by Box Set
I laugh. “Right. Of course that’s what would happen.”
Ryn hugs me tighter. “I told you I love your sarcasm, Sexy Pixie.”
“As much as I love that name.” As he laughs, I realize something else. “This is why Reed’s death hit you harder than anyone else, right? Because you had to feel everyone else’s pain as well as your own?”
Ryn’s hair brushes mine as he nods. “And it’s why I couldn’t just ‘move on’ like you did. Because I still feel my mother’s pain every day. But, like I told you before, I’m trying.” He kisses my cheek. “Oh, and that ‘weird habit’ you noticed? Pressing my hand to my chest?”
“Yes?”
“When people feel emotion that’s strong and sudden, it kind of gives me this momentary ache. I guess I developed that habit without realizing it. It surprised me that you noticed.”
“Well, don’t worry, I’m sure no one else did.” I tilt my head back and look up at the sky. Some of the glow-bugs have disappeared, but there are still enough above us to make it look like the reflection of an ocean filled with phosphorescent creatures. I don’t want to leave here, but I know the night will have to end. I’ll have to return home and do non-thrilling things like decide what course my life is going to take now.
Ryn, who, of course, can sense the subtle change in my mood, asks, “What do you think about the Guild’s job offer?”
“How did you know they offered me a job?”
“They offered me a job, so obviously they offered you one too. What are you thinking? I assume you have to tell them by tomorrow, like I do.”
“Yes.” I pull one of my hands out from beneath his and twist a piece of hair around my finger. “It makes sense to take it, I suppose. My life’s purpose is to protect people, and I can do that best through the Guild.”
“But?”
I smile at the fact that he knows there’s a ‘but.’ “Well, it’s kind of a predictable path, isn’t it? We’d be put in teams and spend a year doing different kinds of assignments. After that, we’d decide which department we want to join, get put into new teams, and spend the next few decades working the same kind of assignments with the same people.”
“Yeah. Unless the Guild is attacked, all guardians are defeated, and life is never the same again.”
“Well, it would certainly be a lot more exciting if the Guild were attacked.” I drop my hand and sigh. “It’s just that I’ve always dreamed about graduating and working for the Guild, but now that I’m here, I wonder if there isn’t a better option.”
“Like offering your private services to wealthy fae in need of personal protection? Because somehow I think you’d pick a dangerous assignment over being a bodyguard any day.”
“Definitely.”
“And if you were at the Guild, you’d have me.” He slips the edge of my jacket off my shoulder, and his lips brush a burning trail along my bare skin. “We could kick dangerous-fae butt together instead of you being out there on your own.” He pulls away, leaving my shoulder cold. “But don’t let me influence your decision in any way. It’s up to you, of course.”
“Oh, right, whatever.” I laugh. “If that wasn’t you trying to influence me, then I don’t know what is.”
“You don’t? Would you like me to show you?” In a second, he’s jumped up, pulled me to my feet, and caught me in his arms. “If I were really trying to influence you, it might go something like this.” He lifts my left arm, pushes my sleeve slowly back, and touches his lips to the inside of my wrist, right where my guardian markings are. His kiss sends a shiver along my arm and up my neck. When his kisses reach the crook of my elbow, he reaches up and cups my face with his hands. He brings his lips close to mine, but instead of kissing me, he holds his head just close enough for me to feel his heat but not his touch. He whispers, “How much would you miss this if you were far away from me all the time?”
Instead of answering, I close the gap between us and press my lips hard against his. Now that I’ve taken the leap and decided to trust that he wants this as much as I do, I can’t seem to get enough of him. And the way he holds me close and molds his body to mine tells me he feels the same way. When my head is spinning so much the glow-bugs seem to be dancing in zigzaggy lines around us, I pull away from him. “I’d hate to ruin this moment by falling off the carpet,” I say, my words more than a little breathless, “so perhaps we should head back?”
He leans his forehead against mine. “Have I told you that I hate it when you’re right?”
“Many times.”
The magic carpet carries us back to the hollow at the top of the gargan tree. I could easily hop off by myself, but Ryn clearly wants to help me down, and, since I love the feel of his hands around my waist, I don’t argue.
He rolls up the carpet and tucks it beneath his arm. He opens his mouth to say something, but a soft smile spreads across his features, and he leans forward to kiss me instead. Moments later, his lips leave mine with a sigh. “I need to return the carpet,” he says. “I’ll only be a few minutes. Then we can spend the rest of the evening doing whatever you want.” He heads off along one of the branches, leaving me with a ridiculously huge smile on my face. I press my hands against my chest, feeling like I need to hold my elation in so it doesn’t explode out of me.
“Vi?”
All feeling in my chest drops down to my toes and vanishes, leaving my body cold.
That voice. I know it.
“Vi, is that you?”
I turn slowly. In a doorway outlined against the gargan’s widest branch, stands the last person I want to see.
Nate.
Twenty-Nine
If someone walked over and punched me in the stomach, I’d be less shocked than I am right now.
What. The. Freak?
With a whoosh and a spray of sparks, my bow and arrow are blazing in my outstretched arms. “How did you find me?” I demand.
