by D. D. Chance
I squinted at him, not feeling any better. “That sounds like a trap.”
“Not a trap,” he promised, leaning forward to brush his lips over mine. A warm, comforting wash of sensation flowed over me, and once again, I could practically hear the gentle beat of Grim’s heart, the surge of the blood in his veins. “If there’s any way possible, we’ll find it. Together.”
“Really?” I asked, hating the tremulousness of the word, but unable to help myself.
“Really,” he said. “So let’s figure out a way. I don’t plan on giving you up if I can help it.”
He reached for my hand. “But first, we have a date with your father’s fortress. This isn’t going to be quite so easy this time.”
“I know,” I sighed. Together, we stepped through the wishing gate—and into the monster realm.
The wraiths were waiting for us.
24
Falling back into the center of the gray wizard’s stronghold started out fairly easily. The windows stood wide open, the way was clear, and the center of the turreted room was bathed in sunlight. As we neared the windows, though, the picture changed, growing darker and murkier. By the time we tumbled into the room, we landed in what might as well have been a pit of vipers.
“Return it!” Grim roared, and I knew exactly what he meant. I needed to return the miniature to its place on the wizard’s shelf. I didn’t know if that would solve our severe wraith problem, but it sure as hell couldn’t hurt. Unfortunately, the moment I tried to accomplish my mission, they struck, more mouth and teeth than body, each bite resulting in a vicious slash of pain.
Grim instantly transformed into a snow leopard Akari and moved to cover me, literally, daring the creatures to get any closer as I crawled desperately for the wall. At the last minute, he darted away, taking most of the wraiths with him. They reoriented as quickly as I hauled up the side of the shelf to return the bauble to the upper-right corner where I found it—
The creatures disappeared.
I flopped onto the floor, and Grim crunched heavily down. He reverted to his human form, breathing heavily, not moving. He’d been bitten and scraped in half a dozen places, and those wounds weren’t healing instantly either.
“These guys really take their job seriously,” I muttered.
“They’ve only got one job: to protect Cyrus’s house and everything in it. Who knows what form they take when he’s present? But you can bet that if they didn’t protect his home, he could easily keep them in their shadowed state.”
“I know, I know… And good help is hard to find. I still doubt I’m going to be picking up any other artifacts while I’m here.”
“I don’t see what the value of us being here is,” Grim said, sounding, well, grim. “The witch from the bar means well, but she’s not a monster. I’m not sure how far or well she sees across the veil.”
His words made my heart sink a little bit, though of course, he was right. We knew nothing about Belle the bartender other than that she served up a mean spiked coffee, and she had correctly predicted a few events, one of which, to be fair, was on this side of the veil.
“She could talk to me through the veil, and she knew the guys were coming for you when we were together in your room here,” I reminded Grim. “That has to count for something.”
He nodded. “That’s something. She—or someone attached to her—has to have been here then. It’s something.” He hauled himself to his feet. Then he reached over and pulled me up as well. Bracing ourselves for the reappearance of the wraiths, we spent another few seconds searching the room, with me trying to imagine what my mother must have thought when she’d seen it for the first time. She’d been here, I thought. She had to have been for that painting to have been made, right?
“What do you know about Cyrus?” I frowned as I leaned over my father’s desk, careful not to touch anything. There wasn’t much there—a page of parchment, empty, with a long, thin pen beside it. Several silver Laram bolts lined up with precision at the edge of the desk. A small flower blooming in a ceramic bowl without the benefit of water or even much sunlight, this far back from the windows.
Grim shrugged. “The gray wizard has been a fixture on the western edge of the realm for as long as anyone can remember, a powerful wielder of portal magic and rumored to have access to the most arcane texts in the realm. He’s a scholar, mostly, and a recluse. He does business with outsiders when he finds it to his advantage, but otherwise keeps to himself..”
“Is he immortal? Other than the unfortunate return-to-the-seafloor thing?”
“He may as well be. If he ages, it’s not in any manner that we’ve been able to determine. He keeps to himself. Makes his magic. And he’s always trafficked more with the human realm than the races of his own realm, even before the Wellingtons and the Hallowells began their incursions here. He presents as human, so that helps.”
“Does he have a family? Kids other than me?”
Grim shook his head. “No. The path of a wizard is one of isolation and solitude. It has to be, for him to retain focus. He would never knowingly complicate his life like that. Even his staff are rarely seen, hidden away from any who would pry.”
“That’s kind of a crappy way to live.” I glanced around the room, but there were no wraiths lurking in the shadows, at least not that I could see.
Grim snorted. “Well, it’s not through any sense of loyalty. His servants were probably forced into working for him. The wizard isn’t big on friendships that have no practical purpose.”
“Right.” I led Grim down the hallway to the barren cell where I’d seen the illusion of my mother amidst the flowers and plants. I waved my hand in front of the doorway, but nothing happened. Irritation zipped through me, quick and hot.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I complained.
Grim hummed in commiseration, but didn’t seem surprised. “I believe you saw something. We’re dealing with a wizard. The illusion you saw would have appeared real.”
