by Box Set
“Raven?” She turns to look at me as though she’s forgotten I’m there. “I need to do a bit of my own shopping, so if you don’t need my help carrying anything …”
“Oh, sure, you go do your thing.” She pats her shrinking shopping bag. “My stuff will easily fit in here.”
* * *
The next two weeks crawl by, but finally, after five years of training, studying, assignments, and generally working my butt off, the day has arrived.
Graduation.
Imaginary butterflies beat their wings furiously within my stomach as I stand in front of a mirror in Tora’s house. Raven should be here any minute now with my dress, and in about two hours—because, apparently, that’s how long it takes to get ready—Ryn will be here to pick me. No, to meet me; it isn’t a date.
I look away from the mirror and down at my hands. My tokehari from my father, the ring with the gold-flecked purple stone, is on my right hand. When Dad died, I automatically inherited all his belongings, but the ring is special. It’s the item he specifically set aside for me in the event of his death. The item I’m meant to remember him by. I only have one other piece of jewelry that means as much to me—the arrow-shaped earrings that were a gift from Reed before he died—and they’re in my ears right now.
My gaze moves to my bare wrists. By the end of tonight, permanent markings will curl across the skin there, forever marking me as a guardian. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Well, that and to be the very best guardian. But now that I’m standing here with my goal in sight and my future spread out before me like one endless, blank piece of reed paper, I’m not entirely sure what to do next. I’m almost guaranteed a position with the Guild, if I want it, so the logical thing would be to tell them about my finding ability and work with the Department of Missing Fae. But I’m afraid that once they know what I can do, they’ll never let me leave. I could be trapped at the Guild for the rest of my working life.
“Vi, are you up here?”
I turn at the sound of Raven’s voice. “Yes, the room at the end of the passage.”
She shuffles sideways through the door with a large, flat bag over her shoulder and a smaller square case tucked under her arm. I take a few quick strides to the door to help her. “Thanks,” she says. I dump the case on the bed as she carefully lays out the large bag. “Okay, I’m not showing you the dress until it’s actually on you. That way you’ll get the full effect.”
“Full effect?” That sounds worrying.
“Yes.” She flips up the clips on the square case and pulls the lid back. “Here, I made this bra for you. Go put it on while I get the dress out.”
She removes a padded bra from amongst the clips and colored pots in the case and hands it to me. It’s covered in white lace and is far prettier than any underwear I’ve ever owned. But there’s something else different about it. I hold it up, giving it a suspicious sniff. “Is there magic in this thing?”
Raven keeps her eyes averted while digging through the case for who knows what. “Um, possibly.”
“Seriously, Raven?” I toss the bra on top of the dress bag. “Enchanted underwear?”
“Vi.” She perches on the edge of the bed and picks up the offensive piece of underwear. “Despite what you’ve been brought up to believe, magic isn’t only useful for attacking people. You can also use it to … enhance certain natural features.” I stare at her until she sighs and says pointedly, “And you could use some help in the cleavage department.”
With an eye roll and a groan, I snatch the bra out of her hands. “Fine. I’ll wear it.” I head to the corner of the room to change out of my black pants and tank top. The bra fits perfectly, which isn’t surprising; Raven’s always been good at her job. I look down at my improved cleavage and notice a pleasant scent. “Next thing you’ll be telling me there’s some kind of aphrodisiac spell woven into this underwear.”
“Only a little one.”
“Raven!”
“Kidding,” she says with a laugh. “It’s just a perfume spell. It’ll produce whatever scent is most appealing to you or, if you’re standing close to someone you find attractive, whatever scent is most appealing to him.”
“How does the bra know if I find someone attractive? And what if he likes a scent I don’t like? And what if it’s someone I just happen to find attractive, but I’m not actually interested in him and I don’t want him sniffing me?”
“Um …”
“I see a lot of flaws in this design, Raven.”
