by Reilyn Hardy
What I saw there, was hardly attractive.
“I thought Thealey was a vampiric town,” I commented as quietly as I could. I didn’t want anyone to overhear me. If they had hearing like Jace, they heard me anyway.
“It was, but after the eruption and the disappearance of the Reaper, there was a small war. More of a massacre, really. Now it’s mostly a place of ogres and — questionable folk.” He explained. It was hardly an explanation but it was probably the best I was going to get out of him anyway.
“Why haven’t I heard about it?”
I didn’t remember hearing about a massacre, but if it was around Pryley, well, I hadn’t heard much news. Then again, I wasn’t interested in the news either.
“No one really talked about it because it was mostly vampires who died. Nothing anyone considered a bad thing,” he said and waved his hand, which was more of a hand gesture to tell me to shut up. Not that I was going to comment. “There was someone who said they’d always be here —” he stopped in his tracks when we reached the other edge of the town. We stood near the front of some of the creepiest trees I had ever seen. There between us and the forest, stood a large, abandoned mansion. Black walls with dead vines creeping up the exterior.
“I guess she kept her promise.”
I saw her, barely, but I saw her. At first she was in one of the windows, then she was emerging from the front door in the blink of an eye. Her footsteps were light, she was gliding. Light blonde hair and pale skin — I knew who she was. She was the girl Jace was talking about — the angel he thought he imagined. She was real.
She was standing right in front of us.
“This is Rhiannon,” he said, hardly looking at her. “She’s a vampire.”
A vampire. Well, that was a far stretch from an angel.
I took a step back. Someone I thought was dead, someone I pulled over my own body to conceal myself, tried to take a bite out of my neck.
Instincts. I didn’t mean to offend.
‘I’m not offended.’
I turned around. Where did that voice come from?
“You know a vampire?” I asked and looked Jace, trying to ignore what I heard.
“Not well — and it’s — uh — it’s been a while.”
A while. Sure. A while.
I tried not to roll my eyes because she was staring right at me. But really, Jace? Edgewick wasn’t that long ago. I couldn’t believe he kissed a vampire.
A lot of different feelings hit me, mostly disbelief. Then my mind really started to process things. What he had said about Thealey, and I thought about how Zoirin reminded him of someone. I was staring right at her.
It had been a while.
He wasn’t talking about Edgewick.
“You were here for the massacre, weren’t you?” I asked, not that I needed an answer. His brief glance at me told me everything I needed to know.
She was still looking at me. Her and Jace didn’t even look at each other, not even to exchange glances. I took a step back and they still didn’t. In fact, now he was looking at me, too.
“Well, this is awkward.”
“What is?” She asked, her voice was the same one I had heard earlier, only then her lips hadn’t moved. It was the same one I had heard in Edgewick. It made sense to me now that she went out of the window. I had never seen a vampire in that form. I hadn’t seen a vampire in the flesh at all. Only stories. Only painted pictures. She was the first, and she appeared very human, which only made her scarier.
Her eyes were just as Jace described them; they really did capture Spring. He was right. Green didn’t do them justice.
“Are you guys trying to ignore each other?”
“I’m not ignoring anyone,” she said, still not taking her eyes off of me. Not once. She didn’t even blink.
“Just tell her, Mae.”
“Mae,” she repeated after him and frowned. “That’s not —”
“My whole name —” I interrupted, “It’s Maestri.”
The frown was practically carved into her face. Did she know who I was? If she did, I hoped she wouldn’t say anything. I still wanted to tell him myself, I just didn’t know when I would.
“We need your help,” I said, trying to change the subject. “We have to get to Mithlonde —”
“No,” she cut me off before I had the chance to finish.
“What? What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I’m not helping you bring Mithlonde back here.”
“You know about it?”
“Of course I do,” she said it like it was information I should have known. “Faustine ripped Edgewick apart looking for that stone for the Grim Reaper. I’m sure you saw all of those people. If he finds out that you have it…”
“All of those people that turned into revenants —”
Her expression changed quickly, she was confused now.
“What?”
Jace stepped closer to her and cut me off before I could respond.
“We need your help,” he said, lowering his voice. He did that often when he wanted something. Along with touching the side of her cheek, brushing strands of stray hair away from her face. I’ve seen girls fall all over that. She didn’t, she stepped away from him.
“I already helped you.”
Maybe just human girls.
He inhaled sharply at his failure and stepped away from her.
“Okay,” I said and clasped my hands together. “What can I do to get you to help me? Do you want me to get rid of Jace? I can get rid of Jace.”
He glared at me. I shrugged.
“If I go to Mithlonde, I won’t come back out.”
“So don’t go in,” Jace told her.
“Do you listen to that advice?” She raised an eyebrow. “Stop yourself from going in?” He narrowed his eyes and so did she.
I didn’t think we were talking about Mithlonde anymore.
“I go in a lot of places,” he said.
Nope. We definitely were not talking about Mithlonde anymore.
“Okay — stop,” I told the two of them and stepped between them. “You two obviously have some issues I’ve been forced to get in the middle of —” no pun intended, “— can we get back to Mithlonde now?” I asked.
