Catnip & Curses (The Faerie Files Book 2)

by Emigh Cannaday

  Her loving gaze warmed my face as she stroked my cheek.

  The look on Lord Tierstand’s face grew more confused and irritated. If Sanne hadn’t been standing right beside me, I had no doubt he’d have taken a swing at me.

  "This can't be true," he snarled. "Taken? Taken by whom?"

  "By Sluagh," I replied, the name of the blue handed monster catching in my throat.

  Sanne recoiled back in horror. Lord Tierstand’s eyes widened like saucers.

  "Sluagh!"

  "Solana's most faithful servant. "

  "I knew he had been seen on the castle grounds," said Sanne. “I knew it! Niklas, can you not see what I see?”

  Lord Tierstand held his face in his hand for a second before standing up and approaching me. He stared so deep and so long into my eyes that at first I wondered if he was trying to intimidate me into running away. But I’d been led here by a force that I didn’t even understand, and my feet remained firmly in place.

  Suddenly, Lord Tierstand sucked in a sharp breath and shuddered. Then he blinked, and I could see his eyes had become glassy with emotion.

  "If this is true, then the child I raised as my son . . . The child who I have loved so dearly, who I've held with such high regard and am so proud of . . . Then he . . . "

  He walked away from me as though unable to cope with the realization.

  "He is no son of mine at all."

  With his back to me, he faced the fire. With stooped shoulders, he held his head in his hands as his wife rushed to his side to console him. I stayed right where I was, not wanting to push him any further than he was mentally prepared to go.

  "I know hearing this kind of news is upsetting,” I told him. “But the boy you raised will always be your son. It doesn’t change the love you have for him."

  Lord Tierstand turned his head slightly towards me.

  “I’m in the same position. I grew up thinking I was living in the right home and that the parents who raised me have been mine from day one. They’ll always be my parents. They’re the people who made me me. But you and Sanne will always be the people who brought me into the world."

  Lord Tierstand turned on his heel to face me once more. He stood in front of me, the man who was my father, my real father, but I didn't see him as that. He was elven nobility. A marquess. An imposing warrior who now ruled a section of a mystical kingdom.

  My dad, on the other hand, was the guy who lay in a hospital bed after faking a heart attack because he slipped on dog shit in front of the pretty neighbor lady. But he was also the guy who was always at the other end of a phone line when I needed him. The guy who threw the best backyard barbecues. The guy who taught me how to know when spaghetti was cooked by throwing a strand at the wall and waiting to see if it would stick. He was the one who’d raised me to become the man I was today.

  Seeing Lord and Lady Tierstand right in front of my eyes sent me into a level of confusion and raw emotion I’d never felt before. I didn’t know what else to say, so I let tears fall in their place.

  I heard Lord Tierstand's footsteps approach me and his heavy hand rested on my shoulder.

  "This should never have happened," he said softly. "I feel I am to blame. You should have been protected."

  "How could you have protected him against Sluagh and his wicked mistress?” Sanne asked. “Solana will always find a way to perpetrate her evil magic.”

  “But how can she? I thought she was dead.”

  They both glanced at one another then back to me like I’d lost my mind.

  “Dead? Solana?” scoffed the king. "Where did you hear that?"

  "We defeated her . . . ” I faltered. “My partner and I sent her into a big crack in the earth months ago . . . ”

  I was immediately taken back to that moment outside Sylvia's dilapidated house. I remembered Solana right in front of me as Elena and I banished her with a powerful spell. We’d made her melt into the ground, screaming and crying as her disgusting voice seeped into the earth. She might’ve been a threat once upon a time, but she wasn't now.

  "She cannot die," said Sanne.

  "But she did,” I insisted. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Again, they both looked at me like I was insane.

  "There are a lot of things you have to learn about this place and those who dwell inside of it," said Lord Tierstand. "Evil like Solana doesn't die. It simply changes form.”

