“Shut up. It wasn’t that bad.”
“But you’ve got it now, right?” She seemed fixated on the phone thing. As if being phoneless was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. She should try being in my shoes for a while.
“No, actually. It was kind of confiscated.”
“Really? What did you do?”
Only then did it occur to me that this might not be the real Sona. Sure, she acted like it, but how could I tell? The senior study was packed—and any of these people could be a Sidhe wearing a false face. Could even be Puck. We’d never found out what happened to him.
I could hardly tell her my phone had been taken to protect me from magical doppelgangers when for all I knew she was one. I sighed. Damn, life got complicated.
“It’s a long story. How was your holiday?”
Sona’s grandparents were visiting from India, so there were many funny stories to tell. At least, the real Sona’s grandparents were visiting. Was the real Sona standing here laughing about her grandfather’s dreadful English or was this a Sidhe pretender?
God, I could go crazy thinking like this. I couldn’t go on suspecting everyone.
Zac walked in, Ashleigh trailing behind him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw CJ tense, but I had no emotion to waste on her problems with Zac here. My heart leapt at the sight of him. He nodded to me and put his bag down on the other side of the room.
I swallowed. A feeling of dread squeezed my throat. He stayed chatting to Ashleigh. A nod? That was all the acknowledgement I got?
Oh, hell. He was mad that I hadn’t contacted him all holidays. I knew it. I marched over to him, though my heart was stuttering with nerves, determined to put this straight right away.
“Hi, Zac.”
“Hi.” No dimple. Not even the hint of a smile.
“Did you—” I cleared my throat. Ashleigh stared at me as if I was some bug she’d like to squash. “Did you have a good holiday?”
No. This was all wrong. I didn’t want to make meaningless small talk about the holidays. Why are you being so cold?
“It was okay.” He shrugged. “I tried calling you, but …”
“I was tied up. With … the frog thing. You know.”
How could I explain anything without explaining it all? I glared at Ashleigh. Why wouldn’t she just get lost? This was hard enough without her standing there smirking and listening to every word.
“Right. Yeah.”
He was really pissed. I’d never seen him like this, as if he just didn’t care.
Or maybe this wasn’t really him. Tears pricked my eyes as I heard Dorian’s warning again in my head: Everyone you saw—virtually anyone you know—could potentially be a Sidhe. Why did everything have to be so bloody complicated?
“I just … my phone wasn’t working.”
Ashleigh folded her arms, as if she was just waiting for me to take myself off so she could resume her much more interesting conversation with Zac without interruption.
“Uh-huh.”
He turned as if to go.
“I really wanted to call you!” I said desperately.
Ashleigh snorted. I could feel myself blushing furiously. Right now I was convinced Ashleigh was the damn Sidhe, and if I’d had a piece of iron handy I would have decked her with it.
He looked away, as if the conversation bored him. “Look, Violet, it’s no big deal. You don’t have to make excuses.”
He’d called me Violet. He never called me Violet. And then he really did walk away, leaving me standing there with every eye in the room on me. I’d never felt so exposed, not even with my face all over the internet. I was hurting for him, and hurting for me. Not being able to explain, to make it right, was breaking my heart.
The bell rang for the first class. I got my bag and trudged out of the room with everyone else, unshed tears burning in my eyes.
Simon took one look at my face and lost his new smile. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Everything. My turn to be the grumpy one now.
CJ came up behind me and grabbed my arm. “Someone needs to hit that boy with the clue stick,” she said tartly. “It’s not as if there’s nothing weird going on in your life right now. You’d think he might realise it’s not all about him.”
Coming from CJ, that was pretty funny. But it was nice to have her standing up for me. When it really mattered, no one cared for you as much as family. Twins first.
I gave her a wobbly smile. “Boys suck.”
