Broken Fae

by Caroline Peckham

  I bit my tongue against any response to that, because how could he spout lies about wanting to protect the vulnerable people of Alestria while setting those same people up to kill themselves so that he could steal their power?

  "I know that the spell I'm performing tonight may seem harsh," he went on as we walked along a long, cold passage which sloped downwards and was cold enough to make me shiver. "But Killblaze won't make anyone kill themselves unless they've already given up on life. And a Fae with no desire to live isn't Fae at all. Our very nature should mean that we fight for everything and anything we want. If a Fae has given up, then it only makes sense that they pass their power on to someone willing to use it to improve the lives of others."

  "So your goal is to rule Alestria?" I asked, feeling safe asking that question as he'd basically offered that information up already.

  "Initially," King confirmed. "After that...well, I suppose I will have to assess the rest of the kingdom and figure out if they deserve my help too."

  I wasn't going to be able to say anything to that statement without my true feelings showing, so I held my tongue. He was clearly a power hungry psychopath who had no intention of stopping with Alestria. No doubt he fancied himself sitting on the Savage King's empty throne. But if he wanted to pose a threat to the Celestial Councillors then he was going to need to take a hell of a lot of power from his sacrifices. Which I guessed was the reason for all of this secrecy. He didn't want Lionel Acrux or any of the other Councillors catching on to what he was doing until he was powerful enough to take them on and win.

  We reached a dead end, but King murmured something beneath his breath, shooting first fire then water, air and earth magic at the wall before it slid apart. It made my skin prickle to watch him wield all four Elements like that. It wasn't natural. No one had ever been naturally gifted all four in the history of our world. There were a few rumours of powerful Fae holding three in past generations, but no one currently alive could claim that as far as I knew.

  When we stepped through into the next passage, the temperature plummeted and I wrapped my arms around myself as I shivered.

  King placed a hand on my arm and a sweep of fire magic instantly warmed me through. I remembered to thank him as his touch made my skin crawl and we continued through tunnel after tunnel until he led me to a red door and paused before it.

  "This may seem a little shocking. But I need the blood of a powerful Vampire to make the magic work and the man you are about to see more than earned his fate. He used to be my friend, my closest advocate, a willing donor of his blood to our great and noble cause...but unfortunately, he decided to betray me. He wanted to abandon our movement even after swearing his allegiance to it, so the stars allowed me to punish him like this."

  My lips parted on a hundred questions, but I didn’t have time to ask any of them before King used a spell to open the door and he led me into a dark chamber where a narrow cage lay in the middle of the space.

  Within the cage, the man he'd describe was tearing into a lump of bread like a savage, ripping into it with his teeth and trying to shove more food into his mouth before he'd even begun chewing.

  He didn't even look up as we entered, his dirty blond hair hanging lank over a sweaty forehead and his clothes filthy and loose on his body.

  "He gets into the cage if he wants to eat," King supplied as I just stared with my mouth hanging open, completely unable to say a damn thing in that moment unless he wanted to hear me start screaming. And demanding to know what the hell was wrong with him. That was a man in there, an honest to the stars Fae who had clearly been down here a long fucking time. Even Darkmore Penitentiary couldn't be as bad as this.

  "Why?" I breathed, the only word I could manage which wasn't going to be a clear insult or show my horror too obviously.

  "Like I say, I need him. It's for the good of the Deck and the city. It was either this or cut his card. And then I'd need to find another powerful Vampire to replace him and at least my old friend here is deserving of this fate. He turned his back on everything we'd worked for. Or at least, he tried to."

  King moved forward, pulling a knife and a glass beaker from between the folds of his cloak and I just stared on as he reached between the bars of the cage and cut the Vampire's arm open.

  The crazed bastard inside the cage barely even flinched as King collected a measure of his blood and I could only watch. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what this was. A test. A warning. I was being given ownership of this secret and being warned about the fate that would await me if I ever tried to leave. But they didn’t need Pegasus blood, so I got the feeling the punishment if I tried to run would be death.

  Shit on it. Shit on it. Shit on it!

  My mind whirled as I tried to figure out any way that I could do this, and it came to me in a bolt of clarity as I fought to make my horrified features stay calm. First I needed to regain enough control over my actions to be able to run in the first place by working my way higher in the ranks. Then I was going to have to die. Or at least, everyone had to believe I was dead. There needed to be witnesses, a cover story, hell, even a body ideally. Everything that I could think of to prove without a shadow of a doubt that I was dead and gone. It would be hard. But I was going to figure out a way to do it. I had a natural talent for concealment spells and illusions too. That kind of magic was all about the details and I was a details man. I’d figure it out somehow.

  King turned to look at me, smiling faintly as he stoppered the beaker full of blood and led me towards another door on the far side of the room.

  "Don't worry, he has the run of the tunnels down here when we aren't using them," King said as if he could sense my pity for the crazed Fae in that cage. "We don't allow him to drink any blood of course so he has no access to his magic and unfortunately that has sent him somewhat insane...but rest assured, that just means he isn't really suffering. He doesn't know any different anymore."

