“Of course.” Ryn gives me a look that tells me I should know that. He leans across the table and pulls a silver apple from the tree. He bites into it and crunches for several seconds. He swallows. “You want to go now?”
Idiot. He knows very well I want to go now. “No, Ryn, I thought we’d just stand here eating silver delicacies and wait until everyone is in their offices on Monday morning before trying to break in.”
“Hmm. That doesn’t sound like the best plan you’ve ever had.” He puts the partially-eaten apple down on someone’s plate and heads toward the ballroom’s main doors. “Come on.”
I hurry after him. The music and laughter grow faint as we head down a corridor toward the Guild’s main foyer. I hear an indistinct sort of rumble and, out of habit, I glance up at the foyer’s domed ceiling. I freeze when I see the swirling, flickering clouds of orange and red. Fear tightens my stomach.
“What’s wrong?” Ryn asks. He watches me from the other side of the foyer, a hand pressed to his chest in that weird habit he has.
“The protective enchantments,” I whisper as I return my gaze to the ceiling. “They’re the wrong color.”
PART
III
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
For a single moment that seems to last forever, Ryn and I stare at each other across the foyer, fear growing, rising, filling the space between us.
Then the lightning hits.
It strikes somewhere above us with such force that the foyer’s marble floor shudders beneath our feet. Ryn shouts my name, but the explosion of the domed ceiling swallows up his voice. A bolt of light shreds the air and strikes the floor between us, creating a huge zigzagging crack through the marble. A second later, broken pieces of ceiling begin to rain down on us.
I throw myself out of the way. The marble is a lot harder than anything else I’ve landed on recently, and my shoulder screams out in protest. I roll across the floor, pull myself up onto my knees, and throw my arm out toward the corridor we just came down. The flare of magic that leaves my hand is bright red. If anyone in the ballroom has any doubts as to where the explosion came from, they’ll know which way to go now.
I climb to my high-heeled feet to look for Ryn, but instead I see black figures dropping down from the open ceiling. Rain sprays across my face, and wind tangles my curls. Fear gives way to adrenaline as the thrill of an impending fight races through my veins.
I stand firm as my bow and arrow form between my outstretched arms. I pull back, let go, and watch the arrow zooms toward its target, sparks flying in its wake. The faerie—dressed all in black, complete with a cape, for goodness sake—goes down with a cry as the arrow embeds itself in his back. Pull back, release. Pull back, release. A new arrow materializes the moment the previous one is let loose.
A boulder hurtles toward me, along with sparks of magic. I dodge the magic, but the edge of the boulder catches my shoulder. I hit the floor once more, my bow and arrow disappearing the moment I let go. Rolling onto my back, I reach for the strap of my right shoe. I tug it loose—my amber slips to the floor—just as a faerie throws himself on top of me. I bring the shoe up and slice the heel across his neck. He clutches his throat, and I send my fist into his stomach. He doubles over. Blood splatters onto my face. With a heave, I push him away.
I kick my other shoe off, stuff my stylus into my enhanced cleavage, and get ready to fight the next faerie who wants to take me on. It seems I’m out of opponents, though. The foyer is full of guards, mentors and guardians—including the ones who just graduated—and the only black figures I see are the ones lying dead on the floor.
Ryn. Is he okay?
I turn to the debris in the center of the foyer, pushing wet hair out of my face. A glittering whip snaps the air and disappears before I see him. He climbs off a boulder, jumps over the crack that now splits the foyer in two, and walks toward me. “Well,” he says, “that was an exciting end to graduation.”
*
“Idiots,” Adair, a senior guardian, says as he paces across the floor of Councilor Starkweather’s office. “Why did they choose to invade the Guild during graduation? Admittedly, there were fewer guards on duty than there normally are, but everyone was here because of the ceremony. We had hundreds of guardians ready to fight, and these idiot invaders numbered less than twenty. Were they really arrogant enough to think they could kill us all?”