I didn’t move from where I stood. I didn’t know if the two of them were going to fight each other or kiss again. Truthfully, I didn’t want to see either of those things happen. We had bigger problems than whatever this was.
I turned to Rhiannon.
“Why won’t you help?”
“I said no. I don’t need a reason to say no.”
Jace stepped away from us and his yelling caught me off guard.
“Vampire!” He yelled suddenly. “Vampire!” He shouted again, cupping his hands around his mouth to make his voice louder and get the attention of the townspeople.
It worked.
He was drawing attention to us and many eyes looked right at Rhiannon. She started to back up toward the mansion again and he grabbed her wrist.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“She doesn’t want to help us —” he glared at her, her eyes were growing wider and she didn’t take her gaze off of him. “She can die.”
That was extreme, and he said it so simply, like he didn’t care. At all.
But I knew he did.
“What are you doing?” I asked again. He was going to regret this.
“I just told you,” he growled at me. He redirected his attention back onto her and yanked her toward him. She stumbled. Her eyebrows pulled together at the center. “You’re no angel,” he told her coldly and tightened his grip on her wrist. “You’re a demon, and if they don’t kill you, I’ll do it myself.”
“Jace!” I shoved him and he let go of her. It was too little too late. Townspeople — or whatever they were — had already surrounded us and seized her. They cuffed her wrists with iron shackles. She didn’t struggle against them like I expected her to. She walked willingly. Rhiannon was sti
ll looking at Jace, but he wasn’t looking at her, not anymore.
“What did you just do?” I whispered.
He hesitated, I thought he was going to answer me. Instead, he surveyed his surroundings and followed the crowd back into Thealey, completely ignoring my question.
What just happened? I had no choice except to follow.
They threw her into an iron cage that sat in the center of the town square. The clouds were thinnest there, and there was enough light reaching her to redden her skin. It was irritating it, but not enough to burn it. That was a good sign, I hoped.
The inhabitants of Thealey were throwing things at her and poking her with iron rods. She didn’t fight against them. She sat there and she took it. Whatever they gave her. Whenever a hiss slipped out, the biggest man, Tobo, stabbed a rod into her flesh.
It took me some time, but eventually, I understood. It was less severe if she sat there. They were more likely to leave if they didn’t get a reaction out of her; if she didn’t show that it hurt.
Jace was right when he said Thealey was different now. If it was still the vampiric town I had heard of, they wouldn’t have allowed this. One of their own kind to be caged and tortured at the hands of humans and halflings. I was sure they would have destroyed them all. Even children were poking her with sticks, trying to move her into the bits of sunlight that shone on the cage.
It made me sick.
“How do we know she’s a vampire?” Someone asked. “I don’t see no fangs and she’s quite a beauty, ain’t she?”
“Give her a few weeks without blood, and she won’t be.”
I couldn’t peel my eyes away from Jace. This wasn’t how we did things. Did killing those revenants in Edgewick turn him into someone else? Rhiannon saved his life, and this was how he repaid her? This wasn’t him. This wasn’t Jace — not the Jace I knew.
‘How well do you really know him?’
I heard her voice again, and when I looked at her, she wasn’t looking at me. In fact, her eyes were closed while her body shifted slightly from the constant prodding of the iron rods and wooden sticks.
I know him well enough.
‘So you think.’
She was in my head. She was invading my thoughts — my personal space — and for some reason... I didn’t mind it. Not right then, at least. She already knew who I was. What secrets did I have?
‘He abandons people, Artemis. That’s what he does. He leaves.’
My mind started to drift to when he first told me he was going to leave Newacre. He hadn’t thought to ask me until Zoirin suggested it. I quickly pushed the thought out of mind. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.
He didn’t abandon people. He still doesn’t.
‘What’s it like?’
What’s what like?
‘To have such hope for a lost cause.’
I couldn’t listen to this. I didn’t look at Jace again and I didn’t look at her. I just left. I needed to get away from the both of them, I didn’t care where I went.
Anywhere else was better than there.
* * * * *
Jace continued to get on my nerves while we were in Thealey.
He was soaking up so much attention from young women in town that I often found myself without much of an appetite. He was perfectly okay with letting Rhiannon rot in a cage for a little bit of attention. I couldn’t believe it, and sitting there forced to watch it made me want to throw up.
Girls had even come up to ask me about him, calling him some kind of vampire hunter. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about him.
I could have told them what he really was, how he really knew about Rhiannon; but I wouldn’t dare. Friends weren’t supposed to do that to each other. Friends didn’t do that to each other. Secrets were supposed to remain secrets, not suddenly become public knowledge because someone got upset. It wasn’t his secret to expose.
Now even I was starting to doubt him. She got into my head.
I couldn’t shake it either. What was he doing?
I tried to figure it out — I couldn’t — and asking him about it wasn’t an option. I could hardly get close to him. He was always surrounded by people demanding his attention. Demanding to know when he was going to out the next one. They all gaped at him with large, hopeful eyes like he was some kind of hero. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He wanted to be a hero, but at what cost?
