“Let go of that staff, Gatekeeper!” Two Sidhe ran at me, and the talisman’s magic hit them in a wave, turning them to dust and brittle bone.
I kept moving towards the Sidhe, panic rising at the sensation of the talisman’s magic curling around me, penetrating to my very soul. The talisman sought someone to harness its power, and thanks to the effects of the stone in my pocket, it deemed me worthy. Stop that. Stop it.
Magic raced through my veins, spilling out of my fingertips. Darkness spread across the ground, shadows filling the space around me. Trees collapsed, turning to husks. The Vale itself quaked and trembled beneath the talisman’s power.
Power only the Erlking had been able to control.
Lord Veren lunged at me with a roar of fury, but his body collapsed into dust before the talisman made contact. Magic filled the gaps in my fingers, clawed up my throat and out of every pore. An inhuman sound tore from my throat. I ran at the surviving Sidhe, who turned tail and fled into the surrounding forest.
Then a familiar voice shouted my name. The talisman faltered in my grip when Mum reached the path. “Hazel.”
“Stop!” I backed towards the clearing. “Don’t come near me. I need to get rid of this thing.”
“You can’t.” Her mouth pinched, her face pale beneath the bleeding cut on her forehead. “It’s claimed you, Hazel.”
I can’t wield the staff. I’m Gatekeeper. Not even the Erlking had been able to stop its magic from destroying everyone it touched, and if I kept it, I would never be able to set foot in Faerie again.
I’d never see my family again.
“You can control it, Hazel.” Mum looked me in the eyes. “You have power over the magic, not the other way around. Ask your sister.”
“Ilsa’s talisman isn’t like this.” Her magic might have the same source, but she wasn’t driven to destroy everyone she touched.
Had Etaina known this would be a side-effect of the stone? I should have known it’d have a sting in the tail. Too bad for her, because Darrow would be stuck here along with me for the foreseeable future.
Unless…
I glanced down at the shadowy magic curling around the staff’s base. “I can open a way back to the Courts now I have this.”
Wielding a faerie’s talisman gifted me with the ability to cross between realms. I could drop Mum and Darrow off at home, and then… stay here. Not an appealing option, but neither was reducing the Summer Court to dust and doing the Seelie Queen’s job for her.
“Hazel.” Mum’s voice was soft.
I drew in a ragged breath. “Mum, fetch Darrow and get ready to run. I’m going to open a way back into Faerie next to the gate to our home. As soon as you’re through, ask a Sidhe to close the doorway behind you. Don’t tell them I have the Erlking’s talisman, or they’ll come here and rip it from my fingers.”
And then? The Courts would fall, one way or another. I understood why the Erlking had held the secret close to his chest for centuries. The Sidhe—prideful, rash, arrogant—would bring about their own end.
“You aren’t staying behind, Hazel.”
“This isn’t about me.” I looked her in the eyes. “Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”
Her lips pursed. “What if I told you there’s a way to keep that talisman secured?”
“I’d say you might have told me that earlier.”
“There were… circumstances.” She glanced behind her. “The talisman will be safe in the Inner Garden’s grove.”
The Inner Garden. “You think the healing magic in there will counter the effects of the talisman?”
She might well be right. The only Sidhe immune to the talisman’s magic was the Seelie Queen, due to her super-charged healing abilities. But I didn’t dare let that hope bloom, not until I saw it for myself.
“Trust me,” Mum said. “I won’t allow the talisman to harm anyone. I promise you that.”
“You’ll have to keep your distance when I open the doorway,” I told her. “Where is Darrow?”
“He’s unconscious from the effects of the iron.”
“Probably for the best.” After all, he’d wanted the talisman himself—or rather, for Etaina. She’d be wanting her stone back, come to that, but I wouldn’t relinquish it yet. If she found out I’d claimed the talisman, she’d assume I’d done it on purpose. She might well ask Darrow to steal it from me, and the talisman’s magic would destroy both of us.