I glance over at Ryn. The two of us are standing, dripping wet, in front of Councilor Starkweather’s desk. She summoned us to a private meeting with her and Adair once it was clear the Guild was no longer under attack. I think of Ryn’s suspicion that she may be Zell’s spy within the Guild. Unlikely, since she killed two of the invading faeries herself.
She taps her chin. “Could it be that they didn’t know graduation was taking place tonight?”
I shake my head. “They must have known. They have spies in the Guild, don’t they?” Ryn clears his throat, but I ignore him. “The purpose of this attack obviously wasn’t to take over the Guild.”
Adair stops pacing and narrows his eyes at me. “Why are these two here?”
“They’ve had close contact with members of the Unseelie Court,” Councilor Starkweather says. “Their input could be useful.”
“Do we even know whether it was an attack by the Unseelie Court?” Adair asks. “They weren’t wearing the Queen’s insignia.”
“They were definitely Unseelie faeries,” Ryn says. “I could feel the cold darkness behind their magic.”
“But they might not have been acting on the Queen’s orders,” Adair counters.
“No, they were most likely acting on Zell’s. The Unseelie Prince you guys have been investigating for ages.” I assume Adair is part of that investigation or he wouldn’t be in this office right now. “After what Ryn and I heard on our assignment, we know he’s working against his mother, and what we saw in his dungeon suggests he’s forming some kind of super army. He must have found a faerie who can create storms that are able to break through our protective enchantments.”
Ryn clears his throat again, but I refuse to name Nate. It would get me in a whole lot of trouble, and I don’t see the point in telling them about him when it’s already obvious that Zell is using someone who has power over the weather.
“Perhaps it was a test,” Councilor Starkweather says. “A test to see how easily they can get in and out.”
“Possibly.” Adair resumes his pacing. “Which means the purpose of the first lightning bolt several weeks ago was probably just to see whether it was possible to break through the enchantments. But that still doesn’t explain why a Seer was murdered the same night.”
“We didn’t manage to capture any faeries tonight, did we?” Ryn asks.
“No,” Adair says. “Most of them managed to get out the way they came in—through the foyer’s ceiling. The few left behind are dead.”
“So we can’t even torture any information out of anyone,” mutters Councilor Starkweather.
The word ‘torture’ reminds me of something else that’s been on my mind for a while. “Councilor Starkweather,” I say carefully. “I was wondering if you were able to get inside Zell’s home and rescue the prisoners we found.”
She presses her lips together before answering. “I am not at liberty to discuss that investigation with you, Miss Fairdale. And you know you should not have been ‘wondering’ about it all.”
I lower my gaze to the floor. If I had to guess, I’d say that was a ‘no,’ which means those people are still stuck in cages. The thought makes my pulse quicken and my blood heat up. I get that the Guild can’t just barge into the Unseelie Prince’s home and demand to see his dungeon, but seriously? Couldn’t they have figured something out by now?
Councilor Starkweather pinches the bridge of her nose. “I should have known something was going on the moment that tree on the table next to ours exploded earlier.”
“I’m sorry,” Ryn says. “A tree exploded?”
“Yes, while the two of you were d
ancing. The darn thing suddenly went up in flames.”
While we were dancing . . . I think of the ‘explosion’ of emotions I felt after Ryn whispered in my ear and the conversation I had with Raven about losing control of magic. That couldn’t have been me, could it?
“I’m sure that was unrelated,” Adair says. “Probably just some of the graduates playing around.”
“Well, anyway,” Councilor Starkweather says. “I need to make contact with the Unseelie Court, and you two need to prepare for your visit to the Seelie Court. You’ll be leaving tomorrow evening.”
“That’s still happening?” I ask. I was hoping Ryn and I would have time to search for the box Reed took.
“Of course it’s still happening. We wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that this minor invasion has upset the way the Guild operates, would we?”
Minor invasion? Enchantments strong enough to protect the Guild for centuries have been shattered, and she calls it minor? “Um, no, ma’am. I suppose not.”
