The Faerie Plague (Dark World: The Faerie Games Book 5)

by Michelle Madow

  “And you weren’t going to tell us?” I asked.

  “I didn’t see why it mattered.”

  I pressed my lips together, my head spinning. “When you say the timelines ‘merged,’ what exactly do you mean?” I asked Torrence.

  She bit her lower lip and toyed with her token. “I mean that time on Earth caught up to the time here.”

  My stomach sank at the confirmation of exactly what I’d feared. “So on Earth, the four of you have been gone for weeks,” I said, and Torrence nodded. “My mom must have been so worried. And my dad and Bella have been stuck in that dome this entire time…”

  I didn’t get a chance to finish, because Reed stepped in front of Torrence and grabbed her shoulders like he was getting ready to shake her. “Exactly how much time passed?” he asked, and he stared down at her like his life depended on her answer.

  Her eyes welled with tears, and she lowered her gaze. “Almost three months.”

  He dropped his hands and cursed. “How much time is left?”

  I looked back and forth between them, confused. “What are you guys talking about?” I asked, and I looked to Sage and Thomas to see if they had any idea what was going on. They both couldn’t look at me, which I guessed meant they did. “What happened?”

  The three of them looked to Torrence.

  I did, too.

  My best friend took a deep breath, and finally forced herself to meet my eyes. She looked so guilty that my stomach filled with more dread than I’d thought possible. “We ran into a bit of trouble when we were getting the four objects for King Devin,” she started. “Specifically, on Aeaea.”

  “Circe’s island,” I recalled.

  “Yes. When we told you what happened there, we weren’t exactly being honest with you. Well, I wasn’t being honest with you. I asked the others to go along with it, because we needed to focus on getting you back home. I didn’t want you worrying about me when we had so many bigger problems to deal with here. I figured that once we were all back on Avalon, I’d tell you then, and we’d figure out what to do from there.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “We weren’t able to steal the staff from under Circe’s nose,” she said. “Circe was too powerful for us to pull that off. So, to get her staff, I made a deal with her.”

  “An impulsive deal,” Reed said. “A stupid deal.”

  “Stop.” I held up a hand, blocking his face from my view. “I want to hear it from Torrence.”

  “All right,” she said, and then, she started from the beginning, and told me the truth about what had happened after they’d landed on that island.

  31

  SELENA

  “CIRCE SAID she’d loan us the staff for three months.” Torrence swallowed, barely able to say the next part. “If we failed to bring it back to her, she wanted me to go live with her, on Aeaea.”

  “Okay.” I steadied myself, since maybe it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. “For how long?”

  “For forever.”

  Time froze, and I blinked as I processed her words.

  I couldn’t be hearing right.

  This was too crazy, even for Torrence.

  “Tell me you didn’t take it,” I said. “That you came up with something else she wanted.” I looked to Sage, hoping she’d jump in and say she came up with a brilliant idea at the last moment to stop Torrence from going through with it.

  She didn’t.

  I took a deep breath and ran my fingers through the roots of my hair. Because there was a solution to every problem. We just needed to figure out what that solution was.

  In this case, that meant getting that staff back from King Devin and returning it to Circe before the time was up.

  “You said almost three months have passed.” I paced around, working everything through in my mind. “Exactly how much time do we have? A week? Two?”

  “A day,” she said, and I stopped in my tracks. “Well, it was two days when I got back to Avalon, and more than a day has passed since I got back here. So, less than a day.”

  “What?” I stood there and stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I wish I wasn’t.”

  “You shouldn’t have done it,” I said. “You should have left without the staff. Figured out some other way to get to the Otherworld.”

  “There was no other way,” she said. “At least, not that we knew of. And we knew that for each day that passed for us, a week passed for you. We had no idea what was happening to you here. All we knew was that the sooner we got here, the more likely it was that you’d be alive. And then, with the time dilation, not much time on Earth should have passed before we all got back home. I thought we had weeks to figure out how to get Circe’s staff back to her.”

  “We still have time to get the staff back to her,” I said, since we didn’t have any other option. “We just need to do it quickly. How many hours do we have?”

  “I made the deal with Circe in the morning, Bahamas time,” she said. “I’m not exactly sure how time zones in the Otherworld correlate to the ones on Earth…”

  “They can be sporadic,” Sorcha said. “Usually a few hours earlier or later than Ireland’s time zone.”

  I frowned, since that complicated matters. Then I looked to the Holy Wand in my hand, and suddenly, felt like the biggest idiot in the world. “Wait,” I said. “I have all this new magic. We can just go straight to Circe’s island, and I can… take care of her. If she’s not alive, then there’s no deal. Problem solved.”

  “I wouldn’t test your luck,” Sorcha said.

  “Why not?” I asked. “You’ve seen what I can do.”

  “Because Circe isn’t just an immortal sorceress. She’s a goddess. The four of them were lucky to get off of Aeaea alive. Trying to fight Circe will get you turned into swine at best, and ash at worst.”