“Amen, sister.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I was glad, the next day, that CJ’s Visual Arts class was coming with us on the excursion to the Art Gallery. She got on the bus and gave Zac a glare that would have stripped the skin off him if he’d been looking. Even though I was sitting next to Sona and she sat with a girl from her class, it was good to know she had my back. And tonight Mum and Dad would be home. I’d decided to tell Mum everything. Maybe she’d be able to help me bring my magic out again—she was a warder, after all. And she’d want to help Dad as much as I did.
Miss Moore and CJ’s teacher, Miss Tan, got on the bus and did a headcount.
“Everyone got a clipboard and pen?” Miss Tan asked.
There were groans along the bus. “Can’t we just go on an excursion without taking notes for once, miss?”
“And where would be the educational value in that?” she asked, passing worksheets to all her art students.
Miss Moore had a different set for the Ancient History class, of course. She strode down the aisle of the bus like a glamazon on the catwalk, handing them out. She was in a black pants suit today, her bright red stilettos the only pop of colour. I don’t think I’d ever seen her in any colour other than red or black. I guess it made getting dressed for work easier.
Sona chattered all the way into town, only requiring the occasional contribution from me. Zac wasn’t sitting anywhere near us, so she didn’t realise there was anything wrong. I stared miserably at the back of his dark head. He hadn’t caught the usual bus to school this morning either, as if he was trying to avoid me.
The bus dropped us at the base of the Gallery’s wide steps. With those steps and the outsized Corinthian columns, the Gallery looked rather Hellenic itself, like an ancient Greek temple, although with massive sculptures of eighteenth century horsemen out the front rather spoiling the effect.
We trudged up the steps behind a crowd of excited primary schoolers squawking like a flock of parrots. They looked like Year 6; some of the boys had already started their growth spurts. Inside, a massive banner welcomed us to the Treasures of the Hellenic World exhibition, “direct from the Louvre”, and Miss Moore led us down the stairs to the basement level where special exhibits were housed.
It was much darker down there than in the high-ceilinged open spaces of the entry level. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimness after the sunshine outside.
“Why’s it so dark?” one of the primary kids complained as we entered the first room. “I can’t even read the signs.”
“These treasures are very old,” his teacher replied. “Some of them were created seven centuries before Christ. They need to be protected, and bright light is bad for them.”
“My mum says sunshine fades the curtains in my bedroom,” one little girl piped up.
“That’s right,” the teacher said. “Too much light can damage things.”
The exhibition space was divided into several smaller rooms, with each room featuring a particular ancient Greek culture. This first room was Mycenaean, and three beautiful bronze horses about thirty centimetres high had pride of place in a glass case in the centre of the room. The little kids milled around it for a moment before their teacher split them into smaller groups, each accompanied by a mum. Two little Asian boys got into a shoving contest with a kid whose hair was nearly the same colour as mine. The teacher made sure they were in different groups, then sent everyone off to separate rooms. The noise level dropped abruptly as they departed.
“All right, VA students,” Miss Tan said, “I want you to move around the exhibit and find at least five pieces that speak to you, preferably not all from the same culture. Think about how form and function are combined in your chosen pieces, and what kind of decoration the artist uses. I believe there are some fine examples of Attic blackwork here. I want at least five sketches—” A few students groaned. “You don’t have to sketch the whole thing. I would rather you capture ten artistic details—the curve of a handle, the scrollwork on a pot—than spend all your time rendering the picture on one vase. Got that?”
They agreed they had, with more or less enthusiasm, and headed off. I don’t know what they were complaining about. I’d rather be drawing pots than filling in endless dates and details on worksheets, and I wasn’t even an artist.
Miss Moore was much briefer. “You have two hours, people. Get cracking.”
Sona and I headed straight for the Athenian room, which proved to be the biggest, and got to work. It turned out we did have some drawing to do, but only small things that related to our topic of everyday life in the ancient world. I managed a few lopsided amphorae that showed hoplites marching in a phalanx as I answered the questions about the duties of citizenship.