“There was a painting in here, the same face that was in the miniature. My mom. She was depicted in a life-size painting in the middle of floor-to-ceiling windows as large and airy as the ones in his turreted room. There were flowers everywhere, the most beautiful plants you’ve ever seen.” I stared back at Grim in frustration while gesturing behind me, which was why I noticed when his eyes widened.
“A painting,” he rumbled. And I whirled around toward the room again.
“Yes, it was exactly—”
I stopped. No painting stood in the middle of the crowded tables and trays of plants and flowers. Instead, a woman stood there, no older than I was, her eyes wide, her lips curved into a smile. She leaned over and drew her hand along a delicate petal, whispering to it, and my heart clenched. How many times had I seen her do that in our own backyard? But she looked so young here, impossibly young.
“That’s her,” Grim said. Not a question, but not entirely a statement either.
“Maybe?” I whispered back, afraid to ruin the spell. “I never saw her like this. I don’t have pictures of her dressed like that.”
“So it might not be her?” he asked, and I threw up my hands as I swung back to him.
“You mean, like, is it a trick? Like Elaine Hallowell working with this old-as-hell gray wizard fucker to make me believe that my mother had been here? What would be the point? Who would be such an asshole as to lie to me like that?” As my voice rose, I sensed the shift in the room beyond and shot a glance back—then stopped.
The woman who might be my mother glanced up as if noticing me for the first time. Her eyes brightened and so did her smile.
“Regin?” she asked. I exchanged a startled look with Grim. Regin? Who the hell is that? He shook his head, equally mystified. “Don’t tell me you’ve brought me something else. It’s already so beautiful here, I don’t know how you don’t pass out from sheer joy.”
I bit my lip hard, willing the pain to counteract the sense of vertigo. This illusion sounded like my mot
her. How could someone know what my mother sounded like and get it so perfect after all these years?
She clapped her hands and held them out palms up, greedily. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” she cooed. “I’m going to have to love this one most of all.”
My breath caught. She would say that line with each new sprout that poked its head up out of the warm spring soil. It was one of her favorite sayings.
I swallowed, trying to reconcile this image with that of the woman who’d implored me not to come to Wellington Academy, not to set foot anywhere there were groups of hunters banded together.
“Run,” she’d shouted, far away and somewhere else, warning me to flee the very collective that I’d joined. But this wasn’t that woman. This was someone delighted in a newfound gift from a man she knew as Regin. The wizard’s name was Cyrus, but that didn’t mean anything, not in a realm made up of monsters and magic and illusion. He could have called himself anything if it amused him, and commanded his houseful of indentured servants to maintain the lie.
“Mom?” I finally managed. Grim said something behind me, but I could no longer hear him clearly. This had to be some sort of recording, some magical reenactment of a time when my mom was happy, accepting gifts from a man she trusted, believed in. Had she shared her hopes and dreams with him? Had they made plans for the future?
My mother turned away. Something was in her hands now, and she cradled it against her.
“So beautiful,” she murmured again. “I know just the spot for it.” She leaned over, but I could no longer see what she was doing. Unable to help myself, I stepped into the room.
The image around me shifted and split, no longer a flower-filled solarium, but a library filled with books that lined the shelves and lay scattered on thick wooden tables. Illuminated by a single overhead light, my mother whirled around, her face changing instantly to one of fury. “How dare you!” she seethed, making me flinch. “I know what you are, I know what you all are, and I’m not going to let you win.”
She spoke with such outrage that I turned to look behind me, to see what horrible person she was addressing. I expected to see the thin gray magician standing over my shoulder, or at the very least, Grim, but neither person was there—there wasn’t even a door directly behind me anymore. We stood in an ordinary cavernous library room, no place I’d ever been, and there was nobody else with us. Nobody at all. I turned back to her, and my mom clapped her hands over her face. She shook her head, stepping away.
“No, no, no,” she muttered. “That’s never going to work. I’m never going to get anywhere with anger. They’ll have to let me stay with him. They’ll have to understand.”
She sighed and sat at the table again, while I stood rooted in place.
“Um…Mom?” I tried, but there was no response. My mother pulled a book toward her, flopping it open disgustedly, like any college student forced to study a subject she no longer enjoyed.
“Janet?” Once again, she didn’t move, and I blew out a long, measured sigh. “Ah…Rose?”
With that, she focused on me, as if realizing for the first time I was there, her face clearing. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry. Have I overstayed my allotted time?”
“No,” I said, my mind scrambling. Who did she believe I was? Some kind of librarian? A research clerk? It didn’t matter. In that moment, I wanted more than anything to talk with her, to be with her. I wanted to ask her a million questions and then start over and ask them all again. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Oh, no. But thank you.” She shook her head and dropped her hand toward her belly before correcting its trajectory and moving awkwardly instead to brush her hair out of her face. “Unless you have a book on how to win arguments every time.”
My throat closed up. She’d gone from blissfully happy to angry to now…unbearably sad, in the space of a few moments. My heart tugged at the worry on her face, pinching her mouth, drawing down her eyes. I wanted to do anything to wipe that concern away. “What argument do you want to win?”
