“She’s cut!”
“She’s fine, Em. Why aren’t you in the car? Perry, Hannah,” he shouts. “Get in the car.”
“Who are you running from?” Perry shouts back.
“Get in the car!” four voices yell at the same time.
He tugs the driver’s door open, pushes Hannah inside, then runs around to the other side.
“What the hell happened?” I ask as we reach the car.
“Someone got there before us,” Calla pants. She pulls open one of the back doors. “But I think we—”
“Everybody, stop.”
I whirl around. On the other side of the road, stepping out from the shadows, is a figure in a silver hooded cloak.
Twenty-Two
“You have something I want,” the figure says, and though her face is hidden in shadow, the pitch of her voice tells me she’s a woman. As her cloak billows around her, a memory flashes to the front of my mind: A person in a silver cloak just like this one, standing in a road in Stanmeade and turning a man into a solid crystalline statue.
“Shield,” Violet whispers, and in unison, she and Calla raise their hands. Something almost invisible shimmers in the air in front of us. At once, the woman raises her hand. Glass shards, jagged and deadly, fly straight at us. Instinctively, my arm flies up to protect my face. But the glass stops, embedded in the invisible layer that hangs in the air in front of us.
I look behind us, hoping the guys have got Mom into the car by now, but their hands are in the air as well, and Mom is draped over Ryn’s shoulder. Perry rushes around the car to join them, while Ryn swears under his breath. “Why isn’t it working?”
I whip my head back around to see that the woman has increased her assault on us—and some of the glass shards are twisting their way through the shield. The first piece slices free on this side and flies straight for my face.
Perry’s hand strikes out, diverting the glass to the side before it reaches us. In the car, Hannah is screaming.
“Be ready when the shield goes down,” Violet shouts. “You know the drill.”
Glass shoots past me and sinks into the metal part of the car door. Hannah’s screams intensify. Then the air is filled with the screech of tires as the car reverses rapidly. The hooded woman sweeps her hand toward it, and a blizzard of broken glass flies from her fingers.
“No!” Perry yells, throwing his hand out. Not toward the woman, but toward the car. It spins out of the way, and the glass embeds itself into several trees. Frenzied revving fills the air, and then the car is speeding away.
“Attack!” Violet yells.
The woman, striding confidently toward us with her hand already raised, is tossed into the air. She spins, flies sideways, and drops onto the ground on the other side of the road. Sick with horror, I take a few hurried steps backwards to where Mom’s lying on the ground. Ryn must have put her down so he could fight. I look up and see him crossing the road with Violet. Calla falls into step with them.
The woman rolls onto her side and extends her hand. Glass pieces skitter across the tar toward us. Ryn sweeps them aside with a wave of his hand, but I drop onto my knees in front of Mom, shielding her just in case. Dash hovers hesitantly at my side, and Perry hurries across the road to join the others.
The woman pushes herself up.
“Don’t let her touch you,” Calla says. “Do not let her touch you.” A shimmering shield appears. On the other side, the woman lifts both hands above her head and, with an unearthly scream, releases a spray of glittering glass into the air. It shreds through the tops of the trees and rains down around her.
“Magic …”
My heart almost stops at the sound of that one quiet word. I look down. Mom’s eyes are half open. She’s staring across the road, but not at the woman or the falling glass or the sparkling guardian weapons now visible. She’s looking at her own outstretched hand—where glowing sparks are drifting lazily around her fingers.
I pull back in fright. “What the actual freak?” I whisper. I blink several times, but the magic is still there. My heart thunders and my mind races. “You have magic. We can use the paths.” I clear my voice and shout, “We can use the paths!”
Dash looks down. “No, your mom can’t—”
“We can. She can.” I jump to my feet, taking Mom’s arm and trying to pull her up. “Open a doorway quickly.”
“But she—”
“Open it!” I struggle to get Mom into a sitting position, but as soon as I let go of her, she falls back down again. She must still be partly sedated. “Help me.” I call to Dash as he writes a doorway spell onto the road. A dark hole grows beside him as he reaches for Mom’s other arm.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes, I saw her—” I cry out as a sharp pain slices across the side of my neck.
“Crud.” Dash throws a look over his shoulder. “The glass is getting through again. Are you—”
“I’m fine,” I say with one hand pressed against my neck. “Get Mom into the paths.”
Together we pull her to the edge of the opening, and just before we fall into it, I see Dash look across the road one last time. I know he’s worried about the others, but as selfish as it is, I care only about Mom right now. I lean into the darkness, tugging Mom and Dash with me.
“I don’t know where we’re going,” I say as silence presses against my ears and Mom becomes weightless beside me.
“I’ve got it,” Dash says, and seconds later we drop onto grass. I stumble as Mom’s sudden weight drags me down, and all three of us end up on the ground. A quick glance around at the night sky above us and the unfamiliar building nearby tells me I’m in a new place. “This is the healing institute,” Dash says. “White Cedars. You’ll be safe here. I need to go back.” He pushes himself quickly to his feet. “They might need help.”
I nod, propping Mom up against my side. “Yeah. Be careful.”