Mum returned to the path, carrying an unconscious Darrow in her arms. I didn’t dare look at him. My chest tightened, and I crossed my fingers and toes that he didn’t wake in time to see what I’d done.
“Ready?” I extended the talisman, picturing our family’s gate in my mind’s eye. The Vale’s grey path turned transparent, and a square-shaped doorway opened in mid-air, revealing the path outside the ambassadors’ palace.
“Damn,” I murmured. “Guess it really is as easy as the Sidhe make it look.”
I stepped away from the doorway to allow Mum to take Darrow through. She strode into the doorway with no hesitation, unafraid of the talisman’s touch. I wished I shared her confidence. She couldn’t possibly have known I’d end up with the Erlking’s staff in my hands, could she?
Mum leaned out of the doorway. “There’s nobody here, Hazel. Be quick.”
I kept an eye on her, mentally calculating the distance. When I was certain she was out of range, I stepped through the doorway and into the Summer Court.
The instant my feet touched the ground, the grass wilted under my feet, and dead leaves dropped off the nearest plants. Alarmed, I headed for family’s gate, shedding leaves as I did so.
“Ilsa!” Mum called through the gate to the ambassadors’ palace. “Tell the Sidhe to close that doorway, won’t you?”
“You what?” Ilsa’s head popped up from behind one of the large-leafed plants outside the palace, and her eyes bulged. “Hazel. Is that—?”
“Don’t come any closer.” I ran towards Summer’s gate, wincing as another wave of dead leaves fell over my head. “Mum, I really hope you’re right. I don’t know how long I can keep its magic reined in.”
“You won’t need to for long,” she insisted. “Go on, Hazel.”
I hurried out into my family’s garden. Grass died beneath my feet, each strand shrivelling in the earth. Flowers wilted in their beds, while the hedges shed their leaves, turning brown and disintegrating into a fine mist.
“The Erlking must have done a shit-ton of damage when he first claimed this thing.” I backed up from the gate so Mum could get through without falling within range of the talisman. Green leaves turned brown, vibrant magic sucked into the torrent of shadow wrapping around the staff.
Cursing, I ducked through the narrow opening in the hedge into the Inner Garden and the grove. My gaze fell on the glittering waters within… where, on top of the water, cocooned in a protective shield, lay the Erlking’s crown.
I forgot all about the staff. “What the hell is that doing in there?”
“Put the staff down,” Mum said from behind me.
I was too stunned not to obey, so I let the staff fall into the healing waters of the grove. It floated on the surface, shadows coalescing around it, yet the water’s glow remained intact.
“Fuck me.” I sank onto the grass. “Okay, seriously. How much of this did you plan?”
The crown glittered above the water’s surface, its tips gleaming with silver-green gems. Mum had it all along?
“Less than you think,” she said. “I suspected the Sidhe had a traitor in their midst. The staff was already gone, so I persuaded the Sidhe to allow me to hide the crown here until the killer was caught.”
I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. “So Lady Aiten accused us because you really did steal the crown.”
“Lady Aiten was not thrilled with my idea, but I had her guarantee of protection from the other Sidhe, and she kept them from searching the house.”
“She kept checking up on you. That’
s why the gate moved to the ambassadors’ palace.” I pushed to my feet, my hands trembling. “And as part of the act, she pretended to accuse you and yelled at me a lot. I think she enjoyed that part.”
“Believe me, Hazel, I wish I could have told you the truth, but I couldn’t guarantee the other Sidhe wouldn’t have pulled the information out of you.”
“That doesn’t explain how you knew I could safely store the staff here in the grove.” I marvelled at the sight of the shadowy form of the talisman floating atop the water. Seemingly harmless.
“I didn’t,” she said. “I guessed, based on what I knew of the staff and the Seelie Queen’s ability to resist its magic. I didn’t expect you to claim it, but I had this marked out as a safe place to hide it, should we manage to get it away from the killer.”
I whistled. “That’s one hell of a gamble. Did you find out who the heir is?”
“Not yet, but I was asked to look into that, too.”
“I knew it,” Ilsa said from outside the grove. “I knew someone from the Court put you up to this.”
