by Sarina Dorie
I turned to survey the room. I didn’t know who had been in there to begin with to know who was missing. Anguish pained Errol’s face as he tried to rise and fell. Children clung to each other sobbing. The nurse holding the baby sat in the corner.
Imani was gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Grave Mistake
No! I didn’t want it to be Imani who had been abducted. I didn’t want anyone to be snatched.
I scanned the room, hoping my eyes had deceived me. Imani was no longer in the room. Children were crying. A little boy pointed to the window, his words forming the shape of Imani’s name. I looked out the window again, but the blackness of night had swallowed the receding figures flying away.
Imani was my student. My friend. I loved her like she was my own child. I didn’t want her to be hurt and tortured. Tears blurred my eyes.
One of the harpies had seen what she was and what she had done. They knew she was a Red affinity. They intended to use her.
Motion out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. Vega stopped at the doorway, hindered by bodies. Her gaze darted from the children to Errol fallen on the floor to the dead child where I kneeled.
Her mouth opened. A shrill scream pierced my damaged eardrums, but the sound was muffled. She clawed her way through the bodies of the harpies, shoving them aside to get to us.
“We need Elric’s help,” I shouted. My own voice sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else. “They attacked the nursery. They took Imani.”
She rushed past me and went straight for the infants. The worry in her eyes melted away as she took the baby from the nursemaid and cradled him against her chest. She touched a hand to Dora’s forehead, sweeping the girl’s sticky hair out from her face.
“Can you save her?” I asked.
Vega said something, but I couldn’t understand her over the ringing in my ears. She shoved Sebastian into my arms and lifted the girl from the floor. She carried her carefully, as though she were made of glass.
Vega retreated to the corner past the wardrobe, sinking to the floor and cradling the little girl. The baby squirmed in my arms, and I rocked him.
By the time Elric made it up, Thatch right on his heels, enough of my hearing had returned that I heard Thatch’s grim monotone. “Merlin’s balls.”
Vega looked up, sooty trails of tears streaking her face. Elric leapt over bodies as nimble as a deer prancing through a forest of fallen logs, making his way to her side.
“Save her,” she said.
Elric shook his head. “I can’t, love. She’s gone.”
“What good is all this fucking Fae magic if you can’t heal someone?”
“Fae can’t resurrect the dead.”
No, but Red affinities could. If we pushed our electrical magic into someone, we could restore them. I’d done it to save Derrick. Dox had done it to save his fiancé. Surely Vega could do this too.
“Use your affinity to resurrect her,” I said. Vega was the only one with the strength for such a feat now.
“No,” Elric said sharply. “That’s too dangerous. It almost always kills the person who attempts it. That’s how my son died.” He looked to me. “That’s how you died the first time, isn’t it?”
“The first time?” Wasn’t that the only time I’d died? Now that I thought about it, I realized I had died multiple times. But I didn’t have time to linger.
“What about the spell you solved?” I asked Vega. “The do-anything spell you said you solved?”
“What do-anything spell?” Elric asked.
“Nothing,” Vega said. She gave me a sharp look. Did she have secrets she was keeping from him?
“No,” Thatch said. “It won’t work.”
He must have known what spell I was referring to. He’d had it in his keeping once. Perhaps he still did. It was supposed to replicate the power of a Red affinity without electrical elements, but it required rare ingredients. That was one of its uses anyway.
“For one thing, you haven’t gotten yourself a dragon egg,” Thatch said. “For another, this is even more dangerous than using necromancy. This is how Alouette Loraline nearly destroyed Womby’s. She intended to solve the Fae Fertility Paradox with that spell. Instead, she summoned a demon.”
My shoulders deflated. Vega’s fists clenched at her sides.
Elric crouched close to Vega. A hand touched my shoulder. I started, jostling Sebastian, who told me in no uncertain terms he didn’t enjoy that by screaming in my ear. Thatch kneeled on the floor in front of me in a puddle of blood. His gray pants were stained with smears of crimson. He hugged me to him, his embrace so fierce I could hardly breathe.
“I found the door to the cellar broken down,” Thatch said. “I worried they’d taken you.”
“I escaped.” I grabbed onto the lapel of his jacket. “Imani didn’t. They took her.”
A range of emotions flickered across his face: fear, anguish, and anger.
Elric’s voice turned as cold as any Fae’s, chilling the air of the room. “Who took Imani?”
Captain Errol spoke, his voice rough and gravelly. “It was a harpy from the Raven Court.” He looked like he tried to get up on one knee, but he failed. “I’m sorry, my lord. I failed to keep your kin safe.”
Elric closed his eyes, his breathing labored. “Why would anyone take her?”
“She saved us. They saw what she could do.” Tears filled my eyes as I thought about how brave and strong she was.
Those qualities weren’t going to be enough to keep her safe.
Thatch crushed me against him in a hug. A gash on his forehead dripped blood down one side of his face. He’d fared better than some.
“Are the rest of the children all right?” I asked.
“Indeed.” Thatch’s breath was warm against my ear. “They’re in the room next to us, accounted for and safe. There were more servants guarding that room.”