  "It regenerates,” Lord Tierstand explained, shaking his head. "Solana may have lost to you in a battle in the human realm, but she will have retreated somewhere safe to lick her wounds."

  "So . . . she's not dead?"

  The high fae in front of me both shook their heads.

  "She has been skulking through this kingdom for more years than I care to count,” Sanne told me. “Always seeking power or children. Especially children.”

  “You’re a warrior,” I said, frowning at Lord Tierstand. “Can't someone stop her?"

  “For a time. But not forever," he replied. "She is too evil and powerful. She’s like nothing else this world has known."

  "How can she be so powerful? How did she get that way?"

  They shared a look, although neither of them answered.

  "Solana has spies all over Elphame. She mustn't find you," said Lord Tierstand. "The moment she does, she will come for you.”

  Sanne approached us, her feet barely making a sound as they stepped across the stone tiles.

  “I know where we ought to take him.”

  Lord Tierstand looked down at her, his hand still tightly clenched around my shoulder.

  “Solana will not find him again. I give you my word.”

  Seven armed guards surrounded us as we descended a sharp moss-covered hill. It felt as if we were climbing into the very bottom of the world. Every step brought a new shade of darkness, a deeper sense of foreboding.

  Despite all the darkness, everything around us glistened. I couldn't stop looking above me at the shimmering leaves, searching between them for a hint of sky. But there weren’t any stars or clouds or even sunshine. There was just a film of murky fog. A veil between this world and the next.

  Although I could feel the ground beneath my feet and the crunch of twigs against the soles of my shoes, my surroundings didn't feel real. The world around me was full of contradictions. A place of glittering magic and endless darkness. A place that was as black as much as it glittered. A place both wondrous and terrifying. A place that was supposed to be my home, my birthplace, my sanctuary, but left me feeling like I was in danger.

  On either side of me, Lord and Lady Tierstand walked in silence with solemn expressions pulling at their eyes. I could feel the worry emanating from them. I could practically see the turmoil behind their eyes. As I climbed down a small craggy edge of rock, the marchioness reached out her hand to help me.

  "Just a little wiggle of the foot that way," said Sanne. "The rocks in this realm occasionally have a mind of their own."

  I stepped down, grateful for her help. Letting go of her hand, I meandered down the next stretch of hill, keeping my eyes on the guards. With gleaming armor surrounding their chests, they looked strong and formidable. Definitely more imposing than an FBI agent. Aside from my brain and my sidearm, all I had was a shiny badge from a government agency that the fae probably didn’t think too much about.

  "May I ask you a question?" Sanne asked.

  "Of course," I replied, stepping over another perilously perched rock.

  "What is it like up there in the human world?"

  "It's still dangerous," I told her. "But there's no magic."

  "No magic?" she gasped.

  "Well there is, but most people don’t believe in it. We don’t see too much of it.”

  "Oh dear," said Sanne. “How sad. There's magic everywhere if you'll only look for it."

  We kept on walking, our feet sinking deeper into the moss as the air around us grew thicker and darker, like a heavy weighted blanket.

  Lord and Lady
Tierstand were standing behind me now. I could feel their eyes burning holes in the back of my head. I panicked for a moment, wondering if this had all been an elaborate trap. What were they planning to do to me?

  Then one of the guards outstretched his arms and made a declaration. “Behold, Maettodin Grotto.”

  Everyone stopped, the guards and my birth parents looking down expectantly over the edge of a rocky crag as though they knew exactly what they were looking for. But all I could see was more mist and darkness.

  "We're here," Lord Tierstand announced.

  "Where's here?" I asked.

  “The Maettodin Grotto. No one will find you here. It’s more protected than any fortress in all of Elphame . . . perhaps all of The Hollows.”

  He looked at each of the guards in turn.

  "Stay here," he told them. They all nodded back in acknowledgement.

  Pulling me down into the mist, I was surprised at the strength of Lord Tierstand’s grip. I had no choice but to follow him down over the mossy boulders. My shoes kept slipping beneath me as he expertly stepped over each obstacle. Behind us, Lady Sanne covered the ground with her light feet with hardly a sound.

