by Tamara Blake
She was led through a maze of corridors leading to the tower wing and up an endless corkscrew flight of stairs. The room at the top of the landing was small and practically bare except for some trash lurking in the corners, dirty windows through which she could see half of Cottingley’s crow population hanging out on the cornice, a dead mouse in one of the traps, and a pile of seeds heaped on the floor.
“You have until midnight.” Stefano pulled the door shut after him and locked it, leaving her alone with the seeds and a whole lot of worry.
Chapter Eighteen
She rubbed her arms. The tiny dress didn’t offer any protection from the chilly temperature. Funny how the whole time she’d been under the Slumber she couldn’t remember feeling cold or hot. Or anything, really, except partying—and Tam.
“Let it go, girl,” she said out loud. “It’s over.”
Ruby plopped down on the dirty floorboards beside the pile of seeds. She pushed all thought of Tam away to focus on what she had to do: figure out Violet’s challenge so her mom wouldn’t die.
At first glance, the seeds all looked the same, long and gray. Nothing to distinguish the poisoned ones from the normal ones. She needed to scatter the pile so she could get a closer look at each individual seed. But if she touched one with her bare hands, she’d probably be poisoned. And wouldn’t Violet love that.
Ruby got up and hunted around the room. The mousetrap was gross, and only crumpled bits of newspaper littered the rubbishy corners. Finally she found a long rusty nail poking up from a floorboard. It took at least a half hour to pry it out by rocking it back and forth, plus she had to be careful not to accidentally scratch herself and add getting tetanus to her problem overload. Just when she was about to give up, the nail came free.
“Thank God,” she breathed and scooted over to the seeds. Carefully, she used the nail to stir the pile and separated a few individual ones out. In the dim light she could now see that a green line ran down the sides of some. Was it her imagination that those seeds also seemed slightly shriveled and sickly? Could Violet’s challenge really be that simple? She didn’t seem that dumb.
Since Ruby didn’t have any better options, she quickly separated the seeds into two piles using the nail. The job was tedious, but then again she’d done a lot of tedious things over her years cleaning houses—scrubbing mildewed grout, polishing silver, wiping fingerprints off doorjambs. When she finished, she studied her work, biting her lip. This didn’t feel right.
The minutes ticked by. Crows fluttered against the window and jostled for space on the cornice, cawing angrily.
“Shut up, you stupid birds,” she muttered. “I need to figure this out.”
Brain flash.
She went to the window and examined it. Crows strutted back and forth on the sill, which was covered in what seemed like centuries of bird poop. Like all of Cottingley’s windows, a thick layer of dirt grimed the glass, and paint had been slopped on the casing in a half-assed job.
She tried to open the old-fashioned sash by sliding it upward, but it wouldn’t budge. She gave the sash a couple taps to see if it’d loosen, but no dice. Through the window, the crows screamed at her and some flapped away. The ones that stayed glared at her with beady black eyes.
Ruby took the nail and methodically chipped away at the grime and old paint until she’d outlined the entire sash. Then she heaved it upward with all her strength, sweat breaking out, her palms aching over and over until she felt her arms shaking.
“Come ON!” She gave the window one more push.
It broke free with an almighty crack and slammed up. Fresh air streamed into the room and across her sweaty skin while the crows shrieked and took off, soaring over Cottingley’s lawns and swooping toward the woods.
She took a deep breath of the fresh air and watched them fly away. Squinting at the cloudy sky, she judged that it must be late afternoon. She was way ahead of the midnight deadline—a minor miracle since it felt like she’d been locked in the turret for hours.
Ruby snatched up a crumpled and torn newspaper from the trash littering the corners. When she smoothed it out, she saw that the date was 1962. Probably the last time anyone had cleaned the room. Carefully, she scooped some seeds from both piles onto the paper and, making sure to keep the types separate, scattered them on the window sill.