“Did you know about that?” I pointed to the crown.
“No.” Ilsa peered through the grove’s entrance. “I think it’s safe for me to come in here as long as the talisman is in the water.”
“But it probably isn’t safe to give me a hug.” Shadowy magic wreathed my arms, wrapped around my body. Both outside and inside. A chill settled on my shoulders. I’d brought the talisman to safety and prevented it from causing a war—but how long would it be before the Sidhe realised the Gatekeeper had claimed it?
24
When I left the grove, the grass outside was already growing again, the flowers returning to their former vibrancy.
“You can’t leave it in the water forever, Mum,” Ilsa said, echoing my thoughts. “You also can’t leave the crown in there. The Sidhe will want it back.”
“I’m aware of that,” said Mum. “I’ll give them enough time to jail the surviving conspirators and recover from their injuries. Once Lady Aiten is back on her feet, I’ll give her the crown back.”
“Presumably without letting her look in there.” I pointed to the grove. “The magic is still inside me. Is there any way to un-claim a talisman once you have it?”
I could hardly believe that my own mother had been more devious than the Sidhe had, yet now the shock had worn off a little, my worries about the talisman reared their heads again. Currents of shadowy magic tingled up my arms, while I didn’t dare touch anything in the house in case the talisman’s effects caused our family magic to short-circuit.
I shuffled after Ilsa and Mum into the kitchen. The lights came on, then died with a hissing noise. I wrapped my arms around myself. “This isn’t going to work. I’m a literal walking anti-magic plague.”
While the majority of the magic remained inside the talisman, part of it rested in me, alongside my Gatekeeper’s powers. Impossible to hide.
“Try holding something made of iron,” Ilsa said. “It counters most magic.”
“This isn’t faerie magic, though.” I picked up a knife from the kitchen sideboard. “It’s like yours.”
Similar to faerie magic in almost every way… except its origins were from a time before the Sidhe had ruled, when gods had walked among them, wielding magic deadly enough to tear reality to shreds.
My throat went dry. Darrow would think I’d betrayed him when he found out. I wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret forever. The instant a Sidhe set eyes on me, they’d know.
“It might not be as strong once you’re back in the Court,” Ilsa said. “Not if you leave the talisman in this realm, anyway. Most Sidhe are weakened when they aren’t carrying their talismans.”
“They’ll still sense it,” I insisted. “And I’ll always know it’s here.”
I knew Faerie. One taste and you wanted more. The talisman belonged to a race that even the Sidhe had feared, and inch by inch, its magic would infect me until it claimed me, body and soul—or cast me aside like an old coat to seek a new wielder.
Mum pressed her lips together. “You could have the magic stripped from you, but only the Sidhe can do that.”
I put down the knife. “Like they do to exiles right before they send them into the Vale? Would that work?”
“I would think so,” Mum said. “There’s a spell for stripping a talisman’s magic from a wielder, but I suspect only a Sidhe can perform it.”
“I can find out.” Ilsa left the kitchen, no doubt in search of a book.
“Why am I not surprised.” A smile tugged at my mouth. “I’m carrying the embodiment of the apocalypse inside me and she still insists on looking it up in a book.”
“Come on.” Mum beckoned me into the living room. “Look—I’m this close to you, and the talisman isn’t hurting me.”
So she was. Didn’t mean I wanted to risk getting closer, though. “All right.”
I made for the living room and slumped on the beaten-up old sofa. At the very least, it wouldn’t be a tragedy if it collapsed underneath me.
“I left Darrow at the ambassadors’ palace,” she added. “He didn’t wake, so he doesn’t know you have the talisman.”
“Good.” I pulled out the stone Etaina had given me. “I need to return this, but it’s also the only way to counter the effects of the talisman’s magic. Guess there’s no point in me carrying it around with me. Maybe you guys should take turns passing it among yourselves in case I accidentally step within range.”