  "Finally, we have arrived," she said. "Look."

  I was never the best with heights, and as I looked a few inches beyond my feet I cold see nothing but a swirling abyss of mist.

  "Go on,” she urged me.

  But I froze.

  "Don't be afraid. Take a step and look."

  "I . . . I can't . . . "

  After all I’d been through, and now my fear of heights was getting to me. Typical. With my heart in my throat, I leaned forward anyway. It felt like I was dangling my head and torso off the edge of the world.

  "What do you see?" she asked me.

  “Um . . . I see a whole lot of mist."

  "And?"

  “Darkness. Empty darkness.”

  "Keep looking."

  "I can't. I'm dizzy. I don’t see anyhing but . . . "

  Trying to blink away the dizziness and nausea, I held my breath and tried to steady myself. After a few seconds, my eyes eventually started to adjust to the vision in front of me.

  That's when I saw it.

  At first it looked like nothing more than a golden cloud. But the longer I looked, the more it started to take shape until I was staring into the mouth of a cave. But not just any cave. An enormous one that could’ve parked three jumbo jets nose to tail and still left room for a bus. It wasn't just a cave tucked into the hillside. It was an entrance to another world.

  “The Maettodin Grotto is the safest place in all of our lands,” Sanne explained. "You will stay here."

  Just like everywhere else I’d visited since I'd arrived in The Hollows, there was an earthen musk in the air. Now that we were underground, it was exaggerated by lingering dampness and cold. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. The sound of dripping water echoed all around us, bouncing off the walls of the glittering golden cave. I saw paintings and carvings, ancient artworks done by the oldest inhabitants of this realm.

  "What is this place?" I asked through my now chattering teeth.

  “This cave has been here since the beginning of time," answered Lord Tierstand, his powerful voice booming throughout the cave. For a second, I wondered if his voice might crumble the walls around us. “It is a sacred place to our family. No one outside of our bloodlines can enter.”

  He stepped towards the entrance of the cave where a curtain of mist hung in front of his face like a silvery snowstorm.

  “And you’re absolutely positive that no one will find me here?" I asked.

  "No one.”

  I nervously glanced around the place. I listened to the sound of the dripping water and felt the cool draft on my skin. I took in the smell of the wet limestone and let the ambience wash over me. I knew I was in a sacred place, somewhere older than humanity. The walls glittered and shone, pale golden light reflecting from one uneven wall to another. As beautiful as it was, I couldn’t help wondering why the family's legendary panic room wasn’t just a little warmer. And was it too much to have a couch or at least a comfy chair to sit in? If I was going to be stuck down here for an undetermined length of time, I at least wanted to not freeze my balls off.

  Sanne’s fingers pressed against my back, and she coaxed me towards a nearby circle of boulders. They looked like they’d been put there thousands of years ago, maybe used as a seating arrangement for the ancient gods of the fae.

  "How long do you want me to stay here?"

  "Until you can leave."

  "But how long will that be?"

  Again, neither of them answered my question. Instead, they stood up and prepared to leave.

  "If only I had known," was all Lord Tierstand said. Then he walked out of the cave and into the wall of mist. Sanne lingered behind him, not quite so eager to leave.

  "We may not have raised you," she said, “but we both love you nonetheless. You are still our little Niklas. You always will be."

  Thrusting her hand into a pocket inside her dress, she pulled out something small and held it in her fist.

  “If you leave this place, nothing can keep you safe,” she said. I looked around the cave and shivered again. Exactly how long was I supposed to hide out here for? And why wouldn’t they tell me?

  “Take this hag stone,” she said, pressing a warm, solid object into my hand. I looked down to see what looked like a beach pebble with a hole in the middle. “It belonged to my mother, and her mother before her. At least this way, you will see her coming."

  I clutched it tight, feeling its warmth and power.

