by E. E. Holmes
Ileana swelled with indignation. I decided to pivot back to the topic of Rifting before I lost my chance. As much as this woman and I loathed each other, I couldn’t afford to alienate her now.
“Agnes left special instructions on how to do it—on how to reach a second, deeper door that she herself had created within the Rift.”
“Second door? What is this nonsense? There is no second door,” Ileana whispered.
“Maybe not for you,” I replied. “But there was when I went through into the Rift. Agnes Isherwood was waiting for me there. She was the one who told me the truth. She was the one who gave me my instructions. She’s the reason I’m here. She told me you would know what the message means, and what we have to do next.”
Ileana’s left eye was twitching. Her hands were shaking. I took an involuntary step back from her, unable to suppress the feeling that she was about to jump on me and claw my eyes out. But whatever battle was waging inside her was waged entirely in silence. She took a deep breath. She steadied her hands. And when she looked at me again, the usual sparkle of hatred that gleamed in her eye just for me had been replaced with a steely determination.
“I do know what it means. And I know what to do next,” she said. “But first I need to know, am I the first to whom you’ve delivered this message?”
“Yes,” I said with a sardonic smile. “Believe it or not, I thought you would be the easiest one to reach.”
“You weren’t wrong,” Ileana said grimly. “Have you told your High Priestess?”
“No.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “The most important revelation in our long and storied history, and you spoke not a word of it to the leader of the Northern Clans?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because those were not my instructions,” I replied. I could be vague, too.
Ileana snorted, eyeing me beadily, still trying to ascertain if I was telling the truth. I couldn’t tell whether she believed me or not.
“What of your companions? Do you trust them? How much do they know?”
I hesitated before answering. By this time, I trusted both Annabelle and Catriona with my life. Lucida was another matter… on the one hand, she was Lucida. On the other, I never would have found the Tansy Hag or discovered the meaning behind Agnes’ clues without her. She was bound up in this just like I was, whether I liked it or not.
“They know as much as I’ve had to tell them, and no more,” I said at last. “And yes, I trust them a damn sight more than I trust you.”
“Very well then,” Ileana said. “There is no time to lose. Now that the wheels are in motion, it’s only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose. We will take your car.”
I blinked. “Our car?” I asked. “To… to where?”
“We have a visit to pay,” Ileana said, “to the Keeper of the Elementals.”
11
The Key and the Truth
“THE KEEPER OF THE ELEMENTALS?” I breathed. “You… you know how to find them?”
“Yes,” Ileana said, though it was clear the thought gave her no pleasure. “But the journey will be difficult, and there are a few things I must do to prepare. Come back to the camp. I shall have the Caomhnóir see to your vehicle.”
I looked back at Annabelle and the others. Annabelle was shaking her head violently at me, while Catriona and Lucida had both settled into defensive poses, ready to fight.
“You… you expect us to go back within the borders of the camp? After what you did to us for daring to set foot in there in the first place?” I asked, half-laughing, though there was no humor in the situation.
“You have my word that none of you will be harmed. You will not be detained. But you will want to eat and rest up before we leave,” Ileana said.
“I have your word?” I asked, and there was a definite edge of panic to my laughter now. “You could sign a contract with the Devil himself in your own damn blood and I still wouldn’t trust you. I was chained under your orders less than an hour ago. What’s changed?”
Ileana stared at me as though the question were absurd. “Everything has changed, Northern Girl. Everything.”
And I understood. This was bigger than either of us now. How we felt about each other, what had passed between us— all that was gone now, swept up in the current of this new storm. We would have to weather it together, or not at all.
I turned back to the others who were staring, mystified, at this prolonged conversation between myself and the woman who, until moments ago, had been my captor. I walked back toward them, trying to give a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. She’s going to come with us,” I told them, and then braced for the outrage.
“Come with us?” Catriona gasped.
“You can’t be serious!” Annabelle hissed.
“Come with us where, mate? You haven’t even told us what the bloody hell is going on!” Lucida added.
“You’re right, I haven’t,” I said, turning to Lucida. “And I don’t owe you any explanations until I find out what the hell you’re doing here, because in case you’ve missed it, you were most definitely not invited.” Lucida had the good sense to look abashed, and I addressed the others. “Look, none of you are obligated to be involved in any more of this… this mess I’ve gotten myself into. You can get in the car and leave now, and I won’t blame you in the least. But I have to keep going, and Ileana has to come with me.”
“There’s no way I’m leaving you to the mercies of that woman,” Annabelle said at once, tossing her fiery hair and crossing her arms.
“Trackers don’t abandon each other,” Catriona said without hesitation.
I looked at Lucida. “If I can be of use, I’ll tag along as well,” she said, rather meekly for her.
I nodded my gratitude to all three of them. “Thank you. And I’ll explain everything… well, not everything, but I’ll explain what I can, okay? But first, we’ve got to go back to the camp.”
I waited for the second round of incredulous protest to pass.
“Ileana has to prepare for the trip. She gave me her word that we’d be safe,” I said.
“Her word?!”
“You’ve got to be bloody joking!”