  I bit my lower lip and nodded, since I did see her point. Especially since there was a better option. “So we’re back to plan A,” I said, and I realized I was starting to sound like Julian. “Getting the staff back from King Devin and returning it to Circe. We’re stronger than King Devin. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “You can’t just kill King Devin,” Sage said. “He’s allied with Avalon.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m not planning on killing him off.”

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “He offered to trade his portal tokens for the items he sent you to retrieve,” I said. “So why wouldn’t he be open to another trade?”

  “There has to be something he wants more than the staff,” Julian said.

  “Exactly.” I smiled, glad that my soulmate seemed to be on board with the idea so far. “We’ll offer him another trade. The four of you were powerful enough to get the original items he requested. Now, with Julian and me helping, we can get him something even more powerful than Circe’s staff.”

  They were all silent as they thought about it.

  “Do you have anything in mind?” Sage finally asked.

  “Not yet. We need to go to him first. Propose the deal, and get him to work with us.” I looked around at all of them, hoping I sounded strong and in control.

  Like a true queen.

  “Hold on,” Thomas said. “We’re forgetting one important detail here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Prince Devyn said that Selena needed to go straight to Avalon after dropping Julian and his family off at the Vale. He was extremely clear that she shouldn’t get sidetracked. And this mission—as honorable as it is—is a deviation from the original plan.”

  I glared at him, and electricity buzzed through my veins at the idea of doing anything but helping Torrence. “I’m not just going to do nothing and let Torrence get trapped on that witch’s island,” I said. “It won’t take us longer than twenty-four hours. I’ll be back on Avalon soon enough.”

  “But isn’t this exactly what Prince Devyn warned you about?” he asked. “Putting aside your own desires—like helping your
best friend—and doing what’s best for the greater good?”

  “The greater good is helping Torrence,” I said. “My magic is the strongest of all of ours. With me helping, we have the greatest chance of success.”

  “Getting real full of yourself, aren’t you now?” Torrence smirked.

  “Just stating a fact.” I couldn’t joke about the situation—it was far too serious for that.

  “If we’re stating facts, then we should also remember that Prince Devyn had omniscient sight,” Thomas said. “He would have known this was coming. And he made it clear that you were to go straight to Avalon after bringing Julian and his family to the Vale.”

  “Prince Devyn could see every possible future,” I reminded him. “Just because there may be one future where everything apparently ends up better if I don’t help Torrence, I refuse to believe there isn’t a future where I help her and everything turns out well.”

  I held his gaze, unwilling to back down. I was going to do this, whether I had his approval or not.

  “It’s your future,” Thomas muttered. “And you’re just as headstrong as your mother. I can’t force you not to do this. I was simply reminding you of the facts.”

  “Noted,” I said.

  “What about what Torrence thinks?” Sage looked to my best friend. Torrence still looked stressed, but not as stressed as when she’d returned to the Otherworld. “Do you want Selena to come on this mission? Or do you want her to go straight to Avalon?”

  “No matter what any of us say, Selena’s not backing down. She’s coming with us,” Torrence said. “So how about we stop wasting time, and get started on getting that staff back to Circe.”

  32

  SELENA

  WITH THE DECISION MADE, we devised a plan.

  We needed to get to the Tower so we could approach King Devin with our offer. Given that we had four portal tokens that would drop us off in his penthouse, and we needed to save as much time as possible, it made the most sense to use those. And it needed to be the four of us with the most powerful magic.

  Torrence, Reed, Julian, and me.

  After a heartfelt farewell, Thomas and Sage accompanied Julian’s mother and sister through Sorcha’s portal. They’d arrive in Rome, and then Thomas would use his gift over technology to contact a witch to bring them to the peaceful kingdom of the Haven.

  Once Julian, Torrence, Reed, and I returned the staff to Circe, Julian and I would go to the Haven and bring his mother and sister to the Vale, so the three of them could start Avalon’s trials together. The trials wouldn’t take long—two days, maybe three at the most—and I was confident they’d pass. I’d be waiting for them on Avalon when they arrived.

  I used my lightning-travel to bring Julian, Torrence, Reed, and myself to Ryanne’s villa.

  As expected, she was spending time in the courtyard with her husband, Prince Redmond. They were quietly reading on a bench, and they both startled when we arrived.

  “Selena.” Ryanne placed her book facedown on the table next to her and stood up, worry etched across her face. “Do you have news of my son?”

  “Aiden is a guest of the Empress’s, in her house in the citadel,” I said. “He’s being kept safe there, and he sends his love.”

  “So he’s still alive?”

  “Very much so.” I smiled. “He looks forward to returning home once the roads are safe for travel again. But that’s not why we’re here.” I held up the token that Sage had given me—the one with her initials engraved on the back. “Sorcha has lifted the law that prohibits Julian and I from portaling to Earth. The four of us need to go to King Devin’s penthouse immediately. Which means—”

  “You need the letter,” Ryanne said.

  “Yes.” I nodded in confirmation of the deal we’d made during the meal Julian and I had shared with her before setting off to find the Holy Wand.

  “Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She hurried out of the courtyard. While she was gone, Redmond asked me some generic questions about lightning-travel. I told him what I knew, which wasn’t much.

