by E. E. Holmes
“We’re not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell this is about!” I practically shouted my words, but before I could say anything else Finn held his hand in front of my face to silence me. It was such a condescending gesture that I actually had to repress an impulse to bite his finger.
“Seamus, this is highly irregular. What is this disciplinary hearing for?” Finn asked, struggling to maintain a respectful tone toward Seamus, who was, after all, one of his former teachers. I knew that wouldn’t prevent Finn from beating the hell out of him, though, if it came right down to it.
“I’ve not been authorized to reveal that information,” Seamus said curtly.
I opened my mouth to argue, but Finn beat me to it. “Oh, come on, Seamus. Put yourself in my shoes. Would you allow Celeste or Catherine to walk blindly into a situation of this sort? I need a good bit more than that if you want my cooperation.”
Seamus considered this; a muscle twitched in his jaw as he looked from Finn, to me, to Hannah, and then back at Finn again. “Very well, but I’m only showing this to you because it’s public,” he said, backing off and pulling a cell phone out of his back pocket. “Any of you could’ve stumbled across this on the Internet. If anyone asks, that’s where you saw it, without any prompting from me. Understood?”
“Understood. Thank you,” Finn replied.
My heart began to hammer as I waited for Seamus to find whatever it was he was going to show us. He stared at the screen for a moment, evidently waiting for the site to load, then turned the phone so that the screen faced us. We all crowded in to watch.
He’d pulled up a YouTube video. Despite the timestamp indicating that the video had been uploaded less than four hours ago, it already had thousands of hits and hundreds of comments and shares. I squinted against the bright light of the screen. The title of the video was “TV Psychic Unmasked as Fraud… BY GHOSTS!”
The camera, most likely a cell phone, was panning shakily across a sea of upturned faces. Onstage was Lionel Freeman, accompanied by a young woman holding a microphone who looked all too familiar.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Some asshole, giving not a damn about the rules against recording in theaters, had begun filming me the moment I walked on the stage, and had recorded—with increasingly loud and frantic breathing—our entire take down of Freeman. To my horror, he had even panned up to the dress circle box and recorded Hannah Calling; I watched the footage as Hannah, with her eyes closed, muttered to herself and twitched her hands as if she were the puppet master of the chaos below—which, I suppose, she was.
“Did you see that?” came the excited voice from behind the camera. “Did you see it? That girl up there in the box is controlling it! It’s the sister, right? Didn’t she say that was her sister? It’s the two of them!”
The man started toward the edge of the stage, but tripped or stumbled as he fought across a row of seats. He dropped the phone to the ground and the video cut out.
We stared at the screen for a few more moments. The video had now gone dark, but the page stats told us that the number of views had jumped up by nearly fifty while the video had been playing.
“This has gone viral in the last few hours,” said Seamus. “Or rather, it has the potential to go viral if we don’t stop it. We’re already treating it as a matter of clan security. The Trackers will have it down within the hour, I don’t doubt.”
“This happened only a few hours ago,” I said. “You live in England. How the hell did you get here so fast?”
“We were in the States already,” Seamus said, looking at Finn again. Finn’s face flushed, as he clenched his fists at his side. “And so the Council requested that we take charge of the situation. It’s quite fortunate that we were already in New England, because the damage has been extensive—even in this very short amount of time.”
“Fine, I admit that wasn’t the smartest thing we’ve ever done,” I said flatly. “But if the Trackers are going to take it off the Internet, what’s the big deal? The media has the attention span of a goldfish. By tomorrow, everyone will be freaking out about some cat meme. Our video will already be ancient history.”
“That’s hardly the point,” Seamus said gruffly, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “You’ve ripped back the curtain and shone a spotlight on our inner workings, workings that must remain secret. The Council no longer trusts your judgment in matters of security. They require your presence at a disciplinary hearing. You will attend.”
“What if we just… promise not to do it again?” I asked weakly.
