“You’ve heard of the halfling Tharros?”
Nate looks up, but I speak before he can say anything. “Yes, of course. He’s in all the history books.”
“While he was alive he transferred part of his power into several inanimate objects—weapons, jewelry, whatever—so that if he was ever drained of his magic he would have other immediate sources of power to draw from. After he died, some of these objects still had power in them. The one I have is a metal disc with a griffin on it.”
I grip Nate’s hand tightly, trying to signal to him to keep his mouth shut, and rush on. “Where did you get this disc?”
“That, my dear, is none of your business.” She turns to Nate, reaching her hand out to him. Her sleeve falls back to reveal black lines curling across her wrist.
“You’re a guardian?” I blurt out.
She looks down at the markings. “I was,” she says, offering no other explanation. “Nathaniel,” she says gently. “I need your help.” When Nate doesn’t reply, she continues. “This powerful item, the piece of metal with the griffin on it, can help me get out of here. I left it in our home. You need to ask your father where it is. Then you can bring it back to me and I’ll be free.”
Nate sits back in the chair and meets his mother’s eyes. “Is that the only reason you were hoping I’d find you?” he asks. “Did it have nothing to do with the fact that I’m your son and, I don’t know, maybe you missed me?”
“Nathaniel, of course I missed you. I love—”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” he says.
Well, that makes two of us. They stare at each other, neither one blinking. Angelica’s silver eyes harden.
“Perhaps we should go, Nate,” I say quietly.
Angelica pierces me with her silver glare. “And who, exactly, are you?” she demands. “I don’t remember you introducing yourself.”
“That’s because I didn’t. Well done for remembering.”
Nate sighs. “Her name is Violet.”
Angelica’s eyes narrow. Her gaze moves all the way down to my toes and back up again. It’s more than a little creepy. “Well, well, well,” she whispers. “Little Violet. Tell me, how exactly did you meet my son?”
“It’s not little Violet,” I say. “It’s just Violet. Or, if you’d really like to piss me off, you could call me Pixie Sticks.”
She doesn’t appear to be listening to me anymore, though. She’s staring at nothing, her eyes glazed over as if seeing some invisible scene. “Perfect,” she whispers. She snaps back to the present with a blink and slowly rises from her seat. “I think a change of plan is in order,” she says.
She whips her hand to the side and the branches beneath me melt into nothing. I’m startled for a second, but recover almost immediately. I twist as I hit the floor, roll onto my knees, and spring to my feet. A knife glows in my clenched fist. Angelica’s a split second ahead of me, though, and the tangle of branches she sat on just moments before hurtles toward me. I duck out of the way and throw the knife at her. She deflects its path with a silver spark of magic and jumps aside as the seat swings back toward her.
“Stop!” Nate shouts.
Angelica runs at me, faster than I would have thought possible. I drop to the floor at the last second and send her over my shoulder. But she somersaults in the air, spinning and kicking me in the back. I sprawl across the floor and feel her land on top of me. She pins my arms behind my back.
Well, this is embarrassing. I haven’t found myself in a position like this in years.
“What the hell are you doing?” Nate shouts.
“What I’ve been waiting years to do,” Angelica mutters as she struggles with my arms. She leans down and whispers a single word in my ear: “Revenge.” Which makes zero sense, since I’ve never done anything to this woman.
“You want that disc thing?” Nate asks, sounding desperate. “Fine. You can have it. It’s—”
“Nate!” I yell at him. “Stop talking!” Perhaps Nate doesn’t see it this way, but I’m thinking it’s a bad idea to give the woman who just attacked me a magical object that will only make her stronger.
“Listen to me, Nathaniel.” Angelica’s voice is surprisingly gentle. “I’m going to send you back up to Creepy Hollow to find Violet’s parents. Tell them that I’ve got her, and get them to come back here with you. They’ll know exactly what I want.”