  He visibly relaxed when Ryanne returned. Apparently, he wasn’t one for socializing.

  Ryanne kissed the seal of the letter. It shimmered, and transformed into a glittering, turquoise crystal that matched the color of her wings. The crystal was small, and fit perfectly in her palm. “Give this to King Devin,” she said. “The crystal will only return to letter-form when he holds it.”

  I took the crystal and placed it in my pocket. “I’ll deliver it safely to the king.”

  “I trust you will.” She glanced up at the clouds clearing from the sky. “And I suppose I have you to thank for stopping the Red Storm?”

  “Yes, but we’re in an extreme time crunch, and it’s a bit of a long story,” I said. “We need to go to the lake so we can portal out now.”

  “I understand,” she said. “There are afflicted outside the villa, so I can take you as far as the front doors. You’ll be on your own from there.”

  “Not a problem.” I glanced at the Holy Wand in my hand, ready to use it to ash some zombies.

  “On Earth, your wings won’t be visible to anyone who’s not fae,” Ryanne said, and then she looked to the wand. “But I doubt the same rule will apply to the wand. You might not want to carry it so openly in the Tower. Or on Earth, in general.”

  “Hm.” I pressed my lips together, since she was right. The Holy Wand was large, and I couldn’t sheath it like a sword. Plus, King Devin couldn’t know I had it.

  Because if he asked to trade Circe’s staff for the Holy Wand… as much as I wanted to help Torrence, I’d never hand the wand over to him.

  I also wasn’t going to leave it somewhere while we went on our mission. I needed it with me, in case I needed to use it.

  But what else could I do with it? I wasn’t Julian. I couldn’t store it away in the ether and pull it out when I needed it.

  Or could I…?

  I glanced to Julian, and then back to Ryanne. “I have an idea,” I said, although it involved Julian using his fae magic—which Ryanne and Redmond didn’t know about yet. “But I need to speak with Julian alone.”

  “The dining room is empty.” She motioned to the room off the hall of the courtyard, where we’d shared that meal together all those weeks ago. “You can speak there.”

  Julian and I made our way to the dining room, and he closed the door behind us. “So, what’s this secret idea of yours?” he asked, watching me curiously.

  “The magic gifted to you from Mars allows you to pull weapons out of the ether,” I started. “Now that your fae magic is unlocked, I was wondering if you could use it to give me an ‘ether cubby’ where I can keep the wand.”

  That was how he’d described his ability to me before—like a cubby he could reach into, and find any weapon he desired.

  “Maybe,” he said, and he sized up the wand. “It’s worth a try.”

  “Cool. What do you need me to do?”

  He closed his eyes, his brow creased in thought, like he was internally communicating with his magic. Then he opened them again. “I’m just going on gut instinct here,” he said. “But I’m thinking we should both hold onto the wand at the same time. I’ll focus on doing what you asked, and we’ll hope it works.”

  “Sounds like as good of a plan as any,” I said. “Just don’t break the wand.”

  “The Holy Wand has more magic than any other object in the world,” he said. “Well, except for the other three Holy Objects. I don’t think there’s anything I could do to break it.”

  “Still,” I said. “Be careful.”

  “Always.”

  He wrapped his hand around the wand, right above where I was holding it, and I nodded for him to continue. Then, with his eyes locked on mine, his steel gray and ice blue magic floated out of his palm and around the wand like a helix. It swirled out around my wrist, up my arm, and to my elbow. My skin tingled where it touched. The magic sank into me, and di
sappeared around both my arm and the wand.

  All was still.

  “Did it work?” I asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” he said. “Picture the open space next to you as an invisible cubby. Imagine it opening, move the wand inside of it, and then let it go.”

  “All right.” I shuffled my feet and tightened my grip around the wand. “What if it works and I can’t get it back?”

  “I can access the ether,” he said. “If that happens, I’ll get it back for you.”

  I nodded and took a deep breath.

  Here goes nothing.

  I imagined a cubby in the open space next to me, and the air brushed against my skin, like it was expanding outward. It pressed against me, slightly larger than the wand.

  I moved my hand toward the space, and it sucked the wand inside. The wand disappeared in a flash.

  But the wand’s warm magic still brushed against my skin. It was there next to me, even if I couldn’t see it.

  “Nice,” Julian said. “Now, imagine the cubby opening again. But this time, reach inside and pull the wand out.”

  I did as instructed.

  The Holy Wand was back in my hand.

  I stared at it in awe.

  “It worked,” Julian said. “Now, let’s head out to the lake. We have a vampire king to bargain with.”

  33

  SELENA

  RYANNE WALKED us to the front doors of the villa and opened them. Black-winged zombies ambled around the lake at the bottom of the hill. They reeked of decay, and I breathed as shallowly as possible to block out the smell.

  A breeze blew around us, they sniffed the air, and slowly turned to face us.

  “This is as far as I can go,” Ryanne said. “Good luck.”

  I nodded, since I didn’t need luck.

  I had my magic.

  I called on it, and with the Holy Wand in my hand, electricity hummed across my skin. Clouds rolled in, thunder cracked overhead, and bolts struck down from the sky, knocking down the zombies.