  "Hold it up to your eye," she instructed me. I held it like a stone monocle to my face. "Through this you will be able to see into the other side. You can peer into other worlds. Monsters, humans, and fae . . . demons and spirits . . . they are all visible through the eye of the stone."

  She smiled at me warmly before turning to leave.

  "So long, my dear,” she said. "I will see you soon.”

  “Any idea how long that’ll be?”

  But just like her husband, she turned her back to me and walked out into the mist. I stood there for a long moment, hoping she would come back, then I looked down at the stone. Right then, it was all I had.

  22

  Elena

  “Well, he has to be around here somewhere,” Carl insisted. “I’ve checked all the bedrooms. Logan’s not in any of them. And the bathroom’s empty, too. He's not anywhere inside the house.”

  “He's not out here, either,” said Katrina from behind me. She'd crawled out of the side gate to Patrick’s backyard, and was now brushing sandy soil and dead leaves from the knees of her suit pants. “Trust me, I’ve searched everywhere,” she went on. “The three of us have combed through every inch of this place and there’s no sign of Logan, other than his car. Do you think he’s hiding in a neighbor's yard?”

  She and I both looked towards the gates of the nearest house. The only way Logan could make his way in there was if he suddenly conquered his fear of heights and scaled a seven-foot privacy fence without the security system noticing him.

  “I seriously doubt he’s hiding in anyone’s backyard,” I said, and folded my arms across my chest.

  “I don't understand,” Patrick said, looking like he was on the brink of tears. The three of us had descended upon his home and found the Tahoe parked out front, and Patrick searching his large backyard . . . presumably for Logan. “He wouldn’t leave until I agreed to help him,” Patrick had confessed without any trouble. “I thought he was stable, so I went to blow my nose in the other room. When I came back, he was gone!”

  “And you didn’t think to call me?” I huffed.

  “I thought he got up and left!” Patrick said, clearly just as frustrated as I was. “I’ve never had anything like this happen before. It's like he just melted into my couch!”

  Only now, as I heard the worry in Patrick’s voice, did I begin to feel especially concerned.
>
  “I swear I only left him alone for a couple minutes,” he said. “Logan has to be somewhere nearby.”

  “Okay,” replied Katrina, putting her hands on her hips and looking up at the house. “But if we don't find him soon, we're going to have to call backup.”

  “Don't call backup,” I said. “I don’t want anyone else involved. Not yet.”

  “I can find him, if you could all just hush up for a minute,” Patrick said. We all turned to him to find him with his eyes clenched shut. Both of his hands were outstretched, one index finger pointing to the sky while the other pointed down into the ground.

  “I can feel him,” he said. “I'm getting a faint signal from him . . . but it's confusing. It's like nothing I've ever sensed before. It's like . . . ”

  Patrick’s face scrunched up like he'd suddenly developed an excruciating migraine.

  “He’s not here.”

  “I think we’ve got that much figured out,” Carl said. Patrick ignored him.

  “I mean Logan’s not here on this plane of existence. He’s beyond this dimension . . . but it feels like he’s underground.”

  Carl held a hand to his forehead and let out a long, exasperated sigh.

  “Just tell us something that makes sense,” he groaned. “Aren’t you psychic? Can’t you tell us where to look for him?”

  “No,” came Patrick's surprising answer. “He'll come to us when he’s ready.”

  “Yeah . . . that’s not gonna work for me,” I replied firmly. “We need to find him pronto. He's in danger and I'm not gonna sit around on my ass waiting for him to magically appear.”

  But as soon as I said this, I realized that it was most likely magic that had taken him. And it was magic that had to bring him back.

  I walked around to the front of Patrick’s house, glancing up and down the street. Part of me hoped that if I kept looking, I might see Logan's figure slink out the darkness with a boyish grin on his face.

  “Ta-da! It was all a joke!” I hoped he'd say. And then I’d threaten to kick his ass for scaring me like that.

  But I knew that wasn't gonna happen. This was the furthest thing from a joke.