“Look, this range of underwear is still in the experimentation phase, okay. Now keep your eyes up while I bring the dress over.”
I do as instructed and try not to fall over as Raven guides my feet into a circle of fabric and lifts the dress up around me. She runs her finger quickly up the center of my back, and the dress does itself up while she steps around to stand in front of me. She smiles and says, “I was right. The sweetheart neckline definitely suits you, especially since you now have a little bit of cleavage. And the empire line was a good choice too. Very elegant.”
“Okay, enough with the fashion jargon. Can I see it now?” She steps out of the way and I walk over to the mirror. I stare for a long moment before whispering, “Wow.”
“You like it?” Raven asks, her hands clasped together beneath her chin.
“Raven, it’s amazing. You were right. It is perfect for me.”
The dress is simple and strapless and feels light and comfortable. The sweetheart shape that goes across my chest is a deep bronze color, with tiny crystals sewn along the edge. They shimmer bronze, black, and grey as if each one has a tiny fire lit within it. From just below my bust right down to my toes, the dress—which is in no way puffy at all—is an off-white color. The top layer is sheer with tiny flowers that look real scattered across its surface. The flowers, like the crystals, cycle through various shades of bronze and black. Lastly, several strings of pearls and crystals hang from the center of my bust, loop gracefully around the left side of the dress, and attach somewhere high up at the back.
“Oh, wow,” Tora says from the doorway. “Raven, you did an amazing job.”
“Thanks.” Raven places her hands on her hips and examines her work. “Too many girls go for the fancy, puffy look better suited to a human ballroom in Victorian times. I wanted to get back to our faerie roots with this dress.”
“It’s perfect,” Tora says with a sniff. “I think I might cry.”
“Not in here.” Raven points to the door. “Please take your weepiness elsewhere.”
“Fine,” Tora says with a laugh that sounds more like a snuffle. “Call me when you’re ready, and I’ll try to keep my weeping under control.”
“She leaks way too easily,” I say to Raven once Tora has left the room.
“Can you blame her?” Raven pulls a chair in front of the mirror and makes me sit down. “This is a big day for her too, Vi. You were her very first trainee, not to mention she’s also like your surrogate mother and sister rolled into one. You should allow her a few tears.”
“Hey, you’re the one who banished her from the room,” I point out.
“Yes, well, I don’t want her tears on you.” In the mirror, I see her reach into her makeup case for something. She starts dabbing a sponge over my face.
“Why aren’t you using makeup spells?” I ask, thinking of all the times I’ve heard her mutter a few quick words and seen a layer of powder form on her palm, or lipstick come out of the tip of her finger.
“Makeup spells are more for touching up,” she explains. “If you want to do things properly, you need the real stuff.”
Oops. I guess I didn’t do a proper job at Zell’s masquerade and the Harts’ cocktail party.
Raven works quickly, coloring my lips with a neutral shade and my eyelids with something dark and smoky. A few brushes of bronze powder enhance the shape of my cheekbones, and a twirl of her stylus lengthens my eyelashes. I hate it when I have to admit that I’m not good at something, but I definitely could
not do what she just did.
“Okay, let’s see if we can tame your mane,” she says as she drops her pot of bronzer back into the case.
“My mane? Really, Raven, there’s no need to exaggerate.”
“I’m not sure it’s an exaggeration, Vi. Has your hair ever even been introduced to a hair brush?”
“I don’t need to brush my hair!” I protest. “I happen to like the messy, wavy, unbrushed look.”
“Yes. I can see that.” Raven twists a strand of her own sleek, straight hair around her finger as she examines my head. “Well, I say we go with something simple. Curls, some of them pinned up, with small flowers stuck here and there.”
“Um, sure. You’re the expert.”
While she heats up her fingers and winds sections of my hair around them, I work up the courage to ask a question I’ve wanted to ask someone ever since I made out with Nate in a tree and a branch spontaneously broke off and almost landed on my head.