“Are they meant to be pregnant?” Sona asked doubtfully, peering at my work in the dimness of the room.
“They’re soldiers, idiot.”
“Then why do they have such big bellies?”
“That’s their shields!”
She was working on the page about the Greek gods, and had drawn a stick figure with a bird, which I assumed was meant to be the bowl in the case in front of her that featured the god Apollo with a raven. More damn ravens.
“You’re no Michelangelo yourself, you know,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, well, there’s a reason I didn’t take Visual Arts as an elective.”
Apart from the chatter of the primary school kids, the exhibition was pretty quiet, and even they were trying hard to keep their voices down, encouraged by constant shushing from their supervisors. The dim lighting fostered a quiet, contemplative mood in the rooms. It was hard to believe the great age of these things, that they represented the lives and works of people who’d lived so many centuries ago.
There were a few other adult visitors, but at this time of the morning on a Tuesday, the two school groups had the place pretty much to themselves. We spent half an hour in the Athens room then moved on to Sparta, which was a little smaller. Not surprisingly, there was a far greater emphasis on warfare in this room.
Zac was also here, and I nearly turned and chose another room instead. Don’t be stupid. He’s in half your classes; you can’t start avoiding him. Besides, I didn’t want to avoid him. Quite the opposite, in fact. The memory of our kiss was still vivid, and there was a Zac-shaped ache in my heart.
If the warders ever got their act together, and I could finally trust that people were who they appeared to be, I could explain it all to Zac. Everything would be different then. I stole glances at his bent head as I worked on my own worksheets. When he was looking down like that his eyelashes were super long and thick against his tanned cheeks.
Sona started chatting to Zac so I moved off to inspect a case full of pottery showing battle scenes. She hadn’t realised yet there was anything wrong between us, but it wouldn’t take her long if he refused to talk to me. Thank goodness she didn’t know about the kiss. She’d seen our little confrontation in the senior study yesterday morning, but she hadn’t put two and two together yet. Her family’s visit from India seemed to be distracting her.
As I moved down the case, reading the descriptions of each vase and plate on display, a distinct smell hit me.
Uh-oh. This wasn’t good. I looked around for Simon. He was standing against the wall looking just like a museum guard, a bored expression on his face. I caught his eye and beckoned him over.
“Can you smell something?” I whispered.
He sniffed, trying not to be too obvious. “No. Something like—?”
“Burnt toffee.”
His eyes widened. Well, at least he wasn’t bored any more. “Where?”
“In this room. I just noticed it.”
Maybe I’d been smelling it for a while, and had just been distracted thinking about other things. I went back to the Athens room to check. CJ was there, busy sketching.
Nope. Nothing.
Back in the Sparta room, the scent seemed even stronger. I was surprised Simon couldn’t smell it.
He raised an eyebrow questioningly, and I shook my head.
“Just in here.”
“Take off your collar,” he said.
“What?” Things hadn’t gone so well last time, as CJ had put it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that out in public.
“It’s blocking your senses.” His voice was urgent. “Take it off and track down the aether.”
Reluctantly, I fumbled with the clasp. “Why can’t you smell it?”
“Don’t know.”
How very reassuring.
I removed the collar and the smell of aether overwhelmed me. Seriously? He couldn’t smell this? It was much stronger than the traces I’d caught at Observatory Hill. What was going on?
Simon put his back against the case and watched the room while I followed my nose. The scent seemed strongest at the far end of the case, right in the darkest corner of the room.
“Here?” He joined me. “Damn, I wish I had a Hendrix counter. I can smell something, but it’s very faint. Can you see anything odd?”
I shook my head. Now he expected me to see aether as well as smell it? What did he think I was? I put the collar back on so I could talk again.
There was nothing unusual in the room as far as I could tell. Nothing even about this particular corner of it. Half a dozen people wandered around, none of whom were doing anything even remotely suspicious, and a whole bunch of ancient artefacts sat in their cases looking old. There was certainly some ugly pottery in the case in front of me, but ugly was no crime. The Spartans definitely hadn’t had the artistic flair of the Athenians. The pot on the end wasn’t even decorated. It was just a squat black bowl shaped rather like a chamber pot.