Seamus shook his head. “Not good enough. A face-to-face meeting is required. This is not a request.”
I looked at Finn for assistance, but he didn’t meet my eye. Instead, he continued to glower at Seamus, almost as though he knew there was no argument to be made.
Hannah piped up at last, her voice small but fierce. “We can’t just pick up and leave without notice. We have jobs. I’m in the middle of a semester! Jess has a great job at the museum! The Durupinen aren’t allowed to recklessly jeopardize our educations and careers—it’s part of the agreement we made when we left Fairhaven.”
“Nor are you allowed to recklessly jeopardize our code of secrecy,” Seamus countered. “Nonetheless, the High Council has put nothing at risk for you. All of the necessary arrangements have been made with your professors and at your places of employment.”
I groaned as I thought of my boss at the Juniper Breeze Café, where I was still working part-time. My boss would’ve expected an employee to work her shift even if she’d come down with the bubonic plague; I didn’t see how I could be anything but fired for taking unscheduled time off. I knew the Peabody Essex Museum would be a little more forgiving, but not by much.
“How long are we going to be gone?” I asked.
“Until matters are settled to the satisfaction of the High Priestess,” Seamus replied.
“And what about the hours we’re going to miss while we’re gone? How are we supposed to make our rent if we aren’t getting paid?” I shot back.
“You will be compensated at twice your hourly rate,” Seamus said.
I blinked. “Right, well… that’s… okay, then.”
Seamus evidently took this to mean we had now agreed to come, because he nodded curtly and marched toward the door.
“Wait a second! We can’t just leave right now! We need to…” I stared around wildly, trying to find the most persuasive reason for staying. My gaze fell on a single picture still upside-down on the fireplace mantle. “We have to Ward the apartment! Our roommate will be back in the morning and we have a hostile spirit here!”
“You had a hostile spirit here,” Seamus corrected me. “She was in the apartment when we arrived. We have expelled her and Warded the premises. We also took the liberty of tidying up her mess. Your roommate is quite free to return.”
I swallowed back my panic. “We have to pack.”
“Everything you will require has already been prepared for you,” Seamus said, gesturing to a pair of small black suitcases sitting beside the entryway door. I had never seen them before.
“You went through our things?” I growled through clenched teeth.
“Clothing, passports, shoes, toiletries, and Casting bags,” Seamus went on as though I hadn’t spoken. He looked not the least bit abashed. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d already broken into our apartment and basically announced we were being kidnapped. What did he care about rifling through a few drawers?
I stood rooted to the spot a moment more, casting desperately around for another reason to stay, but I couldn’t find one. I could only think of my own near-crippling outrage at being treated this way. I looked at Finn, who grimaced but cocked his head toward the door.
“We haven’t a choice,” he said quietly.
Hannah took my hand and I felt Milo pop into the mental space between us.
“What do my girls want me to do?” he asked. Milo’s energy was tense, pulled ta
ut like a bow.
“Just come along, I guess,” Hannah’s voice joined in. “I don’t think there’s anything else to be done just yet.”
Together, we followed Seamus out the door and down the stairs. A sleek black Lexus sat waiting for us across the street; I was certain the car hadn’t been there when we’d arrived home—there’s no way Finn would’ve missed it.
“We need to call Karen. She’s going to lose her shit when she finds out about this!” I said to Hannah as the car door slammed shut behind us.
“Good idea. I bet she’ll be on the next plane. Let’s call her now.” Hannah’s voice was shaking.
I pulled out my phone and, seeing Seamus glaring at me in the rearview mirror, I said, “I suppose we’re allowed a phone call? Aren’t all prisoners allowed one phone call?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “The High Priestess has not expressly forbidden it, so yes, I suppose you are.”
I kept my eyes on the phone’s screen. I couldn’t bear to look at Hannah, who had harbored so many doubts about publically going after Freeman—doubts that I had talked her out of again and again. Yet as hard as it was to look at Hannah, looking at Finn was worse—he had tried to talk us out of the plan less than twenty-four hours ago, for this very reason. The acrid scent of “I told you so!” was pungent in the air, but I refused to acknowledge it.