Elric left Vega’s side, inspecting the children and talking to them softly. He inspected their injuries before kneeling beside Errol. The other man groaned and shifted, so at least I knew he was still alive.
“Please, Your Highness,” Errol said. “Don’t waste your magic on me. Save it for those with more serious wounds.”
It was hard to imagine anyone’s injuries could be more serious than his.
“How dare those harpies attack my home and my family,” Vega said. “I will kill the Raven Queen. This is war.”
Elric frowned. “War? What army do you intend to defeat her with?”
“Call upon the Silver Court. It’s your right as King Viridios’ son to insist he aid us.”
“My father has disowned me. If I returned to him and begged him to take me back, you wouldn’t be safe. He would lay claim to all these children. It would be his right as king to take them away from us if he pleased. Is that the price you wish to pay for revenge? Our freedom?”
“Fine, then. I don’t need an army,” Vega said. “I only need Clarissa and Thatch.”
Thatch harrumphed. “In case you haven’t noticed, Clarissa and I aren’t in the peak of our magical abilities at the moment.”
“Then get to work fixing that. I’m fucking tired of you two not having magic.” She pointed at me. “Get over your self-shaming complex and start using my husband to restore your magic.” She jabbed a finger in Thatch’s direction. “And you stop moping around feeling guilty and acting all emo. Get your asses in gear and get your magic together. We have people to destroy.”
Spoken like a true badass.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dora the Explorer
My room upstairs was in shambles. Half the estate was burned down. The stone walls and supports remained, but the floors and furnishings were left in cinders. Someone had peed on Vega’s bed and left a big pile of poo on her pillow, sending her into another fit of rage. It would have been funny if it had been someone’s yappy dog that had done that to her, but it was some
horrible harpy who probably was a child killer as well.
I hated the Raven Court and their queen. Her minions had killed Constance, Elric’s elderly wife. Petra, the kitchen maid who went to Womby’s and had waited on me the day I’d taken a bath, was dead. Her brother had been greatly injured protecting Petra and Tilly. Many other Witchkin staff were hurt as well.
It made me want revenge as much as Vega did.
I had always feared I might turn into Alouette Loraline. Now I wished I had even half her skill, half her ruthlessness. I would give anything to be able to slay our enemies. Vega was right. I needed to put my guilt and shame aside. I had to work to ramp up my magic.
I returned to Thatch’s room with him that night. He didn’t have much to ruin and no one had set fire to his room or soiled his bed. The dresser was toppled over, but at least it wasn’t broken. It was hard to look at the shreds of painting that had captured my likeness. He removed it from the wall and placed it in the other room, his face an expressionless mask that didn’t give away a hint of the disappointment that he surely must have felt.
The bed in his small room was meant for one person, but we made it work. Thatch spooned up behind me, his warmth suffusing me. He squeezed me so tight, it hurt my ribs, but I didn’t complain. I listened to him breathe in the dark, too alert and on edge to sleep.
“I thought I had lost you,” he said, his tone grim.
“Nope. Lucky you. You’re stuck with me.” I poked him in the arm.
“I shouldn’t have left you. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“I know.”
“I would never have forgiven myself if she had taken you.” He kissed the back of my head.
“Is that why you’re punishing yourself? Because she took me before?” The before that he wouldn’t tell me about.
“That’s part of it.”
He stroked my hair, the rhythm making me sleepy. Slowly I faded off into sleep. I awoke a short time later, cold and alone. A sliver of light fell across the floor from the adjoining room. Thatch had kept the door ajar, the sounds of him shifting around in his torture chamber quiet, but not quiet enough. I rolled over, slipping an arm under his pillow.
Something crinkled against my elbow. I lifted the pillow to find a folded piece of paper. It was too dark to read the swirling cursive writing. I wondered if it was a letter he’d written to me.
I padded over to the light. The cold stones of the floor chilled my bare feet. It wasn’t a love note. It wasn’t addressed to me at all. It was addressed to him.
Felix,
Our queen raises Aubrey as her own. Because the baby is still young, she treats her well. When Her Majesty is in a rage or in one of her mercurial moods, I have protected Aubrey. If I could, I would bring her to you, but I am watched closely and cannot. There will be a time when my protection will not be enough. I will be left with the difficult choice of murdering the child to ensure she doesn’t suffer or allow her to be tortured and used as we were in our childhood.
As for myself, Her Majesty now believes I am more useful to her as a tool by bearing the heirs she cannot have herself than as a servant and has put me to that use. I am with child again.
Odette
My mind was in a whirlwind, trying to puzzle together what she’d implied. The Raven Queen surely knew how the Fae Fertility Paradox worked. Or at least she knew enough to comprehend how fertile Red affinities could be used. If she was using Odette as a surrogate, perhaps that meant she didn’t know Odette’s affinity could be used to bring out the fertility in others. She didn’t know electrical magic could create more Red affinities.
I had only met Thatch’s sister a few times. Odette had always been loyal to her queen. Thatch had said the Raven Queen had removed her heart and given her one made from magic. I’d seen the scar. She might have lacked a physical heart and relied on her queen to keep her alive, but that didn’t mean she lacked a soul. She still felt. I could tell she didn’t relish hurting others despite her façade of apathy.