A group of the primary school kids came in, using their best stage whispers, and clustered around the case where Sona and Zac were. The naughty redhead was among them. He waved at me and winked.
Odd kid. Was he seriously trying to pick up a high school chick? I turned back to Simon. I had more important things on my mind.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“I’ll call HQ.” He had his phone out already. “We have to get a Hendrix counter in here and possibly some dampener. One of the warders needs to take a look. If there’s a leak we need to slap a seal on it fast before we have a full breach.”
I nodded, not exactly sure what he was talking about, but getting his urgency. Something bad: check. Need back-up: check.
It was hard to think about Ancient History after that, but I turned back to the case while Simon issued instructions into his phone. As usual, there was nothing I could do to help. Given how catastrophic my “helping” had been so far, that was probably a good thing.
Hoplites on an aryballos from Sparta, 500—460 BC, read the description for the plain black pot. Huh. You’d think they’d get the labels right for a big exhibition like this.
“That’s weird,” I said.
“What?” Simon was instantly on the alert.
“Oh, nothing, they’ve just got the wrong label on this pot, see? It says there’s hoplites on it and it’s completely plain.”
He gave me an odd look. “You can’t see the figures on that?”
“What do you mean?”
“There are men wearing armour and carrying shields, marching all around the sides. The whole thing’s covered. What do you see?”
“Nothing. It’s a plain black pot.”
“Not a decorated jug, with a handle?”
We stared at each other. Oh, thi
s was bad. I took off the collar again, to see if it looked any different, but no.
The boy who’d winked at me had drifted away from his companions. He was behind Zac now.
I blinked. He was nearly as tall as Zac. That couldn’t be right.
I looked closer, and my blood froze. He winked again, but now it was Puck’s face leering at me.
“Hello, Violet.”
“Simon, look out!”
Simon turned as Puck sprang forward. I screamed, and Simon shoved me out of the way.
And then the lights went out.
Every little kid in the place screamed. Some of the big ones too. Emergency lighting flickered on then off again, on and off like some maniacal strobe, as if something fought it. The flashing light showed glimpses of Simon struggling with the Sidhe man, Sona’s shocked face, little kids scattering.
Kyle and CJ ran in from the next room, Miss Moore just behind them.
“Help him!” I yelled to Kyle.
He rushed forward, looking like a jerky robot in the flashes of light. And then, nothing. The next flash showed him crumpled on the floor. Miss Moore stood above him, the strangest look on her face.
In fact, she didn’t look like Miss Moore at all any more. Her eyes burned red as she raised her arms and cried out in a language I didn’t know, her voice rolling like thunder around the room. Her black hair lifted in a wind that no one else felt, streaming behind her, whipping and snapping as if it were alive. And then ravens burst from its strands and dived straight at me. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them, their discordant voices rising even above the roaring of the wind.
I screamed and raised my clipboard above my head. Wings buffeted me. They were everywhere, pecking at my face, my shoulders, my arms with their savage, sharp beaks. Zac waded in to help, swinging his own clipboard with deadly accuracy. He smashed one bird clear across the room.
But it didn’t seem to matter. They kept coming back. Their harsh cries filled the air and feathers flew. I was streaming blood from a dozen places, including a peck to the forehead that came dangerously close to my eye.
Miss Moore—or whoever she really was—raised both arms and the lights finally went out and stayed out. Blue fire crackled around her, like lightning gone mad. I felt a strange tugging sensation deep inside, and my knees sagged as weakness nearly overcame me. All of a sudden the clipboard felt too heavy to hold up. Behind me, glimpsed between a storm of black wings, the ugly little pot began to glow a deep blood red.
The Fairytale Curse (Magic's Return Book 1) Page 25