“Are ye tellin’ me we’re glorified border patrol officers?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds rather awful.” Rachel sighs. “We’ll work everything out in the morning. Until then, stay inside.”
“Ye dinnae have tae tell me twice,” he says. “Nicht, Rach.”
“Goodnight, Dougal.”
She ends the call, sets the phone down on the coffee table, and sits back. Rachel balls her hand into a fist and props it under her chin, scowling at the coffee table as she thinks about her mother. How will she get her out from under the Night Weaver’s control? Unlike some mothers and daughters, who are total BFFs, Rachel and Jenny have never been especially close. Perhaps it’s because they’re such different people—Jenny isn’t the most responsible person in the world, never has been. She’s a wild-child, a social butterfly through and through. Rachel, however, likes structure and to-do lists and usually enjoys being alone. Their personalities often clash because Rachel won’t ever be the popular cheerleader her mom wants her to be. Still, as different as they are, Rachel loves her mom deeply.
“Right, so I’m ordering pizza,” Orion says, picking up his cell phone as he passes. “Or would you prefer something else?”
“Pizza is fine,” she mutters. Rachel shakes her head. “Wait. They deliver to this ... place?” She wanted to say hellhole but decided not to offend her host.
“Ashfall Heights isn’t half as bad as people think,” he says, scrolling through his contact list. “Apart from a few bad apples, most people tend to keep to themselves. And since I got rid of the previous tenant in 4-D, it’s actually been relatively nice living here again.”
Rachel grimaces. “I’ll bite. What did 4-D do to deserve your special attention?”
“You don’t want to know,” Orion says, lifting the cell phone to his ear.
She waits until he finishes placing the order—a pepperoni pizza with a thick crust and extra cheese—before she says, “I’m curious now. What did the previous tenant in 4-D do?”
Orion sets the phone down on his armrest. “You’ve had a difficult day and I don’t want to add to your nightmares.” He stands from the recliner and makes his way past her again. “Why don’t you go have a bubble bath while we wait for the pizza?”
“And wear what exactly?”
“That’s up to you. You’ve already snooped around in my wardrobe, so take your pick of whatever,” he says, shrugging. “I’ll go find you an extra toothbrush.”
“How—?”
“Most Fae have keen senses, Clarré, best to remember that in the future.” Orion disappears down the corridor. Rachel quickly stands and goes after him. He gestures to the second bedroom, saying, “You’re welcome to the spare bedroom, of course.”
“Of course,” she repeats to his retreating back.
Orion glances over his shoulder, eyebrow rising. “Well, if you’d prefer to share my bed, I won’t deny you the pleasure.”
Rachel feels her cheeks flush. “The spare bedroom is fine, thank you.”
“Thought so, but my door is always open.” He sniggers as he enters the main bedroom and heads to his nightstand. The drawer rolls open. He rummages around inside before pulling out an unopened toothbrush. “Clothes are in there, as you know,” he says, gesturing to the wardrobe as he sets the toothbrush on the bed. “What else?”
“Do you have a hairbrush or comb?”
“There’s one in the medicine cabinet,” Orion says. “Oh, and extra towels beneath the bathroom sink.”
“Thank you.”
Orion begins to make his way out of the bedroom again.
“Hey,” she says, and he whirls around. Orion places his hand against the doorframe, waiting. Rachel holds her elbows, and asks, “Do you have any idea if there’s a way to free my mom from the Night Weaver’s control?”
“I’m not sure,” he says, releasing a disheartening sigh. “But I’m already working on it.”
Rachel gives him a small nod. “I can’t lose her.”
“You won’t. Go relax for a while, okay? I’ll call you when the pizza gets here.” He smiles reassuringly, slaps the doorframe as he turns around, and walks away.
As soon as he’s gone, Rachel opens his wardrobe doors and reaches for a white T-shirt at the top of the stack and a pair of shorts on the bottom shelf. She picks up the toothbrush and heads toward the bathroom. Opting for a shower instead of a bath, simply because it’s easier for her to wash her hair, she stands beneath the waterfall of hot water with her eyes closed for a good five minutes, allowing her troubles to wash away—if only for a while.