I pushed open the door to Thatch’s torture room. He was sweeping up glass into a dustpan.
He looked up as I stepped inside, hand raised to stop me. “Careful. There’s broken glass.” He left his broom and dustpan in the corner and strode toward me.
I held up the letter. “Who is Aubrey?”
Thatch halted in his tracks. His calm crumpled. “What?”
“Is that Odette’s baby?”
Thatch stared at me, his expression somewhere in between perplexed and shocked.
I waved the letter in front of him. He strode forward and snatched it up to scan the page. Even after he’d finished reading, he stared at the page, his eyes seeing but not seeing.
“Felix?”
He flinched.
“What’s wrong? Is that your niece? Aubrey?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” He read the paper again. “Yes,” he said.
“I think I remember Aubrey.” I could see the infant girl covered in blood.
Thatch swallowed. “You were there when she was born.”
She was the baby I had seen in my vision? How tragic. The Raven Queen had his niece, and Odette couldn’t do anything about it.
I stepped forward to console him, but he shook his head. He waved a hand at the floor. It looked immaculately clean. “You might cut yourself.”
“You might like that.”
“No. I’m not a blood mage.” He set the note on the table and returned to my side.
He circled one arm around me, and with the other he swept me up behind the knees. He carried me to the bench at the table of torture instruments. He’d laid them out in neat little rows in their boxes, looking tidy enough they would suit the needs of an obsessive-compulsive torturer. For the amount of mess the Raven Court had made in the rest of the house, it was odd to see this room nearly perfect aside from some broken bottles of potions.
Perhaps evil villains only respected instruments of torture.
I sat there feeling awkward, searching for something to say. “It’s a pretty name. Aubrey. Like Aubrey Hepburn. And Aubrey from Little Shop of Horrors.”
“I believe you are thinking of Audrey Hepburn and Audrey II.” A smile tugged at his lips, though it didn’t reach his eyes.
A wave of dizziness passed over me. I was certain we’d had this conversation before.
Thatch seated himself beside me. “Vega is correct. I need to restore my magic.”
“Okay.” My gaze shifted over the tools. “Do you want . . . my help?”
He swallowed. “Can I trust you?”
Could he trust me this time? Was I going to use intimacy to manipulate him into answering questions he didn’t want to tell me?
I wanted to help him, not just to get Imani back, but because I wanted this intimacy between us.
“You can trust me,” I said.
He retrieved his worksheets. He showed me his latest sketch, the barbed stems of roses forming a rune of protection.
“This time, I want you to use ink.”
That was a huge step up. He wanted a permanent tattoo. He laid out the tiny bottle of white ink beside his tools.
We worked until late into the night. As if a tattoo wasn’t enough pain, he asked me to add vises to his arm while I worked. His face flushed with a healthy glow of warmth, the white ink of the tattoo contrasting with the rose of his skin. He was beautiful when he was filled with magic like this.
After he’d drunk his fill of pain magic, he snuggled up to me and promptly fell asleep. As exhausted as I was, I was the one left awake. I listened to the creaks on the wooden floors above.
Eventually I dressed in his housecoat, socks, and slippers. Everything was so large on me, I felt like a child playing dress up in a parent’s clothes. I left his room to use one of the bathrooms upstairs since there wasn’t one down in Thatch’s dungeon. I took a candle to guide my way through the darkness.
It was creepy walking thro
ugh the house, navigating around piles of rubble and avoiding puddles of blood. On the way back, I lost my way in the gloom of shadows. I found myself in the servant hallway, staring down at a flight of stairs. This wasn’t the door that led to the cellar and Thatch’s private torture chamber. The cellar door was closer to the kitchen. Nor had I lit the sconces with flames of blue magic. A rustle and creak came from below. Someone was there, but I didn’t know who. I kept listening.
It was the deep resonant notes of a female voice that finally drew me closer. The voice was distant, almost inaudible. Harpies and sirens could use their voices to entrance. Someone from the Raven Court could be below. Elric had overseen the clearing of bodies from the household with the staff, but what if someone had hidden?
This voice wasn’t as much like a siren compelling someone into a trap as a lullaby. The voice was so melancholy, it broke my heart, even though I couldn’t understand the words. The woman might have been singing in Russian, but I wasn’t sure.
Curiosity propelled my feet down the steps.
I moved silently over the stairs, my heart palpitating with trepidation, but I didn’t know why. There was no danger, I kept telling myself. Only, there was always danger in my life. The Raven Queen’s emissaries had been here in Elric’s estate hours before, killing children, and set on finding me.
The stairs went on forever, past the floor with the cellar. I had a feeling I knew where these steps would end. At last I came to my destination. The chamber was lit with purple-blue flames from sconces. It was far colder than the cellar, and I hugged my housecoat to myself, shivering. There were empty shelves along the walls, open tombs like what we had in the crypt under Womby’s.
Vega sat in the center of the room on a stool beside her gilded coffin, her hand draped inside. She sang so beautifully, her voice deep and sultry but able to hit the higher notes with ease.
I froze, knowing who was inside the coffin. I didn’t want to interrupt her. The moment felt too personal to intrude upon.