“Sorry, dudes,” she said, “but my mom’s life is more important than yours right now.”
Then she backed away and waited.
It seemed like an eternity, but one of the crows eventually returned. It strutted on the sill, peering curiously at the open window. Then it tipped its head and examined the seeds from the “good” pile.
“Come on, come on,” she whispered.
Her breath caught when the crow gave the seed a peck.
It staggered and fell over. Then it gave a sad caw before crumbling into ash.
“Woah.” The wind picked up the gray dust and blew it away. She was super-glad she’d been careful not to touch any of the seeds. Obviously Violet had been hoping she would, which is why she had Ruby put in a basically bare room.
Well, that was too damn bad.
Ruby moved to the door but stopped herself. She needed to be absolutely sure…
She sat back down and waited for another crow to return.
A couple hours later, she pounded on the door. Eventually Alejandro dragged it open. He gazed at her without emotion, and part of her brain wondered how long he’d been under the Slumber.
“Take me to Violet,” she told him.
Downstairs, word was spreading somehow that Ruby had completed the challenge, because half-dressed fairies popped out of rooms left and right as she followed Alejandro back to the lounge. The room filled up quickly.
“Ohhh, here we go,” Subira stage-whispered to Amleth, who was wearing really tiny briefs and nothing else. “Do you think she figured it out?”
“No way.” He scratched sleepily at his cut abs. “I hope Violet will let us take her out to the lake to see how long she can hold her breath underwater.”
Ruby rolled her eyes, then glanced quickly around the room. Tam was nowhere to be seen. And that…still hurt. She needed to get used to the fact that Tam didn’t care about her anymore. After all, she’d rejected him first.
Violet was still reclining on her pillows, indolently toying with Stefano’s leash. Her purple nails flashed when Alejandro pushed Ruby in front of her. “Have you completed my challenge, trailer trash?”
“Yep. It’s disappointing how easy it was.”
Violet smirked. “Really? Then which seeds are poisoned?”
“All of them.”
The smirk vanished.
The watching fairies went quiet.
“You are correct.” Violet shrugged. “They are all poisoned.”
The whole room exploded with excited chatter. “She figured it out? No way!”
“Disappointing…”
“Aww, we won’t get to see the human punished now? That sucks…”
“Shut UP!” Violet yelled. She glared around the room, color high, before turning to Ruby. “That challenge was just a warm-up. It wouldn’t be amusing if the game ended on the first round. But the next challenge won’t be so easy, human.”
“Bring it.”
“Oh, I will.” Violet rose. “Follow me.”
She headed to the back of the room, where she pushed on a door-sized panel in the wall. Ruby’s breath caught when the panel slid open to reveal a dark passage.
The fairies, though, started giggling and whispering. A bad feeling rose inside Ruby.
Violet stepped through the opening. The pretty boys pushed Ruby after her into a tunnel lit only by a few dusty bulbs.
“This place is gross,” Ruby said as she followed Violet, dodging spider webs and water dripping down from the ceiling.
“We have a problem keeping cleaning domestics on staff,” Violet answered. “Somehow they always end
up…going away.”
The tunnel opened up suddenly into a cavernous space, and Ruby gasped. Hundreds of reflections of herself stared back at her. The whole place was covered in mirrors of every shape and size. “What is this place?”
“It’s the hall of mirrors,” Violet said, checking her reflection out in the nearest sheet of dazzling glass. “Your next task is to find your way out of the mirror-maze. You can take as long as you want on this one.”
“What’s the catch?”
“My fellow fae are bored. Their last human hunt ended too quickly, so I thought I’d plan another for them. But we need a quarry, one who can give us a good chase.”
“So that’s me, right?”
Violet’s teeth gleamed in the acid-yellow light. “I’m fair, though. I’ll give you a five-minute head start. And, uh, I can’t guarantee what will happen if they catch you. But it won’t be nice.”
Ruby thought of Shawn’s busted skull and swallowed.