Orion wasn’t wrong about it being a difficult day. With all that’s been happening, she’s hardly had an opportunity to deal with all the life-changing revelations. Everything she knows about the world is wrong. Well, not wrong per se, just different to what she was taught to believe. No, not even different. Transcendent.
The children’s faces flash in her memory, those innocent boys and girls who would’ve been lost if things hadn’t worked out the way they had. The little cracked skull, perched upon a morbid pile of child-sized bones, reappears in her mind’s eye, startling her back to reality.
Rachel puts more haste into her movements as she scrubs the dirt and dried inky residue and blood off her skin. A few minutes later, she’s out of the shower and carefully pulling the comb through her wet, tangled hair, trying not to fall back into her thoughts where the skull stares back with its empty, beseeching sockets. She gets dressed in one of Orion’s T-shirts, which reaches to just above her knees, while the shorts she’d chosen from his shelf are far too big around her waist and keep falling down.
“Pizza’s here,” Orion announces from the other side of the door.
“Screw it,” she mutters, tired of struggling with the shorts. “Be right out,” she calls back.
Rachel’s reasoning is: if he wants to look, he’s going to look regardless of what she’s wearing. She walks with confidence out of the bathroom, wearing nothing other than the T-shirt. The pizza guy’s eyes bulge as she passes by the front door, ogling her over Orion’s shoulder. The Fae glances in her direction, before turning to face the delivery guy again.
“If you want to keep your tip, now’s a good time to leave,” Orion says tersely as he grabs the box from the pizza guy’s hands and slams the door.
“So, I’ve been wondering, are the people from Telfore humans?” she asks, walking into the living room. “And if so, are they considered extra-dimensional beings?”
Orion gives her a once over before averting his gaze again as he sets the pizza on the coffee table. He walks over to the La-Z-Boy and sits. “There are humans in every realm, and physiologically they’re the same in every way.”
“Yes, but will they be considered extra-dimensional beings if they travel here?” Rachel takes a seat on the sofa, inhaling the mouthwatering smell of pepperoni filling the apartment. Her stomach rumbles in delight. She picks up one of the slices of pizza and takes a bite, savoring the meaty-cheesy goodness.
“That’s the type of question you need to ask a physics professor,” he says, reaching for a slice of his own. “Telfore is an island, approximately the same size as Madagascar, but it’s a kingdom filled with bigots, racists, and zealots. Even the other human kingdoms in Orthega steer clear of them.” Orion takes a bite of his pizza.
“How many humans are there in Orthega?”
His expression turns thoughtful as he swallows. “When I left there were about eighty thousand humans in Amaris alone, according to the census. With Nova in charge, though, the number could be significantly lower.”
She doesn’t respond, afraid of saying something about the white-haired man she’d seen in his memories—the one who’d seen her—and unintentionally rubbing him the wrong way.
“I have some questions for you,” Orion says.
“Shoot.”
“Why are you able to move through my memories so easily and why can you manipulate Fae light?”
; “The memory thing was completely out of my control. It felt like channel surfing without a remote. As for the Fae light ...” Rachel pulls up her shoulders.
Orion opens his palm and forms a new Fae light. It bounces off his hand and rolls slowly through the air toward her. She smiles as she takes another bite of her pizza, regarding the beautiful sphere.
“I suppose all Fae can make Fae light?”
“Yes. A Fae light is like an extension of our souls. Every Fae’s light differs, be it in shape, color, or power. Some of them even have personality, if the Fae wills it to have one,” he explains. “Tendrils of darkness are, for example, how the Night Weaver’s Fae lights look.”
She reaches out to touch the Fae light again. Ripples move across the surface beneath her touch. Rachel uses her free hand to take the sphere out of the air, holds it in her palm, before she blows it away like a kiss. The Fae light travels across the living room and ricochets back to her.