The car screeched away from our house, whisking us once again out of our own lives and into the sticky snare of the Durupinen web.
How foolish of us to think we’d escaped it.
7
Return to Fairhaven Hall
WHEN IT CAME TO TRAVEL, THE CONVENIENCE of the Durupinen network was a blessing, and I appreciated this one and only perk. Thanks to the speed of a Durupinen private jet, and a mysterious power to avoid things like security lines and customs officers, it was a mere matter of hours before a Caomhnóir drove us through a pair of familiar wrought iron gates. Before I even had a chance to fully process what it would feel like to be back at Fairhaven Hall, I was staring up at the hulking, foreboding outline of the castle, and shivering in the chill of its shadow—a shadow which now seemed to be pressing upon me with an actual physical force. Fairhaven was beautiful and ancient and practically tingling with teeming spirit energy, but damn it, I had never wanted to come back here again.
Why, why was I back here again?
Hannah took my hand and squeezed it, as though she could hear exactly what I was thinking. I leaned into the reassuring warmth of her beside me. Our joined hands buzzed with the intensity of our Gateway connection, a feeling I had come to associate with comfort rather than fear.
“It’s way too early for this,” Milo announced, as if he were still on a human-body schedule. “I bet they won’t even offer you some coffee, Jess. Charlatans!”
As anxious as I was, I chuckled, and found myself wondering if Milo actually missed caffeine.
Hannah leaned over and snapped me back into the moment. “Ready?” she murmured.
I laughed, although there was nothing particularly funny about the situation. “Not even remotely. But let’s get this over with.” Now that Milo had mentioned it, I did really want a cup of coffee.
The entrance hall of Fairhaven looked just as I remembered it from my first arrival nearly five years ago, but the events that had soon followed haunted the hall as surely as the many spirits that roamed the grounds. I could no longer appreciate the beautiful woodwork, the grand marble staircase, the gothic arches curving gracefully toward the ceiling, or the magnificent chandelier as I once had. All I could see now were the horrific details of my sprawling Prophecy mural, which I had sketched—while in a Psychic Trance—in ash across the walls with ravaged, burned fingertips. Every trace of my mural had long since been scrubbed from the entrance hall, but never again would I be able to see this room without also seeing my mural. I knew Hannah felt it too.
Finn had followed us into the castle, but he had taken up guard just past the doorway. What he was on guard against, I wasn’t sure—did he think the Elemental was going to rush the castle doors again?
Three figures stood at the far end of the vast entrance hall, on the grand staircase; their hands were folded in front of them as they silently awaited our arrival. Although we walked steadily toward them, it seemed to take an unnaturally long time for us to reach them, like a creepy optical illusion. As our echoing footsteps drew us closer, two of the faces became immediately familiar as two of the women stepped down to greet us.
“Welcome back!” Celeste cried.
I let the irony of her greeting pass as Celeste enfolded me in a hug that ought to have been unfamiliar, but instead felt unexpectedly comforting. She stepped back from me, then clasped her hand warmly on Hannah’s shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze—Celeste knew Hannah well enough to forgo any hugging.
“And Milo!” Celeste cried. “Still keeping an eye on these two?”
Celeste had said it warmly enough, but Milo turned somber nonetheless. “Of course!” he replied. “I didn’t take that Spirit Guide oath lightly.”
Perhaps determined to keep the moment light, Celeste ignored Milo’s angst; she turned back to us and looked me over with a satisfied smile. “You look well! Karen’s been keeping me up to date on all of your news, of course. You’ve both done so well for yourselves—the Peabody Essex is quite the respected institution, Jess. And from what I gather, Hannah, your graduate program is keeping you on the hop.”
“Thank you,” we both replied simultaneously. Neither of us really knew what else to say—our lives were now so far removed from Fairhaven.