What? I stop struggling. How does she know … No. I stop the thought before it can go further. Now isn’t the time to ponder whether this crazy woman knew my parents. “Sorry to ruin your plan, Angie,” I say through clenched teeth, “but my parents are dead.” Angelica pauses. She obviously wasn’t expecting that. “Yup, sorry,” I continue. “You’ve obviously got the wrong Violet.”
Angelica twists my arms behind me until I let out a grunt of pain. “Your parents are dead, huh?” she says. “Well, I suppose everyone gets what they deserve in the end.”
That’s it. Wherever the line is, she just crossed it.
I rip my arms out of her grasp, push hard against the floor, and throw her off my back. I jump at the hollow seat that still swings from the ceiling, pull myself on top of it, and lift my hand behind me. Holding onto the rope with my other hand, I release magic in the form of a gust of air, sending the seat flying across the chamber.
“Oh, how very clever,” Angelica sneers. “Is this what they teach you at the Guild these days? To fly about like a monkey?”
I move my hand, directing the seat toward the spiral staircase. I leap onto the structure just as a flying spear of ice severs the rope, sending the seat crashing to the ground. I hook my foot over one of the lower railings and hurl a flock of screeching birds toward Angelica. She sweeps her hand to the side, transforming the birds into a shower of harmless rain, while I position my arms to hold my bow and arrow. They appear a moment later in a blaze of fiery warmth.
The idea of an arrow in her forehead doesn’t seem to bother Angelica. “Come down here and fight like a real guardian,” she taunts.
“No!” Nate shouts. He’s standing a few feet away from Angelica, looking as though he desperately wants to do something, he’s just not sure what. “Stop fighting!”
I ignore Nate. “Real guardians don’t fall for ploys like that,” I call down to Angelica. “We have no problem shooting from a distance if it means getting rid of the enemy faster.”
“Enemy?” Nate’s voice is higher than usual. “Who said we have to be enemies?”
“Go back to the tunnel, Nate,” I tell him.
“No!” Angelica grabs her son’s arm. She needn’t have bothered. I’m pretty sure Nate wasn’t about to listen to me.
Something cold pricks my arm and I look down to see a tiny white flake melting against my skin. Several more flakes land on my hand, while others disappear with a sizzle as they drift too close to the sparkling arrow.
“Seriously?” Angelica says. “Snow? My opinion of the latest Guild trainers is falling further by the minute.”
“I doubt there’s anyone at the Guild who takes your opinion into consideration,” I say. And the snow must be some strange new labyrinth concoction, because I’ve got nothing to do with it.
“Come down here, silly girl!” Angelica screeches, stamping her foot like a child demanding a new toy. When I don’t respond, she lets go of Nate and, with all her might, throws a glittering white ball of magic at me.
I jump.
Time seems to slow down as I somersault through the air, the floor coming closer, the staircase upside down, the white dots of snow falling oddly upwards.
And then I land—on my feet. Of course. Because I’m the type of person to practice a move until I know I can get it right every time. But I have no chance to pump my fist in the air as I would after achieving a perfect landing during training, because snake-like vines writhe across the chamber floor toward me. I use a sword, slashing from side to side in a figure of eight. Pieces of vine fall to either side, bursting into green flame before smolderi
ng into nothing. But no matter how many I slice up, more keep slithering their way across the stone floor. One of them sneaks its way around my ankle. Before I can cut through it, it tugs me to the floor and yanks me clear across the chamber to where Angelica stands.
“Stop it!” Nate lunges for his mother, wrapping his arms around her neck and waist and pulling her backward. My fingers reach for the handle of my whip. I flick it forward, and the sparkling golden end wraps around Angelica’s ankle.
You’re not the only one who can play this game, I think, tugging hard. I bring her crashing to the floor just as her bare hands ignite with ice-white flames. She wraps her hands around my leg, and pain sears my skin. I kick her as hard as I can with my free leg, and she lets go with a yelp. I scramble toward Nate and shove him under the archway and back into the tunnel, crawling after him as fast as I can. But something solid clamps down on my foot and jerks me backward.