Okay, here goes. “Um, can I ask you something, Raven?”
“Uh huh.” She lets go of a few pieces of hair, and perfect curls settle over my shoulder.
“When you’re kissing a guy, and you feel really, uh … attracted to him, is it normal to, um …” Her fingers stop moving in my hair and she meets my gaze in the mirror. She raises an eyebrow. I clear my throat. “Is it normal to …” Dammit, she knows exactly what I’m asking; I can see it in her glittering magenta eyes. “Uh, you know, lose control of your magic? And … weird stuff happens?”
A grin turns her lips up. “Oh yeah. It’s definitely normal.”
“But that can’t last forever, can it? I mean, things would be exploding all over the place if people couldn’t control themselves every time they kissed or … well, other stuff.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “It doesn’t last forever, don’t worry. You learn to control it after a while. Well, with kissing anyway. It’s a little more difficult to control with the ‘other stuff,’ as you put it.” Her grin turns mischievous. “You should have seen the mess when Flint and I went on our honeymoon. It was—”
“Okay,” I interrupt loudly. “I think this falls into the Too Much Information category.”
“Well, anyway.” She smiles to herself as she continues curling my hair. “Now I have to ask: Which boy have you been kissing?” She narrows her eyes at me in the mirror. “Is it at all possible that we’re talking about Ryn?”
“What? No! Definitely not. There was … this other guy.”
“Other guy?” Raven looks skeptical. “And how come none of us knew about this other guy?”
I sigh. “Honestly? You wouldn’t have approved of him. He wasn’t really the kind of guy I should have been seeing. I mean, it’s over now, don’t worry,” I assure her. “I just … I liked him, he hurt me, and I learned my lesson.”
“Oh, Vi, I’m—”
“Please.” I hold up a hand. “Don’t get all soppy on me. I’m totally over it, I promise.” And I realize, as I say the words, that they’re true. I still think about Nate every now and then, but it doesn’t cause that sharp pain in my chest like it used to. And in the days since I finished my final assignment, it hasn’t even crossed my mind to watch his window in the middle of the night. I’ve been visiting Tora, annoying Ryn, cleaning out my house from top to bottom—except for my parents’ bedroom—and using the forest as my training center for random exercises.
Raven finishes curling my hair, pins a few strands up, and magically attaches tiny flowers here and there. “There,” she says, standing back. “Perfect. Oh, I left your shoes downstairs. Hang on, I’ll go get them.”
I stand frozen in front of the mirror, afraid for several ridiculous moments that if I move I might mess something up. Then I do something silly and girly that I’ve quite possibly never felt the need to do before: I twirl around in a circle, watching the way the fabric floats out around my body.
I hear a knock on the door and prepare myself for more of Tora’s tears. When I look up, though, I see a head of black and blue curls peering around the doorway.
“Zin—Mrs. Larkenwood. What are you doing here?”
She smiles as she steps into the room. “You used to call me Zinnia when you were young. I wish you’d still call me that.”
“Um, okay.”
“Ryn told me you’d be getting ready here, and … well, I wanted to see you all dressed up.” She presses her hands together and sits on the edge of the bed. “And I also need to apologize for something. Well, for several things, actually.”
Confused, I perch on the edge of the bed beside her. I can’t imagine what Zinnia might have to apologize for.
“I … I’m really sorry I wasn’t there for you when your father died. I wish I could have been. I was supposed to be.” She takes a deep breath. “Do you know you were meant to come and live with us?”
My eyes widen as I shake my head.
“Linden and I—when we were still together—had an agreement with your parents that if anything should happen to us, they would take care of Reed and Ryn, and if anything should happen to your parents, we would take care of you. However, given the circumstances at the time of your father’s death … Well, Linden had recently left us, and Ryn was angry with everything and everyone in his life, especially you. I know he would have made life very difficult for you had you come to live with us. So Tora and I arranged for you to stay with her for a while instead. She had been your mentor for almost a year by then, and the two of you got on well together. She cared for you more than you knew, and she was happy to take you in.”