“I just risked my neck to get you out of that place, and we’re just going to stroll casually back in?! What’s to stop her from arresting us all the second we cross back into her territory?” Catriona hissed.
“Look, you don’t have to trust her. Trust me,” I said for the second time in the last fifteen minutes. “But if you want to join me on the next leg of this catastrophe, you have to come back to the camp with me. Now.” And without waiting for a reply, I turned back to Ileana and gestured toward the camp.
“Lead the way, High Priestess,” I told her, and marched right back into the woods, not even stopping to see if the others would follow.
§
And so, in one of the most bizarre plot twists of my life, twenty minutes later, I found myself sitting in Ileana’s tent once again, this time as an invited guest, sipping on a heavy pottery mug of herbal tea and smirking at Dragos, whose scowl made it clear that he did not fully understand why I was suddenly no longer a prisoner, let alone why he was now being commanded to bring me tea. I made sure to smile smugly at him every time he caught my eye—I still hadn’t forgotten how roughly he had dragged me through the woods, how much obvious delight he’d taken in chaining me up in Irina’s former cell. Several times, I considered “accidentally” spilling the tea just so I could watch him clean it up.
I might be exhausted and scared and confused, but that was no reason to waste an opportunity to be petty.
At first, Ileana’s tasks seemed dull and commonplace; why did she insist I return with her to the tent just to watch her dictate orders to Dragos and fill a tattered old carpet bag with equally tattered and old belongings? Couldn’t I have stayed with Catriona, Lucida, and Annabelle, who were currently gathered around one of the Traveler bonfires at the center of the camp,
being amply supplied with food, wine, and an impromptu concert of Romany music? But then, Ileana snapped the bag shut and beckoned me over toward the ancient carved throne upon which she always sat whenever I had been summoned for an audience with her.
“Every High Priestess, upon her coronation, has sat upon this throne,” she told me, her voice deep and husky with emotion. “And each of us has been charged with a host of sacred duties to carry out while this throne was still ours to sit upon. There has always been a single duty—mysterious in its origin, but tantamount in its importance—that every Traveler High Priestess has been told of, but that none has ever yet had to perform. Until now.”
She turned toward Dragos and barked, “You will leave us. Now.”
Dragos stepped forward, his face full of resentment, protestation poised on his lips, but Ileana made a sound, somewhere between a growl and a grunt, and thrust a hand out toward him, pointing her long jagged fingernail as though it were a deadly weapon. I had heard stories of witches and “gypsies” and the curses they could cast upon you with a single word, a single gesture. Whether they were true or not, I could not say, but in that moment, Ileana was so terrifying that Dragos took a hasty leap backward, dropped his eyes to his feet, and fairly fled the room without so much as a word.
Snorting with disgust and muttering something about “insubordination,” Ileana reached a gnarled, arthritic finger down to the front of the throne’s seat to the carved wooden panel just below the faded tapestry seat cushion. With a single sharp jab, she pressed upon a knot in the wood, the center of which was set with a huge ruby that sparkled in the lanternlight. The knot receded into the wood, setting off a strange series of clicks and whirs that seemed to be coming from inside the throne itself. Then, with a long, drawn-out squeak of protest, the entire front panel of the throne pushed slowly outward, revealing a hidden compartment within it. Her face was just as full of wonder as mine, to see the drawer appear.
“I’ve always wondered,” she whispered, more to herself than to me, and sounding for a moment like a child who had just discovered that some small bit of magic was real, “what would happen if I ever had the chance to push that button.”
She reached a shaking hand forward and picked up the only object within the compartment: a massive skeleton key made of heavy black iron, and hung upon a golden chain.
“What is it for?” I asked. “What does it open?”
Ileana looked at me. “I do not know,” she whispered. “But when the messenger comes bringing word of the Sentinels, I’m to bring it to the gathering of the Three.”
“The Three?” I asked, though I already felt a stirring in my chest at what it might mean.
“The High Priestess of the Traveler Clans. The Keeper of the Elementals. The High Priestess of the International High Council,” Ileana replied, confirming my suspicions.
“And then?” I asked.
Ileana shook her head. “No one knows,” she answered.
“What about the Sentinels themselves?” I asked her. “Do you have any idea who they are, or what the reference might mean?”
Again, Ileana shook her head. “They will rise at a time of great peril to our clans. That is all I know. When signs started pointing to the fulfillment of the Prophecy, when you arrived at our encampment that first night, seeking refuge, I was sure, then, that the time of the Sentinels was upon us. I kept waiting for the messenger to come, for the words to be spoken, my finger poised upon the button, sure that the moment had come at last, for what could bring more peril to all we hold dear than the Prophecy?”
My heart thundered in my chest. Was it the right moment to answer that question, or ought I to wait? Perhaps, when all of The Three were gathered, it might be safe to tell her? Yes, surely that was the right time.
“You’d best get some rest,” Ileana said, foisting on her stern demeanor as easily as flicking a light switch. “We have a long journey ahead of us. The Caomhnóir will see to it that your vehicle is in fine working order for the trip.”
“Where exactly are we going?” I asked.