  "Yes, Card Master," I murmured but as we stepped through the door, I couldn't help but glance back.

  The Vampire shrieked as he threw himself at the bars of the cage, hands lunging towards me wildly. But as my gaze met his, I couldn't help but think he looked endlessly sad. And the worst thing was, there was nothing I could do to help him. I had my own Vampire to save. And I couldn't risk anything that might mean Ella ended up stuck here. She needed me if she was ever going to make it out of this city which meant I wasn't going to be anybody's hero but hers.

  I followed King through enough twisting passages that I knew I’d never have any chance of finding my way out of here if he wasn't with me. When we reached a wooden staircase, we began ascending and I was surprised when we met another hidden door and emerged in the little wooden shack out in The Iron Wood.

  Beyond the doors, I could hear the chanting of the rest of the Black Card as they began the ritual. In the room with us stood two other high members of the Deck. Miss Nightshade and Mr Hoskins, the old librarian who always bitched at us for talking too loud in the stacks, the two of them clearly waiting for King's arrival.

  Nightshade's eyes widened a fraction as she spotted me and I doubted I was hiding my surprise at seeing the school counsellor and librarian here either.

  King strode forward and took a large black book from Hoskins, the words Magicae Mortuorum printed on the ancient looking cover. Something about the book made me feel mildly nauseas, like the thing itself held secrets I didn't want to possess.

  I stood aside as I watched King cut his own thumb open and press his blood to the cover of the book. He groaned and shuddered, not seeming to be able to pull his thumb away as the book almost looked like it was consuming some part of him for a moment. When he finally pulled back, he sighed and began to leaf through it, but as I looked over his shoulder, I found the pages unreadable, the letters twisting and blurring so I couldn’t decipher anything on them.

  King placed the beaker of Vampire blood on a small table and began murmuring some spell which made my bones ache and my ears fe
el like bleeding. He waved his hand over the blood before adding a little bone which looked way too like a knuckle and a few drops of everdew to it, stirring it well as it hissed and bubbled before raising the concoction to his mouth and drinking it down in one long hit.

  Oh shit I'm gonna vom.

  I choked down my puke and fell in at the back of the group, pulling on the cloak that Nightshade handed me wordlessly before stepping out onto the porch where Colin and another clearly drugged girl were waiting for us already.

  I watched King move towards them with my ears ringing and gaze unflinching. I wanted to look away but I didn't dare, though I retreated into my own thoughts as I watched him read more of that twisted spell from the black book in his hands before leaning down towards Colin.

  I couldn't listen to his answer, my heart thrashing as I tried not to focus on the fact that I’d led that poor guy here to his fate. My mind was full of thoughts of my sister as I tried to block out what I was witnessing, the reason why I'd done all of this. The reason I knew I'd find a way out again.

  When Colin conjured a wooden dagger and slashed it across his own throat, passing his magic over to the monster before me as he died, I let my eyes glaze over and forced myself not to feel anything. Not to move or think or do anything at all.

  King groaned with pleasure as he enjoyed the rush of his newly stolen power, pushing the creepy black book into Hoskins’ arms before beckoning the members of the Black Card forward so that he could use his dark magic to Coerce them into forgetting all of this.

  Hoskins placed the book down beside me and I looked at it with my heart pounding. That was what he used to cast that spell. Without it, he wouldn't be able to steal anyone else's power. He wouldn't be able to make me bring anyone else to their death.

  I didn't know if I was brave or insane or maybe suicidal myself but my fingers began to twist and turn within the folds of my cloak as I weaved an illusion into place, my gaze focused on a large rock which was sitting on the deck a few feet from the book.

  I willed it to take on the form of the book, adding details to it as I looked down at the real thing and even weaving in a spell that would replicate the dark feeling which seemed to seep from the pages of the real one.

  The ranks of the Black Card filed past King one behind the other and Nightshade led them into the cabin so that they could use the tunnels to head back to their beds and forget any of this had ever happened.

  My heart was thundering as I kept going with my spell until I could feel my power running down and the panicked rhythm of my heart made me feel like I was about to collapse from fear alone. But I didn't stop. And once I was sure the fake book was convincing enough, I threw the last of my power into placing a concealment spell over the real book so that it blended into the shadows so completely that it was impossible to say it was even there at all.

  My tongue was thick in my mouth and my pulse hammering wildly but it was done. If it worked then I'd return to my dorm with the others, give it half an hour then fly back out here in my Pegasus form once I was sure everyone was long gone. I'd take the real book and hide it somewhere no one would find it and hope that King had no reason to suspect my hand in its disappearance. But I couldn't just stand back and do nothing. I had to make some attempt to save these sacrifices from King and stop him from stealing even more magic.

  As the last of the lower level cult members disappeared into the cabin, King turned to me with a smile.

  "Good work tonight, Gareth," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder as he led the way into the cabin.

  Hoskins stooped to pick up the fake Magicae Mortuorum book and I forgot to breathe as I waited to see if he would notice the switch. But he didn't. He moved ahead into the tunnels and I followed just as King murmured. "We will do great things together, you and I, Gareth.”