*
I drizzle chocolate sauce over my berries and pass the jug to Ryn. Tora invited me to lunch along with Raven and Flint, and I was stupid enough to ask Ryn to join us. Stupid because I can barely look him in the eyes with all the crazy feelings buzzing through me. Stupid because I was so desperate to be around him that I couldn’t wait until tonight when we leave for the Seelie Court.
“I’ve heard she can be kind of mean sometimes,” Raven says, checking her hair in the reflective surface of a mirror berry before covering it with chocolate sauce.
“Only if you say the wrong thing to her,” Tora says. “Just like anyone else.”
“But unlike anyone else,” Ryn adds, “if you upset the Seelie Queen, she might start shrieking, ‘Off with their heads!’.” The four of us stare at him. He stares back. “What? It’s . . . from a book. Never mind.”
“But how will I know if I’m about to say the wrong thing?” I ask. “How am I supposed to know what upsets the Seelie Queen?”
“Okay, well, here’s what I’ve heard over the years,” Flint says. He finishes the last berries from his bowl before resting his elbows on the table. “Don’t look her in the eyes when speaking to her; she doesn’t like that. Don’t bring up pegasus polo; she’s really into it and if you don’t back her favorite teams . . . well, things will get uncomfortable for you. Oh, and never, ever mention the runaway princess. That probably would get your head chopped off.”
“Runaway princess?” Ryn asks.
“Oh, yeah, I remember reading that somewhere.” I reach for the jug of sauce in the center of the table. “The current Seelie Queen has three children: a daughter—who’s obviously in line to become the next Queen—a son, and another daughter. And about two or three decades ago the younger daughter ran away.” I drizzle sauce onto my spoon and stick the spoon in my mouth.
“I take it they never found this runaway princess?” Ryn asks.
“I guess not,” I say around the spoon, “since the Queen gets upset if you bring it up.” I look at Flint for confirmation.
“No, they never found her,” he says. “The rumors from the palace guards were that the Queen never had a good relationship with her younger daughter. Everyone thought she was secretly glad to be rid of her.”
“That’s awful,” Tora says, “wanting to be rid of your own child.”
I fill my spoon with more sauce. “Just because you play for the ‘good’ team doesn’t mean you have to be a nice person.”
“Okay, so we know what we can’t talk about,” Ryn says. “What can we talk about?”
The remainder of lunch is spent discussing ‘safe’ topics. I have to admit I’m only half listening, though, because a lot of my attention is focused on how I’m going to find the secret place where my mother hid her belongings. And on how close Ryn’s leg is to mine. Very close. Close enough for me to reach out and rest my hand on it.
Crap, Violet, you are so. Freaking. Insane. You have got to stop thinking things like that.
I stand abruptly, pile the dirty dishes on top of one another, and send them zooming through the air in front of me as I head to the kitchen. “I’ll clean up,” I say over my shoulder.
“I’ll help you,” Ryn says.
I close my eyes while my stomach does a few backflips. Okay, just be normal. Be totally, completely normal.
“Hey, V, are you feeling okay?”
I direct the dishes to the sink and get the cleaning spell going before turning around to look at Ryn. He’s leaning against the doorframe, hands pushed into his pockets. A simple T-shirt never looked so sexy on anyone.
Not a helpful thought, V.
I clear my throat and twist a piece of hair around my finger. “Yeah, I’m fine, why?”
He watches me closely. “It’s just . . .”
My heart thumps in sudden terror. I am so not ready for Ryn to figure out how I feel about him. In fact, I’ll never be ready. I’d rather be friends forever than have him laugh in my face—or worse, tell me he feels the same way only to wind up breaking my heart one day. “Just what, Ryn?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
I turn back to the sink to make sure my magic’s working.
“Oh, hey, I got you something,” he says. I swivel around to see him pulling something from his pocket. “New amber. You mentioned you lost your old one in the fight yesterday. I figured it was in need of replacing anyway; it probably had spells from the Stone Age on it.”
