  But sure enough, Harry beckoned me forward, and when we stepped through a ring of trees, I saw an enormous dragon curled up on the ground. His huge red eyes locked on me.

  �
��You can save your excuses for after you’ve dealt with the problem,” a rich contralto voice rumbled from the dragon’s throat, and that’s when I realized she was a female.

  I shot a frightened look over at the Fae. “You took me away from the Faerie Court to let a dragon lecture me instead?”

  He shook his head and pointed past the dragon to the rippling gate behind her. “We’re just passing through, and I thought you would like to see your handiwork.”

  The weird thing was that I could see the Main Street of downtown Madrone through the portal. My world was right there on the other side. “But that’s not the way we need to go,” I pointed out. “Rosamunde and Ashleigh are waiting for us in the Grove. How do we get there from here? We were just in the castle.” I clutched my stomach, afraid that we would have to go through the weird falling dimension again.

  He shook his head. “We go any way that we want to go here. Come on.” He held out his hand to me.

  I gingerly accepted his hand, then he turned to the right, and suddenly we were stepping through a circle of rowan trees.

  32

  Argue with Morrigan

  Rosmerta

  Getting my old allies together with the Unseelie from the other side was harder than I thought. For one thing, no one had a working cell phone or any methods of remote communication inside the circle of magic. The crow tengu flew around looking for them, but didn’t find anyone I knew—with the Seelie from the castle actively helping people leave the circle of magic, there were few people left roaming around inside. I realized that if Angelica and the others didn’t want to deal with Morrigan and her group, they’d probably left the area completely.

  Meanwhile, Morrigan set up court in the forest grove, complete with a throne, and lorded it over everyone she’d brought through the Veil. Even though a Fae of her power should be able to do menial tasks with a wave of her hand, she made a point of ordering things—asking a pookha to fetch her a glass of flower nectar when she got thirsty, and telling the other Fae to create faerie lanterns when she needed light.

  I sat off to one side, sitting uncomfortably in the wet grass, and watched them. They’d brought me refreshment, but after I failed to find the help I’d promised, the other Unseelie ignored me. Finally I cleared my throat.

  “So if you’ve killed the Count, and that didn’t get you anywhere, what’s your next move?” I called across the clearing.

  Morrigan barely raised her head to look at me. “Don’t shout, dear, it’s rude. Come over here if you want to talk.”

  I folded my arms and refused to move—and then suddenly found my rock moved across the clearing, directly next to Morrigan’s tree-throne. I didn’t let it shake me, though. “What’s the plan?” I repeated my question. “We don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

  Morrigan’s lips curled upward in a twisted smile. “We already have the upper hand,” she declared. “The Seelie Court can’t afford to let the circle of magic get any bigger and threaten more people, and they don’t know how to stop its spread. Sooner or later they’ll be forced to negotiate with us. We already have a list of demands ready for when they contact us.”

  I frowned. “How do you know that they can’t stop the tear? I’m sure my daughter, Rosamunde, is already looking for ways to interfere. You should have your people out looking for some way to stop her.”

  Morrigan turned and looked at something in the trees. “Oh, we know where she is. When the time is right, she’ll come to us.”

  I followed her gaze, but I didn’t see anything different in the trees. “Are you sure? She’s a tricky girl. And her friends are trouble, too. Don’t underestimate them.”

  She laughed, dark and sinister. “You think that I’ll let a group of kids get in my way now?” She shook her head. “You know me better than that.”

  I sighed. “I’m just telling you what I’ve had to put up with these past several months. If you had a brilliant plan, I could’ve used it a long time ago. I couldn’t use the gate, but you could have sent someone to help me.”

  Morrigan’s smile disappeared and she looked directly at me. “You should be able to handle more on your own. I only help those who can help themselves.”

  She waved her hand, and suddenly, my rock was back where it had started on the far side of the clearing. I guess she wasn’t going to listen to me at all.

  33

  Santa Cruz

  Rosamunde

  I was a little surprised when Akasha and Dandelion stepped out of the Grove as we approached. How had he managed to get around us in the gardens so quickly? I hadn’t seen any sign of movement.

  But the Fae winked at me and said, “I won’t reveal my secrets.”

  Akasha looked a little pale, but didn’t say anything.

  I gestured past them into the Grove. “Well, we’re going back this way. The fastest way to Santa Cruz is through the Otherworld.”

