Oh hell, I was talking the whole time I was out there?
“Kidding,” he says, one side of his mouth turning up. “They were actually pretty boring.”
Fantastic, now I have no idea if I was talking or not.
“Shall we go in?” Ryn asks.
“Yes. Unless you’d like to embarrass me further?”
He pretends to think about it. “Maybe later.” He raises his fist and knocks on the door. After several seconds of silence, we’re told to come in.
Councilor Starkweather, her grey- and white-streaked hair pulled tightly into a bun at the back of her head, comes toward the door to greet us. I know she’s several centuries old, but, just like every other adult faerie, her face is flawless and wrinkle-free.
She ushers us in, then shakes my hand, followed by Ryn’s. “I’d like to congratulate you both on a very successful assignment.”
“Successful?” I say before I can stop myself. “At least two humans died. I wouldn’t exactly call that successful.”
She arches an eyebrow. “Only two humans died,” she corrects. “We sent guardians there yesterday to assess the situation. It would appear that no one witnessed any magical activity, which is very fortunate. The human authorities are assuming the fire was an accident and that it caused the death of Mr. Hart and his son.”
“And what did they think of the basement full of magical objects?”
“They didn’t find any magical objects. We’re assuming someone from the Unseelie Court removed them.” She steps back and leans against the edge of her desk. Ryn and I remain standing. “It was in no way your fault that two people died. No one knew that the Unseelie Queen would show up. The two of you were simply asked to find out what was going on at the Hart household and bring back the item that was given to Mr. Hart last week. Since you managed both of these tasks, I expect you’ll receive high points for this assignment.”
“Well, that’s great, but it doesn’t exactly feel right to get lots of points when two people died.” Okay, why am I arguing with the head of the Guild Council?
“Violet,” Ryn says quietly. “I thought you wanted to do well.”
“I do, but only when I deserve it.”
“You do deserve it,” Councilor Starkweather says. “But if you feel so strongly about this, I’d be happy to ask that your points be reduced.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Ryn says, placing a hand on my arm and flashing me a look that clearly says, shut the hell up RIGHT NOW.
“Excellent. Then all that remains is for you to hand over the item. Bran said something to me about a special necklace?”
“Yes.” I notice Councilor Starkweather tapping her shoe as I retrieve the necklace from my pocket; we’re obviously taking up too much of her time. “They called it an eternity necklace, and the Unseelie Prince said he’d never give it back to his mother because she doesn’t deserve to be immortal. So we’re assuming it grants immortality.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of this,” Councilor Starkweather says, taking it carefully, almost reverently. She holds it up to the light, and the teardrop shaped pendant of white stone gleams with a pearlescent sheen. “No one knows how it was made or who its creator was, but it has been in the possession of the Unseelie Court for many centuries.” She places it on her desk and looks at us. “I shall send it to the Seelie Queen immediately; she will be pleased to have it. That is all. You may leave now.”
Okay, that was abrupt. Ryn and I turn toward the door and, in an uncharacteristic show of gentlemanliness, he opens it for me. “That was a little weird,” I whisper after he closes the door behind us.
“She’s lying,” he says quietly.
“About what?” We head down the corridor and away from the councilors’ offices.
“I’m not sure exactly, but she wasn’t being truthful. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s not planning to give that necklace to the Seelie Queen.”
“Ryn, you can’t possibly know whether she was lying or not.”
“Yes, I can. I’m good at reading people, remember? And you also got a weird vibe from her.”
“Yes, but I don’t know what that vibe means. And what can you do about it anyway?” We reach the main stairway and start walking down. “It’s out of our hands now, so we just have to trust that she’ll do whatever she’s supposed to do with it.”
*
Filigree is over his miniature pig phase. He’s also managed to eat through almost every jar of roasted nixles in the kitchen. Only the jar of green bugs remains; they’re clearly his least favorite color. And clearly I’ll have to go shopping this weekend.
I lean back in the kitchen chair and look through the notes I’ve made so far. I absently scratch Filigree—cat formed, curled up on my lap—behind the ears as I try to remember everything that happened during our assignment. I should probably check a few details with Ryn before I write up the entire thing in full.
Filigree stretches and jumps gracefully off my lap. I take advantage of my freedom by heading to one of the cupboards and fetching a teaspoon and a jar labeled Chocolate and Ladyfair Blossom Sauce. It’s supposed to be drizzled over desserts, but I prefer to eat it straight from the jar. I sit down, dip the spoon into the jar, and lick the chocolaty sweetness off it. This happens a number of times while I go through my notes again and mark all the places where I need to check facts with Ryn.
When I start to feel sick, I screw the lid back on, gather my papers, and run upstairs to find my boots. After spending several days barefoot in a torn dress, I’m enjoying wearing pants and boots again. And tops, obviously. Unlike Ryn, I prefer not to walk around topless. Before opening a doorway to the faerie paths, I glance quickly at my appearance in the mirror in my bedroom. Then I shake my head and turn around. Who cares what I look like? It’s just Ryn I’m going to see.
With a small bag slung over my shoulder, I hurry through the paths and exit in front of Ryn’s tree. I knock, then wait several minutes.
