“She tricked me!” someone yells from behind Calla as she wriggles and screams.
“You idiot, I told you not to believe anything you see around her. Get her back to the dungeon, and get one of those bands on her ankle.”
Calla is handed over to someone else. He carries her quickly back the way she came, down the passage, through a doorway and—
She’s gone. I sit up straight, my heart racing. What just happened? “Ryn.” I tug his arm. “Ryn, wake up.”
“Mm?”
“She’s not dead. I saw her.”
“What?” He stares at me, confused.
“I was just sitting here playing with the bracelet and all of a sudden I saw her. She escaped, but someone caught her and took her back to the dungeon.”
“Dungeon?”
“Yeah, I heard someone say ‘dungeon’.”
Ryn is on his feet in an instant. “Do you think it’s here? Underneath this place?”
“Yes.” The word is barely out of my mouth, and Ryn is across the room, pulling the door open and running out. Too bad he has to run right into two guards. He jumps back just as I reach the door, then swings his fist into the closest guard’s face. Guard One cries out and clutches his nose just as Guard Two receives a kick to the stomach. But these guards are not as useless as they first appear, and a moment later Ryn is tackled onto the floor.
Right. Time to lose the dress. I grab hold of the black and silver fabric and tear as hard as I can. The skirt falls away, revealing my shorts, knives and boots. Aside from the top part of my outfit, I almost feel normal again.
Remembering the no-magic alarm, I run to the corner of the room and grab a tall floor lamp. “Get down,” I shout to Ryn, currently wrestling with both guards on the floor. He ducks as I swing the lamp and whack Guard One over the head, then thrust the end into Guard Two’s chest, knocking him out of the doorway and into the passage.
The guards lie motionless on the floor. Ryn stares at me with both eyebrows lifted in an expression I can’t quite identify. “What?” I ask.
“So much for returning the dress,” he says.
“It was getting in the way.”
With a knife in one hand and the pull of Calla’s location still fresh in my mind, I lead the way downstairs. The corridors we find ourselves in are narrow and winding; we must be taking the servants’ route through the house. When I feel like we must be nearly there, we reach the kitchen. We walk straight past several cooks, trying to pretend we have every right to be down here, and continue running the moment the kitchen doors swing shut behind us. Past the pantries full of food. Past several storage rooms. And finally, we find a staircase made of stone that leads downward.
I take the narrow stairs slowly, trying not to let the pointy heels of my boots make any noise on the stone. Sensing Ryn’s agitation, I step to one side. “I’d rather you didn’t push me down the stairs,” I whisper.
“Good call,” he says as he passes me. “You probably wouldn’t believe me if I said it was an accident.” He jumps down the stairs two at a time and disappears around a corner.
Stupid heels. Stupid no-magic rule.
I reach the bottom as quickly as my tiptoes will allow me. I round the corner—the same one Calla ran around before crashing into someone—and find Ryn beating his fists against a door made of a single stone slab. “Dammit, we just missed getting in.”
“What do you mean?” I place my hand against the stone. “Was this open?”
“Yeah, someone was going in just as I came around that corner. The stone moved across before I could get in.”
I reach for a handle, but there isn’t one. Looking closer, I see a narrow strip of metal running around the edge of the door, sealing the crack between the wall and the stone slab. “I think I recognize this metal,” I say, feeling a shiver course down my spine. I hold up my right hand and point to the scar encircling my wrist. “Do you know how I got this?”
“I heard you had some kind of altercation with an Unseelie faerie when you tried to take halfling boy back home.”
“You heard correct. That Unseelie faerie and his partner put a metal band around my wrist that was supposed to prevent me from accessing my magic. And that Unseelie faerie was Zell.”
“So you think this metal around the door is the same stuff?”
“Looks like it. And I think it’s what’s preventing me from sensing Calla.”
Ryn nods. “Could be. But that still doesn’t help with how we’re supposed to get past it.”