“Scared now?” Violet asked, amused.
Ruby’s heart slammed against her throat. “No.”
“Once again you prove how limited your intellect is. Your time starts…NOW!”
Ruby took off at a dead run, careening around the first mirror. Six different images of herself stared back. She veered to the left. More mirrors, more reflections blurred in her vision as she swept past. She drove herself onward. Her plan was to get deep inside the maze and put as much distance between herself and the oncoming hunt as possible, so she could have enough time to find the way out.
She swung to the right and came to a dead stop. Straight in front of her, staring out of an enormous mirror was…her? But it wasn’t her. This Ruby was older, feathery lines at the corner of her eyes, her hair graying.
She backed away from the reflection, and the older Ruby backed away too.
“Oh my God!” She put her hands up to her cheeks and turned away.
Then her hands slowly fell from her face. This time, the Ruby staring back from another mirror was a freaking bombshell, with full lips, big boobs, and shiny hair.
“What the hell is going on?” Had she been put under another spell? Or was each mirror enchanted?
Before she could figure it out, the sound of a horn trumpeted through the hall. The hunt was on.
She took off again. In the next mirror her reflection was moving by itself, clutching an Oscar, waving graciously from a stage…in the one after that, she was wearing her Happy Housekeepers uniform, her face beat down with exhaustion. She flinched from the image, only to come face to face with a heavily pregnant Ruby round the next corner.
The sounds of pounding feet and faint laughter snatched her attention back. They were coming! She flashed on the memory of Shawn’s eyes bulging in fear from within the stag’s head mask. Now she knew exactly how he felt when they’d closed in on him.
The next mirror she ran past showed her wearing the same mask, the whites of her fearful eyes clearly visible. Ruby gagged, staggering into the glass. The reflection lurched too, trembling like a hunted animal.
The rushing sound of someone coming up behind her made Ruby shove herself upright. She bolted around a mirror showing her bound to a wheelchair. Terror tangled her feet as she took the corner too fast; she tripped and sprawled on the ground face-first.
A punishing hand grabbed her shoulder and flipped her onto her back.
“No,” she gasped. “Oh, no.”
She was gazing up into Tam’s face.
And his expression as he stared down at her was so cruel, she gave up hope then and there.
Chapter Nineteen
“Get up,” Tam ground out, jerking her arm viciously.
“Don’t, Tam. Please don’t—”
He put a hand over her mouth, squeezing hard. She fought him for an instant until she heard feet slapping against the floor and heavy breathing. A few fairies were just on the other side of the mirror.
“Dude, I thought I saw her.” She recognized Yukio’s voice.
“Come out, come out, little bunny,” crooned Amleth. “We won’t hurt you…much.”
“Ha ha, that ain’t getting her to come out.”
Tam, his expression tense, flicked his free hand like he was throwing a ball.
“There she goes!” Yukio yelled. “After her!”
Amleth whooped, and Ruby could hear their footsteps start up again, but this time taking them in the opposite direction from where she was. Correction: from where she and Tam were.
After a long moment, while he peered intently as if watching for them to come back, Tam took his hand away from her mouth.
Ruby gulped air into her lungs. “Why?”
He rose from his crouch, then helped her to her feet. His touch lingered on her arms, but she shook him off and put a couple of steps between them.
His fingers rubbed together like he itched to touch her again. “I really don’t know why, Ruby,” he said. “You’ve always been ungrateful for my help.”
“You mean I don’t kiss your ass like all the others.”
He gave a short laugh. “Maybe. Or maybe the way you treat people is rubbing off on me.”
“Imagine that.”
“Yeah. Imagine that.” He smiled wryly. “All I know is you have a hold on me somehow. I…had to find you.”
Ruby’s breath caught. She really wanted to believe him. Despite everything he and his friends had done to her. Despite Shawn. Damn him, how did he always worm his way past her defenses?