I knock again.
I’m about to pull out my amber to ask him where he is when the bark melts away. Zinnia stands in the open doorway, her eyes heavy and her skin creased.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say. “Did I wake you?” It’s early evening still, but guardians keep strange hours sometimes.
“No, don’t worry, I was waking up anyway.” Zinnia smiles as she crosses her arms over her chest. “I assume you’re looking for Ryn?”
“Yes, is he here?”
“I’m afraid not, and I don’t know where he is or when he’ll be back.”
“Oh, okay.” I take a step back. “Well, thanks anyway.”
“Wait, Vi.” She tucks a few curls behind her ear. “I’m actually a little concerned about him. He arrived home this afternoon with his hair all ruffled, a bruise on his chin, and a bleeding lip. And it’s Sunday, so he had no training or assignments. He says everything’s fine, of course, but I’m still worried.”
“Oh.” I remember Ryn’s bruised eye from earlier this week. I probably shouldn’t tell Zinnia about that; it’ll only add to her anxiety. “Well, I’ll ask him about it. Maybe he’ll tell me.”
She nods and smiles, then wipes her hand across the space between us to close up the doorway. I shut my eyes, breathe deeply, and do something I haven’t done in years: I search for Ryn.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
At first I’m not sure it will work—I’m not holding anything that belongs to Ryn—but I find him easily. I suppose it makes sense. We’ve spent a lot of time together recently, so there’s already some kind of connection between us. What I am surprised at is his location; I thought I was the only one who went there these days.
I step out of the faerie paths onto a wide branch. Colors loop and swirl lazily beneath the bark, brightening ever so slightly each time I take a step. A night creature—cat-like, with fiery orange wings—bares its teeth at me before slinking away. I walk carefully along the branch, stepping around the glow-bugs. I climb onto another branch, and then another. I�
��m close to the canopy now, and I can see the sky clearly through the leaves of the highest branches. Scattered stars twinkle between clouds lit up with early evening colors: soft blues, purples and greys.
It’s beautiful.
And it’s good to be home.
“I was wondering if you’d find me here,” a voice says nearby.
I leap lightly into the hollow created where the giant arms of the gargan tree meet. “Sorry to interrupt your alone time. I need to check a few things about our assignment.”
Ryn looks at me. “Is Violet Fairdale asking for my help?”
I put my hands on my hips. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.”
He pats the empty space on the blanket beside him, which I think means he’s inviting me to sit down. “It just so happens,” he says, “that I’m also supposed to be finishing off my report now.”
“Perfect.” I sit down opposite him and cross my legs. I pull my notes and some blank reed paper out of my bag, while Ryn does the same from a bag that was resting behind him.
“Did you bring a table to work on?” he asks.
“Well, no. I thought I was on my way to your house, not a tree.”
He removes a small block of wood from his bag and places it on the blanket between us. “Good thing one of us came prepared.” He writes something on the block with his stylus, then pulls his arm back as the block transforms rapidly into a low table. It’s pretty cool, I suppose, but my attention is caught instead by the scar I’ve just noticed around his wrist. A scar that matches my own.
“You’re supposed to be impressed by the table, V, not my arm,” he says, noticing my stare. “Although—” he flexes his muscles “—it is rather an impressive arm.”
“I was looking at your scar, idiot.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He holds his arm up and examines the narrow strip of skin that’s slightly paler than the rest of his arm. “Weird, isn’t it. I thought it was impossible for us to scar, but Flint said there’s something weird about the metal those bands are made of.”
“Yeah.” I continue staring for a few moments, then blink and look down at my pages. “Anyway, I didn’t know you still came up here.”
“Sometimes,” he says. “I avoided it for a few years after Reed’s death, but not anymore.”
“I brought Nate up here,” I say before stopping to think whether it’s a good idea to share that bit of information with Ryn.
“What?” His voice is low, but his eyes are narrowed and his eyebrows drawn together in anger. “You brought that traitorous halfling up here?”
Why couldn’t you just keep your mouth shut, Violet? “I didn’t know he was a halfling, or that he was going to betray me.”
“So you brought a random human up here?”
I look down, no longer able to face him. “Look, this place is really special to me, and at the time I wanted to share it with—”
“It’s special to me too, V, and I don’t want to know that you brought some random guy up here to do—whatever with. This is our place, no one else’s. Do you think I brought any of my Underground flings up here? No. Because I have more respect for this place than that.”
“I’m sorry, okay!” I slam my fist down on the table as anger, guilt and regret erupt within me. I spread my hand flat as I take a deep, calming breath. “If it makes you feel any better, I wish I’d never shared this place with him. And for your information, there was no whatever.” My cheeks burn at the thought. I’m not actually sure what Ryn meant by ‘whatever’, but I can guess. “Now will you please stop shouting at me before this turns into another fight where we both wind up threatening to harm each other?”
He says nothing for several minutes, and when I raise my eyes I find him watching me. “That was actually an awesome fight,” he says quietly.
“It was.”
After a few more moments of awkwardness, he places his pages on the magically-erected table in front of him. “So what did you want to check with me?”
Seems the argument is over.