I stare at the door for a while. “Probably the only way is to wait until someone goes in or out.”
Ryn tugs at his hair. “Damn, I hate it when you’re right. So you plan to just stand here and wait?”
I slip my knife back into the sheath strapped to my thigh. “No, I plan to go around that other corner over there and sit down and then wait.” Which is exactly what I do. After another pointless fist thump against the stone door, Ryn joins me. We sit in silence, neither of us mentioning the fact that just a short while ago he was crying into my neck. I wonder if either of us will ever bring it up. I could definitely use it as blackmail if he tries to spread another embarrassing rumor about me.
I cross my legs beneath me and trace a finger along the laces of my boot. “That dress I had on was pretty. It’s a pity I had to rip it apart.”
“Yeah. It was entertaining to watch though.”
“To watch?” I fold my arms over my chest. “Weren’t you wrestling on the floor at the time?”
A grin lifts one side of Ryn’s mouth. “I can multitask, remember? And girls tearing their clothes off is something I try not to miss.”
I glare at him. “Have I told you before that you’re gross?”
“On multiple occasions.”
I decide now is a good time to change the subject. “Did you see that dress made of flames?”
“I did. And I wondered how it could work, given the no-magic rule.”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t know. It was amazing though. Everything in that ballroom was amazing.” I tilt my head back and rest it against the wall. “‘The colors and the lights that glow, the music and the masks. The people swaying to and fro in the enchanted dance.’” My words trail off as I consider something: I’m sitting in a dark, cold corner in the bum end of my enemy’s home reciting poetry. What is wrong with me?
“A. R. Thorntree,” murmurs Ryn.
I blink at him. “No. That poem is by Amos Tornweather.”
He frowns. “No it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.” Does Ryn honestly expect me to believe he knows poetry? He is so not the type.
“It’s definitely not Amos Tornweather.”
“It is,” I insist. “I was reading that poem just this afternoon.”
“Doesn’t matter how recently you read it, you’re still wrong.”
“Fine. Remind me to prove it to you when we get out of here.”
“I certainly will.”
We wait. I begin to feel hungry. And bored. I twist Calla’s bracelet around and around my wrist, absently rubbing the silver links between my fingers.
“I remember throwing your mother’s tokehari away,” Ryn says out of the blue. My hand freezes on the bracelet. “The gold chain with the gold key. The key was small, and the top had tiny outspread wings, like a bird.” I can’t think of anything to say, so I remain silent. After a sigh, he continues. “It was exactly a year after Reed died. It was also the day we had that junior school archery competition. You came first in our age group, and you were so damn excited about it. And all I could think about was how Reed was the one who first taught us how to use a bow and arrow, and you should have been sad because you should have been thinking about him. But you weren’t. And it wasn’t fair that you were so happy and I was in so much pain. I know it was cruel, but I wanted you to hurt as much as I was hurting.”
I close my eyes for a moment. “You can be such an ass, Ryn,” I say quietly. “Just because I was happy that day didn’t mea
n I’d forgotten about Reed. How could I ever forget him? He was like a brother to me, just like you—before you cut me off.” I take a deep breath. “But I managed to do something you don’t seem to find possible: I moved on.”
Ryn’s fist clenches, but his voice remains low. “You don’t understand. It’s not the same for me.”
“So explain it then. Explain why, after eight years, you still can’t move on.”
He shakes his head, his lips sealed firmly shut.
“Fine. Maybe you have issues you don’t want to tell me about, but I still think you have a choice. And so far you’ve chosen to hang onto your pain instead of letting it go.”
“Congratulations, you have me all figured out. Would you like a gold star?”
“No, I’d like my friend back.” Whoa, where did that come from?
He twists his head to look at me. “Are you talking about Reed or me?”
Good question. “Anyone, Ryn. I lost both of you after Reed died, and you made sure I never had another friend after that.”
“Well, you didn’t exactly make an effort yourself.”