“Luck, I guess.” He steps out of the faerie paths, and the doorway seals up behind him. “It’s the only place I know how to get to. I know how to get to the entrance of the Guild, but they’d have no reason to let me in. And I know how to get to the inside of your home, but I don’t have permission to enter it. I don’t know what the outside looks like, so I couldn’t just knock on your door. That only left this place.” He watches me carefully. He doesn’t raise his hands, though; he obviously doesn’t believe I’d shoot him.
“How dare you come looking for me after what you did?”
“Vi, please, I can explain.”
“I don’t want your explanations, Nate. I want you to leave before I accidentally let go of this arrow.”
“Please, Vi! You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“What you’ve been through?” I lower my bow slightly in disbelief. “I almost died because of you, Nate!”
“I know! And I’m so sorry.” He takes a step toward me. I train the arrow on him once more. “Zell forced me to help him, Vi. He got Scarlett to put that eye on me, which meant he could see everything I saw. I was supposed to try and find out from you who the identity of the guardian with the finding ability was. Since I didn’t want him to know it was you, I obviously kept my mouth shut. But then you went and gave yourself away!”
“What?” Is he seriously blaming this on me?
“We were in my room, and you said something about apologizing for agreeing to find my mother for me. Don’t you remember? And that’s when he figured out it was you. He beat me up for not telling him before. Remember the bruise I had? And I lied and said it was a fight I got into at school?”
“You lied. Great. How many other things are you lying about?”
He throws his hands up in frustration. “Nothing! I’m not lying to you!”
“Have you forgotten about the part where you led me to a secret cave and handed me over to Zell? I didn’t see anyone forcing you to do that.”
“He was threatening my parents! He would have killed them if I hadn’t brought him to you. So
I thought I could do both. Protect them and still get you out alive. That’s why I pointed out that river to you. You know, the one that bubbled up into the cave and went back down through the mountain and out the side? We walked past it and I said you could catch a quick ride out of there if you jumped down it.”
“That was your big plan, Nate? Seriously?” As it happened, that’s exactly how I got out of the mountain, but it almost killed me.
“I had no other choice. Don’t you understand that?”
“There’s always a choice, Nate. Why didn’t you ask me for help?”
“How? Zell had that eye on me. He could see everything I saw. He was watching my every move. Listening to every conversation.”
“You’re not stupid, Nate. You could have figured something out. Closed your eyes and written me a note, or something.”
“Vi …”
Branches rustle and we both look to the side. Ryn steps through the leaves and into the hollow. His eyes dart between Nate and me, but his expression gives no hint as to what he’s thinking or feeling. I wish I had his ability right now. “Well,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest as he walks to my side. “Look who came scuttling back.”
Nate’s eyes pan back and forth between Ryn and me. “What is he doing here?”
Ryn slides an arm around my waist. “What does it look like I’m doing here?”
“Ryn.” I glare at him and mutter, “You are not helping.”
“You’re with him now?” Nate looks disgusted. “How the hell did that happen?”
“Dripping wet in a secret passage,” Ryn says before I can answer. “It was pretty damn hot.”
“Ryn!”
“So is this the part where you warn me to stay away from your girlfriend?” Nate sneers.
Ryn’s cocky smile makes an appearance. “Of course not. I wouldn’t insult Violet by suggesting she can’t handle you on her own.”
I roll my eyes and lower my bow. “Okay. That’s great.” I lower my voice. “So how about you wait at the bottom of the tree so that I can, you know, handle things on my own?” Ryn’s eyes bore into mine, and I can tell he’s trying to figure out if everything’s okay. I’ll be fine, I mouth.
“Okay.” He turns to Nate. “So long, halfling boy. I hope we never meet again.” He vanishes into a doorway in the air.
“I can’t believe this,” Nate mutters, shaking his head. “I finally manage to get away from Zell, and the first person I come to—you—has already moved on as if I were never a part of your life.”
I let my bow and arrow disappear; we both know I’m not going to use it, even after what Nate did to me. “What did you think would happen, Nate? That I’d go running back into your arms?”
“I don’t know, Vi. But I certainly didn’t expect to come back and find myself caught up in a love triangle.”
“There is no love triangle, Nate. A love triangle would imply that you actually stand a chance with me, which you don’t.”
Nate takes a jolted step backward, as if I slapped him. Ouch. Those words came out way harsher than I meant them to.
“But you loved me, Vi,” he says quietly. “I know you did.”
I shake my head. “No. I didn’t, and I don’t.”
“You did. You were too scared to say it, but I know you—”
“I didn’t. Perhaps I could have if you’d given me a chance, but you didn’t.” I take a deep breath. “I did care about you, and I was so angry and hurt that I almost did something stupid with a potion. But I got over it. I got over you.”
He stares at me for a long time before he says, “I still love you.”
“Don’t lie to me. What about Scarlett?”
He pales. “Scarlett?”
“I saw the two of you together at Zell’s masquerade ball.”
“You were there?”
“Yes. Ryn and I were both there. And it certainly didn’t look like you were missing me when Scarlett was whispering in your ear.”