He lifts his stylus, but the air ripples nearby, and Violet, Ryn, Calla and Perry run onto the grass a moment later. “Oh, you’re all right,” Dash says, his expression brightening. “Thank goodness.”
And then suddenly we’re all talking over each other:
“Is your mom okay?”
“Yes, she—”
“What happened to that woman?”
“She got away. Fled the moment she saw you were gone.”
“Why the faerie paths?” Violet asks, her eyes wide with worry. “How did you know she’d survive?”
“She has magic,” I say, and finally everyone stops talking. “She woke up, and I saw it in her hand, sparking around her fingers.” My lips stretch into a wide smile. “She is my mother after all.”
Part Three
Twenty-Three
Every startling revelation over the past several days has given me emotional whiplash—and this one is both the worst and best. I had just begun to accept the fact that Mom wasn’t my real mother, and suddenly that truth has been flipped on its head entirely. It sends my brain spinning once more. It leaves me wanting to sob with relief.
But I don’t have a moment for that, because soon after we arrive on the grass outside White Cedars Healing Institute, several faeries come rushing out to help us. Mom is barely conscious, so they carry her quickly inside. Someone cleans the blood on my neck and tells me the cut will be totally healed within the hour, and then they disappear, along with Mom, into a room I’m not allowed to be in.
The rest of us end up in a waiting room that reminds me more of a spa than a hospital, with its gentle lighting, herbal scents, and plants that seem to form part of the building itself. Not that I’ve ever been to a spa, but I’ve seen movies.
“That was the same woman who appeared just before you guys rescued Em,” Dash says, pacing across the wooden floor. “By the cliff, when the guardians and Unseelies were fighting. I mean, I didn’t see her face, but that silver cloak looked the same, and there were glass shards flying about that day. I assumed they were part of someone’s offensive magic, but it mu
st have been this woman.”
“Did you see what she did in the hospital?” Calla says. “Before we got Em’s mom out?”
“Yes.”
“She touched one of the nurses and he transformed instantly into a frozen glass structure. One touch, and that was it. Then she pushed him over, and he shattered into a million pieces.”
Violet sucks in a quiet gasp and covers her mouth with her hand.
Perry looks up. “That’s what happened at that boarding school and the village by Twiggled Horn. Those attacks I told you about.”
“I know,” Calla says. “That’s what I thought of the moment I saw it.”
“Plus several more incidents from the past few months,” Perry adds. “Cases of missing fae where the only thing left behind was shattered glass. We couldn’t understand what those were all about until eyewitness explained what happened in that village a few days ago.”
“And then you realized those people weren’t missing after all,” Ryn says, his voice grim. “They were the shattered glass.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the connection between all the attacks?” Violet asks.
“It may be a coincidence,” Perry says, “but the only connection so far is that most of those who’ve been killed either worked at the Guild in the past, or were related in some way to Guild employees, either past or present. But again, it could be a coincidence, since some of the deaths were fae unrelated to the Guild in any way.”
“They could have been collateral damage,” Violet says.
Perry inclines his head. “Possibly.”
“So either this woman in the silver cloak is the one carrying out these attacks,” Calla says, “or there’s a group of fae who all dress the same and attack with the same magic.”
“That can’t be,” Violet says with a frown. “This must be a Griffin Ability, right?”
“Must be,” Ryn says. “Any faerie can transform things into glass, and our magic itself can be shaped into glass if we choose, but to transform living beings? That shouldn’t be possible. At least, not by any spell I’ve heard of. It must be a Griffin Ability.”
“I think I’ve seen her before,” I say, finally speaking up. “The same day my magic revealed itself. The day of the party, when I accidentally used my Griffin Ability. I was heading home, and I saw a cloaked person touch a man, and he turned into crystal or glass or something.”
Dash brings his endless pacing to a halt. “You didn’t mention that before.”
“Well, to be honest, I didn’t believe my eyes. I had no idea magic existed yet. I thought I was, you know, starting to lose my mind like Mom. So … I just ignored it. I ducked behind a building, and when I looked again, it was all gone. And so much has happened since then that I didn’t remember it until just now when she appeared on the other side of the road. I didn’t notice her the day the Guild and the Unseelies were fighting over me.” I give Dash a pointed look. “Guess I was preoccupied with the fear that I was about to be killed.”
He rolls his eyes and looks away. Perry gets to his feet. “Well, uh, I’m going to check on Hannah.”
“Did she get away safely?” I ask.
“She did,” Perry says, not meeting my eyes. “I went to find her while the healers were getting your mom into a room. I … I’m sorry she panicked and fled. She’s never been in a situation like that before.”
“It’s okay,” Ryn says quietly. “We don’t blame her.”
I chew on my lower lip, deciding not to comment. I was horrified when I watched what I thought was Mom’s only safe escape route speed into the distance. But I get why Hannah did it. She was looking out for herself—a skill I’ve been honing for years.
After Perry leaves, Violet turns to Ryn. “I think we need to get home too. Check on Jack, make sure those other Seer visions were dealt with.” She looks at me. “We’ll come back a bit later and keep you company.”
“I’ll stay here with Em now,” Calla says.