“Tam—”
The distant sounds of a horn being blown caused them both to freeze. “Listen, we don’t have much time,” he said. “There’s only one way out of the hall of mirrors. You have to smash the mirror that shows your true reflection, and it might not be the one you think. Once you do that, the game is over, and Violet will have to abide by immutable law to declare you the winner.”
Ruby hesitated. Was he really helping her? Or was this another trick?
God, she wanted to believe him so much.
His heartbreakingly handsome face was gazing at her like all he wanted to do was kiss her. She couldn’t bear it. She turned, and instead was looking at two Tams reflected in the mirrors. One was wearing a golden crown and a fur robe that pooled around his feet. This Tam looked so incredibly gorgeous and regal, Ruby blinked at the image stunned.
The second mirror showed a shirtless Tam, still hot as hell. But his expression was sly, eyes narrowed in cunning. Female hands slid sensuously all over his bare shoulders and torso, and his mouth curled in a cruel smile…
“Ruby!”
She snapped out of it.
“I’ll hold them up as long as I can,” Tam said. He’d cocked his head, listening. The sounds of the hunt were growing closer. “But if they get to you first, there won’t be anything I can do.”
“Thanks, Tam.” She touched his hand, grateful.
He looked down to where her fingers grazed his. “They’ll kill me if they know I helped you,” he said. “So I’d really like it if you didn’t fuck this up.”
“Me too.”
The horn sounded again, but this time closer.
“Go!” Tam said. “Now!”
Ruby started running. The first mirror she came upon showed her in a really conservative business suit. That didn’t look right at all. The next showed her wearing raggedy clothing and digging through a dumpster. Was this her true self? Given what had happened to her trailer, it didn’t seem completely unlikely. But no, she wouldn’t believe it.
She rounded the corner—and came face to face with a masked fae. She recognized the gladiator sandals crisscrossing up sleek calves, the leather hunting shorts, and the jet black hair falling silkily over shoulders.
Violet.
“Hello, trailer trash.” Though muffled by the gold mask, Violet’s purring voice was unmistakable. She drew a bejeweled stiletto knife from the silver sheath slung low on her hips. “Gotcha.” Then she slashed.
Ruby swerved back from the knife’s tip, turned, and ran for her life.
She could hear Violet pounding behind her. Mirrors blurred in her vision as she swept past: a Ruby with her face pitted with scars; a glamorous Ruby center-stage under a theatre’s bright lights; a Ruby panhandling on the streets of Manhattan.
“If you give up now, I’ll make it quick,” Violet called, just behind her.
Ruby put on another burst of speed, even though her lungs were on fire and a cramp began to stab between her ribs. She swung around a mirror with the image of her sobbing in a graveyard and came face to face with the reflection of herself holding her school books, wearing jeans and a hoodie, no makeup, hair pulled back in a ponytail. Just like she always did when she went to school. Normal, unfancy Ruby.
Gasping with relief, she took a step back then kicked the mirror. Once, two, three times she drove her foot into her reflection until the glass finally exploded. Automatically, she brought her arm up to protect her face from flying shards, but then brought it back down as she realized the shards had turned into a rainbow of glittering jewels. Exhausted, she slid to her knees. The jewels seemed real—rubies, diamonds, and sapphires, and when she picked a handful up, they all weighed heavily in her palm.
Ruby looked up, expecting the way out to open up in front of her. But through the shattered edges of the mirror, all she could see were yet more mirrors, more endless Rubys. Her throat closed up. She didn’t break the right reflection after all.
Tam did say the true image might not be the one she thought it was. But what did that mean? How had she got it so wrong?
Movement further up the corridor made her whip her head round.
“Who told you about the way out?” Violet had stepped out from behind one of the mirrors, knife in hand. “Someone broke their oath of loyalty and revealed our secrets to a human.” She cocked her head as if thinking, and the gold mask shone dully in the weak light. “I wonder who that could be.”