I place my hands on my hips, relaxing now that we’re back in familiar territory. “There’s nothing wrong with Stone Age spells. They work.”
“Oh, Violet.” He sighs and shakes his head. “You have no idea the awesome things this amber can do.”
“I don’t need a fancy new amber, Ryn. I just want something simple I can send messages on.”
“You can send messages on here.” He grins as he waves the rectangular piece of amber at me. “And so much more.”
“Fine.” I’m beginning to realize that when he smiles at me like that I’ll do pretty much anything for him. “What do I owe you for it?”
“Nothing. It’s a gift.” He places the amber on the kitchen table.
I raise my eyebrow. “Another ‘early birthday present’?”
“Sure, we can call it that.” He pulls a chair out and sits down. “Want me to show you how to use it?”
My traitorous heart leaps at the chance to sit close to him again. “Yeah, why not.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Later that night, Ryn and I meet at Councilor Starkweather’s office along with the four guards who are to accompany us to the Seelie Court—to show us the way and to make sure we don’t get up to any mischief on the journey. Councilor Starkweather inspects the guards’ black and gold Guild uniforms while giving Ryn and me a few parting instructions. Then she opens a wide doorway to the faerie paths on the wall. She steps aside while the six of us link arms—two guards in front, two behind, and Ryn and me in the middle.
“Can’t you just tell us which part of the world we’re going to?” Ryn says to the guards once we’re stepping through the darkness of the faerie paths. “You don’t have to give us directions or anything.”
His question is met by silence.
“You didn’t honestly think you’d get an answer, did you?” I say to Ryn. “It’s one of the best secrets in the fae realm. They’re not about to tell you.”
Ryn’s arm moves against mine. I imagine him shrugging. “Worth a try.”
We exit to find ourselves amongst trees beside a wide but gently flowing river. The trees are slimmer and less gnarled and somehow more . . . elegant than the trees in Creepy Hollow. Everything here seems to be lit from within, bringing the quiet forest to brilliant, luminous life. Green moss, purple flowers, blue leaves, and white sand at the bottom of the perfectly clear river.
“The faerie paths can take us no further,” says one of the guards. “We will use the river from here and then the sky.” He gestures to
the water. A white boat with a seahorse’s head rising from the bow is gliding toward us. Magic must be directing it because there’s no one inside. The boat reaches the bank and sways with the gentle waves.
The guard climbs into the boat and holds his hand out. “Miss Fairdale,” he says. Although I’m pretty sure I could get in without help, I take his hand and step into the boat. The interior is simple, with four parallel bench seats covered in cushions. I climb over them and take the seat closest to the stern.
Ryn and the other guards climb in. Without a command from anyone, the boat begins to move. No oars, nothing. It slips silently, peacefully, through the water. I lie back with my shoulders against the edge of the boat and stare at the sky through the overhanging branches. The moon is larger than I’ve ever seen it before, and the stars seem closer than normal.
“Hey, look here, V,” Ryn says. I sit up. He’s leaning over the side of the boat and pointing at something. I grasp the edge of the boat and peer into the water. A woman with long green hair and a fish-like tail with pearly, iridescent scales weaves artfully between the rocks at the bottom of the river.
“Wow,” I whisper. “I’ve never seen a mermaid in real life.”
“They don’t like Creepy Hollow,” says the guard sitting next to Ryn. “They prefer keeping close to the Seelie Court.”
I spend the remainder of the boat journey watching mermaids, mermen, and other water creatures glide through the water. I think how calm everything must be beneath the lapping surface. Nothing to fill your ears but a peaceful quiet, and everything moving in graceful slow motion.
“Time to get out,” says a guard, interrupting my thoughts. The boat bumps gently against the bank. The river disappears around a corner, and a quiet rushing sound signals a waterfall somewhere in the distance. “We will travel the rest of the way by air.”
We climb out, walk a little way through the trees, and stop in front of a closed carriage pulled by four white pegasi.
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