Zinnia stops talking, and I wonder if I’m supposed to respond now. I can’t imagine how different—how awful—life would have been had I gone to live with Ryn and Zinnia four years ago. Zinnia would have been nice enough, I’m sure, but Ryn undoubtedly would have tried to make my life as miserable as possible. Or perhaps we would have confronted one another far sooner, realized the misunderstanding regarding Reed’s death, and gone back to being friends years ago. The past four years would have been completely different.
“Anyway, I just want you to know that … I’ve always thought of you like a daughter,” Zinnia continues. “I’ve never stopped caring about you or checking in with Tora to see how you’re doing. Ryn’s behavior toward you in the years since Reed’s death has been inexcusable, and I have to apologize for that.” She reaches over and takes my hand. “I don’t know why or how it happened, but I know the two of you have finally made up, and I’m so thankful for that. I only wish I could have done something to make it happen sooner.”
I squeeze her hand. “You really don’t need to apologize for him, Zinnia. It wasn’t your fault.” I give her a reassuring smile before standing up.
“Wait, Vi, there’s something else.” She puts her head in her hands for a moment and groans, then pushes her hair back and looks up at me. “This is the big one because it really is my fault. Um …” She runs her hands up and down the length of her thighs. “Before your mother died, she gave me something. A locked wooden box with your name on it. She asked me to keep it safe until the day you graduated, just in case she was no longer around to give it to you herself.”
With my heart pounding faster in my chest, I say, “Okay.”
“I hid the box away, checking on it occasionally to make sure it was still there. As the years passed by, I stopped checking. The box was safe, after all. Who would want to take it?”
I press one hand to my lips, knowing without a doubt that this story isn’t going to have a happy ending.
“After your father died, I remembered the box and went to check it was still there.” Zinnia looks down at the floor. “It was gone. I don’t know when, or how, but it was gone. I asked Linden about it—he was the only other person who knew where I’d hidden it—but he swore he’d never touched it. And what would he want with it, anyway? He was living a happy life outside of Creepy Hollow with his new wife and child.”
I nod, although I’m not quite sure why. P
art of me wishes Zinnia had never told me any of this. Now I’ll forever be wondering what it was my mother wanted to give me. I drop my hand from my mouth. “Why … why didn’t she give it to my father?”
“I think she was afraid that he wouldn’t be alive either by the time you graduated. The two of them always liked to take on the most dangerous assignments.” She shakes her head, blinking away tears. “Looks like she was right.”
I turn my back to Zinnia so she won’t see the moisture in my eyes. I don’t usually cry over my parents, but that’s because I try not to think about them much. Zinnia’s story has brought them right to the forefront of my mind, reminding me that neither of them is here to share this incredibly important occasion with me.
Ugh, what am I doing? I’m going to make myself cry if I keep having thoughts like that. My parents wouldn’t want me to cry on the day of my graduation, would they? I suppose I don’t know what my mother would say, but I know my father wouldn’t want me to cry. He saw how hard I worked for every single assignment. He’d be ridiculously excited and proud if he were here today; he wouldn’t want me crying over a box.
“This is supposed to be a happy day,” I say, turning back to Zinnia. “It’s a celebration day. We shouldn’t be crying. Yes, an important box went missing, and we’ll never know what was inside it, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”
She sits up straight and stares at me. “You have amazing strength, Vi.”
I look away. I’m not sure her words are true. Most of the time I try not to think about all the things that hurt; that probably has a lot more to do with weakness than strength.
She puts her arms carefully around my shoulders and hugs me. “I really am sorry,” she whispers into my ear. “And I’m very proud of you.” She pulls back and rearranges some of the curls over my shoulder. “Well, I need to dash home and change into something suitable for a graduation ceremony. I expect Ryn will be here soon to meet you.”