He looks away and shakes his head. “It’s complicated. She’s a siren, Vi—”
“Oh, so you had no choice, right? Just like you had no choice leading me into a trap in that mountain? And you had no choice using your storms to breach the protective enchantments of the Guild to potentially hurt a whole lot of innocent people?”
“Vi—”
“I think you should go, Nate. Whatever we had is over. Maybe you’re telling the truth about everything, maybe you’re not. But I don’t know, and I can never trust you again. You need to get on with your life, and I need to get on with mine. Take your parents and run, if you have to, but don’t involve me.” I cross my arms and swallow. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
PART IV
Thirty
The penthouse apartment of the high-rise building I’m in has floor-to-ceiling glass in every room, allowing the city lights to twinkle through. They illuminate the apartment’s interior, making it easy to see where I’m going. I creep down a curving stairway constructed from nothing more than slim, black pieces of wood inserted into the wall on one side. I suppose the stairway’s meant to be arty and minimalist, but I find myself wondering how many people have tripped down it. I reach the bottom and scan the open room displaying paintings on walls and sculptures on pedestals. A pole-like bookcase with flat pieces of wood attached to it like branches on a tree catches my eye, as does a weirdly shaped lounge suite that’s probably also considered art.
No one here.
The owner of the apartment—currently asleep in one of the oversized bedrooms—is an art collector, and it seems a certain faerie thief has taken a liking to the items on display here. Last week he stole a valuable painting, and we’ve spent the past four days figuring out who he is and when he’ll try to pull off his next heist. We want to catch him in the act.
I signal to Jay, one of the three members of my team, to follow me down the stairs. Asami, my other teammate, is already positioned on the balcony that extends along one side of the apartment’s exterior in case our faerie thief plans to enter that way. “Hide under that weird couch,” I whisper to Jay as I point to the piece of furniture that looks like a giant tiger trying to hug something. “I’ll be behind the sculpture of the woman-beast-rock-thing.”
“Interesting choice,” he says, eyeing the bizarre sculpture. Jay is a graduate from another Guild who decided he wanted to start his working life in a new place and wound up in Creepy Hollow. He’s nice enough, but I’d far rather have Ryn on my team. Not only because I’m the team leader and I’d get to boss him around, but because, well, I want to be around him all the time. Tora took it upon herself to mention to the Council that Ryn and I are in a relationship—something I still haven’t quite forgiven her for—and the Council decided it would be better if we didn’t work together. It took a lot of restraint for me not to point out that there are several husband-and-wife teams at our Guild and no one seems to have a problem with that.
Jay slips beneath the couch, and I crouch down behind the woman-beast-rock-thing. A small metal plaque attached to the base tells me it’s called The Revelation of Eve. Interesting.
And so we wait.
It’s a little boring.
In the month since I accepted the position at the Guild, this is only the third assignment I’ve been involved in. It seems a pathetic number to me, considering I used to have a new assignment almost every evening when I was still training. But these assignments are far more in-depth, I’ll admit—and I was a bit of an over-achieving trainee.
The wristband I now wear in place of my trainee tracker band tingles. I look down at the two stones fitted into the leather—blue for Asami, green for Jay—and see the blue one slowly flashing. I peep around the sculpture and look to the balcony where I know Asami is hiding. I pull my head back immediately. The figure I saw peering in through the window was definitely not Asami. I press the blue stone to let him know I’ve received his alert.
I peek through a crack between the sculpture’s woman-arm
and beast-tail. The figure at the window has vanished. A moment later he steps out of a faerie path on the wall beside a painting of messy, mixed-up colors. He heads straight for a glass case with an ornately decorated egg resting on a cushion.
With two fingers, I press both stones on my wristband three times in quick succession. Jay and Asami know exactly what that means: Let’s take this guy down.
* * *
It isn’t difficult. There are three of us and only one of him, and even though he pulls a pretty elaborate stunt with a rope he magically attaches to the ceiling, it only takes a few minutes before we’ve got him bound and gagged and ready to haul off to the Guild. We didn’t even set off any alarms in the process. Jay and Asami take him back through the faerie paths, while I stay behind to return every item to its place in the room so the owner will never know anyone was here.
I remove the rope from the ceiling and wrap it around my arm. A few books got knocked off the tree-shaped bookcase, so I slot them back in wherever I see a space. The potted plant on the highest shelf seems to have dropped a few leaves. I spread my fingers, and the leaves float upward toward my open hands. I catch the leaves and stuff them into my pocket.
I’m about to open a doorway to the faerie paths when I notice a torn piece of paper lying at the foot of the glass separating the balcony from the apartment interior. I can’t remember if the paper was on the floor when we got here, but it seems more likely that it fell from the thief’s pocket than was left on the floor by the owner of this place. He’s clearly an obsessive neat freak. I bend to pick up the paper and turn it over as I straighten. My heart jumps when I see handwriting I recognize.
Zell’s.
I wish I didn’t know the Unseelie Prince’s handwriting, but I have an image stamped quite firmly in my mind of his circular dungeon wall covered in hundreds of handwritten names. I’ll certainly never forget the shape of the letters that spelled my own name, which is how I know the same hand wrote the two sentences I see on the torn scrap of paper in my hand.