“And about your aunt, tell me, how is she?” asked Celeste, ever cheery.
“She’s pissed, actually.” I replied, “She texted me just before we pulled up. She couldn’t get a direct flight, but she is on her way—she’s changing planes now. We’re under strict orders not to go into that Council Room without her here to back us up.”
Celeste sighed. “Yes, I thought she might come. I’ll be glad to see her, even if the circumstances are less than ideal. And how have the two of you been keeping?”
“We’re just peachy,” I said. “At least, we were, until we got hauled across the ocean to the principal’s office.”
“That’s right,” said Hannah in her quiet—but nonetheless formidable—tone. “But now, I’ll miss classes.”
Celeste’s smile faltered, but she hoisted it back into place almost at once. “Don’t worry. It will all be just fine.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? Because I have to be honest with you, none of this has felt very ‘fine’ so far. Shouldn’t we be worried?”
“I wouldn’t be too worried, no,” said Celeste. “A lot of this is pomp and circumstance. Sometimes the Council likes to exert its authority purely to prove that it can. It helps keep people in line.” She pursed her lips together in a thin line that left us with no doubt of what she thought of such shows of power.
Milo buzzed into our heads through our connection. “Geez! Whatever happened to ‘forgive and forget?’” he asked theatrically. I felt Hannah repress a small smile.
“Yeah, they’re just flexing their muscles. But they haven’t forgotten how you once brought us all to the brink of destruction and then saved us from it,” said Fiona, who stepped down and extended a hand, which I shook. It was rough, callused, and splattered with white, chalky plaster. When I touched her hand I felt her familiar energy coursing through it, a strange mélange of art and death. Surely no one else’s hand could feel like that.
“It’s good to see you, Fiona,” I said, and I meant it.
“Glad you aren’t burning the fecking place to the ground this time,” she replied, with just enough of a smile to allow Hannah to look her in the eye.
“We just got here,” I said pleasantly. “Give a girl a chance. I’m surprised to see you waiting here. How did they tempt you down from your tower?”
“I didn’t have any choice, much like the two of you,” she grumbled. “If the Co
uncil is called, all members must come running—all else be damned. They couldn’t give a good goddamn about what I was working on up there!”
“Are you working on anything good?” I asked innocently.
Fiona’s face went scarlet in reply. I’d almost forgotten how easy it was to work her into an absolute tizzy.
“Might ask you the same thing,” she growled. “I don’t suppose you brought anything for me to look at while you’re here?” she asked, crossing her arms. “I’m not much of a mentor if I can’t see your work in person the one time we’re on the same continent.”
I’d been mailing my artwork to Fiona for the last three years, on an almost-weekly basis. I’d spent a small fortune on postage, but she’d practically had an aneurysm when I suggested scanning and emailing, so I’d just sucked it up. Half the time, Fiona would refuse to send my work back to me, claiming that it wasn’t worth the cardboard mailer it came in. I never saw these sketches again; from the way she talked, I assumed she recycled them as toilet paper. But other times, I’d receive my drawings back in the mail and they’d be covered in crowded, nearly illegible Post-it Notes; her comments always contained the most insightful, illuminating advice I could ever hope to receive from a fellow artist. Sometimes the notes were harsh, sometimes they were constructive, but, above all, they were always utterly true. Once I’d learned to stop getting offended—which wasn’t easy at first—I’d learned more from Fiona than anyone else. I just had to keep reminding myself that if Fiona didn’t think I had promise—real talent—she wouldn’t have wasted her time. And, as a correspondence student, she couldn’t fall back on her old standby technique of throwing furniture at my head when she didn’t like something.
“Seamus didn’t exactly give us a chance to leisurely pack for the trip,” I said, and both Fiona and Celeste grimaced knowingly. “But luckily I brought my sketchbook with me yesterday to kill time on the ride to New York—it’s still in my bag. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty for you to criticize.”