I begin to relax as Ryn and I discuss the details of our assignment and how best to report them. When I’m finished scribbling more notes, I turn to the blank sheets of reed paper and begin writing the report in full from the beginning. Silence fills the space between us as we both become absorbed in our work. It’s a comfortable silence, though. It kind of reminds me of the way we used to do our homework together in junior school.
And that’s when it hits me: Somehow, after spending years hating each other, we got our friendship back. I can’t pinpoint when it happened, but it happened. Ryn isn’t just the guy I used to know, or the guy I had to put up with during our final assignment. He’s someone I actually enjoy being around. Someone I can shout at and fight with and have everything go back to normal in just a few minutes.
I smile to myself and continue working.
I reach the part of the assignment where I was hanging helplessly from a ceiling and sit back with a groan. “I can’t believe how pathetic I was this past week.” I tap my stylus, currently in pen mode, against the table. “I feel like I lost some major points in the kick-butt department.”
Ryn looks up with a smile. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. It wasn’t what I’d call pathetic. More . . . endearing, perhaps.”
“Endearing?” I look at him in disbelief. “Now who’s being pathetic?”
He puts his stylus down. “You’re going to hate me for saying this.”
“Then don’t.”
He leans forward with a grin. “It was nice to see a softer side of you.”
I pretend to gag. “Oh, you did not just say that about me. Why not insult me properly and call me weak?”
“Because it wasn’t weakness, V. It was—”
“Endearing. Right. I got it. Let’s never talk about it again.” With heat creeping up my neck toward my face, I pick up my stylus and continue writing. I work quickly until I have to start describing our journey through the human realm. That’s when I get bored and my mind starts wandering. It continues wandering while I finish writing the report, and by the time I reach the end, I have a question for Ryn. “Have either of your parents ever mentioned anyone named Angelica? A guardian they went to school with?”
Ryn rolls up his finished report. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“She’s Nate’s mother.”
“Halfling boy?” Ryn sets the scroll down on the table and leans back on his hands. “His mother was at the Guild with our parents? In the same year?”
“Yup.”
“Wow. So a person our parents trained with turns out to be the mother of one of your assignments, who you then end up dating.”
“Yeah. It’s unlikely, but it happened. Anyway, I was wondering if your parents ever mentioned her because it seems like she hated my mother and father.”
“Wait, how do you know this? Have you met her?”
With a sigh, I say, “I think I should tell you some stuff.”
Ryn sits forward. “Off-limits stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Awesome.” He rubs his hands together. “Give it to me.”
So I do. I go right back to the beginning and tell him about being kidnapped by Zell and Drake, and about deciding not to give Nate the Forget potion. I tell him about our time in the labyrinth, meeting Angelica, and the eye tattoo on Nate’s back. Then there’s Scarlet, and the shapeshifter I killed, and my date with Nate where he ended up handing me over to Zell, and all the things Zell said to me down in his dungeon when we were rescuing Calla. I tell Ryn everything.
Everything except Nate’s power over the weather.
I so badly want to get everything off my chest, but I can’t tell Ryn that. He would immediately assume it was Nate responsible for the magical storm, and he’d tell his mother because she’s part of the investigation into the murder. Then Tora would obviously find out, and I can only imagine how angry she’d be that I’ve kept all of this from her.
“Wow,” Ryn says when I’ve
finished speaking. He writes something on the table and it shrinks back to a small wooden box, leaving my finished pages to flutter onto the blanket. “Have you told Tora all of this?”
“No, and you can’t tell her, Ryn. You can’t tell anyone.”
“Look, I understand that you don’t want her to be mad at you, but this is important stuff. It kind of sounds like Zell is trying to amass an army of specially skilled faeries. Don’t you think whoever’s been investigating him for years would like to know about it?”
“They do know about it. I told Councilor Starkweather everything we saw in Zell’s dungeon, remember? I’m sure she came to the same conclusion you just did.”
Ryn sighs. “Okay, so I guess you don’t really need to tell Tora any of this.” He looks pointedly at me. “Except for the part where you can’t sleep at night because the guilt of lying to her is eating you up.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Thanks, Oryn. That really helps.”
He gives me an innocent smile. “It was meant to. Anyway, what you tell Tora is up to you, but since you’re sharing your secrets with me, perhaps I should share one of mine with you.” I raise an eyebrow as he rolls onto one side so he can dig in his other pocket. He pulls out a silver chain with a white teardrop pendant and says, “I may have stolen something from the Guild.”
“Ryn!” Dangling from Ryn’s hand is none other than the eternity necklace. “Okay, you cannot guilt-trip me about keeping secrets from my mentor when you’ve stolen something this important from the Guild! What were you thinking?”
“I don’t trust the Silver Starky, remember? And she did lie to us. She said she’d send the necklace to the Seelie Queen immediately, but when I snuck into her office this morning, I found it buried beneath some papers in one of her drawers.”
“And why did you feel the need to sneak into her office and look for it?”
Ryn shrugs. “To see if she was lying to us.” He pushes the necklace back into his pocket. “I don’t think she was ever planning to give it to the Seelie Queen. She probably wanted to keep it for herself.”
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