  Akasha made a choking noise and turned her head away.

  I put my hand on her arm. “It’s okay, it should be easy to cross through the gate right now with the Veil so thin. And it will be over quickly. Not like the time you got lost.”

  Ashleigh also raised her eyebrows at me. “It’s not always reliable to cross from one gate to another. It’s only a few hours’ drive to Santa Cruz. Are you sure that wouldn’t be a safer way?”

  I shook my head. “We’d have to trek all the way back to San Andreas or wherever the nearest place is that isn’t touched by magic right now, and then find a car that still works. Let’s just go through. Trust me, I can find the way.”

  We stepped through the gate together by crossing into the rowan Grove, and just as I’d promised, it was a smooth transition from one world into the next. Then I put my hand on the dragon scale at my neck and concentrated on finding the right path.

  A whole network of paths crisscrossed before my eyes, leading to gates that opened all over the world. With a thought and a step I could be in Italy or Argentina. Kaorinix’s scale showed me the hidden paths in the Otherworld and gave me instant knowledge of where each of them led, and I was confident that I could get us anywhere.

  Akasha’s eyes grew even wider when she saw me holding the dragon scale. She looked over at Dandelion and gave him an accusatory glare.

  The Fae pretended not to notice my sister and just nodded at me. “Do you have it, then?”

  “Of course.” I pointed to one path ahead of us. “Left, then right, then left again, and we’ll be right there.”

  Like the one at Doe’s Rest Castle, the gate to Santa Cruz was surrounded by a Grove of trees. But instead of rowans, these were eucalyptus, and when we stepped over the boundary, I smelled salt in the air.

  The sunlight angling through the branches told me that it was already mid-afternoon. It felt so weird to keep crossing back and forth between the normal world, the areas of our world distorted by magic, and the Otherworld; it kept messing with my sense of time.

  There was no time to adjust. Outside the eucalyptus tree Grove was more forest, and we actually seemed to be on the side of a hill, with only a few deer trails leading off in different directions. I looked around for a castle of some sort and saw nothing. But Ashleigh was already heading up one of the trails, gesturing for us to follow her.

  “Dame Susan does things a little…differently, here,” she called back over her shoulder. “I’m sure she already knows that we’ve arrived, but we’ll have to go knock on her door to get in.”

  As we hiked up the narrow trail in single file, I continued to look for the courtly structures that I was used to seeing, but I only saw more forest. There were coastal redwoods everywhere, which were narrower and more reddish than the sequoias back home; they blotted out most of the sunlight, so few things grew on the forest floor, but eucalyptus trees and live oaks had also managed to take hold in a few places. The air was also much warmer than I’d expected. The Santa Cruz Mountains were barely tall enough to qualify for the name, so there was no snow, and the wind off the ocean actuall
y seemed to warm the area. It felt more like late spring or even early summer than the beginning of March.

  We passed by an area that did look more developed, with a gravel parking lot and big yellow and black signs advertising something called The Mystery Spot. The “spot” seemed to be a single rickety house built at a weird angle on the hillside. But there was a booth advertising ticket sales, and a gift shop, and a few people were milling around the area.

  “That’s the tourist attraction,” Ashleigh pointed out, taking us around a side way so we avoided the other people. Then she stopped in front of an even more decrepit shack, and knocked on the door.

  A middle-aged faeriekin with dark blonde hair swung open just the top half of the split door and stuck her head outside. “You could have called first, instead of just showing up.”

  “I’m sorry, but the phones aren’t working at home,” Ashleigh said sheepishly. “We need to ask a favor.”

  The woman leaned farther out the door and stared at the rest of us. “Who is all this?”

  Ashleigh lifted her hand and gestured to each of us in turn, as if she were making formal introductions at a party instead of addressing the rude porter. “This is Rosamunde McAddams, a witch and a classmate of mine,” she said lightly—but I heard her omit the word “friend,” and it stung. “Her sister Akasha, a faeriekin. And—” She stopped when she got to Dandelion and stared at him. “Did you say you were going by Harry Houdini today?”

  “I have already done my escaping act for the day,” he said, and swept an elegant bow. “But you know me as Cinnamon.” When he straightened up again, his hair had suddenly turned red. “So lovely to see you again, Dame Susan.”