“Nate!” I yell, reaching out to him. A war of emotions fights across Nate’s face, but he grabs my hand and pulls. With my free hand I direct a blast of magic at the metal chain that’s squeezing the feeling out of my foot. The chain only tightens its grip. I turn my power toward Angelica instead, who has a firm hold on the other end of the chain. She tries to dodge, but a purple flame burns across her shoulder. She lets go with a cry of pain.
The tug of war ends, and Nate stumbles backward into the tunnel, dragging me beneath the archway. Angelica throws herself after us—only to slam against an invisible barrier.
“Wait, Nathaniel!” she cries, beating her fists against the curse that traps her inside the chamber. “WAIT, PLEASE!” Nate turns back, his face tortured. “Please, Nathaniel, please. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Yeah, I’ll say. I doubt this was how Nate planned to introduce his girlfriend to his mother. I clutch a fistful of his jacket to hold him back—just in case he feels like rushing forward to her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t leave me here alone,” she begs. Snow falls thickly around her, gathering in her silver-black hair and resting on her arms. Nate shakes his head, his hands in his hair, fingers gripping desperately, knuckles white.
“Come on, Nate.” I can feel a tremor in the ground like distant thunder. “We need to get out of here.”
“NO!” Angelica’s face is wet with tears. Real or conjured, I can’t tell. “No, don’t leave me!”
I tug at Nate’s arm. He takes a few faltering steps backward before turning away from his mother. I pull him, forcing him into a jog. The light I conjured up earlier illuminates the way.
“You’ll come back, Nathaniel!” Angelica’s scream echoes down the tunnel. “When you’re all alone and you realize you don’t fully belong in the human world, you’ll come crawling back to your mother!”
Nate presses his hands to his ears and runs faster. I choose tunnels at random, with no thought for which direction we should be going in. I only want to get as far away from Angelica as possible.
The tunnel narrows and zigzags sharply left and right, left and right, left and right. I sense Nate lagging behind me. I wait until the tunnel straightens out again before slowing to a stop. I bend over to catch my breath.
Silence.
I whirl around, my heart doubling its pace. No footsteps. No breath other than my own.
Nate is gone.
Eleven
I tear back through the tunnel, shouting Nate’s name. I send my mind out, searching desperately. I don’t need one of Nate’s belongings in order to find him. I know him; the connection is already there. But for the first time ever, my mind comes up with nothing. Nothing.
It terrifies me.
I’m well and truly lost now. Ahead of me, the tunnel divides into two paths. A mirror hangs on the wall between them. Without looking into the mirror, I follow the path on the right. It curves slightly, then turns sharply to the left. It continues straight for a while, slopes uphill, then down, then a sharp turn to the right—and I’m standing in front of the fork with the mirror again.
Wait. That doesn’t make sense. How did I walk in a circle? I choose the path on the left this time. I walk in a straight line for what feels like ages before the path disappears around a corner—and ends up at the fork with the mirror.
I go left again, running now, and the path is completely different, and within minutes I’m back where I started.
“Stop it!” I scream out loud. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” I turn around and run back the way I came. I keep going. Going and going and going, and there’s no mirror anymore, just the light that bobs a few feet in front of me, and a voice singing somewhere in the distance.
The voice is deep and rich, like velvet to my ears. I follow it, hoping that at the source of the voice is someone who knows what happened to Nate. The ball of light ahead of me never dims, which is strange. I spent a considerable amount of energy holding the water back earlier, and I used up magic to fight Angelica. And, of course, it took immense power to stun a creature as big as that troll. I should be exhausted now, my strength waning, my power diminishing.
I come to a complete stop as something registers in my mind. The griffin disc. Angelica must have told the truth about it containing power. How else would I still have strength? I continue forward once more, my mind ticking over the events of this evening. I think of the books I sent colliding into my shelf, and the glass ball I exploded in Tora’s library, and the light that nearly blinded Nate when we first arrived in this tunnel. All because I didn’t realize I had a booster pack of magic in my pocket.