We stayed in an inn called The Laughing Toad. It was a two-story stone-walled building, with a slate roof and a tiled mosaic floor. There was a collection of exotic drinking vessels resting upon a long shelf behind the front counter. The innkeeper was a tall female elf named Nerwenye, who was very kind to us and allowed us to stay, free of charge, thanks to Jace’s service to the town or whatever they were calling it.
Garlic hung at the front door and at every window of every room. I opted to have my own room and Jace didn’t argue. I guess he wanted time to himself as much as I did; how much of that time he actually spent alone — well I doubted it was much.
The feathered mattress was almost too big for the room. I fell back against it and stared up at the ceiling for a minute before turning on my side to look out of the window. I could see Rhiannon from where I was — and she was staring right at me. I quickly rolled out of view. I had to figure out what he was doing. I just had no idea where to start.
* * * * *
“Is it worth it?” I asked him during the one chance I finally had him alone. We had been in Thealey for a few days now and Rhiannon was growing weaker. I could see her easily from my window and she hardly got up at all anymore. I felt guilty, I hadn’t gone to see her since they put her in and I hadn’t done anything to get her out.
“Didn’t think you were the type to follow me into the bathroom, Mae.” He went about his business anyway even with me standing right beside him.
“Well, you’ve been avoiding me since you outed her and you’re always surrounded by people now, what do you expect? What’s gotten into you? How could you do that to her?”
“How could —” he scoffed, “how could I do that to her?”
I noticed then that he was breathing strangely. When he finished taking a piss, he gave me that look. The apologetic one, where he doesn’t know what to do with himself. The same one he gave me when he almost dislocated my arm. Then he washed his hands and he left, without another word.
I breathed a little easier.
There was a reason he was doing this, I just didn’t know what it was.
I was relieved he hadn’t turned into a complete asshole just because a girl had told him no. I mean, I thought it was juvenile, even for him. Truthfully, I didn’t know what to think.
I still didn’t.
It was going to bother me a lot more now and I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. What reason could he possibly have that would justify any of this in his mind?
I think the worst part was, she didn’t even know he had a reason. She thinks he abandoned her, because apparently that’s just what he does.
I hardly thought about Miko since she stole the book and the charms. She had to come back sooner or later. Without that page, she’d never get the stone. In many ways, it was the farthest thing from my mind considering it wasn’t like we were going anywhere very fast. Figuring out how to save Rhiannon was more important.
The pub Jace frequented most often in Thealey, Rubies & Speared Boar, sat just beside The Laughing Toad inn. It had large windows at the front that showed a clear view of the town square, and a clear view of Rhiannon. I wondered if he went in there for that reason.
I was wondering a lot of things.
Ever since our brief encounter in the bathroom — if you could even call it that considering it was more so I talked while he peed — he avoided me more than before. I didn’t like being around him when he was like this anyway. It didn’t matter if he was my best friend.
I avoided the pub as often as I could and stayed cooped up at the inn, sometimes not botherin
g to even leave my room. It was quiet, and left me too much time to think.
There was a soft, gentle knock on the door.
“Mae?“ It was Nerwenye. “I didn’t see you today, are you hungry?“
She tended to do that a lot if she noticed I hadn’t left my room, she was very kind. I think I worried her sometimes.
“No thanks,“ I said, not getting up. I sat on my bed and I stared out of the window. Rhiannon laid there, motionless. She didn’t get up, she didn’t move. She just laid there.
Nights were when I was too scared to leave my room and tonight would be different.
I had to talk to her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
out of a nightmare
This town was creepy at night. Outside of the inn, it was cold, but the wind didn’t hit me immediately. It crept over me until it touched every inch of my skin, the coolness forcing its way beneath the material of my clothes. Canarywarts started to form on my arms, even underneath my sleeves. But I readjusted the strap of my knapsack and went out to talk to her. I didn’t want to be outside, especially alone. Not in this town. But I had to talk to her. I needed answers from someone, and I wasn’t getting anything out of Jace.
She was immobile in her cage still, even as I approached, and I felt bad for being partially responsible for it but I tried to not let that show.
“You seemed confused when I said the corpses turned into revenants — you didn’t know?”
Approaching a vampire in the middle of the night was far from being my greatest idea, but I didn’t want Jace to know that I was talking to her and for now, I was sure he was otherwise occupied.
Rhiannon didn’t look at me. I didn’t think she wanted to answer. She was laying on the floor in the middle of the iron cage, staring up at the night sky. I saw her lips moving, maybe she was counting the stars. The days were cloudy, but the nights were clear.
I turned to leave.
She wasn’t going to talk to me.
“When I was in Edgewick,” she said finally and I stopped in my tracks, “I saw what Faustine had done. That was weeks ago. Those people, they should’ve stayed dead. Rotting, decaying.” I turned around and she was sitting up now. Her pale skin had darkened around her eyes and her lips were chapped and purple in color. “If they came alive then something’s not right. Revenants went extinct decades ago after the — it doesn’t matter.” She looked at me, there were red veins reaching across her eyes. “He must’ve known — he must know. You.”