  A shiver raced down my spine at the depth of his words. They were a promise and a threat. The more trust he put in me, the more he would care if I just up and left.

  But there was no way in hell this was going to be my life. I’d never wanted to be a part of this fucked up bullshit and this wasn’t going to be who I became. I needed to get Ella out of this city. I needed to run. Which meant I had to be sure he wasn't going to be following me when I disappeared.

  I'd just proven how well I could cast the spells I would need to pull this off and with more time to prepare, I was sure I could make them infallible. There would be blood, guts, witnesses, a body, the whole fucking shebang. Whatever it took to get out of here clean. In the meantime, I needed to make the final payment on our mom's debt to Old Sal to free Elise and then gather up more money as well as whatever documents we would need to start over as new people, plus figure out where the fuck we were going to go.

  It wasn't going to be easy, but I knew that it was what it would take to free myself and my sister from the city we had always dreamed of escaping and I wasn't going to turn back now. I'd come this far, I'd worked this hard and the finish line was in sight.

  I could do it. I had to.

  I was going to fake my death.

  D ante was gone again, back home trying to deal with Felix and the mess the Card Master was making for his Clan by helping that madman. It made my heart ache to think of how much strain he was under. Those Fae looked to him for guidance and protection. They might have been a criminal organisation, but they were a family too. There were children who had no part in any violence or hatred who were now being dragged into all of it. Their magic wasn't even Awakened and they might not have come into their Order gifts either and I knew they had to be absolutely terrified. It made me sick to think of it and I didn't even know any of them. These were Dante's cousins, blood relatives who he'd held as babies or older members of his family who he'd loved for his entire life.

  Felix was a monster who haunted the streets of Alestria, striking at both the Lunar Brotherhood and the loyal members of the Oscura Clan without warning or mercy. It was a bloodthirsty war that could only end in death.

  I just hoped that my Storm Dragon could find and kill him before too much innocent blood was spilled. Thinking of the alternative wasn't an option. I refused to even entertain the idea that Dante wouldn't win this fight.

  I'd tried showing Leon the things that Gareth had left me, but he had no idea what they meant either. He recognised the dark magic of the Magicae Mortuorum book and had been able to say that it would be valuable to the right seller, but the Nights weren't usually dealers in dark magic so he wasn't an expert.

  In fact, the only person we both knew who did know about dark magic was Lance Orion. But I was hesitant to call him. Yeah, he'd helped us before, but I was painfully aware that we hardly knew him. And asking him for information or even to give us something like the Shroud we'd used against King before was one thing. But approaching him with what was clearly an illegal book filled with spells that could get us sent to Darkmore Penitentiary if we were caught with it was another.

  The book itself wasn't even much help. It was impossible to read and even turning the pages made me feel ill. The text was...fucked up. It wasn't even the letters or words that had me seeing stars when I tried to read it, it was like the thing itself was rejecting me, refusing to allow me to understand anything hidden in its pages.

  But Gareth had left it for me, so I couldn't just forget about it. And there was only one person I could think of who might be able to help me figure out how to get it to give up its secrets.

  The problem with that was that Gabriel was still avoiding me, even after what had happened between me, him and Ryder the other day. But the trouble with him relying on The Sight to keep away from me was that it had loopholes and I was pretty sure I'd figured them out.

  Gabriel was clearly watching my decisions so that he could escape if I decided to go looking for him. So, I wasn't going to. I'd given the task to Leon. All he had to do was select a moment for me to go looking for Gabriel at random and I'd shoot up onto the roof and snag myself a Harpy.

  We were making
out in bed when Leon decided to do just that.

  "It fucking kills me to stop this, little monster," he growled, biting my bottom lip and making me gasp. "But it's the middle of the night and I'm pretty sure your runaway boyfriend will be asleep. So...go."

  I blinked the lust out of my eyes as I looked up at my Lion then grinned, stamping my lips to his in goodbye before shooting off of the bed.

  "Just don't forget to thank me for it later!" Leon called after me as I snatched the bag of stuff Gareth had left me and leapt out of the window at full speed.

  I shot up the fire escape to the roof and pounced on Gabriel in his nest as I noticed him stirring.

  The second my body collided with his, my fangs snapped out and my instincts took over as I sank them deep into his neck.

  Gabriel cursed and I fisted my hand in his black hair to hold him still as I drove my knees down on his thighs and pinned him there.

  "Elise," he growled in a low and menacing voice which told me he was thinking about punishing me for this just as soon as he was free. But I'd had a taste of his kind of punishment the other day and I was quite willing to accept it if he did.

  I moaned lustily as I drank mouthfuls of his blood, the rich and vibrant power of him making me dizzy as I swallowed.

  His hands circled my waist and his grip tightened to the point of pain, but it was hard to say if he was trying to push me away or pull me closer.

  I drew back, his blood coating my lips as I lifted my mouth to his and kissed him before he could make use of his magic against me now that the power of my venom no longer immobilised him.