“Oh, I don’t mind waiting on my own,” I tell them. “Seriously. Calla, your husband just came back from … somewhere. Wouldn’t you rather be with him?”
“Sure, but I can see him later.”
“No, it’s fine, really. I’m happy on my own, and I know you’ve all got stuff to do.” Violet and Ryn exchange a glance. “Seriously,” I repeat.
“Okay,” Violet says, “but we’ll be back a bit later.” She leaves through the faerie paths with Ryn and Calla. I look at Dash, expecting him to leave through another faerie paths doorway, but he walks to a chair a few seats away from me and sits. He shifts his body to face mine.
“Seriously, Dash. I don’t mind waiting on my own.”
“How’s your neck?” he asks. “It looks almost better from over here.”
I’d forgotten about the cut, actually. I place my fingers gingerly against the area. There’s no pain, and a raised line of skin tells me a scar has already formed. “Holy crap. It healed so quickly. I thought they were exaggerating when they said it would be better within the hour.”
Dash smiles. “And you know the scar will heal too, right? That will also be gone within the hour.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Also …” He leans forward on his knees. “I’m sorry the rescue plan for your mom turned into such a mess. The rest of us deal with that kind of magical confrontation all the time, but for you and Hannah, it must have been scary. Things could have gone badly wrong.”
“But they didn’t. Everything worked out in the end.” I smile, which seems easier now than it’s been in a long time. “I’m just so happy Mom’s out of that hospital. I’m happy we’re in the same world again, and that all that stuff about her not being my mom was just a nightmare.”
He nods. “Yeah. Hopefully.”
My smile slips a little. “What do you mean hopefully? She’s my mother. How could she not be?”
“Well, I just mean … you look like a faerie and she doesn’t, so how does that work?”
“But I didn’t look like a faerie either before my magic broke out, right? You said you couldn’t always see my blue hair. So obviously Mom is the same.”
“Yeah …” He shakes his head. “I still don’t understand why it happened that way for you. Faeries don’t grow up with blocked or inaccessible magic. Halflings do, sometimes, but you’re not a halfling.”
“Okay, so maybe Mom and I are some strange type of faerie you’ve never come across before. That could be possible, right?”
He lifts one shoulder in a slow, uncertain shrug. “I guess.”
“What other explanation is there? Actually, never mind. In this world, there are probably a whole host of strange, complicated explanations involving different kinds of magic. And I don’t care to know any of them.”
Dash looks down at his hands, then quietly says, “I’m not trying to make you upset again. And whether she’s biologically related to you or not doesn’t change who she is to you. I just thought you would want to know the truth about the situation, whatever it happens to be.”
I lean back, pull my legs up, and wrap my arms around them. “You think I might want to know the truth? That’s interesting, considering you never told me what really happened in the park that day.”
A frown pulls at his features, but he doesn’t look up at me. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I’m talking about.” My arms tighten around my legs. “You saved my mother’s life. There was something else there that day. Something I didn’t see because you knocked us both out of the way. Something that might have … killed her.”
Dash slowly leans back, rubbing one hand along the side of his neck. “Who told you?”
“Violet.”
He nods, but says nothing.
“So? Why didn’t you tell me? I realize you couldn’t explain it before, but since everything happened in the past few days, you still haven’t told me.”
“Because … I mean … how would that conversation have gone? You would have said, �
��You ruined my mother’s life.’ Then I would have said, ‘Actually, I saved it.’ And then you would have told me, ‘Spending the rest of her days in a mental hospital is not the same as saving her life.’ Then we’d probably argue some more, and you’d still hate me.”
I’m quiet for a moment, because I have to admit there’s a strong likelihood things would have gone that way. “Maybe. Or maybe I’d hate you less. Or … I don’t know. Maybe I’d be grateful she’s still alive. I am grateful she’s still alive. There’s a chance, at least, for her to get better. But you’ve known all this time that you actually helped her that day, and instead of letting me in on that little secret, you allowed me to blame you for landing her in hospital.”
“Wait.” He straightens a little. “Are you angry with me?”
“Yes!”
“But I thought we just established that I actually saved your mom’s life.”
“Yes, so now I have to be grateful to you. Which sucks because I don’t like you. So the whole thing just … pisses me off!”
He stares at me another moment, then doubles over with laughter.
“Oh, fantastic. This is all just hilarious, is it?”
“You have to admit,” he says between breaths, “that it is.”
“I don’t have to admit anything.” I cross my arms, but there’s a smile tugging at my lips, and I’m finding it impossibly hard to fight it. So I give in and let it stretch across my face. I think a small laugh might even escape me.
Eventually when we’re quiet again and I’m staring at my hands, I lace my fingers together and slowly let out a long breath. It frustrates me that I have to be grateful to him, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am grateful to him. “Thank you for saving her,” I say, and though my voice is small, I know he hears it.
“You’re welcome, Em.” He looks over at me and grins. “See? We can be mature. Isn’t it nice?”
My smile is back again. “I guess it isn’t completely overrated.”
He stands and pushes his hands into his pockets. “Do you want to go find something to drink? Or eat?”
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