My feet stop at the edge of a bare cavern. I’ve found the source of the voice: a centaur. The bottom part of his body is covered in sleek, copper-colored hair. It matches the hair on his head, which is tied neatly at the nape of his neck. He’s standing in the center of the empty space, facing a large stone that leans against the other side of the cavern. A shield is slung across his back.
“Excuse me,” I say, loud enough to be heard above his singing.
The abrupt silence rings in my ears. The centaur turns to me, and I see he’s carrying a sword in his hand. “Ah, you’ve answered my call,” he says. “I’ve been looking for you ever since you arrived here.”
“What?” I’m distracted, but only for a moment. “No, I need your help. It’s urgent. Have you seen—”
“You will come with me now.” He walks toward me, the clip-clop of his hooves echoing in the cavern.
“Stop.” I hold up my hands and place an invisible wall of magic between us. “If you’ve been looking for me, then you’ve also been looking for the guy I was with. Where is he?”
“You will come with me to the Silver Lady,” the centaur says. “She demands to see everyone who enters her labyrinth.”
“I don’t have time for this!” I shout, urgency boiling within me. I can’t remember the last time I cried, but I feel ridiculously close to tears right now. “If you know where he is, then tell me. If you don’t, I’d appreciate it if you’d get out of my way.”
He raises his sword and points it directly at me. A bolt of white light shoots from the tip. It hits my barrier of magic, causing it to shimmer in protest. He shoots again. And again, and again. I can feel the barrier weakening. I do what I did with the troll, gathering as much power as I can while the barrier still protects me. It doesn’t take as long; the centaur is big, but not nearly as big as the troll.
With a burst of power, I push the barrier toward the centaur before letting it disappear. He stumbles backward. I hold the swirling ball of magic in one hand, pull my arm back, and throw it with all my might. The centaur flies backward, hits the wall, and slumps down onto the floor.
It’s horrible to see such a majestic and beautiful creature lying motionless, almost dead. But he was blocking my way, and I have to find Nate. I run to the other side of the cavern. Holding my hands a few inches away from the stone that leans against the wall, I force it to move. With a grinding rumble, the stone begins to roll to one side, revealing an
opening in the wall behind it.
I consider creating another ball of light, but the ever-present sparkles in the ceiling are enough for me to see by. And what I can see is that there’s nothing on the other side of this opening but another tunnel. There must be a reason it was concealed though, so I step through and hurry forward.
After only a few minutes, I become aware of a thumping sound. Faint but continuous, I can feel it vibrating through the soles of my boots. The tunnel grows larger, gradually widening until it reaches a size that could easily accommodate the troll I stunned earlier. One by one the pinpricks of light in the ceiling wink out, to be replaced by a soft yellow glow that seems to be emanating from the walls.
I continue further, and the thumping is joined by a noise that I strain to make out. Music. Quiet at first, but growing rapidly louder as I advance down the tunnel. I begin to run, the music fueling my need to find Nate. I can see an end to the tunnel up ahead. I run faster, pushing myself, only slowing down when I can see exactly what it is at the end of the tunnel.
A door.
I stop in front of the door, breathing heavily. I raise my hands and rest my palms against it; the wood shudders beneath the beat of the music. Knowing that I don’t have to worry about depleting my supply of magic, I take a few minutes to draw enough power to stun a large man. After all, who knows what might be right behind this door? I wrap my free fingers around the doorknob. Surprisingly, it turns easily. I pull the door open—and find a mass of writhing bodies.
A burly faerie standing at the door turns to me in surprise. He has acid green hair and one eye to match; the other eye is an empty socket. “What—”
I throw my hand forward and stun him without even pausing to think. He falls against the doorframe and slides to the ground. Fortunately, no one seems to notice. I stand on tiptoe—which adds next to nothing to my height—and scan the kaleidoscope of dancers. Flashing lights of various colors reveal almost every kind of fae I can think of. Jumping, dancing, swaying, screaming, laughing. This is clearly where Creepy Hollow’s Underground comes to party.
The Faerie Guardian & The Faerie Prince Page 9