She sighed, then offered me a sad smile. “They won’t let me tell him that I’m going to have his baby—and they won’t tell me why. It’s such a silly thing, but they’re very upset that I want to tell him. I mean, I have to tell him, don’t I? That’s only right. And he…he’ll be happy for me. For us. I know he will. I so want him to be.”
I nodded with as much encouragement as I could manage, but inside, I was reeling. Who was she talking about? Who were “they?” Elaine hadn’t known about the baby. None of them knew.
“Who?” I asked.
I expected her to turn to me in fear, maybe even anger, but she just sighed. “They’re so beautiful and so powerful, and they know so much about every growing thing. They only want to keep the realms safe, and it is beautiful, isn’t it? So much more so than here. And so many ways in. Doors where walls should be, everywhere you look.” She sighed, glancing around with a derisive frown. “But I can’t leave this place, not yet. It’s the only library where I could find the information I need about my family, to be ready—only, there’s nothing here. It’s like all the most important books are missing, and it’s so frustrating!”
I nodded. If this was a reference library on Wellington’s campus, it was entirely possible there were books missing. The Hallowells would have tried to wipe away any reference to the monster realm. “You’re searching for information on the gray wizard?” I hazarded, and she sighed, slumping back in her seat.
“My beautiful Cyrus,” she sighed. “He’s so much more than they give him credit for. They say I’m in danger and that he’ll turn on me, that they all will turn on me. They can only protect me so much. But I don’t need their protection. He loves me. I know he does.”
Her eyes shone with tears. “Should I go, like they want me to? Should I leave this realm and never come back?”
I didn’t know what to say. This was my mother asking if she should abandon my father, a man who’d tried to kill me a couple of different times already. Who had killed his two competitors, then thrown his lot in with the Hallowells as chairman of Evil, Incorporated. Not exactly great boyfriend material, but what if she knew something I didn’t about the gray wizard? Shouldn’t I give her love the benefit of the doubt? Before I could respond, her attention went to something behind me, and her eyes widened in real fear.
“The hunters!” she gasped. “Oh my God, the hunters. They’ll kill me. Kill my baby. They told me this would happen!”
She was backing up now, and I glanced behind me, but once again, there was nothing there. Where was Grim? As I peered harder, my mother gave a dark and bitter laugh. “They can’t kill him, though. If they even set foot in his stronghold, they’ll all die. He’s woven magic into their very teeth and nails, and that makes them lethal to anyone who stays too long inside his home—except me.” She sighed. “He loves me. He can’t be what they say he is.”
I turn toward her again, shocked. Lethal teeth and nails? I thought of the wounds Grim had sustained while I’d been replacing the miniature in its library shelf shrine. “What are you talking about?” I asked urgently, but my mother had refocused on her table with its books, scowling mulishly at her text. I felt like I had whiplash with as many times as she’d changed her focus, but I couldn’t deny my own growing anxiety.
“Um…stay here,” I said to her. “I need to check something.”
“I’ll be here,” she sighed. “It’s not like I have much choice. I’ve got to prove them wrong—all of them. Or I’ve got to make sure I keep…everyone safe.”
“Right.” I pivoted on my heel and headed back to where I thought the doorway to this room was, and with every step, I felt like I was trying to push through mud. My feet dragged, my hands punched forward, but I couldn’t get anywhere. Was all this some sort of elaborate trap? What was this library room, anyway? And when would I ever learn to stop jumping into the abyss without any thought?
The scene cleared after another torturous few seconds, and a door appeared
in the mist, solidifying the closer I got to it.
Except, the view wasn’t any better. Grim lay stretched out in the hallway…buried in biting, tearing wraiths.
25
“No!” I rushed forward.
With the strength of my will and damned little else, I broke through the portal and into the hallway of the gray wizard’s keep, sending the few wraiths in my path screeching back in surprise and opening a few feet of access to Grim.
He was no longer in his human form. He lay stretched out on the floor, breathing heavily, bloodied and broken. His snow leopard coat was striped with long gashes and burns.
“You freaking dare!” I whirled around as the wraiths swept back, but I was done with being chased by these fuckers. I pounded after them, grabbing hold of the nearest trailing edges of their ghostly apparitions, my hand passing completely through the smoke, but there was something there that shuddered when I struck.
I swept my hand back the other way as if I was punching the wind. With every shadow-boxing move, my fury grew, my nerves on fire, my blood shooting like acid in my veins as I tried to speak the way the daughter of the gray wizard would. “You freaking dare! You dare to touch a hair on the head of an Akari warrior when he was in this house to protect me. Me, the daughter of this house. How sure are you of your master’s orders when he changes his mind so often? How dare you strike down the noble Asante and expect there to be no consequences?”
For a long moment, my hysterical rage babble seemed to have an effect, but either the wraiths’ fear of their lord and master or their sense of duty prevailed. The creatures flowed back toward me, and I thought of Liam and the insertable fire throwers in his wrists, like some kind of pyrotechnic Spider-Man gone terribly wrong. I had no such fire, and I doubted I could create it out of thin air, but there was magic in this house, dammit, and I was this bastard’s daughter. That had to count for something.
I thrust my hands forward and willed the illusion of flames to burst forth.