“Could you blame me?” I demand, sitting up straighter. “Reed died, you deserted me, and then my father got killed. I didn’t want to care about anyone else in case I lost them too.”
Ryn leans slowly back against the wall without removing his eyes from mine. “Looks like I’m not the only one with issues.”
*
The silence between us expands. Aside from Ryn’s breathing, which is annoying the hell out of me simply because it’s him who’s breathing, there isn’t another sound. No water dripping, no dungeon creatures scurrying, no footsteps from upstairs.
And then comes a rumble. We jump to our feet immediately. Ryn pushes past me, just about knocking me over in his haste to get to the stone door. By the time it’s slid open completely, Ryn is standing in front of it. His fist flashes forward and whoever was about to leave the dungeon crumples onto the floor. I hurry over to assist in dragging the unconscious faerie out of the way.
The moment we cross over the threshold, the door slides shut behind us. “Crap.” I press my hands against the blank stone. “How do we get out of here?”
“We can worry about that on the way out. Right now, I think you want to see this.”
I turn around and get my first proper look at the room. It’s round, with a high ceiling and concentric circles of stone paving on the floor. An ornate chandelier of candles casts yellow light over the room, though it does nothing to raise the temperature. A round table large enough to seat about twenty people is covered with papers.
But none of that is as interesting or strange as what’s stuck to the walls. Everywhere I look I see names. Pages of them, some crossed out, some circled, some ticked, some written in different colors. And diagrams, with more names and connecting lines and details written in a tiny script. And maps. And all over the place, drawn onto the pages and etched into the stone walls, is the symbol of the griffin with the serpent tail.
I wrap my arms around myself as I approach the nearest page. “Estelle Waters,” I read out. “Can hear the thoughts of others. Ebony Waters: Can force thoughts into others’ heads. Gemma Waters: Can erase thoughts.”
“Violet Fairdale,” Ryn reads, his words sending a chill down my spine. “Can find people.”
My heart thundering, I move to his side. My name is written in large letters and has been circled over and over. It even has a star drawn next to it. “Looks like you’re important,” says Ryn. I shiver, and not only because it’s cold. “All these names,” he says. “And these special abilities. What the hell is this guy doing?”
“He’s collecting people,” I say faintly, staring at the star next to my name. “People who can do things that other faeries can’t.” And now it’s clear why he’s after me. “He wants to use me to find them all.”
Ryn turns to me. “And what exactly does he intend to do with all these people?”
“No idea. But right now I have another question for you, Ryn.” I cross my arms and face him. “What is Calla doing here?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Without answering me, Ryn walks to the table and begins looking through the pages. “Did you notice there’s an outline of a door on the wall opposite where we came in? Calla must be through there. We need to figure out how to open it.”
“She has some kind of extra power, doesn’t she?” I say, ignoring his attempt at deflection. “Why else would she be here?”
With his back to me, he says, “I’m not supposed to tell anyone. We’ve tried our best to keep it a secret.”
“I’m risking my life to help get her out of here, Ryn. The least you can do is tell me why she was taken.”
He feels along the table and lifts papers. Searching for keys, perhaps? Several pages float to the floor. I pick them up, fold them, and stuff them into one of my boots. You never know, they may contain useful information.
When Ryn reaches the other side of the table, he leans on it and looks at me. “She has a powerful imagination. Very powerful. When she imagines things, she can make you see them.”
I give myself a moment to let that sink in. “So . . . she can make me see anything she wants me to see?”
“Yes. She’s learning to control it so that she doesn’t have to share everything that goes on in her head, but she still slips up sometimes, when she gets emotional.”
“Wow. That’s a cool ability.”
“So is finding people.” He moves around the table again, feeling beneath the edge with his fingers. He stops. I hear a click. On the far side of the wall, a rectangular piece of stone slides up. “Yes. Found it.” In a few quick strides, he’s across the room.