“What else can you do?” she asks as Orion reaches for a second slice of pizza. “You did say you were proficient in five types of magic.”
He changes back into the scruffy version of himself in a blink. “Glamor comes easily to me.” Orion changes back to his original self. “Healing is another one of my talents, though I tend to rely on elemental magic rather than spirit magic. Then there’s my glisser ability, which is what I call ‘beating traffic’. In layman’s terms, glissering is ... well, it’s difficult to explain. It’s almost like folding space and time and just jumping to where I want to be. Granted, I have my limits. I can’t, for example, travel back in time. Nobody can. But if I envision a place I want to be, and it’s within a ten mile radius, I can get there through glissering in no time whatsoever. It’s not a common talent to have, but it’s not the rarest gift either.”
Rachel responds with a mumbled affirmative as she works on her second slice, still playing with the Fae light, which rebounds from the walls and ceiling, hurtling back to her.
“The other two schools of magic are particularly well-suited for life in the military. Free Form is an incantation-based magic we employ as an offensive tactic on the battlefield, while Abjuration is defensive magic.”
“You can use influence, too, right?”
“Yes.”
“So how come I can still see your glamor?” she asks.
“Glamor and influence are two wholly different schools of magic. Influence is an internal type of magic, whereas glamor is external. The Ronamy Stone only protects you from influence, which is basically mind control. Glamor, on the other hand, is illusion. It’s the manipulation of light waves and electromagnetic frequencies.” He shrugs.
“It’s quantum physics?” Rachel asks.
“Pretty much, yes,” Orion says. “Like I told you earlier, I’m an Omni-Opus. In order to be a full-fledged Intra-Canter, you must be able to do all types of Influencing, which I can’t.”
Rachel finishes her pizza, uses a paper napkin to wipe her hands and mouth, before she says, “Okay, so what kind of Influencing can you do?”
“I can speak in your mind when you’re not wearing your necklace. Where is it?”
She hears his voice loud and clear in her head. “I must’ve forgotten to put it on again after my shower.”
“You shouldn’t take it off, Clarré.”
Rachel blushes as she pushes to her feet. “Fine, I’ll go get it now—” The apartment disappears around her, and instead she stands in a magnificent field of wildflowers. She looks around, surprised in the sudden change of landscape.
“Without your necklace, I can make you see things.” Orion’s voice whispers in her head.
A soft rose scent surrounds her, accompanied by a myriad of other floral fragrances. She can hear the song of birds, an unseen flock chirping happily in the distance. For the briefest moment, Rachel is sure she can taste frozen berries—a taste of spring.
“I can make you smell, hear, and taste things.”
She feels a soft pressure against her lips as a ghost hand rests against the small of her back. Orion materializes in front of her, kissing her gently in the field of wildflowers. Rachel breathes in the alluring smells, reveling in the sounds and tastes featured in this enchanting hallucination as she kisses the ghostlike figure back.
Slowly the field disintegrates, and the ghostlike version of Orion vanishes, while the apartment reappears around her.
“I can also make you feel things,” Orion says from the other side of the room, a half-eaten slice of pizza in his hand. “Don’t take off your necklace or the next time it may not be so pleasant.”
“But why aren’t you considered an Intra-Canter then?” she asks.
“The most important thing about being an Intra-Canter is being able to influence people into doing things they don’t want to do. I can entice your senses, speak in your mind, make you believe what I want you to believe, but I can’t force my will on you,” he explains.
“You made Greg leave,” Rachel says.
“Yes, but it’s because I made him believe he came alone, and he’d overstayed his welcome. I didn’t exactly force him to do anything,” Orion says.
“The Night Weaver is an Intra-Canter, isn’t she?”
He shakes his head. “No, manipulating people isn’t magical. She’s an elemental practitioner who specializes in Shadow Magic.”
Rachel remembers what she’d read about the Night Weaver earlier in Greg’s office, the ancient document which ends with a glimmer of hope. She makes her way to the corridor. “Light will always defeat darkness,” she repeats the line.