“To a small village called Pluckley in the county of Kent. There is a wood there—deep within it is where we will find the Keeper of the Elementals.”
I shuddered. Ileana narrowed her eyes at me. “Heard of the Elementals, have you?” she asked.
“Heard of them?” I snorted. “I’ve come face to face with one. Twice. It’s not an experience I have any desire to repeat.”
Ileana nodded at me, evidently impressed with my pluck. “Well, you’re going to repeat it and then some. But with a bit of luck, we may just come out of it unscathed.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s very reassuring, thanks.”
Ileana took the golden chain of the key and hung it around her neck, tucking it down into her bosom and cloaking it beneath her many shawls and scarves. “Out with you, then,” she barked, pointing to the door. “We leave at first light.”
§
I found Annabelle alone on a bench by the central bonfire, a mug of something hot in her hands and an untouched plate of bread and stew beside her.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down beside her. “You going to eat that, or what?”
“Help yourself,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”
She was staring across the fire to the other side, where Catriona and Lucida sat huddled in conversation over a jug of wine.
I dipped the bread into the thick brown gravy and wolfed it down. It was earthy and spicy and delicious, whatever it was.
“No one will talk to me, apart from my Auntie Zina, and she’s just trying to pump me for gossip,” Annabelle said dully. “They all must know by now that we were detained.”
I nodded. “I think Dragos and the other Caomhnóir probably had something to do with that. They’re royally pissed off that we’ve been released. I expect they’ve told the others just to vent their frustrations at Ileana.”
Annabelle gave a mirthless laugh. “It would have come out anyway.” She gave one last, wistful look to a nearby knot of Travelers who sat laughing together, like it was the cool kids’ table in the cafeteria, and then turned to me. “So, what’s going on? What’s happening now?”
“Ileana wants to leave at first light,” I said. “We’re traveling to some village in Kent, where the Keeper of the Elementals lives.”
“And when we get there?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I have no idea. Ileana seems to know where she is and how to get to her. So we’ll let her lead the way, and then I’ll deliver Agnes’ message. I have no idea how it will be received, but we’ve already been bound, gagged, and shackled while trapped in each other’s bodies, so it can’t really get worse than that, right?”
Annabelle managed half a smirk before her face fell back into lines of misery. “And you’re still sure you want her to come?” She jerked her head in Lucida’s direction.
“She’s not my first choice,” I admitted. “But she’s in this, Annabelle. The Necromancers cut the mark of the Tansy Hag into her flesh. I would never have found the clues hidden in the Skye Príosún if she hadn’t led me to them.”
“You know who she worked for,” Annabelle said through gritted teeth. The mug in her hand trembled. “You know what they did.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” I murmured. “I promise you, I haven’t. Lucida is… well, it’s complicated. I haven’t forgiven her for her role in the Prophecy, and for what she did to Hannah, and I probably never will, but… well, she saved my life since then. She didn’t have to, but she did. I don’t know what it all means except that sometimes—maybe even most of the time—people are messier than we perceive them to be. It’s not black and white. Mostly, it’s just… grey.”
Annabelle did not reply. She just stared down into the steaming depths of her mug for a few moments before knocking the contents back in a single swig. A deep, heady aroma drifted toward me, and I realized she was drinking the same kind of mulled wine that Flavia and her friends had passed around the night I h
ad Rifted for the first time. I crammed another hunk of stew-soaked bread into my mouth and stood up. “I’m going to fill Catriona and Lucida in on the plan. Do you want to come with me?”
Annabelle shook her head. “I’ll walk with you that way, but I think I’m going to turn in.”
I gave her shoulder a squeeze and we set off together around the perimeter of the bonfire circle until we’d reached Catriona and Lucida. They broke off their conversation at once when they saw us coming. Lucida stood up, handing a bottle of wine to Catriona.
“I’ve got to find the loo,” she announced, and then, with a laugh turned to Annabelle. “This Traveler wine, eh? Strong stuff, don’t you—”
SMACK. Annabelle had pulled back her arm and slapped Lucida across the face as hard as she could. Lucida staggered, bringing her hand up to her cheek and staring at Annabelle in utter disbelief.
“That was for David,” Annabelle growled, her chest heaving. “Do not presume, because I am tolerating your presence on this journey, that you are permitted to speak even a single word to me. Ever.”
Lucida straightened up, dropped her hand, and assumed a blank expression. She nodded to indicate she understood, and then turned to Catriona, whose mouth was hanging open.
“Right, then. Think I’ll turn in,” she murmured. She ducked between two Traveler wagons and out of sight.
Annabelle exhaled slowly, a flush of anger receding from her face. “Good night, then,” she said to Catriona and me, before stalking off in the opposite direction.
I turned to Catriona, who looked as though she were about to call out after Annabelle. “Don’t,” I advised her. “You know what the Necromancers did to David Pierce. Lucida should count herself lucky Annabelle didn’t kill her on the spot.”
Catriona swallowed back her reply, and swiftly changed the subject, assuming her professional tone of Tracker formality. “What’s going on, then? What did Ileana say? Are we heading out soon?”