“Stop!” I hurry to the opening. “Can’t you smell that?”
“What?”
I sniff the air again, recognizing something I’ve come across in Uri’s lab before. “I think it’s poison.” I look up. Embedded into the bottom edge of the stone that just slid up are hundreds of shards of glass, their pointed ends glistening blue. “I’m guessing that glass is going to fall on you if you walk beneath it.”
“There must be a way to deactivate it.” Ryn’s eyes scan the walls, probably for another button.
“Or we could just activate it,” I suggest. I fetch a piece of paper from the table and wave it beneath the bottom of the door, then jump back as the glass pieces slice through the air and hit the floor.
Without so much as a ‘thank you’, Ryn steps over the glittering shards and into the next room. “What the . . .”
I follow close behind him, and my stomach turns the moment I look up. Suspended from the ceiling by thick chains are what look like giant bird cages. And within each cage, most of them lying down, is a person. Around the ankles of those closest to me, I can see metal bands just like the one Zell and Drake put around my wrist. Below the cages, filling the centre of the vast room, is a large circular pool of water.
“This is so messed up.” I turn to Ryn. “We have to go to the Council about this. Surely you agree with me now? This isn’t just about your sister.”
He nods, but I don’t think he’s really listening. His eyes search the cages. “Calla?” he calls. I expect at least some of the sleeping prisoners to wake, but perhaps they’re used to hearing one another cry out.
“It looks like you can lower the cages,” I say, noticing the chains running across the ceiling and down the walls. “You just have to find the right chain.”
“And once the cage hits the water, then what?”
“Um . . . I guess you could swim out to the cage, but there’s probably some terrifying creature inhabiting this pool. And then there’s the problem of unlocking the—” I pause as I notice a faint rumble. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah.” We both look toward the room with the names.
“Crap, someone must have just come in.” I turn to Ryn. “You find Calla. I’ll deal with whoever that is.”
“Okay. Just . . . you know
, don’t die.”
I grace him with an eye roll. “Yeah, thanks, I’ll try not to.” Being careful not to stand on the glass, I peek through the doorway. I see him the same moment he sees me. Crimson hair, crimson eyes. It’s Zell.
Surprise flashes across his face, but it’s replaced in an instant by a creepy kind of delight. “Well, look who it is. Gate-crashing my party, I see.” He shakes his head. “And I bet you didn’t even bring me a birthday present.”
I grab one of my knives and throw it at him. With a flick of his hand, he sends it right back at me. Instinctively, I throw up an invisible shield. Then, remembering the no-magic rule, I’m so startled by the lack of a loud siren that I almost let the shield go. “But—the alarm.”
Zell laughs. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would there be an alarm down here? My prisoners have their metal bands to keep them from trying anything magical. Metal bands that have been improved, by the way. Thank you for demonstrating that the previous ones couldn’t completely block magic.”
“But . . . what about the metal around the door? Isn’t that supposed to block the use of magic in here?”
“Oh, that’s to prevent magic from outside getting in and interfering. It doesn’t stop what happens inside here.” He places his fingertips together and watches me, as though waiting for me to make a move.
“All those people in there.” I indicate behind me. “They have special abilities, don’t they?”
“Of course. You didn’t honestly think you were the only one who could do something out of the ordinary, did you?” Actually, that’s exactly what I thought. Looking back, it seems like a stupid assumption.
There’s a noise behind me. I step through the doorway, trying to cover the noise with the sound of my boots. “Where’s Drake?” I ask. Hopefully I can divert Zell’s attention until Ryn has managed to find and free Calla. “When I first met the two of you, he seemed to be the one in charge.”
Zell’s smile is cruel. “He thought he was in charge too. No, no. Drake never knew who I was. He was useful for a time, but that time came to an end, and I had to get rid of him.”
Faery Realms: Ten Magical Titles: Multi-Author Bundle of Novels & Novellas Page 20