Mum shook her head. “If it was given with the expectation of being returned, then keeping it might have side effects. Who—"
“Got it.” Ilsa walked back into the room with a textbook in her arms, interrupting me before I could figure out how to explain what I’d learned in the realm of the Aes Sidhe. “An Invocation can be used to remove the talisman’s magic. I thought so, but I just wanted to double-check.”
“I should have known,” said Mum. “Can you do it?”
I frowned, uncomprehending. Then it hit me. A human couldn’t speak an Invocation without losing their mind, but a human who carried the magic of a god was another thing entirely. Which included Ilsa herself… and now, me.
“I can,” said Ilsa. “If you trust me, Hazel.”
“What kind of question is that?” I said. “I’m not asking a Sidhe to do it, that’s for damned sure.”
Ilsa grinned. “I thought not.”
Ilsa could strip the magic out of me herself, unbind the link between the talisman and me. Hope bloomed in my chest, and I pushed to my feet. Magic coiled around my fingertips, itching to hold the staff again and wield its power, but I pushed it aside. “I’ll have to be holding the staff for it to work, I think. I’ll also need to guarantee we won’t be interrupted.”
“I’ll take care of that,” said Mum.
“Are you sure?” Ilsa said. “You were injured—and you’re exhausted, Hazel.”
I shook my head. “If I delay, it might get worse. I don’t want to wake up and find the house has collapsed overnight.”
What we’d do with the staff long-term, I’d deal with later. I would never be able to live my own life as long as I held that talisman. The Gatekeeper’s curse was more than enough for me.
The pool of water remained in the same condition as earlier, unchanged by the presence of the staff. The crown hovered above it, encased in a protective shield.
“I can’t believe Mum swiped the crown.” I reached for the staff, pulling it out of the water. Cold tendrils ensnared my arms, whispering dark promises, and I stepped around the pool to prevent its magic from touching Ilsa.
“Nor me.” Ilsa stood at a safe distance away. “Devious, for sure. I’ll be having words with her later.”
“Save your words for the Invocation. I think you’ll need them.” Worry fluttered behind my breastbone. Invocations were dangerous even in Faerie. It seemed fitting that the language that had originally belonged to the gods would be the only force capable of removing the talisman’s influenc
e from me.
Ilsa opened the book and sat down on a rock beside the pool. “I’ve never done this before, but I assume it won’t remove your Gatekeeper’s magic, too.”
“Don’t tell me about the downsides.” I rested the staff on the ground, holding it with both hands. Shadowy magic coiled up my arms, and I tightened my grip to resist the impulse to lift it into the air. Nice try, but you won’t get me that easily. “Quickly—please.”
“All right.” Ilsa took in a deep breath. Then she spoke.
Words slammed into me one at a time, echoing around the clearing. Their meanings filtered through my mind, but didn’t stick, their magic too much for my human mind to handle. My hands shook, the earth trembled, and the talisman’s rage bubbled to the surface.
Pain ripped through my body from head to toe, searing my skin from the inside out. Frayed shadows leaked from my hands, and a loud, furious roar sounded, vibrating through my bones and blood.
My vision blurred, and the waters of the grove rose to catch me as I fell.
“At least you had a soft landing,” Ilsa said later, when we were back in the living room.
I wrapped the blanket around myself, sneezing. “I think I might have the dubious honour of being the first human in existence to have a talisman’s magic forcibly ripped out of me.”
“Sorry,” Ilsa said. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but—”
“I’d take the pain ten times over as long as I can walk around without killing everything I touch.” I fingered the edge of the blanket. “I don’t know how the Erlking stood it for hundreds of years.”
“He must have found a way to deal with it,” said Ilsa. “Perhaps he left instructions behind.”
“Along with his cryptic message?” I scowled. “I don’t see why he couldn’t just name the traitors.”
“Perhaps he feared for your safety,” said Mum. “And he was right to worry.”
“Lord Veren wanted me alive. So did the Seelie Queen.” I pushed a handful of damp hair out of my face. “She wants me to rule at her side. Personally, I think she’s afraid of the Gatekeeper’s vow backfiring on her… do you think that might be it?”
Hidden Crown Page 21