“That’s an old Aurial saying,” he says. “Where’d you hear it?”
Rachel turns around to find him setting his uneaten pizza back into the box on the coffee table and picking up a paper napkin from the pile. “I read it in some old text Greg pulled for me from the town council’s archives.”
“Interesting,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate.
Rachel lets the matter go, figuring an old Fae saying won’t be of any use to them in another showdown with the Night Weaver.
Seventeen
Night Everlasting
Dawn doesn’t come.
When Rachel opens her eyes the following morning, the room is still shrouded in the same type of darkness one finds in the wee hours, yet it feels like she’s slept the whole day away. Her muscles are grateful for the much-needed rest, but she would’ve preferred to have been in her own bed, surrounded by her belongings, knowing her mother is safe and normal.
She rolls out of the single bed, sleepily pulls the sheets tight over the mattress, and yawns repeatedly as she straightens the covers and fluffs the pillows. Rachel pushes her fingers through her tousled hair and makes her way to the door. A whiff of coffee enters the bedroom through the cracks between the door and doorframe, growing stronger as she turns the doorknob. The artificial lighting in the corridor assaults her eyes, blurs her vision. She rubs at her eyes as she makes her way through the apartment, following the smell of coffee into the kitchen.
“Morning,” she mumbles. Orion is already dressed in what seems to be his usual getup of jeans and a T-shirt, leaning against the counter, mug in hand.
“Sleep well?” he asks.
Rachel grumbles something unintelligible, complaining about the pillow being too high and the bed too soft, while Orion pulls a second mug off the shelf and fills it to the brim.
“Not a morning person, I take it?” he says, offering the mug to her.
“I am usually.” Rachel looks at the black, bitter coffee in the large white mug, and decides it’ll be for the best to drink it without extra added sugar or milk, especially if she wants a proper jumpstart this morning. “What’s the time?”
“Around nine,” Orion says, taking another sip of his coffee.
Rachel frowns. “But it’s still dark out.”
“Yup.” He pops the ‘p’. “It’s likely the Night Weaver’s pissed off beyond our comprehension. On a more positive note, the phenomenon see
ms to be limited to Shadow Grove.”
“Wonderful,” she mutters. Rachel blows on the steaming coffee, watching Orion. “Do you have any good news to share?”
He pulls her car keys out of his pocket and places them on the surface of the counter. “I took it upon myself to retrieve your car from Pearson Manor, and I hope you don’t mind but I ran a few errands on the way back ...” Orion grimaces as he sets his empty mug in the sink.
“I’m still too tired to mind much of anything,” she says. “Back up. Why does it sound like there’s a but missing in that sentence? What happened?”
“While I was at Pearson Manor, Greg informed me his mother didn’t go home last night.”
She squeezes her eyes shut and fills in the rest. “In other words, my mom hasn’t gone home either.” Rachel uses her free hand to rub her brow before she opens her eyes again and takes a sip of the freshly brewed bitter, black coffee. “Great.”
What do I do? How do I fix this?
Going back to the cave isn’t an option, not in this unnatural darkness. The Night Weaver will have the upper hand in her lair, and there’s no telling how big her army of Darklings has grown after the intrusion she suffered the previous day. Besides, it’s highly probable the town is cast in perpetual night due to the Night Weaver’s search efforts outside of the cave. Perhaps her followers are out and about too, helping to look for Rachel and Orion, maybe even scavenging the area in search of new children to gift to their mistress.
“It all comes down to the Akrah cloak,” she whispers.
“What about it?” Orion asks.
“It’s her biggest strength and her greatest weakness,” Rachel explains. “Our best chance of getting rid of the Night Weaver is to convince a piece of fabric to change its allegiance. How do we go about doing that?”
“It’s sentient. You address the Akrah as you would address a living, breathing being,” he says.
Rachel ponders before she asks, “How would it respond?”
The Night Weaver Page 19